Ship of the Damned Reviews

Fragments Reviews

Footprints of Thunder Reviews

Publisher's Weekly
July 17, 2000 - **Starred Review** X-Files strangeness and race-against-time action come together in this eccentric, gripping science adventure based on the Philadelphia Experiment, a real-life WWII attempt to render warships invisible. Fifty years after the war, neuropsychologist Dr. Wes Martin and co-worker Elizabeth Foxworth begin to investigate several people of various ages who are all dreaming the same dream - that they are wandering through an empty ship in the desert, a vessel whose passageways and rooms keep shifting like a living maze. When Martin links Elizabeth's mind with the dream world, Elizabeth discovers herself wandering a ship that seems much too real to be a fantasy. That's because it is real - it's called the Norfolk, and for more than 50 years it has been trapped in its own little pocket universe called Pot of Gold. The experiment that created Pot of Gold not only fused some of the Norfolk's crew with its metal superstructure, it gave the surviving sailors psychic powers. These so-called Specials are still ensnared on the ship, which is monitored by the Office of Special Projects. When the Nimitz, a modern-day aircraft carrier, disappears just like the Norfolk did, Special Projects leaders take action. They plan to insert a team of agents led by stone killer Nathan Jett into Pot of Gold to destroy the shipboard generators that have been keeping the Norfolk separate from the real world. Key to the plan is the one man who might be immune to the powers of the Specials - a retarded adult called Ralph, whom David fans will remember from his previous novel, Fragments. With just enough science to make the weirdness believable, and some well-rendered subplots, notably a surprisingly moving friendship between killer Jett and the supposedly expendable Ralph, David crafts a great summer read, a swift amusement park ride of shipboard battles, telekinetic showdowns and potential nuclear catastrophe. [TOP OF PAGE]
The Statesman Journal (Salem, OR)
June 11, 2000 - James F. David of Tigard isn't prolific (so far), but when he publishes a book, attention should be paid. He wrote the best, bar none, novel about the intrusion of dinosaurs into the modern world ("Footprints of Thunder"); he wrote a highly charged thriller ("Fragments"). Now, at last, another David is at hand! (Well, at hand in August - that is the scheduled publication date of this book.) "Ship of the Damned" is a fierce, relentless thriller. It uses some of the characters from "Fragments" but takes them out of their Oregon setting and drops them into the middle of one of the great speculative legends of the 20th century: The Philadelphia Experiment. Did the U.S. government try to turn a warship and its crew invisible in 1943? If they did, were there actually two such experiments? And is it true that the results were catastrophic? In this novel, David says yes to all three questions. And he brings the howling danger of that experiment into our own time. Once again, David's style is literate and engrossing, his characters well fleshed, his story finely honed. This book will stay with you for a very long time. So make plans to spend the latter part of your summer at sea in the midst of a nightmare. DAN HAYS [TOP OF PAGE]
Publisher's Weekly
May 19, 1997 - Taking his cue from Theodore Sturgeon's classic 1953 novel, More Than Human, David (Footprints of Thunder) updates the venerable SF theme of a single consciousness built from multiple minds and delivers a successful, purely visceral horror thriller. The eponymous fragments are the minds of five autistic savants, each of whom possesses a sliver of genius. Research psychologist Wes Martin hopes to fuse them into a superconsciousness with the attributes of a god, but he produces something more akin to a devil. "Frankie," the entity synthesized from the computer-enhanced savant intellects, is tainted with the homicidal rage of a rape victim who died in the house where the experiment is conducted. She finds in Gil Master, a psychotic psychic who has infiltrated Martin's team, the perfect channel for resuming the murderous rampage that terrorized her small Oregon town over 40 years before. After a lethargic opening, the novel kicks into high gear when the scientists race to destroy Frankie before she eliminates the savants and most of the town. Remarkable coincidences and far-fetched feats of deductive reasoning abound, but they pale in the flash of a climax worthy of comparison to that of Carrie. Its thought-provoking subject notwithstanding, David's tale is an action-packed no-brainer full of guilty pleasures for even the most cerebral reader.[TOP OF PAGE]
