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Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel
A writer starts believing his own work when astonishing coincidences synchronize his life with what he's writing and convince him he has created a world from which his dream lover, Aira Flight, has come to life.
397 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1995
1 person is currently reading
176 people want to read
About the author
Vanna Bonta
10 books2 followersVanna Bonta is an American novelist, essayist and poet, and the author of Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel, which Publishers Weekly reviewed as the first definitive work of "quantum fiction," an emerging 21st century literary genre. A haiku by Bonta is among the top five selected onboard a NASA spacecraft (MAVEN), which launched from Cape Canaveral to the planet Mars in November 2013.
Bonta began writing poetry and short fiction at age six. She has ridden camels in Egypt's Sahara Desert, elephants in Thailand, learned sharp-shooting from her father at age nine and by age eleven had traveled around the world twice and spoke four languages.
As an actress, Bonta cameos as the superhero's young mother in the classic fantasy movie, The Beastmaster. She has worked as a voice actor on numerous feature movies and television. One of her stories was purchased for Star Trek:The Next Generation.
The History Channel followed her into zero gravity to test a spacesuit she invented. In the The Universe TV episode, Bonta talked about humanity colonizing planets beyond Earth. The program depicted a futuristic scenario of a mother reading Bonta's novel Flight in a space station orbiting Earth.
The Bonta signature voice celebrates human-centric themes that knit cultural differences with universality. Her stories juxtapose the everyday and the cosmos.
Bonta began writing poetry and short fiction at age six. She has ridden camels in Egypt's Sahara Desert, elephants in Thailand, learned sharp-shooting from her father at age nine and by age eleven had traveled around the world twice and spoke four languages.
As an actress, Bonta cameos as the superhero's young mother in the classic fantasy movie, The Beastmaster. She has worked as a voice actor on numerous feature movies and television. One of her stories was purchased for Star Trek:The Next Generation.
The History Channel followed her into zero gravity to test a spacesuit she invented. In the The Universe TV episode, Bonta talked about humanity colonizing planets beyond Earth. The program depicted a futuristic scenario of a mother reading Bonta's novel Flight in a space station orbiting Earth.
The Bonta signature voice celebrates human-centric themes that knit cultural differences with universality. Her stories juxtapose the everyday and the cosmos.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 13, 2007
Ms. Bonta writes some neat speculative stuff that I really enjoy; Flight is about Aira, a light/thought-being who is "condensed" into human form. Mendle is the one she loves, and the one who loves her, human as well. It's a great story that will probably change how you think about life, love, and reality. It is now decidedly dated because it names a date for "the future" when everyone in the world sang at the same time, and now, well, that date is in the past. It doesn't destroy the message, though.
I have changed and grown and matured, of course, since reading this book as a college kid, and I have grown to be a little annoyed by novels that aren't really novels but are really avenues for the author's idealistic message--also known as frame stories--and I have to say I probably would have liked this book more if it had been presented as philosophy in a nonfiction way. But I agree wholeheartedly with so many of the sentiments the author presents that I can't really knock it. It really is a wonderful book. I had some really nice e-mails/conversations with the author many years ago, as well, and she's a really neat person.
I have changed and grown and matured, of course, since reading this book as a college kid, and I have grown to be a little annoyed by novels that aren't really novels but are really avenues for the author's idealistic message--also known as frame stories--and I have to say I probably would have liked this book more if it had been presented as philosophy in a nonfiction way. But I agree wholeheartedly with so many of the sentiments the author presents that I can't really knock it. It really is a wonderful book. I had some really nice e-mails/conversations with the author many years ago, as well, and she's a really neat person.
November 30, 2011
Unparalleled Parallels!
I don't want to go overboard about how much this story is like my own life as many fans have that experience with this book. I was going through a pretty rough end of a marriage, the parallels are uncanny. Seeing things from Mendle's struggle and point of view gave me hope I had lost. It's amazing that this work can touch so many in such a personal and real way. It is one of the most amazing fictional works I've ever read -- and the fact that it's based on quantum mechanics/physics makes it something more than fiction by definition doesn't it? If our imagination is truly reality then fiction isn't actually fiction at all but it's just a previously unrealized reality. It's the way it's written, the style, the story -- the complete work. It truly does make everyone who reads it a part of the story in an unparalleled way.
