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The Big Bang—Notes From Looking Within by Jason Matthews is a fascinating volume from the California based author. A novel, a revelatory story, nominally science fiction, but fraught with philosophy and spiritualism. Without a doubt, this is one of the most interesting books to come down the pike in a long time.
Surprisingly, The Big Bang—Notes From Looking Within tells the story of an everyman, a handyman who becomes involved with a secret project by a widower scientist that seeks to recreate the Big Bang, and the universe itself, on a microscopic level. Thin on science, but relevant and never overreaching, the story only strains the willing suspension of disbelief briefly in the opening chapters as the young handyman becomes a vital part of the newly assembled team that makes this startling vision a reality.
After constructing a building designed to house a vacuum and the hydrogen release that creates the Big Bang, the team is shocked when they successfully create a universe in miniature and are able to control the flow of time in the chamber, allowing them to accelerate and slow the evolution of galaxies and the solar systems that they have created. They are more stunned when they find that intelligent life has evolved on more than one of the planets surrounding the solar systems in their new universe.
Some of the societies are warlike, some hedonistic. The story accelerates as Whitney, the daughter of the project’s lead scientist makes contact with a seemingly primitive society through the practice of meditation and begins to receive the answers to some of the most difficult questions that mankind has ever posed.
The story by its very nature calls into question the existence of God and the nature of God. What might God be if mankind itself can create a universe in a bottle? The exploration of the effects of these questions on the team members and on their society as a whole is seductive to watch as it unfolds. What will the result be of the introduction of microscopic alien technology be on the world as we know it? Will the effect of the technology shape the world of the team so that it becomes mirror images of the societies that they study on their computer monitors in the containment center? Some of these societies use technology in such a way that they bring about the end of their worlds, and the team is forced to seek out new civilizations evolving in their nascent universe. Will the same result afflict their world?
Eventually asking questions about the nature of life and exploring the concept of the soul and the possibility of reincarnation, The Big Bang—Notes From Looking Within is also an unlikely love story. Are two souls linked together by something greater than a chance meeting? Our everyman hero is forced to ask himself this exact question when he falls for Whitney, but discovers that perhaps they were not meant to be together.
Never challenging the reader with the scientific terminology of quantum physics, engineering, or astronomy, yet delving into all these subjects, The Big Bang—Notes From Looking Within is primarily the story of the main characters, which include an artificial intelligence named “Jim.” Matthews is not a flowery writer, but he reveals himself as a master storyteller as he weaves a complex web of relationships and the way that they are affected by the philosophy inherent in the evolution of the micro galaxy. Any reader who picks up this book will be hard pressed to put it down.
Anyone interested in science, philosophy, reincarnation, the question of extra-terrestrial intelligence, or even the nature of love will be sure to be fascinated by The Big Bang—Notes From Looking Within. It is a roller coaster ride of discovery and introspection neatly tied into one attractive package. Matthews has overcome a major obstacle in crafting a piece that defies genre, defies preconceived notions of spirituality, and sucks in every reader despite the perspective they bring to the story.
by Thomas Anthony Longo
Thomas Anthony Longo is former editor of the Music City Computer News. He studied History and English at Tulane University and the University of Minnesota. His short stories appear in Hardboiled Quarterly, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, and Black Petals. He lives with his wife and three children in Nashville, TN.