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Dahlia Black
For fans of World War Z and the Southern Reach Trilogy, a suspenseful oral history commemorating the five-year anniversary of the Pulse—the alien code that hacked the DNA of Earth’s population—and the response team who faced the world-changing phenomenon.
Voyager 1 was a message in a bottle. Our way of letting the galaxy know we existed. That we were out here if anyone wanted to find us.
Over the next forty years, the probe flew past Jupiter and Saturn before it drifted into the void, swallowed up by a silent universe. Or so we thought…
Truth is, our message didn’t go unheard.
Discovered by Dr. Dahlia Black, the mysterious Pulse was sent by a highly intelligent intergalactic species that called themselves the Ascendants. It soon becomes clear this alien race isn’t just interested in communication—they are capable of rewriting human DNA, in an astonishing process they call the Elevation.
Five years after the Pulse, acclaimed journalist Keith Thomas sets out to make sense of the event that altered the world. Thomas travels across the country to interview members of the task force who grappled to decode the Pulse and later disseminated its exact nature to worried citizens. He interviews the astronomers who initially doubted Black’s discovery of the Pulse—an error that critics say led to the world’s quick demise. Thomas also hears from witnesses of the Elevation and people whose loved ones vanished in the Finality, an event that, to this day, continues to puzzle Pulse researchers, even though theories abound about the Ascendants’ motivation.
Including never-before-published transcripts from task force meetings, diary entries from Black, and candid interviews with Ballard, Thomas also shows in Dahlia Black how a select few led their country in its darkest hours, toward a new level of humanity.
Voyager 1 was a message in a bottle. Our way of letting the galaxy know we existed. That we were out here if anyone wanted to find us.
Over the next forty years, the probe flew past Jupiter and Saturn before it drifted into the void, swallowed up by a silent universe. Or so we thought…
Truth is, our message didn’t go unheard.
Discovered by Dr. Dahlia Black, the mysterious Pulse was sent by a highly intelligent intergalactic species that called themselves the Ascendants. It soon becomes clear this alien race isn’t just interested in communication—they are capable of rewriting human DNA, in an astonishing process they call the Elevation.
Five years after the Pulse, acclaimed journalist Keith Thomas sets out to make sense of the event that altered the world. Thomas travels across the country to interview members of the task force who grappled to decode the Pulse and later disseminated its exact nature to worried citizens. He interviews the astronomers who initially doubted Black’s discovery of the Pulse—an error that critics say led to the world’s quick demise. Thomas also hears from witnesses of the Elevation and people whose loved ones vanished in the Finality, an event that, to this day, continues to puzzle Pulse researchers, even though theories abound about the Ascendants’ motivation.
Including never-before-published transcripts from task force meetings, diary entries from Black, and candid interviews with Ballard, Thomas also shows in Dahlia Black how a select few led their country in its darkest hours, toward a new level of humanity.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published August 13, 2019
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641 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
April 7, 2019
In Cold Blood as a first contact novel.
Truman Capote’s 1965 novel about his meticulous breakdown and analysis of a horrific murder in Kansas set the literary world on its end by crafting a non-fiction novel. Capote put together a mountain of evidence and detail surrounding the crime as well as exhaustive study of the murderers, victims, and the worlds that had created both.
Similarly, Max Brooks in his 2006 novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War used a unique narrative technique whereby he described the recent zombie apocalypse by means of personal accounts from survivors. Taking the template from Studs Terkel’s 1984 The Good War, Brooks crafted a tale that was both personal in detail and epic in scope.
Author Keith Thomas as given us an alien first contact story that borrows from these two styles to give us a unique study of an alien story that has transformed humanity.
A scientist looks back after the aliens landed and tries to makes sense of the changes wrought, while paying a sympathetic eye for detail of the aliens themselves and a discerning narrative for all concerned.
Most notable is Thomas’ painstaking attention to detail in his world building. He clearly spent great effort in crafting the backstory for his tale and then describing with a gifted storyteller’s voice.
Good SF.
*** A free copy of this book was provided in exchange for an honest review, thanks to Atria Books.
Truman Capote’s 1965 novel about his meticulous breakdown and analysis of a horrific murder in Kansas set the literary world on its end by crafting a non-fiction novel. Capote put together a mountain of evidence and detail surrounding the crime as well as exhaustive study of the murderers, victims, and the worlds that had created both.
Similarly, Max Brooks in his 2006 novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War used a unique narrative technique whereby he described the recent zombie apocalypse by means of personal accounts from survivors. Taking the template from Studs Terkel’s 1984 The Good War, Brooks crafted a tale that was both personal in detail and epic in scope.
Author Keith Thomas as given us an alien first contact story that borrows from these two styles to give us a unique study of an alien story that has transformed humanity.
A scientist looks back after the aliens landed and tries to makes sense of the changes wrought, while paying a sympathetic eye for detail of the aliens themselves and a discerning narrative for all concerned.
Most notable is Thomas’ painstaking attention to detail in his world building. He clearly spent great effort in crafting the backstory for his tale and then describing with a gifted storyteller’s voice.
Good SF.
*** A free copy of this book was provided in exchange for an honest review, thanks to Atria Books.
July 3, 2019
You can read this review and more on my blog.
What attracted me to this book is its comparison with World War Z (the book, not the awful movie). I loved WWZ and its (then) new take on the zombie apocalypse. I loved that the author chose to tell the story of what happened AFTER the end of the world as we know it. That it was as much a tale of fighting the zombies as one of rebuilding a life in a new reality where they existed. So another story about civilization coping with a world-changing event and rebuilding after it - I was all in.
Unfortunately, the only way this book IS like WWZ is that it's a collection of fictional interviews and diary entries. It is also very, unimaginatively boring... I kept hoping that there would be some emotional reward or grand revelation if only I kept reading, but I turned the last page and the only thought in my head was, "why waste 288 pages on THAT?"
That's it! Why drag this into 288 pages of boring accounts? Why rehash the discovery of the Pulse for 100 some pages?
I guess the biggest problem with this book is that the author chose the wrong people to be his "voices" telling this story. His fictional book writer interviews scientists, members of the White House, the President, and other fellow journalists. None of them were the boots on the ground when all these events happened. They observed and reacted from afar. What made WWZ so great was that we read the accounts from people who survived those zombie attacks. So it felt like we were right there with them when the horror was unfolding. Here, we have several degrees of separation between the events and the people who tell about those events. So guess what? I don't feel engaged. It's a snooze fest instead.
Plus, all the major events the Pulse and the Elevation triggered are just summarized by the author. Give me the eyewitness accounts of the massacre of the Elevated Camp, don't TELL me in a half-page summary that it happened. I don't want to read 10 different interviews with Dahlia Black about her accidental discovery of the Pulse. I got the gist of it the first time around, thank you very much! You want to keep me engaged? Give me more eye witness accounts of the transformations. Give me survivor reactions. Don't tell me that the world collapsed and is slowly rebuilding itself. SHOW me. Unfortunately, the author failed to do just that.
I also didn't quite understand the need to insert this whole side story about the Twelve. It brought nothing to the main storyline and felt absolutely useless.
To summarize, WWZ this is NOT. And definitely don't compare it to the brilliant weirdness of the Southern Reach trilogy. This is just plain boring.
PS. I received an advanced copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
What attracted me to this book is its comparison with World War Z (the book, not the awful movie). I loved WWZ and its (then) new take on the zombie apocalypse. I loved that the author chose to tell the story of what happened AFTER the end of the world as we know it. That it was as much a tale of fighting the zombies as one of rebuilding a life in a new reality where they existed. So another story about civilization coping with a world-changing event and rebuilding after it - I was all in.