Since I read this in 1998, time has vindicated what Bonta wrote about and it is now a decade later ...reality. Reality as a "multiverse" and multiple dimensions. The "cure for death". Life on other planets. Life in other dimensions. Dark matter and how non-solid Matter actually is. Quasars and black holes at the center. Even the whole world in communication by broadcast, and the people of the world coming together in the end... back in 1998 what Bonta wrote all seemed way out there. Now, that reality is here. Or maybe it always was and the world has caught up.
I don't want to go overboard about how much this story is like my own life as many fans have that experience with this book. I was going through a pretty rough end of a marriage, the parallels are uncanny. Seeing things from Mendle's struggle and point of view gave me hope I had lost. It's amazing that this work can touch so many in such a personal and real way. It is one of the most amazing fictional works I've ever read -- and the fact that it's based on quantum mechanics/physics makes it something more than fiction by definition doesn't it? If our imagination is truly reality then fiction isn't actually fiction at all but it's just a previously unrealized reality. It's the way it's written, the style, the story -- the complete work. It truly does make everyone who reads it a part of the story in an unparalleled way.
Since I read this in 1998, time has vindicated what Bonta wrote about and it is now a decade later ...reality. Reality as a "multiverse" and multiple dimensions. The "cure for death". Life on other planets. Life in other dimensions. Dark matter and how non-solid Matter actually is. Quasars and black holes at the center. Even the whole world in communication by broadcast, and the people of the world coming together in the end... back in 1998 what Bonta wrote all seemed way out there. Now, that reality is here. Or maybe it always was and the world has caught up.
June 1, 2013
Recommended reading, this book will stretch your reality in a good way. (especially if you ever feel out of place in this world). Flight, a quantum fiction novel.
October 16, 2013
Publishers Weekly celebrated the 'quantum' in Flight: a quantum fiction novel, by Vanna Bonta.
I like this quote by Bonta:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quo...
I like this quote by Bonta:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quo...
October 10, 2013
I was recommended to check this book out by a good friend. She knows my taste very well and knew I would only immerse myself in this book. Within minutes, I was hooked. The writing was very tasteful and professional. The quality of the writing is superb. The story is written and organized in a manner that keeps readers engaged the entire reading. The characters are developed very well, having their own unique characteristics..
I would highly recommend this book or reading to another fiction lover.
I would highly recommend this book or reading to another fiction lover.
October 17, 2013
Every time I see Bonta rattle her pen like a saber and shake the stars I want to cheer. Her poetry was a top selection to go to Mars on the NASA mission MAVEN. Her poetry rose to the top of TV malaise to emerge on a shining show, Wilfred. And in Flight she wrote arguably the definitive book about human quintessence in the quantum age.
Flight, a Quantum Fiction novel is a tour de force. It took the world almost two decades to catch up. It's not a science book but stands as the poster book for the Albert Einstein quote "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
In Flight Bonta predicted that for every quasar there's a black hole (published 1995 and astronomers are recently announcing the discovery), and started us thinking about The Cure For Death (that now 2 decades later Google is funding). I didn't know what I would think of this book but it is worthy of every praise including the first Publishers Weekly review that launched a genre and called for more.
Since everyone is a writer these days, let's talk shop. The novel is a smorgasbord of literary devices from allegory to zoetic innovations applied to the writing craft.
And I hear TOR (an editor there is rumored to have led a lynching rally of buddies against Bonta for years when Flight was published) is partnering on a Quantum Flash Fiction contest -18 years late. Ah well better late than never.
How unfair is it that writers and artists like this have to endure head-scratching jerks who try to knock them down? Listen up writers, we all need to beware the huffy expert attacking new ideas and power to move. When the bashers write so-called reviews like soggy noodles, then, whoops, consider the source.
I enjoyed Bonta's piano-playing in the audiobook but there was too little of it. No praise of her voice does it justice. Truth be told I enjoy the print edition best because graphics and book design enhance the story. Just listening to audio alone without that can be confusing to someone isn't familiar with the Flight story, there's so much there. With the print book, the chapters are illustrated with clocks that move, like Time. Also, the ingenious subplot is printed on a computer screen, so it's easier to follow what is the main plot and what is the subplot (which is a novel within the novel).
