Previous coverage in this blog, all last month:
- New Shroud of Turin Novel, The Chimera by Fr. J. R. Veneroso
- Trailer for The Chimera By J.R. Veneroso
- Getting Dizzy Reading Veneroso’s The Chimera
In the ‘getting dizzy’ posting I complained about inaccuracies. Fr. Veneroso responded appropriately. At least that’s how I saw it. Setting those aside, the book turned out to be an enjoyable summer read.
So here is the latest press release:
J.R. Veneroso Sends Readers on a Relentless Journey into a World Steeped in Historical and Religious Intrigue. The Shroud of Turin figures as a key theme in Veneroso’s explosive new novel.
The Shroud of Turin is surrounded by as much mystery as reverence. For centuries historians, researchers and theologians have engaged in relentless debate over the Shroud’s authenticity. In J.R. Veneroso’s gripping new novel, The Chimera, the controversial relic becomes the center of a conspiracy that could shake the foundation of Christianity and rewrite the future of humankind.
When scientists uncover a Vatican plot to discredit the Shroud of Turin, they risk their lives to find out why. They soon discover something greater and more sinister is at work. What began as a desperate chase to recover a missing artifact quickly unfurls to a dangerous, race against time to prevent a second holocaust from engulfing the world.
The pope has authorized a dangerous experiment: clone Jesus. Not only are church authorities unprepared for what Jesus would say, they are less prepared for what Jesus would look like. Giving their secret project urgency is a similar experiment by a neo-Nazi cult with cloning ambitions of its own: splice the DNA of Jesus to that of Adolf Hitler.
Steeped in historical and religious intrigue, The Chimera will take readers on a riveting quest across continents. Veneroso has masterfully blended the real with the speculative, the past with the present and the present with the future to create fiction that is immersive, compelling and highly explosive.
For more information on this book, interested parties may log on to http://www.Xlibris.com.
About the Author
J. R. Veneroso is a Catholic priest missioner with the Maryknoll Society. After serving twelve years in Korea, he attended Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and served as editor in chief for Maryknoll magazine. He is the author of several books, including God in Unexpected Places, Good News for Today, and Honor the Void, published through Orbis Books. Since 1997, he has studied the facts and controversies surrounding Catholicism’s most mysterious relic: the Shroud of Turin.
The Chimera * by J.R. Veneroso
Publication Date: June 12, 2013
Trade Paperback; $19.99; 322 pages; 978-1-4836-3018-2
Trade Hardback; $29.99; 322 pages; 978-1-4836-3019-9
eBook; $3.99; 978-1-4836-3020-5
For publisher and other contact information see the full press release at PRWEB.
Dear Dan,
I was eagerly awaiting your reaction to the entire book and am relieved and grateful you found it enjoyable. I am happy to report many readers, some who have left the church and others who had no interest in religious, found it “disturbing and inspiring”. Interesting combination! The underlying question posed by The Chimera is: can we accept truth from someone different than we are? My ultimate goal is to get people to think about the Incarnation in a new light and to take humanity seriously, because God does.
All the best,
Joe Veneroso
Hi, most important – I have not yet read the book. I find disturbing from what I just read above is the thought of cloning the body of Jesus. What made Jesus Christ is his Devine soul not the human body. If such a cloning were to succeed, all you would have is a human body but not anything like the real Jesus Christ the son of the almighty God the father. This cloned body would not be like the Jesus Christ that we know as the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity. Then the Neo-Nazi idea of cloning a body using Jesus’ blood remnants and DNA from the supposed body of Adolph Hitler is like trying to blend the Almighty God with the likes of Satan. It is truly as absurd as it sounds. It is a no do.
Not the first time that science fiction imagination has cloned Hitler. Check 1978 film “Boys from Brazil” – 94 clones of Adolf were dispatched throughout the world; “Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang” cloned Hitler & Josef Stalin. There’ve been other works that attempted to clone Jesus from the TS.
The genre no longer appeals to me, as it once might have. However, I see it as having a role in raising awareness, even a wake-up call, to stark and arcane possibilities. Such fiction sometimes evolves into a reality. Ian Fleming’s devices that he devised for Bond were sometimes later realised in the CIA’s hardware; in fact, there was quite a close relationship between Fleming and the CIA. The old Buck Rogers and Wilma comics of my childhood now appear crude and amateurish compared to what has since been achieved in the field of astronautics. Perhaps it all started with the myths of Prometheus and Icarus, which even find an echo in the Garden of Eden in Genesis. The quest to be like gods!
The human impulse for divine-like omnipotence unfortunately is too seldom matched by a similar human quest to achieve God’s loving mercy and goodness on earth and in our relationships. That too, requires imagination and creativity.