Season of the Serpent: Book One [Kindle Edition]

This is a really great read. Its fast paced and thought provoking. I really liked the layers to both the storyline and the characters. The characters are three dimensional to the point where I remember cringing at the protagonist's college experience, which I can so identify with. Like any good mystery, the characters' intentions are complicated and shadowy which draws you in trying to calculate motives. It's a chess game, but you can't see the entire board or even all the pieces in play. I remember telling myself where is he going with this? It kept me guessing and its not predictable.

The storyline has a physical reality layer laced with U.S. history and a "metaphysical" plot layer superimposed over it which takes you on a journey into a strange new dimension.

I often have problems envisioning what I am reading, but the scenes are relayed to the reader with a very sophisticated level of description. This is a two book series, and the second book is at the top of my list when it's released.

The story itself is compelling enough: college student Paul Venturi is just trying to maintain some semblance of an average life. It seems to be working - he's friendly, and bright, and happy-enough. He copes well enough with the isolating, off-kilter experience of being an introvert in an extrovert's world. But following a series of increasingly compelling coincidences and one memorable incident with a joint-seducing serpent, Paul's reality shifts to accomodate the astral dimensions of Yin'Dru, and we are helplessly sucked along for the ride. With an unforgettable cast of otherworld-characters, his twisting journey exposes answers to our most elusive questions. The complexities of Paul's childhood and his extraordinary sensitivity become retroactive clues as he rediscovers his true connection to a multiverse of galactic revelations and multidimensional power struggles.

Intelligently written and expertly paced, Season of the Serpent is a true multidisciplinary feat. Infused throughout are Nova's intimate understandings of history, psychology, physiology, and the energetic fields that compose our own Matrix. Pick your passion, and it's there: Yahweh and the Elohim; quantum physics and flying saucers; the fragile nature of a currency not backed by precious metals; the Freemasons and the mysteries of the Roswell UFO crash site. I could go on and on. He takes those subjects and phenomena that interest, confuse, and frighten us the most and presents us with a rearranged interconnectedness that shocks us because it inherently makes sense.

Author David Nova doesn't mince words; he doesn't spare readers the full-blown realism that keeps us tethered to Paul's experience. There's no safety net here. From Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig in the Sky" to Van Halen's "Running with the Devil", Nova even provides the soundtrack to accompany each rise, fall, and hover: a nod to the original juxtaposition of Hollywood on rock that helped to incite this string of events to begin with.

This book makes me restless. I want to share, to compare notes and - truth be told - scramble to find others just like it. Not since The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter (the book, not the movie) have I been moved to this end, and it's driving me crazy not to have a rooftop right now.

The story is compelling and beautifully written. Its ending left me wanting more, and I'm really looking forward to the next book. Highly recommended!

This is a really fun read. It's one of those stories that starts calmly, almost cooly, laying the ground work in both character and situation. Then, BAM! A pivot point happens and the main character must choose between his red pill or blue. No time to think. No time to figure it all out. Just enough time to act.

The characters are both compelling and believable (and unlike a lot of writing out there) the reader cares what happens to them. And I must admit to more than a little unease by the end; a little uncertainty that what I take as day to day reality is little more than a veneer on top of something else, something much bigger. It was hard to put down!

My only complaint came at the end, where the meaning of "Book One" became clear. It's a cliff hanger!