Unfortunately, the only way this book IS like WWZ is that it's a collection of fictional interviews and diary entries. It is also very, unimaginatively boring... I kept hoping that there would be some emotional reward or grand revelation if only I kept reading, but I turned the last page and the only thought in my head was, "why waste 288 pages on THAT?"
That's it! Why drag this into 288 pages of boring accounts? Why rehash the discovery of the Pulse for 100 some pages?
I guess the biggest problem with this book is that the author chose the wrong people to be his "voices" telling this story. His fictional book writer interviews scientists, members of the White House, the President, and other fellow journalists. None of them were the boots on the ground when all these events happened. They observed and reacted from afar. What made WWZ so great was that we read the accounts from people who survived those zombie attacks. So it felt like we were right there with them when the horror was unfolding. Here, we have several degrees of separation between the events and the people who tell about those events. So guess what? I don't feel engaged. It's a snooze fest instead.
Plus, all the major events the Pulse and the Elevation triggered are just summarized by the author. Give me the eyewitness accounts of the massacre of the Elevated Camp, don't TELL me in a half-page summary that it happened. I don't want to read 10 different interviews with Dahlia Black about her accidental discovery of the Pulse. I got the gist of it the first time around, thank you very much! You want to keep me engaged? Give me more eye witness accounts of the transformations. Give me survivor reactions. Don't tell me that the world collapsed and is slowly rebuilding itself. SHOW me. Unfortunately, the author failed to do just that.
I also didn't quite understand the need to insert this whole side story about the Twelve. It brought nothing to the main storyline and felt absolutely useless.
To summarize, WWZ this is NOT. And definitely don't compare it to the brilliant weirdness of the Southern Reach trilogy. This is just plain boring.
PS. I received an advanced copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
March 31, 2019
So I stumbled upon this ARC and thought is sounded kinda interesting in a fairly generic sci-fi novel way. Boy was I wrong! Its been a very long time since I have been so into a solid sci-fi story and Keith Thomas’s Dahlia Black a truly unique, pure sci-fi story.
The year is 2028. Five years earlier the Pulse was discovered by Dr. Dahlia Mitchell, an astronomer at the University of California Santa Cruz, leading to the greatest transformation of human society in history. Unlike many authors before him, journalist Keith Thomas sets out to understand the Pulse from a more personal perspective of those affected - both directly and indirectly - by the alien code and what came after.
This book is truly unique in its approach to storytelling. Author Keith Thomas sets up his novel not in traditional style, but as if writing a non-fiction historical account of first contact with an alien species. Instead of ‘experiencing the event’ as it happens, Thomas starts us off after the fact and peels back the layers of truth and speculation surrounding the events with personal interviews, diary entries and recorded interview transcripts to paint a picture of not only the event itself, but life afterward. It is a masterful and powerful storytelling technique that works wonderfully well and draws you into the story deeper and deeper, keeping the reader engaged and excited right through the end.
I cannot praise this book enough. It is very much a top favorite of mine and one I wholeheartedly recommend for all readers, not just those sci-fi aficionados.
The year is 2028. Five years earlier the Pulse was discovered by Dr. Dahlia Mitchell, an astronomer at the University of California Santa Cruz, leading to the greatest transformation of human society in history. Unlike many authors before him, journalist Keith Thomas sets out to understand the Pulse from a more personal perspective of those affected - both directly and indirectly - by the alien code and what came after.
This book is truly unique in its approach to storytelling. Author Keith Thomas sets up his novel not in traditional style, but as if writing a non-fiction historical account of first contact with an alien species. Instead of ‘experiencing the event’ as it happens, Thomas starts us off after the fact and peels back the layers of truth and speculation surrounding the events with personal interviews, diary entries and recorded interview transcripts to paint a picture of not only the event itself, but life afterward. It is a masterful and powerful storytelling technique that works wonderfully well and draws you into the story deeper and deeper, keeping the reader engaged and excited right through the end.
I cannot praise this book enough. It is very much a top favorite of mine and one I wholeheartedly recommend for all readers, not just those sci-fi aficionados.
August 1, 2019
This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I am ambivalent about this novel. I didn’t dislike it, but it was rather dull. It's a solid 2.5.
The basic premise is that this is a faux-documentary-style account of an apocalyptic event. It’s a combination of interviews, transcriptions, and diary entries organized in chronological order to give an overview of the phenomenon called The Pulse. The titular Dahlia is the scientist who discovered that aliens were beaming a signal to earth, which has momentous consequences. Momentous to the people in the story. For me, it wasn’t that exciting.
It’s easy to compare this novel to World War Z. The only difference is that WWZ takes a more interesting approach to the format. Dahlia Black is didactic and constrained by its structure. The novel fails at being a “found text” for two reasons. The first is Dahlia’s diaries – they are not written like a diary. They are written like a blog post or report, in that she explains things that are clearly for our benefit (i.e., what dark matter is. Why would she explain this to herself?). It didn’t feel real. The other reason was that everything is there for the reader – we are given the reason, the reactions, the result of the Pulse. We aren’t left with any questions. WWZ and others of the found text genre (i.e. House of Leaves) let the readers fill in some blanks and make connections, or deliberately make us question what is true. We only needed one or two of Dahlia’s entries, because the rest were repetitive.
I can’t say a lot about the characters (as they aren’t really characters, in that they are mainly interviewees,), though I appreciated the gender and racial diversity. The lack of characterization is also why I’m so nonchalant about the novel. We’re given the perspective of people who didn’t experience anything tangible. Part of what made WWZ so great was the short story aspect – we’re given different perspectives on the same thing to flesh out the story and make it real. The characters in those stories had personality. This novel was … boring. The only good chapter was the little boy at the hospital because it was told by someone who was there. Everything else is in second-hand or a bird’s eye view. The massacres, the discovery of powers; all this would have been super engaging and emotionally resonant as first-person accounts (either by the person or a loved one watching it happen).
Also, what was with the conspiracy angle? It contributed nothing to the story.
All in all, this novel had a clever idea but failed to execute it in a way that was compelling. I'm sorry if most of the review seems negative, I just can't recall anything I loved about the book.
Further Comments (that didn't affect my rating):
There was a moment that made me laugh. Someone uses a metaphor about getting a burst of power from shifting a car from second to fourth. This is not how standard cars work. If you really want to slam a car into a faster RPM, you drop from a higher gear to a lower. I know, I’ve done it a lot (I only buy standard cars). But given this is an ARC, hopefully someone caught that metaphor and fixed it.
I must also add that the endnotes annoyed me. I would much rather have preferred footnotes because by the time the chapter ended I didn’t remember what the footnote was referring to. Given I was reading an ARC, this might be only true to my kindle version.
I am ambivalent about this novel. I didn’t dislike it, but it was rather dull. It's a solid 2.5.
The basic premise is that this is a faux-documentary-style account of an apocalyptic event. It’s a combination of interviews, transcriptions, and diary entries organized in chronological order to give an overview of the phenomenon called The Pulse. The titular Dahlia is the scientist who discovered that aliens were beaming a signal to earth, which has momentous consequences. Momentous to the people in the story. For me, it wasn’t that exciting.
It’s easy to compare this novel to World War Z. The only difference is that WWZ takes a more interesting approach to the format. Dahlia Black is didactic and constrained by its structure. The novel fails at being a “found text” for two reasons. The first is Dahlia’s diaries – they are not written like a diary. They are written like a blog post or report, in that she explains things that are clearly for our benefit (i.e., what dark matter is. Why would she explain this to herself?). It didn’t feel real. The other reason was that everything is there for the reader – we are given the reason, the reactions, the result of the Pulse. We aren’t left with any questions. WWZ and others of the found text genre (i.e. House of Leaves) let the readers fill in some blanks and make connections, or deliberately make us question what is true. We only needed one or two of Dahlia’s entries, because the rest were repetitive.