There are many entertaining asides in this book that are social commentary and spoof our times and human drama. I like the male protagonist who is looking for love and resents being manipulated by sex. I'm a pretty pragmatic person but by the end found myself believing the outlandish possibilities. It's a page-turner and a bold book.
W.H. Auden wrote "A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language" and that could be said about Vanna Bonta.
Flight, a Quantum Fiction novel is a tour de force. It took the world almost two decades to catch up. It's not a science book but stands as the poster book for the Albert Einstein quote "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
In Flight Bonta predicted that for every quasar there's a black hole (published 1995 and astronomers are recently announcing the discovery), and started us thinking about The Cure For Death (that now 2 decades later Google is funding). I didn't know what I would think of this book but it is worthy of every praise including the first Publishers Weekly review that launched a genre and called for more.
Since everyone is a writer these days, let's talk shop. The novel is a smorgasbord of literary devices from allegory to zoetic innovations applied to the writing craft.
And I hear TOR (an editor there is rumored to have led a lynching rally of buddies against Bonta for years when Flight was published) is partnering on a Quantum Flash Fiction contest -18 years late. Ah well better late than never.
How unfair is it that writers and artists like this have to endure head-scratching jerks who try to knock them down? Listen up writers, we all need to beware the huffy expert attacking new ideas and power to move. When the bashers write so-called reviews like soggy noodles, then, whoops, consider the source.
I enjoyed Bonta's piano-playing in the audiobook but there was too little of it. No praise of her voice does it justice. Truth be told I enjoy the print edition best because graphics and book design enhance the story. Just listening to audio alone without that can be confusing to someone isn't familiar with the Flight story, there's so much there. With the print book, the chapters are illustrated with clocks that move, like Time. Also, the ingenious subplot is printed on a computer screen, so it's easier to follow what is the main plot and what is the subplot (which is a novel within the novel).
There are many entertaining asides in this book that are social commentary and spoof our times and human drama. I like the male protagonist who is looking for love and resents being manipulated by sex. I'm a pretty pragmatic person but by the end found myself believing the outlandish possibilities. It's a page-turner and a bold book.
W.H. Auden wrote "A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language" and that could be said about Vanna Bonta.
June 12, 2008
I loved the ideas!! The clumsy writing didn't work so well, though. :(
September 29, 2017
Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel involves Mendle J. Orion science-fiction author starting his new work, about an omnibenevolent, strange light being, Aira Flight, and her adventures through the universe, only for the events in the novel beginning to turn into his reality. When I first heard about the genre of quantum fiction, I was really grabbed by the concept of it. It seemed like I always was pointed to this book, as being the quintessential quantum fiction novel. Based on the summary, I was expecting something along the lines of a combination between The Twilight Zone, existential fiction, and a dash of hard science to suspend the reader's disbelief. Instead what I got was a combination of a soap opera, Scientology, and a dash of hard science to suspend the reader's disbelief. When Orion's novel writes about Aira being turned into a human on earth, and finds a woman that fits her description, confused and in his hotel room, I was expecting something stunning. But it just fell from there. The story is then divided between Orion's novel's setting, where Aira's enemies plot against her, and on earth, where she's a naive idealist, who has to learn about the world she's in. Even stranger, is when Orion gets in a creepy relationship with his fictional character turned real, and they start discussing things like fate, coincidences, and Aira's philosophy that Orion himself gave her, all while Orion's ex-girlfriend spies on them and thinks he became a nutcase, until at the end, where Aira, Orion, and his ex-girlfriend anti-climatically become bizarre omnipresent god-like beings. After the intriguing beginning, a sort of boring middle, a deus Ex machina comes out of nowhere, and now our characters have returned to being god-like (which is where I draw the comparison with Scientology, and where I draw the line). This book just felt hokey, nonsensical, and overly pretentious with its "just be super duper peaceful and everything will turn out exactly how you want it, alrighty?" If this review didn't put you off, go ahead and read it, but don't expect great writing, or a thrilling middle sequence. In the end, Flight: A Quantum Fiction Novel is a romance book with a science-fiction twist on it, with a lame mystery and adventure story stapled on, that goes together like Skittles, fish, and nutmeg.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 10, 2024
Half of our metaphysical book circle dropped out in the beginning, but those of us who hung on, found a LOT that really stretches the mind, and created much discussion.
I liked it all the way through, and urge people to keep going. It gets better and better.
