by Jason Joyner | May 22, 2012 | Beckon, Blog, CSFF, reviews, speculative fiction, Tom Pawlik
Crawling out from the depths, my eyes are blinded by the light of day. Oh, it is time for a new Christian Sci-Fi/Fantasy Tour? I have to climb out from under my rock?
Well, *only* for the CSFF Tour.
This month we are featuring Beckon by Tom Pawlik. You can check out Tom’s blog, website, Facebook page, or even Twitter for more.
Beckon, Wyoming, is not on any map. You don’t end up in Beckon by chance. If you are called to Beckon and accept, there is no leaving, but the choice is to live forever.
The book follows three separate individuals on their own quests that lead them to Beckon. Jack is hunting for clues about his missing archeologist father. Elina is a disgraced police officer tracking her kidnapped cousin. George is looking for a cure for his wife’s condition.
Once they all arrive, they learn the secret of Beckon. And now that they are there, how are they going to leave?
—
Beckon is a book with an imaginative premise, potential for a lot of suspense, and some thought-provoking issues at the heart of the book. I’ll come back to the ideas tomorrow, but I wanted to review the book today.
I wish I loved the book, but it just didn’t work for me. Reviewing books can look at craft, skill, plot, and various other story elements, but sometimes it comes down to the voice of the author. Their writing connects with a particular reader or it doesn’t. That’s my main problem – I didn’t find it engaging.
There are some real strengthens I can identify. The writing is solid in description for the most part and there is a lot of suspense. The sense of danger permeates most of the book, so the plot doesn’t suffer from lack of conflict. The core themes or ideas are very intriguing to think about, and they offer good fodder for moral dilemma in the final third of the book.
Some craft choices affected my enjoyment of the book. He has four sections of the book. Jack, Elina, and George each have their story introduced. Once they all end up in Beckon and the major secret is revealed, the final act begins with their arcs intertwined. My problem was that I didn’t really engage with the book until George’s section in act 3. Until then I didn’t really care what happened to the main characters, and I was reading out of duty for the tour instead of really digging the book. Now, once I hit that point I really wanted to see it through to the end. Several things were predictable to me, but at least at that point I cared about what was happening.
The setting of mountainous western Wyoming is a couple of hours from my backyard. It is majestic country, but I didn’t get a sense of the scenery when things were above ground. A majority of the story is in caves or houses, but I wish the beautiful setting came out more.
Ultimately it comes back to the lack of connection. The book is not poorly written. I wish the first section created more empathy for Jack, because I didn’t have a feel for him or Elina to really care. The prose is solid and suspense is good, but I just didn’t invest until 2/3 or 3/4 through the book. Other readers may engage right away, so if you can try it out I say go for it.
We have a lot of other tourmates with other opinions. I haven’t checked out any yet, waiting to get my thoughts out before I visited them. Now that I’ve given my review, I’ll check out my friends below, and encourage y’all to do the same. Who knows, maybe I’m off my rocker (wouldn’t be the first time…).
Noah Arsenault
Julie Bihn
Thomas Clayton Booher
Thomas Fletcher Booher
Beckie Burnham
Brenda Castro
Theresa Dunlap
Nikole Hahn
Ryan Heart
Bruce Hennigan
Janeen Ippolito
Becky Jesse
Carol Keen
Leighton
Rebekah Loper
Katie McCurdy
Shannon McDermott
Karen McSpadden
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
Joan Nienhuis
Faye Oygard
Crista Richey
Kathleen Smith
Jessica Thomas
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Shane Werlinger
—
In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher with no obligation.
by Jason Joyner | May 9, 2012 | Blog, borrowed content, links, writer's block, Writing Wednesday
Okay, due to personal circumstances this week is kicking my butt. BUT, all is well or will be soon.
I missed Monday’s post and didn’t have time for an orignial Writing Wednesday post.