I can’t say a lot about the characters (as they aren’t really characters, in that they are mainly interviewees,), though I appreciated the gender and racial diversity. The lack of characterization is also why I’m so nonchalant about the novel. We’re given the perspective of people who didn’t experience anything tangible. Part of what made WWZ so great was the short story aspect – we’re given different perspectives on the same thing to flesh out the story and make it real. The characters in those stories had personality. This novel was … boring. The only good chapter was the little boy at the hospital because it was told by someone who was there. Everything else is in second-hand or a bird’s eye view. The massacres, the discovery of powers; all this would have been super engaging and emotionally resonant as first-person accounts (either by the person or a loved one watching it happen).
Also, what was with the conspiracy angle? It contributed nothing to the story.
All in all, this novel had a clever idea but failed to execute it in a way that was compelling. I'm sorry if most of the review seems negative, I just can't recall anything I loved about the book.
Further Comments (that didn't affect my rating):
There was a moment that made me laugh. Someone uses a metaphor about getting a burst of power from shifting a car from second to fourth. This is not how standard cars work. If you really want to slam a car into a faster RPM, you drop from a higher gear to a lower. I know, I’ve done it a lot (I only buy standard cars). But given this is an ARC, hopefully someone caught that metaphor and fixed it.
I must also add that the endnotes annoyed me. I would much rather have preferred footnotes because by the time the chapter ended I didn’t remember what the footnote was referring to. Given I was reading an ARC, this might be only true to my kindle version.
July 29, 2019
Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for my free advanced review copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
This is an interesting one. In the fine tradition of unconventionally formatted scifi rooted in the "real world" (think Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel) Dahlia Black sets out to tell a unique and fascinating story. Something in outer space is sending a transmission that can rewrite human DNA. And the rewritten people either died from the strain of the change or vanished.
This book is set 5 years later, in the form of a "non-fiction" book about the events, focusing on Dr. Dahlia Mitchell, who discovered the transmission and soon became the face of the end of the world as we know it. The book takes the form of interviews, transcripts of conversations, diary entries, letters, and phone calls, with small bits of narrator-driven text in between. The style created a very interesting narrative distance that I found really enhanced the story. It gave the author the freedom to deviate from a small group of characters, instead bringing in anecdotes from victims and survivors around the country. By breaking up the information and giving us many different viewpoints, the narrator was able to really develop this world.
Unfortunately, the pace dropped off quite a bit in the second half. The individual component stories lacked the tension that earlier anecdotes possessed. And the conspiracy theory seemed thrown in as an afterthought; it popped up a few times throughout but didn't seem to have overarching ramifications in the "present" world (ie the world in which this story is a newly published nonfiction). I started wondering why it mattered, which is when the formatting was really losing its weight.
I did like the characters and the attention to detail. The footnotes were fun and made the style seem more real. I'm definitely going to look into reading this author's previous book and will keep an eye out for any future stories. If you want an unconventional scifi tale set in what is essentially our world as we know it, this is a great book to pick up!
This is an interesting one. In the fine tradition of unconventionally formatted scifi rooted in the "real world" (think Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel) Dahlia Black sets out to tell a unique and fascinating story. Something in outer space is sending a transmission that can rewrite human DNA. And the rewritten people either died from the strain of the change or vanished.
This book is set 5 years later, in the form of a "non-fiction" book about the events, focusing on Dr. Dahlia Mitchell, who discovered the transmission and soon became the face of the end of the world as we know it. The book takes the form of interviews, transcripts of conversations, diary entries, letters, and phone calls, with small bits of narrator-driven text in between. The style created a very interesting narrative distance that I found really enhanced the story. It gave the author the freedom to deviate from a small group of characters, instead bringing in anecdotes from victims and survivors around the country. By breaking up the information and giving us many different viewpoints, the narrator was able to really develop this world.
Unfortunately, the pace dropped off quite a bit in the second half. The individual component stories lacked the tension that earlier anecdotes possessed. And the conspiracy theory seemed thrown in as an afterthought; it popped up a few times throughout but didn't seem to have overarching ramifications in the "present" world (ie the world in which this story is a newly published nonfiction). I started wondering why it mattered, which is when the formatting was really losing its weight.
I did like the characters and the attention to detail. The footnotes were fun and made the style seem more real. I'm definitely going to look into reading this author's previous book and will keep an eye out for any future stories. If you want an unconventional scifi tale set in what is essentially our world as we know it, this is a great book to pick up!
March 5, 2024
Just finished this sci-fi book, and let me share my thoughts. It's written like a documentary after some alien stuff happened. Conspiracies, secret groups, and messing with human DNA – kind of interesting. Even with the weird DNA stuff, I'm into it. Why mess with us, aliens? What's the point? Consequences are teased, but we're left with more questions than answers. Where did the affected people go? It's like reading interviews and memoirs, but I wish we got more answers. Not super thrilled, wouldn't recommend it. A mix of chaos, confusion, and a bit of strange DNA drama.
October 21, 2021
A mysterious radio signal from space rewrites the DNA of certain humans, with surprising results. This fast-paced thriller, set in the near future, consists of interviews and transcripts of meetings, covers the response of astronomers, the NSA, the White House, a shadowy black ops agency, and the general public. The inside blurb compares it to World War Z, but this is true only in the sense that many people from different walks of life are “interviewed” by the narrator, who is a future version of the novel’s actual author. No gory descriptions of fighting zombies (in fact, no zombies anywhere in the novel). Depth is added by showing the emotional impact of the events as seen through the eyes of the astronomer, the President, and the astronomer’s ex-boyfriend. The author did a good job with some parts of the astronomy, (a good list of catalogs to search for counterparts to the source of the radio signal, although I would have added Vizier) and less well with other parts (how to extract an extraterrestrial signal from something like a fast radio burst). This science fiction novel is a fast read and I found it fun.
August 4, 2019
I received this book as an eARC by the publishers via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I loved World War Z so when I saw that this book was written in a similar interview based style I knew I had to read it. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was incredibly factual and well thought out for a fictional event that changes human history. It was incredibly interesting and the author definitely has a talent for making mind boggling concepts easier to understand for the average reader. It was a bit dry due to the interviews mixed with lots of data but I found myself so wrapped up in the interviews and other entries that I really didn't mind. Fantastic book for people that liked World War Z's fictional but realistic interviews or people that like reading about alien contact.
I loved World War Z so when I saw that this book was written in a similar interview based style I knew I had to read it. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was incredibly factual and well thought out for a fictional event that changes human history. It was incredibly interesting and the author definitely has a talent for making mind boggling concepts easier to understand for the average reader. It was a bit dry due to the interviews mixed with lots of data but I found myself so wrapped up in the interviews and other entries that I really didn't mind. Fantastic book for people that liked World War Z's fictional but realistic interviews or people that like reading about alien contact.
November 18, 2019
I really like the oral history format (eg. World War Z) and this book was well-written and very interesting. An alien civilization from a distant galaxy sent a "pulse" which changes some of humanity with huge effects for the whole planet.
July 10, 2019
Like World War Z, but with aliens!
(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Netgalley. Trigger warning for violence and mental health issues, including suicide.)
On October 17, 2023, a rouge astronomer named Dahlia Mitchell unwittingly picks up a signal originating from farthest reaches of space. Rather than the sound of a dying star or an errant transmission from the breakroom microwave, Dahlia and her colleagues quickly realize that this signal is intentional, complex, and was most likely purposefully directed at earth by the members of an intelligent species. The signal is dubbed the "Pulse Code," owing to its similarity to a computer code as opposed to, say, an attempt at communication or contact.
Before the president and her cabinet can formulate an action plan, the Pulse begins working its nerdy magic. Once received, the Pulse got right down to business, altering the brains of roughly 30% of the earth's population. Initially, those affected experienced visual and auditory hallucinations. They saw, heard, felt, and tasted things others couldn't, from electromagnetic radiation and ultraviolet colors, to the ultrasonic songs of mice and insects, and gravitational waves. One woman was able to taste things with her fingers, like a fly. Many claimed to be able to see ghosts.
Before long the Elevated, as they would be known, manifested enhanced cognitive abilities; they could "calculate new forms of mathematics, develop innovative computer algorithms, uncover unseen biological processes, and create unimaginable works of art."
In the end, they simply vanished - pulled, perhaps, into that other dimension they saw, overlaid on top of our own. Yet many - as much as 15% of the infected, by some accounts - succumbed to the changes prior to the Finality, their bodies too weak to withstand the demands placed on them.
In a scant five years, the global population dropped from 7.7 billion to 2.5 billion. In addition to the 3 billion people killed or disappeared by the Ascendant - aka our alien overlords - billions more were murdered in the resulting violence and chaos.
Now it's five years on, and a reporter named Keith Thomas is trying to make sense of the Pulse Code. Disclosure: How One Woman's Discovery Led to the Greatest Event in Human History is the result. Thomas weaves together original interviews with historical documents, police transcripts, diary entries, and illicit files in order to deconstruct the Pulse and its aftermath.
So this is a really fun read, and comparisons to World War Z are spot on. I enjoy the change of pace that faux nonfiction books constructed of various files offer, and Dahlia Black is no exception. It's kind of like World War Z in this way, but with aliens! Or like Sylvain Neuvel's Themis Files trilogy, but with a whimper instead of a bang. (The latter has giant weaponized alien robots, so there's that.)
I had a lot of, um, fun following Thomas on this ride, as he imagines what a world suddenly devoid of more than half its population might look like. ("Fun" in scare quotes because many of the events outlined here are downright horrifying, particularly because they have happened in the past and will no doubt replicate themselves in the future.) Just take the reference to deepfakes - which I just learned about on an episode of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee a few short months ago - used four years from now to foment mob violence against the Elevated.
There's also a great conspiracy theory subplot that adds another layer of intrigue and general gruesomeness to the story. (Yes, I'm talking about the girl with two spinal columns.)
Dahlia Black is a great summer read that would also make a great summer blockbuster. Just don't do it like Brad Pitt's World War Z, okay. That shit was disappointing.
P.S. I also await the comic book adaptation.
http://www.easyvegan.info/2019/08/16/...
(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Netgalley. Trigger warning for violence and mental health issues, including suicide.)
In 1977, the whole world turned towards the stars. We wanted to believe there was intelligent life somewhere out there. And we hoped that if we could reach them, maybe they’d reach back. Voyager 1, this satellite dish with bristling antenna, was a message in a bottle. Our way of letting the galaxy know we existed. That we were out here if anyone wanted to find us.
Over the next forty years, the probe flew past Jupiter and Saturn before it drifted into the void, swallowed up by a silent universe. Or so we thought . . .
Truth is, our message didn’t go unheard.
The universe reached back and changed everything. Not with war or an invasion but with a whisper. Almost overnight, all that we knew transformed.
And I saw it happen.
I am not an incubator, but my head has become an executable.
On October 17, 2023, a rouge astronomer named Dahlia Mitchell unwittingly picks up a signal originating from farthest reaches of space. Rather than the sound of a dying star or an errant transmission from the breakroom microwave, Dahlia and her colleagues quickly realize that this signal is intentional, complex, and was most likely purposefully directed at earth by the members of an intelligent species. The signal is dubbed the "Pulse Code," owing to its similarity to a computer code as opposed to, say, an attempt at communication or contact.
Before the president and her cabinet can formulate an action plan, the Pulse begins working its nerdy magic. Once received, the Pulse got right down to business, altering the brains of roughly 30% of the earth's population. Initially, those affected experienced visual and auditory hallucinations. They saw, heard, felt, and tasted things others couldn't, from electromagnetic radiation and ultraviolet colors, to the ultrasonic songs of mice and insects, and gravitational waves. One woman was able to taste things with her fingers, like a fly. Many claimed to be able to see ghosts.
Before long the Elevated, as they would be known, manifested enhanced cognitive abilities; they could "calculate new forms of mathematics, develop innovative computer algorithms, uncover unseen biological processes, and create unimaginable works of art."
In the end, they simply vanished - pulled, perhaps, into that other dimension they saw, overlaid on top of our own. Yet many - as much as 15% of the infected, by some accounts - succumbed to the changes prior to the Finality, their bodies too weak to withstand the demands placed on them.
In a scant five years, the global population dropped from 7.7 billion to 2.5 billion. In addition to the 3 billion people killed or disappeared by the Ascendant - aka our alien overlords - billions more were murdered in the resulting violence and chaos.
Now it's five years on, and a reporter named Keith Thomas is trying to make sense of the Pulse Code. Disclosure: How One Woman's Discovery Led to the Greatest Event in Human History is the result. Thomas weaves together original interviews with historical documents, police transcripts, diary entries, and illicit files in order to deconstruct the Pulse and its aftermath.
So this is a really fun read, and comparisons to World War Z are spot on. I enjoy the change of pace that faux nonfiction books constructed of various files offer, and Dahlia Black is no exception. It's kind of like World War Z in this way, but with aliens! Or like Sylvain Neuvel's Themis Files trilogy, but with a whimper instead of a bang. (The latter has giant weaponized alien robots, so there's that.)
I had a lot of, um, fun following Thomas on this ride, as he imagines what a world suddenly devoid of more than half its population might look like. ("Fun" in scare quotes because many of the events outlined here are downright horrifying, particularly because they have happened in the past and will no doubt replicate themselves in the future.) Just take the reference to deepfakes - which I just learned about on an episode of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee a few short months ago - used four years from now to foment mob violence against the Elevated.
There's also a great conspiracy theory subplot that adds another layer of intrigue and general gruesomeness to the story. (Yes, I'm talking about the girl with two spinal columns.)
Dahlia Black is a great summer read that would also make a great summer blockbuster. Just don't do it like Brad Pitt's World War Z, okay. That shit was disappointing.
P.S. I also await the comic book adaptation.
http://www.easyvegan.info/2019/08/16/...
November 27, 2019
Reads like a made for TV movie
I saw this book compared to World War Z, the novel not the movie, in several quotes advertising it. That's true only in format; much of Dahlia Black is presented in the form of interviews between the fictional author and other people. But whereas the characters in World War Z come across as authentic, those in this novel feel like they were ripped straight out of pop culture. There's an "outsider" scientist/alien expert introduced early who reminded me of Jeff Goldblum from Independence Day. There's a Men In Black/deepstate anti alien conspiracy going around killing people who know about aliens, up to and including government officials. It's a problem when in a story with aliens in it, it's the human characters I find the most contrived.
The story's not bad, but it's also not great. It's certainly no World War Z.
I saw this book compared to World War Z, the novel not the movie, in several quotes advertising it. That's true only in format; much of Dahlia Black is presented in the form of interviews between the fictional author and other people. But whereas the characters in World War Z come across as authentic, those in this novel feel like they were ripped straight out of pop culture. There's an "outsider" scientist/alien expert introduced early who reminded me of Jeff Goldblum from Independence Day. There's a Men In Black/deepstate anti alien conspiracy going around killing people who know about aliens, up to and including government officials. It's a problem when in a story with aliens in it, it's the human characters I find the most contrived.
