hile Polish physicist Rabbi Yosef Kobinski was interned at Auschwitz by Nazis in the 1940s, he struggled to write a manuscript that represented his intellectual life's work. Part philosophy, part Jewish mysticism and part mathematical equations seeking to explain the physical structure of reality, Kobinski's Book of Torment was apparently lost in the horrors of war. Eyewitnesses say Kobinski believed good and evil were part of the physical universe, and that he did not die at Auschwitz, but instead disappeared in a flash of white light, taking an evil Nazi collaborator with him.
Orthodox rabbi Aharon Handalman, who lives in modern Jerusalem, studies Torah code, looking for messages systematically hidden in the Hebrew text. He begins to find Kobinski's name encoded in the Torah, often near such unlikely words as "quantum physics," "law of good and evil" and "weapon of obliteration." When he tries to research Kobinski, he finds other rabbis are intentionally hiding information. Denton Wyle, a tabloid journalist, is also researching Kobinski, encountering the same apparent conspiracy.
Jill Talcott, whose name also appears in Handalman's Torah code, is a quantum physicist working on wave mechanics at a Washington state university. She has developed an equation that she thinks can be used to explain the quantum characteristics of a hydrogen atom shielded from all other forces. What she and her graduate student Nate Andros discover is an unknown hidden wave pattern, which appears to have profound effects. Meanwhile, a U.S. government agent, Calder Farris, whose top-secret job is to find cutting-edge weapons technology in academic research, seeks to take Talcott into custody.
Everyone ends up in Poland, seeking the last Auschwitz survivor who knew Kobinski. Just as Farris threatens to capture them, they all are transported to alternate realities. Handalman goes to a brutal and superstitious world where the thuggish ruler has adopted Kobinski as an advisor. Farris goes to a warmongering, totalitarian world. Wyle goes to a tropical mountain paradise with seemingly inviting natives. Talcott and Andros end up in a nearly deserted high-technology city whose advanced science represents their only hope to return to Earth with knowledge needed to save mankind.
Weak science mars a promising premise
This is Jane Jensen's second novel, following her 1999 novel, Millennium Rising, and she proves herself here to be a promising young author. The protagonists are varied, interesting and believable. The narrative is compelling and well paced, especially after everyone is scattered into different dimensions and must survive on worlds very unlike our own. The concept that good and evil might be conditions embedded in the very structure of the physical universe is an interestingly original SF concept, although one that is virtually taken for granted in much fantasy fiction.
Jensen appears to have done her homework on Jewish intellectual culture. The insights into traditional and modern Jewish mysticism are especially fascinating, as are the sections of the book that show Kobinski and his son in Auschwitz. Dante's Equation is in many aspects a very good work of fiction.
The only real problem is that, as science fiction, it has some serious shortcomings. For any reader who has some basic knowledge of quantum mechanics or wave theory, the scientific concepts that represent the core of the book are ludicrous mumbo jumbo. It is also annoying in an SF novel for the author not to know the difference between a bacterium and a virus, or not know that rotting fruits are not dying but being consumed by microorganisms. It is also annoying for the scientists not to express surprise that Torah code provides insights into quantum physics and future history.
If you can turn a blind eye to the ridiculous scientific underpinnings, however, Dante's Equation can be a very engaging read. It's a pity, though, because with some thorough and careful editing, this novel could have also been excellent SF.
