So what brings you here? Are you looking for book reviews? I've got them. Musings about writing? That too. Thoughts on video games? In abundance. And some posts about Christianity? In spades. Welcome to the Least Read Blog.
I just got done reading Hero in Hiding, the second novel by Mitchell Bonds.
Cyrus Solburg is back and he's got quite the problem. As the titular hero in hiding, he and his bride, Kris, have to lay low. Voshtyr Demonkin, a malevolent Arch-Villain, has decimated the Heroes Guild and is searching for Cyrus to complete his nefarious P.L.O.T. Device. Cyrus must set out on a new adventure, one that will take him to far-flung corners and teach him new ways to be a hero.
I'm honestly not quite sure what I think of this one. It's an okay story, but the more I consider it, the more I'm unsure what to make of it all. The book is funny, no doubt about it. Bonds gleefully skewers a number of heroic and villainous tropes and there are quite a few laugh-out-loud funny moments as well. But it almost seems as if the plot were kind of scatter shot. It didn't feel as focused as the first book (which I reread before tackling this one).
In terms of theology, well, that's tricky too. While there is a supreme God called "the Creator," there are a number of lesser deities as well. It's a strange pantheon that left me scratching my head more than once. It's not a major concern or anything like that, it just struck me as odd.
I guess I'll have to reserve judgment, though, and see what the third book has to offer.
As of right now, I'm at 50,393 words for Hive. That means I added 4,049 words this week. Not good, especially since my self-imposed deadline was supposed to be in six days and I've got a long way to go.
Well, here we are. We're about midway through Apocalypse Not. The rolling rapture, scheduled for 6:00 PM in every time zone, hasn't quite reached Minnesota yet but given the fact that I haven't seen any reports about people vanishing, I'm not too worried.
Actually, I was never too worried. As I've mentioned on previous occasions, I'm a strict and ardent amillennialist, so when I heard about Mr. Camping and his odd predictions (and especially how he got there), I wasn't all that concerned. As an amillennialist, I'm not big into the rapture, the 1,000 year reign of Christ, or any of that silliness. This video helps explain a little bit as to why:
I could go into more reasons as to why I don't believe in a pre- or mid-Tribulation rapture, but instead, I thought I would take this moment to share some thoughts that I've had over the past week or so, specifically three thoughts targeted to three distinct groups.
First of all, to the date-setters, of whom Mr. Camping is but the latest, I share this piece of advice: stop it. Stop it right now. Before you grab your calculators and handy dandy charts of things to come, remember what Jesus said: no one can know the date of His return. No matter how you try to spin your predictions to explain how you figured it out, remind yourself that many, many people have played this game before and you know what? They were all wrong! Every single last one of them. That may seem obvious, but it's worth pointing out. If you think you've figured out the date of Christ's return, whether it's by arcane mathematics or divine visions or because you saw the date burned onto toast, the odds are so incredibly against you actually being right, it's in your best interest to keep your mouth shut and your message off the digital billboard near my house or the shelf of my local Christian bookstore.
I'm even including those who try to create the map-with-no-names, such as Tim LaHaye or Hal Lindsey. Especially Mr. Lindsey, who has made at least two generic time frame predictions that I know of (in the '70s and again in 2000) and yet still has enough clout that people listen to him as some sort of authority.
Part of the reason I say this is because of the damage that date setters do. Can you imagine what Mr. Camping's true believers are going through right now? How many of them have had their faith irreparably shaken because they're going to have to face the world tomorrow? I'm actually worried we're going to hear about at least a few suicides because of this mess before it's all over. Not only that, but consider what these kind of ridiculous predictions do to the rest of us Christians. Thanks to Mr. Camping and his crew, people are delighting in rubbing every Christian's face in this failed prediction, even though the majority of us didn't take it seriously in the first place.
