Customer Reviews

The Fifth Harmonic

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

What IS this? Only three reviews so far? For shame...this book should already be considered a classic! I've been an F. Paul Wilson reader for three years now, mostly in his Repairman Jack/Adversary Cycle field, but I've read a (too-)scattered few others of his, and when I heard this one was coming, I couldn't wait. And now...a week after starting it...I am blown away like you wouldn't believe. No, seriously: Wilson outdoes himself with this book, his first that falls into a sort of "new age" category - no, wait, don't let that stop you...this is not just some kind of next-life/spacey-wacey fiction; this book will open up such whole new vistas of reality for you, you'll be changed.

A doctor, Will Burleigh, goes to see a spiritual healer. He has a very malign tumor in his throat, and doesn't have even a few months left. He doesn't want to get surgery, because it'd leave him permanently disfigured--and there's still no guarantee he'd live. As it turns out, however, one of his former patients tells him he should see this healer that she saw. See, this former patient had been diagnosed with leukemia a while ago, and should have been dead...but she was alive as if she'd never been sick, and she said that after seeing this healer, she'd "killed" the disease.

So he goes to this healer, a beautiful woman named Maya, who says that though she possibly could save him, he has to open himself up first. To life, to the world, to the All-Mother Earth herself. And to do so, they have to travel to Mesoamerica, to go on a quest to find...well, I'll stop there. You could probably read the other reviews and figure out what is going on, but holy damn...just read - EXPERIENCE - this book for yourself. I guarantee, if it's not a life-changing book, it will certainly open your eyes (or maybe another sort of eye?) to an amazing world: the world you are in, and maybe are blind to the true wonders of.

Now read it. Don't ask questions, just read.

F. Paul Wilson is one of the best storytellers of our time. I've been a huge fan for years. The Fifth Harmonic is a departure from his other books, but what a fantastic departure it is!

Will Burleigh, MD has a particularly aggressive form of cancer where the treatment is almost as bad as the illness. His prognosis is grim. Even though Dr. Burleigh is a man of science, a man of reason and facts, he decides to give an "alternative" healing method a try. It's not a leap of faith, because he has no faith at all. It's a move spurred by desperation and his fascination with an exotic woman named Maya. Together they embark on an unforgettable spiritual adventure that will keep you turning the pages with anticipation. Wilson's characters are complex and appealing. The setting - Mesoamerica - is a character in itself. His descriptions of the Maya, their country and their history are captivating.

The Fifth Harmonic is exciting, fresh and thoroughly entertaining. I highly recommend this book whether you are already a fan of his or even if you have never read any of his books before. I assure you that you will turn into a fan after reading this gem!

Will Burleigh, a doctor, is diagnosed with cancer. The cure will leave him horribly disfigured and still with no guarantee that he will be cured, so he decides to forgo treatment, though he only has a few weeks to live. A former patient convinces him, however, to visit a healer who she say cured her of her cancer. The healer, Maya, says she can help him, but he must go with her to Mayan country in Mesoamerica for the cure. Once there, Will is subjected to many trials in order to find "the fifth harmonic," which will effect his cure, but he has to fight his increasing physical weakness as the cancer takes over his body and, as an added bonus, he finds out that Maya is not all she appears to be.
This book is awe-inspiring. Wilson makes you care about the characters and draws you further into them in each section of the book by his inward-shifting narrative style throughout each part of his journey. Wilson is a brilliant writer.

Let it be known that F Paul Wilson is one of a handful of my favorite authors. He has a pleasant easy going writing style and manages to come up with some of the darndest most interesting plots in writers-ville.

Plot

Longtime dedicated Internist, Will Cecil Burleigh, MD. has just sold his lifelong practice. It seems that Will has just learned that he has a, nearly always, fatal form of Cancer, one whose prescribed treatment is so radical and so horrifyingly disfiguring that he has elected to forgo conventional treatment.

The Story

Our story opens with our protagonist in his car sitting in front of a storefront in a local retail strip center. The storefront is unmarked, except for the word HEALER in rather small writing.

Will is trying to talk himself out of going in, being the questioning cynical kind of person he is but he has promised an old patient, Savanna Walters, who was herself diagnosed with a troubling case of Big C but now seemed to be cured, that he would see this, what? Alternative Doctor? New Age Practitioner? Shamen? Con Artist? Healer? After all Savanna claimed she saved her life.

Upon entering, the good doctor meets Maya Quennell and is smitten with her beauty. She is ostensibly in her late thirties with dark hair and skin and jade colored eyes. The offspring of a Mayan maiden and a French journalist born in Algeria and raised in France and America.

