Official Review: The Forsaken by Donald Allen Kirch
Posted: 29 Aug 2017, 18:42
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Forsaken" by Donald Allen Kirch.]
4 out of 4 stars
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I have just finished reading The Forsaken “The Christ Project”- Book One By Donald Allen Kirch and found it to be very entertaining and hard to put down. It is fast paced and will keep you guessing what will happen next. The setting is about two hundred years in our future and starts shortly after the end of ‘The Great War”. During the war three fourths of the earth and its people were destroyed. Following the war the UN established a central world government. Needing a scapegoat to blame, they declared that the divisive nature of religion caused the war and all religions and religious activities were banned.
The book opens with Marcellus, a former Catholic Bishop and hero of our story, conducting a secret a Christmas service in the basement of a Nebraska home. The robot sentries that are watching and listing everywhere overhear the service. Troops attack and he is captured and sentenced to a twenty-year prison term in an Alaskan gulag for his crime of practicing religion. During the 20 years he spends in the Alaskan gulag Marcellus hatches a plan to get revenge on the government and hopefully save the world from itself.
Pope Sol “The Last” lives in the Vatican Museum. He has been stripped of the church and his followers but he is allowed to live out his days as an example of what the world should avoid. Marcellus goes to Rome to meet the Pope and to ask for the Pope’s blessing on his plan and The Christ Project. The Pope is adamantly opposed to the plan and forbids Marcellus from trying it. Marcellus sadly leaves without the Pope’s blessing but still determined to try to implement The Christ Project.
Marcellus’s actions do not go unnoticed. The government with its network of robot sentries note Marcellus’s actions and send Intelligence Officer Seti to make first contact and find out what Marcellus is up to. An android, named User Friendly, in the CBN news headquarters, notices these actions. User does some digging and finds out that Marcellus was a top scientist in the CIA in charge of creating clones for the war before he quit and became a priest. She also finds out that while working with the Vatican as a Catholic Bishop he worked on planning something called The Christ Project. The project, however, was stopped before it was really started. She tells this to Susan, her human coworker/boss, and they also take off to Rome to find out what Marcellus is planning.
Given this book’s setting in the twenty-fourth century and the existence of clones and androids this book is primarily considered a science fiction novel. However, while reading it I found myself thinking that it also has many aspects of political intrigue and frequently reads like an international spy thriller. The book brings up questions as to where we are truly heading in this world with our constant wars and people turning against religion or embracing religion as zealots. Reading this book makes me appreciate our constitutional freedom of religion and freedom of speech even more than I did before.
I found the robot sentries that are monitoring peoples words and actions trying to catch them doing or saying religious things of particular interest. At one point the sentries kill a man in a spaceport lobby when he is caught with a bible hidden in his luggage. These actions remind me a lot of the Thought Police in the George Orwell book 1984. Themes of creating clones and robots to fight wars and having a centralized world government after a major world war are good basics for science fiction and a good backdrop for writers to explore possible futures.
I give The Forsaken “The Christ Project”- Book One By Donald Allen Kirch
a definite four out of four stars. It is well written and pulls the reader along making him want to see what comes next. It combines science fiction, mystery, intrigue, and thriller all in one book. The subtitle says that it is book one but I found that it was complete enough to stand on its own and a follow-on book is not necessarily needed. I can, however, see where a follow-on book could be made. The editing of this book appears to be very professional. I did not notice any errors. There either were none or I was too interested in finding out what happens next to notice something minor if it was there.
******
The Forsaken
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
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4 out of 4 stars
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I have just finished reading The Forsaken “The Christ Project”- Book One By Donald Allen Kirch and found it to be very entertaining and hard to put down. It is fast paced and will keep you guessing what will happen next. The setting is about two hundred years in our future and starts shortly after the end of ‘The Great War”. During the war three fourths of the earth and its people were destroyed. Following the war the UN established a central world government. Needing a scapegoat to blame, they declared that the divisive nature of religion caused the war and all religions and religious activities were banned.
The book opens with Marcellus, a former Catholic Bishop and hero of our story, conducting a secret a Christmas service in the basement of a Nebraska home. The robot sentries that are watching and listing everywhere overhear the service. Troops attack and he is captured and sentenced to a twenty-year prison term in an Alaskan gulag for his crime of practicing religion. During the 20 years he spends in the Alaskan gulag Marcellus hatches a plan to get revenge on the government and hopefully save the world from itself.
Pope Sol “The Last” lives in the Vatican Museum. He has been stripped of the church and his followers but he is allowed to live out his days as an example of what the world should avoid. Marcellus goes to Rome to meet the Pope and to ask for the Pope’s blessing on his plan and The Christ Project. The Pope is adamantly opposed to the plan and forbids Marcellus from trying it. Marcellus sadly leaves without the Pope’s blessing but still determined to try to implement The Christ Project.
Marcellus’s actions do not go unnoticed. The government with its network of robot sentries note Marcellus’s actions and send Intelligence Officer Seti to make first contact and find out what Marcellus is up to. An android, named User Friendly, in the CBN news headquarters, notices these actions. User does some digging and finds out that Marcellus was a top scientist in the CIA in charge of creating clones for the war before he quit and became a priest. She also finds out that while working with the Vatican as a Catholic Bishop he worked on planning something called The Christ Project. The project, however, was stopped before it was really started. She tells this to Susan, her human coworker/boss, and they also take off to Rome to find out what Marcellus is planning.
Given this book’s setting in the twenty-fourth century and the existence of clones and androids this book is primarily considered a science fiction novel. However, while reading it I found myself thinking that it also has many aspects of political intrigue and frequently reads like an international spy thriller. The book brings up questions as to where we are truly heading in this world with our constant wars and people turning against religion or embracing religion as zealots. Reading this book makes me appreciate our constitutional freedom of religion and freedom of speech even more than I did before.
I found the robot sentries that are monitoring peoples words and actions trying to catch them doing or saying religious things of particular interest. At one point the sentries kill a man in a spaceport lobby when he is caught with a bible hidden in his luggage. These actions remind me a lot of the Thought Police in the George Orwell book 1984. Themes of creating clones and robots to fight wars and having a centralized world government after a major world war are good basics for science fiction and a good backdrop for writers to explore possible futures.
I give The Forsaken “The Christ Project”- Book One By Donald Allen Kirch
a definite four out of four stars. It is well written and pulls the reader along making him want to see what comes next. It combines science fiction, mystery, intrigue, and thriller all in one book. The subtitle says that it is book one but I found that it was complete enough to stand on its own and a follow-on book is not necessarily needed. I can, however, see where a follow-on book could be made. The editing of this book appears to be very professional. I did not notice any errors. There either were none or I was too interested in finding out what happens next to notice something minor if it was there.
******
The Forsaken
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
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