The Herald by Michael Shaara

The Herald Reviews

• 
  Alessandro

  Dark and also uplifting at times. It made me reflect on empathy, control, freedom, loneliness. I appreciated the writing style and its descriptive power. Loved the final.
• 
  Marco Beneventi

  Quando il giovane Nick Tesla, al comando di un piccolo aereo, chiede alla torre di controllo dell'aeroporto di Jefferson city il permesso di atterrare, non si immagina di sentire come risposta un inquietante silenzio.
  Una volta a terra scoprirà a cosa è dovuto, la morte, sottoforma di un morbo sconosciuto, ha colpito, sterminandola in gran parte, tutta la cittadina.
  Da cosa è dovuta questa piaga? Ci sono sopravvissuti? E tutto ció puó essere legato alla presenza in città del dottor Shepherd, genetista e premio Nobel?
  E come se non bastasse, ai bordi di Jefferson l'esercito comincia ad ammassare le sue truppe.
  
  "L'araldo dello sterminio", pubblicato nel 1981 da Michael Shaara, si offre come un romanzo particolarmente avvincente e dal ritmo serrato sin dalle primissime pagine.
  In un crescendo di tensione, ben sviluppata grazie alle felici scelte narrative, il racconto si dipana fluidamente sino al finale decisamente riuscito.
  A far da corollario al romanzo, una schiera di personaggi che per quanto non particolarmente dettagliati risultano comunque ben proposti.
  Unica nota stonata, ma che non inficia sulla narrazione, è la presenza di alcuni passaggi che paiono un pó inverosimili ma che si inseriscono comunque bene nella trama del racconto.
  Un buon romanzo di fantascienza che merita di essere letto.
• 
  Cristian

  Bel libro.
  Fantascienza militare.
  Ma ben aricolata la storia, trascina sino alla fine
• 
  theduckthief

  ”He did not feel it for a long moment. It was very quiet in the car and very gray in the sky and the road was black and calm and empty, and there was a quiet sound from the engine and the patient thump of the wipers, and then he saw a black bird come out of the sky on the left and cross over him, flying to the right in the light rain, disappearing behind the trees. It was the first motion. And then he felt the current.”
  
  Nick Tesla is flying to Jefferson, Georgia in his small plane. When he can't reach anyone at the airport he is concerned. When he lands and can't find any people he gets worried. When he starts to find dead bodies he gets scared.
  
  I have this morbid fascination with apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic novels. I think it's watching how people pick up the pieces that fascinate me, the choices they make, for the good or the bad and choices are extrememly important in this book.
  
  I was interested in this book purely on the merit of one of Shaara’s other books, ”The Killer Angels” about the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. This book proves how versatile a writer he is, moving from historical to apocalyptic fiction. If you love books about the US Civil War or even if you know nothing about it, I would highly recommend this book. Look for my review on this book soon.
  
  Shaara slowly builds the tension because we only get the story in pieces; we learn as the characters learn what’s going on. I had so many theories apart from what I had read on the dust jacket. And the way he writes to create an atmosphere of cold terror is exquisite.
  
  ”At that moment Ring saw a man break from the side of the radio truck and come running back down through the field, running away. But no one else ran. They all stood there like dark wet statues, in dead silence, looking toward the Wall, and for a long moment Ring had no idea, then it began to come, and he broke forward toward the gate. Faces turned toward him. Black faces: a nightmare of wet man with death in their eyes. He felt his skin prickle.”
  
  I did not like the tongue-in-cheek joke about our protagonist’s name. Nikola Tesla was an amazing man with a brilliant but damaged mind. His scientific genius doesn’t translate to Nick’s character. If Nick had been a closet engineer or did science experiments in his basement I would have seen the connection. As it was, I saw no connection and felt the character was sloppily named.
  
  As well, the scope of the book expanded exponentially when Rome and several other cities were brought into the plot. This felt unimportant. Our main focus is not the team trying to stop the “circle of death” from expanding. If it had been, these other cities would hold more importance on an apocalyptic remaking-the-world scale. But our focus is Nick, a man concerned more with Jefferson than Rome and who wouldn’t be? He has problems surrounding him with Ruth and Sheperd, wild animals, the machine that keeps the circle expanding, other survivors, etc. I think it would have been more effective to focus just on Jefferson.
  
  I don’t know that I agree with the title either. ”The Herald” refers to Sheperd but the story is really about Nick and his experiences, his choice. We follow him through the book. Sheperd is a mysterious scientist until near the end of the book. The title fits in the sense that Sheperd’s machine will usher in a new era but I still feel that Nick’s journey is far more interesting. He’s an ordinary man who has to make an extraordinary choice
• 
  Rob

  Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels is my favorite book. After reading it, I decided to read all three of his others. This is the last one, and another good one. While The Killer Angels remains my favorite, I've enjoyed all three of his others. This novel was more in the science fiction category than his others, which was a bit different for me. I am not a huge science fiction fan. However, this book kept me interested and I thought it actually got better as the story developed. The style seemed a bit choppy and hard to follow at times, but the plot thickened as more and more information was revealed.
  
  Shaara developed interesting characters and a though provoking plot. The idea of a machine that targets a person's genetics in order to eliminate those who are genetically "weaker" is a scary idea. The idea can be the best intentions of some, but the end result is nothing less than the end results of the Holocaust. Do we love ourselves so much that we believe we are really good enough to determine what really makes a person best? Can we really make these types of judgments? What we see as weak, is it really weakness? What is the true essence of a person, and at what point do we lose our humanity? If we seek the eradication of others under the guise of improving humanity, what are we really improving?
  
  Shaara deals with these philosophical questions through the characters and plot in this novel. He draws a comparison between the events of this novel to the events of the Flood account in Genesis. However, in this case, the "flood" is caused by man. I'm not sure what Shaara's religious convictions are, but in the end, love of others appears to win out, even at the cost of self. Perhaps Nick Tesla could in some ways be considered a "Jesus figure" in this story. His inner struggle to determine what is good, evil, and best, is quite telling of our human tendencies toward sin. While Nick comes to the conclusion of good on his own, I think that in reality, his decisions would have been otherwise. Our desire for sin is too great to do good on our own. I was glad Shaara chose the "happy" ending here, though.
  
  This one made me think. I always like that.
• 
  Paul

  This is a mediocre book (well worth finishing, not worth recommending) by an excellent author, Michael Shaara. He wrote a fictional description of the Battle of Gettysburg which is a classic, a word that is unlikely to be applied to "Herald." The story is much like the plot of the late Michael Crichton's "The Prey," an unlikely biological weapon threatening mankind. "Herald" was not without its pleasures, and thus I finished in and gave it three stars.
• 
  Mim

  I can't remember where I found this little book but I grabbed it because I'm planning to read another of his books. This was written in 1981. It was interesting to see how the author approached this subject. Sort of a Walking Dead scenario without the walking dead.
• 
  John

  Originally titled THE HERALD (copy that I read), I couldn't put it down...very eerie and disturbing as the main character went through the paces - told in the style of writing that made Michael famous.
• 
  George Noland II

  This is another short novel from the author of my favorite book, “The Killer Angels”. The premise reminded me a little of Stephen King’s “Under the Dome”. It was entertaining with a thought provoking ending.
• 
  Silvia Torelli

  Buffo rileggere libri vecchissimi...questo me lo ricordavo a malapena.
  Beh, carino, nulla di piu'...le paure sono sempre le stesse.
• 
  Garrett Olinde

  Not too bad. Read it about 2010.