I liked it all the way through, and urge people to keep going. It gets better and better.
July 27, 2014
Mendle is a struggling science fiction writer with a depressing romantic history and the beginnings of a pessimistic outlook. That's until he finds Aira Flight in the hotel bathtub at a science fiction convention, and she lacks memories and context for who she is and where she's from, though she seems to have been pursued. Mendle is suspicious at first because she is such a dead ringer for his heroine in an unpublished novel, and there are a lot of nutballs at these conventions, but over time as he gets to know Aira he realizes why she seems so familiar and why he wrote about her in the first place. The more time Aira spends in the world interacting with its wonders and its horrors, the more she reveals simple but complex truths about reality and the more she makes the lives she touches more vivid and beautiful. But Z-Zone is still after her, and it might be difficult to escape.
"Science fiction writer finds one of his own characters and she's real" sounds like a pretty silly premise, but at least it's turned around a little and executed well. The book is peppered with platitudes and revelations that are presented in staged interactions, and the fact that that didn't annoy me nearly as much as it should have does say something about the author's skills. And sometimes it got a little tiring to see Aira running around innocently bamboozling everyone with her amazing knowledge and talents. The thing is . . . I couldn't help but relate to it because I've basically been in Aira's situation so many times. Not being a space alien on the run from people who hate love, no. I mean the whole concept of being in someone's life and inspiring them to find their true home in themselves. It made me feel like it's okay to inspire others that way--that it's not selfish or show-offy or egotistical to legitimately want to make people want to be more--and it showed me how good people can feel when they find someone who can do that for them. (I'm not sure why I never felt like I needed my own inspirational light being to drag ME out of the mud.) Anyway, there are a lot of people who will find it hokey and unnecessary, and the frame story surrounding the author's inspiring message didn't do much for me (except distill it in human terms), but I connected with it at that time in my life.
"Science fiction writer finds one of his own characters and she's real" sounds like a pretty silly premise, but at least it's turned around a little and executed well. The book is peppered with platitudes and revelations that are presented in staged interactions, and the fact that that didn't annoy me nearly as much as it should have does say something about the author's skills. And sometimes it got a little tiring to see Aira running around innocently bamboozling everyone with her amazing knowledge and talents. The thing is . . . I couldn't help but relate to it because I've basically been in Aira's situation so many times. Not being a space alien on the run from people who hate love, no. I mean the whole concept of being in someone's life and inspiring them to find their true home in themselves. It made me feel like it's okay to inspire others that way--that it's not selfish or show-offy or egotistical to legitimately want to make people want to be more--and it showed me how good people can feel when they find someone who can do that for them. (I'm not sure why I never felt like I needed my own inspirational light being to drag ME out of the mud.) Anyway, there are a lot of people who will find it hokey and unnecessary, and the frame story surrounding the author's inspiring message didn't do much for me (except distill it in human terms), but I connected with it at that time in my life.
October 10, 2013
It's radical. It's original. Bonta weilds the pen worthy of any poet and author titan. And the book is a phenomenon of the quantum age.
George Bernard Shaw said if you tell the truth you better make them laugh or they'll kill you. Well, Vanna Bonta tells the truth AND makes you laugh but between knuckleheads stuck in Newton's idea of science fiction and crazy cults that fear her, Bonta has raised some hackles. I love her for it. I love the writer for her command of the English language, for her fearless innovation and originality.
The story is about a writer who rebels against reality and our violence-infested world. He writes a novel about an interdimensaionl being. At a science ficiton convention he finds a woman who looks exactly like the superheroine in his book. The woman has total amnesia. He gives her the name of his superheroine. The mystery and a riot of a love story unfolds from there.
The book is a masterwork that constructs an allegory of the dangers of mind control, the importance of free-thinking and creativity, the very nature of reality, and it dares to address things like infinity and death.
I follow Bonta on Twitter and even her tweets are quotable (and loved the ep of Wilfred that starts with her quote).
This book is up there with the books that will never die. Even if you don't like it, it's a highly respected and respectable work. I can understand why some wish they had written it.
February 13, 2011
I thought this book was ok. I really really wanted to like it more, but it just didn't have the story I wanted it to. I didn't really care that much for the ending either. I just feel that so much more could have been done with this story....
November 18, 2010
Silly, new agey
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews