Review: Tom Knox, The Lost Goddess

If you don't want spoilers, stop reading my review NOW.

This is a technothriller, using what could be a science fiction idea. And, of course, using it differently. There's a whole lot of action and mystery before the idea is revealed; the story ends not long after the revelation; and the world is put back together the way it had been.

I'd have preferred having the Mystery revealed much sooner; the results of the Evil Plot explored in rather more detail; and the world to have undergone some changes. But expecting that would be like expecting Tom Clancy to write a pacifist novel. Had that been the only problem, I would have rated the novel as "okay."

The idea: there's a part of the human brain which makes us susceptible to religion and guilt. Disconnect that area of the brain, and the result is people who don't mind killing and who the Bad Guys expect to become good Communists.

I don't buy the idea that having religious feelings and having a conscience are irrevocably linked.

And I'm firmly convinced that belief in Communism (or any political ideology) has the same mental underpinnings as religious belief.