false3851330<![CDATA[The Sign]]>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpgAnother cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>38513301438963292422009The Signtotal:166|5:15|4:44|3:61|2:31|1:15|16651131951260113.21313562869351623193976438513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.06158
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200940falseSat Aug 29 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sat Aug 29 12:57:48 -0700 2009Sat Aug 29 13:05:00 -0700 2009
more...]]>
58593998224998838513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200910falseSat Jun 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009Fri Jun 05 17:43:40 -0700 2009Tue Jun 16 13:53:03 -0700 2009
more...]]>
72642648104424338513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200920falseFri Oct 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sun Sep 27 07:13:53 -0700 2009Fri Oct 09 07:01:13 -0700 2009 I did finish the book, but was mostly disappointed throughout. Khoury had a potentially good/compelling suspense novel with some interesting characters - ...more...]]>
4632111155440138513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200942falseSun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009Sat Feb 14 08:53:59 -0800 2009Sun Mar 01 15:42:55 -0800 2009
more...]]>
61320600246535138513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200912falseWed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sat Jun 27 15:41:34 -0700 2009Wed Jul 22 15:10:36 -0700 2009 I imagine somewhere next to or under Mr. Khoury's writing desk sits a cardboard box full of cardboard people. There'...more...]]>
73636632122816538513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200920falseSat Oct 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009Tue Oct 06 10:36:47 -0700 2009Sat Oct 10 14:29:47 -0700 2009 Also, this book was very poorly edited and pro...more...]]>
60425522172482338513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200923falseWed Jun 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sat Jun 20 11:42:56 -0700 2009Sat Jun 20 11:47:17 -0700 2009
more...]]>
57300904132285838513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200940falseTue May 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009Mon May 25 16:57:14 -0700 2009Tue May 26 15:42:25 -0700 2009 I do have one objection, and it's the only reason this book didn't get five ...more...]]>
8141835284445438513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200920falseMon Dec 14 00:00:00 -0800 2009Fri Dec 18 13:10:48 -0800 2009Fri Dec 18 13:15:22 -0800 2009
Even when ...more...]]>
57723214212975438513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200930falseSat Jun 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009Fri May 29 05:36:18 -0700 2009Sun Jun 07 02:41:31 -0700 2009
more...]]>
77545360237770438513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200930falseWed Nov 18 00:00:00 -0800 2009Thu Nov 12 08:31:29 -0800 2009Wed Nov 18 08:18:58 -0800 2009
more...]]>
7191731940301738513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200910falseTue Sep 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sun Sep 20 16:11:07 -0700 2009Tue Sep 22 10:17:35 -0700 2009
more...]]>
75495917287022838513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200900falseFri Oct 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009Fri Oct 23 10:16:32 -0700 2009Fri Oct 23 10:16:32 -0700 2009
more...]]>
68878282223789538513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200930falseSat Aug 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009Tue Aug 25 16:42:45 -0700 2009Tue Aug 25 16:43:59 -0700 2009
The Last Templar but found this one had a plot that was a bit drawn out. The dual stories of Matt and Grace are interesting but felt a bit long. An interesting commentary on the role of religion and politicsmore...]]>
7478231016015838513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200921falseFri Oct 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009Fri Oct 16 19:05:26 -0700 2009Fri Oct 16 19:10:46 -0700 2009
more...]]>
6345738011459138513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200930falseTue Jul 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009Tue Jul 14 11:18:22 -0700 2009Tue Jul 14 11:20:15 -0700 2009
more...]]>
5659106031803438513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200941falseSat Jun 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009Tue May 19 05:42:19 -0700 2009Tue Jun 09 06:49:45 -0700 2009
more...]]>
80853892265188538513300525950974978052595097447
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180m/3851330.jpghttp://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581180s/3851330.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3851330.The_Sign
3.08166
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?
Raymond Khoury/Steve Berry interview
STEVE BERRY: Your new thriller, THE SIGN—I’m gonna come right out and say it: I think it’s your best one yet. What do you think?
RAMOND KHOURY: Tough call. It’s my new baby, and much as I adore its elder siblings, it does have that newborn magic to it.
STEVE: Trust me, it is. It’s also a bit of a departure from your first two books, in that it doesn’t have the past-and-present storylines. Knowing how stories kind of take on a life of their own, that wasn’t a conscious decision from the get-go, was it?
RAYMOND KHOURY: No, it wasn’t premeditated. It’s just the way the story came out. The whole story happens in the present. It takes place over a few manic days—I think you’re familiar with that pacing, right?—and it deals with the present, it’s about a ‘what if’ situation that’s very today and now, there’s a mystery, something to figure out, but there’s no throwback to the past, no long lost secret to uncover.
STEVE BERRY: It’s also very topical. Your editors must be pleased.
RAYMOND: I guess it happened that way because the story came out of some very strong feelings I had, feelings about what was going on around the world, in the US and abroad.
STEVE: Tell me about that process. Where the story came from.
RAYMOND: It’s where they all come from, isn’t it? That kernel, that one thought or one observation you have that just sticks and triggers a book, the one that bugs you late at night and that you can’t shake. This one came to me while watching the news one day, and every item, one after another, it was all bad news. Not just bad, but it was like a lot of people were behaving so insanely in so many places around the world—and, sadly, a lot of it was fuelled by the manipulation or distortion of religious faith—
STEVE: —by intolerance—
RAYMOND: —exactly. Intolerance and closed minds. And it got me thinking. About how divided we are, about how so many people all over the world believe in the absolute infallibility of their faith and how it rules every aspect of their lives—you know what I mean, ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong,’ that medieval mindset—and wondering if anything could ever unite the planet under a single faith.
