Kenneth John Atchity – The Messiah Matrix
Well, the last post has been a while ago. Meanwhile, I finally finished The Messiah Matrix, which is one of my first (english) novels I read as e-book. Although it’s the same book, it’s a different experience, as one is tempted to use extra features like, e.g., the built-in dictionary. But this post is not about using an e-book for a foreign language novel.
On topic. I do not remember, how I found about this novel. Kenneth Atchity was unknown to me prior to reading The Messiah Matrix, also he wrote quite a bunch of books, fiction and non-fiction. And one can feel his experience in writing, as the novel took me in quickly. It has quite a good overall pace, taking up its speed from the beginning with a murder, a confession, and a mystic discovery of some coin. Unfortunately, it loses some of the thrill in the mid of the story, when the parallel threads merge, and historical story-telling is used to explain the theories of Monsignor Oscar Issac, who worked for the Society of Jesus to find about the true origins of the New Testament. Not to mention that his search triggered some guys of the catholic church to run several not-so-christian actions.
The main protagonists, Father Ryan McKeown and Professor Emily Scelba, are drawn into the trial of the early dead Isaac by relationship to the Monsignor, so far so logical. Throughout the story, quite a lot of accidents and luck lead to a fair plausible plot. The protagonists sometimes seem a bit naive, sometimes very clever, and most times very lucky. But, how else would such a story work out?
Regarding the overall story, I think it’s a quite interesting idea to try explain the Testament’s coming into existance from a real history background like told. As a downside, to me, the novel has a bit to much of a happy ending and does not leave anything open to think about.