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Loose Strings
In this romantic, science fantasy novel, a middle aged Regnusian named Rakena deposits a hypersource into the hands of earthling Professor Wolfe Sterling, just before Regnus security forces corner her. She bites into a poison capsule to avoid revealing the loose quantum reality string that she has just created. Before dying, she envisions a future where she will fall in love with this strange Earth man. Dr. Sterling is a promising string theory professor from the University of Toledo who has been attempting to create his own hypersource, a device which permits travel between alternative universes and possibly time. With Rakena's advanced hypersource glasses in hand, Sterling collides with a younger version of Rakena, who serves as an alien history security officer. It is her job to slow Earth's technological progress, and she has already successfully disposed of Ludwig Boltzmann and Alan Turing by getting them to commit suicide. In their first encounters, Sterling thwarts Rakena's attempts to knock Newton, Einstein, and Galileo off of their destined paths. Facing Sterling's opposition, and with her superior's devised plan and orders, Rakena draws in Sterling by feigning interest in Earth's customs while other security force agents do her dirty work. Rakena falls in love with Earth's culture and with Wolfe, the man who has unveiled art and religion to her and helped her uncover her hidden love of art. Together, Wolfe and Rakena act as two loose strings pull apart the fabric of reality and alter the course of the multiverse.
300 pages, Paperback
Published October 22, 2015
347 people want to read
About the author
Dale A. Grove
11 books74 followersDr. Dale A. Grove is a product developer by day and a writer by night. Possessing a vivid imagination, he has created a variety of stories, new products, and numerous patents during his tenure at Owens Corning, Johns Manville, LNP Engineering Plastics, Tekni-Plex, and U.S. Silica amongst others. Dr. Grove has written five books in the science fiction genre: Gray Maneuvers, Gray Extraction, ELIZA, Loose Strings, and Outlier Revolutions. Furniture for Sale represents a departure from his normal genre; the author felt compelled to write this story based on his interactions with his own parents who now reside in a assisted living facility. For further information about this story and others, check out his website:
www.newdrofscifi.com.
www.newdrofscifi.com.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 10, 2017
I received a copy of this book in a Goodreads Giveaway.
I should have heeded the warning sign when, in the acknowledgements, the author thanked his mother for the editing, but truth be told, I never not finish a novel when I start it. In all honesty, the line edit was relatively acceptable. Sure, there were a few mistakes here and there, but show me a novel without any, no matter how professional the editing, and I'll be in a state of shock.
It is not the line editing that is the issue. It's the story editing. The chapters are often very short. I have the distinct impression the author, besides not using a professional editor, did not allow his work to be critiqued by other authors. The writing was very weak and lacked the necessary fleshing out to make things passable. The story does not have a flow, it's a stampede. A professional editor would probably have torn it to shreds and suggested the author spend some time learning the craft better before attempting a novel.
The author tries very hard to make a cohesive story blending two opposites - science fiction and religion. Sadly, such a creature is an oxymoron. It simply does not work.
Some spoilers are needed to express why. It starts with the legend of the Silver Wolf who will be the undoing of the Regnus (world that dominates the multiverse) society. So the highest technological peoples in the multiverse are to fall to ruin by a myth. Yikes. Those kinds of legends belong to the fantasy world, not science fiction. That's just the Prologue.
The author then dedicates Chapter 1 to a mish-mash of quantum mechanics, mostly factual- though he does introduce some things highly theoretical, in an attempt to lay the ground work for all the science to come in the novel. So, as a reader, I'm thinking, okay, one crazy myth, I can live with that. Sadly, the deeper into the novel you go, science fall to the background as religion takes over. When characters die and come back as spiritual entities preaching God's will, I have come to the conclusion the story has gone over the deep end. There's no saving it.
The science loses it as well. Throughout the novel, the characters travel the multiverse, through both time and space, by wearing special glasses that have both fusion and fission reactors in them. It sounds like a lot for a pair of glasses to do, but hey, all one needs to have read is a few novels in the Culture series by Iain M. Banks and you realize super-duper micro-machinery is within limits.
Personally, I have a rule when it comes to the science in science fiction. "No matter how improbable, as long as it is not impossible, then the science is acceptable."
In this novel, I believe the author breached it. When characters start taking this glasses, showing them in their ears, and merging with the machinery to become silver characters who can now hear the word of God, I believe my rule declares this as not acceptable.
There is also a question in my mind as to whether the "Grandfather Paradox" is breached when it comes to the time travel. The characters are protected by the glasses when changes are made in the past and the alteration wave comes through, but what about everybody else? They're not protected, yet oddly, no consequences. Time travel is always tricky stuff. You have to be exact on the repercussions.
If there is one redeeming feature in the novel, it is the constant barrage of action. For some readers, they lap that stuff up. I can see young males, say 12-16 years of age, enjoying this novel. For the rest of us, it's hopeless.
I should have heeded the warning sign when, in the acknowledgements, the author thanked his mother for the editing, but truth be told, I never not finish a novel when I start it. In all honesty, the line edit was relatively acceptable. Sure, there were a few mistakes here and there, but show me a novel without any, no matter how professional the editing, and I'll be in a state of shock.
It is not the line editing that is the issue. It's the story editing. The chapters are often very short. I have the distinct impression the author, besides not using a professional editor, did not allow his work to be critiqued by other authors. The writing was very weak and lacked the necessary fleshing out to make things passable. The story does not have a flow, it's a stampede. A professional editor would probably have torn it to shreds and suggested the author spend some time learning the craft better before attempting a novel.
