Genre:
Satire/Science Fiction
Description:
“Most people hate politicians—unless they are one.
Wouldn’t it be great to know that what goes around does come round?
That politicians who make bold promises to secure their election would have to
live with the consequences of their actions—or inactions—just like us ordinary
people?
To balance the karma, the politician in this story, Henrietta Radcliff
Carstairs, has to review her life choices in a tribunal conducted between her
last and next lifetime.”
Author:
“May Sinclair's doctorate is in the Philosophy of Metaphysics. She is
an award-winning, internationally acclaimed author, and she teaches dream
interpretation and analysis on the precepts of Carl G. Jung. Dr. Sinclair has
at times written under her nom de plume, Mason Clare. Much of her writing
relates to symbolism. She is known throughout the United States and the British
Isles. All of her work is based on extensive research and study of both ancient
and modern philosophical teachings, where she has learned and continues to
foster a merging of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual selves.”
Appraisal:
I find myself torn in trying to come to an overall conclusion about Karmic
Tribunal. There are things I liked. Liked a lot. And there are other parts
of the story that were problematic, at least they were for me.
I like the premise of the story that we go from one life to the next
and before being reincarnated into our next life an evaluation is done of our
previous life. Our next step is determined by what is going to best balance out
karma. For a very simple example, this concept might have a slave owner
reincarnated as a child of slaves who will probably become a slave himself.
In Karmic Tribunal we have a politician going through this
evaluation. The choice of a politician as the subject of the evaluation is a
good choice because it is easy to see how, depending on how the particular
politician did their job, a balancing of karma could go a lot of different directions.
The issue I had was that the politician in the story was based on a real-life
person and as soon as I realized who that was the premise was ruined for me.
Instead of pondering the evidence submitted to the tribunal and trying to guess
what they might see as appropriate karmic balancing, I reacted differently. I
found myself arguing with evidence presented that didn't fit my opinion of the
real person. The ability to read the story as a form of escapism or participate
in the mental exercise of saying “what if” was gone. I'm not sure that it would
matter what a reader's feelings about the real person are. I could see anyone
having this same issue. (Most readers are going to have an opinion on the
person in question.) I guess this is the risk in basing fictional characters on
real people.
Format/Typo
Issues:
Borderline. I saw a few more typos or proofreading misses than I like
to see in a book of this length, but they are mostly very minor errors.
Rating:
*** Three Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate
word count: 20-25,000 words
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