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Entanglement
A tale of stolen souls, mirror worlds, quantum physics and eternal love.
There's a serial killer on the loose and Angel Copperwheat knows his name, but the murderer is long dead and using Angel to power his quest to become a God. The police think Angel's the murderer and maybe he is?
Angel lives on the bubble-thin surface of what we call reality, surrounded by ghosts and the fractured moments of potential futures, living in more than one world. Angel has spent his life studying quantum physics, the magic of shamans, religions and myths and the threads that bind them, seeking the science of death and the afterlife, believing that nothing is inexplicable, merely unexplained, and always in hope of finding the answer to his biggest question, why me? Since he was a child, newly returned from the dead, Angel used his abilities selfishly, meddling with time and space in search of elusive happiness and the love he feels he doesn’t deserve.
The Reverend Forster, Vicar of St Swithun’s, knows who Angel is and what he is. Forster has tapped the cracks Angel opened in reality and used it to steal souls from the living, taking their power to fuel his quest to become a God. The empty bodies have been possessed by wandering ghosts and now Angel’s dull English home-town is a mess of blood, rape and murder. The dispossessed souls have charged Angel with putting the universe to rights. Can Angel close the rift, restore lost souls to life, remain alive and keep his darkest secret, while holding on to the hard-won love of his friends in the now, the past and future?
There's a serial killer on the loose and Angel Copperwheat knows his name, but the murderer is long dead and using Angel to power his quest to become a God. The police think Angel's the murderer and maybe he is?
Angel lives on the bubble-thin surface of what we call reality, surrounded by ghosts and the fractured moments of potential futures, living in more than one world. Angel has spent his life studying quantum physics, the magic of shamans, religions and myths and the threads that bind them, seeking the science of death and the afterlife, believing that nothing is inexplicable, merely unexplained, and always in hope of finding the answer to his biggest question, why me? Since he was a child, newly returned from the dead, Angel used his abilities selfishly, meddling with time and space in search of elusive happiness and the love he feels he doesn’t deserve.
The Reverend Forster, Vicar of St Swithun’s, knows who Angel is and what he is. Forster has tapped the cracks Angel opened in reality and used it to steal souls from the living, taking their power to fuel his quest to become a God. The empty bodies have been possessed by wandering ghosts and now Angel’s dull English home-town is a mess of blood, rape and murder. The dispossessed souls have charged Angel with putting the universe to rights. Can Angel close the rift, restore lost souls to life, remain alive and keep his darkest secret, while holding on to the hard-won love of his friends in the now, the past and future?
361 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 19, 2012
64 people want to read
About the author
Maya Panika
1 book78 followersI lived in Havana for 10 years, a freelance journalist accredited to CBS news, The Economist and The Daily and Sunday Telegraph and a major contributor to a series of travel guides and TV shows; my news, features and columns have appeared across the English-speaking world. When a series of articles in The Economist inspired the Cubans ask me to leave and return nevermore, I turned in desperation to writing comedy for the BBC and a novel, Entanglement, now published.
I live in England, on a wild and windy moor, in sheepshagger country. I smell of dust, old books and bluebells. I love books, comedy, fantasy, gardening, and all things earthy. Make me laugh and I'll be your friend forever.
I live in England, on a wild and windy moor, in sheepshagger country. I smell of dust, old books and bluebells. I love books, comedy, fantasy, gardening, and all things earthy. Make me laugh and I'll be your friend forever.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 28, 2020
The Quantum Community
Sci-fi and gothic fantasy have constituted the new practical theology for almost two centuries, paradoxically exploring things that are beyond language within language. Large numbers of people love it; I suspect because at their best these relatively new genres riff on perennial theological themes buried within the accumulated cultural sludge we all slosh around in. Entanglement is a good example of how this transition from theology to sci-fi/fantasy works.*
Christianity and Judaism both have ancient traditions of communion with the dead. The Christian doctrine of the Community of Saints holds that the dead who made it to the top of the moral pile have pull with the divine for the benefit of the living; and that those who have not fared quite so fortunately in their spiritual fate can benefit from the prayers of the living. In Judaism the idea is that the Avot Zacuth, the grace earned by the merits of the Jewish Fathers, in fact all pious Jews, can be used for the benefit of those Jews in need of strength or succour.
These are more than quaint traditions. They are ethical considerations which are only incidentally metaphysical. They have their real significance as reminders that almost all of what we are as human beings - intellectual as well as physical - is inherited. Respect for those, whom we cannot know by name, is the least that we owe. The idea that we can interact with the dead is a religious expression of what we otherwise find commonplace as we learn things like Isaac Newton’s calculus, or consult the opinions of Marcus Aurelius. By extension this community reaches back into pre-history including our pre-human ancestors whose fossils and footprints we interpret with much care and interest.
