Prophecy

Prophecy
Paul Mark Tag
iUniverse
ISBN: 978-0595434442
Fiction, Science Fiction, Thriller
Reviewed by Charles Lesher

Worthy of a big publishing house, Prophecy is an excellent novel and Paul Mark Tag should be proud of his achievement. I look forward to his next book.
Prophecy starts with a girl, Augusta, placing a letter in her church safe. Moments later she and over 2,200 hundred others are swept away in the great Johnstown flood of 1889. From there, the story moves forward to 2009 with the discovery of a genetic mutation that somehow, it is not explained how, gives its bearer the gift of prophecy. Well of course, the government and others in power must have, or at least control, such a gift and the race is on. Sex, intrigue and some very cool spyware flesh out his story and bring his characters to life. Any more detail and the review will spoil the twists and turns of this well thought-out novel.
Overall, the plot is tight with only a few marginal moments, the biggest in my opinion, the hiding of a 38 revolver outside a major airport. Convenient for the hero as he returned from jetting across country but it might have been slightly more believable to have Silverstein call a friend to bring it to him, or swing by and pick it up on his way. But really, I nitpick. The story moves nicely and takes the reader on a wild ride through a techno thriller comparable to any of Tom Clancy’s later works. The only real negative is the ending, which I do not feel I can go into particulars without spoiling the book for everyone else. Nevertheless, I feel he should have gone ahead and knocked the legs from under religion’s prophets. It would have provided fertile ground for a sequel.
I found very few mechanical errors in the writing. The work is well edited and consistent, the characters easy to relate to, and the storyline plausible even if it is short the scientific details. I would reclassify the genre as techno thriller (90% thriller / 10% techno). I highly recommend Prophecy and predict that Mr. Tag’s next endeavor will succeed as well. We must now wait to see if my prophecy gene is working or not.