However, I can point to an excellent blog post from Rachelle Gardner, 9 Ways To Outwit Writer’s Block. It is a keeper, and I highly recommend it. I’d like to see what my two main characters would do during an alien attack.
—
by Jason Joyner | May 9, 2012 | Blog, borrowed content, links, writer's block, Writing Wednesday
Okay, due to personal circumstances this week is kicking my butt. BUT, all is well or will be soon.
I missed Monday’s post and didn’t have time for an orignial Writing Wednesday post.
However, I can point to an excellent blog post from Rachelle Gardner, 9 Ways To Outwit Writer’s Block. It is a keeper, and I highly recommend it. I’d like to see what my two main characters would do during an alien attack.
—
by Jason Joyner | May 2, 2012 | alliterate much?, Blog, writing, writing craft, Writing Wednesday
I think I’ve gone a long time as a writing blog without having a post on “write what you know.” I had second and third thoughts on whether I should bother. I’m sure there are 4.634 gazillion blog posts on the subject.
The term write what you know is considered a good adage to follow. If you quilt, you can write compelling fiction about a team of quilters. If you like motorcycles but hate quilting, let the first group do the quilt stories.
There are people who rail against this advice. “If we only wrote what we knew, we wouldn’t have any science fiction. Or historicals. Or sparkly vampire love fests.” (Maybe that last one wouldn’t be a bad thing.)
I would say, they’re both right.
|
| I didn’t have to eat durian to describe it |
I work in medicine. I spent two months in Thailand. This may have have some influence on my WIP involving a medical student traveling to Thailand. It makes it easier to start there, as I have background in it. When I’ve had critiques, people comment on the sections where I use the tropical location, or have a suspenseful scene with medical overtones. These parts seem to resonate more.
Writing what I know seems to be paying off right now.
The rub is that I don’t know if I can write the same stuff forever. I haven’t been to every country, and I don’t think everything I write will be set among tropical breezes and exotic fruit. Obviously authors write about many things they don’t know firsthand. They do their research, use real world experiences as references, and play off of them to write something new and unique to them.
Brandilyn Collins has an excellent three post series on her old blog where she can take anyone and put them into the mindset of a murderer. If we wrote what we knew, a lot of mystery and suspense writers have some skeletons in their closets. Maybe literally. But Brandilyn’s method helps an author go to a place they would never reach otherwise (we hope).
There you go. I’m officially on the fence. Sometimes you need to write what you know. Other times demand something original, but you can still find analogies in your life to make it pop.
What side of the fence are you on?
—
by Jason Joyner | May 2, 2012 | alliterate much?, Blog, writing, writing craft, Writing Wednesday
I think I’ve gone a long time as a writing blog without having a post on “write what you know.” I had second and third thoughts on whether I should bother. I’m sure there are 4.634 gazillion blog posts on the subject.
The term write what you know is considered a good adage to follow. If you quilt, you can write compelling fiction about a team of quilters. If you like motorcycles but hate quilting, let the first group do the quilt stories.
There are people who rail against this advice. “If we only wrote what we knew, we wouldn’t have any science fiction. Or historicals. Or sparkly vampire love fests.” (Maybe that last one wouldn’t be a bad thing.)
I would say, they’re both right.
|
| I didn’t have to eat durian to describe it |
I work in medicine. I spent two months in Thailand. This may have have some influence on my WIP involving a medical student traveling to Thailand. It makes it easier to start there, as I have background in it. When I’ve had critiques, people comment on the sections where I use the tropical location, or have a suspenseful scene with medical overtones. These parts seem to resonate more.
Writing what I know seems to be paying off right now.
The rub is that I don’t know if I can write the same stuff forever. I haven’t been to every country, and I don’t think everything I write will be set among tropical breezes and exotic fruit. Obviously authors write about many things they don’t know firsthand. They do their research, use real world experiences as references, and play off of them to write something new and unique to them.