The story's not bad, but it's also not great. It's certainly no World War Z.
August 29, 2019
I really wish I could say I liked this book a whole bunch more than I did because there are some really compelling ideas here that just never develop into anything very interesting. I originally picked up this book because of the title. I figured a science fiction novel featuring the Black Dahlia killer would have to be interesting, but the book actually has nothing to do with the Black Dahlia; it's just that one of the characters is named Dahlia Black. I checked the interwebs to find out if Dahlia Black is a legit name and apparently there is an ex-wrestler named Dahlia Black who makes candles and either likes kiwis or is from New Zealand.
So what's the book about? A woman discovers a transmission from space while searching for proof of dark matter. The message is actually an interplanetary trojan virus that hacks human DNA and causes people to get super smart or mutate or just die. There's also a shadowy conspiracy that has known about the transmission and has been exposing people to since the 60's. So now you're thinking to yourself, "this seems like an interesting premise for a sci-fi book, so why'd he only give it three stars?" The problem for the book is that it's all set-up and then... nothing. I don't mean it gets boring or just sort of meanders; I mean the transmission is discovered, people freak out, a conspiracy is discovered, and the end.
Guide to my review scores:
5 stars - You should read this yesterday.
4 stars - Like a brownie without walnuts, still good, but could have been great.
3 stars - Like Icarus, it flew a little too close to the sun.
2 stars - If you woke up in a Tijuana jail with no recollection of the night before and only this book, you might still be better off counting the cracks in the ceiling.
1 star - Gift it to John Wayne Gacy.
So what's the book about? A woman discovers a transmission from space while searching for proof of dark matter. The message is actually an interplanetary trojan virus that hacks human DNA and causes people to get super smart or mutate or just die. There's also a shadowy conspiracy that has known about the transmission and has been exposing people to since the 60's. So now you're thinking to yourself, "this seems like an interesting premise for a sci-fi book, so why'd he only give it three stars?" The problem for the book is that it's all set-up and then... nothing. I don't mean it gets boring or just sort of meanders; I mean the transmission is discovered, people freak out, a conspiracy is discovered, and the end.
Guide to my review scores:
5 stars - You should read this yesterday.
4 stars - Like a brownie without walnuts, still good, but could have been great.
3 stars - Like Icarus, it flew a little too close to the sun.
2 stars - If you woke up in a Tijuana jail with no recollection of the night before and only this book, you might still be better off counting the cracks in the ceiling.
1 star - Gift it to John Wayne Gacy.
August 5, 2019
I enjoyed this book to an extent. It seemed a little top-down in its telling. Essentially, the story is wanting of some different points of view at times. As much as Dahlia’s character is fantastic, the others, especially the scientists, melt into each other. My problem with this review is that I don’t want to give up to much of the plot to explain my issues… I just didn’t feel like the end payoff holds up too well, especially after knowing the “ending” of the the plot.
Read this one for a good dystopian, alien-attack aftermath oral history. It may be a bit uneven, but the protagonist is savvy and realistic.
3.5 out of 5 stars.
For my full review: https://paulspicks.blog/2019/07/25/da...
For all my reviews: https://paulspicks.blog
Read this one for a good dystopian, alien-attack aftermath oral history. It may be a bit uneven, but the protagonist is savvy and realistic.
3.5 out of 5 stars.
For my full review: https://paulspicks.blog/2019/07/25/da...
For all my reviews: https://paulspicks.blog
August 26, 2019
I wasn’t crazy about this, could you tell?
The premise is interesting - a scientist intercepts a “Pulse” from an alien species. Turns out, it hacks peoples’ DNA and changes some of them. Some of those hacked people die. Then everyone who is left disappears a la the Rapture.
This would have been more compelling if more of it was from the POV of people who were closer to the action, instead of a bunch of political appointees.
Also, every character had the same style, so that when reading a transcript of a meeting, it was almost impossible to differentiate the characters if not for their names before each comment. And there was little differentiation between the “author” and Dahlia’s diary entries, and the transcripts.
Meh.
The premise is interesting - a scientist intercepts a “Pulse” from an alien species. Turns out, it hacks peoples’ DNA and changes some of them. Some of those hacked people die. Then everyone who is left disappears a la the Rapture.
This would have been more compelling if more of it was from the POV of people who were closer to the action, instead of a bunch of political appointees.
Also, every character had the same style, so that when reading a transcript of a meeting, it was almost impossible to differentiate the characters if not for their names before each comment. And there was little differentiation between the “author” and Dahlia’s diary entries, and the transcripts.
Meh.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 15, 2019
I wanted to like this novel a lot but I didn’t . I knew there was a problem by the length of time it took me to finish this book. I don’t know if there were too many accounts repeating the same story but this novel was a snoozer. I finished it because I was hoping for an ending that made the novel worth it, but sadly it was as lackluster as the rest of the book. But the story idea is creative thus not a horrible book.
April 25, 2020
I've always been attracted to fictional books written as nonfictional books. I love looking for and seeing the little details the author sprinkled to make the book more real and believable. Dahlia Black is full of these little details; from the copyright page that says it was published in 2028, the various footnotes, and to the bibliography page full of "published" books written in 2025, 2026, so on and etc. This book could very well be a nonfictional account of a cataclysmic event. These details are, admittedly, my favorite aspect of this book.
Dahlia Black, despite scientific jargon that gets explained in the footnotes, is an easy read. The entries are short and a mix of transcribed interviews, diary entries, videos, and meetings. However, none of the characters felt like real people to me. I'll admit that I don't read a lot of nonfictional books that are a compiled assortment of evidence, so I'm not sure if what I'm nitpicking is a common occurrence. All of the characters- Keith Thomas, President Vannessa Ballard, Dahlia Mitchell, Jon Hurtado, Glenn Owen, etc- had the same voice. They all had the same manner of talking; they all used metaphors, vivid imagery, and scientific speech that they could pass off as the same person. None of them had a distinct voice that could differentiate them from each other if Thomas took their names away. The only exception is Dr. Xavier Faber, mainly because he was sassy, although he still had a similar style to the others.
As for the plot, I started out highly intrigued, but my interest petered out about halfway through. This book was presented as being an investigation as to why the Elevation occurred, and the answer is, essentially, that there is no answer. I get what the book's message was: we, as humans, need to stop waiting for some higher power or, you know, aliens with higher knowledge to take us away and make life better because we are all that we will ever have. All we're doing, as a species, is setting ourselves up for disappointment. I like this message because it can be a hopeful message rather than a dooming one; we can be great by ourselves. However, I don't feel like the book correctly drove home this message. I think that the book will get the message across, but its impact wasn't strong enough to resonate with me. I didn't close the book and ponder. Instead, I went "cool" and closed the book.
Overall, I enjoyed Dahlia Black. What I particularly enjoyed, besides the little details mentioned previously, was the irony. Listen, reading this book whilst being quarantined was hilarious at some points, mainly due to the irony of it all. If you like reading fictional books written in an investigative journalistic style, like piecing together a puzzle, and like the concept of aliens, then I'd recommend this book for you. (Don't get high hopes about the aliens, though).
