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The Inheritors
Can one young boy's beliefs about himself and the universe change the structure of reality?
A shapeshifting monster driven by primal desires shatters concepts of intelligent design and becomes an incarnation of vengeance.
A child with a strange gift is abducted from home and must learn to co-exist with beings far different from even him.
A boy exposed to dark magic and demonic rituals must tread carefully or become the thing he fears.
Creatures from the end of time travel through human history kidnapping children to save a bizarre future world.
Physics, mysticism, biological science, and theology are woven into a dark, thought-provoking novel taking readers on a journey they could have never imagined possible, challenged to rethink everything they thought they knew about history, time, space, and the nature of life itself.
"Reminiscent of the works of Pynchon, Clarke, and Vonnegut,..." - Clarabelle Miray Field, award winning poet and Editor-in-Chief, Carmina Magazine
A shapeshifting monster driven by primal desires shatters concepts of intelligent design and becomes an incarnation of vengeance.
A child with a strange gift is abducted from home and must learn to co-exist with beings far different from even him.
A boy exposed to dark magic and demonic rituals must tread carefully or become the thing he fears.
Creatures from the end of time travel through human history kidnapping children to save a bizarre future world.
Physics, mysticism, biological science, and theology are woven into a dark, thought-provoking novel taking readers on a journey they could have never imagined possible, challenged to rethink everything they thought they knew about history, time, space, and the nature of life itself.
"Reminiscent of the works of Pynchon, Clarke, and Vonnegut,..." - Clarabelle Miray Field, award winning poet and Editor-in-Chief, Carmina Magazine
395 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 30, 2023
3 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Carrabis
57 books119 followersJoseph Carrabis is a master storyteller with a sharp sense of humor and linguistic expertise. Hailing from New Hampshire, USA, his passion for writing began at the tender age of seven while washing dishes with his older sister, Sandra. She’d read ‘Mission to the Heart Stars’ for a book report and shared her fascination and excitement over the story. Joseph, a plate in one hand and a dish towel in the other decided, “I want to give that to people.” With a career deeply embedded in evolving technologies, Joseph served as Chief Research Officer, Chief Neuroscience Officer, and Senior Research Fellow at several institutions and agencies while earning numerous awards for his journalism and trade technical writing.
Joseph refers to himself as boring - something loudly debunked by his readers and peers - and weaves wildly imaginative stories that dance on the boundary of the known and unknown sciences where natural, preternatural and supernatural intersect. Fans’ comments regularly mention Carrabis’ ability to bring together advanced mathematics, quantum physics, cybernetics, and neuroscience with believable multi-dimensional characters and spellbinding future technology. Joseph has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, recommended for a Nebula Award, and received an honorable mention in ‘Writers of the Future’.
Joseph refers to himself as boring - something loudly debunked by his readers and peers - and weaves wildly imaginative stories that dance on the boundary of the known and unknown sciences where natural, preternatural and supernatural intersect. Fans’ comments regularly mention Carrabis’ ability to bring together advanced mathematics, quantum physics, cybernetics, and neuroscience with believable multi-dimensional characters and spellbinding future technology. Joseph has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, recommended for a Nebula Award, and received an honorable mention in ‘Writers of the Future’.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 30, 2023
I think good sci-fi should say something about the human condition, which this book kind of attempts to do, but it needs to be able to do that through a coherent story, which unfortunately wasn't present here. One of the characters is supposed to be this genius discovering truths about the universe itself just by thinking - it's very hard to write characters like that. Unfortunately, large parts of the book are spent trying to portray his genius without him actually DOING anything, so instead it's just a bunch of smart-sounding words thrown around to make the character seem smart. The result is that I spent at least 75% of the book having no idea what was going on.
There's also one character, Seth, whose scenes are all extremely disgusting and I had to skim/skip large parts of those scenes because I just couldn't stand it. Even in some of the other characters' scenes there would be a lot of mentions of bodily functions, but with Seth it was way beyond that. Gross, demonic rituals combined with sex and gore and just... he's the worst.