Brandilyn Collins has an excellent three post series on her old blog where she can take anyone and put them into the mindset of a murderer. If we wrote what we knew, a lot of mystery and suspense writers have some skeletons in their closets. Maybe literally. But Brandilyn’s method helps an author go to a place they would never reach otherwise (we hope).
There you go. I’m officially on the fence. Sometimes you need to write what you know. Other times demand something original, but you can still find analogies in your life to make it pop.
What side of the fence are you on?
—
by Jason Joyner | May 1, 2012 | Blog, Brock's Story, faith, testimony
Yesterday I was supposed to write a post for Mission Monday.
I want to share this morning the reason I didn’t.
I have some amazing friends from church. They went through a tragedy years ago when their young son died of cancer. It is always heartbreaking when someone young dies, but Brock’s Story is heartbreaking in a good way as well. It is a story of how God can work everything for good.
Please check out Brock’s Story. The main story starts here, but his mother’s introduction is important as well.
After reading this, I had too many tears to write a post. I was one of the church members who got to enjoy Brock’s special spirit for a little while. It was so touching to remember him and to see how his life touched others.
Brock’s Story is better than anything I could come up with. What a testimony.
—
by Jason Joyner | May 1, 2012 | Blog, Brock's Story, faith, testimony
Yesterday I was supposed to write a post for Mission Monday.
I want to share this morning the reason I didn’t.
I have some amazing friends from church. They went through a tragedy years ago when their young son died of cancer. It is always heartbreaking when someone young dies, but Brock’s Story is heartbreaking in a good way as well. It is a story of how God can work everything for good.
Please check out Brock’s Story. The main story starts here, but his mother’s introduction is important as well.
After reading this, I had too many tears to write a post. I was one of the church members who got to enjoy Brock’s special spirit for a little while. It was so touching to remember him and to see how his life touched others.
Brock’s Story is better than anything I could come up with. What a testimony.
—
by Jason Joyner | Apr 25, 2012 | beginnings, Blog, prologue passion, writing craft, Writing Wednesday
|
| Best I could do… |
When does your story start?
That’s silly, you may say. At the beginning. Duh.
But when do you really begin?
In my WIP, my inspiration was
an image of a body in the water that is found by a Thai fisherman. From there I started asking how he got there, and the story took off.
I initially started the story with the fisherman finding the body. I recently revised it to show the person found in the water running for his life in the jungle, to make the suspense immediate and to show more connection to events later on. So my first chapter was Travis running and getting caught, and the fisherman finding his body in the water. I then shift to Jenna, Travis’s sister, who is a medical student on training in the ER, showing a day in her life to introduce her character and skill set, for chapter two.
I just got the results back from a writing competition I entered. The feedback was positive, with constructive criticism revealing things I needed to work on. One repeated comment was that I wasn’t starting with the protagonist in the main conflict right away.
One judge suggested the first chapter be a prologue. Another thought I needed to start with Jenna, and show her getting the news about her brother right away.
These are good thoughts, but I think the contest is limited by only being the first 15 pages. In the next chapter I introduce the other main character and his connection to Jenna, with chapter 4 as the point when Jenna finds out about her murdered brother.
My dilemna is how to handle the opening. Is a prologue the right way to go? I’ve struggled with this for a while. I understand why it would work that way. I also hear readers skip prologues. I never do, but then I read the acknowledgements and almost anything else in print in the book.
So this is a question for my writing friends. What do you think about prologues, and how would you suggest arranging the structure here?
—
by Jason Joyner | Apr 25, 2012 | beginnings, Blog, prologue passion, writing craft, Writing Wednesday
|
| Best I could do… |
When does your story start?
That’s silly, you may say. At the beginning. Duh.
But when do you really begin?
In my WIP, my inspiration was
an image of a body in the water that is found by a Thai fisherman. From there I started asking how he got there, and the story took off.
I initially started the story with the fisherman finding the body. I recently revised it to show the person found in the water running for his life in the jungle, to make the suspense immediate and to show more connection to events later on. So my first chapter was Travis running and getting caught, and the fisherman finding his body in the water. I then shift to Jenna, Travis’s sister, who is a medical student on training in the ER, showing a day in her life to introduce her character and skill set, for chapter two.
I just got the results back from a writing competition I entered. The feedback was positive, with constructive criticism revealing things I needed to work on. One repeated comment was that I wasn’t starting with the protagonist in the main conflict right away.
One judge suggested the first chapter be a prologue. Another thought I needed to start with Jenna, and show her getting the news about her brother right away.
These are good thoughts, but I think the contest is limited by only being the first 15 pages. In the next chapter I introduce the other main character and his connection to Jenna, with chapter 4 as the point when Jenna finds out about her murdered brother.
My dilemna is how to handle the opening. Is a prologue the right way to go? I’ve struggled with this for a while. I understand why it would work that way. I also hear readers skip prologues. I never do, but then I read the acknowledgements and almost anything else in print in the book.
So this is a question for my writing friends. What do you think about prologues, and how would you suggest arranging the structure here?
—
by Jason Joyner | Apr 23, 2012 | Blog, Christianity, Father's heart, Go, Mission Monday, missions, YWAM
I’m a fan. What can I say?
“How about WHAT you’re a fan of,” a random surfer could ask.
Well, random surfer, let me tell you what I like.
I like it when people take a period in their life and dedicate it to the Lord.
It is no secret that I support mission work. Today is Mission Monday if you needed any other hint. I’ve blogged frequently about Youth With A Mission (
YWAM), a non-denominational mission organization that I did two training programs with in the 90’s. (Yeah, way back then.)
When I was 18 I attended their Discipleship Training School (DTS) in
Lakeside, MT. Even though they have these programs all over, the rustic mountain location was a great place to get away from distractions and spend time with God. We spent three months learning about God, His character and ways, His word, prayer, evangelism, and missions. This time changed my life, from letting me see the depth of the Father’s love for me to His heart for the whole world to come to know Him.
Our school then did a two month outreach in Asia, with my team going to Thailand and the other to Taiwan. Now we put our newfound knowledge and experience to test in the real world. We went to parks and prisons to share about His freedom. We did acts of service and prayed for a demon-possessed man chained to a bare-bones hut in a remote village. We tried to love as best we could. We even played Christian music in a Thai disco on New Year’s Eve.
This changed my life forever in so many ways. I not only knew more about Jesus, I had experienced so much of Him. I got away from the small town in Idaho and saw the big, bad world. I learned that we are incredibly blessed in the West, and that there are tremendous needs around the world. Even though I have not been called (so far) to work overseas, my heart has been to shine a light on these needs to people here at home since going.
But this is not the biggest way that my life was changed by a short term mission trip.
My older sister, 15 years older, was often like a second mom to me. She got active in Campus Crusade for Christ while in college. She served a couple of summer outreaches with them, and became dedicated in her walk. At the time our family was not going to church back home. When my sister moved back for a while, she started taking me to the local Southern Baptist church where I got saved and ended up becoming a true disciple in my high school years.
If it weren’t for her influence, and the influence of her short term trip, I may not be standing here today. (And I’m literally standing – I have this cool desk that elevates and…never mind)
This is why I’m an advocate for people to do some kind of trip or service to the Lord where they get away for even just a few months and dedicate it to Him. The rewards are more than you can imagine – IF you let it transform you, and you stay with the Lord.
It isn’t a panacea to all problems. I have had friends who have done these trips and have not continued leaning on God afterwards, and they have had trouble in life. I’ve had my share of trials too, but by trying to stay close to Him, I have by His grace weathered every one so far.
YWAM is awesome, but it is not necessarily for everyone. There are many ways Christians could partake in the type of experience I am talking about today. I encourage anyone reading this to consider taking a similar opportunity if possible.
It may just change someone’s life. Not just your own.
—
