Customer Reviews

Metaconcert (Intervention) (Vol 2)

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The principal human characters of Julian May's "Saga of Pliocene Exile" were refugees from the Galactic Milieu- a vast, benevolent confederation of psychically powerful races, of which humanity was the prodigal youngest member. In her two-volume "Intervention," we get our first look at the evolutionary steps that brought humanity to the brink of the Milieu.

Endearingly told largely from the viewpoint of Uncle Rogi Remillard- maverick great-uncle to some of the finest and most powerful minds of the Human Polity of the Milieu- "The Metaconcert" finishes the story of how metapsychic humanity avoided destruction and forced open the door to galactic citizenship. It's a broad canvas that involves five alien races, humans running the gamut from angelic to demonic, and politics that make the Byzantine empire look simple.

May calls this "a root-tale to the Galactic Milieu"; while it helps to have read the Pliocene books, the story begun in "The Surveillance," continued in "The Metaconcert" and finished in the Milieu Trilogy stands on its own as one of the most richly imagined futures in the science fiction of the last 20 years.

I read the Intervention, Part 1 way back in 1986... and I was waiting for Metaconcert to come out in 1987. I couldn't find one here in the Philippines. I tried all the bookstores, I tried putting out advertisements, I asked for it from friends, ( I even checked out the database of National Bookstore), until I bought my copy in 1998, right here at Amazon. I have read the others of this series, and my yearning for this book grew stronger.

This book is seen easily as a denouement to a great story began. But an omega and another alpha, mixed just right?This book fits the tab, and how it fits! Suffice to say that after reading this book, A yearning was satiated, and an expectation was overwhelmed. It was worth the money spent.

Part II of the Intervention continues Uncle Rogi's accounting of the pre-intervention human operant saga. Finally the family ghost is identified. You realize that there is a large quantity of story left to be told. Read the other Mileau books as well.

Human evolution has reached a new stage, and individuals are being born all over the world, with awesome mental abilities. Two of these, Rogi and Don Remillard, would change the world. Dons first born Denis, now a Professor of MetaPsychology, leads the World in the new Mental revolution, fighting to ensure that his fellow psychics can develope peacefully and freely. His evil brother Victor, intent on conquering the world, has a very different vision for the human Mind. Only one can prevail.

The benevolent aliens, led by the mysterious Family Ghost, must work through the humble offices of Rogi, to ensure that Denis and not Victor writes the script for mankinds future.

Black and white, good and evil, altruism and greed: Denis and Victor.

Concealed in the recesses of our minds hides an interminable predilection to believe in our own power as limited, and in that belief we do not achieve. This book is an eye popping extravaganza of realization, and a quintessential understanding of "Human Potential". You must experience this novel, for simple reading does it no justice.

I read Part 1 which laid the background for the Intervention, so I eagerly read Part 2, but was very disappointed to find that the actual Intervention was only one line at the end of the book, basically saying "the space ships have come". I want to know how humans react to the coming of the aliens, but sadly we will not find out. At least the next book, "St. Jack the Bodiless", covers some events after the Invention when Earth was still under Simbari Proctorship.