The Blue Walls of Heaven: Error Message Adam Stone hears voices. After investigating, he discovers their source: a hyper-intelligent computer network inhabiting the Owl Nebula, one thousand light-years from Earth. This alien life-form has chosen Adam to be the sole recipient of its plan to save Mankind from itself by adjusting the universal constants of physics, thereby eliminating Man's self-destructive instincts. Unfortunately they need to analyse a large sample of Russian jokes in order to understand man's irrational nature. Adam has been chosen to help them in their bizarre quest - despite his being hopeless at communicating, paranoid, penniless, emotionally unstable, over-dependent on his fragile relationships with women, and obsessed with a young woman who he kills and is subsequently haunted by. While attempting to evade the police, Adam enters an underground labyrinth below his flat which has some uncanny properties: time and space become an infinite loop, which eventually results in an astonishing conclusion to Adam's journey of self-discovery.
Error Message (The Blue Walls of Heaven)
and over 1.5 million other books are available for Amazon Kindle . Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Learn more. |
Book Description
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By aryamati
Format:Paperback
Stephen Parr says his novel `Error Message' is Science Fiction. It is MUCH more than that. We live many aspects of contemporary life through his searching, reflective, unselfconfident protagonist. This Adam (!) never allows a bored moment as he proceeds from worries to failures to ludicrous adventures. We learn from his attempts at relation ships `a little better is how we sometimes deal with worse'. The truths and difficulties shared in friendships are one of the valuable leitmotivs. As Adam travels round England poetry enriches the prose : `relentless crescendos of wind washing into my mind like the whispered dismay of a tragic chorus'. And he entertains with wry humour `waiting like a pig at the head of an abattoir queue'.
The opening is lively, in bed with his lover Cora - who needs a life of her own. Their talk in interrupted by voices of alien, who then take a back seat till nearer the astounding finale. Adam wants escape, rents a cottage in the north, but soon loneliness (& beauty) encourage him to talk to th lovely Rachel, in a café. She is researching Obsession, and wants to meet the philosopher Magnus - Adam's ex-tutor, by coincidence: fiction copying life. During intriguing political discussions shabby rooms and clothes are visually as alive as the characters' inner turmoils, and sexual longings...
Adam trudges back to London, refuses to return to `timewasting' work. Now he's visited volubly by Len & Les, from the Owl Nebula, whose quantum mastery is so great their messages can reach our planet faster than light. They inform Adam , at hilariously inappropriate moments, that they are attempting to quieten our dysfunctional humanity before we disrupt the whole universe. To achieve this they need his help to understand jokes, especially Russian humour...
A gripping read, obtainable from Ananda or preferably Amazon.
The opening is lively, in bed with his lover Cora - who needs a life of her own. Their talk in interrupted by voices of alien, who then take a back seat till nearer the astounding finale. Adam wants escape, rents a cottage in the north, but soon loneliness (& beauty) encourage him to talk to th lovely Rachel, in a café. She is researching Obsession, and wants to meet the philosopher Magnus - Adam's ex-tutor, by coincidence: fiction copying life. During intriguing political discussions shabby rooms and clothes are visually as alive as the characters' inner turmoils, and sexual longings...
Adam trudges back to London, refuses to return to `timewasting' work. Now he's visited volubly by Len & Les, from the Owl Nebula, whose quantum mastery is so great their messages can reach our planet faster than light. They inform Adam , at hilariously inappropriate moments, that they are attempting to quieten our dysfunctional humanity before we disrupt the whole universe. To achieve this they need his help to understand jokes, especially Russian humour...
A gripping read, obtainable from Ananda or preferably Amazon.
By reflecta
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Adam, the central character, is Arthur-Dent-like in his ordinariness, apart from his obsession with keeping a set of stopped clocks. Could this quirk be connected to the voice he keeps hearing? Sent on a quest to find the answer, he encounters an intertwined succession of intriguing and brilliantly drawn characters, all with their own missions and questions to answer.
This novel resonates with very contemporary puzzles - how do we live together without tearing each other apart, how can we progress emotionally as well as technologically? These questions pulse under a gripping yarn that sees Adam travel through Britain, time loops and tricky relationships. Funny and thought provoking, scenes in this book will linger long after you've finished it. Looking forward to the next two in this trilogy!
This novel resonates with very contemporary puzzles - how do we live together without tearing each other apart, how can we progress emotionally as well as technologically? These questions pulse under a gripping yarn that sees Adam travel through Britain, time loops and tricky relationships. Funny and thought provoking, scenes in this book will linger long after you've finished it. Looking forward to the next two in this trilogy!
By Bachlover
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Stephen Parr has a very individual voice and this book kept me interested to the end. It's perhaps best described as quirky, and there were a couple of occasions when I personally felt that the departures from normal narrative conventions didn't quite work. But even so, when I had finished I was pleased that I'd read it, and I'll probably remember some of its scenes and ideas for a long time. As with all the best SF, the apparatus of alien computers beaming messages into people's brains, time loops and so forth, is a framework for an exploration of what it means to be human.
This is supposed to be book 1 of a trilogy, but it seems that the rest haven't yet been published. I hope Parr gets on with them soon. There's no doubt he can write well, and I will be very interested to see how he carries on and what further surprises he has for the unwary reader.
This is supposed to be book 1 of a trilogy, but it seems that the rest haven't yet been published. I hope Parr gets on with them soon. There's no doubt he can write well, and I will be very interested to see how he carries on and what further surprises he has for the unwary reader.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
