The physics are dubious, the story lightweight—but it’s all good fun.
A time-traveling work of legerdemain by well-known Christian novelist Peretti (Piercing the Darkness, 2003, etc.).
If you were a magician’s assistant, you’d probably file suit if your employer sent you spinning off into another dimension. Somehow, that’s just what’s happened to Mandy Collins, the lesser of equals in the magic act Dane and Mandy, who, after four decades of being married to the boss, has drifted into an alternate universe where she’s back to her late-teen self in 1970. The soundtrack to that bit of time travel may be Flip Wilson, Dean Martin and Laugh-In (“Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me”), but all is not japes and jests in the land of the walking tie-dyed undead. Meanwhile, poor Dane Collins is stumbling through life thinking that Mandy is dead, their own private Idaho (“they still returned simply because it was Idaho and Mandy loved Idaho”) empty without her. Until, that is, Mandy shows up in her 19-year-old guise, leading the old magician to, well, think about new tricks. In a pure-of-heart way, of course: Dane’s no horndog, even if, you bet your bippy, the post-teenybopper makes for temptation: “Whatever this fixation with a twenty-year-old was,” he notes, “it had to be affecting his thinking.” Roger that. Peretti employs a squad of mad scientists to give the story wonky grounding—“She had at least 50 percent opacity, and I’m guessing I had the same opacity to her,” says one dogged researcher before barking out weird-science lingo that belongs on a Star Trek set. (The reader will want to work the term “deflection debt” into his or her next conversation.) It would be stealing Peretti’s thunder to tell what happens next, but suffice it to say that true love conquers all, even relativistic space-time.
The physics are dubious, the story lightweight—but it’s all good fun.Pub Date: March 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4391-9267-2
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Howard Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.
This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1747-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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