The Other Side Of Silence

by Natasha Mostert

Het is de fascinerendste muziek die ooit is bedacht. 'Angels Key', een waanzinnig succesvol computerspel, heeft de wereld veroverd. Maar er komen verontrustende berichten dat degenen die verslaafd raken aan het spel gewelddadig worden.Het spel is uitgevonden door drie briljante jonge mannen. De Amerikaan Jon Falconer gaat naar Afrika om het geheim te ontsluieren van rotsen die mysterieuze klanken voortbrengen. Hij ontmoet er Tia Theron, een mooie vrouw die de oerkracht van de rotsen begrijpt. Stephen Yale is een Engelsman die een zoektocht is begonnen naar de perfecte toon. En dan is er Richie, een geniale hacker, én de broer van Jon.Als Stephen en Jon allebei verliefd worden op Tia, krijgt de muziek hen in een wurgende greep. Wanneer de toon steeds dichter in de buurt van perfectie komt, wordt de wereld overspoeld door een golf van chaos en geweld. Het leidt tot een gruwelijke catastrofe die alleen maar kan worden afgewend door een onvoorstelbaar offer...

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Mystery

Paperback

First published January 3, 2002

About the author

(from website)When my publisher asked me to submit a 200 word biography for their authors' website, I thought about dropping the usual bio platitudes and submitting the following: "Natasha Mostert is a spectacularly brilliant, raven-haired psychic who saw her first ghost at the age of four. She likes to take midnight rides on horseback and practises levitation twice a day. However, upon reflection I didn't think my editor would be too amused by this flight of fancy. So here it is, the official (and much less exciting) Natasha Mostert biography:

Natasha Mostert is South African. She grew up in Pretoria and Johannesburg but currently lives in London with her husband, Frederick. She still keeps an apartment in the university town of Stellenbosch in the Cape province.

She is the author of five novels. Her fourth novel, SEASON OF THE WITCH, is a modern gothic thriller about techgnosis and the Art of Memory and won the Book to Talk About: World Book Day 2009 Award. Film rights were sold to Allotria Productions with Emmy-award winning screenwriter, Andrew Davies, commissioned to write the script. Her fifth novel, THE KEEPER, is a thriller about martial arts, chi and quantum physics. Mostert returned to the subject of memory in her latest novel, DARK PRAYER, which is described by Kirkus Reviews a "brainy, fast-moving thriller" in which "Mostert brings together fascinating strands of biology, psychology and mysticism."

Mostert is a keen kickboxer. Visit her website at www.natashamostert.com to find out more about her involvement with the CPAU Fighting for Peace project, which teaches Afghan women how to box and feel empowered in their lives.

Educated in South Africa and at Columbia University, New York, Mostert majored in modern languages and also holds graduate degrees in Lexicography and Applied Linguistics. She has worked as a teacher in the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and as project coordinator in the publishing department of public television station WNET/Thirteen in New York City. Her political opinion pieces have appeared on the op-ed page of The New York Times, in Newsweek, The Independent and The Times (London).

Future goals include writing poetry, executing a perfect spinning backkick and coming face to face with the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe.

Reviews

[Literary Han]

The beginning was hooking and I really began to enjoy it. But then there was a ridiculous relationship that seemed to take no time to develop. And towards the end it became too fantastical and was just too far fetched for me ( and that's saying something because I read Marukami!)

[Alison]

Very good , disturbing and sad. A few odd things like how quickly Tia fell in love

[Jeanne Halloran]

Natasha Mostert is an expert at taking a theme of interest (such as sound) and building a suspenseful, can't put it down, thriller out of that theme. In "The Other Side Of Silence" the science of music is explored. As she quotes, "The sounding itself, the ringing of that first note is the Creation, which ever since, has been expanding, dividing, and echoing. It is reverberating even now" (David Hykes). The power of the music created by a popular game, Angels Key, is the destructive force in this novel; and the search for perfect tuning is the catalyst for a seemingly irreversible threat. If this novel has any flaws (and I feel that it is fairly close to perfection) it is that the end leaves us hanging and poses as many questions as it addresses. I am left to answer these questions for myself, giving the novel a conclusion of my own making. This book is five star quality.

[Celia]

This slightly fantastical thriller suffers from an over-the-top-evil villain, Bond-style, and a storyline that revolves around a computer game's music which sends people crazily violent. The OTT-evil-villain, who has a Dastardly Plot which naturally revolves around the game.

It's a difficult story to get involved in, and it provoked too much incredulous eye-rolling on my behalf to get more than two stars. I liked the African setting though, and parts of the plot where the characters are discussing the nature of music.