I grew up on massive novels that spanned the globe while connecting concepts with the type of internet speed that links people. There was a fire beneath such novels and that Kiana Davenport's House Of Many Gods possesses. ItŐs a novel of Hawaii, of the people of Hawaii in a time long after Pearl Harbor, long after the fall of the Soviet Union and but just in time for all that atomic testing and toxic dumping to take root within the islanders and begin killing off a people that had survived the world for a millenium yet have not the strength to last out this fragile, tragic century.

Novels about Hawaii come along with just enough years between them so we can safely forget the events that spill them from an authorŐs pen. James Jones From Here To Eternity now rests in an eternity where no power would dare attack the United States. James A. MichenerŐs "Hawaii" had its moment yet stands as a classic of beauty aimed at a generation just beginning to drop out. Kiana Davenport's House Of Many Gods, is a big and powerful book in its own class.

Hawaii and Russia. Ana and Nikolai. Adventure in two distinct places deliver us death in a Western fashion while bright, young people hope to bring it to the eyes and consciousness of the world. A great deal of the underlying adventure is how Ana and Nikolai discover each other. This is not just a starry eyed love. Ana and Nikolai find each other deep within the grime of worthy cause. She within the sickness of her vanishing people and he within the expertise to photograph the agony of Chernobyl.

As Ana becomes a brilliant doctor able to help her people, she sees her family, her Hawaii, torn apart by the U.S. Military. They test toxic materials so deadly that land once lush is now too dangerous to even hike through. When she meets Nikolai after the hurricane —following his attempt at filming a nuclear test — he is already showing symptoms of diseases from a hellish childhood much complicated by his pursuit of toxic and nuclear evidence. Ana is surprised that Nicolai has managed to get such damning evidence as coal pollution film onto Swedish television.

When she asks: "What about networks in the U.S.?"

He laughs: "Americans. They are wanting fairy tales. They are so dearÉ So innocent. What will it take, I wonder?"

And so the heat of their adventure begins, each beset with their own horror, each possessing a deep love for each other. When Nikolai vanishes, their journey intensifies causing Kiana Davenport's House Of Many Gods to mushroom into an incredibly worthy read. Give it a try. You'll find both the beauty and the beast of our ecology and the nightmare that has crossed the horizon.