Thursday, September 27, 2012

Hailey's Paradox by Arnold Simon


The year is 2040. The Republican Party is now the Conservative Party, largely under the influence of the religious right. The Democratic Party has become the Alliance Party, a coalition of liberals and moderates.
Rev. Pawlings is the leader of the religious right. His great dream is to turn the U. S. into a religious state. They need the right man as a presidential candidate and they settle on Jarett Hailey, a well known paleontologist who believes in creationism.
The well laid plans of the religious right begin to falter when another scientist accuses Hailey of saying he believes in creationism but yet admitting that there is absolutely no scientific evidence for it.

The novel is the story of the controversial candidate as he struggles with his own beliefs and others try to manipulate him for their own gain.

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this novel. There is a considerable amount of unacceptable language and immoral behavior. The Christians are portrayed as manipulating, swearing, unethical, immoral and horrible people. And the novel is not about creationism and science at all. As the author says at the end of the book, he is not an expert in either paleontology or paleobiology. “As it turned out, this mattered little, because the novel is not a story about either of those sciences. It's about a man who finds himself torn between science and religion.”
One would think there would have been something about fossils and creationism in the book, but there was not. There was just lots of swearing and sex and a man who sold himself out to politics.

You can find out more about this book at http://haileysparadox.com/index.html

Arnold Simon was born in Manhattan and raised in Belgium. He was an anti-submarine specialist, electrical engineer, and partner in a law firm before becoming a full time author. His first novel was A Break in the Storm.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Westwind Communications for the purpose of this review.

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