The Labyrinth Key

by Howard V. Hendrix

Book Overview

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.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345455967
• ISBN13: 9780345455963
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Length: 434 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Keeps your interest.

It's a bit weaker than the book before it but still a good read. Sometimes I get annoyed by the spiritual psychobabel built into his model of "higher consciousness", but Hendrix is a good enough writer to make even a sceptic give some thought to even his wilder ideas. Hendrix has a cast of characters that weave in and out of his books and keep them related, some of them alternative world takes on bits of the same story. It makes the book more interesting if you read his previous books.

A very involving SF Mystery

This is one of Hendrix's best books. Sometimes I get annoyed by the spiritual psychobabel built into his model of "higher consciousness", but Hendrix is a good enough writer to make even a sceptic give some thought to even his wilder ideas. Hendrix has a cast of characters that weave in and out of his books and keep them related, some of them alternative world takes on bits of the same story. It makes the book more interesting if you read his previous books.

Buy this ONLY if you love the BEST SciFi novel!

I am a long time (4+ decades) reader of scifi and this novel is a RARE treat! No other author has written with such command of diverse and intertwined scientific and spiritual disciplines since the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons. It is NOT an easy read novel which adds to the pleasure of its discovery. It is deeply considered craftmanship as a well written journey into strange lands and thought space based on REAL SCIENCE from our current cutting edge scientific world. While inviting the reader to THINK in new ways about the unexamined prejudices that circumscribe our species and are reflected in the impending and historically validated apocolyptic situations we wish to ignore. It is articulate in opening doors to speculation about what has brought out species to this place in our evolution and what we are being offered as opportunity to create the world envisioned in this quote: "To make the world work for 100 percent of humanity in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone." - Buckminster Fuller If you want to be stimulated and transported get and read this book today! from the outer reaches of monktana... I remain, yours truly, monk

complex not easy to read science fiction thriller

In South America scientists Dr. Michael Miskulin and biologist Professor Susan Yamada climb the Caacamuni by themselves in search of ruins two billion years old that they believe holds the key to evolution. When they reach their destination, they find a remote isolated tepui and a scene out of a horror movie. An entire tribe with the exception of four children has been eradicated by apparently a militia using modern weaponry on these primitive people. Michael and Susan takes the four survivors to Paul Larkin, whose sister Jacinta watched this same space-fungus worshipping tribe vanish through an apparent wormhole (see BETTER ANGELS). However the three young girls and lone boy appear to have enhanced mental powers including the ability to telepathically communicate. Different groups want the kids and the meteorite that contains the space-fungus that the devastated tribe worshipped. NSA Director Jim Brescoll, Susan and Michael try to keep the kids safe while trying to prevent religious, government and military groups from stealing the meteorite in a global arms cold war that could turn hot. At the same time Darla Pittman is shot several times in her lab as she studies the fungus; she lives because she touches the fungus. SPEARS OF GOD is a complex not easy to read science fiction thriller as Howard V. Hendrix goes into incredible depths in the science but at the cost at times of action; long stretches of the tale provide the scientific concepts as exposited mostly by Michael, Susan and Darla, but it not easy to grasp by us scientifically-impaired. Readers who prefer the cerebral rather than the action will want to follow the escapades of a small band of mostly scientists battle against several power-grabbing groups. Harriet Klausner

Intertwined plots that keep your interest

For Science Fiction fans looking for a novel that tackles the possible origin of multi-cellular life on earth with a hard emphasis on scientific details, Howard Hendrix's Spears of God should provide an enjoyable adventure. Hendrix pushes the technological boundaries of biological processing and human warfare in logical ways, and does a solid job of describing how such things might advance in the not too distant future. His knowledge of advanced military assets is impressive, as is his background on complex biological processes. The novel takes the interesting position that multi-cellular life on the planet earth might have come from fungus attached to interstellar meteorites. Hendrix develops several parallel plots, each starting in a different country. The stones are fought over by competing factions, stolen and then analyzed to uncover the special powers passed on to people coming in contact with chemical derivatives of materials on the meteorites. The intertwined plots each lead to independent discovery of the secrets of the alien stones that long ago impacted the earth. All the plots converge in an action-packed ending in the Middle East, an area that is not only tumultuous but also timely. The first chapters are sure to grab most readers and pull them forward. I especially enjoyed the plot line involving the orphaned children with special powers. The ending pulls everything together and does a satisfactory job wrapping up the threads. But the middle of the book seems to be devoted to lengthy technological expositions with a healthy dose of acronyms. If you put the book down and come back to it a day or two later, you might find yourself forgetting what the acronyms mean. At least that's what happened to me, and maybe it means I'm getting old. A page up front devoted to a list of acronyms would have helped. Armchair Interviews says: Action-packed story but maybe too much technology for the casual reader.