Sonoma Quadrant
by C.H. Foertmeyer
ISBN 0-595-24731-8
175 pages at 13.95 paperback
www.iuniverse.com
C.H. Foertmeyer is an award winning novelist for good reason. (The Dorothy Parker Award and The Bloody Dagger Award.) The man can write, and the spinnings of his fertile mind are always intriguing.
Damon and Malik - the Guardians - return in this sequel to The Cat's Lair.
Their thought transference and shape shifting powers have advanced, which is good, because these angel-like guardian beings have their work cut out for them in the Sonoma Quadrant.
Two teenage brothers meet up with a reclusive prospector named Griswald in the desert. For hundreds of years, people have been disappearing without a trace into the Sonoma Quadrant, and Griswald knows why and how. The tale he shares with them is unbelievable, until he proves it to them. He takes them to the mysterious town of Melas where the brothers find miracles aplenty. The townfolk live a perpetual life free of illness and injury, isolated from harmful outside influences. They seem to have free will and live charmed lives. This largesse is through the Nomeds, travelers from Alpha Centauri, who use Melas as a safe haven when they are on Earth.
The truth is far afield of that fictional fairy tale told to skeptical brothers. The citizens of Melas in reality are souls snatched by demons and placed in Limbo forever to serve Lucifer. It's good versus evil in a most unusual scenario and will take the power of the Guardians and brave humans combined to prevail. IF they can prevail. You won't know until the very end who comes out winners.
If you have not read its predecessor, Sonoma Quadrant can easily stand alone. My suggestion is you read The Cat's Lair first and then dig into this exciting sequel. Good job, as usual, Mr. Foertmeyer.
Laurel Johnson
Midwest Book Review
Review by: Stacey Bucholz
All About Murder Reviews
AllAboutMurder.com
5 Daggers
If you've read Mr. Foertmeyers first book THE CATS' LAIR, you will start
reading SONOMA QUADRANT and feel like your
returning to old and great friends. Just a total feeling of
"Ahhhhhhhh... I'm home again."
While on a three day trip out to the Sonoma Desert to look for gold,
two brothers named Tom and John Fischer meet an old
prospector known as Griswald. He's got a story to tell the brothers and
a sight for them to see! Both young men decide to add a
little adventure to their trip and humor the old guy. So they follow him
out into the desert and end up in a strange town called
Melas, filled with even stranger events. For starters, you can't see the
town or the inhabitants till you cross into it. Once there, you
can imagine anything you want and it appears. Or just visualize where
you want to be and you are there. On top of all of this, the
citizens of the town have been living this way for hundreds and hundreds
of years. Yet they don't age but a day for every hundred
that passes.
How did this place come to be and who are the beings that have set this
place up? There is an evil working here and the
Guardians are trying to manipulate events to get Tom and John out of the
Sonoma Quadrant.
I absolutely love this book! Mr. Foertmeyer has an excellent imagination
and his characters are wonderfully written. The Guardians
are some of my very favorite personalities from any book I've read.
The mischief and side stepping that Malic does to get around the rules
and get the help his Kinder needs is heartwarming. It's
even more touching to see that his superiors, Damon and Otheon, look the
other way when he does it.
I can only hope that Mr. Foertmeyer has a need to write another book to
follow this one. I could just keep reading and reading his
stories. He is truly an imaginative and exceptional talent. It would be
a shame for anyone to miss out on this first rate author.
Reviewed by Tim Jeffries (visitor) 8/24/2002
Rating: 10
An excellent sequel to The Cat's Lair with further development of the Guardians and the "world" in which they live. The story presents an interesting perspective on how the powers of good and evil could be working behind our everyday lives. Another easy to read and hard to put down adventure.