I forced myself to finish, curious to see if there would be any point or actual storyline in the end. There was one, all the different threads do come together in the end. It wasn't a story that I liked, and I'm not even really sure what it was trying to say and whether it was some kind of weird take on Christian allegory (I know very little about Christianity) or some form of satanism or what... again, there was a lot of hyper-philosophical attempt to sound sciency kind of stuff at the end which just didn't make sense to me.
I think that it was just too ambitious of a project, to be honest. If the attempt at religious metaphysical allegory or whatever it was hadn't been made. (And If Seth's entire character was removed.) And instead of trying to tell the story of the entire universe/existence if the author had leaned into the story of the brothers, Tommy and Roland and their Romani heritage more it could have been great. Also, the scenes in the Cavalos empire were frustrating because for the longest time I couldn't imagine what it was like - again, clarity was really missing here.
Overall, this book just wasn't for me.
There's also one character, Seth, whose scenes are all extremely disgusting and I had to skim/skip large parts of those scenes because I just couldn't stand it. Even in some of the other characters' scenes there would be a lot of mentions of bodily functions, but with Seth it was way beyond that. Gross, demonic rituals combined with sex and gore and just... he's the worst.
I forced myself to finish, curious to see if there would be any point or actual storyline in the end. There was one, all the different threads do come together in the end. It wasn't a story that I liked, and I'm not even really sure what it was trying to say and whether it was some kind of weird take on Christian allegory (I know very little about Christianity) or some form of satanism or what... again, there was a lot of hyper-philosophical attempt to sound sciency kind of stuff at the end which just didn't make sense to me.
I think that it was just too ambitious of a project, to be honest. If the attempt at religious metaphysical allegory or whatever it was hadn't been made. (And If Seth's entire character was removed.) And instead of trying to tell the story of the entire universe/existence if the author had leaned into the story of the brothers, Tommy and Roland and their Romani heritage more it could have been great. Also, the scenes in the Cavalos empire were frustrating because for the longest time I couldn't imagine what it was like - again, clarity was really missing here.
Overall, this book just wasn't for me.
August 8, 2023
Goodness, this book was quite a ride.
This is an epic tale of great epicness that's sort of hard to categorize. It's fantasy, it's sci-fi, it's philosophy, it's dystopian, it's character journeys. It's also a bit hard to pin down the plot. There's a lot going on, and a lot of different threads that do eventually come together, for the most part. Whether in a satisfying manner probably depends largely on the reader. The writing style is emotionally evocative but weirdly distant and dreamlike. Nothing feels grounded here, giving the whole ride a bit of an unmoored, dreamlike (or nightmare) quality, and also making it a little hard to follow, at least for me. Lots of big, smart-sounding words are tossed around, but the concepts and ideas are often difficult to follow. Again, everything floats here, and feels very abstract.
Tommy is supposed to be the main character, with the main storyline, but actually gets a pretty small sliver of screen time overall. Other characters drive the story in their own ways, but honestly I'm not sure why they got as much focus as they did, when a lot of that focus was dedicated to irrelivant, detailed, and usually unpleasant backstory.
There are some other elements that readers might want to be aware of. If this book had a TV rating, it'd be a hard "R". Lots of frankly gross content involving human degradation, a seemingly endless obsession with bodily functions, and sexualization that didn't actually involve too many sex scenes, but rather a constant barrage of groping, touching, grabbing, and general filth. It should be noted there is at least one instance of sexualized and detailed description of a minor.
On a more personal note, there were a lot of things I found very disturbing here, and I would never have finished the book if I wasn't reading it for review purposes. As it was, I ended up skimming and skipping several sections that I was just not okay with and couldn't get through. See content warning above. Besides that, there are also, oddly, a lot of biblical references here, but horribly twisted and abused, sometimes on purpose, sometimes, I'm guessing, on accident (it's twice mentioned that Lot bargained with God over the fate of Sodom, when that was, in fact, a conversation that happened between God and Abraham). Christ is misaligned, misrepresented, and insulted, Lucifer is suddenly a very helpful character, and Michael the angel is... well. Anyway. Maybe this was meant to be thought provoking, but the discussions weren't coherent enough to provoke anything but outrage. At least for me.
