A Vision of Fire by Gillian Anderson & Jeff Rovin: Book #9 for 2015
I was excited when I received this book as a present, not having known Gillian Anderson (formerly Agent Scully in The X-Files) had co-written a book.
This story feels worthy of the X-Files, and feels similar to some of their plots with its science fiction elements. It's also book one in a series called the Earthend Saga, which gives an idea of what the tone of the story is.
The principal character is a child psychologist called Caitlin, who is called in to deal with a girl who starts speaking in tongues and hallucinating. The main plot thread of the story involves what is happening with the girl, and Caitlin starts bonding with her. Caitlin evidently has some psychic powers of her own, and starts having apocalyptic visions/dreams.
There are other plot elements, including a boy who sets himself on fire, a girl who almost drowns on dry land and animals exhibiting strange behaviour, and you start getting a sense that something ominous and even apocalyptic is happening. It seemed quite topical, what with all the people nowadays who are trying to predict when the world as we know it will end.
I quite enjoyed the story; the characters were engaging, and I liked the way they were constantly joking with each other, stopping the story from being too heavy, while not detracting from the drama. I liked the fact that the book ended on a cliffhanger that presumably is to set up the second book in the series, and it's something that I want to stick with to see what happens next.
Incidentally, it takes a while for there to be any answers in this book, but without giving too much away...
[Spoiler (click to open)]
It does involve the discovery of a lost civilisation from millions of years ago, who apparently had flying ships.