Dante's Equation

I just love stories that combine history with fantasy, weaving the impossible into a sense that maybe, just maybe.... Well, it is wonderful. Perfect examples are books like Tim Powers "stress of her regard," that actually makes the poetry of romanticism (Keats, Shelly, Byron, Coleridge) work as poetry about real vampiric mythic creatures in love with the poets. Also, Lisa Goldstein's marvelous stories like "Dark Cities Underground." These are good fantasies. And now, at last, another author. This is a marvelous story that combines physics, weapons of mass destruction, kabbalah, and karmic destiny. Read this if you enjoy those kinds of books.

I decided to give Jane Jensen's latest book a shot because she used to write cool stories for now-classic videogames and I wished to see how her "other" career is coming along. Wow!- was I happily surprised. I've read lots of SF for the past twenty years and I have developed specific tastes which fall on the "hard" -side of SF, meaning I prefer fiction that extrapolates science into the future in believable and reasonable ways (like 2001: A Space Odyssey) as opposed to making-up lots of crazy crap (like many TV shows and their media tie-in books). As I've aged, I've also developed an appreciation for good-quality writing that includes character development, consistent pace, and unique plot ideas. Dante's Equation really satisfied all these criteria for me. I found the story gripped me immediately and the characters were all interesting. The big surprise for me was that the entire second half of the book continues on with the same quality but elevates the story to an epic level. This book certainly deserves the five-stars I give it, but I regret that it isn't perfect. I personally found the ending was out-of-place and unnecessary. Don't let that prevent you from reading the book, though, as your opinion may vary. It's not hard to keep turning pages once you get started, so give it a go.

I was just walking around the bookstore, looking for something to read, and this book's title and front cover caught my attention. I bought it with no expectations but I was very surprised to discover it's a great, great book, I was totally hooked. The pace is always good (not too fast, not too slow) and the characters very well written and developed. I was happy enough for it being some kind of Ken Follett-style book, but on the second half (aptly named "Book Two") it turns out to be also a great sci-fi story. So I felt almost as getting 2 books for the price of one :) Highly recommended! I'll keep an eye on this author.

Pardon the weak analogy, it's 2am in the morning, I just realized I'm out of Malt Balls, and, well, I might have women somewhere on my 30 year old mind. Anyway. As evidenced in my rating of this book, despite its shortcomings (which I'll address shortly), this book is remarkable in so many ways by contrast with comparable books of its genre that it would be unfair to award it with anything less than 5 stars. So, trolling for cool Sci-Fi du jour I happened upon this well regarded book, ordered it, looked it over superficially, then retired it to the bookshelf. I'm so glad that it found its way back into my reading circulation. From the first handful of pages I was hooked...and I don't hook easily. Jensen's use of creative and elegant prose to narrate the very different, very interesting lives of this books handful of characters had me turning the pages in ever increasing sessions. At the highest level, and not giving anything material away, this story is about a technology that can manipulate the basic laws that govern our material AND "spiritual" universe. Ambitious? Very, but the author does an admirable job building an epistemological foundation that includes cutting-edge technology, relevant history, and in-depth philosophy. Combined, and against the backdrop of "what's going to happen if this tech falls in the wrong hands", you've got real nail-biting potential. And this book realizes allot of it; that is, for the first 2/3rds of the read. In fact, until that last 1/3rd, I was ready to call up Bezos and try to negotiate a special 6 star rating for this gem. Alas, all good things must come to an end... ...unfortunately, this good thing came to an end intra-book! Unfortunately, I would spoil the plot if I were to delineate why this is exactly, but for those who've read this book already, I was very dissapointed with what I thought to be some philosophical over-reaching (especially in the "other dimensions") as well as a convenient but, in my opinion, downright "wrong" ending (do you deal with problems open or closed-source?). Don't get me wrong, overall, this was a fantastic book and a worthwhile read. I truly loved it, perhaps that's why I'm being so critical. This book came violently close to being a classic, but is worthwhile regardless. Christian Hunter Santa Barbara, California

All in all, I found this book to be flat-out enjoyable. But before I mention that, I'd like to address some of the elements that the previous reviewer brought up. This book is divided between four characters, each of who are written (in an excellent, albiet sometimes unbelievably extreme manner) to correspond with their atypical standard kabbalistic standing. In fact, to explain this, there's even a small diagram at the very beggining of the book that demonstraits this. Characters come across not as steriotypes, but instead as being firm characterisations of their personality archtypes. Jensen writes these characters to focus not only on giving them believable personalities, but to epitomise the concepts in kabbalistic mythos. Although, I suppose this is easy to not understand...And as for the comments on gay characters.. Ermm, I'm gay, and wasn't at all insulted. So I don't know what the previous reviewer was talking about with that.Now, about the book itself. This book is an excellent exploration of hypothetical philosophy, with a vague concept of physics passed across two. The idea of physics and philosophy being one and the same is not new, it's been tackled before, but not in such a manner. Here, said philosophy takes the form of kabbalism, a form of conceptual mystical-science of jewish descent. From this, the reader is presented (via the character of the scientist and the militant) with the idea that the philosophical concept of good and evil may be, in fact, a physical force - an equation. At the same time, two other characters (the hedonist and the religious-scholar) explore the storyline behind this discovery - the character of Kobinski, a polish jew and kabbalist scholar imprisoned in Auschwitz, who disapeared under mysterious circumstances. Through mysticism and science, both the teachings of the kabbalist scholar and the discovery of the equation lead to the sudden and unexpected journey into four other universes - four seperate heavens and hells for the characters. It's a facinating book, and should be looked upon for it's theoretical concepts as much as it's literary merit.