Ross Lawhead's "The Realms Thereunder"

Hello and welcome to the blog tour for Ross Lawhead's book "The Realm's Thereunder". Ross Lawhead is the son of well known British Speculative Fiction writer, Steven Lawhead, and let's make no mistake, he has definitely decided to follow in the footsteps of his literary father. To date, He has collaborated with his father on a trilogy of speculative fiction, written and illustrated a graphic novel, and published two volumes of “awful” poetry in a series called “The Colour Papers.” He lives in Oxford, England and "The Realms Thereunder" is his first full-length novel.

Ok, I have to be extremely honest here: I am not very familiar with many of Steven Lawhead's books, and I know that's awful since I love speculative fiction -- especially Arthurian fiction -- and time travel and British literature intrigue me. I actually have quite a few of Mr. Lawhead's books at home, but haven't gotten around to reading them yet, as sad as that is. In the past I have read Mr. Lawhead's book "The Skin Map" and reviewed it here on the P&P, and I also received a copy of the second book in that series titled "The House of Bones", which I am planning to review hopefully soon. (I was supposed to review it a while ago, but I'm still picking my way through it; I find it -- eh -- dense, as in the book is rather thick, and it's content really needs to be thought over thoroughly. Dense books always take me longer to get through. :P) I like what I've read of Mr. Lawhead's books, even if I find the works a bit "scattered". Perhaps that's just me though. It's hard to tell sometimes. *shrug*

When I saw that Mr. Lawhead's son had written and published a novel, taking after his father, I was very intrigued. I decided that I should definitely try the book out and see if I liked it, and I figured I probably would, especially after having read the blurb for the book. Here it is:



Ancient legend tells of an army of knights that will remain sleeping until the last days.

The knights are waking up.

A homeless man is stalked by a pale, wraithlike creature with a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. Maimed animals and a host of suicides cluster around a mountain in Scotland. And deep beneath the cobbled streets of Oxford, a malicious hoard besieges a hidden city.

Freya Reynolds is a university student with a touch of OCD and an obsession with myth and folklore. Daniel Tully is living rough on the streets of Oxford, waging a secret war against an enemy only he can identify. Years ago, they found themselves in a world few know is real. They have since gone their separate ways and tried to put that adventure behind them.

But the mythical world is now bleeding into our reality-a dark spiritual evil that is manifesting itself in forgotten corners of the British Isles. Alex Simpson is a Scottish police officer who specializes in hunting mythical creatures. Together, they must confront the past, the present, and points beyond to defeat the ultimate threat to humanity.

Nothing they've seen so far prepares them for what awaits . . . in The Realms Thereunder.

Now come on, you have to admit that this sounds like a cool story, am I right? ^_^ So I was very happy when I had the chance to get the book from the CSFF blog tour and read through it. Currently I'm almost 80% through the book, and still reading. This review is on what I have read of the book so far and what I think of it to date. It may be that I have to update this review after I get the book completely finished, but we'll just have to see. :)

My thoughts:

Ross Lawhead definitely takes after his father, no question. He is a good writer, and his prose are well placed, and engaging. He certainly has many good ideas and knows how to put interesting details into his stories that help flesh out characters, places and scenes. And I do like his style of writing... it has a definite "British" air about it, and I often find myself reading it aloud with an accent. *smirk*

However (and I think this is unfortunate), I find this work to be as scattered as I find his father's works to be, to date.

I don't say that to seem mean or rude, and like I said, it could just be me. I'm not sure. But let me try to explain what I mean. Up to this point in the story, the book has worked to juggle four different story lines: one for Daniel at this point in time, one for Freya at this point in time, one for Alex at this point in time, and one for Fraya and Daniel when they were children. Each story line is different -- unique to say the very least -- and thoroughly engaging. HOWEVER, at this moment I find it difficult to see how the four different story lines relate to each other. At 80% through the book, I have yet to see the story lines mesh so that the characters can meet and work together to defeat this ancient evil that threatens the world, as is stated will happen in the second to last paragraph of the blurb. Right now, Daniel is currently in another world altogether; Freya is completely spacing out, and coming to every few years or so (maybe... it's difficult to tell what's going on there); Alex was almost killed by a dragon in the modern world; and back in time, Freya and Daniel are searching for an evil heart of some sort.

