Summary: A very rich man named Takeo Yoshihara has been experimenting with a liquid some of the people on his team have found deep in the Ocean.

The liquid is found to make it possible for oxygen breathing beings to breathe polluted air and still live. But, there's on downside he has found. Once the experimental fluid has been consumed, the creature can no longer handle un-polluted air. They will die.

Katharine Sundquist has been offered a job in Maui. She will be working along side an old High School friend, for Takeo Yoshihara.

Her son Michael has been plagued with extreme asthma since he was small He has always had a dream of being on the track team. Before his Mother takes him with her to Hawaii, he plans to join the team in New York.

Katharine makes up her unsure mind after her sixteen year old son comes home after being in a fright. They move in hopes of him being happier.

Michael bugs his Mom until she agrees to allow him to go scuba diving. She is scared that he will have an asthma attack while in the water, but he is fine.

On his initial dive, Michael meets a boy his own age named Joshua Malani. He pulls the boy out of a cave he gets stuck in and Josh proclaims he is now indebted to Michael and they instantly become best friends.

After making the track team he also becomes friends with Kioki, Jeff and Rick. They take him night diving even though he is scared. They "borrow" diving equipment from a shop in town after closing hours.

They have trouble with their tanks and then strange things start happening to them. Kioki is found dead in a ditch, Jeff and Josh go missing and Michael thinks his breathing problems are just the reappearing case of asthma he used to have.

Katharine discovers that her boss has been infecting people by putting the liquid into the tanks he sends to the dive shop in town. He had been only trying to infect the visitors, not the residents.

She then realizes that her son and his friends were accidentally infected. Her boss is killing his friends after he gets them to his lab, to research their organs and the effect the poison had n them.

Now, Michael has been taken to Yoshihara's estate and Katharine has gotten the help of her friend Rob Silver and a computer genius in town.

They try breaking into the protected files that her boss keeps. She goes to the hospital room they are keeping Michael in and tries to devise a plan to free her son.

They escape and Katharine takes Michael to an island that is polluted by the fumes of the volcanoes.

They kill Takeo and Katharine and Rob take over his lab. They try to find a way to reverse the effects of what he's done.

They discover that the effects don't last that long. So, they get Michael and return to Maui. Katharine helps all the other children who did not die but were still infected and they were all okay.

Thoughts: The geode that the team had found with the chemical Yoshihara was using was said to be from another planet.

But the book didn't explain what they ended up doing with the fluid that had been found.

The book ended after MIchael and the rest of the infected people were cured.

Not too bad I guess. I had read the book before, but forgot all the details. I wouldn't read it again though, not worth a third read.

Not very good.

John Saul writing style has always been extremely readable and this book was no different.
The story itself however reminded me more of something from Michael Crichton than John Saul but regardless of that I found this a fun fast paced read.
3.75/5

Ok not great.

The novel The Presence by John Saul hails from the latter half of the 1990s. And you can tell.

In the years following 1993, the media landscape was still captivated by Jurassic Park: in cinemas, people craved computer-generated imagery, and in popular literature, Michael Crichton experienced a true hype. Publications were teeming with science fiction, pseudo-scientific narrative constructions, and speculative fiction.

With The Presence, John Saul also sought to hop on this bandwagon. And, to a certain extent, he succeeded.

In The Presence, John Saul, thankfully, departs from his well-trodden paths. In other words, The Presence finally explores something other than family curses, ghostly apparitions, and demon-possessed teenagers.

Well, it still involves teenagers. The Presence features a teenage clique inadvertently drawn into mysterious events and entanglements. The events in The Presence also have ominous (partly deadly) consequences. However, it must be acknowledged that John Saul depicts this group of teenagers with particular sensitivity and vitality.

The character portrayals (especially of the teenagers) in The Presence are truly excellent examples of the narrative principle 'Show - don't tell!' Each protagonist, every supporting character, possesses distinct traits, passions, and weaknesses. Even though some characters only fleetingly traverse the pages, each figure is unmistakable and unique because the reader gets to know them through their actions, reactions, and relationships. There are many characters in The Presence, but it never becomes overwhelming; each character has an individual presence. (Pardon the pun.)

Unfortunately, the overall plot in The Presence doesn't work very well. As mentioned, The Presence is speculative fiction. In his afterword, John Saul reveals that he wants to incorporate three characteristics of the Hawaiian Islands into his story: volcanic activities, the supercomputer on Maui, and the observatory on Mauna Kea. It's not easy to reconcile these disparate elements, and as a result, the entire story feels (strangely) contrived.

The Presence starts off quite suspenseful. The premise is mysterious, precisely because the elements refuse to align: What do enigmatic bones found during excavations have to do with the spherical artifact discovered at the ocean floor? What connection exists between the dangerous respiratory illnesses affecting some Hawaii tourists and the signals from another galaxy received at the observatory? What is the shady businessman Takeo Yoshihara plotting? What secret documents does he hide in his estate, on his hard drive?

The Presence is intriguing because the reader wonders: How do these elements fit together? And the answer is sobering: They don't really fit together. Everything seems hastily put together. Many threads are simply dropped at the end. Even the actual ending is extremely unsatisfying: In the moment of greatest danger, the villainous antagonist is simply killed by a lava surge. A 'Deus ex machina' par excellence! Too bad!

But I don't want to complain too much. The Presence is a typical product of its time. The Presence is a book from the 1990s. It's exciting, enjoyable, and has a perfect, captivating narrative pace. The unsatisfying ending can be tolerated. The Presence is, after all, speculative fiction. And some speculations are simply nonsensical.

Normally I love John Saul. But I did not enjoy this book. I did not like the premise and there were a lot of parts that bored me. I wanted to read a book that scared me. This was not it. And I found it to be a little stupid at points.

Compelling. Reminds me of Crichton. A speculative fiction about the origin of man and life forms without oxygen. Michael comes into contact with the substance and must live in a noxious environment until the effects wear off.

4.75 rating ☺️

I enjoyed the story and the two parts that verged together at the end to come together. I really liked the end concept of what the "presence" was. I did not like the overly tidy epilogue. That took it down a notch for me- I think I would have preferred it to be open ended rather than solved. I still enjoyed the read and minus the epilogue I think it was a good read.

Wow!

I have not read a John Saul book in forever, but this book reminded me why I love his books so much! Great read right from the start, but a white knuckle page turner from about the 60% mark! Loved it!

I only finished this book because I was using it as the Hawaii book in the geography challenge I'm doing. It is trite and the scientific and technological descriptions and concepts are ludicrous.

Holes throughout the story, or as I plodded along perhaps I dozed off and forgot them.