Dahlia Black, despite scientific jargon that gets explained in the footnotes, is an easy read. The entries are short and a mix of transcribed interviews, diary entries, videos, and meetings. However, none of the characters felt like real people to me. I'll admit that I don't read a lot of nonfictional books that are a compiled assortment of evidence, so I'm not sure if what I'm nitpicking is a common occurrence. All of the characters- Keith Thomas, President Vannessa Ballard, Dahlia Mitchell, Jon Hurtado, Glenn Owen, etc- had the same voice. They all had the same manner of talking; they all used metaphors, vivid imagery, and scientific speech that they could pass off as the same person. None of them had a distinct voice that could differentiate them from each other if Thomas took their names away. The only exception is Dr. Xavier Faber, mainly because he was sassy, although he still had a similar style to the others.
As for the plot, I started out highly intrigued, but my interest petered out about halfway through. This book was presented as being an investigation as to why the Elevation occurred, and the answer is, essentially, that there is no answer. I get what the book's message was: we, as humans, need to stop waiting for some higher power or, you know, aliens with higher knowledge to take us away and make life better because we are all that we will ever have. All we're doing, as a species, is setting ourselves up for disappointment. I like this message because it can be a hopeful message rather than a dooming one; we can be great by ourselves. However, I don't feel like the book correctly drove home this message. I think that the book will get the message across, but its impact wasn't strong enough to resonate with me. I didn't close the book and ponder. Instead, I went "cool" and closed the book.
Overall, I enjoyed Dahlia Black. What I particularly enjoyed, besides the little details mentioned previously, was the irony. Listen, reading this book whilst being quarantined was hilarious at some points, mainly due to the irony of it all. If you like reading fictional books written in an investigative journalistic style, like piecing together a puzzle, and like the concept of aliens, then I'd recommend this book for you. (Don't get high hopes about the aliens, though).
September 22, 2020
“I can tell it’s not the same as it was a day ago.
Something has been altered. Imperceptible, maybe.
The thing is I can still see the light waves.”
Usually I’m meticulous about choosing books. I probably read so many reviews that I could have had half the book finished if I had just read that instead. Dahlia Black wasn’t like that. I saw it tucked away on a shelf, and I liked the name so I took it home.
I want to be clear that this book is only about the aftermath of the first alien contact. It isn’t a mystery to be solved, there’s no traversing space, it’s simply telling the story of what happened, and what that meant for the rest of the world.
I loved it, but it didn’t quite earn that last star for me. Each chapter is told either through interviews, transcripts, or diary entries. This was meh for me. I liked the idea in concept, but especially with the daily journal entries, it bothered me that “Dahlia” wrote like she was writing a novel. There were parts that took me out of the scene because I couldn’t help thinking, “that would never happen!” Those moments were all about the unrealistic way she wrote in her journal, not about the aliens essentially hacking human DNA.
There is a lot of science, but it seems like the author didn’t understand the science he was using at times. There were moments where (even as a non STEM person) I realized the numbers Thomas was using weren’t supporting the story he was telling.
The last reason I couldn’t give it one more star is because I wanted to know so much more. I can respect the decision to stay focused on “present day,” but even down to the last pages I had hoped for a glimpse behind the curtain.
Overall I think Dahlia Black was a fun book about a concept I have never seen used before. The things it got right, were really right. There are shady government organizations, whacky scientists, PR driven presidents, and comments on the current real social climate in the US, but I don’t think I could tell you where Thomas stands politically. The protagonist is lovely, and I liked being in her head most of the time, even if it seemed far fetched. There are several supporting stories, but really only one plot, the others are used just to continue to paint a picture, so the reader sees all sides of the phenomenon. And finally, I liked the book within a book concept. For instance, there are two acknowledgments pages. One for Keith Thomas, one for the character the author. It’s a short easy read, so I say go for it.
Something has been altered. Imperceptible, maybe.
The thing is I can still see the light waves.”
Usually I’m meticulous about choosing books. I probably read so many reviews that I could have had half the book finished if I had just read that instead. Dahlia Black wasn’t like that. I saw it tucked away on a shelf, and I liked the name so I took it home.
I want to be clear that this book is only about the aftermath of the first alien contact. It isn’t a mystery to be solved, there’s no traversing space, it’s simply telling the story of what happened, and what that meant for the rest of the world.
I loved it, but it didn’t quite earn that last star for me. Each chapter is told either through interviews, transcripts, or diary entries. This was meh for me. I liked the idea in concept, but especially with the daily journal entries, it bothered me that “Dahlia” wrote like she was writing a novel. There were parts that took me out of the scene because I couldn’t help thinking, “that would never happen!” Those moments were all about the unrealistic way she wrote in her journal, not about the aliens essentially hacking human DNA.
There is a lot of science, but it seems like the author didn’t understand the science he was using at times. There were moments where (even as a non STEM person) I realized the numbers Thomas was using weren’t supporting the story he was telling.
The last reason I couldn’t give it one more star is because I wanted to know so much more. I can respect the decision to stay focused on “present day,” but even down to the last pages I had hoped for a glimpse behind the curtain.
Overall I think Dahlia Black was a fun book about a concept I have never seen used before. The things it got right, were really right. There are shady government organizations, whacky scientists, PR driven presidents, and comments on the current real social climate in the US, but I don’t think I could tell you where Thomas stands politically. The protagonist is lovely, and I liked being in her head most of the time, even if it seemed far fetched. There are several supporting stories, but really only one plot, the others are used just to continue to paint a picture, so the reader sees all sides of the phenomenon. And finally, I liked the book within a book concept. For instance, there are two acknowledgments pages. One for Keith Thomas, one for the character the author. It’s a short easy read, so I say go for it.
June 9, 2023
That was odd. A third of the way in I thought it was exciting, but as we crawled along it got less and less so.
The format was intriguing, but forced a realism that I don't like in my SF stories. I read SF to go somewhere else, not a near-future this-world.
I like my events to unfold in sequence, rather than being taken for granted and then slowly explained, as here. And then, when we get to the payoff .... ah, well, that's where this one fell down for me.
The Elevation is barely plausible, but the Finality ... that's just too close to the Rapture, wherein people also just vanish, leaving their clothes behind. And now we're edging into evangelicalism and L. Ron Hubbard, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU DON'T EVEN TRY TO EXPLAIN IT. Not a shred of how, or why, or by what means.
Thomas goes on and on about smaller brains, and DNA rewrites, and this is perfectly competent SF handwaving. But which are the brain receptors for teleportation? What are the energy vectors required for dematerialization? What happened to conservation of energy? Was there a sound as a portion of space became empty? Why or why not? Was it worldwide?
Why did the cities collapse and the electrical grids fail after the Finality? Did it select qualified people specifically? Was the Finality like a giant EMP pulse? And with all the exhaustive documentation such as what we just read, where is the slightest trace of anything beyond "then, THAT happened and we all stopped thinking."
I really expected a code of "years later, we learned that ..." with some what-was-THAT. You can argue that a collapsed civilization hasn't time for that, but I prefer to think that when you have invented a couldn't-possibly-happen scenario, your only choice is to set up a reason for not explaining it. Feh.
Almost a good book.
The format was intriguing, but forced a realism that I don't like in my SF stories. I read SF to go somewhere else, not a near-future this-world.
I like my events to unfold in sequence, rather than being taken for granted and then slowly explained, as here. And then, when we get to the payoff .... ah, well, that's where this one fell down for me.
The Elevation is barely plausible, but the Finality ... that's just too close to the Rapture, wherein people also just vanish, leaving their clothes behind. And now we're edging into evangelicalism and L. Ron Hubbard, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU DON'T EVEN TRY TO EXPLAIN IT. Not a shred of how, or why, or by what means.
Thomas goes on and on about smaller brains, and DNA rewrites, and this is perfectly competent SF handwaving. But which are the brain receptors for teleportation? What are the energy vectors required for dematerialization? What happened to conservation of energy? Was there a sound as a portion of space became empty? Why or why not? Was it worldwide?