Now, the author has 20% of the book left to convince me that these storylines will all eventually work together and the story will align. I'm definitely going to keep reading. But at this moment this doesn't feel like one good story; it feels like four good stories, that may have similarities involved, but that really don't have much in common. I'll just have to wait and see what happens closer to the end of the book -- reserve my final judgment until I get the whole picture. Perhaps I will end up changing my thoughts and will have to come back and change my opinions in this review. I don't know.

On another note, I have two copies of this book in reality - a paperback copy that was given to me for the blog tour, and then after I bought my new kindle I went ahead and got an e-book version as well. I've been switching on and off between the two versions of the book, and while I have so far had no real troubles with the physical copy, I've found several formatting issues with the digital copy. These aren't grammatical errors that I'm talking about; these are more like cut offs in the middle of a sentence while the rest of the sentence starts a new paragraph, or paragraphs doing much the same thing. It's rather annoying. :P And to be quite honest, for a book that came out through Thomas Nelson, I expected a better job. I don't know if others have noticed the same problems or not, but it's definitely something that troubles me. I wish it were different.

I honestly must say that I HATE to give negative reviews of any sort. And I especially hate to give negative reviews to good writers, because the truth of the matter is that Ross Lawhead is ABSOLUTELY a good writer. I've kept reading, after all, and I'm going to continue reading to the end. Truth to tell, it's a catchy story, even if it makes no sense to me at the moment. But that's just it: it makes no sense to me at the moment. I may keep reading, and I may even like what I'm reading (which I do), but I can't pretend I know what's going on, even so far into the book. It's confusing right now, scattered all over the place, and the plot lines just don't match up. Hopefully things will improve by the time I reach the end.

Don't let my review deter you from checking out this book for yourself though. For more reviews on this book and other Christian Speculative titles, please visit a few of the links below. I'm sure that others' opinions will differ. :)


Also, you can find more about Ross and his book at: http://www.rosslawhead.com/blog/


and:


http://www.amazon.com/Realms-Thereunder-Ancient-Earth/dp/1595549099/

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“Replication” by Jill Williamson – a Review

Hello friends,

It has been a while since I’ve had the time or a sufficient connection to the internet with which to post something more meaningful. I hope you all had a good holiday! Mine has been quite full to say the very least, and while I know that college starts again on the 17th, I’d swear that classes got out for Christmas only a week ago… Oh well. No matter how short the vacation was, it was still time off, and I’m thankful for it. Just know that when school starts again, I’ll be able to blog more often: it definitely helps when you have a reliable connection to the web. But, the time off has helped me get back some of my personal priorities too, like writing (I’ve made some new leeway in SOTD, but I’ll talk more of that at a later time) and like… sleep. In fact, sleep has become so much a priority that sometimes my parents become aggravated; they ask how a person can spend so much time with their eyes closed, and I tell them it’s to make up for a whole semester of trying desperately to stay awake 24/7. Lol! College takes its toll, my friends. Especially when you fill your class schedule with as much as you can manage. I really need to fix that… :P

But enough chit-chat!

Today I’m writing a review for Jill Williamson’s newest book just recently released through Zondervan, titled “Replication”. I can’t tell you how excited I was to receive an invitation for an ARC. Jill is one of the most respected authors on my long and still growing list of favorite authors, and one of the most anticipated. I haven’t posted a review on her “Blood of Kings” trilogy yet, but I will be posting one sometime this year (when I finish the third book. ;D). Besides that however, who wouldn’t be intrigued by the premise? A main character named Martyr? A farm solely dedicated to cloning humans? What’s not to like? :D

Here’s the blurb so you can read it for yourself:

Martyr – also known as Jason 3:3 – is one of hundreds of clones kept in a remote facility called Jason Farms. Told that he has been created to save humanity, Martyr has just one wish before he is scheduled to “expire” in less than a month. To see sky.


Abby Goyer may have just moved to Alaska, but she has a feeling something strange is going on at the farm where her father works. But even this smart, confident girl could never have imagined what lies beneath a simple barn. Or what would happen when a mysterious boy shows up at her door asking about the stars.


As the reality of the Jason Experiment comes to light, Martyr is caught between two futures – the one for which he was produced, and the one Abby believes God created him to have. Time is running out, and Martyr must decide if a life with Abby is work leaving everything he’s ever known.


Now about the author:

Jill Williamson is a novelist, dreamer, and believer. She grew up in Alaska and loved to read books. In 2010 her first novel, “By Darkness Hid” won the Christy Award. She loves to work with teens, and she gives writing workshops at libraries, schools, camps, and churches. Currently she lives in Oregon with her husband and two children. And of course you can find out more about her, her writing projects, and her books at www.jillwilliamson.com.

Also, a word in edgewise, Jill is simply a really awesome person to hang around. I don’t know her very well, but I was able to meet her once in person and it was such an honor. If first impressions are anything to go by, Jill made a good one. She was kind, fun-loving, and she smiled a lot. And come on! What’s not to love about setting out to meet one of your favorite authors for the first time, and having her greet you wearing a medieval Lord of the Rings style dress. ;)


My thoughts about the book: WARNING: Spoilers ahead.

Replication was not quite what I anticipated… it was much better! When I first started looking into the book, I wasn’t sure what to expect from it. How would the clones be portrayed? Why had they never seen sky? Just what exactly did Abby’s father do? I wondered at first if the book wouldn’t have similar qualities to the movie i-robot (which is, by the way, one of my favorite futuristic films.) My mind predicted clichés in Science Fiction, and I pondered the possibilities.

I shouldn’t have worried… my mind couldn’t have been more wrong.

Replication is all about finding God’s purpose for our life and living out that purpose to the fullest. And what is that purpose exactly? Why, it’s living for Him, of course!

The main character, Martyr, is quite simple upon first glance, but we soon find out that he’s much more complicated than his “creators” ever thought likely. They knew he was smart, but they didn’t expect his ability to mentally think over problems to work so well, nor did they think his endless questioning would actually render useful answers.

Martyr’s one wish to see the sky before he expires is what first compels him to disobey the rules. Now for him, this is hard as he doesn’t like to lie – at all – which is an intriguing quality in Martyr’s character that brought into retrospect several interesting thoughts about the consequences of lying. Martyr is also very naïve, an aspect that has him asking curious (and sometimes almost embarrassing) questions throughout the course of the book. This aspect also has him regret simple sins that most of us in today’s world would overlook entirely or justify. That fact in itself was an eye-opener, but it was written into the book in such a way that it wasn’t overwhelming.

Having lived his whole life without ever seeing the outside world, Martyr’s first glimpse of some things in our world – like the sky, the sun, a moose, a car – all were slightly choppy and vague, pieced together with what little he already knew of the world. This was a most satisfying element in Martyr’s character, and one that isn’t exactly easy to pull off, but Jill managed to do it with grace and believability. It’s like a writer asking themselves, “How would I describe something of this nature to a blind person? Or a person who has never seen it before and has no notion of what it is?” The trouble is always in keeping elements that you yourself find obvious knowledge out of the description, and comparing the experience to things that the character would already know.

Here’s an example from the book so that you can see what I mean. It depicts the first time Martyr get’s a good glimpse at the sky:

The sky stretched overhead like a very high, blue ceiling – a lighter color of blue than the picture of Myrtle Beach, but darker than Rolo’s eyes. The sun hung up in the sky, as well, somehow staying there without falling to the ground. It did not have a smiling face or long beams stretching out on all sides like the pictures Dr. Max had drawn. It was a pale, round ball of brightness. It hurt his eyes to start at the sun, so he studied the clouds instead. They were fluffy and white like the snow. (he had already seen snow at this point.)

I thought Jill managed this part of Martyr’s character very well. It was almost like I was seeing these things for the first time too, as I was reading the book. Notice that the sky was like a ceiling, something Martyr had seen before, and the sun was not like the smiley faced drawing he had been shown in the past. These descriptions kept the experience alive and fresh in my mind to the very end of the book.

Of course, the questions Jill posed in this book were good ones: Are clones actually “people”? If they were “created” (so to speak) by man, then did they actually have a purpose beyond the one given to them by man?

In the book, the character of Abby Goyer certainly believed so. Abby is a Christian, though her father is not. She is the one who befriends Martyr in the outside world. Martyr, curious about anything and everything, asks Abby some simple questions about her faith and God which then turn into more complicated ones. Why does she “pray” over her food? Who is she talking to? And so forth and so on. The most interesting thing about these questions was that they truly played on Abby’s knowledge of her faith. How was she going to explain these simple acts that she had taken for granted all of her life to a person who had never, ever heard of such a thing before? And the hardest part was that Martyr’s questions grew larger and more complicated, until she didn’t have answers for them at all.

