Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Heaven's Shadow by David S. Goyer Heaven's Shadow by David S. Goyer. All reviews and site design © by Thomas M. Wagner. SF Reviews.net logo by Charles Hurst. Wink the Astrokitty drawn by Matt Olson. All rights reserved. Book cover artwork is copyrighted by its respective artist and/or publisher. Heaven's Shadow is the brainwave of a couple of Hollywood A-listers. David S. Goyer co-wrote such blockbusters as Batman Begins and The Dark Knight , and is one of those we have to either thank or blame for the Blade franchise. He also scripted a favorite of mine, Dark City , and gave us the adaptation of Steven Gould's Jumper . Michael Cassutt has extensive TV credits including Stargate SG-1 , Farscape , Max Headroom and The Twilight Zone (the 80's reboot, not, as the promo material states, the "classic"). Of the two, he seems to have the better background in space science. Their plans here are ambitious: an SF adventure trilogy to be simultaneously developed for the movies. Warner Bros. is supposed to release the Goyer-directed film of this book in the summer of 2012, though in Hollywood, plans change and collapse all the time and the only certainty is that nothing is certain. If Heaven's Shadow does make it before the cameras, it will likely fare better as a summer Hollywood popcorn movie than as a novel. In the theater, less-demanding audiences out for nine bucks worth of escapism will be less likely to mind the improbabilities of the story and the wafer- thin characters. As a novel, its clean, screenplay-inspired narrative efficiency — in which you only get as much character development as you need to make sure everyone's roles are established, and the emphasis is on getting to the action as quickly as possible — makes for a brisk and engrossing read, but an inescapably shallow one. It isn't bad, but it won't stay with you, let alone go down as "the science fiction event of our time." So it's 2019, and two competing space missions, one by NASA and the other by an Indian-Russian-Brazilian alliance, are racing to land on a Near Earth Object named Keanu (yes, after the actor, because it's a "NEO" — the one industry in-joke the writers allow themselves) that is approaching our planet from the vast intergalactic beyond. Once both craft have touched down, it becomes evident that Keanu is not a natural object, but a vessel. This fact surprises them, if not us. Discovering a way into its interior, our stalwart astronaut teams learn that Keanu is the product of an alien race so insanely advanced that — well, there is a surprise here that I will not spoil, even though every other review of this book you will read is almost certain to. ( Publishers Weekly has.) Events quickly go from strange to catastrophic as both the teams exploring the eerie vessel and the harried ground crews do their best to figure out exactly what it is these aliens — whom we learn are called the Architects, because that's the kind of cool name ineffable and mysterious aliens ought to be called — are after from humanity. Given their advancement, what they're after makes not a whole lot of sense. Again, doing my level best to avoid spoilers, I find that when I'm confronted with a story whose main conceit is that beings so far beyond us as to be almost gods desperately need our help, the logic escapes me. If a problem is too profound for them to solve, why should they expect us shaved apes to do any better? It escapes our protagonist, mission commander Zack Stewart, as well, but I will allow that there is perhaps some excellent reason for it, as we have two more books to go. Goyer's suspense chops, honed over 20 years of screenwriting, bring the book several entertainingly tense scenes that are certain to play well onscreen. Character development is perfunctory. In screenwriting fashion, everyone gets readily identifiable traits the audience can check off with little effort. Stewart lost his wife Megan prior to the mission. His daughter Rachel waits breathlessly at Mission Control under the watchful eye of family friend Harley Drake, paralyzed in the accident that killed Megan. Astronaut Yvonne Hall has issues with her cold and distant father, JSC director Gabriel Jones. Cocky Brazilian flyboy Lucas Munaretto thinks of himself as the World's Greatest Astronaut, only to find himself in way over his head when confronted with scary alien wonders. And NASA is staffed by a bunch of harried folks who wring their hands to varying degrees but are more or less interchangable as people. This may get the job done at a superficial level. But as veterans like Goyer and Cassutt doubtless know, one crucial element in strong character development is the arc, in which adversity is used to make your protagonists change and grow. And there is little to none of that here. I mean, there's adversity plenty, but to our characters, it achieves little but to position them for whatever the sequels have in store. And while the pacing of Heaven's Shadow certainly never flags as it races toward its climax, it's hard to feel any degree of personal investment in a story that feels more and more like an exercise with every crisp page. Like 2001 or Rendezvous with Rama without the substance or sense of wonder, Heaven's Shadow , while not lacking for escapist thrills, is nonetheless a shadow of what it could have been. Heaven's Shadow Movie. August 23, 2010 • Intentions to make the movie; early in development. Contents: Plot: What's the story about? An object is discovered heading for earth. Initial panic gives way to a competition between governments to be first to intercept what they believe is a breakaway meteor. What the astronauts discover leads to an encounter with alien forces that are a threat to humanity. Poll: Will you see Heaven's Shadow? Who stars in Heaven's Shadow: Cast List. No cast available. Who's making Heaven's Shadow: Crew List. A look at the Heaven's Shadow behind-the-scenes crew and production team. The film's writer David S. Goyer last wrote Terminator: Dark Fate and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. David S. Goyer Books In Order. Author Goyer was one of the students of the well known screenwriter named Nelson Gidding at the Southern California University. Eventually, when he established himself as a popular screenwriter himself, he frequently returned to the classes of Nelson Gidding as a guest speaker. After the completion of his graduation, author Goyer sold his debut screenplay in the year 1989. It was in the film titled Death Warrant that featured Jean- Claude Van Damme in the main lead. Goyer has said that he had purchased a new model of Isuzu Trooper with the first paycheck he received. But, it got stolen on the very first night that he drove home win it. Later on in his career, author Goyer developed his skills of comic book writing and went on to develop a few screenplays based on some of the famous characters from comic books such as Superman, Batman, Blade, and Ghost Rider. Following a few stints in which he wrote scripts for television series, author Goyer went on to write a short story featuring the Superman in the year 2011. This helped him to gather the much required attention as well as a chance to work with the Legendary Pictures for their next 3 upcoming projects. After experiencing some success in the field of screenwriting, Goyer decided to try his hand at writing novels. Eventually, he wrote and published his first novel titled ‘Heaven’s Shadow’ in the year 2011. In the following years, he penned down a couple of other novels in the trilogy series. Author Goyer received a lot of positive reviews for the novels and subsequently sold the film rights of the first book to the Warner Brothers. Currently, he is working on the adaptation of the novel into a movie for the production company. The Heaven’s Shadow series written by author David S. Goyer consists of three books published between the years 2011 and 2013. One of the earlier books in the Heaven’s Shadow series was published under the title ‘Heaven’s War’. It was released by the Ace publishers in the year 2013. The story of the book opens with the description of an asteroid which gets named as Keanu by the astronomers. The asteroid appears to be heading for the sun. When a group of humans reach out to it, they discover that Keanu was more like a huge rock traveling in the space. Soon, a couple of astronaut teams are sent to explore the Keanu. They discover that it is actually a huge spacecraft filled with alien crew. The astronauts also discover that the spacecraft approached the Earth with the mission of getting help. However, the aliens on Keanu take away several groups of humans from different parts of Earth without any prior warning. These humans are generally from the scientific background. They are required to find out why the aliens have brought them to the huge spacecraft. Also, the human groups are needed to find out a way of controlling the Keanu so that they can come back home as soon as possible. One of the other books in this series is titled as ‘Heaven’s Fall’.