Spears of God [Paperback]

Howard Hendrix (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 28, 2006

In the early decades of the twenty-first century, the most commonly held truth is that knowledge is power. Yet a select few men and women begin to suspect what few will admit: we know nothing at all.

The world’s oil resources have dwindled. The rich are turning richer and the power-mongers are becoming more powerful. China and the United States dominate the globe in a geopolitical chess match. The human mind has merged with the cybergrid, yet the human race seems not to have evolved much at all.

Then, on a remote South American mountain, two scientists stumble on a grisly scene. Here, while trying to protect an ancient sacred rock, a primitive tribe has been slaughtered. No witnesses remain to reveal what could have inspired such carnage. Or so it would seem.

In the international arena, meanwhile, a new global race is on: a weapon capable of tipping the balance of power is discovered. Among the competitors are a National Security Agency director who is playing at an elaborate doublecross within his own agency and a vengeance-seeking Israeli meteor hunter. Shamans and zealots, geniuses and madmen–all seek to unlock mysteries that fell to earth millennia ago. But the key lies with four mute children who may unwittingly hold the secret to the planet’s survival–or its destruction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hendrix's latest overstuffed near-future thriller (after 2005's The Labyrinth Key) tracks a multiparty global race to control various meteorites that may contain missing keys to human evolution, according to scientists Michael Miskulin, Darla Pittman and Susan Yamada. Hendrix wraps a high-stakes plot around this idea: a ruthless rogue army research group interested in using the power of the meteorites to develop super soldiers competes with religious zealots looking to spark world war three. But the author goes into detail about the scientific nuances of his concept at the expense of character development and pacing. Readers willing to wade through lists of government acronyms and thick scientific jargon explaining alternate-reality meteor science will find the action picks up a bit in the novel's last 50 pages. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The events of The Labyrinth Key (2004) are peripheral to this story but key to some of the strange events that unfold from various groups' research into meteorites. Basic here is the conceit that materials in certain kinds of meteorites contain the key to realizing human potentialities. Michael Miskulin encounters this intriguing notion when he discovers the slaughter of innocents who lived in symbiosis with a fungus originating in a meteorite. According to stories passed down from Michael's aunt Jacinta, the victims' progenitors inspired the myths of a "Sky People." The only survivors are three children not yet completely merged with the fungus. As their symbiosis becomes complete, they gain telepathic powers, among other things. Military researchers, governments, and a slew of sinister types want the implicated meteorites for such things as the creation of telepathic supersoldiers and will stop at nothing to get them, even if it leads to warfare when they start going after the sacred relics of major religions. Hendrix's solidly paced thriller is one gripping story. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey (November 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345455983
• ISBN-13: 978-0345455987
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,758,666 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Interminable technobabble, February 18, 2007

By 

D. M. Anderson (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spears of God (Paperback)

The other reviewers were accurate but much too kind. The book was an effort to read, and the ending was kooky.

The author's speculations about meteorites and the possibility of life from outer space were interesting, but they would should have been in a book half as long.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Absolute Rubbish, April 30, 2007

By 

C. O. Yoak (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spears of God (Paperback)

Once again Hendrix produces another unreadable mish-mash of neo-intilectual, metaphysics drenched drivel. Perhaps a good editor could have pulled this stinker out of the trash heap, but doubtful. As usual he seems totally out of touch with his readers, and worse yet with science itself, where are all the good Pixel-Stained Technopeasants when you need them. A total loss.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hendrix's Best Novel Yet, October 8, 2007

By 

Mfitz... "Mfitz..." (Cincinnati, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spears of God (Paperback)

Spears of God came out earlier this year, and I've had a copy since the spring, but it somehow got shuffled to the back of my TBR pile and only just now surfaced. It is a stand alone novel, but given the infinite mulitverse nature of Hendrix's fictional universes you might recognize the quantum twins of some of the big players and events from his other books, although having read his earlier novels isn't necessary to follow the action.

This book is about events leading up to the end of the world, or at least the end of the world as we know it. Unlike almost every book I've read on that theme it does not deflate at the end, but walks the line between apocalypse and transcendence perfectly. In the end main characters are completely transformed on some levels, and completely unchanged on others, which it has always seemed to me would be the realistic outcome of living though "then-the-world-changed" sort of events.

This is far and away Hendrix's best novel, with some of his most sympathetic characters and the final few chapters are the sort of page turners that make you want to stay up past bedtime or come back late from lunch to finish. It is full of ideas. There are occasional data dumps, but the dumps are fascinating and often take unexpected turns. Any two points make a line, and in this novel every line goes someplace. That stretches credulity somewhat, but did not distract from my enjoyment of the book. The story is about smart people solving big problems, their volleying of ideas back and forth like a tennis balls, is part of the fun. Far more annoying than the data dumps were the redundant reminders of info learned, and theories proposed, earlier in the novel and the overuse of clever, bordering on cute, word play acronyms.

Hendrix's writing isn't for everyone, but if you like a book that's crammed full of ideas you would never have thought to put together yourself, his novels should be on your reading horizon.