Kirkus Reviews
May 15, 1997 - Thriller writer David turns from dinosaurs dropped down into present-day Central Park (Footprints of Thunder, 1995) to a clutch of idiot savants bonded into one being. "It's as if an intellect so great that we can't fathom it was shattered and fragments of that genius sprinkled among the population. What if we could reconstruct that great mind--that superconsciousness--how many tracks would it have?...What problems could a mind like that solve if we could knit it together once more?" This is the question asked by Dr. Wesley Martin, whose team of brainwave specialists at a university research center tries to integrate the minds of five damaged individuals (each possessed by a great gift) into one mind called "Frankie," short for Frankenstein. The savants include Daphne, a musical prodigy with an amazing calendar-counting ability;Gil, who's not considered retarded, as are the others, but is gifted with precognition and preternatural ability to suggest thoughts to others; Luis, whose uncanny eidetic imagery grants him a photographic memory; Archie, who has an incredible skill for pattern recognition and can solve an immense jigsaw puzzle in minutes; and Yu Tran, who can calculate large numbers and solve word puzzles without thinking. The basic reciever of all these talents is Gil, who, unbeknownst to Dr. Martin, has already tried to kill three people by mind suggestion. Each of the savants begins to share parts of the others' abilities. Then a pastor is murdered, and the body of a dead girl is discovered. Other murders follow. Frankie becomes a remarkable "integration," powerful, inscrutable, seemingly driven by some need for revenge. But against whome? And for what? The climax features a droll reversal of Hitchcock's famous shower scene from Psycho, this time with the guy in the shower and the girl with the knife. David makes large strides over his debut novel in bringing greater focus to his storytelling, and his savants have charms more easily warmed to than dinos. [TOP OF PAGE]
The Statesman Journal
July, 1997 - Salem, Oregon. Writers Fulfill Promise in Second Books
By DAN HAYS
Second books from two new Northwest Authors prove their excellent first novels were no flashes in anyone's pan. Keep an eye on both writers and you'll be rewarded richly. "Fragments"
James F. David's first novel, "Footprints of Thunder," is the best modern novel to deal with the intrusion of living dinosaurs into the present. (Fans of certain other novels using this plot device are challenged to read it and find out for themselves.) Unlike most first novels, David's was assured, briskly paced, convincing and exciting. Now the Tigard author has proven all that was due to solid writing skill. His new novel, "Fragments," is even better. "Fragments" is a different type of book from its predecessor. It is, indeed, science fiction. But it also is a thriller, and it contains touches of horror (or what recent critics like to call "dark fantasy"). It is, in fact, probably the most literate and best thought-out thriller of the year. If you think that's too much praise for a new author, sit down with this book and give it 10 minutes. But be warned you'll want to keep reading until the last page is turned. David has written a frightening, realistic, fast-paced book that creeps up on the reader. This is a work rich in mysteries and secrets. It is peopled with characters real enough that we cannot predict their actions. It recognized the complexity of human personality and action. In fact, "Fragments" is dependent on the reader understanding just how complex the human character is. Few genre novels have been so successful as this one in blending story and theme. It opens with a series of murders and a horrible means of ending them. It jumps ahead in time to a scientific experiment in Eugene that seeks to link the minds of several savants to create a separate personality that exists only in a computer. There is the man who kills by suggesting suicidal actions to his victims. There is the autistic girl who plays the piano beautifully, the savant who can do any puzzle in moments, the mentally retarded young man who is the only one who knows what is really going on but is unable to convey that fact to others. All these fragments do combine. The reader is carried swiftly along in clear, concise prose as the level of information mounts and the fragments begin to become a whole - in the literary sense and in the sense of the action of the story. In other words, this is a creepy, exciting and wholly involving book. It stumbles briefly near the end, but this is a quibble. "Fragments" will haunt you for months. DAN HAYES [TOP OF PAGE]