After examining Will on two separate occasions, Maya informs him that she cannot cure him that only Mother Earth can and that his only chance of survival is to stop being a skeptic (it interferes with her kind of healing) and unload all his earthly possessions, give half to charity, put half in a trust for his daughter and go with her to Mexico for treatment.

Well, this is too much for a logical person to accept so Will says sorry, to which Maya says you must, "Gaea" (Mother Earth) wills it and and she smiles on you and will give you a sign.

After an abbreviated trip to wine country in France, Will receives what he takes as a sign.

Back in the USA, Though still skeptical, Will agrees to go with Maya but being the practical person he is, hires a private investigator to check Maya out. What he finds out manages to confuse rather than clarify and the investigator says he will keep investigating after Will leaves and update him via email.

So off Will and Maya go, to what Maya calls Mesoamerica an area between the Yucatan Peninsula and the Pacific Ocean, the original home of the Mayan people on a jungle adventure and a date with "Gaea" during the full Moon, to try and save Will's life.

Conclusion

First of all the book is a little short, being only 213 pages long. That itself isn't so bad but the story suffered for it by not getting developed as good as I know Wilson is capable of doing. It almost seems like he was in a hurry to finish.

Personally, and I'm not going to let this influence my rating, I thought the story was a little hoaky, though it flowed well and was an entertaining and fast read. Ultimately it smacked of science fiction. Now I have no problem with science fiction, I just like it to be more definitive and not be merged with an adventure/medical thriller.

If I've led you to believe I didn't like the book that much, I'm sorry. I did like the book. It is a quick, fun, easy read but it's not up to Wilson's usual standards. Don't be surprised to see a sequel or two following.

What can you say about this author? Read everything he writes. It's a bit different than his other works, it's more inspiring than scary but we can only hope he continues his stories of Will and Maya.....they won't replace Repairman Jack....they're simply their own wonderful world.

Write us more, Mr. Wilson, please!!!!

F. Paul Wilson has done it again, showing the amazing range of his talents in this compelling novel about a dying physician's struggle to save what is left of his life by opening his mind to possibilities he has always scorned. The main body of the novel takes place in a mesoamerica vividly rendered, lush and exotic. The characters are wonderful and engaging, the plot relentlessly gripping and the ending a deeply satisfying resolution of the age old yearning of us all to bring our hearts and minds into harmony. I thoroughly recommend this wonderful tale by a master novelist.

You know and love F. PAUL WILSON for the REPAIRMAN JACK series. In FIFTH HARMONIC, Mr, Wlison demonstrates his incredible writing skills again. This book will get you thinking about your "own" fifth harmonic.

The main characters -- Maya and Will -- are believable and lovable. As the book progresses, you find yourself hoping more and and more that they will reach that elusive "fifth harmonic" which is a cure for Will's out-of-control cancer.

I won't tell you if they succeed -- you have to read the book for yourself! -- but I can HEARTILY RECOMMENDED this insightful, thoughtful book. Get it and love it!

I guess I need to admit at the outset that I am a big fan of F.Paul Wilson, and have read not only the entire Repairman Jack series (including the excellent, just-released next-to-last "Fatal Error") but the whole of the "Adversary Cycle" plus a number of his stand-alone novels and anthologies. I am now working my way back through his catalog to other, earlier works. I just finished "The Fifth Harmonic" and have to admit to being underwhelmed. The Amazon product description and the identical dust jacket blurb describe the entire story, and unfortunately, there's not much more to be gained from reading the short (224 page) novel. Its not bad, but it's not nearly in the same class as the RJ or Adversary Cycle novels. It's just sort of..bland. If you're an old fan or a new reader looking for some FPW outside of the Repairman Jack or Adversary Cycle books, I suggest "Sibs" or "Midnight Mass" as much more entertaining novels than "The Fifth Harmonic"

JMT

I have been an F. Paul Wilson fan since I first read "The Keep" in around 1984. The Fifth Harmonic is, in my opinion, one of his best. It is a very fast read. In fact, I could hardly put the book down. The story is sort of a cross between "The Tomb" and "The Touch," with an immortal woman who is also a healer. I would highly recommend it.

This entire book can be predicted by the time you've reached page 5. Characters are hollow stereotypes. The adventures are ho-hum as you KNOW that the two main characters must survive. Even the eventual relationship that develops between the two would have been given a C- in a high-school creative writing class.

Predictable, boring, poop. Was this really written by F. Paul Wilson, or were a few key sentences dropped into some kind of "novel generator" software that just churned out a few hundred pages?