That actually brings me to the next group I wish to address: the atheists. This morning, when I logged on to Twitter, I saw the terms "rapture" and "Christians" was trending. When I clicked on the latter, the majority of the posts were how all of us Christians were fools, as if every single last Christian was out on a hill waiting for Jesus to show up. They were gleefully slapping around a mighty big paintbrush and, I gotta say, that doesn't reflect too well on any of you. Shall I assume that all atheists are insensitive jerks by the actions of those few? I know that's not the case. But quid pro quo. If you don't want us judging your particular belief set (or lack thereof) by the actions of the rude few, you might want to tone it down. Just saying.
And finally, to the rest of my brothers and sisters in Christ, the Christians. As I was looking at the gleeful jokes from non-believers on Twitter, I realized we have a serious PR problem. A massive one. It would appear that if the rapture were to happen the way the vocal minority of Christianity expects (i.e. all believers disappear), the reaction would be unrestrained joy.
Maybe it's time to take Jesus' words seriously, that we are to be salt and light in this fallen world, so that if, by some strange chance, we do all disappear someday, the reaction of the rest of the world is, "The light has gone out."
I am disappointed with myself this week. I could make a lot of excuses, but I know that's all they are. Right now, Hive has reached 46,344 words. That means I've only added 6,796 words. So not good! Hopefully I can do better this week. We'll have to see.
So here we are, the final day of the tour surrounding The Ale Boy's Feast by Jeffrey Overstreet.
As I sat down to start reading this book just a few days ago, one of the things that I had to remind myself was that the Keeper is not God, Auralia is not Jesus, and that I shouldn't go looking for allegorical Christian connections in this book. I mean, I've made that mistake many times. Many, manytimes. So I was bound and determined, this time through, to keep an open mind, not slide into the simplistic x=y allegorical formula that's tripped me up in the past, and see what the story had to say.
And I'm proud to announce that I didn't have that problem. Instead, I came up with a new one.
Toward the middle of the book, I started to wonder, Is this book truly Christian?
But before we delve into that too deeply, let me just say . . .
Now I'm not questioning Jeffrey Overstreet's faith. Far from it. I've learned long ago that you can't do that, that only God knows what truly goes on in a person's heart, soul, and mind. But as the characters delved into the deeper meanings and mythology behind the Keeper(s) and their larger purpose in the Expanse, I started getting uncomfortable.
Part of it came from some discussions that Scharr ben Fray had with his brother Ryp or with Cal-raven. For example, in Chapter 10, Ryp and Scharr get into a discussion of the Keepers, how Cal-raven was taught to put his faith in it. Ryp observes that if Cal-raven discovers that his faith was founded on a lie, he might cling to it all the harder or let go and despair.
Scharr ben Fray's response worried me a little:
We see the suggestion of a shape among the stars. We give it a name, even though that shape is only a fiction. It's how we've always assembled our myths and our religions. We do this to comfort ourselves about all we do not understand. But surely this isn't an empty pursuit. If it helps us face the day, why fight it? We all choose stories in which to root ourselves. Why not choose the story that enables us to flourish?
Later on, while talking with Cal-raven, Scharr basically says the same sort of thing: it doesn't matter if what we believe is based on a lie, just so long as it is helpful. At least, that's how I read it.
Now maybe I had elevated Scharr ben Fray into something that he wasn't. In the previous three books, he seemed to fit the "wise wizard" archetype, the guy who speaks the deeper truths in a book. In The Ale Boy's Feast, he's definitely not that. At least, not from my perspective. But given that that seemed to be his role for the series, it stung a bit when he seemed to say that religions were built on myths that don't necessarily have to be true.
Can you understand why that made me just a tiny bit uncomfortable?
I'm relatively sure that Overstreet is not including Christianity in that description. I'm hoping that he isn't viewing the Bible as filled with myths that don't have to be true to be "true" in a deeper sense. If he is, then this isn't the most orthodox Christian books.
