MAGIC TIME

Zicree (The Twilight Zone Companion, not reviewed) and Hambly (Traveling With the Dead, 1995) join talents—and lavish, crackling research—to envision a post-disaster Manhattan fallen into chaos. Cal Griffin, 27, an overworked lawyer, and his sister Tina, 12, a ballet student, have left Hurley, Minnesota, so that Tina can train at the School of American Ballet in New York. Meanwhile, what kind of monster is it that’s flaying buffalo out at Medicine Creek and leaving the animals to wander skinless? And why does FBI agent Jerri Bilmer, her thoughts monster-haunted, hang garlic around her motel room windows? American President Stu McKay waits for Bilmer’s secret info about the “Source Project,” which may lead to . . . well, it’s all telekinetic, and project director Fred Wishart knows that energy leaks from Source have been resurrecting packs of skeletal prairie wolves. And one of those leaks has been at Medicine Water Creek. Will the energy someday help Fred get his crippled brother Bob out of bed, perhaps even restore their mother’s wandering mind? Suddenly, a blue force-field flies everywhere. All electricity gets sucked up, even from car and flashlight batteries: no power exists anywhere. Mineshafts go black on miners, their helmet lamps dead. Planes fall from the sky and splatter all around D.C. A running strange blue force keeps people boxed into large areas. Slowly, the Change changes people’s characters, deepening them. Tina herself floats like a soap bubble, glowing pastels, hears a Call to go south—and she and Cal’s newly formed survivor group leave Manhattan.

The stars move. What now? Well, a sequel for sure.