The Post & Courier
November 2, 1997 - Charleston, SC. Story Keeps Unraveling
Appropriately titled, the chapters of Fragments are as piecemeal as the plot, creating an intriguing puzzle for the reader to assemble. With a cast of fascinating characters, James F. David takes the story from person to person and from place to place, slowly tying the elements together for a union with explosive results. The plot involves a science experminent in which experts find five retarded adults with exeptional talents and try to combine their individual genius into one computer-generated mind. What begins as success soon turns to horror when those in the project suddenly find themselves connected to several murders that lead to the unveiling of some dark past secrets. David comines science fiction, mystery, parapsychology, intense action and even a little romance into a frightening tale that illustrates both his creativity and skillful writing. He pulls the reader into a story that touches deep fears about the potential of scientific advances going terribly awry. COLETTE BAXLEY [TOP OF PAGE]
National Public Radio Review
Aired on OPB/North West Passage on October 2, 1997 - This is Carolyn Spector reviewing a psychological mystery today, Fragments. James F. David, of Tigard, Oregon, is the author. The plot plunges us into mind-altering areas, and David leads us into a world of idot-savants, people with ESP and more. The prologue to this novel is not to be missed. It has insights and subleties which will help you work your way through the devious turns and time warps David presents. In fact rereading this prologue after finishing the story helped me to understand the levels of events which had taken place in the book. The most minute detail, in this prologue, such as a young girl listening to Elvis, comes back stronly and mysteriously as the story unfolds. Idiot-savants are emotionally and intellectually challenged people, such as the young man in the film, "The Rain Man". The five savants in Fragments, crucial to this near science fiction tale, are described with a delicate touch. Each of these young people possesses one particular trait which marks them as being special, exceptionally gifted in an isolated manner. One can solve jigsaw puzzles within minutes, without seeing the images on the puzzle pieces. Another can make calculations based on calendars using some kind of unkown math calculations. These young people's social skills are greatly lacking however, and this poses part of the tragedy of the story. Wes, the leader of a team of psychologists, has obtained a Foundation to sponsor his work. He is attempting to meld the special trait from each savant into a kind of giant perfect brain. Elizabeth is a Foundation member and her transformation from total and articulate skeptic to strong supporter of Wes' thesis is interesting. The team of psychologists, Elizabeth, the five savants and a rather mysterious helper have rented a former college fraternity and this poses an unforseen problem. Wes is unaware of the influence of the spirits and energy in this rented house. Nor can he anticipate the ancillary abilities of his enigmatic helper. If you believe in "Ouija" boards, this story is for you! David's chapter headings are terse one-word teasers of what is about to happen. They remind me of the savants' abilities to join in social discourse as we meet them. There is much psychological and technical explanation early on. It is quite detailed and goes on longer than necessary, but it certainly validates much of the experimental aspect of the novel. That is, if any of it can be taken seriously. Fragments rests squarely in the realm of mysterious and violent murders. Be prepared for some gory scenes throughout and explanations that don't surface unitl the high-pitched end of the novel. David's style is colorful and action-packed. The story picks up momentum and gathers the loose ends in a concise and efficient manner at the end. I'm reviewing Fragments by James F. David, published by Forge Books. I'm Carolyn Spector. [TOP OF PAGE]

NECROFILE: The Review of Horror Fiction
 Issue #27 Winter 1998, page 23
Review by Michael Levy
Take Theodore Sturgeon's classic More Than Human (1953), rewrite it as a script for "The X-Files", and you might end up with something very much like James F. David's Fragments. Indeed, Forge's advertising copy goes out of its way to emphasize the similarities between David's novel and the popular television series. A laudatory quote from Kevin J. Anderson, identified as the author of The X-Files: Ground Zero, is featured on the front cover and an "In the chilling style of The X-Files..." blurb leads off the copy inside the book jacket.
