In this thriller, Stefan Vucak’s Towers of Darkness takes us into a world of harsh reprisals and eventual covert operations against a young anthropology professor who stumbles onto the scientific find of all time, and into the proverbial web of intrigue.
Larry Krafter is assigned by the University of Wyoming to look into a highly unusual fossil find at a major coal mining operation in the state. The find is quickly revealed to be not so much unusual as seemingly impossible. Human bones, bearing an artistically crafted gold bracelet, are protruding from a 90 foot depth of Eocene coal – dating back over 35 million years. No signs of tampering or hoaxing is evident. Krafter is soon forced to conclude that the skeleton, though modern-looking in form, is tens of millions of years older than conventional science allows.
Krafter is a youthful, appealing character with an energy level that comes from practicing Aikido. He is presented as something of a rebel, but not the sort who is sloppy in his scientific rigor. Compared to the exceedingly cynical mandarins of the academic elite who attack him, he is a paragon of the scientific method.
Shortly after a preliminary report about the mysterious fossil find appears in a science journal, Krafter faces serious blowback from institutions of high science. His reputation is threatened with a stomping. Full-on character assassination is in the cards. This is because the powers-that-be in certain well-funded, anthropological societies will not countenance the thought of the complete rewrite of the human evolutionary canon that would follow Professor Krafter’s discovery.
As Krafter’s find becomes increasingly hard to refute, the establishment scientists grow more furious. They employ sabotage and subterfuge by using a professional assassin. Krafter is over his head and all but on his own, with only a handful of sympathetic colleagues to help him.
Towers of Darkness is well written all the way. No clichéd phrasing. No dull characters. The pace moved right along. Ultimately your enjoyment of this book will come down to the extent to which you accept such a conspiracy of science big-shots against a radically new paradigm.
It is a scenario that people claim from time to time. Science won’t accept a new worldview because it would upset their established applecart. You have to ask, if the evidence really is solid, why wouldn’t scientists want to hop on the bandwagon? Taking part in a valid new paradigm would boost their careers. In the world of Towers of Darkness the opposition to a new order is made more acceptable by the fact that the bad guys tend to be old owls on the downside of their careers. They are calcified in their thinking, and highly resistant to change. Not to give away the ending, but Krafter receives more support from the world of science as time goes by. After all, he has hard evidence on his side
Bart Stewart is the author of Painter of the Heavens: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F849FMM
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