A nonpreachy but twee tone helps a fuzzy fantasy spread the good news of Christian positivity in troubled times.
Jane lays a thin veneer of sci-fi over a spiritual allegory in her debut novel about a boy war refugee in the future who travels with two extraordinary companions and absorbs tales along with way that illustrate both faith and folly.
This story’s future-speak coins the word “fabutale” as a 22nd-century synonym for “fairy tale”—just what this narrative aspires to be. Earth of the future enjoyed a relatively tranquil century after an international governing body idealistically abolished weapons, downsized polluting industries and technology (especially transportation; walking made a big comeback), and discouraged—without outlawing—organized religious worship. But not everyone cooperated, especially with the part about getting rid of weapons. By 2162, rogue nations have ignited global war. Young Jal Valhyn, a boy in an unprepared society, is left alone after his parents and uncle ominously vanish in military duty. Beckoned by a disembodied voice calling itself Simeon, aka Syntee, Jal embarks on a pastoral footpath in the company of two amazing, seemingly divine messengers: a talking swan named Sammi and a talking butterfly named Bea. While en route to their safe-haven destination, Jal hears parables of places they pass and people they meet. There’s a city-state of arrogant Savants who ruled using pure science, only to become a domed prison with inhabitants frozen in ice; a paranoid population who enclose their boundaries with illusory fire; and people who sacrifice fame, wealth and power to instead serve Syntee (or upper-rank disciples of Syntee) on “missions.” Late in the loose plot, a rather absentee God is mentioned as the “Owner King,” who will ultimately come and heal the suffering planet. In the meantime, Jal is counseled to wait patiently with his new friends. Readers will parse out stand-ins for Jesus, the Holy Ghost and Satan, since metaphors are more pervasive here than in The Shack (2007) or even Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Thankfully, though, sermons cautioning against secularism, cynicism and (possibly) disarmament never get too intense, due to a consistent bedtime-story tone and somewhat cutesy language; characters relish making alliterative phrases and impromptu rhymes. Readers in parts of Kentucky and North Carolina may be extra interested, as the author, a resident of the region, borrowed the Blue Ridge terrain for the landscape of her little pilgrim’s progress.
A nonpreachy but twee tone helps a fuzzy fantasy spread the good news of Christian positivity in troubled times.Pub Date: March 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-1479139071
Page Count: 240
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.
Christian-fiction writer Martin (The Dead Don’t Dance, not reviewed) chronicles the personal tragedy of a Georgia heart surgeon.
Five years ago in Atlanta, Reese could not save his beloved wife Emma from heart failure, even though the Harvard-trained surgeon became a physician so that he could find a way to fix his childhood sweetheart’s congenitally faulty ticker. He renounced practicing medicine after her death and now lives in quiet anonymity as a boat mechanic on Lake Burton. Across the lake is Emma’s brother Charlie, who was rendered blind on the same desperate night that Reese fought to revive his wife on their kitchen floor. When Reese helps save the life of a seven-year-old local girl named Annie, who turns out to have irreparable heart damage, he is compassionately drawn into her case. He also grows close to Annie’s attractive Aunt Cindy and gradually comes to recognize that the family needs his expertise as a transplant surgeon. Martin displays some impressive knowledge about medical practice and the workings of the heart, but his Christian message is not exactly subtle. “If anything in this universe reflects the fingerprint of God, it is the human heart,” Reese notes of his medical studies. Emma’s letters (kept in a bank vault) quote Bible verse; Charlie elucidates stories of Jesus’ miracles for young Annie; even the napkins at the local bar, The Well, carry passages from the Gospel of John for the benefit of the biker clientele. Moreover, Martin relentlessly hammers home his sentimentality with nature-specific metaphors involving mating cardinals and crying crickets. (Annie sells crickets as well as lemonade to raise money for her heart surgery.) Reese’s habitual muttering of worldly slogans from Milton and Shakespeare (“I am ashes where once I was fire”) doesn’t much cut the cloying piety, and an over-the-top surgical save leaves the reader feeling positively bruised.
Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.Pub Date: April 4, 2006
ISBN: 1-5955-4054-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: WestBow/Thomas Nelson
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
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