The novel begins with a chilling prologue set, perhaps by coincidence, in the year More Than Human was published. A man living in an anonymous college town puts two and two together and realizes that the killer responsible for the deaths of a number of the boys living in a nearby fraternity has to be his own daughter. Nancy Wilson had begun to drink and run wild after the rest of her family was killed in a tragic car wreck. Eventually she decided to party at the wrong frat house and was gang raped. Her father chose to preserve appearances, however, and made no attempt to have the boys prosecuted. Wanting revenge, Nancy has begun to stalk and murder the fraternity boys who raped her, gruesomely mutilating their genitals after she dispatches them with multiple stab wounds. Rather then getting his daughter the help she so obviously needs, her father, once again preferring to avoid scandal, literally walls her up in a corner of the basement. Dad tells her he loves her and provides her with food, clothing, and art supplies, but never lets her out. Eventually, for reasons unknown, Nancy dies, one arm dangling rather pathetically through the small hole that has been her only connection to the outside world for many years. Dad then bricks up the hole and rearranges the basement storage shelves to cover the wall. Eventually Nancy's father also dies and the house is sold.
Years later, in 1997, in a different part of the country, a murderous sociopath who currently goes by the name of Gil Masters has developed an odd psychic power. He can't actually read minds, but he can put suggestions in other people's heads so that they will unthinkingly do or believe whatever he wants them to. Thus, although Gil doesn't actually score any higher than random chance on the standard ESP card test, he can influence the person testing him to believe he's scoring at whatever rate suits his purposes. Using a variety of pseudonyms, Gil works psychic research labs around the country on a regular basis, in part because he's hoping to learn something about his own powers from the scientists who test him, and in part because it's an easy way to make a living. Unfortunately Gil is also paranoid with an overpower need to keep his powers a secret. Therefore, whenever he thinks that a psychic investigator may be on to his scam, he kills the scientist, usually by causing him to step in front of a speeding car, and then disappears. It is in fact unclear exactly how many people he has murdered at the outset of the novel.
Back in the college town of the prologue a scientist has rented an old house to serve as a combined laboratory and dormitory for his human subjects. Dr. Wes Martin has developed a computer program that will allow him to merge the minds of a number of different people in the hope of creating one superior composite intelligence. Rather than using college students or volunteers, however, Martin is going to use idiot savants, severely retarded or autistic adults who each possess one or more unusual powers. Daphne, for example, can play any piece of music perfectly on the piano after hearing it just once. She is also a calendar counter, able to calculate instantaneously what day of the week any future date will fall on. Archie can put the most complicated puzzles together at incredible speed thanks to a virtually perfect shape-recognition ability. Luis can recite any book he has ever read, but is incapable of forming emotional attachments. Yu, although severely retarded, can do incredibly complex math problems in his head and is a walking thesaurus. He can also measure the exact square footage of any given area simply by walking it, and he does this compulsively. Dr. Martin believe that by harnessing the talents of the savants he can create a composite intelligence that will be far superior to what he could accomplish with normal subjects. Also slated to live at the house during the experiment are Elizabeth Foxworth, whose job it is to protect the human rights of the savants, Ralph, a severely retarded man of no known special abilities who is present merely because Daphne is enormously attached to him, and Len, Karon, and Shamita, junior scientists working under Dr. Martin's direction. Elizabeth's assistant was also supposed to join the crew but, sadly, was killed by a car and has had to be replaced at the last minute. It is, of course, no surprise when the new assistant turns out to be Gil Masters, who has read about Dr. Martin's forthcoming experiment and decided to co-opt it to serve his own search for self-knowledge.
After the well-done but rather painful prologue, the early chapters of David's novel are considerably less powerful. This is in large measure because the author must perforce skip around, giving us background on each of the savants and, in effect, assembling his research team. Once the experiments begin, however, the tension increases. We know that something is going to go wrong when Gil decides to use his psychic power to convince Dr. Martin to let him be part of the matrix, along with Daphne, Archie, Luis, and Yu. Furthur, the experiment is less than a complete success at first because the composite mind that results lacks any real human spark. Then, almost without warning, something changes. "Frankie", as the scientists rather ominously dub their creation, appears to come alive, demonstrating all the powers of the savants and developing her own distinct personality. That Frankie is indeed a "her" seems odd, since only one of the five people involved is female, but a her she nonetheless is for reasons that will be clear to the reader long before they are discovered by the characters.
