Thrillers

Solstice

Name: Solstice
Author: David Hewson
ISBN: 9780446524490

by David Hewson

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Overview

As the millennium approaches, the climate on Earth is getting progressively hotter, a phenomenon which makes scientists and others extremely nervous. Unease quickly turns to panic when Air Force One is successfully downed, key communications networks are disrupted, and the world's financial institutions are pushed to the brink of collapse. CIA science chief Helen Wagner and Michael Lieberman, a brilliant designer of a giant space-based solar array, must contend with techno-savvy activists who plan to use the array to cut modern society off at the knees...and start civilization over from scratch.

Synopsis

Solar flares erupt, disrupting communications. The sun burns brighter and hotter, igniting pandemonium and chaos. Scientists scramble to interpret the phenomenon. Something human is causing the sun to focus on specific targets. Death does not just come from a searing sky. It comes from the darkness of the human heart.

Publishers Weekly

Nonstop action drives this accessible high-tech thriller, putting frighteningly believable technology into the hands of a brilliant eco-terrorist. Hewson's third novel begins with a hot subject: heightened sunspot activity has accelerated global warming to the frying stage, and it seems that particular places are being targeted. Michael Lieberman is hired to map and analyze this phenomenon at Lone Wolf, a solar research station in Mallorca, but when Air Force One is zapped out of midair and two other satellite solar research stations are disabled, he springs into action. His investigations lead to Charlotte (Charley) Pascale, a long-lost friend and computer genius with whom he co-designed a solar powered satellite, equipped with megadeath superweapons, called Sundog. Secretly, Charley has seized Sundog and controls it so completely that global communications networks and financial markets crumble, and cities are incinerated. The CIA and FBI learn that Charley, stricken with a fatal disease, has hallucinated that Gaia (the ancient goddess of earth) has commanded her, and the terrorist cult she has founded, to destroy civilization in revenge for man's sins against the earth. Outsmarted by Charley at every turn, authorities believe Michael is the only one who can stop the mentally ill saboteur. Hewson cleverly mines the increasing vulnerability of the world's computer-dependent infrastructure to provide a megahertz action thriller. As his likable characters chase poor doomed Charley, they add poignancy and tension-breaking humor to this technically feasible nightmare. Rights sold in Germany and the U.K. (July) FYI: The author's previous novel, Semana Santa, won the W.H. Smith Fresh Talent Award. Hewson is a computer technology expert for the Times of London. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Kirkus Reviews

Scientists battle eco-terrorists in a remarkably well-written thriller, a US first by British author Hewson, a journalist and computer-technology expert for The Times of London. To the scientific community, it was always clear that Charley Pascal was a genius, but it came to seem that she was also insane. A more nightmarish combination would be hard to conjure up, given that she's captured the giant space-based solar powerhouse—a devastating weapon in savvy hands—that in her salad days she helped design. In Charley's view, humankind has lost its way, is despoiling the planet, and is now "the enemy species" that has to be cleansed. Central to her vision is the idea of a return to a natural order of things, but the enabling force, she decides, must be chaos, which will deliver crushing blows to civilization in the hope that something better will rise up in the aftermath. For CIA science chief Helen Wagner, the battle begins when Air Force One, with the President aboard, is mysteriously downed. For maverick scientist Michael Lieberman, it begins when the sun develops huge and scary "freckles," precursors of violent solar behavior. What could the first possibly have to do with the second? Pretty soon, the evidence is incontrovertible that apocalyptic Charley forms the connecting link, along with the Children of Gaia, her small but devoted and highly skilled band of computer engineers. Crack-brained cultists they may be, but no one doubts their effectiveness as they generate catastrophe upon catastrophe around the globe. The beleaguered new President assembles his ad hoc team of counterterrorist specialists, with Helen and Michael in charge. Their mission: to find Charley andthe Children of Gaia, then stop them before they try to save civilization by destroying it. Hewson's science is both complex and authentic. And—perhaps even more impressive for a technothriller—so are his characters.