Greg Bear’s Strength of Stones

15Sep - by Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad - 1 - In English SF Islam in SF Literature

Greg Bear’s novel Strength of Stones is mainly concerned with Judeo-Christian themes, but Islam exists in the background.
[Thanks to Marshall A. for the synopsis]

One thought on “Greg Bear’s Strength of Stones”

  1. Dear Greg, I’m sorta shooting in the dark here. I have a Sci/Fi scropt that I’v been working on for the past fifteen years, and I think I finally have it finished.
    I’m sending you the LogLine and synopsis in the hopes that you might direct me to the people who might be interested.

    PRIMAL ENERGY
    BY
    KHOSROW DJAHANBANI
    GENRE: SCI FI
    LOGLINE:
    After surviving a vicious attack on his Space Lab, our hero discover to his disbelief that he was the real assailant, and comes to find out the shocking secret about himself and all mankind.

    SYNOPSIS:
    PROLOGUE:
    A giant flaming meteor comes to stop just above the Earth’s atmosphere. The fire cools, revealing a glowing Sphere. When the astronaut investigating the PRIMAL ENERGY SPHERE sees the beauty of the Sphere, he is suddenly told to abort mission.
    ACT ONE:
    TWENTY YEARS LATER:
    Deep in space, an armada of Black Alien Ships is headed toward a space lab.
    Inside the Space SS-TITAN, Our hero is developing a prototype Stealth Mode Emergency Life Craft (SM-ELC) that is capable of becoming invisible.
    Suddenly the Alien ships attack the space lab, ruthlessly killing everyone except our hero, his assistant and a beautiful young doctor that escape in the invisible Emergency Life Craft (ELC).
    Having escaped the Aliens and with a long journey ahead, the crew recounts their lives to each other, and a strong bond is formed between them.
    Just then, they discover that due to a malfunction in the ship’s stealth mode, their fuel is nearly all gone.
    As our hero sadly watches the approach of death, the ghost of his former teacher appear to him telling him that he must fulfill a mission that had begun years before.
    Suddenly the crew receives a message from a Giant Space Lab coming to their rescue.
    ACT TWO:
    Our hero and his crew are welcomed aboard the giant space lab, but soon our hero discovers that not only are they on the Alien mother ship, but that for some reason, our Hero was the reason for their space lab being attacked.
    He tries to warn his crew, but the Aliens have already taken over their minds.
    Our hero escapes in his ELC only to find that his craft was never refueled.
    Freezing in space, our hero again sees his teacher telling him that he is the only one that can unlock the Sphere held within the core of the Alien ship and free mankind from Alien domination, and that he can go back undetected because the stealth mode on his craft has given him the power to be invisible to the Aliens.
    ACT THREE:
    The Aliens bring back the ELC but cannot see our Hero.
    For the first time our Hero sees the grotesque aliens that are controlling the minds of the crew.
    With the help of his teacher, our hero slips past the Aliens and into the Core of the Giant Lab.
    Inside the Core, he discovers the Sphere that he had once seen at the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. He is told by his teacher to enter the Sphere where all things would be made clear to him.
    Inside the Sphere, our hero sees the folly that has placed him and all mankind under the control of the evil Aliens. He screams for redemption. His teacher tells him that redemption lies lays in him giving up his existence in order to see the truth about himself.
    It is then that he recalls that he had desired the power and wealth that came from possessing the Sphere, and it was that desire that had brought the Aliens for him to take over the ship. The other part of him that had wanted the knowledge of the Sphere had been abandoned on the Space Lab that was destroyed, thus bringing his two halves to face one another before a great mirror that shows him the beginning of this creation and its purpose, and he is also shown how to be reborn into an amazing new world of love and beauty.

    Khosrow Djahanbani
    Rue des Terreaux 23 1003
    Lausanne, Switzerland
    e-mail: muhammed@befree.ch
    Telephone: 4121-312-4572

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