Modern science has created a new addition to this idea of ethical communion and with that raised some interesting associated issues. Quantum theory suggests, for example that there are multiple universes - at every quantum event the universe bifurcates, duplicating itself with only quantum level variations, a sort of cosmic genetic evolution. The connections among the worlds are hidden but real. They are also staggeringly complex and beyond any theory we may ever possess.
If there are such bifurcating worlds, what is the appropriate ethical relationship among them? The question is not dissimilar to that confronted by the first Europeans who encountered the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas and Australia, particularly about the ethical status of these beings who didn’t fit within established definitions of human. Unfortunately for the original inhabitants, the answer came only after their effective destruction.
The observable, and observed, effects of quantum entanglement are equally disconcerting. According to EinsteinIan physics, the speed of light forms an upper limit of communication within the universe. Yet quantum events occur instantaneously regardless of distance. It’s as if time has been collapsed and ceases to exist for quantum level events.
The implication is that we are part of a community which is literally universal, connected immediately to every part of the cosmos. And since the ‘light-based’ notification of events in this community may be billions of years old, many of the members of this community have been dead for quite some time. They are potentially both present with us and dead simultaneously - like Schrödinger’s cat. The quantum community, therefore, extends far beyond the primordial ooze of our planet as far as the Big Bang, perhaps farther.
So in the case of quantum universes and instantaneous action at infinite distances, the communitarian connections are not simply among the living or between the living and the dead, but with the not-living-here and the not-dead-here, entirely novel categories of existence. What are the consequences of communication among such universes? In one sense, such a world is as alien as any conceived by an Asimov or an Arthur Clarke. On the other, it is a world intimately connected to us by history and physical structure. Such a world looks just like ours and is peopled exactly like us, in fact some of these people are us with some minor difference. What responsibility should we take on in that kind of world?
The concept of spirit takes on a rather interesting meaning in this world, what Panika calls My World, for anyone who succeeds in establishing contact with the broader quantum universe. The traditional word to designate a being which exists simultaneously but separately in another dimension is ‘ghost’. Similarly ‘angel’ is the connection, or messenger, who can communicate with that dimension and therefore with ghosts, some of whom may have found themselves ‘stranded’ in an alien dimension through the simultaneous quantum effects of instantaneous action and universal bifurcation.
Angels are dangerous creatures according to Thomas Aquinas. Theological rumour has it that at least some of them are jealous of human beings reportedly being created ‘above’ them. There is no mention of them in the creation stories of Genesis, Aquinas says, because their existence could become a distraction. They are signifiers of the overwhelmingly Big Picture, for which Aquinas uses the word ‘divine’.
But the intense brightness of angelic pure knowledge can blind mortal beings to the divine. In other words, angels are unnatural and can be demonic, a random spanner thrown into the smoothly functioning works of creation. They represent a crack in reality which threatens to spread within and among universes. Their capability is the quantum equivalent of the knowledge of good and evil in the creation story of Genesis. Perhaps their ability to move across quantum dimensions is the fundamental design flaw of creation, the original evil.
The quantum community, consisting of the related beings across dimensions, is what Panika’s fictional meditation is about. Like all sci-fi, there is an element of tongue-in-cheek that is an inevitable part of the genre. But, like the best sci-fi, there is a serious cultural core which both motivates and justifies it. Theology is the poetry of the unexplainable. To consider it as more (or less) is a profession of cultural ignorance. Entanglement certainly qualifies as some good modern theology.
*See here for other good examples: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Postscript 4April2019: Apparently there is serious resistance in some sectors of global society to the sci-fi/fantasy usurpation of conventional theology. Catholics in Poland, it is reported, have held a massive auto-de-fé of the Harry Potter books as blasphemous and encouraging witchcraft. I take this as a confirmation of my point.
Sci-fi and gothic fantasy have constituted the new practical theology for almost two centuries, paradoxically exploring things that are beyond language within language. Large numbers of people love it; I suspect because at their best these relatively new genres riff on perennial theological themes buried within the accumulated cultural sludge we all slosh around in. Entanglement is a good example of how this transition from theology to sci-fi/fantasy works.*
Christianity and Judaism both have ancient traditions of communion with the dead. The Christian doctrine of the Community of Saints holds that the dead who made it to the top of the moral pile have pull with the divine for the benefit of the living; and that those who have not fared quite so fortunately in their spiritual fate can benefit from the prayers of the living. In Judaism the idea is that the Avot Zacuth, the grace earned by the merits of the Jewish Fathers, in fact all pious Jews, can be used for the benefit of those Jews in need of strength or succour.