Which actually brings me to another problem I had with the overall series. Overstreet's central thesis seems to be that Art (with a big "A") is meant to point us to a deeper reality (which Overstreet calls "the mystery," an oblique reference to a divine figure). True beauty shows us that there is more to this world and can lift us beyond the pain and garbage of the world and help us find a connection to Someone Deeper.
And that is true, I suppose. Art can inspire us, uplift us, help us feel and experience a connection to God. But can Art help us overcome the garbage that keeps us from God?
The sad thing is, Overstreet's book, while true in a generic sense, didn't strike me as all that Christian. His "mystery" could be any sort of divine figure or even impersonal divine energy. I could see a lot of non-Christians read this book and agree with everything in it . . . and come away completely unchanged. Maybe I'm being overly critical, but that's where I wound up after finishing the series.
Now, having said that, let me reiterate: I did enjoy this book, as I did all the ones that came before it. Overstreet has a great sense for storytelling. His prose is lyrical. And he kept me guessing to the very end (and even beyond). I would gladly read whatever he writes next and I would eagerly anticipate it. But at the same time, there were a few areas where I felt this whole endeavor fell short.
So in spite of painting our entire basement yesterday morning, I still found time to finish reading The Ale Boy's Feast by Jeffrey Overstreet. And I have to say, I'm glad I did. A lot of what Overstreet set up in the previous three books were resolved. Characters were reunited with loved ones or found resolution in their predicaments. Futures were hinted at. A lot of them died (a surprising number; I was beginning to wonder if this was written by Joss Whedon at one point). But in the end, I think I finally have a handle on the message that Overstreet has been trying to deliver.
And that's been a long time coming.
It seems every time we do a tour on one of his books, I wind up confused over who Auralia and the Keeper is. In the previous three books, I kept landing on a Christological meaning for Auralia and thinly-veiled allegory for the Keeper. Even though I was told that wasn't correct after the first time around, my mind kept drifting back to it. This time, I managed to restrain myself (the end of Raven's Ladder helped). And in the end, I think I'm okay with where we wound up.
Although, truth be told, there were some troubling statements that, left on their own, have me worried. But I'll delve into that tomorrow.
The upshot is that this was a satisfying conclusion to a really good series. I don't know if I'll ever get a chance to read them all from start to finish (my to-be-read pile is threatening to consume a good portion of our house at present). But I've certainly enjoyed my sojourn in the Expanse.
I feel a little unready for this. Part of the reason was because I thought I was going to get a review copy of this month's book, namely The Ale Boy's Feast by Jeffrey Overstreet. So I kept waiting for it and waiting for it until I realized, about a week ago, that said review copy wasn't coming. So I put in a reserve at a nearby Barnes and Noble and ran to go get it. I am not complaining about the lack of review copy. I'm just saying I didn't get my hands on this book until recently. As of right now, I'm only about 2/3s of the way through the book and I'm not sure when I'll get it finished. My family and I are in the middle of a home improvement marathon (the actual work, not the TV show), so it might not be until Tuesday or even Wednesday.
So I figured what I'd do is talk about my raw impressions of the book. I have no idea how the many plot threads will finally tie together. I don't even know that they will.
My initial thought is that I should have started preparing for this final book in the Auralia's thread series a lot earlier than I did. I'm not talking about getting the book earlier. I mean I should have read the previous three. I only read Raven's Ladder a year ago, but apparently that was too long to trust my memory. I remember King Cal-Raven. I remember Scharr Ben Fray. I remember Krawg and Warney and Jordam and Cyndere. And I remember the titular ale boy. But all of the minor characters? Yeah, I don't remember most of them. Worse, I don't remember how most of those main characters were left at the end of the last book. The first third of this book left me completely lost and, I'll be honest, a little disgruntled. It's one thing to dump a reader mid-series into a plot with a few characters. It's entirely another when your cast numbers in the hundreds. Even now, I'm still not sure I know who everyone is, and that's problematic for me and, I would think, problematic from a craft stand-point. This means that absolutely no one can board the story late. Someone picking up this book would have absolutely no idea what is going on and, I think, would stop reading midway through.
