The Unhappy Medium was a happy surprise! While the blurb made it clear that it isn’t a typical ghost/medium/seance/haunting book, I was delighted just how different The Unhappy Medium is. I was engaged from the get-go with the character and the setting and plot but if you don’t care for books about science in the back story this novel may not be for you.
Set in today’s England it features brilliant physicist Dr Newton Barlow as he blazes a stellar career researching nuclear fusion and a side media line debunking the supernatural. Sadly he is less wise than smart.
Cold Fusion Anyone?
Newton first accepts post doc money from a R&D company then accepts their job offer to explore the tantalizing hints he sees of nuclear fusion from collapsing bubbles. He’s unhappy that his employers restrict him from publishing or talking to others, but very glad of the income and research support. At least he’s happy until the 2008 crash when the company’s investors start asking for solid results – NOW. Newton tries to soft pedal his findings but the more he explains the more the media pushes: Just when will we get cheap power from bubble fusion? Next decade? Sooner?
Poor Newton has no leg to stand on and he’s alienated so many that he has no allies. Soon he has no job. Then he has no wife (which is no loss whatsoever), no daughter, no house. All he has is a tiny income, an old Citroen car and booze.
I liked this part of the story. We got to know Newton and the box he managed to fall into. Plus the research process is fascinating and author T. J. Brown did a great job showing us how commercial realities and science sometimes run together – and sometimes clash.
The Medium
Newton even manages to get fired from a popular (aka crank) science magazine because he’s too depressed and too upright to write garbage. Just when he’s hit the all time low Newton learns that his old friend and fellow skeptic, Dr. Sixsmith, is terminally ill. He rushes to the hospital but is too late. That is, he’s too late until Dr. Sixsmith shows up in person.
Dr. Sixsmith pulls Newton into a brand new world, where he works for an ancient Greek (also dead), making sure that the bad dead guys stay dead and the good dead guys stay remembered. Despite his skepticism Newton does excellent work and is soon dedicated to the effort.
Characters
Newton is excellent, a full person, still not terribly humble even after his drastic fall. His girlfriend and daughter are less well drawn. The best characters were the Greek dead guy bureaucrat, the vicar and the arch villain. Outside of Newton the characterization was good but not great.
Humor and Plot
The Unhappy Medium is funny, full of snarky, dry humor. Newton’s ex-wife adds a whole layer of nasty that the author manages to turn into funny.
The sinister property developers and evil arch villain are dedicated to evil, or, for the developers, to profits without consideration of any morality or social considerations. For example their fondest wish is to raze St. Paul’s in London and build row houses. Just listening to their spiel gives one the creeps – yet we have to smile at how deluded they are, how their dedication to money and destruction leaves them unhappy and living in a cold dump.
The arch villain isn’t funny because there are people like that, folks who are perfectly happy to kill everyone in the name of terror and control. He’s a maniac but a scary one.
The book has some goofy theological backdrops, perfectly fine for a fantasy, but I do hope no one takes these seriously.
Overall The Unhappy Medium is a 4 star book. If the other characters were a bit better done and the plot just a tad more focused it would be 5 stars. I’ll look for more by author T. J. Brown.
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