Synopsis
Here is a powerful first novel, at once disturbing and compelling--the chronicle of one man's odyssey of self-discovery within a world at war. ON MY WAY TO PARADISE.
In a world of ever-worsening crisis, Angelo Osic is an anomaly: a man who cares about others. One day he aids a stranger. . . and calls down disaster, for the woman called Tamara is also a woman on the run, the only human with the knowledge that will save Earth from the artificial intelligences plotting to overthrow it.
Fleeing the assassins who seek him as well as Tamara, Angelo seizes the only escape route available: to sign on as a mercenary with the Japanese Motoki Corporation in its genocidal war against the barbarian Yabajin. Jacked into training machines that simulate warfare, Angelo "dies" a hundred times. . .and is resurrected to fight again. In a world of death, he dreams only of life-and the freedom to love once more.
"I hesitate to tell you that this is Dave Wolverton's first novel. The book is so mature in its sensibility and so strong in its artistry, so deep in its invention that most of us who write fiction would be proud to have such a novel as the culmination, not the beginning, of our career. Many fine words that have won Hugos and Nebulas pale beside this book.
"I believe that this novel will be remembered as the first book by the finest science fiction writer of the 1990s. I suspect that we may someday look back on On My Way to Paradise as the first stirring of one of the great American writerse of our time. I know for a fact, however, that people who read science fiction because the want an exhilirating combination of intelligence and adventure will love every page of this book."
Orson Scott Card, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Reviews
Despite a panoply of lovingly created technologies, Wolverton's subject in this impressive debut is the age-old problem of how far a just person may go in responding to injustice. His Earth is a planet torn by ideological wars and under covert attack by those charged with protecting its interests in space. Angelo, a Panamanian pharmacologist, becomes caught up in these historic events through his compassion for an injured intelligence officer and soon finds himself believing that his only choice is to murder in the name of justice. Wolverton paces the action smartly, and in the final chapters introduces a surprise revelation that throws the motivation for Angelo's decision, as well as its consequences, into complex relief. By keeping his moral vision firmly wedded to a gripping plot, Wolverton creates speculative fiction with both emotional depth and resonance.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A middle-aged pharmacologist rescues a fugitive from the Allied Earth Marines' Military Intelligence, escaping with her to a distant planet owned by a Japanese company engaged in a genocidal war. In a future where humanity is overshadowed by the "advance" of technology--cyborg soldiers, genetically enhanced humans, drug-induced mindwipes, and more--the struggle to remain human becomes a desperate search for identity and redefinition. The author's profound insights into the brutal reality of modern warfare, as well as his faith in the triumph of human compassion, make this first novel an excellent selection for most sf collection.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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