This is the first book in the Destiny's Children series.
One might get the feeling
this fell into another genre. Even up through the first 35% of the book just
about all you have is alternating chapters about modern-day England and ancient
Britain in the days when the remains of Roman civilization were crumbling
there. At least for me, this dual story-line of current and ancient times
makes me think of stories based on reincarnation or magical time travel between
the two periods. Since those aren't the kinds of books I choose to read, there
was some foreboding in this. But perhaps there was a light at the end of the
tunnel. There were a few references in the modern-day chapters about
scientists finding "an anomaly" in the Kuiper Belt - it seemed as if
there was something there with a regular shape suggesting an artificial
construct. Still, it was rather vague and indefinite - not very secure ground
to convince me this would really turn out to be science fiction.
George is a middle-aged
professional in modern London. He works in software testing. There's not
always a lot of work as management is more concerned about getting software out
the door than giving it a thorough test. [This is, of course, just fiction. ☺
] His father, in Manchester, dies. Hidden in his father's house is a photo of
a pre-school George with a similarly aged girl who looks like him. Upon
investigating he learns it's a twin sister he doesn't recall and his family has
never discussed. She was sent away to a religious school in Rome run by the Holy
Mary Queen Of Virgins order. His father's bank account shows he's been sending
regular payments to the order, even though the sister must be middle-aged as
well.
Regina was the child of an elite family in Fifth Century
Britain. The Roman Empire has recently withdrawn from England and order is
breaking down. Regina loses her privileged status in stages and ends up
raising a daughter on a farm in an out-of-the-way part of the country. Then
she becomes associated with a not-so-fairy-tale-ish pictured King Arthur. Then
makes her way to Rome where she becomes instrumental in the development of the
women's religious order.
We are now introduced to this
secretive order "Holy Mary Queen Of Virgins" that has come down the
centuries. Was I reading the Da Vinci Code by accident? For a while the book
changes gears. Rather than jumping back and forth between chapters about
George and chapters about Regina, we have ancient chapters about Regina and the order, and chapters about the present day order and some of its members.
Later, we reach the point
where the present-day chapters include both George and members of the order,
and the prior-day chapters start jumping through the centuries towards the
present. The two threads start to come together with a story-line about a
15-year-old member of the order who is distressed she is selected to be one of
the order's perpetually pregnant breeders, and a story-line with George's
friend Peter looking into the secrets of the order and some scientific
anomalies.
Well past the 400-page mark,
we do get two chapters about events 20,000 years in the future. There is a
conceptual connection between an element in the future and an element in the
rest of the book. However, the relationship between those chapters and the
rest of the book are tenuous. Those chapters certainly set a mood and may
connect to later books in the series, but they also leave a lot of unanswered
questions.
If you're interested in such
things as ancient cult-like groups, alternative social structures, underground
habitats, unromantic views of King Arthur, etc., you may find the bulk of the
story-concept of interest on its own merit. Otherwise, it seems to me the main
reason for reading this book would be to give background for the later books in
the series - and from descriptions I read of the later books, I'm not sure how
much necessary background this book will give you.
The book is written with an
interesting level of descriptive detail. The presentation is very well done.
While something like ancient Britain is not something I would choose to read
about, it kept my attention and did not tire me. It's a good book; it's just a
question whether it's a good book you want to pick from all of the good books
available.
______________________________
Science issue
While there isn't much
"science fiction" material here, there is at least one area of
doubtful science. We are told that in the present day, there are women in the
order who go through pregnancies that bring babies to full term in 13 weeks -
without any suggestion of special medical techniques to seriously alter natural
physiological rules. Also, it is indicated that after having sex only once in
her entire life, as soon as the woman gives birth to one baby in 13 weeks
she becomes pregnant again and again immediately thereafter for further 13 week
pregnancies. Please, if there are any biologists, embryologists or other
relevant specialists reading this, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm under the
impression that the length of a human pregnancy is essentially in line with
that of other mammals of our size. The main point I recall reading about the
length of human pregnancy length being "unnatural" is that humans may
have evolved to give birth while babies were more helpless than newborns in
other species - so that the baby's head would not yet be too large when coming
out of the mother. If this is true, then being able to gestate a full term
baby in 13 weeks and repeated pregnancies from one mating would be a gigantic
change to have occurred in less than 1600 years. Granted, the order is a
relatively small and isolated gene pool, which is exactly where major changes
can most quickly arise. However, the pregnancies we are told about in the
early days of the order are of normal length and repeated pregnancies don’t
follow without further sex. These aren’t traits any members started with. So
it did seem to me to be stretching things.