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Voyage to Alpha Centauri

Author: Visit Amazon's Michael D. O'Brien Page | Language: English | ISBN: 1586178326 | Format: PDF

Voyage to Alpha Centauri Description

Review

"Michael O'Brien is a superior spiritual story teller worthy to join the ranks of C.S. Lewis, Flannery O'Connor, Graham Greene, and Evelyn Waugh." --Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., Boston College

“Some Sci Fi novels are scientism fiction, worshiping science. Others are science friction, where high tech makes humans lowly. Voyage to Alpha Centauri, though, neither creates a new god nor blames science for our sin. Its narrator excitedly embarks on a 19-year trip aboard a sleek, huge spaceship, only to learn of oppression in the heavens as on earth, with big brothers watching and demanding lying conformity. Michael O'Brien shows us the battle that ensues and its sensational result as he skillfully portrays a clash of world views without end, amen.” --Marvin Olasky, Editor-in-chief, World Magazine

“Ingenious, expansive, and enduringly wise, Voyage to Alpha Centauri is a tour de force of storytelling and moral imagination--sparkling in its humanity, rich in its embroidery, and chilling in its plausibility. It is a parable of an age that could easily become our own, with its concomitant wonders and dangers, an exploration of the most sublime heights and of the greatest depths of human possibility, and a thought-provoking meditation on the ethical limits of knowledge. In Voyage to Alpha Centauri, Michael O'Brien has given us a literary treasure and a deeply satisfying read.” --Corban Addison, Author, A Walk Across the Sun

About the Author

Michael O'Brien, iconographer, painter, and writer, is the popular author of many best-selling novels including Father Elijah, The Father's Tale, Eclipse of the Sun, Sophia House, <i.Theophilos, and Island of the World. His novels have been translated into twelve languages and widely reviewed in both secular and religious media in North America and Europe. He lives in Ontario with his wife, Sheila, and family.

Product Details
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Hardcover: 700 pages
Publisher: Ignatius Press (December 1, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1586178326
ISBN-13: 978-1586178321
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 2.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

In Michael O’Brien’s new book Voyage to Alpha Centauri he enters the genre of Science Fiction. This book is both in some ways totally different from his previous books and very similar. All the themes he explores are present in this story. Elements present in his “Children of the Last Day” series are especially present such as an intrusive government and the loss of religious freedom. The collision of these factors providing tension along with personal conversion. Yet some of this is handled more tangentially than his previous books.

Neil Ruiz de Hoyos as a young man meets with an accident that both marks him and opens up a new vista for him. His later career as a physicist bring him two Nobel prizes. His work leads partially to the construction of a ship that goes on an expedition to Alpha Centauri where he is a passenger. We see the voyage through his journal entries where he writes about the voyage, his life and childhood, and the discoveries they encounter on a planet in the system of Alpha Centauri. An epistolary novel works quite well when it comes to covering the large amount of time involved in such a voyage where journal entries can just highlight what is going on in the main.

As a man Neil is both private and reaching out for friendships. A man raised in a Catholic family, but now with no faith which has been supplanted by a scientific skepticism. Yet somebody who is also skeptical regarding a form of government enforced political correctness and just following along with societal trends. Despite what he encounters and learns from his small core of friends there are some things he would rather explain away than to truly understand.

With `Voyage to Alpha Centauri' Michael O'Brien sets out on a new frontier, departing from his traditional genre, perhaps not so different than his (I'd say very successful) endeavor into historical fiction with Theophilos (Theophilos: A Novel). Though a new setting, the author's thoughtful, deeply philosophical gaze into the inner-workings of the human person, and how our fallen natures play out in human society (even eighty years from now, when supposedly we would be that much further along on the "enlightenment scale"), are still richly at work, interwoven within an intricate plot on a futuristic horizon.

I suspect that the majority of the initial readers of `Voyage' will be the faithful Michael O'Brien followers, who consume a novel then anxiously await his next release. To those readers, I will assure you that you will not be disappointed! I border right now on neglect of my wife and four children with my near inability to put the book down. Yet it provides wonderful opportunities for discussion and reflection with my wife once the children are (supposedly) sleeping. Those who loved the `Children of the Last Days' series will find rich symbolism embedded in very subtle references that hearken to previous writings by the author. Most of these allusions will very likely be missed, but it is clear O'Brien is continuing on a long-developed thread; that man is created to be free, and any form of authority--no matter how seemingly compassionate and benign--that is willing to sacrifice this truth for the self-defined "collective good", will ultimately digress into totalitarianism.

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