The Hour of Blue is a story of beauty, love, mystery, technology, and deeply sculpted characterizations.

—Review of the 1990 edition

The Hour of Blue

(1990)

There are warnings—some subtle, some not. Dolphins communicate signals of alarm. Unusual children talk to birds and speak of wind on the moon. The setting—the forested coast of Maine. The backdrop—global environmental crisis.

    Amos Thibault, computer expert with Maine’s Forest Service, is puzzled by satellite data he’s been gathering for a real-time forest inventory. The forest, he discovers, is inexplicably changing. And at Penobscook Bay, where the changes appear to be focused, he finds more: the woman whose studies of dolphin communications have drawn her to the same bay, the school of children with special talents, and the man in the three-piece suit, super-developer John Furst, with his grand plans for Maine’s forest and coast.

    The answer to the deepening mystery lies with a strange trio of medical researchers, whose activities finally unveil the principal player in the drama: the Earth itself. As a frightening epidemic of catatonia spreads among local residents, all are eventually caught up in the growing puzzle. Earth has been awakened, and a night of transformation is at hand. The world will never be the same.

    Based on the Gaia Hypothesis—that Earth is a living thing, a massive, complex, and sensitive organism—The Hour of Blue suggests that Earth may also be capable of protecting itself—but not without consequence for those who would hurt it. The novel combines science fiction, suspense, and the environmental issues of today. Its haunting message is both a warning and a statement of hope.