Book Review #67: The Crossing Hour By Quoleena Sbrocca

Title: The Crossing Hour

Author: Quoleena Sbrocca

Publishers: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 430 (PDF edition)

Source: Review copy by author

“Time travel used to be thought of just science fiction, but Einstein’s general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out”    

       - Stephen Hawking

  

    “The Crossing Hour”, a novel that has kept me hooked for whole 2 days. Author Quoleena Sbrocca, a first time writer that wrote this excellent novel. It is really hard to believe a first timer can write something like this. This novel is an excellent work of imagination. Bundling fiction with few historical characters to create a magical time traveler’s story is something really a commendable job.

Stanley Graf, a retired NASA employee has believed in something extraordinary. He has created a device, called “Gramameter”, through which one can find any signs of the possible time travelers. Stanley worked relentlessly along with his son Thomas to witness this magic happen. This event happens once in every 4 years. A time traveler will appear once in every 4 years and according to Stanley’s theory, these time travelers will have 4 years of timeline to go back to their original time. He longed to prove his theory as a practical phenomenon, which was backed by Thomas Graf. After studying and documenting all these things for his entire life, Stanley passed the baton to his Granddaughter Leigh, a psychology graduate, to carry out the research and possibly receive any time traveler. Entire Stanley Graf’s family members are well educated of this time traveler’s event.

So, as the story progresses further, Leigh, now all set to receive the time traveler. She prepared well enough to witness this magical event happen right before her eyes. She sets all the black hole coordinates and waited. One fine day, a woman, probably in her late twenties, appeared out of blue. Leigh, who was witnessing this event made sure she was recording everything. Leigh was not sure of, whom this woman was or from which century she belonged to. She followed this mysterious woman and with help from her brother Stan, she collected enough information about this mysterious woman called “Harriet Tubman”.

The interesting part of the novel was the differences in the ways that 21^st century people talked and the people from Harriet Tubman’s time used to talk. Author had clearly mastered in choosing the right kind of grammar and vocabulary, and the salutations that people used to refer back in the days, so that it adds more weight to the time traveler’s character.

There is an important character in the novel called John Brown, a time traveler, staying in Stanley’s house for over 3 years. This part of the story in the novel where there are twists and turns, that sets the stage of the novel for its climax.

What worked in the entire novel is, the way the story is built. Readers can actually read effortlessly. There are some light moments when the earlier century people discover the modern technologies such as cars or mobile phones. The way it amuses them is exceptionally written. Hope one day, we all can witness such phenomenon in theory, proved in reality.

The writing style of the novel is lucid and engaging. There are no boring chapters as such. Each and every chapter makes sense. Breaking the entire novel into short chapters has really worked here. The dialogues differentiation between the earlier century people and the current generation people is just splendid. The scientific details and technological explanation just makes it more real than fiction. I recommend this book to every other reader who is interested in time traveler’s story.

Note: I received this book by the author in exchange of an honest review.

My Rating:

5/5

Book Review #48: 1984 (Nineteen-Eighty Four) By George Orwell

“WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY AND IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”!!

Probably this is one of the most disturbing books that I've ever read in recent times. I had no idea what was happening but I was sure that, I was feeling all those creepiness, all those dreaded ways of torturing people, and most of which, the way an existing government treats its workers for the sole purpose of staying in power.

At the same time, this is one of the classics ever written on socio-political grounds. George Orwell has mastered at the character creation, that it almost felt like the events described in this book might have happened for real. The Dystopia that Orwell had expressed in this novel is quite an amazing thing. Written in 1948, but for the people of 1984 is what makes this book as a unique and class apart.

Winston Smith, the protagonist of our novel, who happened to be an inner party worker. He always hated his government for their way of treating its people. Their totalitarian way of handling things and events resulted in more hatred from among its workers than the normal citizen. Winston was working in Ministry of Truth, a government organization whose purpose is to distort the dates and events and recreate those things as never happened or happened at the behest of the wishes of government. He was often wondering why things are like this and why their government is behaving like this. Their government went a step ahead and created a new kind of dictionary called “NEWSPEAK" that eliminated almost every word that can be used to describe the hatred against their government. This dictionary always uses words such that, there is no way that anyone can write against government, because, those words didn't exist in the NEWSPEAK dictionary.

