The Angle Quickest for Flight

by Steven Kotler

Book Overview

In The Angle Quickest for Flight, a quintet of eccentric metaphysicians searches for a sacred book looted during the Spanish Inquisition and tithed to the Vatican. Steven Kotler's first novel, which... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1568581297
• ISBN13: 9781568581293
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Pseudo-mystical Nightmarescape.

As I was reading this, I thought, "Hmm. I wonder if any secret messages are encrypted in this text." Well, turns out, probably not. But, what the hey, it's entertainment. Take the oldest surviving institution in Western Civilization (the Catholic church) steeped in mystery and exam its "secret archives", and there's bound to be some bad mojo going on. Throw in gratuitously references to the Kabbalah, theoretical physics, and transfinite set theory (dumbed down to the level Hollywood understands, i.e. "isn't it cool it's infinity bigger'n infinity"), some deranged priests, the Jesuits, a drifter, and the Rastafareans, and this is what you get. It's not bad for a cheapo adventure tale, but let's not get carried away here.

If Borges wrote the screenplay for Mission Impossible...

...it might look something like this novel. I can't think of higher praise, actually, for a book of this type: a brisk, engaging, I-can't-put-this-down type of read coupled with some serious metaphysical chops. The ragged crew of protagonists are all extremely intriguing as character studies as they go galavanting around the globe looking for spiritual enlightenment. The fact that they are a little bit mercenary (especially the rakish Coyote Blu) only adds to the charm of the novel (even when it's a very VIOLENT charm, I might add). In some ways this reminded me of Eco's fine novels, or even Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars, but what Kotler brings to the table is a cinematic style of prose. It might seem off-putting and glib at first, but give it a chance, it tends to grow on you (yes, the characters quip a lot, but there are some one line zingers as well). The only flaw I could find in the book is that the characters smoke and drink (alcohol and coffee) all the time; not that I'm against that, mind you, but sometimes I felt that the author was using that as a prop when he didn't know what his character wanted to do in terms of body language. Other than that, though, this book is a crazy textual labyrinth, milking to the fullest the delights of both weird metaphysics AND a taut, Steve McQueen-esque thriller.

A wild ride

and worth it, a blast of a novel. "Angle" weaves together Tibetan Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity...with a thriller? Outrageous, a mind-teasing "X Files" of a novel. Come on, "too hip"? Read the dictionary. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and look forward to Kotler's next opus. (A sequel would be natural.)

Kotler's "Angle": An Exceptional First Novel

"The Angle Quickest for Flight", Kotler's first novel, reads as well as any intellectual thriller in the past 5 years. It has everything you could ask for in a mystery: an ancient Kabbalistic text (the Sefer ha-Zaviot) stolen by the Catholic church during the inquisition, fabled archives of hidden knowledge, secret societies and the mad Padre Isosceles hell-bent upon acquiring the Zaviot for the knowledge within. All this, however, misses the true beauty of the book: outstanding character development. Most mysteries suffer from a host of 2-dimensional characters leaving the reader remembering the plot but forgetting who was in the story. Not so in this book- Kotler's characters are so real you will finish being convinced that you knew them at some point in your life. There's a lot of information packed into the beginning of the book as you are introduced to a cast of characters, several parallel plot lines and a brief history of mysticism. As you continue you will find all this tied together in a climax that won't let you put the book down and leaves you wanting more.

great plot, great writing, made me believe in magic

Wow. Bought the book because I liked the title, didn't know what to expect. Very inspiring -- 6 characters who read like a cross between the Dirty Dozen and the cast of a Ridley Scott movie, language that's more poetry than prose, and a plot so funny and outlandish that the move from high comedy to high tragedy took me totally off-guard. Probably the most interesting new book I've read in two years.