Novel written by
Garfield Reeves-Stevens, published in
1990. Tagline: "A Novel of Genius, Madness, and Murder."
This story is a disturbing but effective mix of horror, mystery, and a good deal of quantum theory. It's written well enough that you don't have to actually know anything about quantum theory to understand the progression of the story. It is fiction, but uses just enough scientific fact to be readable without seeming totally absurd.
The plot involves a serial killer, a homicide detective, a team of American Physicists, and a cat that isn't quite a cat anymore.
"He held up his multi-dimentional fist and called forth the seething rage of the Water, commanded the Earth to hold its ground, caused the Air to move between them, brought down the Fire of the sun to fuel all life, creating the universe entire with his act of will And through it all, the echo of his laughter rang, filling all of spacetime with the enormity of the joke he had seen: Three thousand years after the Greeks and their four basic elements, the modern world had come to this, to this - the same four basic forces.
Three thousand years to go from four to four. Cross' mind reeled with the absurdity. Why had no one seen it before? He held the Fire of the ancients in one hand, matched by the radioactive fire of the Weak Nuclear Force in the other. He cupped the Water in one hand, and the ebb and flow of electromagnatism in the other. His one fist closed on the solidity of the Earth, his other felt the binding strength of the Strong Nuclear Force.
And he juggled everything in the all-encompassing Air - the absolute context in which the other three elements existed for the ancients.
And he juggled everything in the all-encompassing Gravity - he saw it clearly now - the absolute context in which the other three forces existed for all time."
-Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Dark Matter
Garfield Reeves-Stevens is also the author of three novels originally published in Canada:
Bloodshift,
Dreamland, and
Children of the Shroud. His American debut was
Nighteyes, in 1989.