Arnie's Angels

More than Just Imagination

By: Steve Howrie

Narrated by: Jack de Golia

“Arnie’s Angels is a fascinating book and an engaging read. Although science fiction, it is set in the near future: farmers still carry shotguns, criminals go to court in police vans, and people travel to Amsterdam by train.

What Howrie does here is create a group of aliens, mostly human-like in form, which instead of the normal diatribe, has come to save planet Earth and are seemingly benevolent. But are they to be trusted? Step by step, their mystical and magical powers are revealed. Some are charming and adult Peter Pan in form. Some are more fanciful but mostly based on known or speculated science, even if we earthlings haven’t learned these skills (yet). Howrie’s mastery is to inter-disperse this with day to day events: sipping coffee and walks on beaches. It’s easy to forget the aliens aren’t reasonably ‘normal’, until another layer of their armoury of skills is revealed.

The lead characters are strong and credible. Arnie, in particular, is a sad and widowed farmer who gets caught up in a whirlwind of events that changes his life to a point where he can predict some of his angels behaviour and reasoning, rather than just the other way around. It’s a peculier and often touching connection.

There are some ‘bad apples’ amongst the humans, but part of the suspense is trying to identify them and what their motives could possibly be from such a benign visit to Earth. It’s impossible to guess the ending and I’m not going to reveal it, but it’s a strong one.

I would recommend this book to any sci-fi reader, but it is also very suitable, as an introduction, for readers less familiar with this genre." Mark Oulton (Author of ‘The Dead Microphones’, and ‘The Lure of the Red Dragon’).

©2014, 2019 Steve Howrie (P)2024 Steve Howrie