These are more than quaint traditions. They are ethical considerations which are only incidentally metaphysical. They have their real significance as reminders that almost all of what we are as human beings - intellectual as well as physical - is inherited. Respect for those, whom we cannot know by name, is the least that we owe. The idea that we can interact with the dead is a religious expression of what we otherwise find commonplace as we learn things like Isaac Newton’s calculus, or consult the opinions of Marcus Aurelius. By extension this community reaches back into pre-history including our pre-human ancestors whose fossils and footprints we interpret with much care and interest.
Modern science has created a new addition to this idea of ethical communion and with that raised some interesting associated issues. Quantum theory suggests, for example that there are multiple universes - at every quantum event the universe bifurcates, duplicating itself with only quantum level variations, a sort of cosmic genetic evolution. The connections among the worlds are hidden but real. They are also staggeringly complex and beyond any theory we may ever possess.
If there are such bifurcating worlds, what is the appropriate ethical relationship among them? The question is not dissimilar to that confronted by the first Europeans who encountered the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas and Australia, particularly about the ethical status of these beings who didn’t fit within established definitions of human. Unfortunately for the original inhabitants, the answer came only after their effective destruction.
The observable, and observed, effects of quantum entanglement are equally disconcerting. According to EinsteinIan physics, the speed of light forms an upper limit of communication within the universe. Yet quantum events occur instantaneously regardless of distance. It’s as if time has been collapsed and ceases to exist for quantum level events.
The implication is that we are part of a community which is literally universal, connected immediately to every part of the cosmos. And since the ‘light-based’ notification of events in this community may be billions of years old, many of the members of this community have been dead for quite some time. They are potentially both present with us and dead simultaneously - like Schrödinger’s cat. The quantum community, therefore, extends far beyond the primordial ooze of our planet as far as the Big Bang, perhaps farther.
So in the case of quantum universes and instantaneous action at infinite distances, the communitarian connections are not simply among the living or between the living and the dead, but with the not-living-here and the not-dead-here, entirely novel categories of existence. What are the consequences of communication among such universes? In one sense, such a world is as alien as any conceived by an Asimov or an Arthur Clarke. On the other, it is a world intimately connected to us by history and physical structure. Such a world looks just like ours and is peopled exactly like us, in fact some of these people are us with some minor difference. What responsibility should we take on in that kind of world?
The concept of spirit takes on a rather interesting meaning in this world, what Panika calls My World, for anyone who succeeds in establishing contact with the broader quantum universe. The traditional word to designate a being which exists simultaneously but separately in another dimension is ‘ghost’. Similarly ‘angel’ is the connection, or messenger, who can communicate with that dimension and therefore with ghosts, some of whom may have found themselves ‘stranded’ in an alien dimension through the simultaneous quantum effects of instantaneous action and universal bifurcation.
Angels are dangerous creatures according to Thomas Aquinas. Theological rumour has it that at least some of them are jealous of human beings reportedly being created ‘above’ them. There is no mention of them in the creation stories of Genesis, Aquinas says, because their existence could become a distraction. They are signifiers of the overwhelmingly Big Picture, for which Aquinas uses the word ‘divine’.
But the intense brightness of angelic pure knowledge can blind mortal beings to the divine. In other words, angels are unnatural and can be demonic, a random spanner thrown into the smoothly functioning works of creation. They represent a crack in reality which threatens to spread within and among universes. Their capability is the quantum equivalent of the knowledge of good and evil in the creation story of Genesis. Perhaps their ability to move across quantum dimensions is the fundamental design flaw of creation, the original evil.
The quantum community, consisting of the related beings across dimensions, is what Panika’s fictional meditation is about. Like all sci-fi, there is an element of tongue-in-cheek that is an inevitable part of the genre. But, like the best sci-fi, there is a serious cultural core which both motivates and justifies it. Theology is the poetry of the unexplainable. To consider it as more (or less) is a profession of cultural ignorance. Entanglement certainly qualifies as some good modern theology.
*See here for other good examples: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Postscript 4April2019: Apparently there is serious resistance in some sectors of global society to the sci-fi/fantasy usurpation of conventional theology. Catholics in Poland, it is reported, have held a massive auto-de-fé of the Harry Potter books as blasphemous and encouraging witchcraft. I take this as a confirmation of my point.