Objectively, there is some solid writing here. If nothing else, it's sort of fascinating how emotionally evocative this book is, and the cerebral style, while not my thing, might be something others enjoy. The author seems a master of that. I'm not gonna blindly bash just because I was offended by some of the content. However, when that offensive content crossed some hard personal lines for me, I can't offer more endorsement than that.
This is an epic tale of great epicness that's sort of hard to categorize. It's fantasy, it's sci-fi, it's philosophy, it's dystopian, it's character journeys. It's also a bit hard to pin down the plot. There's a lot going on, and a lot of different threads that do eventually come together, for the most part. Whether in a satisfying manner probably depends largely on the reader. The writing style is emotionally evocative but weirdly distant and dreamlike. Nothing feels grounded here, giving the whole ride a bit of an unmoored, dreamlike (or nightmare) quality, and also making it a little hard to follow, at least for me. Lots of big, smart-sounding words are tossed around, but the concepts and ideas are often difficult to follow. Again, everything floats here, and feels very abstract.
Tommy is supposed to be the main character, with the main storyline, but actually gets a pretty small sliver of screen time overall. Other characters drive the story in their own ways, but honestly I'm not sure why they got as much focus as they did, when a lot of that focus was dedicated to irrelivant, detailed, and usually unpleasant backstory.
There are some other elements that readers might want to be aware of. If this book had a TV rating, it'd be a hard "R". Lots of frankly gross content involving human degradation, a seemingly endless obsession with bodily functions, and sexualization that didn't actually involve too many sex scenes, but rather a constant barrage of groping, touching, grabbing, and general filth. It should be noted there is at least one instance of sexualized and detailed description of a minor.
On a more personal note, there were a lot of things I found very disturbing here, and I would never have finished the book if I wasn't reading it for review purposes. As it was, I ended up skimming and skipping several sections that I was just not okay with and couldn't get through. See content warning above. Besides that, there are also, oddly, a lot of biblical references here, but horribly twisted and abused, sometimes on purpose, sometimes, I'm guessing, on accident (it's twice mentioned that Lot bargained with God over the fate of Sodom, when that was, in fact, a conversation that happened between God and Abraham). Christ is misaligned, misrepresented, and insulted, Lucifer is suddenly a very helpful character, and Michael the angel is... well. Anyway. Maybe this was meant to be thought provoking, but the discussions weren't coherent enough to provoke anything but outrage. At least for me.
Objectively, there is some solid writing here. If nothing else, it's sort of fascinating how emotionally evocative this book is, and the cerebral style, while not my thing, might be something others enjoy. The author seems a master of that. I'm not gonna blindly bash just because I was offended by some of the content. However, when that offensive content crossed some hard personal lines for me, I can't offer more endorsement than that.
July 26, 2023
This sci-fi (but not just sci-fi) novel revolves around the four main characters of Roland, Tommy, Seth, and Kyagtshagg, along with several important secondary characters. As the book goes on, their various individual stories entwine in intriguing and unexpected ways to create this compelling tale of connections, balance, consequences, and the power of thought.
The characters are all unique and interesting, and their individual stories are skillfully intertwined to create the whole picture, including some wonderful irony. The book is well grounded in current science, scientific discoveries, and theories but then stretches and molds them and merges them with each other and a bit of philosophy, the supernatural, and some religion to create a fresh and different view of the world. All the elements that on the surface seemed unmergeable come together in a very thought-provoking read. I enjoyed how some of our world's historical mysteries were woven into the story.
The story got a little gory at times, as well as a bit scatological (in the sense of waste matter), with more than a whiff of some body horror, and included some scenes of degradation that made for disturbing reading. At least those parts - while moderately detailed - were short and not particularly pervasive.
Overall, this is a book to definitely take your time in reading. There's a lot of science and scientific principles to ponder as well as thought-provoking philosophies, all wrapped up in an engaging tale. To paraphrase one of the characters, it's quite a ride!
The characters are all unique and interesting, and their individual stories are skillfully intertwined to create the whole picture, including some wonderful irony. The book is well grounded in current science, scientific discoveries, and theories but then stretches and molds them and merges them with each other and a bit of philosophy, the supernatural, and some religion to create a fresh and different view of the world. All the elements that on the surface seemed unmergeable come together in a very thought-provoking read. I enjoyed how some of our world's historical mysteries were woven into the story.
