NEW SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY REVIEWS
Reviews Of Recently Published Science Fiction And Fantasy Books
Reviewer: Forrest Schultz schultz_forrest@yahoo.com 770-583-3258
Blog Address: http://newsciencefictionandfantasyreviews.blogspot.com
December 16, 2014
How To Conduct Clandestine Scientific Research In Plain Sight
A Review of the Science Fiction Element in
Stephen King Revival (Scribner, 2014)
$17.04 405 pp ISBN: 978-1476770383
Reviewer: Forrest W. Schultz
Stephen King's Revival is a horror novel with an important science fiction element involving a man who is able to keep his electricity research secret by conducting it under the guise of a faith healing ministry: the sick are not being healed by the Holy Ghost, but by a hidden electrical gizmo he devised for that purpose. No one suspects anything because this man is not a scientist or a medical doctor, but a former Methodist pastor. Although King lets the reader in on this secret, he does not tell us anything about the scientific basis underlying the character's gizmo: the only thing he notes about the source of his character's ideas is several arcane books from the remote past, which sound more like mysticism than science! And, indeed, the horror atmosphere of the story is not akin to science fiction, as usually considered, but to stories like those of H. P. Lovecraft. My purpose in this review is only to note what I have just mentioned about the science fiction element, so I shall not say anything more about King's book except to say that it is one of his best.
Stephen King's Revival is a horror novel with an important science fiction element involving a man who is able to keep his electricity research secret by conducting it under the guise of a faith healing ministry: the sick are not being healed by the Holy Ghost, but by a hidden electrical gizmo he devised for that purpose. No one suspects anything because this man is not a scientist or a medical doctor, but a former Methodist pastor. Although King lets the reader in on this secret, he does not tell us anything about the scientific basis underlying the character's gizmo: the only thing he notes about the source of his character's ideas is several arcane books from the remote past, which sound more like mysticism than science! And, indeed, the horror atmosphere of the story is not akin to science fiction, as usually considered, but to stories like those of H. P. Lovecraft. My purpose in this review is only to note what I have just mentioned about the science fiction element, so I shall not say anything more about King's book except to say that it is one of his best.
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