Dadinheaven.com

Make way J K Rowling, move aside you celebrities, prepare for company David Nicholls; here comes a new writer with new ideas. David Stephens is an IT Guru with imagination and a writing style to inspire others' flights of fancy; a 21st century H G Wells. His first book could revitalise religion. In 1900 no one foretold television; our grandparents would have thought us mad if we had tried to explain it to them. In 1950 mobile phones and computers were only seen in science fiction films. What will be a common fixture in households in the year 2050? The electronic system devised by the guru in this book could maybe work and the world will be a much better place, if it did. Housebound by ill health, Stuart Pearce, a computer and electronic communications guru in his mid-forties, turned to the internet to keep in touch with the outside world. But what would happen when he died? His family was his life. Stuart, his wife and their three children were very close and although he knew his death was imminent, he felt he could not simply lose contact with those he cared so much about, at least not without some sort of battle. Stuart was certainly not a religious person and he didn't believe the dead continued to watch over their loved ones, guiding them through life from heaven above. Nor did he believe in life after death and had always mocked the idea of contact with the afterlife whenever he heard about it. However, knowing he had very little time left with his loved ones, he felt a powerful urge to find a way to keep in touch with them after his demise. Not the way psychics claim to do, but it suddenly seemed obvious to him that the solution was to use technology rather than religion or belief as the conduit. Embarking on a project he knew he needed to complete before his final day arrived, Stuart regularly reminded his wife and children he wanted his netbook computer to be placed inside his coffin with his body. As the project progressed, Stuart changed his will, not from the aspect of financial distribution, but by adding instructions about a website he wanted his family to visit on a daily basis following his death. When he finally faced God, Stuart was surprised to find the King of the Universe knew about and was more than interested in the communication system he had built. Having suffered for many centuries from a lack of prophets on Earth through which he could communicate, God felt that the majority of human beings had forgotten about Him and because of that, were destroying everything they had built over time. If they continued as they were, He was concerned that it wouldn't be long for life on Earth to come to an abrupt end. Hoping that in some way Stuart's communication system would provide the link He so desperately needed, God supported Stuart in his bid to prove to those on Earth they really could communicate with their dearly departed. Realising the Ark of the Covenant was the key to both their objectives and aided by well known biblical characters, along with Stuart's family on Earth, Stuart was tasked with finding the Ark. Believing they may have located it, Stuart's family organised an archaeological dig, but rather than uncovering its final resting place, they inadvertently released a demon that had been imprisoned in a sealed chamber for thousands of years. Finally free, the demon, having not been able to fulfil a commitment she'd made to God thousands of years earlier, very quickly began to make up for lost time, not because she'd made a promise to God, but to demonstrate her anger towards Him. The first to suffer from the demon's wrath was Stuart's newly married daughter, quickly followed by hundreds of thousands of other humans experiencing the same anguishing fate. God realised that He could use the terrible situation on Earth to remind human beings that there is one all-powerful God who they should believe in and at the same time proving Stuart's system is not just another hoax.

Review :
Read the linked article to learn why the Boston Standard describes this as a 'poignant' after-life novel...