Gerald Lizee

What if aliens colonized earth with nano-technology and authored the evolution of our DNA? It's a fascinating question and a great premise for a novel. Gerard Lizee offers an intriguing answer, viewed through the eyes of scientists, politicians, criminals and more, as an alien (imaginatively called Cryst) initiates communication with a genius and his genius granddaughter.

The year is 2025, and Lydia, whose “gently innocent appearance belied the fact that just a few months before she had obtained a doctorate magna cum laude in physics,” receives a parcel containing two USB drives and a crystal pendant, with instruction from her grandfather to hide them. (Reader beware! Some perfectly normal women with doctorates might take offense at Lydia's description.) Meanwhile Mafia specialists with “infallible methods to make the toughest of their victims talk” are out to get her, and an “ultra-secret group of scientists” is coming to the end of its work deciphering secrets surrounding the amulet.

The Amazing Crystal is an amazingly detailed story, where every room of a house and every item of clothing is lovingly described before an abduction. Scientific discoveries are laid out at similar length, frustrating perhaps for scientists who might wonder why the world’s best representatives can’t ask better questions, and also for lay-readers who might struggle to care about string theory in three pages. But Lydia conquers her “legendary shyness,” becoming positively loquacious as she divulges the world’s new history, science and social science on global TV. Religions object and scientists cling to old ways in dismay; the Mafia fights back; and the power of the mind (combined with the alien of course) might conquer all.

The English translation reads somewhat stiltedly, especially where dialog is concerned, and, while the storyline contains the sort of serendipity you might expect in a middle-grade novel, an underlying romance leads to a somewhat more adult scene. Meanwhile the science, despite an “annex... meant specifically for readers having an adequate mastery of the science of elementary particle physics,” remains unconvincingly supplied with loopholes and unasked questions, at least in the eyes of this Cambridge mathematician. The "What if" definitely intrigues, but I guess I'm not the intended reader.

Disclosure: I was given a free ecopy and I offer my honest review.… (mehr)

The novel was written very formally with a formal style of speech which made it seem very old fashioned. Do people really talk like that?

I liked the whole concept of the story and how the Mafiosi were after the crystal for evil intent. I haven’t read a lot of Science Fiction but the idea seemed quite unique to me. Once I got used to the script like narrative style the story flowed better.

There were a lot of words I hadn’t encountered before so having a dictionary handy is very useful. Lots and lots of science explanation, which was rather lost on me.

”All that seems very complicated to me”, Gerry confessed apologetically.
“I have a feeling that my brain is going to burst”, Gerry moaned.

My thoughts exactly Gerry!

The ending was great and left the story open to either conclude there and leave it up to the reader’s imagination or continue with a sequel.

I think that this novel would appeal to the teenage science enthusiast.

Thank you to the Author for my copy of The Amazing Crystal to read and review.… (mehr)