That aside, I am liking what's happening. The stakes are high for the myriad characters and Overstreet's prose is excellent, as always. I just wish I wasn't so lost.
Well, come back tomorrow and see if I have any more thoughts rattling around in my brain. Maybe I'll be done by then, maybe I won't. We'll just have to see.
Go and check out what the other tourists have to say. Hopefully they all finished the book (unlike me):
Close, but no cigar. My first full week (defined here as Wednesday-to-Wednesday) in May has not produced the results I expected. Not to bee overly dramatic, but life interfered a few times in the past seven days. Some of those ways were great, such as meeting an on-line acquaintance from New Zealand who's been traveling with his wife and kids through the U.S. for the past six months or so (awesome family! Wish there's wasn't an entire planet between our homes). Some of those ways were not so great, such as discovering more issues with our house that need to be fixed. Whatever the case, I didn't quite make it to my stated goal of writing 2,000 words a day.
At any rate, after working almost every day at Hive, it's weighing in at 39,548 words, which means that I added 10,964 words since last Wednesday. Respectable, but about four thousand short of the goal.
What also has me worried is that this places me at about the halfway point of my projected wordcount. Thing is, I think I'm only a third of the way through the story. I may have to reevaluate my outline a little and see if I can't condense some of the upcoming story.
Anyway, there we go. Maybe I'll do better this week, but we'll have to see. Our basement needs a new coat of paint and I suspect that's where a big chunk of my weekend is going to go.
These books have always had a special place in my heart.
I first discovered the Firebird trilogy about ten years ago. I had recently re-discovered the joy of Christian fiction (after having read Frank Peretti's books in high school) and I was searching the Christian Book Distributors website for fantasy and sci-fi. There wasn't much, mostly reprints of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. But I came across a trilogy of books by a lady named Kathy Tyers. And I remember sitting at my computer, thinking, I know that name. Why do I know that name? I looked up at my bookshelf and saw my collection of Star Wars novels and saw The Truce at Bakura. That clinched it for me. I ordered the books immediately. And I loved them.
I've been meaning to reread the trilogy for a while now, but I never got around to it. So when Marcher Lord Press rereleased The Annotated Firebird, I figured, this is the time to do it.
For those unfamiliar with this book, it follows a young lady named Firebird. She is born into the royal family of the planet Netaia, but she is the third-born daughter. That means she's a wastling, no more than a back-up for her older sisters. When her oldest sister has produced enough children, Firebird's life is forfeit and she will be expected to seek an honorable death.
When the time comes, she goes to war and expects not to come home. Instead, she finds herself in the hands of her enemy, a man named Brennen Caldwell, a warrior with incredible mental abilities. Instead of death, Firebird finds a new life and new battles, some against her own people, some against an ancient and determined evil. Those battles will change her in irreparable ways.
Okay, so my love for this series hasn't changed. It's a great blend of action and romance. Tyers built an incredibly detailed world and it's always a lot of fun to see how Netaian society works.
The annotations were, for the most part, helpful. Some seemed tacked on, but Tyers used those notes to discuss writing craft, the inspiration for names, hints about possible future Firebird stories, and so on. I was actually glad that she included one note. There has always been a scene in the second book, Fusion Fire, that left me a little uncomfortable. I don't want to give away too much. Let's just say I thought someone was being forced into a marriage against that individual's will. The note helped explain what was going on.
My only real concern is that there were some odd formatting issues in this volume. Most of them were small and barely noticeable, such as a backwards quotation mark in the wrong place. But twice, I noticed that the first paragraph of a new chapter was tacked on to the end of the former, often breaking in the middle of a sentence. It's a minor issue, but there we go.
If you're a fan of Christian sci fi, you have to get this book. It's a must, because Tyers helped pave the way for a lot of other great books.
And today kicks off the beginning of the summer movies for me. I went to see Thor.