December 11, 2012
Yes, I'm giving my own book 5 stars. If I didn't love it, how could I expect you to? ;)
January 25, 2013
Entanglement is a paranormal murder mystery that delightfully wanders from the well-trodden romance driven norm for the genre. Grounding her paranormal setting in quantum physics as well as spirituality adds to the reality of Ms. Panika's world. Her lead character, Angel Copperwheat, is not a hulking heart-throb. Rather, he's a self-doubting somewhat cowardly academic, who struggles to step into the role of hero. While these wanderings are what makes the story so good, they do require more from the reader. This is not a formulaic light read. Be prepared to think and you will discover a wonderfully written story well worth your time.
October 26, 2012
A book that questions the nature of spirituality. Is there a God? Are there many Gods? Are we ALL God? With a dose of mythology, some shamanism, a bit of quantum physics, and all hung on the shoulders of a self-doubting academic at a provincial university.
I read this on the recommendation of a friend and was rather glad I did. I was expecting something different (the 'paranormal' genre has become bloated with tedious and unimaginative romance stories) but Entanglement seems to me more fantasy/SF than paranormal. The story twists, moving away from the usual paranormal/possession/reincarnation novels, ending up somewhere I never expected at all. The story is full of unusual twists, the writing is exceptional, almost poetic at times, with side trips into the nature of the senses, of colour and scent and sound.
I believe this is the first of a series and am intrigued to see where Mr. Copperwheat's story will go.
I read this on the recommendation of a friend and was rather glad I did. I was expecting something different (the 'paranormal' genre has become bloated with tedious and unimaginative romance stories) but Entanglement seems to me more fantasy/SF than paranormal. The story twists, moving away from the usual paranormal/possession/reincarnation novels, ending up somewhere I never expected at all. The story is full of unusual twists, the writing is exceptional, almost poetic at times, with side trips into the nature of the senses, of colour and scent and sound.
I believe this is the first of a series and am intrigued to see where Mr. Copperwheat's story will go.
April 18, 2013
I was first drawn to Entanglement because of the connection of the title to quantum physics. I had no idea what I was getting into, but that is because this story is unique. To describe it as “fanciful” would be an understatement, but it is a wonderful blend of reality and the supernatural, with a dose of science thrown in for good measure.
Maya Panika is master of the macabre metaphor, as is evident in the following line:
“… scared almost witless, waiting for the cold, clammy, disembodied hand of cliché to come out of the fog and grab me.”
I thoroughly enjoyed this well-written book. Ms. Panika is clearly a professional when it comes to writing, and if you read this book you may find yourself wanting your own “secret silent place.”
Maya Panika is master of the macabre metaphor, as is evident in the following line:
“… scared almost witless, waiting for the cold, clammy, disembodied hand of cliché to come out of the fog and grab me.”
I thoroughly enjoyed this well-written book. Ms. Panika is clearly a professional when it comes to writing, and if you read this book you may find yourself wanting your own “secret silent place.”
June 8, 2013
A genuinely fresh and, at times, scary paranormal; definitely worth your time and attention. An interesting narrative voice, and a vividly drawn story.
July 12, 2012
Failed academic and former TV ghosthunter Angel Copperwheat reluctantly faces up to the challenge of returning lost souls to their ghost-possessed bodies and catching a vicious serial killer while avoiding arrest for the murders himself.
Angel is an odd sort of hero: self-conscious and self-critical, lazy and cowardly, happily coasting through his comfortably-complacent life in a quiet town in the English shires, until he finds dispossessed souls squatting in his private dimension - his snowy `other' world - who insist that he face up to the mess he has created with his supernatural meddling and help rid the world of the ghosts and demons he unwittingly released.
The writing is richly metaphorical, dark but unexpectedly funny too, with sudden flashes of humour that take you by surprise. There are shades of Neil Gaiman and Diane Setterfield here, maybe even a bit of Terry Pratchett in the character of Alan Henderson, aka wanabee pop star Heathcliffe Strong, who was deprived of his life when a `bloody Bedford van cut him off in his prime' in 1962. Repeatedly reincarnated into lives he abhors, all he wants is to return to the life he had as Cliffe Strong, front-man of the might-have-been-big, Magistrates.
There are some terrific characters; the motherly Claudia, rescued from a life of homelessness and now Angel's staunchest defender; Leese, a teenage prostitute with a secret side; the obsessive DI Raj Lal, convinced Angel is the serial killer he seeks, the strangely possessed Reverend Reginald Forster and his vicious henchman Charlie Barrow, `a Cruikshank wood-cut figure... Victorian-villain of collective memory.'
Entanglement is also a book about books. Books and libraries and the ghosts that haunt them play a large part in the story, including the final answer, the last piece in Angel's puzzle, which is found in a long-forgotten, dusty academic tome.
