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Summary
Summary
In all his bone-chilling novels of psychological and supernatural suspense, New York Times bestselling author John Saul has proven himself a master of terror. Now prepare yourself for his most frightening novel yet--a story torn from the darkest crevices of night. Something evil has risen around you--but how can you hope to run from a terror you can't even see? BEWARE THE PRESENCE!
Author Notes
Saul has several major themes in his horror fiction; children as victims, and sometimes perpetrators, of evil; technology used for horrific ends; and occult occurrences (is it something external or internal that causes the horrible things to happen to his characters?). While Saul's earlier work has been noted for its extremely gruesome quality, in his later writing Saul is trying to restrain that aspect of his fiction. Often his plots revolve around hidden, secret evil that is discovered by an innocent person, who must then battle against seemingly impossible odds to defeat the demon.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
YADr. Katharine Sundquist is hired to work on a short term archaeology project in beautiful Maui. It seems to be an ideal situation for her and her 16-year-old son, Michael, who suffers from asthma as well as the recent death of his father. She soon learns, however, that all is not well in paradise. There is a restricted wing in her high-tech laboratory where secret deliveries arrive at midnight and she discovers that deadly medical experiments are being performed. Then Michael and three friends sneak into a dive shop and help themselves to some equipment. During their night dive, they come upon a contaminated area in the ocean. Back on land, they find that their lungs cannot tolerate oxygen and they can survive only by breathing poisonous fumes. One by one, the boys are killed or simply vanish. When Michael is the only one left alive, Katharine must act quickly to save him. YAs will be engrossed in the computer search for DNA codes, the strange prehistoric or not so prehistoric bones that Katharine unearths, and a mysterious underwater geode from outer space. There is enough adventure and suspense in this thriller to capture the interest of even the most reluctant readers.Katherine Fitch, Lake Braddock Middle School, Burke, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Like the sinister scientists who figure so prominently in his fiction, Saul (Black Lightning) has perfected a formula: invent an eerie menace and drive home its horror by imagining its impact on an innocent and defenseless victim. In his 21st novel, that victim is Michael Sundquist, the teenage son of anthropologist Katharine Sundquist, who has recently relocated their family to Hawaii. Katharine has come to the islands to study anomalies of early human development found in the lava beds of Maui. She is quickly distracted from her work by Michael's suddenly worsening asthma attacks and by the inexplicable disappearance and death of several boys with whom he went on a secret nighttime scuba dive. It's only a matter of time before she discovers that her research and Michael's problems are interrelated through the Serinus Project, a covert scientific experiment funded by her employer for the purpose of investigating the genetic origins of human life. Katharine's struggle to save her son from becoming a guinea pig sacrificed in the name of science is classic Saul, a pell-mell race against the clock that pits warm human feeling against the cold and dispassionate vacuum of scientific inquiry. Although he breaks no new ground, Saul distills familiar elements of horror, science fiction and the cyberthriller into a potent brew. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A suspenseful thriller from the prolific and craftsmanlike Saul (The Homing, 1993, etc.) that moves like a dream through its paradisiacal Hawaiian landscape. As in his Black Lightning (1995), the lungs here are the focus of the story. In that tale, a serial killer left SS-like black lightning bolts on the pleural cavities of his victims. This time, victims' lungs suddenly become allergic to oxygen and can live only on fumes--those of ammonia, for example--that are normally poisonous. The action begins when Dr. Katharine Sundquist, an archaeologist specializing in early hominids in Africa, is hired for a three-month term to work on bones recently discovered near a vent in a volcano on Maui. Hiring her is a research lab owned by a superrich Japanese medical entrepreneur. Also on hand are a handsome fellow archaeologist who once courted the now widowed Katharine, and her son Michael, who's been overcoming asthma through physical training. When he and three Hawaiian friends go for a night dive, they come upon an underwater area contaminated by a geode from outer space. Back on land, they find that their lungs can't tolerate oxygen. How and why does the geode affect normal breathing? And what of the strange hominid-like bones Katharine patiently unearths? They look like those of early man, which is impossible, since Maui didn't exist when the first humans evolved. Are the bones somehow tied to the geode? Then it turns out that an astronomer in a Maui observatory has been studying a peculiar star some 15 million years old that seems to be sending out a radio signal, which eventually he interprets as a DNA code. Yipes! Folks from outer space are sending DNA code to planet Earth? Saul handily ties all of these elements together in a terse, provocative narrative. Nicely done indeed: strange, disturbing goings-on, with only two spoonsful of outrageous melodrama.
Booklist Review
In Saul's twenty-first novel of psychological and supernatural suspense, Katherine, burned out from living in New York City and tired of seeing her asthmatic 16-year-old-son beaten up by neighborhood thugs, accepts a research position in archaeology in Hawaii, where she will be working with her former lover. She expects the lush island and the laid-back community to bring only peace and happiness. What she does not know is that a huge seed has emerged from within the crust of the earth, spewed up by violent volcanic activity beneath the ocean floor off Hawaii. The seed had arrived from a planet that had ceased to exist 15 million years ago. Soon, nonhuman life-forms begin to threaten Katherine's son's life, and the fight for survival between human and nonhuman escalates. (As Saul writes in his fascinating afterword, poisonous gases from such a seed can end life on Earth, turning Hawaii's tropical paradise into a death zone; he goes on to say that scientists have theorized that unusual life-forms living on the ocean floor near hydrothermal volcanic vents are surviving and developing with no oxygen and no sunlight, thriving in 500-degree heat on gases such as hydrogen sulfide.) The Presence just might be closer to the truth than we care to admit. At any rate, this frightening novel undoubtedly will be Saul's next best-seller. (Reviewed July 1997)0449910555George Cohen
Library Journal Review
Saul, who recently took a cue from Stephen King with the release of a serialized novel, The Blackstone Chronicles, here tells of a young archaeologist's encounter with horror in Hawaii. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.