Book Review: The Omega Point

The Omega Point by Whtiley Strieber was provided to me by Tor Books on GoodReads.

Nothing happened in 2012, but by 2020 the world is quickly falling apart due to intense solar activity and an impending interstellar disaster the Mayans saw thousands of years ago. David Ford becomes the director of a lonely clinic for the a group of people supposedly suffering from different psychoses. Unknown to David, he will lead humanity into the future as he fights to avoid a killer government operative, neighbors crazed from the end of the world, and a woman scorned.

Without going into my personal beliefs, this novel works a fast moving apocalyptic suspense story. The government has gone into hiding to save themselves. People are struggling to survive without electricity, without vehicles for the most part, without government assistance. The Internet is down, communication lines are non-existent. Solar activity causes power lines and electrical wiring to burst into flame, causing fires that no one is around to extinguish. Auroras are seen around the world. People kill to get what they need to survive.

Now add in my own beliefs and I'll say that this book reads like a New Age Left Behind. David and most of the people in the clinic are the hope of the few people world-wide somehow deemed to have lived their lives good enough to be taken into the next age.  Crazy things happen in this book, for no apparent reason, unless you're aware of the new age message.  At one point the government operative in the clinic sees a painting and thinks to himself that the painting looks too realistic and must instead be a portal to another reality. People who have not lived good enough become marked with dark stains growing on their bodies. UFOs fly around beaming unmarked people up in a glorious shaft of light, while some of those watching try to join them but can't. Those with the mark can't go through the painting portal and suffer a horrendous death, while those that are to start fresh in the next age go easily through into a happy nature scene and are reunited with other good people.

The Omega Point gets a two out of five.