The story got a little gory at times, as well as a bit scatological (in the sense of waste matter), with more than a whiff of some body horror, and included some scenes of degradation that made for disturbing reading. At least those parts - while moderately detailed - were short and not particularly pervasive.
Overall, this is a book to definitely take your time in reading. There's a lot of science and scientific principles to ponder as well as thought-provoking philosophies, all wrapped up in an engaging tale. To paraphrase one of the characters, it's quite a ride!
August 13, 2023
Joseph Carrabis’s Inheritors is a wild, time-traveling, mind-bending story with so many twists and turns you will be left wondering whether the beginning was the end or the end the beginning. A staggering amount of world-building is layered in every chapter, making you hungry for more. Physics, mysticism, biological science, and theology are woven into dark, thought-provoking settings that are altogether different but connected and reward the reader the deeper they look. Yet, a suitable setting would be nothing without interesting characters, which this book has plenty of. A shape-shifting monster driven by primal desires brushes shoulders with intelligent design, becoming an incarnation of vengeance. A child with a strange gift is abducted from home and must learn to co-exist with beings far different from even him. A boy exposed to dark magic and demonic rituals must tread carefully or become the thing he dreads. All these elements combine into a thrilling tale that concludes with a bang and gets richer with every telling. Yes, this one is a must-read but get ready, because once you do, you’re going to want to read it all over again.
October 18, 2023
Wow! What a great book!! Joseph is a master story teller!
July 16, 2023
This was my first read of Mr. Carrabis extensive writing. He didn't disappoint. Without giving away the plot, this story follows Tommy through a thought-provoking adventure. His discussions with Lucifer and Michael were my most enjoyable part of the read. It was fascinating watching him work through his thought activities and be challenged to think a step further. If you want something to make you think, that will hold your attention.... than this is a great read for you! Highly recommended and I will be reading more from this author.
July 17, 2023
A novel with complex and interesting ideas.
It involves a child genius, time travel, an immortal human woman, gene manipulation, the far future and also Lucifer and the archangel Michael!
It involves a child genius, time travel, an immortal human woman, gene manipulation, the far future and also Lucifer and the archangel Michael!
July 8, 2023
It is rare to find someone who writes the way Joseph Carrabis does—with the gift of a true storyteller, weaving stories that enrapture readers from the first word to the very last. As they travel through the The Inheritors’ pages, readers will encounter so much more than just the story of a little boy named Tommy. Guided by Carrabis’ carefully-metered and eloquent prose, readers will find themselves on a journey they could have never before imagined possible, challenged to rethink everything they thought they knew about history, time, space, and the nature of life itself. Reminiscent of the works of Pynchon, Clarke, and Vonnegut, The Inheritors is as intricately complex as it is emotionally resonant and will no doubt draw readers back again and again for subsequent rereads. A magnum opus of modern day storytelling, The Inheritors is evidence of Carrabis’ consummate skill as a writer.
July 3, 2023
Have you ever read a book that you just couldn't put down? You try to pry yourself away to do everyday tasks, but to no avail. That's The Inheritors by Joseph Carrabis!
We follow Tommy through time. That may sound too easy, but I can't tell you much else without giving away too much. This book has twists and turns and lessons to be learned, but who should be learning those lessons?
The Inheritors is a book full of symbolism and scientific theories. Perhaps, the theories are symbols as well. He speaks of QUAD- Quantum Physics and Devices-- which seems to be something like a Stargate. It's Einstein, Faraday, and other scientists meets Stephen King—well, a little bit.
Carrabis takes the complex, breaks it down to the simple, and leaves you thinking. I highly recommend reading this book.
We follow Tommy through time. That may sound too easy, but I can't tell you much else without giving away too much. This book has twists and turns and lessons to be learned, but who should be learning those lessons?
The Inheritors is a book full of symbolism and scientific theories. Perhaps, the theories are symbols as well. He speaks of QUAD- Quantum Physics and Devices-- which seems to be something like a Stargate. It's Einstein, Faraday, and other scientists meets Stephen King—well, a little bit.
Carrabis takes the complex, breaks it down to the simple, and leaves you thinking. I highly recommend reading this book.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews