Second Chance

A breathtaking novel of dark suspense and bittersweet nostalgia, Second Chance breaks new ground for a writer whose work critics have favorably compared to such disparate writers as Camus, Cheever, and Stephen King. In Second Chance, Chet Williamson defines a generation and gives readers the ride of their lives through a disquietingly different and threatened America.Thrills, romance, and nail-biting suspense combine to create a novel in which a Big Chill-like gathering of old friends could lead to the real "Big Chill" for every person on Earth.It all begins innocently enough. Woody Robinson, a successful musician, gathers his baby boomer friends and recreates an evening in 1969 out of nostalgia for his long dead love, Tracy. The party quickly becomes a wake for lost ideals, and then something more, as time and fate play wonderful and terrible tricks on the celebrants. By the evening's end, Tracy is back in Woody's life as though she had never left. But there is another change as well, a shocking one.His name is Pan. An environmental terrorist who wants to save the world by destroying humanity, he has the deadly viral ammunition to do just that. Pan will prove that the darker side of the sixties isn't dead -- it's only been sleeping. Now it's awake and furious. And only one man and one woman can stop the nightmare.With the swirling color and magic of a Fillmore West poster, the hallucinogenic impact of a Jim Morrison lyric, and the wistful voice of early Dylan, Second Chance is an unforgettable tale of love, loss, and redemption, an electrifying synthesis of past and present that will enchant its readers today and haunt them tomorrow.PRAISE FOR SECOND CHANCE:Publishers Weekly: "This time-travel thriller is great fun throughout, capped by an unexpected, but suitably quirky, finale."Time Tunnel: "...a novel of suspense and fantasy, but more than that, it is a piercing look at idealism unhinged, of the world-shattering power of love, hate, and zealous belief...one of the most unusual and moving books in a long time."Charles De Lint in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction: "...there's a reason for my enthusiasm for Williamson's work: he has never let me down. And Second Chance is no exception."New York Review of Science Fiction: "Second Chance, quirky, time-traveling ghost story that it is, with all its dreams and nightmares blossoming out of the fertile soil of drugs and rock-and-roll, remains a wonderful and dreadful evocation of the way in which history and politics haunt us all."

From Booklist

This stout volume is an interesting attempt to combine the technothriller and the horror novel and elevate both in literary significance. Its story begins at a 1960s nostalgia party. Out of the ranks of the aging hippie guests emerges an ecoterrorist who is planning to use biological warfare to eliminate humanity and restore environmental balance. Williamson handles his thriller-horror atmosphere well, is above average at characterization, and affords a reasonable amount of technical detail without slowing down the pace. The handling of ecoterrorism and 1960s nostalgia seems slightly oriented toward what the media has led us to expect of these phenomena and contrasts with the originality of much of the rest of the book--a discrepancy that may have cost it a slot with a major publisher. Exploring new directions in genre fiction, Williamson is likely to win discerning readers and deserves to be encouraged. Roland Green

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