Review of "The God Particle"
by Richard Cox

“The God Particle” by Richard Cox

The Higgs Boson is a hypothesized sub atomic particle that gives rise to mass, a sort of the missing link in the world of physics. It was nicknamed "the God Particle" by the Nobel winning physicist Leon Lederman (due to its importance in physics and not for any religious reasons), and from this label, Richard Cox has drawn the name for his new novel.

The book contains two plots, which really only intersect, or should I say, collide near the end (the novel's structure seems to be an allusion to particles traveling in a ring accelerator). One centers on Mike McNair, a physicist at a privately funded particle accelerator that lies beneath the Texas plains. He leads a project whose goal is to discover the elusive Higgs particle. The story begins with Mike meeting Kelly Smith, a Dallas news anchor, to whom he is instantly attracted. From there, the plot follows the two and their coworkers as they deal with romantic apprehensions, stressful personal relationships, and office politics. Mike's best friend Larry, the lead software engineer on the project, is an obsessive loser with an unhealthy fixation on Kelly. Mike's boss is threatening to replace him with Samantha, a successful physicist who has just been hired from another accelerator and who just happens to have a thing for Larry. Kelly's station has come under new management and she stresses about the potential shakeup. The list of tensions goes on and on. In other words, though it is setup as a sci-fi plot, it really turns out to be a soap opera. Cox does do a good job of making Mike a believable character. In fact, he's quite good at characterization all around, but this plot thread in general seems to lack a point, and if it was in any way metaphorical, the symbolism is not particularly clear.

The other plot line is about archetypical yuppie Steve Keeley whose well planned life crumbles in a single night. After personal fallout with his secretary and discovering that his future fiancée is a trollop, he is thrown from third story window of a Zurich brothel. Waking up after surgery days later he finds that his perception has been changed. Now he sees fields of energy and matter and can detect the thoughts of others. In addition, he believes that he is being followed. Has he truly acquired new abilities and become the victim of a conspiracy, or is he simply brain damaged? This is the far more interesting of the two plot lines. Had the novel only dealt with this thread, it would have been significantly more satisfying. Seeing the world through Steve's eyes as he questions his sanity provides a unique perspective, and the possibility that he may in fact be the victim of a medical conspiracy inspires suspense.

There are a few other items worth mentioning. The story does contain villains (a definite plus as stories that lack antagonists always seem to suck), but they were vastly underdeveloped and their motivation unclear. Also, the author chose to write the story using present tense. At first, this was a little distracting, but eventually was unnoticeable. It didn't seem to detract from the story any, though it did not seem to significantly add anything either in the way of style. Cox writes in an easy to read style and the book is short enough to finish in a few sittings. Overall, The God Particle won't blow you away, but is entertaining enough to be worth the cost of a paperback and a few evenings' time.