Why did the cities collapse and the electrical grids fail after the Finality? Did it select qualified people specifically? Was the Finality like a giant EMP pulse? And with all the exhaustive documentation such as what we just read, where is the slightest trace of anything beyond "then, THAT happened and we all stopped thinking."
I really expected a code of "years later, we learned that ..." with some what-was-THAT. You can argue that a collapsed civilization hasn't time for that, but I prefer to think that when you have invented a couldn't-possibly-happen scenario, your only choice is to set up a reason for not explaining it. Feh.
Almost a good book.
September 14, 2019
I'm not usually one for hard sci-fi, but this book sounded pretty intriguing, so I gave it a go. Now I've discovered a whole new story-telling style that I really love. I thought this would be the type of book that drags on forever, that I'd pick up and put down, a slow read. Quite the contrary, I found myself devouring it, completely immersed as if I'd actually lived through the events.
The story itself is told in the form of diary entries, transcripts, and interviews. It made for a quick read, since there wasn't any text really dedicated to world building/description that wasn't just natural conversation or internal dialog. The diary entries made the main character - Dahlia - super relatable, as we were privy to her thoughts and emotions as she went through Elevation. It gave the overall story the personal touch that kept me turning pages, wanting to know exactly what happened to her next.
I think part of why it was so immersive, too, was because the book is composed in a way that sort of assumes the reader actually did live through its events(there’s even a fake bibliography for references at the end!). And even though it reads that way, at no point was I confused about what was happening, because the natural progression of the book gave just enough information to keep me in the loop, while also making it feel like I was discovering the events as I went. And though there were points where the author obviously needed to recap or spoon-feed information, it never felt unnatural or like info-dumps. This book is an excellent example of the author trusting the reader and skillfully weaving the world-building in an informational but not dry way.
I didn't expect this to be a new favorite, but here we are!
The story itself is told in the form of diary entries, transcripts, and interviews. It made for a quick read, since there wasn't any text really dedicated to world building/description that wasn't just natural conversation or internal dialog. The diary entries made the main character - Dahlia - super relatable, as we were privy to her thoughts and emotions as she went through Elevation. It gave the overall story the personal touch that kept me turning pages, wanting to know exactly what happened to her next.
I think part of why it was so immersive, too, was because the book is composed in a way that sort of assumes the reader actually did live through its events(there’s even a fake bibliography for references at the end!). And even though it reads that way, at no point was I confused about what was happening, because the natural progression of the book gave just enough information to keep me in the loop, while also making it feel like I was discovering the events as I went. And though there were points where the author obviously needed to recap or spoon-feed information, it never felt unnatural or like info-dumps. This book is an excellent example of the author trusting the reader and skillfully weaving the world-building in an informational but not dry way.
I didn't expect this to be a new favorite, but here we are!
April 22, 2021
Reading a book published in 2019 about a pandemic (of sorts) is always going to be very disconcerting. Especially a book that is already meta-fictional. That being said, it was an enjoyable read. The book was plot-driven for the most part, with so many characters playing so many parts that only a few characters stood out enough to drive the book forward.
This book deals with the way humans handle change, grief, and even life itself. The ending of the novel rings a bit sad as the reader spends all this time wondering when or if we’d be able to meet the aliens responsible for such a powerful sweeping of humanity’s expectation of First Contact. But it was still masterfully done. The reader isn’t left disappointed by the ending, just a bit sad for Dahlia.
Dahlia herself was an amazingly written character for her to have such little time in the novel. Her voice guides the novel, even with the narrator there to literally steer the book where it was going, Dahlia still remained my focus. Although it was only mentioned in passing, her addiction issues, as well as her grief from her mother make her an immensely sad character, but not one to pity. Her outlook as she is Elevated is a stark difference from the varying viewpoints the reader is exposed to throughout the book. She is lively and reverent for life as it changes before her very eyes. Since the reader is not exposed to any other Elevated characters, her viewpoint is that much more invigorating.
This book deals with the way humans handle change, grief, and even life itself. The ending of the novel rings a bit sad as the reader spends all this time wondering when or if we’d be able to meet the aliens responsible for such a powerful sweeping of humanity’s expectation of First Contact. But it was still masterfully done. The reader isn’t left disappointed by the ending, just a bit sad for Dahlia.
Dahlia herself was an amazingly written character for her to have such little time in the novel. Her voice guides the novel, even with the narrator there to literally steer the book where it was going, Dahlia still remained my focus. Although it was only mentioned in passing, her addiction issues, as well as her grief from her mother make her an immensely sad character, but not one to pity. Her outlook as she is Elevated is a stark difference from the varying viewpoints the reader is exposed to throughout the book. She is lively and reverent for life as it changes before her very eyes. Since the reader is not exposed to any other Elevated characters, her viewpoint is that much more invigorating.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 14, 2019
A quick and easy read (by SF standards at least) and an original concept, but ultimately unsatisfying:
* The journal / variety of voices that seemed fresh in World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War seems hopelessly tired 13 years later';
* The format also pushes everything into the past tense, which robs the descriptions of the Elevation / its effects of drama (especially The Twelve subplot);
* The world-building is sketchy ... Thomas posits a unique event that robs the world of a substantial portion of its population but only provides glimpses and snippets of what it might look like;
* The glimpses of life after the Finality seems an awful lot like a nice, safe, middle-of-the-road version of heaven;
* Because the rest of the future seems so anodyne, the Big Reveal is pretty anticlimactic.
Interesting at first but eventually underwhelming.
Footnote:
' The footnotes bugged me because the font / size of the indicators combined with my aging eyes meant I constantly missed where the footnotes were in the text and had to scan back over a page to discover where I was "meant" to find / read them.
* The journal / variety of voices that seemed fresh in World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War seems hopelessly tired 13 years later';
* The format also pushes everything into the past tense, which robs the descriptions of the Elevation / its effects of drama (especially The Twelve subplot);
* The world-building is sketchy ... Thomas posits a unique event that robs the world of a substantial portion of its population but only provides glimpses and snippets of what it might look like;
* The glimpses of life after the Finality seems an awful lot like a nice, safe, middle-of-the-road version of heaven;
* Because the rest of the future seems so anodyne, the Big Reveal is pretty anticlimactic.
Interesting at first but eventually underwhelming.
Footnote:
' The footnotes bugged me because the font / size of the indicators combined with my aging eyes meant I constantly missed where the footnotes were in the text and had to scan back over a page to discover where I was "meant" to find / read them.
January 13, 2020
An overall enjoyable scifi romp. I enjoyed the scifi plot holes in addition to how similar to the work is to other recent, what I call, "apocalypse" fiction such as HBO's "The Leftovers". The mechanism for the book is also similar to a recent Science channel series about alien "colonization" via genetic manipulation. That's ok. The primary purpose of the book was about the characters and how the action all unfolds. I think it would make a pretty good netflix series.
Some may enjoy the SJW elements to the story with emphasis on the diversity of the characters. I chuckled in that doesn't it emphasize race by pointing it out rather than just letting us think of the characters as we want to imagine them? Just MAKE/WRITE interesting characters with personality rather than casting them. Scifi often has a problem with interesting character development but despite the flaws, did a pretty good job of making them engaging and generating reader emotional attachment (for me at least.)
I liked that the author didn't wrap up everything with a neat bow which was innovative. The style of the book as a sort of "post apocalyptic" account from a journalist allows the thrill of not seeing everything behind the curtain or how the sausage is made.
