Half a science fiction novel and half a historical reality, the author takes us into the secrets of the Vatican. The popes Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, are the main actors of this story. An Italian physicist disappears in 1938.
Ettore Majorana off the coast of Sicily. He was working on a project (this is where the science fiction appears) of a time machine to film events of the past! Despite the implausibility of this machine, one continues to pursue reading this book thanks to Roland Portiche’s storytelling talent.
To spice up the story, we find the CIA, the KGB, and the Mossad. Here, history comes to support the novel. We are after the Second World War, Israel is born, Palestine is divided, the Jewish State and the Arabs. Then there is politics with a progressive bishop who is not very Catholic. Pope Pius XII finances this machine: a chronovisor, a true time machine.
Monsignor Montini, the future Paul VI, is dedicated to the project with a priest, Father Ernetti. We see them fumbling and eventually succeeding, not without some adventures where the book turns into a spy novel with agents and informants. The Ernetti machine is today science fiction, but what about tomorrow? Roland Portiche would thus be a precursor, a new Jules Verne! But let’s stay grounded, let’s read this work with its vision of history, that of the past and today!
Thierry Jan, writer