Although more than forty years have gone by since the novel's prologue, some things never change. The fraternity where Nancy Wilson was raped is still in operation and a significant number of the frat brothers are still sexist jerks. Billy, the worst of them, first tries to humiliate Ralph and then attempts to molest Daphne sexually. Soon thereafter a frat brother is murdered. We know from the moment that it happens that Daphne is the killer. What we don't know, but can guess without too much difficulty, is why she commits the murder using the same gruesome technique that Nancy Wilson used on her rapists so many years ago.
As the novel progresses things go just about the way an experience genre reader would expect. Frankie takes on increasing independence and eventually develops the ability to exist separate from the computers that created her. Due in part to his connection with Frankie, Gil's psychic powers increase, as does his paranoia. Now able to focus and release his anger like a battering ram, he commits another murder and plans still more. Then, yet another fraternity brother dies, a victim of multiple stab wounds and genital mutilation, but this time neither Daphne nor Gil is directly involved.
There is little in Fragments that hasn't been done before, but the book is still a satisfying read. David's prose style is solid and his characters are more than interesting enough to hold our attention. If the initial hostility between Wes Martin and Elizabeth Foxworth is a bit overdone, the gradually increasing personal and professional respect that they feel for each other seems believable enough. Gil Masters is little more than a cardboard villain, but he's a serviceable one, and his paranoia provides much of the novel's driving force. Daphne, autistic but not retarded, a musical genius and a survivor of early childhood abuse, has unexpected depths and complexities to her personality which only gradually make themselves known; she may well be the best-drawn character in the book. Then there's Ralph, invariable cheerful and indefatigable, a sort of large male version of the classic children's book character, Amelia Bedelia.
I rarely find cover blurbs to be of much use when it comes to understanding a novel, but that isn't true in this case. With a little bit of trimming and rewriting Fragments could indeed be the basis for an "X-Files" script, and a pretty good one at that, perhaps the "X-Files" feature film the show's aficionados are always asking for. It would not, for example, be at all hard to attach Scully and Mulder to the police officer investigating the second set of fraternity murders, give them most of his best lines, and let them handle the two slambang confrontations with Gil that end the novel. Actually I rather like the idea. If the author reads this review I offer it to him free of charge. [TOP OF PAGE]

Amazon.com Thriller's Editor's Remmendation Where are the new Stephen Kings and Dean Koontzes coming from? Former psychology professor James F. David puts himself near the top of the contenders' list with his second thriller--an absorbing story that soon leaves implausibility behind in the dust. Research psychologist Wes Martin fuses together the minds of five idiot savants, hoping to create from the shattered fragments of their individual psyches one superior being. But--wouldn't you know it?--a sixth fragment gets into the mix: the raging spirit of a woman raped and murdered in the very house where Martin's melding is going on. She, of course, wants revenge--and most readers will be red-eyed but satisfied with the way things work out. [TOP OF PAGE]
Booklist Reviews
September 15, 1995 - The dinosaur craze is definitely getting its second wind. Witness Michael Crichton's spanking new Jurassic Park sequel, The Lost World (Booklist 1/95), and this disaster novel with its far-fetched but irresistible premise. Foreshadowed by anomalous showers of corn and fish occurring at ever shorter intervals, a catastrophic rupture in space-time fuses together two widely disparate eras of Earth history, the present day and the age of dinosaurs. The result is a crazy quilt of juxaposed topographies in which New York's skyline overlooks herds of grazing iguanodons, and whole mountains blockade interstate highways. In standard disaster novel fashion, the colorful lineup of victims includes a family stranded at sea on the back of a wading brontosaurus; the president's bewildered, Carl Saganish science advisor; and a motley group of professors who predicted the rupture and represent the world's best hope of understanding it. David jumbles quantum physics and fringe science to give his scenario semi-plausible foundations, but believable characters and riveting, nonstop action ultimately sustain this fanciful dinosaur tale. - Carl Hays [TOP OF PAGE]
