Broken Angel

Title: Broken Angel

Author: Sigmund Brouwer

Genre: Adult near-future science-fiction/suspense

Excerpt from Broken Angel:

We had agreed—the woman I loved and I—that as soon as you were born, we would perform an act of mercy and decency and wrap you in a towel to drown you in a nearby sink of water.

But in the motel room that was our home, the woman I loved died while giving birth. You were a tiny bundle of silent and alert vulnerability and all that remained to remind me of the woman.

I was nearly blind with tears in that lonely motel room. With the selfishness typical of my entire life to that point, I delayed the mercy and decency we had promised you. I used the towel not to wrap and drown you, but to clean and dry you

As I lifted your twisted hands and gently wiped the terrible hunch in the center of your back—where your arms connected to a ridge of bone that pushed against your translucent skin—I heard God speak to me for the first time in my life.

He did not speak in the loud and terrible way as claimed by the preachers of Appalachia where I fled with you. Instead God spoke in the way I believe he most often speaks to humans—through the heart, when circumstances have stripped away our obstinate self-focus.
Holding you in your first moments outside the womb, I was overwhelmed by protective love. Even in the circumstances that you face now, believe that my love has only strengthened since then.

A young woman runs from bounty hunters and an oppressive religious society to protect a secret she doesn’t even fully know.

The Writing: Broken Angel is an interesting mix for its craft. The beginning is riveting, mysterious, and gut-wrenching. The characters connected pretty well with me, though I favored some of the secondary characters over the protagonist. The world created around the characters is complex and believable.

But despite all this, I began to lose interest in the middle of the story, and I didn’t feel the intense drive to turn the next page that I expect of suspense books. The stakes simply failed to increase sufficiently to keep up the pace, creating a sense of a let-down.

Also from the middle on, the story became increasingly bogged down in social commentary, adding to the tension problems. This, combined with character arcs that felt incomplete, made the ending unsettling at best and failed to bring the satisfaction needed (in my opinion) for a good ending.

The Story: The content of Broken Angel is very unsettling. That is probably the author’s intention, but it doesn’t make any more pleasant to read. And perhaps I’ve read more into the text than intended (and I hope that is my problem), but I fear some of Mr. Brouwer’s statements (like his comparisons of modern Christianity and its involvement in politics) may inflame tempers rather causing the hope-for change.

I understand where he comes from, and I think he has some very valid points we ought to consider, as uncomfortable as they may be—such as our tendency as Christians to major on the minor to the point we become ineffective in the major. But the solution hinted at (complete freedom to choose, which taken to the logical conclusion leads to anarchy) doesn’t seem like a good solution, if it is a solution at all. But as I said, perhaps I’ve read more into the text than intended.

However, it saddens me for I’m afraid the social commentary and more inflammatory comments overshadow the true themes of the story (which are rooted in character arcs), such as dealing with emotional betrayal of family.

Finally, under my more usual considerations, this is a suspense book. There are scenes of violence, and a few dead bodies. Most are well-handled, and more of the intense stuff is handled off-camera. The exception is Chapter Two, with a rather graphic torture scene. I understand its necessity in establishing the villain’s character and threat, but I can’t help wondering if this particular scene is a little over the top.

Summary: Unsettling and challenging—those are the best adjectives I have for Broken Angel. This is definitely not for anyone under sixteen, and I wouldn’t recommend it for younger Christians. But if you are looking for a story to challenge your thinking, this might be the book for you.

Ratings: 3.0 (writing), 2.0 (content), 3.0 (overall)

Starring Sigmund Brouwer

This month’s Christian Science-Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour is highlighting Sigmund Brouwer and his recent release, Broken Angel. A somewhat controversial novel, Broken Angel introduces us to a near-future world, not so different from ours yet terribly gone wrong.

I will be attempting a book review on Tuesday this week. But in the meantime, check out Mr. Brouwer’s website and the blogs of the other tour participants (listed below). This book is bound to spark a wide variety of chatter and a lot of it.

Brandon Barr
Justin Boyer
Keanan Brand
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Mark Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Christopher Hopper
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Magma
Margaret
Shannon McNear
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
John W. Otte
Steve Rice
Ashley Rutherford
Hanna Sandvig
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Sean Slagle
James Somers
Donna Swanson
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Laura Williams

The Casualties of Distraction

“Whatever you do, do with all your might,
“Things done by half are never done right”
Is a good motto ‘til schedules take flight.

My life, a casualty of my distraction.

Half-done projects are by the bed,
Books on the shelf are but half-read,
And too many sentences only half-said.

These, the casualties of my distraction.

Movies, both funny and sad;
Family visits that need to be had;
Daily interruptions both good and bad.

All make casualties, these distractions.

I need to do this, I want to do that;
Still writing awaits revision, stilted and flat.
So many balls in the air—which one to bat?

Choosing the casualties of my distraction.

O Lord my God, I want to do what is right
And fulfill the work You gave with all my might.
Grant me discernment, flexibility, foresight.

And resurrect the casualties of my distraction.

Personal Limitations: Craters of Experience

This week brings us to the final part of personal limitations: experiences.

Including anything that you’ve ever done—or has been done to you—experiences range from the life-changing to the insignificant, the positive to the negative. Childhood abuse. Bullies. Encouraging mentors. Conversion to Christianity. A grandparent’s death. Sleepovers. Sibling rivalry. Easy classes in school. Movies seen and books read.

