The Book

By Michael Shaara

A weird world—cut off from the Universe, it had universal wisdom; facing death at every moment, it had the secret of peace!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Start Classics
• Release date: Apr 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781609778583

Michael Shaara

Michael Shaara (1928-88) was an American writer of science, sports and historical fiction. He served in the Korean War, was an amateur boxer and police officer. He later taught literature at Florida State University. The Killer Angels won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975.

Reviews for The Book

[aneris-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An unnamed narrator, who appears quite mad since he is not certain of various aspects of his life ('I think I had a family then—though the details are very uncertain—and I know there were many servants.'), finds an ancient book not realizing its true nature. 'It was a key—a guide—to certain gateways and transitions of which mystics have dreamed and whispered since the race was young, and which lead to freedoms and discoveries beyond the three dimensions and realms of life and matter that we know.' The fact that the old man who gave it to him didn't want any payment wasn't a warning enough that something is seriously wrong with the book. It turned out that by opening the strange book and using its incantations and formulae, the narrator got a chance to see beyond this world. It was followed by something he didn't like, of course. 'For he who passes the gateways always wins a shadow, and never again can he be alone.' That was not all though. Each journey to wherever those gateways led opened his eyes to a new layer of his own reality, so he ended up hiding his knowledge in order not to appear mad. There was also the fact that he often couldn't distinguish between those layers. To add to the horror, each new journey through a gateway brought him closer to losing himself in 'unknown abysses whence [he] could never return.'