Some may enjoy the SJW elements to the story with emphasis on the diversity of the characters. I chuckled in that doesn't it emphasize race by pointing it out rather than just letting us think of the characters as we want to imagine them? Just MAKE/WRITE interesting characters with personality rather than casting them. Scifi often has a problem with interesting character development but despite the flaws, did a pretty good job of making them engaging and generating reader emotional attachment (for me at least.)
I liked that the author didn't wrap up everything with a neat bow which was innovative. The style of the book as a sort of "post apocalyptic" account from a journalist allows the thrill of not seeing everything behind the curtain or how the sausage is made.
April 13, 2023
Really quite enjoyed this book. I knew nothing about it or the author beforehand - I guess you can say I judged the book (& whether or not to read it) by its cover! And I was not disappointed. Written in a journalistic and documentarian style, the book charts the detection of the Pulse, first contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence, and the subsequent Elevation and Finality. The story is compelling and told interestingly in a series of first person voices. No spoilers here, but having read many, many sci-fi books, and watched many, many sci-fi movies and tv shows, many of them involving some type of alien invasion, I found this narrative to be quite refreshing. I’m put in mind of the last four lines (or at least the last two, repetitive as they are) of TS Eliot’s The Hollow Men, but others may see that reference as overly trite. Nonetheless, as unimaginative as my review might be, that shouldn’t distract possible readers from a decent story, decently told. A solid 4 stars (maybe even a shade more) from me.
December 18, 2019
Highly derivative and a waste of time. It's obvious the author, Keith Thomas, lifted ideas from the following:
1. Arthur C. Clarke - "Childhood's End"
2. Carl Sagan - "Contact"
3. Stephen King - "Cell"
4. Dennis Feldman - "Species" (the 1995 sci-fi movie)
5. etc. etc. etc. etc..It's like he (Thomas) doesn't bother to come up with anything original.
The LBGTQ+ crap thrown in does nothing but annoy me. For all we know this is probably Thomas just trying to satisfy the publisher's "Gay-Friendly" guidelines, but it makes me sick because it's shoe-horned in and completely out-of-place. This is very common in sci-fi writing and all-too-common since the late 1990's. But let's face it the Gay Gestapo will not let you get published if you don't refer to a positive male character's "husband" or a major female character's wife or "soul-mate" named "Jennifer". Of course, I'm 100% correct on this.
1. Arthur C. Clarke - "Childhood's End"
2. Carl Sagan - "Contact"
3. Stephen King - "Cell"
4. Dennis Feldman - "Species" (the 1995 sci-fi movie)
5. etc. etc. etc. etc..It's like he (Thomas) doesn't bother to come up with anything original.
The LBGTQ+ crap thrown in does nothing but annoy me. For all we know this is probably Thomas just trying to satisfy the publisher's "Gay-Friendly" guidelines, but it makes me sick because it's shoe-horned in and completely out-of-place. This is very common in sci-fi writing and all-too-common since the late 1990's. But let's face it the Gay Gestapo will not let you get published if you don't refer to a positive male character's "husband" or a major female character's wife or "soul-mate" named "Jennifer". Of course, I'm 100% correct on this.
December 17, 2022
This is "thinking person's Sci Fi" - an innovative approach to the "First Contact" myth. This ain't the Hollywood version (although this story would make a great flick) of War of the Worlds or ET, nosiree!
Told in very deep-journalistic style (e.g. an investigative reporter sharing interview notes with key figures in a monumental event for humanity - several years AFTER it happens! But that doesn't have negative impact on the wonderful suspense of this story). Multiple timelines to keep track of - and realistic sense of a bunch of missing puzzle pieces that eventually (mostly) fit together, I promise.
No real heroes but very real, relatable characters in an amazing but indeed credible version of near future. So much so, that I could see this book moving from my classic Sci Fi shelf to Historical Fiction shelf in my lifetime. If that intrigues you, pick up this book, read it, and tell me I'm wrong :-)
Told in very deep-journalistic style (e.g. an investigative reporter sharing interview notes with key figures in a monumental event for humanity - several years AFTER it happens! But that doesn't have negative impact on the wonderful suspense of this story). Multiple timelines to keep track of - and realistic sense of a bunch of missing puzzle pieces that eventually (mostly) fit together, I promise.
No real heroes but very real, relatable characters in an amazing but indeed credible version of near future. So much so, that I could see this book moving from my classic Sci Fi shelf to Historical Fiction shelf in my lifetime. If that intrigues you, pick up this book, read it, and tell me I'm wrong :-)
August 15, 2019
An unusual book written in the year 2028 by a journalist documenting an alien contact event. Even has a bibliography of books published in the mid 2020’s. It’s done in an interview format of key people involved in the experience, including scientists and public figures such as the President of the U.S. Also transcripts of various task force meetings and the diary of the discovering scientist. At times I got a bit confused with the format as to who was talking and whether it was current or in the past. Still, overall, an intriguing story but with a somewhat unsatisfying ending. Would like to have learned more about the Ascendants and the people who disappeared in the Finality. Perhaps a sequel?
January 15, 2020
I tore through this book. The comparison to other fake histories of disaster like world war is apt. The reader knows a bit about what happened from the beginning but you will be kept at attention as the mysteries everyone in the world knows as history are teased out. As a molecular biologist and recognizing the background of the author I had a hard time getting my head around the mechanism of action of the premise. But I quickly got past it by ignoring it and enjoying the show. What would happen if that occurred oh that is plausible. The world building as tease worked very well for me. The book was also short so you got to enjoy and then escape before it got tiresome. This is something I could see developing into a property but I highly recommend it for philosophical escapism.
March 18, 2020
This is a great, fun, well-assembled read. And it's really scary! Thomas makes a great science-fiction story out of the current paranoia of government conspiracy and social media intrusion and disruption of the world's social order.
The presentation moves along easily with interviews, personal histories, and "official" transcripts. All fake! Which makes for a great story line and interesting twists. Thomas uses footnotes galore to add a spin on lots of the story! Think "Andromeda Strain." Done the same way to give that authentic feel and make you worry and wonder. Yet also entertained.
What is good about Thomas's work is it feels like what we hear in the news today taken a few years into the future. Then heightened to create a really spooky tale. This could all happen!
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The presentation moves along easily with interviews, personal histories, and "official" transcripts. All fake! Which makes for a great story line and interesting twists. Thomas uses footnotes galore to add a spin on lots of the story! Think "Andromeda Strain." Done the same way to give that authentic feel and make you worry and wonder. Yet also entertained.
What is good about Thomas's work is it feels like what we hear in the news today taken a few years into the future. Then heightened to create a really spooky tale. This could all happen!
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August 24, 2019
I’m not sure that I have ever read a book quite like “Dahlia Black”. Set in the near future, it is a recounting of when humanity was changed, seemingly overnight, by alien communication. Much like “World War Z”, this book uses interviews and documentation to tell the story of those who were most affected and those who were left behind; combine that with an utterly original premise and you get a story that is both deeply troubling and absolutely transcendent. “Dahlia Black” is not just for fans of sci-fi or fantasy, it is for anyone who questions humanity’s role on Earth and the possible outcomes of one apocalyptic moment.
December 15, 2019
3.5 Like World War Z, this book looks back to a world-changing event. The story is told through records, interviews, and a newly found diary from the first person to be affected. Keith Thomas, the investigative journalist in the book (as well as the author of the book), is trying to put together what happened at 'First Contact.' There are several footnotes. A quick check shows the places are real, the people are not.
I liked this but it didn't grab me in any way. There are obvious parallels between this world and the near future depicted in the book. If you liked WW Z, you will probably like this.
I liked this but it didn't grab me in any way. There are obvious parallels between this world and the near future depicted in the book. If you liked WW Z, you will probably like this.
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