STEVE: One global religion. RAYMOND: Well, imagine if something did happen that convinced everyone that what we had until now, all these different religions that have grown over the last few thousand years—what if something new came along that was so overwhelming that it was impossible to ignore? Would we listen? Would we drop our previous faiths and embrace it?
STEVE: But your book’s about much more than that. Without wanting to give too much away, it’s really a political thriller, isn’t it?
RAYMOND: It’s always so hard to talk about a book without giving too much away—
STEVE: —it’s the fine line we walk.
RAYMOND: True. But yes, you’re right—it’s really about the absolute power something like that would bring—and how it could be abused. Cause above all else, it’s a thriller. There’s got to be a brilliantly dastardly scheme, right?
STEVE: Always. And this one certainly is dastardly. One thing I’ve noticed, though, in all three of your books so far—they’re all, essentially, about the big questions that face us: why we believe, whether or not we have to die. Religion, longevity, life and death, science vs. faith ... Big questions. And in this one, you revisit—though in a completely different way—the power of religion, the good it can bring as well as the bad, something that was also central to THE LAST TEMPLAR. Will this always be your signature genre—books that have a big, central ‘theme’ at their core?
RAYMOND: You asked me earlier about where the story came from. For me, in order to get excited about a book, it has to have a big central theme about how we live at its heart, something I’m interested in exploring. It’s got to be about something I care about deeply. That’s what drives the story and the characters forward for me. That’s what I hope makes the books stand out. That they’re not just page-turners—which ain’t easy in itself—but that they’re also about something. I see it in your books too. A point of view about things, a passion for laying out interesting information about a topic that interests you. Michael Crichton used to do that very successfully. Dan Brown, of course, does it brilliantly. That’s what makes the books worth writing, I think.
STEVE: And in reading the book, it’s clear you still had tons of research to do, even though there isn’t a historic mysery to unravel?
RAYMOND: Absolutely. Some of it was about history—the monasteries in Egypt, for one. Again, part of the story, organically. Had to be done, and we do love our history, don’t we?
STEVE: Guilty as charged.
RAYMOND: But for this book, I didn’t need to do that much of it—nothing like what you did for THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT, for instance. Which I loved, by the way. Particularly since you beat me to using the Voynich Manuscript in a story!
STEVE: We do seem to be spookily in sync with our writing—as further evidenced by THE SIGN’s opening in Antarctica—
RAYMOND: —I know!
STEVE: So tell me—Matt and Gracie. Are we going to see them again?
RAYMOND: I don’t know. On the one hand, I envy your situation with Cotton Malone, you’ve got a solid anchor for your books, you’re building this great world around him, his son and Stephanie and Henrik and Cassiopeia—who I hope we see again real soon—and it’s meaty and it’s epic and like the rest of your readers, I’m hooked and I want to know what they do next. You’ve got that, Lee Child has had it since day one with Reacher, Harlan Coben with Myron Bolitar, the list goes on. Great characters. I’d love to do that one day, but it has to feel right. I wasn’t in that frame of mind in my first two books, certainly the world after the end of THE SANCTUARY would be a very different place from the world Mia started out in at the beginning of that book. Tess and Reilly, I could maybe bring back. A lot of fans have asked for that. But with THE SIGN, Iinitely think Matt and Gracie are characters that I could bring back. I’d like to put them through another wringer, and it feels like it would come naturally. But before I do that, I’m writing the next book which introduces a new lead character, so they’ll be getting a bit of a breather.
STEVE: They sure can use it. Good luck with the book.
RAYMOND: Thank you.]]>
200930falseMon Dec 21 00:00:00 -0800 2009Sun Dec 13 09:23:36 -0800 2009Mon Dec 21 09:38:36 -0800 2009
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<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpghttp://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6697788-the-sign
3.502
Another cutting-edge thriller set at the intersection of science, religion, and history from the bestselling author of The Last Templar
New York Times bestselling author Raymond Khoury— whose debut novel, The Last Templar, has sold more than a million copies in the United States, and whose second, The Sanctuary, was also a major national bestseller—returns with The Sign. Like the first two, this new thriller combines gripping contemporary suspense with a high-concept mystery rooted in history, philosophy, religion, and science. And like those novels, it is bound for bestseller lists nationwide.
In Antarctica, a scientific expedition drops anchor for a live news feed. As the CNN journalist begins her report, a massive, shimmering sphere of light suddenly appears in the sky, enveloping the ship in luminous white light before disappearing as mysteriously as it arrived—the entire event witnessed by an incredulous world audience.
Meanwhile in a dusty bar in Egypt, a dozen men are lazily discussing the state of the world when the brilliant, glowing symbol on the television stops them cold. One man breaks out in a sweat, crosses himself repeatedly, and rushes out of the bar muttering the same phrase over and over again: It can’t be.
Across the Internet and around the globe, a stunning controversy threatens to consume the world: Has God finally decided to reveal himself? Or is something more sinister at hand?]]>
200950falseFri Oct 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009Wed Oct 07 12:36:18 -0700 2009Fri Oct 09 04:00:34 -0700 2009
Would recommend it to anyone who enjoys thrillers of any type.
Something completely different!]]>
65265186107273065315392
<![CDATA[The Sign]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpghttp://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6531539-the-sign
3.205200940falseWed Aug 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009Tue Jul 28 08:59:52 -0700 2009Wed Aug 12 17:15:14 -0700 2009 I found the story fast pace and interesting with good characters. There are times ...more...]]>
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