As the story further progresses, Winston was slogging every day to his work though he hated it. So, he purchased a diary from local market and started to write his hatred against the government in that diary. He had to keep this activity so secret that, his every move, his every step has been watched very closely by his government and Big Brother. Wherever he used to sit, at his home, at office, on the street, there will be special telescreens that will spy on him and often he gets reminders from the same screen whenever they encounter some unusual activities. Not only was him, almost everyone undergoing this surveillance. They are not even allowed to think against their government, otherwise, this will get booked under the act “Thought Crime”. There are few cases like people were booked under “Thought Crimes” and there are “Thought Police” everywhere in the city to keep an eye on these people.

During these events, he meets a female co-worker Julia from his office that expresses her interest towards Winston. Initially he was skeptical that, she might be an inside informant who is spying on him. Later, he comes to know that, even she hated the government. So he accepts her proposal. They usually go to the woods to spend some romantic time together, since, couples who are going together and are not married is a crime according to the government. So, Winston rents an apartment in the 2^nd floor of an antique artefacts seller.

One fine day Winston meets O'Brien, a colleague of him that pretends to hate their government and Big Brother. He befriends him and reveals all his details and his love affair with Julia. Initially, O'Brien acts as if he is the member of secret group and hands over a book of secret group to Winston to study. He collects all the information from Winston and pretends that they can work together and bring down this government. Winston believes in all these things and along with Julia will head back to their apartment and begins to study that book. This is the longest section from the novel where Winston reads and understands everything about their government and the secret group. In all these events, both Winston and Julia were certain of one thing, they believed that they will get caught sooner or later by their government or people from Big Brother and will be executed. During this phase, their apartment door will be kicked open and both of them will be arrested. The owner of the apartment Mr. Charrington, who pretended to be a normal person, is actually one of the “Thought Police”.

So, both Winston and Julia will be arrested and will be put in separate prisons. This section of the novel is the disturbing section. Winston will be tortured like anything and made to accept to all the crimes that he has committed or not. The twist in the novel appears now, O’Brien, who happened to be a member of the secret group is actually a spy working from outside the party and working for Big Brother. He confronts Winston and reveals his true face and explains Winston about all his spying activities. He tortures Winston in all possible ways and forces him to confess everything. O’Brien transfer Winston to Cell 101, a dreaded torture room specifically designed to torture people in the cruelest way and will be made to confess almost anything that they wanted, even though they never committed in the first place. According to O’Brien, Winston and Julia have committed Adultery, they committed thought crime, they are traitors, they worked against the government, etc… But, all O’Brien wanted from Winston was to forget Julia. He tortures Winston and brainwashes him in such a way that, Winston almost nods for everything and even he accepts 2+2=5!!

Finally, O’Brien was able to brainwash Winston successfully. His final resort of torturing Winston by allowing the rats to eat Winston’s face in a closed box proved to be successful. Winston who often gets dreams of eaten by rats was actually coming true. He decides to confess to his final crime and says to O’Brien that he can torture Julia instead of him. This is the final answer that O’Brien was expecting from Winston. Finally, Winston will be released and was allowed to live like normal Proles. Winston encounters Julia in later days after his release, but, he will realize that, he don’t have any feelings left for Julia.

Overall Winston’s journey is completely filled with torture. He realizes that, one alone cannot do anything against the government. The realization from “I hate Big Brother” to “I Love Big Brother” is a complete brainwashed phenomenon.

I recommend this book to be read by everyone. This book is truly a masterpiece and covers the post war details of the country Oceania in greater details. Though it’s a fiction, but, nobody will come to a conclusion that this novel is purely fictional tale oriented!! The 3 sentences from the novel will be reverberated in your head even after finished reading it. “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY AND IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”!!

My Rating:

5/5

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