Unseen Forces: A Remote-Viewing Action Adventure
By Ed Kovacs
Reviewed by Skye Turell
(This review appeared in Aperture, Vol. 3, No. 3, the newsletter of the International Remote Viewing Association.)
Few novels or films have incorporated remote viewing into their storylines, and even then RV has been overlaid onto an existing story, added almost as an afterthought. This is surprising when you consider the amount of pubicity the field received in the mid-1990s, the inherent sexiness of the subject, and the obvious benefits to the author. Literary and film characters are normally limited by what they personally witness or what is revealed to them by other characters. Only the narrator has the "God's-eye view" that allows her to know and convey all, but long stretches of narrative history lessons are inherently boring and tend to lose the audience. Only the deftest writers are able to slowly drop bits of information at just the crucial moments while not overburdening the dialogue and action. From a storyteller's standpoint, remote viewing is a great angle.
Ed Kovacs's new novel Unseen Forces is an example of an occult action-thriller that stands perfectly well without the RV element. While the author's note describes the historical remote-viewing program at Stanford Research Institute and Ft. Meade (which suggests that RV might playa major role in the story), there were less than ten important references to it, and only one session is described briefly while in progress. The heroine, Capt. Diana Hunt, is a remote viewer within a deep black military program. Her RV and other psi abilities make her even more exotic than she would otherwise be, although she is plenty desirable and exotic to begin with.
The story involves a quest for an ancient Egyptian alchemical elixir for immortality. One secret society has knowledge of tablets hidden at three locations around the globe, but the information is in code. Our hero, Sky Wilder, an archaeologist who writes popular books on the subject, manages to break the code. He and Diana team up in hopes of reaching the tablets before a host of secret societies and other enigmatic entities. Because of the occult subject matter, this novel has often been compared to Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code. It reminds one most strongly of the works of David Morrell (The Brotherhood of the Rose; The Fraternity of the Stone), with a little Raiders of the Lost Ark thrown in. For those who like these kinds of novels, this one is for you. Plot twists abound. The most memorable scenes take place in northern Thailand and Burma. The author lived in Thailand and personally researched all of the locations, but his love of this territory is evident.
This is a first novel for Kovacs, who has been a screenwriter for many years and scripted the first remote-viewing film, Blink of an Eye, starring Michael Pare. That film was released on VHS in 1992, and copies can be bought very inexpensively at the usual online locations. This reveiver has not seen it yet, and so cannot comment here on how much RV plays a central role in the film.
Kovacs did his research on remote viewing. He met IRVA President and remote-viewing pioneer Stephan Schwartz many years ago, and spoke to IRVA members at one of the annual conferences. Paul H. Smith is referenced in the book's Acknowledgements. The RV session described in the novel is clearly of the CRV type, but there is also a reference to a controlled out-of-body method, which is depicted as being inherently dangerous. It is unclear why, added drama perhaps. There is just enough detail to communicate a method and structure to the session, but not such that the reader gets a sense of how remote viewing works. Still, RV is presented in a generally accurate and positive manner and might encourage readers to research the subject more fully.
Skye Turell is the ReView Editor of Aperture and is a skilled and talented practitioner of remote viewing.
Unseen Forces: A Remote-Viewing Action Adventureby Ed Kovacs (2005); Ardelyan Press, Los Angeles, CA. ISBN 0-9762097-0-5