Reternity
Neal Wooten
C. 2012
ISBN: 978-1-61225-041-0
1-61225-041-6
Mirror Publishing
Milwaukee, WI
239 pages, $6.99
It’s not often that one finds a first rate science fiction adventure novel that also expounds on religion but I found Reternity to be exactly that.
The main character is a young student ready to enter college. All his life he has been influenced by his father, who is a Christian minister. But now his father, and his mother also, are apprehensive about their son suddenly thrown into the world and its many temptations.
When he arrive at college, he enrolls in a bible study program and holds his own in many interesting debates with fellow classmates about different understandings of Christianity. The following year, he signs up for a science class, and the science professor assigns the class an “impossible project.” He gives each student a lead ball and tells them to figure out a way to make the lead ball become magnetic. Intrigued with this project, the protagonist puts all his energy into it. On The Internet, he discovers that lead is not magnetic because it does not have electron spin.
He builds several devices that he thinks might induce electron spin into the lead ball through a flow of electrical energy. After several false starts, he is shocked to see the lead ball disappear. From here on, the novel takes several surprising turns, as the student now with the professor’s help gradually comes to understand what has happened to the lead ball and the potential value this discovery might have to science. Very enthused, they both continue experimenting toward the ultimate test of the discovery.
In the final chapters, Wooten does a masterful job tying religion and science together and takes the reader on an adventuresome journey the reader will not soon forget.
The author, Neal Wooten, has impressive credentials. He is a successful journalist, blogger, illustrator of books, and author. He is a frequent contributor to an online magazine The Indie Times. He has written three books. This one, Reternity, is his first work of science fiction.
