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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The government doesn't want people to think., September 18, 2006
This review is from: September Snow (The Blessings of Gaia Series) (Paperback)
September Snow by Robert Balmanno
The government doesn't want people to think.
In 2051 AD, the world has changed. Several billion people have been killed in the Eleven-Years-War and the Gaia Religion signifies the whole planet. Tom Novak, a 103-year old white-haired man, is the last person to remember how it was before the revolutionary changes took place. He is an ex-writer with an intuitive ability to sense the weather regardless of the fact the world is encapsulated in domes. In a world where mass executions take place daily and are televised on Wallscreen, Novak is at extreme risk of being killed for a mere thought.
Balmanno, himself, has the ability to see into the future of global warming, polar meltdowns and nuclear regression. A gifted literary genius, Balmanno takes a word, tweaks it into a sentence, twists the plot and maneuvers September Snow into a five-star epic that should not be missed. It makes the reader beg for the rest of the trilogy.
Review by Rose Sefton-Stadler, author of Parallel Lives, The Confederette, Mind Mauling Hot Sauce and many more.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
September Snow - A Futuristic Novel, September 30, 2006
This review is from: September Snow (The Blessings of Gaia Series) (Paperback)
Northern California writer Robert Balmanno creates a future world of social and environmental havoc and destruction. In his wonderfully crafted sci-fi novel, "September Snow" we are treated to the first book of a new series called "The Blessings of Gaia". It opens strong and forceful and throws us into a world that projects our worst fears of what might happened to our planet if "global warming" and other social issues are not dealt with in the present. His imagination creates a whole new world order. Society has had to change and evolve drastically because of the world climatic changes and the death of billions.
They powers n control take to building city like states under huge protective dooms where they can protect their society from outside influences and the weather. Inside these domes the society is controlled and the old religions are undercut and stagnant. Outside of the domes there is nothing but violence, social anarchy, death and dying. The world is divided up into groups. The largest group is composed of 4 billion people and they live in extreme poverty and have no power and no control over their fate. At the highest level there is an elite group of 2200 families who control everything and have to power of life and death; they live in extreme wealth and privilege. There are three other groups in-between.
Into this world comes a new religion that is librating but also repressive that is called Gaia. The author spends lots of time building for us all the forces at play in this new world order. He gives us great details of how things work and what is happening to people on the earth at this time in the future--which is 2051 to 2097 AD. The book relates all the events of this time period through Tom Novak a 103 year old man who is the last surviving person to have known what it was like before the new civilization was created. The title character is the rebel leader September Snow who fights against huge odds for justice in this unjust world.
There are some very well written parts of this book and moving dialog. It is obvious that the author had a vision of where he was taking this series of books. If you like futuristic stories and sci-fi books then is one that you might enjoy.
A book review from The Elk Grove Citizen Newspaper - 2006
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
September Snow--a great book, March 2, 2007
This review is from: September Snow (The Blessings of Gaia Series) (Paperback)
Robert Balmanno's September Snow is a multi-faceted novel about a dark, foreboding future with a ray of hope shining through it. The book, a futuristic adventure story, builds on many of the issues facing today's society, which fuel this dynamic dystopian tale--the first of a series of four--to its riveting conclusion.
Not your typical science fiction story, September Snow stands strong and tall by itself, removed from the clichés and generic formulas so often associated with the genre. Author Balmanno endows his characters with the spark of life, giving them real, complex personalities and making the reader long to know them more intimately.
While reading this yet-to be-discovered gem, I found myself fleeing with the heroic characters across vast expanses of a ravaged planet Earth of the next century. Balmanno's clean, vibrant prose catapulted me across the vast desolation of North America to a grim, futuristic New York City, and onward to the few remaining hidden sanctuaries of the rebels in the Himalayas, the Antarctic and South America, eventually to end up in the stark desolation of the Mexican high desert.
Open the book cover and be swept into a future of environmental degradation brought about by a regime bent on altering the weather for purposes of world domination and a planet responding to the tampering with violent climatic changes. Balmanno paints a chilling picture of a society gone profoundly wrong and the remnants of humanity misled by an unfettered, genocidal theocracy seeking to rub out its opposition by manipulating and destroying history only to replace it with its own malignant philosophy.
Is this haunting tale a vision of things to come, or is it a warning of things that still may be averted? The author leaves it to you to step aboard this thrilling ride into a turbulent, stormy future.
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