The History of Things to Come: A Supernatural Thriller (The Dark Horizon Trilogy) Paperback – July 17, 2015

NewtonitisBy Bob GelmsI have a clear memory of the day, in the history of my education, that I encountered the unholy creation of a deranged mind. This thing was called Calculus. Mathematics: OK. Algebra: OK. Geometry: OK. Trigonometry: OK. Physics:OK Calculus: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.I had to find out what piece of inhuman excrement devised this……. THING. I went to an encyclopedia (You remember what that is. It’s kind of like Wikipedia in book form where you have no worries about the accuracy of any of the entries (posts).) Flipping through the “C” volume I came upon the dreadful thing. I cannot relay to you the jolt my brain, no, my entire being took reading about the part Isaac Newton played in all of this.The History of Things to Come by Duncan Simpson, as sharp a thriller as they come, uses Isaac Newton as its central character even though he has been dead for some 290 years. The book revolves around a number of Newton’s personal effects that were being auctioned off. The Vatican had almost all of Newton’s manuscripts and unpublished notebooks. A very few of his personal items were scattered throughout museums around the world. One, in particular, is a notebook in Newton’s own hand. It has a red cover. Possessing it or even thinking about possessing it could have easily lead to your death in gruesome and very violent ways.The first death occurs in the first few pages. The walking dead man is shot in the head in the middle of a crowded London restaurant by a sniper using a high-powered rifle from an incredibly long way away. One could almost say a supernatural aim from an inhumanly impossible distance and you would be in the ballpark. He had the red book. Something you should know, and something that didn’t bother me at all, is that Mr. Simpson describes, in detail, all of the ghastly murders in living color.Some of the ancient, biblical artifacts owned by Isaac Newton go missing almost at the same time from a Cambridge University museum. Enter, stage left, Vincent Blake, a world-renowned specialist in tracking down and recovering stolen art, artifacts, and just plain old valuable stuff. Mostly he works for insurance companies but also individuals and museums. Immediately, horrific things start to happen to him and we meet the bad guy, The Drakon. The first thing you notice is that he’s not from around these parts. The Drakon has some very unusual characteristics that one would conclude come from some kind of powerful mystical source.You need to know this: Newton was 84 when he died. That was an incredibly old age for the 18th century. Not well known is the fact that he spent the last half of his life investigating alchemy, astrology, occult powers attributed to biblical artifacts, and a detailed study looking for scientific information in the Old Testament. He taught himself Hebrew so he could read the OT in the language in which it was written. (of course, he did.) It is precisely this interest in occult matters that makes the characters in the book so vitally interested in these possessions of Newton’s.The book quickly becomes a battle royal between Vincent Blake = Good and the forces of The Drakon = Evil. Both sides suffered great losses in their struggle and I kept reading as if my eyes were glued to the page. This is a thriller’s thriller. Highly recommended.Isaac Newton, almost by acclimation, is the greatest scientist of all time. This is the man who uncovered the eternal Laws of Motion, Universal Gravitation, laid the foundation for classical mechanics and made influential contributions in the study of Optics. His calculations proved to a certainty the validity of Kepler’s heliocentric model of the solar system. He wrote one of the two or three most important books in all of science (in Latin) Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. In order to do all these calculations, Newton found that existing mathematics wasn’t up to the job at all, not even a little bit. So, he invented a mathematical system that WAS. I find that incontrovertibly mind boggling and I completely changed my mind about his solution to the problem, Calculus.

This story started out rather slow. It is divided into three parts. The first part prodded along and was a bit hard to get into. Part two picked up a bit and by part three the story becomes more exciting. It is another one of those lost mysteries of the ages but without the Dan Brown like trail of clues or secret societies that are pledged to protect it. All in all it was a good story and one I would recommend for a lazy day or vacation read. I bought it for free and have bought book two in this series. No cliffhangers with this one so no need to buy another book to find how the story ends. The writing was easy to follow and the main character was likeable enough. No sex or foul language. This author seems to have a decent editor as there were only a few places where a word was left out or I had to re-read a sentence. I give it four stars as I did have trouble in the beginning. I'm not one to quit on a book even if it does seem like I should. This one paid off in the end.

This contemporary thriller follows in the footsteps of "The DaVinci Code" but in this case the mystery and intrigue surround the works of Isaac Newton, particularly those that go beyond the scientific prowess with which most of us are most familiar. His interests also included alchemy, religion, and various sacred relics, which allegedly possessed mystical powers.As a physicist myself, Newton is one of my favorite people, further enhanced by the fact we were both born on Christmas Day, albeit 305 years apart. Well, okay, that's not entirely accurate since the calendars changed during that time, placing his birthday on January 4. That's relevant to me, too, since I'm not only a physicist but also a professional astrologer, which Newton was as well, though of course the history books tend to leave out that little detail. Perhaps the author will include that particular angle in a future volume, which could introduce some interesting prophetic angles. There's plenty of fodder to explore between science, religion and astrology, which I plan to pursue at some point myself. Thus, I was excited to find this book that promised to delve into areas in which I have a strong personal interest; I was not disappointed.Of course anything that might wield considerable power is going to attract bad guys who want it for all the wrong reasons; think Indiana Jones and "Raiders of the Lost Ark". In this case, however, rather than Hitler and the Nazis, it's a single, powerful entity known only as the Drakon, who sends a variety of henchmen to obtain any and all of Newton's writings and artifacts, which places anyone in possession of such items in mortal danger.The main character, Vincent Blake, is an experienced detective whose specialty is tracking down stolen art and other antiquities, so he's quickly pulled into the case as those who get close to anything Newtonian are dropping like flies. Many of Newton's books and notebooks have already been acquired by The Vatican, which have been studied in detail by Brother Nathan Vittori, Chief Librarian at the Vatican Observatory, as well as his friend, Dr. Carla Sabatini, a former research student. Brother Nathan discovers a fascinating notebook of Newton's in the archives that contains a considerable amount of new information and the plot thickens.This story is richly detailed which brings it to life through various historical tidbits, well-developed characters and an intriguing plot that includes a plethora of interesting individuals including a mysterious homeless woman named Mary. In some respects it moves too fast since it's so detailed that some can easily be missed as you plunge forward reading to find out who'll survive and how it will end. Thus, it's one that I would probably read again at some point to savor those elements I blew past initially. The ending was reasonably satisfying, yet left enough unanswered questions to carry over into future volumes.The writing style is strong and engaging, my only criticism related to awkward viewpoint transitions. Nicely edited otherwise, I'm surprised that no one suggested section breaks to cue the reader when the point of view shifted, often abruptly and in the middle of a scene which was enough of a distraction to pull you out of the story action until you got oriented again. Nonetheless, it was a great read that I enjoyed tremendously and I definitely look forward to any sequels.