BOOK REVIEW: A VIRTUAL REALITY – SECOND EXODUS? By MARK HARRIS
Published by Matador £8.99 (371 pages)
SINCE the Holocaust, wherever Jews have been in peril, rescue operations have been mounted to try and pluck them from danger.
I can think of, among others, the Mossad Exodus in 1977 when Sudanese Jews were saved; Operations Solomon and Sheba in 1984 when 8,000 Ethiopians were rescued; Operation Moses in 2017 when the Falashas were taken away; 1991 when more Ethiopians were rescued and, of course, the raid on Entebbe in 1976 when Jews and Israelis were rescued from the hands of terrorists. Butthey were still taken to a country surrounded by enemies who were intent on not only the destruction of the country itself, but of its entire people.
The point about all these heroic acts is that all the rescues were planned and augmented by the State of Israel. As far as I am aware, no other country in the world raised a finger to assist.
But these rescues were isolated incidents. What, for example, would happen if antisemitism became such a pandemic, spreading its evil through the world, that the very existence of the Jewish people would again be in mortal danger.
My colleague, Mark Harris, came up with the answer in this, the sequel to his earlier book ‘A Virtual Reality’: rescue millions of Jews from all over the world and transport them in giant spaceships from Earth, across the Milky Way to another planet where they would be able to live and work in peace and harmony with that planet’s indigenous population The Milky Way has billions of stars, of which our sun is just one, and the author’s plot is to transport Jewish Earthlings to Alpha Centauri’s exoplanet Proxima b, a mere 40 trillion kilometres from Earth.
The story flashes back to Mark Harris’s earlier book when the main character David, a retired investigative journalist, meets an alien woman, Diva, from Proxima b and with her help and power is transported back in time to the Cambridge of the 13th century, where he gains first-hand experience in a number of face-to-face confrontations with antisemitic gangs.
It is Diva who suggests the exodus from Earth to her home planet, and puts the plan into action using huge space ships for the purpose. Of course, there are more questions than answers about the Space age plot. On arrival at their new home, at the far end of the Milky Way, the Jews develop their own infrastructure, including synagogues for every strand of Judaism, kosher food, a Jewish newspaper and even a police force.
But there is no mention in the book of a name for this Jewish territory, and one would have thought the first thing on the mind of the Earthlings was to name their new abode. It could have been Canaan. Or Israel. Or Zion. Or, if you forgive the pun, Jewpiter.
There is no mention, either, of animals on the Jewish territory. Did not the Jews take with them a second ‘Noah’s Ark’? I would have liked to have read a little more about the different emotions of the Earthlings when they finally landed on Proxima b. Fear?
Awe? Joy? Tears for those left behind on Earth? I couldn’t tell. All the Earthlings appeared to carry on as normal as if they were still living in Edgware or Redbridge.
That said, there was also no social intercourse between the newly-arrived spaceship Jews and the rest of the inhabitants on the planet. Perhaps that will come in another sequel, because ‘A Virtual Reality – Second Exodus?’ is a clever time travel plot across the Milkedikah Way that could be expanded still further.
And well it might. Because the last lines in the book read “The End (For Now)” …
A Virtual Reality – Second Exodus? can be ordered on line direct from the publisher at www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop (search genre ‘Sci-Fi’ ) and receive a £2.00 discount off the cover price by quoting the code EXODUS or buy/order via any other good bookshops and other internet retail sites including Amazon, Waterstones, Blackwell’s, WH Smith and Foyles Bookstore.
