This is a possible alternative starting point to Julian May's universe.It is possible - but starting with The Many-Coloured Land would be a much better idea, unless you can't get hold of it. See my review here.OK, so this is the alternative. The Saga of the Exiles dealt with the adventures of a group of humans in a Pliocene Earth under the rather chaotic control of the Tanu and to a lesser extent the Firvulag, and their constant wars, using significant mind powers. The humans got there while running away from a world not too far from one of our possible futures (as seen from the 1970s) in which friendly aliens with considerable mind powers had welcomed us into their galactic club rather before we were ready for them. Intervention starts pretty close to present time (publication mid 1980s!)and deals with the first stages of the development of human mind powers - the good side and the bad - and the eventual alien intervention just in time to save us from ourselves. This is a book full of heroes and villains - but with very little physical violence, the conflicts are of the mind; only I don't mean conflicts of personalities, I mean psionic mayhem, Mafia style. Just because people develop mind powers doesn't make them good. Some of these characters are pure black evil. The story is mostly told from the viewpoint of a rather bumbling low-grade psi (telekinetic, with other powers very limited) whose extended family include some of the really powerful ones - good and bad!I have rated this 4 stars - it is good, but not quite as good as Saga of the Exiles, which you should read first - then you will be ready for this, and will understand the background better. The pace is slower, but that allows more subtlety in the character development - and although there are a lot of characters to keep track of, Intervention does not have the problem of "too many characters" that was a point against the Saga. This one can almost stand alone - which is not true of the other books in this universe - but it has three sequels (the Galactic Milieu Trilogy) that need to be read in order - Jack the bodiless, Diamond Mask and Magnificat. Read and enjoy.
Amazing bridging book that links the Saga of the exiles with the following series The Galactic Milieu.The story revolves around the Remillard family and in particular Rogatien Remillard known to his family as Uncle Rogi.Rogi is told by a mysterious supernatural entity that he has to write the history of the Remillard family and its involvement in the Intervention between Earth and alien life forms.Earth is evolving and more metapsychic people are being discovered and enhancing their powers with new studies and the help of science.Denis Remillard, Rogi's nephew is one of the strongest metapsychic talents around and is the head of a small band of other operants, his greatest dream which he has pursued all his life is to unite "operants", people with metapsychic skills with "the normals", just regular people with psychic talent at all but mysterious forces are at work trying to subvert the good of Denis and his people to try and make the world live at peace with one another.Most likely the enemy agent at work is his evil brother Victor but IS it just Victor, is he as powerful as Denis and able to take on the operant commuinity and the world on his own or is he also having help to try and discredit the peace loving operants by convincing the world their powers will only lead to evil?Fast paced and with so many sub plots this story really keeps you guessing, a brilliant story but not to be tackled by the faint hearted as it is quite deep and i think you really need to be a fan of the author and be associated with the other works in this series of novels.Well worth taking the time to read though as its a sweeping epic on a grand scale.
What do You think about Intervention (1988)?
Originally published on my blog here in November 1998.In terms of publication date, Intervention falls between the Saga of the Exiles series and the Galactic Milieu trilogy; in terms of the internal chronology, it comes before either (time travel making later events in the lives of May's characters happen millions of years before earlier ones). It is May's longest work, and has an expository character, filling in much of the background of the other series.Intervention is the memoirs of Rogatien Remeillard, one of the first of that family to discover their mental powers, and a fond great-uncle reluctantly pushed into action to manipulate his family toward greater mental operancy. (The pushing is done by an invisible presence, which Rogi calls the Family Ghost.) As the mental powers of human beings over a century or so, the excitement of watching aliens mounts; they are waiting for a certain level of operancy to be reached before making their presence known and inviting the human race to apply for membership of the Galactic Milieu.Intervention is long, sufficiently long that I think the US edition was split into two parts published separately. May manages to keep the interest of the reader, but the book's character is definitely explanatory and is much more aimed at those interested in the two related series rather than those yet to read them.
—Simon Mcleish
After: wow it took me a long time to read this. In my defense, it was my work book & I read like 5 others with it lol. Being honest though, I did skim a lot of the alien & super sciencey chapters. Too much thinking hurts me brain. Before Starting: I first read Jack the Bodiless and Magnificat in the 90s as a teen thanks to my dad. But then I got grounded for bad grades and never got to read the last one. (Who else here has gotten grounded from books?? Lol) I recently started thinking about them again and asked my dad if he still had them. He did and had actually just reread them himself last year. He said this was a real starting place for the series, so that's where I shall start. I hope I enjoy it as much as the first time!
—Jenn Ingram
‘For 60,000 years the five races of the Galactic Milieu have watched and waited for the time when human mental development on Earth is ready for the Intervention…As the twentieth century draws to its end, phenomenal mental powers are displayed by ‘operants’ all across our planet… They can ‘farspeak’ one another telepathically, they can build mental shields and they are capable of coercion by power of mind.One of these is Rogatien Remillard, a dealer in secondhand books, whose memoirs – written a
—Roddy Williams
