- Paperback: 280 pages
- Publisher: Merilang Press (12 Nov 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 095693790X
- ISBN-13: 978-0956937902
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15.6 x 1.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
Engineering Paradise
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Product Description
Product Description
The Holocaust has shown us that the creation of hell on earth is just a matter of engineering. The creation of an earthly paradise is an engineering problem also. Danny, a teenage boy attending a Roman Catholic Grammar School in Belfast in the 1960s, becomes seduced into the IRA out of an interest in amateur radio and all things technical. His first girlfriend, from a Protestant family, is a precocious, beautiful and fabulously talented singer/songwriter who has embraced sexual liberation in a big way. A spirit of revolutionary optimism is afoot. The call for change emanating from the young is unstoppable. The old order has come to an end. Human society and human relationships are about to change forever. Or are they? Engineering Paradise is essentially a love story, set against the backdrop of the most hectic decade of social and political change in recent British history. Danny is propelled unthinkingly into a terrifying Faustian bargain from which there is no escape. The shining vision of a new Ireland and a new world is repeatedly tarnished by compromises, disappointments and deaths, both deliberate and accidental. Idealism grows sour as Danny comes to realise that the motives of those he has trusted are far from pure. Nothing is quite as simple as it appears when you're fifteen, in love, and taking your first uncertain steps into the adult world. The novel deals in a fictionalised form with real events that shocked the world, presenting the mindset of the bombers from the inside, neither demonising nor excusing, but shedding light on the process by which the well-intentioned become sucked in to sinister organisations employing ruthless tactics in the pursuit of seemingly laudable ends. This is a chilling account of the moral compromise forced upon those who try to play a part in shaping history. It is not a book for the squeamish.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
All you need to know about bombs and love,
By Geoff Nelder "Geoff Nelder" (Chester, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Engineering Paradise (Paperback)
David Gardiner is no newcomer to telling tall and short tales. His The Other End of the Rainbow (2008), and The Rainbow Man and other Stories (2010), are a testament to the power and delight embedded in his imaginative short story telling. Sirat (2000), revealed his strengths in writing science fiction novels. Engineering Paradise is quite different in that is a semi-autobiographical story with free love, commune-living, and Irish life for a lad coming of age and being drawn in to the Troubles along with his friends. The title is derived from a Stafford Beer quotation: `The Holocaust has shown us that the creation of hell on earth is just a matter of engineering. The creation of an earthly paradise is an engineering problem also.' (1926-2002), This hints at the philosophical feel of the novel, but it reflects too the innate nature of Danny, the protagonist, with his engineering aptitude for making radios and solving the problems of bomb making yet with an urge to find happiness and love.Although much of the content is political and philosophical, including references to 17th Century Gerrald Winstanley and the The Diggers, the style has ironic humour that makes the novel a page-turner. Much of the humour digs at authority and the establishment, while amusement is also derived by irreverent jibes at the Church. For example, in response to people suffering illnesses and untimely deaths, Danny's father (a GP) says: "If there really is a God up there, I don't know how he sleeps at night." These light yet poignant moments are balanced by thoughtful episodes in which Danny's adolescent mind ponders "...everyone's mortality, including his own." Danny, through his mechanical propensity, eagerness to please and naivety with regard to the wiliness of 1960s IRA recruitment methods, is sucked into the movement. He's no academic and yet is good with words and hands, and not backwards in coming forwards with sweethearts. Churchill's famous quote about Clement Atlee is used to describe him admirably: `modest, but then he has so much to be modest about.' Luckily, Danny falls in love with a local beauty. Unluckily, she enjoys other lads too. With such turbulence in his emotions and learning on the go how to cope with so many non-normal behaviour for those times, it is no wonder that `His mind flailed around furiously...'. The story travels from Belfast to the Isle of Man, North Wales to England, beautifully described and expertly crafted. Learn history, philosophy, bomb and love making, radio transmission, and Life. This is a masterstroke book, a masterpiece.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
5.0 out of 5 stars
A stunning insight into bombs and love,
By Geoff Nelder "Geoff Nelder" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Engineering Paradise (Paperback)
David Gardiner is no newcomer to telling tall and short tales. His The Other End of the Rainbow (2008), and The Rainbow Man and other Stories (2010), are a testament to the power and delight embedded in his imaginative short story telling. Sirat (2000), revealed his strengths in writing science fiction novels. Engineering Paradise is quite different in that is a semi-autobiographical story with free love, commune-living, and Irish life for a lad coming of age and being drawn in to the Troubles along with his friends. The title is derived from a Stafford Beer quotation: `The Holocaust has shown us that the creation of hell on earth is just a matter of engineering. The creation of an earthly paradise is an engineering problem also.' (1926-2002), This hints at the philosophical feel of the novel, but it reflects too the innate nature of Danny, the protagonist, with his engineering aptitude for making radios and solving the problems of bomb making yet with an urge to find happiness and love.Although much of the content is political and philosophical, including references to 17th Century Gerrald Winstanley and the The Diggers, the style has ironic humour that makes the novel a page-turner. Much of the humour digs at authority and the establishment, while amusement is also derived by irreverent jibes at the Church. For example, in response to people suffering illnesses and untimely deaths, Danny's father (a GP) says: "If there really is a God up there, I don't know how he sleeps at night." These light yet poignant moments are balanced by thoughtful episodes in which Danny's adolescent mind ponders "...everyone's mortality, including his own." Danny, through his mechanical propensity, eagerness to please and naivety with regard to the wiliness of 1960s IRA recruitment methods, is sucked into the movement. He's no academic and yet is good with words and hands, and not backwards in coming forwards with sweethearts. Churchill's famous quote about Clement Atlee is used to describe him admirably: `modest, but then he has so much to be modest about.' Luckily, Danny falls in love with a local beauty. Unluckily, she enjoys other lads too. With such turbulence in his emotions and learning on the go how to cope with so many non-normal behaviour for those times, it is no wonder that `His mind flailed around furiously...'. The story travels from Belfast to the Isle of Man, North Wales to England, beautifully described and expertly crafted. Learn history, philosophy, bomb and love making, radio transmission, and Life. This is a masterstroke book, a masterpiece. |
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