The universe wanted me to read Sati. I know this because my first encounter with the book came as I was sitting on the floor at the bookstore where I work, boxing up young adult novels, when it slid out of the sorting cube above me and conked me on the head. Since this was the hardcover release, not the paperback, it made for a more lasting first impression but it got my attention.



I remembered Christopher Pike from my teenage years, when he and R.L. Stine took turns creeping me out with their br

The universe wanted me to read Sati. I know this because my first encounter with the book came as I was sitting on the floor at the bookstore where I work, boxing up young adult novels, when it slid out of the sorting cube above me and conked me on the head. Since this was the hardcover release, not the paperback, it made for a more lasting first impression but it got my attention.



I remembered Christopher Pike from my teenage years, when he and R.L. Stine took turns creeping me out with their brand of teen-themed horror stories and like the VHS vs. Betamax format wars, Stine's prolific catalog made for great competition with Pike's smaller output but superior writing skills. Sorry Bob, I love you and you're a fine writer, but Pike's stuff just always had that extra touch that appealed to me more. That, and you never wrote anything like Sati.



Sati was unlike anything I'd ever read before. It's part mystery, part spiritual journey, and part gentle and introspective prodding. Light on philosophy, heavy on questions, and loaded with new takes on age-old questions, I find myself observing it differently on each reading. My first time through it was on the cusp of my 29th birthday. Thirty was a milestone, and it left me in a very painful position for personal reasons. Sati was the book I needed to read then.



Ten years later, much has changed. I'll be forty come October. But re-reading Sati brings the sort of comfort it's easy to get lost in. Doesn't hurt the main character and I share the same name, even though he's a truck driver and I still work for that bookstore. There were times when it seemed Sati was speaking more to me than to him, and I freely admit the book wouldn't have made the same impact if my parents had decided to name me anything but 'Michael'. Coincidence? Sure--'Michael' is one of the most common names in the Western hemisphere. I never had fewer than two other classmates with the same first name all through school. The book wasn't written for me, I just happened to have a name that resonated more for the reading. I'll take that anyway.



Sati is fantasy. It belongs on the same shelves as David Eddings, Robert Jordan, and Terry Goodkind. It's just a fantasy more grounded in reality than your typical swords-and-sorcery epic. California isn't Middle Earth. People die from pneumonia, not arrows to the torso. It doesn't matter. The best fantasy still makes us think, makes us wonder, and makes us feel like kids again with our imagination all fired up. Such is the power of Sati, which is a fantasy designed around the idea of a higher power/consciousness/creator that routinely travels back to this planet to interact with those he/she has created in order to obtain even more infinite bliss and happiness.



Whether Sati truly is "God" as she claims (or whether or not we believe in her or the concept of any 'God') is irrelevant. Michael's final statement of the book is the true point for meditation and discussion. Lives change, life goes on, and the world looks similar to the way it did before she arrived. All that has changed is a reminder that we're all in this together, and whether a God created us or not doesn't matter. We're human, we all know we have this one life, and we're all happier when we live fully in the present instead of dwelling on the past or fretting over the future. Arguing over whether the messenger is divine or mortal is to miss the point of the message: be, do, love, and take pleasure in what truly brings you happiness, but not to the exclusion of helping those who need your assistance. Simple message, simple delivery, simple story, and probably the best thing Christopher Pike will ever write. I've had plenty of books fall on me over the course of my life, but this is the only time I was honestly happy to have experienced it. Thanks, Universe!