Entanglement doesn't race, it unfolds, a little slowly at times but bear with it; it is as intriguing as it is compelling, full of sudden surprises and with an end I never saw coming. Highly recommended.
Angel is an odd sort of hero: self-conscious and self-critical, lazy and cowardly, happily coasting through his comfortably-complacent life in a quiet town in the English shires, until he finds dispossessed souls squatting in his private dimension - his snowy `other' world - who insist that he face up to the mess he has created with his supernatural meddling and help rid the world of the ghosts and demons he unwittingly released.
The writing is richly metaphorical, dark but unexpectedly funny too, with sudden flashes of humour that take you by surprise. There are shades of Neil Gaiman and Diane Setterfield here, maybe even a bit of Terry Pratchett in the character of Alan Henderson, aka wanabee pop star Heathcliffe Strong, who was deprived of his life when a `bloody Bedford van cut him off in his prime' in 1962. Repeatedly reincarnated into lives he abhors, all he wants is to return to the life he had as Cliffe Strong, front-man of the might-have-been-big, Magistrates.
There are some terrific characters; the motherly Claudia, rescued from a life of homelessness and now Angel's staunchest defender; Leese, a teenage prostitute with a secret side; the obsessive DI Raj Lal, convinced Angel is the serial killer he seeks, the strangely possessed Reverend Reginald Forster and his vicious henchman Charlie Barrow, `a Cruikshank wood-cut figure... Victorian-villain of collective memory.'
Entanglement is also a book about books. Books and libraries and the ghosts that haunt them play a large part in the story, including the final answer, the last piece in Angel's puzzle, which is found in a long-forgotten, dusty academic tome.
Entanglement doesn't race, it unfolds, a little slowly at times but bear with it; it is as intriguing as it is compelling, full of sudden surprises and with an end I never saw coming. Highly recommended.
April 5, 2014
This was definitely a different kind of story that captured my attention. I wasn't quite sure what to expect but this was a great read!
We meet Angel Copperwheat who is a professor at a local college, but not in high regard because of the subject manner that he teaches. Even his fellow professors find him kind of an oddball. A loner...maybe even gay?
Angel has a secret...he can see and talk to ghosts. Ever since he died he has had this talent. Do people believe that he can really do this? Of course not! This leads Angel to be a loner, but he does have a support system at home, people that he takes in that need help.
When the murders get too much for Angel to handle, he finally goes to the police. Now he's there number 1 suspect because how else could he possibly know all of this information? Is he the killer? Or are ghosts really talking to him?
This is an entirely unique spin on spirituality, quantum physics and the paranormal. I loved the rationales and explanations of why things were they way that they were.
It was good to watch Angel's character develop from a pitiful man into something more. The characters were well defined, each unique in their own right. I love the depth and though behind how everything and everyone intertwined.
For mystery, suspense, action, paranormal and science...read this book. It will definitely capture and hold your attention. I enjoyed every minute of this book. So unique and interesting!
We meet Angel Copperwheat who is a professor at a local college, but not in high regard because of the subject manner that he teaches. Even his fellow professors find him kind of an oddball. A loner...maybe even gay?
Angel has a secret...he can see and talk to ghosts. Ever since he died he has had this talent. Do people believe that he can really do this? Of course not! This leads Angel to be a loner, but he does have a support system at home, people that he takes in that need help.
When the murders get too much for Angel to handle, he finally goes to the police. Now he's there number 1 suspect because how else could he possibly know all of this information? Is he the killer? Or are ghosts really talking to him?
This is an entirely unique spin on spirituality, quantum physics and the paranormal. I loved the rationales and explanations of why things were they way that they were.
It was good to watch Angel's character develop from a pitiful man into something more. The characters were well defined, each unique in their own right. I love the depth and though behind how everything and everyone intertwined.
For mystery, suspense, action, paranormal and science...read this book. It will definitely capture and hold your attention. I enjoyed every minute of this book. So unique and interesting!
September 25, 2012
As someone who reads a lot of this genre of fiction it takes something a bit different to really capture my imagination, but Entanglement succeeded in doing just that. The use of Quantum physics as a basis for the storyline moves it out of the bog standard ghost story bracket and into something deeper and more challenging. It is slow burn, steadily building up to a crescendo as the beautifully crafted variety of characters develop along the way. It is listed as a trilogy, and I would happily read more books in the same series, but at the same time it does stand alone as a story, you are left feeling interested in where the characters might go next, but satisfied with the conclusion of that particular episode. I would certainly recommend it to any one who likes a good supernatural tale and look forward to reading more by Maya Panika.
August 29, 2012
interesting mix of science and lore
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews