by Jason Joyner | Aug 21, 2012 | Blog, CSFF, fantasy, speculative fiction
Guess what’s back?
After a summer hiatus, the Christian Sci-fi/Fantasy Tour (CSFF as it is affectionately known) is back. This month the focus book is
Eye of the Sword by Karyn Henley. Unfortunately I didn’t read this book, as I’m preparing for a special event that I’ll talk more about tomorrow. I hate to miss out on books, because the CSFF Tour usually features the best in Christian fantasy or science fiction. Here’s what Amazon has to say about it:
Where angels walk the ground and the future is told in song, does a man of low rank have a chance at love with a princess?
In Camrithia, a land of shadows and mystical secrets, Trevin lives to serve King Laetham. But his heart belongs to the princess, Melaia. When the King sends Trevin on on a dangerous quest to find the missing comains—captains in the king’s army—he must leave Melaia to the advances of a swaggering Dregmoorian prince.
Challenged to prove his worth, Trevin throws himself into his quest. Striving to prove his love, Trevin undertakes a second mission—find the harps Melaia seeks in order to restore the stairway to heaven. Through fire caves, rogue winds, and murderous threats, Trevin remains steadfastly dedicated to his quest—even when he is falsely accused of a heinous crime. As Trevin’s time runs out, he realizes he must face the shame and horror of his own past and the nightmare that has come to life. Will he have the courage to finish what he has started?
If this interests you at all, you can get more information at Karyn’s blog or Facebook page. Of course, my other partners on the tour I’m sure have a lot of intriguing feedback, so be sure to check them out as well.
Until next time, when I have more time…
Julie Bihn
Thomas Fletcher Booher
Keanan Brand
Beckie Burnham
Jackie Castle
Brenda Castro
Jeff Chapman
Christine
Theresa Dunlap
Cynthia Dyer
Victor Gentile
Ryan Heart
Janeen Ippolito
Carol Keen
Emileigh Latham
Rebekah Loper
Shannon McDermott
Karen McSpadden
Meagan @ Blooming with Books
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Anna Mittower
Mirriam Neal
Nissa
Faye Oygard
Nathan Reimer
Chawna Schroeder
Kathleen Smith
Donna Swanson
Jessica Thomas
Steve Trower
Shane Werlinger
Phyllis Wheeler
—
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 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 | Feb 22, 2012 | Blog, CSFF, reviews, Ross Lawhead, speculative fiction, The Realms Thereunder
I left off yesterday’s post with somewhat of a cliffhanger.
I was still trying to finish the book we are touring.
I received a couple of exhortations (thanks Keenan and Eve). I managed to finish this morning on the commute. No, I wasn’t driving.
However, I have one more confession. I have avoided most posts on our feature book,
The Realms Thereunder, by
Ross Lawhead. One of the best parts of the CSFF Tour is the camaraderie and intelligent discussion on the various books. However, sometimes I find my opinion shifting in reading other blogs. I didn’t want to do that this time, to see if my feeling is unique and to keep it honest.
Unfortunately, my honest opinion is that I didn’t really like the book.
I wanted to. I was very excited for this tour, and jumped right into it when it arrived. Yesterday I mentioned that Ross’s father is acclaimed fantasy author Stephen Lawhead. I’m a big fan of the elder Lawhead, so I knew I had some expectations going in. I tried to keep them under wraps, but I’m also giving the full disclosure here.
As with most stories, there are elements that were enjoyable. Ross is as imaginative as his father, and he pictures a series of realms connected to our own, with the passages that connected the worlds starting to open and bleed into each other. He uses an Anglo-Saxon base for his main underground realm, which is different enough from the common Celtic fantasy troupe to make it stand out, yet familiar to fantasy fans.
He uses a varied structure that others on the tour have commented on. He tells the story of Daniel and Freya both in modern times and when they were 13 and lost as schoolkids for months while in an underground realm. The back and forth of time was not difficult for me to follow.
In particular, 13 year old Freya is encouraged in an encounter with an elderly woman who acted like one of the Fates weaving everyone’s destiny into a grand tapestry. The language and ideas presented there were a real high point for me.
There was just too much that distracted me from his overall story thrust. I think a major problem was that I didn’t enjoy his “voice,” the way he writes. This is very subjective, and his voice never won me over. We’ve all had authors we love, but when we recommend them to friends, we are disappointed when they don’t enjoy it as much as we do. That may be the main problem, so take it for what it is worth.
Other aspects of the writing were more objectively an issue for me. He shifted point of view between his main characters all the time. I’ve heard many say this is something only another writer would complain about, but I’ve seen omniscient POV done in such a way it wasn’t a distraction, but it constantly threw me here. There were large sections of the book that I don’t feel added much to the story progression or world-building. I would argue that some of these sections could be curtailed and tighten the flow of the plot. Perhaps they become significant in later books, but I didn’t detect any of that occuring.
I didn’t even have much empathy for the characters. They were not developed deep enough, so I didn’t have much connection to them.
It disappoints me to give a negative review. I enjoy fantasy and I really wanted to like this book. I also feel that an honest opinion is better than papering over my differences with the book to go along with the crowd. I hope any readers today will check out Becky Miller’s blog, where she keeps tabs on all of the posts for this tour, and read what others are saying. I am only one voice, and I plan on checking them out now myself.
Legal Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of this book without obligation for a positive review in return, which I think is evident.
—
by Jason Joyner | Feb 22, 2012 | Blog, CSFF, reviews, Ross Lawhead, speculative fiction, The Realms Thereunder
I left off yesterday’s post with somewhat of a cliffhanger.
I was still trying to finish the book we are touring.
I received a couple of exhortations (thanks Keenan and Eve). I managed to finish this morning on the commute. No, I wasn’t driving.
However, I have one more confession. I have avoided most posts on our feature book,
The Realms Thereunder, by
Ross Lawhead. One of the best parts of the CSFF Tour is the camaraderie and intelligent discussion on the various books. However, sometimes I find my opinion shifting in reading other blogs. I didn’t want to do that this time, to see if my feeling is unique and to keep it honest.
Unfortunately, my honest opinion is that I didn’t really like the book.
I wanted to. I was very excited for this tour, and jumped right into it when it arrived. Yesterday I mentioned that Ross’s father is acclaimed fantasy author Stephen Lawhead. I’m a big fan of the elder Lawhead, so I knew I had some expectations going in. I tried to keep them under wraps, but I’m also giving the full disclosure here.
As with most stories, there are elements that were enjoyable. Ross is as imaginative as his father, and he pictures a series of realms connected to our own, with the passages that connected the worlds starting to open and bleed into each other. He uses an Anglo-Saxon base for his main underground realm, which is different enough from the common Celtic fantasy troupe to make it stand out, yet familiar to fantasy fans.
He uses a varied structure that others on the tour have commented on. He tells the story of Daniel and Freya both in modern times and when they were 13 and lost as schoolkids for months while in an underground realm. The back and forth of time was not difficult for me to follow.
In particular, 13 year old Freya is encouraged in an encounter with an elderly woman who acted like one of the Fates weaving everyone’s destiny into a grand tapestry. The language and ideas presented there were a real high point for me.
There was just too much that distracted me from his overall story thrust. I think a major problem was that I didn’t enjoy his “voice,” the way he writes. This is very subjective, and his voice never won me over. We’ve all had authors we love, but when we recommend them to friends, we are disappointed when they don’t enjoy it as much as we do. That may be the main problem, so take it for what it is worth.
Other aspects of the writing were more objectively an issue for me. He shifted point of view between his main characters all the time. I’ve heard many say this is something only another writer would complain about, but I’ve seen omniscient POV done in such a way it wasn’t a distraction, but it constantly threw me here. There were large sections of the book that I don’t feel added much to the story progression or world-building. I would argue that some of these sections could be curtailed and tighten the flow of the plot. Perhaps they become significant in later books, but I didn’t detect any of that occuring.
I didn’t even have much empathy for the characters. They were not developed deep enough, so I didn’t have much connection to them.
It disappoints me to give a negative review. I enjoy fantasy and I really wanted to like this book. I also feel that an honest opinion is better than papering over my differences with the book to go along with the crowd. I hope any readers today will check out Becky Miller’s blog, where she keeps tabs on all of the posts for this tour, and read what others are saying. I am only one voice, and I plan on checking them out now myself.
Legal Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of this book without obligation for a positive review in return, which I think is evident.
—
by Jason Joyner | Feb 21, 2012 | Blog, CSFF, Ross Lawhead, speculative fiction, The Realms Thereunder
I introduced the book yesterday, and mentioned the author may have a familiar name to speculative fiction fans. Ross Lawhead is the son of Stephen Lawhead.
I wondered in approaching this tour whether having a famous name and a legacy would be a help or a hinderance to an author. I suspect it is a little of both. I came to Ross’s book expecting some mythical elements (this is the first in the Ancient Earths trilogy, so I was justified), but I tried to come to the book without expectations of it being a Mini-Me experience.
 |
| I tried to resist… |
Ross has his own body of work already. He has collaborated with his dad on another book as well as
Hero, a comic book adaptation of a modern day retelling of the gospel. As you can tell by his attire in the above picture, he enjoys his comics.
Nothing wrong with that on this blog!So what does this speak for The Realms Thereunder? Well, I’m not sure. Still working on finishing the book!
I know, that’s so rare for me to be racing to finish in time for the tour…
In the meantime, Becky Miller always keeps tabs on all the other posts for the tour, so
check her link out here. I will endeavor to bring you a review tomorrow.
I’d better get moving. Pages, I mean.
Ahem.
—
