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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780741430168
ISBN number: 0741430169
Label: Infinity Publishing
Manufacturer: Infinity Publishing
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 204
Printing Date: April 21, 2006
Publishing house: Infinity Publishing
Sale Popularity Level: 594062
Studio: Infinity Publishing
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Product Description:
An American educated Mayan sits atop a Temple in Tikal National Park, waiting. A father helplessly watches his family fall into some kind of sleep, or trance. Then he too succumbs, begging a stranger to save them. A PhD scientist awakens, remembering only hours ago she was in her nanotechnology lab, trying to work a solution to make incredibly small robots replicate. But she finds that she is now ill, or a prisoner, or both. The world has change irrevocably, in one swift movement, by the actions of a meglo-maniacal genius. Can they undo what he has done? Should they?
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Rated by buyers 
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This is an excellent read. It's a page-turner that is hard to put down. It has a great cast of characters including Julius, the protagonist, and Dr. Tooney, a first-class villain. At the heart of this book is the action. Ketchersid has a great knack for engaging you and keeping you on the edge your seat. The science is believable and the insight into environmental issues is well researched. I give this book a recommend and anxiously await the second book.
Rated by buyers -
I found Dusk Before Dawn very entertaining. It is a great escape from reality. The book weaves a tale of a scientist gone mad who takes the problem of the over-population of the earth into his own hands. Along the way, the reader gets an inside glimpse of two worlds that are rarely discussed in such books--nano-technolgy and ancient civilizations. The mad scientist uses nano-technology to put the human population to sleep while the earth regenerates. This is a very timely topic as the subject of global warming and over-population is "heating up" around the world. In addition, the author gives the reader a great inside look at ancient civilizations who have seemingly been made obsolete by modern times but whose cultures are very important in a changed world. I encourage everyone to read this book!
Rated by buyers -
Reviewed by Joanne Benham for Reader Views (12/06)
Right before I started reading this book, I watched a special on The National Geographic Channel about the ancient Mayan Calendar and scientist's interpretation of it. The Mayans' calendar was based on their knowledge of the skies and the way the Earth moved in conjunction with the planets. For example, they were able to make highly accurate predictions of such things as the summer and winter solstices thousands of years in advance. The Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012 and scientists are divided as to whether they are predicting the end of the world or the beginning of a new Golden Era. Then I read this book and it seems like the author has addressed this question and given a highly plausible answer.
Joseph Davis, a medical technician at a local hospital, and his family are at the beach enjoying a day of sun and swimming when suddenly the people around him, including his family, drop to the ground in a coma. Frantic, Joseph rushes his family to the closest hospital, which happens to be the one where he works, only to find the personnel there are also passing out. Within minutes of arriving at the hospital Joseph finds himself passing out too, his last conscious thought of his wife and children.
Joseph wakes up in a new world, taken over by a mad scientist who has destroyed half the people on earth, forced to work for the scientist in order to keep his wife and daughters alive.
But there's a small group, seemingly unaffected by the scientist's potion. Who are these people and what magical powers do they possess that allows them to remain conscious while the rest of the world rests in a coma? And can these few people save the rest of the human race from the mad scientist?
I enjoyed "Dusk Before the Dawn" and I hope there is a sequel planned that will answer a few questions I have, such as how long were the key characters in their comas. Was it a week, month or even years? That question nagged me through the whole book, so Larry; I hope you answer it in the next.
Rated by buyers 
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There has been much debating, much watching, and much meditating at the El Templo del Gran Jaguar in the Tikal complex in Guatemala. Even those holding vigil are uncertain of what will come, but come it will.
In North America and around the world, human life changes in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, but there are few left to hear what may be mankind's last trumpet. Those few who do remain seem to have something special about them or, in the case of those artificially maintained, there is often something base about them.
Who will save the world? Will it be a pure technologist, a scientist who is learning that all is not what we would have it be, or a group of people who think that mind does matter? More important, can they save the world and is it worth "saving" in its pre-event version?
In Dusk Before the Dawn, author Larry Ketchersid does not ask us to suspend our imagination; he asks us to expand it and provides us the technical and historical backgrounds to begin doing so. Many novels have asked us to look at what would Earth do if humans gave the planet a break. Larry Ketchersid's may be the most successful endeavor since the hippies-era classic Ecotopia, although it is certainly not covering the topic in the same manner as the older book. No...this is fresh ground.
Technology is a tool and like all tools requires the end-user to possess knowledge, skills, and (as the technology advances) wisdom. In the end, it is just a tool, unless it becomes sentient (not an issue in this book).
If tools don't shape the world by themselves, then what does? Possibly, it is the human mind working through pure thought and meditation and, most assuredly, it is shaped by tools and human hubris working directly. Ketchersid asks us to look at the potential of the former and to question the continued viability of the latter.
For those of you with the time and interests to delve into the world(s) of quantum reality and mediation, it is certainly worth the effort. But don't feel it mandatory, because Ketchersid will take you to an alternative future in Dusk Before the Dawn where you can learn and question. You'll find it a thought provoking trip.
Dusk Before the Dawn gets a four (4) spaceship rating. You'll find the "bad" people are often not totally bad, just ethically and morally challenged (ah...political correctness is a wonderful thing...NOT) and the good people have enough Jesuit in them that they can live with "the means justifying the ends"--this begs the question why is one wrong and the other right and is just another reason to get this book and start reading. I hope Dusk Before the Dawn won't be Larry Ketchersid's last novel...he needs to get more of us thinking.
4 out of 5 spaceships
Reviewer: Dr. Phil Rhyne for Multiverse Reviews
Rated by buyers -
Larry Ketchersid and I swapped novels (Napoleon's Pyramids is mine) for mutual comment and I thoroughly enjoyed his debut effort. This is a novel with a big idea - if our planet is truly threatened by human population growth and technology, what is the ultimate solution - and what is the morality of that solution? At what point does the idealism of a genius become insanity? And is there a need for a change in human consciousness, and can this truly be achieved? This is a lot to bite off, and the author has constructed a very fast-paced story that covers a lot of ground within an apocalyptic scenario. It is a novel of ideas more than character, and I suspect Ketchersid's skill in deepening his characters and developing his descriptive skills will grow as he continues with this science fiction series. Recommended to those with interest in the conflict between science and technology, in nanotechnology, in the Mayan calendar, and in meditation and altered states of consciousness. Its themes reminded me of books such as Childhood's End, Jurassic Park, and Canticle for Leibowitz. It will be interesting to see where the author takes his saga.
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