Author David Gittlin is a big tease. THE SILVER SPHERE is a good story with interesting characters but its only a sliver of a much bigger tale, a tantalizing tidbit of something grander. Gittlin leaves readers wanting more and on that level his literary tease is a marketing success.
THE SILVER SPHERE is a seven part story, the first volume of which introduces a clever premise and a couple of interesting characters. The titular object, a glowing, bowling ball-type energy orb with one mysterious porthole, washes ashore on a Florida beach and lands at the feet of our hero, narrator Jacob Cassell, a novelist on a deadline staying at a friend’s beach house. But the Silver Sphere tells Jacob — telepathically — that his help is needed in order stop a cataclysmic event. Jacob refuses at first — as any good hero should. But the Sphere convinces Jacob it is actually a sentient being named Arcon sent to save the world from impending doom. In three days a pulsar from an exploded star will worm through a wormhole and obliterate earth, unless Jacob takes Arcon to the top of One World Trade Center in New York City.
What ensues is a fun mix of sci-fi, comedy, and a classic buddy road trip. Can Jacob’s battered Mazda complete the trip from Florida to New York? Will they make it to the top of the tower in time? What is Arcon’s ultimate plan to save the world? Gittlin’s clearly having fun here and readers will too. Arcon and Jacob bicker like an old married couple as they hit the road to save the planet. While the setting is modern, there’s a “black-and-white” feel to THE SILVER SPHERE that harkens back to the bygone days of Flash Gordon and Bob Hope/Bing Crosby movies — a fun, Saturday afternoon escape. There’s nothing wrong with THE SILVER SPHERE except its brevity and bare-bones structure. As such, the story would make a great stage play — two characters and three sets: a beach, a car, and One World Trade Center. Here’s to the continued adventures of THE SILVER SPHERE and hoping Gittlin adds some meat to the story’s bones in subsequent volumes.
David Gittlin successfully uses episodic storytelling to draw readers into the rollicking world of THE SILVER SPHERE, a fun, sci-fi buddy comedy that reads like a family-friendly episode of “Rick and Morty” or a Pixar short. A solid, if brief, start to a seven-part series.
~Rob Errera for IndieReader