Walter Mosley is best known for his
detective novels based in 1960s Los Angeles featuring African American sleuth
Easy Rawlins.  But he also publishes different sorts of books, including
science fiction.  The Wave is firmly in the genre of visionary science
fiction.  It is not based in the future, but starts out in the early 2000s,
chronicling the bizarre events happening to Errol Porter.   Porter is down on
his luck, separated from his wife, and living in a garage, without a job.  His
father died several years previously, and his mother and sister both still live
in Los Angeles.  A young man who he comes to name GT contacts him.  The
remarkable man looks exactly like his father in his youth, and has all of his
father’s memories and verbal quirks and characteristics.  Porter won’t believe
that his father has risen from the dead, at least until GT reveals some facts
that only Porter’s father could have known, and would have never told another
living soul.

That is only the beginning of the
story, however, and soon GT’s remarkable behavior is comparatively mundane
compared to the story of the Wave that develops.  About a third of the way into
the novel, the plot takes off as extraterrestrial life and government
conspiracies make their appearance.  Characters come and go quickly, and
Porter’s life changes radically.  By the end, we have encountered amazing
cosmological events and terrible battles. 

The Wave is a fairly short
book, and Mosley does little to prepare the reader for the transitions in the
plot.  It is set in the context of the US war against terrorism, and raises
questions about the morality of government.  Yet much of the other symbolism of 
the book is far more far ranging, bringing in mysticism and the paranormal.  So
when GT tells Porter "Me sitting here in front of you is the most
important event in the history of the world," it is hard to be impressed,
because the story doesn’t hang together coherently.  As it becomes more and
more preposterous, it is easy to lose patience, because the symbolism lacks any
significance.  The story seems to want to point the reader to a transcendent
vision, but it only manages to gesture at something odd.  The book seems to
believe in its own profundity, but there’s nothing there.  

The unabridged audiobook is
performed by Tim Cain, who has a deep resonant voice and does a good job of
separating out the different members of Porter’s family.  However, when it comes
to the rest of the fairly large cast of characters, Cain’s talents are
exhausted, and the different voices become confused. 

So this is a disappointing novel by
Mosley that tries the patience of the reader.  Nevertheless, there are parts
that will intrigue the reader, and it is certainly an unusual book that
attempts to go beyond the limits of most science fiction or other genres, and
fans of Mosley’s work may want to take a look at it anyway.

Link: Highbridge
Audio

© 2006 Christian Perring. All
rights reserved.