This part of the story really got me thinking about how well I know my own faith. I’m a Christian, but just how well do I actually know what that means and entails? Or do I just go through the motions half the time, like Abby did on occasion, doing simple things just because it goes along with my faith? And what exactly is my faith? What does it mean, and why do I believe as I do? These questions should all be simple… I’ve faced them before, as most Christians have at one time or another. But the book started me thinking about them again. And, one of the best parts of the book, in my opinion, was watching Martyr come into his faith. He would do things that seemed so simple and sweet… and sometimes things that even Abby couldn’t understand.


(BIG SPOILER ALERT!)

Like when he gave one of his kidneys to the doctor who had cloned him and was going to kill him for both kidneys. Abby asked why he would do such a thing, and clearly thought that he didn’t have to and really shouldn’t have. After all, Dr. Kane, who was dying slowly of Lupus, had been planning the whole time to kill Martyr for no other reason than he wanted his kidneys. Dr. Kane’s justification was that Martyr was a clone, clearly not a real human, and therefore the act was not really murder at all. But as the story progresses there was no doubt in my mind (as I’m sure there will not be in yours) that Martyr and all of the other clones were most definitely human and that Dr. Kane’s actions would have been murder, whether he thought so or not.

Martyr’s answer to Abby’s question opened Abby’s eyes to a completely new meaning and depth of the faith that she called her own. He said simply, “Because Jesus would have done it.”

Abby’s reply was that Jesus didn’t have the option of giving away his kidney, especially to a criminal man like Dr. Kane.

But then Martyr quoted from the book of Luke: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. And then he tells Abby, “I have done so for Dr. Kane. That was my purpose for him.”

(End spoiler)

Wow. I mean really, WOW. That depth, that understanding of God’s true purpose for us… it’s all written right there in the Bible, but how many of us actually think of that verse’s meaning to the extent that Martyr did? How many of us take God’s word and truth that far?

This book was an eye opener. Not only was it compelling science fiction that kept me turning pages long into the night, but it held truths and perceptions that I had either not thought of before, or that I had let my understanding of them go rusty. This was a book well worth reading.

The one trouble I had with the book (and mind you, it is a very small trouble), was how Martyr killed Dr. Elliot. I know it was a sort of pre-considered self defense, and that both Dr. Elliot and Martyr had a mutual dislike of one another… and I know that Dr. Elliot was just plain cruel, partially for the sake of being cruel… but I saw no remorse in Martyr afterward, and for a boy who would give an evil scientist one of his kidneys because that’s what God would have wanted, this seemed partially uncharacteristic.

However, that was just one small scene. Hardly more than a few paragraphs really. Let it not dissuade you from picking up this most excellent book.

I give this book 4 ½ stars out of 5. It was an epic read, and quite memorable for me. That in itself is something to say, as I have read many books, but only a few hold places on my “memorable” list. ;) This is one of them. It’s fresh, funny in all the right places, serious when it needs to be, and fast paced all through. It’s not like any science fiction book I’ve ever read before, and I’ve read enough to tell. I highly recommend this one.

Good luck, Jill, with your other writing endeavors. I know I look forward to reading future books by you. God bless.

And God bless all of you reading this! Go pick up this book: it is definitely worth it. ^_^

Until next time, my friends, HAPPY WRITING! And reading.

Nichole White

Oh the Holidays!!! Crazy life and the Hobbit Movie Trailer. ^_^

Hello friends. :)

Well, it's official!  School is out, and I have passed all of my classes! ;D  And I had a job interview this morning which went rather well.  Hopefully I also get that job.

In the meantime, I've been CRAZY busy.  Which is a really good thing.  I've been able to pick up work on the commissions that had to be set aside during finals time, and I've been making more jewelry too.  I've also been able to finish reading some of the books that I've received to read and review and haven't had a chance to finish. So now that I've gotten back into reading, expect reviews on some pretty neat books!

I feel kind of bad for not being able to post a lot on the P&P though... Don't worry folks, I have some more meaningful posts coming up.  I promise!  This little blog needs some TLC and it will get it. ^_^

Right now, I'm still freaking out over the trailer that I saw this morning for the Hobbit.  Yes, LOTR fans, the official movie trailer is out, and it totally rocks!!! *dreamy sigh*  Do we really have to wait a WHOLE YEAR to watch the actual movie?  That's going to be... painful.




I'll post more meaningful stuff later!!!  Expect a review on Jill Williamson's newest book, "Replication", and a review on Wayne Thomas Batson's "Sword in the stars".  Also, I'll be posting news soon on the new constellation contest Mr. Batson is hosting for his newest book in The Dark Sea Annals, "The Errant King". All coming up soon!!!