The author tries very hard to make a cohesive story blending two opposites - science fiction and religion. Sadly, such a creature is an oxymoron. It simply does not work.
Some spoilers are needed to express why. It starts with the legend of the Silver Wolf who will be the undoing of the Regnus (world that dominates the multiverse) society. So the highest technological peoples in the multiverse are to fall to ruin by a myth. Yikes. Those kinds of legends belong to the fantasy world, not science fiction. That's just the Prologue.
The author then dedicates Chapter 1 to a mish-mash of quantum mechanics, mostly factual- though he does introduce some things highly theoretical, in an attempt to lay the ground work for all the science to come in the novel. So, as a reader, I'm thinking, okay, one crazy myth, I can live with that. Sadly, the deeper into the novel you go, science fall to the background as religion takes over. When characters die and come back as spiritual entities preaching God's will, I have come to the conclusion the story has gone over the deep end. There's no saving it.
The science loses it as well. Throughout the novel, the characters travel the multiverse, through both time and space, by wearing special glasses that have both fusion and fission reactors in them. It sounds like a lot for a pair of glasses to do, but hey, all one needs to have read is a few novels in the Culture series by Iain M. Banks and you realize super-duper micro-machinery is within limits.
Personally, I have a rule when it comes to the science in science fiction. "No matter how improbable, as long as it is not impossible, then the science is acceptable."
In this novel, I believe the author breached it. When characters start taking this glasses, showing them in their ears, and merging with the machinery to become silver characters who can now hear the word of God, I believe my rule declares this as not acceptable.
There is also a question in my mind as to whether the "Grandfather Paradox" is breached when it comes to the time travel. The characters are protected by the glasses when changes are made in the past and the alteration wave comes through, but what about everybody else? They're not protected, yet oddly, no consequences. Time travel is always tricky stuff. You have to be exact on the repercussions.
If there is one redeeming feature in the novel, it is the constant barrage of action. For some readers, they lap that stuff up. I can see young males, say 12-16 years of age, enjoying this novel. For the rest of us, it's hopeless.
May 16, 2019
Dr. Dale Grove has written an amazing novel that tries to answer the philosophical question: How much balance should there be in society between science/technology versus religion and the arts? During the process, he gives us a romantic interstellar love story between Dr. Wolfe Sterling, a scientist on Earth who invents time travel technology, and Rakena, an alien from Regnus, who has been sen to disrupt scientific progress on our planet. The book starts when Dr. Sterling realizes that a history security force from Regnus has been sent to disrupt scientific achievement. Determined to stop this interference. he must team up with Rakena and travel back and forth in time and visit many different planets to battle these foes. The novel has many plot twists, captivating characters, and an exciting ending.
August 10, 2016
What would have happened if many of our eminent scientists had not died or deviated from their scientific aims in their lives? Humanity would have technologically developed, but not sure for good or bad. In another universe, a world called Regnus is highly developed, so developed that its citizens are at the dead end of any kind of technological development because they have exhausted themselves in every possibility. To stay as the most developed world of theirs as well as neighbouring universes, the History Security Officers are assigned the tasks of distracting scientists of different worlds and hindering them from reaching their goals. On one such mission, Regnus’ History Security Officer Rakena meets Dr. Wolfe Sterling, who is trying to save science on Earth. What happens to the history science on Earth? Does Rakena succeed in altering Earth’s scientific history? Will Dr. Wolfe Sterling resist the alien beauty’s ventures?
Loose Strings has a good storyline with multiple time travelling and travelling between universes, complex ideas of physics which you don’t need to understand in depth to enjoy the story. Since all the characters are humans and similar to humans, the reader doesn’t have to think about the complexities of the alien anatomy. But the problem is there are so many characters; even the supporting characters have their own supporting characters and storylines. The story is fast paced, but there are times when there are abrupt shifts from one scene to another, or a character doing something which wasn’t actually necessary or called for. But the only point that becomes difficult to accept is the element of God in the Sci-Fi novel. It almost becomes like preaching Christianity to the readers with the help of aliens. Dr. Dale A Grove lets the readers down when he starts talking about God.
Except for the God part, the novel must be for its unique time travel and multiverse travel story. Sci-Fi lovers will enjoy this if they ignore the sudden inclusion of the Almighty.
Loose Strings has a good storyline with multiple time travelling and travelling between universes, complex ideas of physics which you don’t need to understand in depth to enjoy the story. Since all the characters are humans and similar to humans, the reader doesn’t have to think about the complexities of the alien anatomy. But the problem is there are so many characters; even the supporting characters have their own supporting characters and storylines. The story is fast paced, but there are times when there are abrupt shifts from one scene to another, or a character doing something which wasn’t actually necessary or called for. But the only point that becomes difficult to accept is the element of God in the Sci-Fi novel. It almost becomes like preaching Christianity to the readers with the help of aliens. Dr. Dale A Grove lets the readers down when he starts talking about God.
Except for the God part, the novel must be for its unique time travel and multiverse travel story. Sci-Fi lovers will enjoy this if they ignore the sudden inclusion of the Almighty.
March 9, 2016
String theory, religion, art and science? Sure, why can’t they all just get along? Dr. Grove has us circling around and back and forth through alternative universes, time and space and still manages to give peace a chance. But not before battles a’plenty, sudden jump offs and introducing us to the possibility that science as we know it might never happen when those that do know it go tinkering about. Who will save the worlds? Does culture matter? And would you face death for your beliefs?
I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
January 30, 2016
his best work yet!
Dr. Walter Fritz's writing mannerisms made me laugh out loud.
Dr. Walter Fritz's writing mannerisms made me laugh out loud.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews