Subtitled “A Second Chance for Humanity”, Kenneth B. Little and Helen Davies’ GOD’S INTERVENTION finds a recognizably contemporary planet Earth on the brink of disaster. Wars rage across the globe, climate change is out of control, the threat of cyber attacks, nuclear disaster and worldwide pandemics are ever present. In Washington, President Samuel Cummings is visited by the mysterious Sarah who claims to have been sent from Heaven to fix the world. She declares that the spirituality of humans has not kept pace with their technological developments, setting them on a collision course for self-destruction. And in light of mankind’s propensity for violence, cruelty and indifference, God has decided now is the time to intervene.
President Cummings is not instantly convinced that Sarah is who she says she is and he tries to concentrate on her looks so he can describe her to the police but “focusing on her face felt like chasing water in a creek.” Her face changed as she spoke as if it was a collage of women of all types, ages and nationalities. With her charisma and aura of peace Cummings becomes a believer. This idea of the power of the feminine is one of the strongest elements of the book. The authors lay the blame for many of the world’s ills, most especially violence, on errant masculinity. God will make it impossible for a human to kill another. Anybody that attempts murder will die themselves. Another element of God’s plan is that men be made incapable of having sex after the age of 40 and that women are empowered in all aspects of life, including whether to become pregnant.
The points of God’s plan are laid out in great detail, including various peace processes, a reset of the financial market and summits to address religious questions raised by the revelation that God, unequivocally, exists. How the plan is actually executed is explained in even greater detail. Indeed the authors’ concentration on the minutiae of the plan rather mutes much of the excitement or enjoyment that could have been conjured from such a high concept novel. As an example of the slow pace, it takes four chapters for President Cummings to get around to preparing his initial public statement on the appearance of Sarah. Everything takes a very long time to happen and follows the plan without any great drama. Many of the revelations that God’s emissary discloses, including the existence of advanced alien species, are mentioned only in passing and never explored. Little and Davies are competent writers, but the book is perhaps twice the length it needs to be and this, added to the almost complete lack of conflict as God’s plan is put into action, makes reading it a bit of a slog.
Though GOD’S INTERVENTION is packed with interesting ideas and can’t be faulted in the way it tackles the current state of the world, it is a little too slowly paced to be as gripping as it could be.
~Kent Lane for IndieReader