Star-Banner
Ocala, FL October 22, 1995 - Footprints Excellent
For those who can't get their fill of dinosaurs and a lot of action, try this splendid story of man's herd's coming back to haunt a modern world. Footprints of Thunder offers a lot of answers to mysteries that have confounded man for centuries. Drawing heavily on the workings of Zorastrus, also known as the "Prophet of Babylon" the story tells of what happens when the real fallout of atomic bombs becomes evident. The past and present collide most uncomfortably one quiet Saturday. Suddenly, there is a rumble and then, cities disappear, replaced by prehistoric forests and animals. The survivors are aghast, astounded and living in a situation beyond their capabilities to handle. How does a street gang in New York handle carnivores that stand 50 feet tall? Do scientists forget their own safety in an arrogant attempt to document beings that became extinct millons of years ago? Astronomers in Hawaii bicker about telescope time and then fret about the evidence uncovered by their prying. It's a constant jockeying for power that forgets one thing. The world is rent and no one acknowledges that power. In Florida, a family who plans a day of sailing has to fight for life after a tidal wave, man-eating whales and lifesaving dinosaurs become their daily way of life. The politicians are typically useless. It is in Oregon that most of the action occurs. Students, children, cops, feds and psychopaths are all enmeshed in the struggle for survival. There is a great scientific explanation for the mixture of eras. It has to do with the electro-magnetic pulse and the effect of atomic testing. Everything from missing airmen in the Bermuda Triangle to Biblical exhortations are included in this magnificently executed story. - Rima Firrone Book Marks[TOP OF PAGE]
The Post & Courier
Charleston, SC - March 10, 1996 - Footprints of Thunder intriguing, provocative
Imagine the boundaries between time suddenly dissolving. For no apparent reason, large patches of the Earth have reverted to their state during different periods of the Earth's history - past, present and possibly the future. It starts with a series of unexplained phenomena, corn falling from the sky, flash floods of salt water with no clouds in the sky. No one knows what is going on except for a small group of scientists and some college students, but everyone thinks they are crazy, so no one listens. Zorastrus, an ancient soothsayer and prophet, recorded and plotted certain unexplainable events and predicted it was part of a pattern that would increase in frequency and come to a final conclusion with startling and possibly catastrophic results. Using Zorastrus' manuscripts and a computer simulation, this small group starts predicting events with increasing accuracy and frequency. By the time any one pays them heed, the world is changing. Dinosaurs in the Bronx, primeval forests in downtown Portland, chaos everywhere. As the government and civilization struggles to survive, the group persevers and tries to help the best they can. James F. David has summoned an intriguing, often provocative story that, especially for a first novel, reveals narrative imagination and stylistic command. Michael A. Green[TOP OF PAGE]
San Francisco Examiner
November 14, 1995 - Fasten your seat belts. You're in for a very bumpy and scary encounter when "Jurassic Park" enters the "Twilight Zone." It all begins one weekend in Oregon when college students on a hunting trip are pelted by corn falling from the sky. Soon a warp in both time and space hits sporadically around the globe. Portland disappears and most of Oregon turns into a forest filled with dinosaurs, most of them man eating. Part of New York City turns into brush land, also populated by dinosuars. Atlanta is gone. Islands erupt off the Florida coast, causing huge tital waves. And this huge dishevelment brings out the best and worst of people. A group of students find themselves in the Oregon forest and some are eaten by the dinosaurs. In New York City, a little old lady living in a fifth-floor apartment pelts a brontosaurus with bags of sugar to keep him out of her flower garden and eventually tames him, only to have gangs shoot and wound her new friend. A flying reptile scoops up a small girl and flies her to its mountain nest. A tital wave sinks a boat sailing off Florida, and the family of four washed aboard eventually finds safety on the back of a swimming dinosaur fighting off attacks by killer whales. Until the warp occurs, this book is pretty slow going. But once the world is turned upside down, the pace picks up nicely. David's descriptions of this brave new world are so visual,you know that a movie can't be far behind. [TOP OF PAGE]
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