Soldier of Light

by John de Lancie, Tom Cool

In an apocalyptic future, a family flees the crumbling city of San Francisco and encounters an alien presence behind the charismatic preacher who is organizing a "solution" to the chaos that rules their world. Reprint.

Genres: Science Fiction

336 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 1, 1999

Reviews

[David Hibberd · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story has a unique concept that I haven't encountered before. The One, an entity that is hundreds of millions of years old resides in an egg deep in the depths of the earth. He is causing the earth to change. Many people are dying. Some are changing.
Owen and Kate Keegan and their autistic daughter Constance along with Owen's brother, Harley are some of those who are changing. They are developing powers which include the ability to communicate telepathically.
Because of the violence happening around the world, Owen takes his wife and daughter on their boat and leaves San Francisco heading south. The eventually end up in Guatemala. Constance goes ashore leaving Owen and Kate to begin a search for her.
Their journey brings them in contact with various people who aren't always as they appear. One of these is Eric Van Meers, a man seeking to expand his powers and eventually rule the world.
Volcanic activity in the area eventually causes the One's egg to appear in a lake leading the an eventual showdown between the One and the Keegans.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mind-bending novels are probably the most difficult kind of novel to do successfully, and de Lancie simply doesn't have the chops to pull it off. Soldier of Light is boring due to it's pretentiously silly storyline, and the dialogue remains obnoxiously off-key throughout. Couldn't hold my interest.

[John Yelverton · Rating 2 out of 5]

To me, this is a prime example of why you must create an outline of your story before you begin writing it. Story lines are started and then dropped, and then some are magically picked up again. It leads to a roller coaster ride of confusion which culminates in a very unsatisfactory ending.

[Ale andra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I was fascinated by the topic and the imagination trips that it sparked. It's one of my all time favorite books. I couldn't put it down.

[Joel Hacker · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't check any of the mood boxes, as I'm not sure who this book might actually be for. Nor can I imagine a mood that would have made it any less of a chaotic mess. Lets be honest, I did not go into this with high expectations. After all, the old edition I have features John De Lancie's face plastered across 2/3rds of the cover, floating over some fire and a couple of crossed vaguely southeast asian swords. The synopsis basically says its about an earth changing events that awakens psychic powers in humans. But it failed to even live up to those limited expectations.
Its hard to summarize the plot (maybe the problem with the synopsis on the dust jacket) because its pretty disjointed throughout the book. There are...beings?...but maybe transhuman AIs of some kind?...they occasionally are described as post-natural. This book predates 'transhuman' entering the lexicon as I'm assuming its something along those lines, its never made particularly clear. One of them lives in a giant egg inside Earth. Other ones I guess live on other planets? Again, never made clear. The one that lives in Earth is either crazy, evil, or both. But that doesn't have anything to do with humans getting psychic powers. Planets, on a cycle of blank (we're not told what scope of time) pass through shockwaves or regions of space that help the beings wake up (except maybe the other ones are always awake? and the earth one apparently still does stuff in its sleep...maybe even on other planets?) and *those* are what awaken psychic powers in humans (and maybe other similar creatures on other planets). Except they don't really seem like psychic powers. They're very...new age-y...with a lot of description of altered perception that doesn't make a lot of sense, and is kind of hand waved with 'interaction on higher levels of being'.
Presumably, we're mostly following one family, who all get lots of powers. Because, oh yeah, the same energy field or whatever just flat out kills huge swaths of the population. But maybe some people have been acquiring powers for years (like one of the antagonists)? And...trigger warning here...nonverbal folks with autism have unique gifts/powers that put them above the conflict between 'light' and 'dark' psychic humans (though we only really see one of those 'dark' humans)...and are also not handled in particularly sensitive or accurate way. Oh, and the family's hand crafted sailboat (because the father being an artist that makes bowls and sculpture taught him how to make a boat?) has the same name as DeLancie's.
Its a little hard to figure out what span of time events are taking place across throughout the book...days? Months? Years? Sometimes events that seem like they should have taken weeks only have characters sleeping a couple of times. Other times, things that should take a day or less seems stretched out over way too much time?
Anyway, don't read this. I can't even accurately summarize it...there are plots started and dropped. Characters kind of come and go without explanation. The book digresses into a lot of weird nonsensical musings by both characters and post-natural beings. Between the poor writing, poor editing, and mess of a plot its hard to even tell what's going on sometimes. Because yeah, the editing is *bad*. John DeLancie is a ton of fun as an actor, and I'm not sure how much of this was actually written by him, but him and/or Tom Cool either did not have a clear story outlined and in mind when they started this, or they just did not have the writing chops to pull off whatever it was they were going for. And, as they author bio's *really* want to be sure you know, yes, Tom Cool is his real name.

[Mark Hartman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting thought exploring novel. An Apocalyptic novel where things change and nothing is the same again. The book revolves around brothers and one of their wife and autistic child. There is the one and people are dying in droves while those that can change and adapt with new abilities. No idea if John De Lancie was really involved or if Tom Cool was the sole author. Worth a read.

[I2shafey · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s strange to me how so many don’t see the symbolism behind this book and how prophetic it is. The writing deserves a 4 yet the meaning ... the reflections of the times we are going through now are substantial albeit at a much slower rate than is happening in the story. The decline of spiritual, primal awareness in many, with the enhancement of another faction of humanity is quite evident

[Megan Coyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Just wow. Such a different story!