Admittedly, I was a little worried going into this one. Marvel Studios has done some good work in recent years, especially with the first Iron Man movie. But let's be honest, the second one stumbled a bit. And given the way that they're pumping out movies this year, especially in anticipation of the Joss Whedon geek-fest to come (a.k.a. Avengers), I was a little worried at how well the movies would do.
But there were still glimmers of hope. Sir Anthony Hopkins as Odin All-father? Interesting. Kenneth Branagh directing a superhero movie? Color me intrigued. And the FX in the trailers appeared pretty good. And really, there's no way I'm not going to go to a superhero movie (it's going to be a busy summer movie schedule for me this year), so I was in.
The story follows the titular god of thunder, played by Chris Hemsworth. After a disastrous fight that threatens to embroil Asgard in a war with their mortal enemies, the frost giants of Jotunheim, Odin strips his headstrong and arrogant son of his powers and banishes him to Earth. There, Thor meets an astrophysicist named Jane and tries to reclaim his mythic hammer, Mjolnir. But things are not well back in Asgard. Thor's brother, Loki, is up to no good. Thor needs to reclaim his powers and fast before all hell breaks loose, both on Earth and in the immortal realms.
I have to say, my worries about this film were misplaced. This was a good, fun movie, filled with some genuine moments that I truly enjoyed. The CGI sets for Asgard were really spectacular (I particularly liked the Rainbow Bridge effect), the battle sequences were fun to watch, and there were some genuine light-hearted moments (my favorite was when Thor smiled for a Facebook photo). It would have been very easy for Branagh to get lost in the mythic backstory of the movie or take it either too lightly or too seriously. The movie walked a fine line and did a respectable job.
But I do have a few minor gripes. First of all, Loki's motivation was too scattershot for me. I honestly have no idea why he was doing what he was doing. Oh, sure, there was the requisite monologuing at the end of the movie and yes, he did blatantly tell us, but the whole thing was so convoluted that I still don't think we ever really know what he was up to. I suppose that works since he is a trickster and a liar, but even still.
Maybe if the movie had spent less time on Earth. As odd as it might sound, Thor's exile actually dragged on the movie quite a bit. It could have been compressed a great deal. And the weird pseudo-romance with Jane the astrophysicist really didn't add anything to the movie. Although it did make me wonder why a respectable astrophysicist would set up a lab in an abandoned restaurant in the middle of Small Town New Mexico. Seemed a bit off to me.
Whatever the case, I had fun. I enjoyed myself. And for those of you who haven't seen the movie yet, for crying out loud, stay through to the very end! Two thirds of the audience got up and left the theater and thus missed the tag ending. C'mon, people, they had similar tags at the end of both Iron Man movies!
I'm actually feeling much better about myself in terms of writing. As of right now, Hive has clocked in at 28,584 words, which means that I've added an additional 11,681 words. I'm hoping I can improve on that in the days to come. At least, I hope I can. Life is conspiring against me right now and I suspect that, due to a confluence of events beyond my control, my output is going to dip. But that's okay. We'll just have to wait and see.
So here we are. Over the last week, I collected six entrants to win one of three copies of Jill Williamson's excellent From Darkness Won. And then I devised the uber-scientific, totally cool and never thought of before method of putting said six entrants in a hat and having my son pick the winners.
Ahem.
Anyway, without further ado, here are the three winners:
Millardthemk, Evergreena, and Seth Skogerboe.
In a weird coincidence, those three are also the first three. I don't know how that happened. I mixed up the little slips of paper and everything!
To everyone who entered, thank you! To the winners, I'll be contacting you soon to get your details. Happy reading!
I'm a severe Type B personality wrapped up in an introverted package, and yet I like to write. What can I say? Married, one son, a pastor in the Lutheran Church -- Missouri Synod. Want to know more? Keep reading!
I just got done reading Hero in Hiding, the second novel by Mitchell Bonds.
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