All these have impact, leaving behind craters big and small, and the type of crater left behind determines the personal limitations needed. The deeper the crater, the more likely special guardrails will be needed.

An obvious example might be someone scarred by war or abuse: Stories dealing with these topics would probably be off-limits most of the time.

But the seemingly insignificant can also leave deep impacts, despite their small appearance on the surface. For instance, I love the television show Murder, She Wrote. However, because of pieces of the show I saw at an early age, it can still evoke sleeplessness at night for me. So my guardrail is that I cannot watch the show after seven p.m.

So when evaluating personal experiences, consider both the big and small.

Book Tag

My friend and wonderful writer, Sharon Hinck, has decided to tag me fore a book list game. Since I love promoting Christian fiction whenever I can, I decided to play along.

The Rules

Becky Miller at A Christian Worldview of Fiction listed five MUST Read novels and five Keep Your Eyes on These novels, then she tagged five bloggers who posted her list on their site. They may add one book to each list but must also subtract one book. Finally they should tag five other bloggers and link back to the person who tagged them.


Caveat

I’ve not read all these books. The ones I have read have links to my reviews. The ones I enjoyed—or are on my "to read" list—have asterisks. My additions are in bold.

Five MUST Reads

*Broken Angel by Sigmund Brouwer (WaterBrook)
To Dance in the Desert by Kathleen Popa (Cook Communications)
*The Restorer by Sharon Hinck (NavPress)
Healing Promises by Amy Wallace (Waterbrook/Multnomah)
*The Shadow and the Night by Chris Walley (Tyndale)


Five to Keep Your Eyes On
*Scarlet by Stephen Lawhead (Thomas Nelson)
On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson (WaterBrook)
Auralia’s Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet (WaterBrook)
*Shade by John Olson (B&H)
*Stepping Into Sunlight by Sharon Hinck (Bethany House)

(I’m not tagging anyone, since my list of close friends who blog is very small.)

Personal Limitations: Cultural Impact

Too much of anything—good or bad—can be harmful.

This is why it’s important to understand where you live when setting personal guidelines. The culture of your location will constantly bombard you and attempt to influence you thinking. So why read books and watch movies that contribute to that? For while you often don’t get to choose location, you can decide what you’ll read and watch.

What does that look like? It depends—hence why this is a “personal limitation.” But every place will have predominating cultural characteristics, which you do not want to add to, but counterbalance with fiction.

Some of the things you might encounter are:

Cults

Environmentalism

Witchcraft

Sexuality/homosexuality

Celebrity worship

Materialism

Hyper-religiosity

How might you counterbalance some of these?
--For cults, solidly Christian novels or even obviously secular stories might be best, avoiding religious gray areas.
--For witchcraft, you’ll want to avoid white magic or dubious uses of the supernatural, focusing instead on obvious displays of God’s power.
--For Christian hyper-religiosity, maybe expand to include secular books and movies to prevent in-growth and unawareness of the non-Christian.

This is only a small sampling, of course, but it gives you a taste. So what kind of influences exist where you live, and how might you counterbalance it?

Redwall

Title: Redwall

Author: Brian Jacques

Genre: Mid-grade (8-12) Animal Tale/Adventure

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Redwall:

Matthias cut a comical little figure as he wobbled his way along the cloisters, with his large sandals flip-flopping and his tail peeping from beneath the baggy folds of an oversized novice’s habit. He paused to gaze upwards at the cloudless blue sky and tripped over the enormous sandals. Hazelnuts scattered out upon the grass from the rush basket he was carrying. Unable to stop, he went tumbling cowl over tail.

Bump!

The young mouse squeaked in dismay. He rubbed tenderly at his damp snub nose while slowly taking stock of where he had landed: directly at the feet of Abbot Mortimer!

Immediately Matthias scrambled about on all fours, hastily trying to stuff nuts back into the basket as he muttered clumsy apologies, avoiding the stern gaze of his elder.

“Er, sorry, Father Abbot. I tripped, y’see. Trod on my Abbot, Father Habit. Oh dear, I mean…”

The Father Abbot blinked solemnly over the top of his glasses. Matthias again. What a young buffoon of a mouse. Only the other day he had singed old Brother Methuselah’s whiskers while lighting candles.

The elder’s stern expression softened. He watched the little novice rolling about on the grass, grappling with large armfuls of the smooth hazelnuts which constantly seemed to escape his grasp. Shaking his old grey head, yet trying to hide a smile, Abbot Mortimer bent and helped to gather up the fallen nuts.

When a peaceful mouse abbey comes under attack, a young, bumbling apprentice sets out to find an ancient sword

The Writing: I picked up Redwall to read because, although the original copyright is listed at 1986, I heard a fair amount of chatter about it at the homeschooling conferences I attended last spring.

I was not impressed.

The characters were what I heard about the most. I did find it interesting how dialect and people group characteristics were assigned to the different animal species, and this plucked an occasional smile from me.

However, character connection was weak for me, and the characterization wasn’t over and above many of the books I’ve read. In fact, I like Donita K. Paul’s characters from her Dragon Keeper series more; they are just as colorful and varied and much more engaging.

My opinion of the plot is about the same. While solid enough with no major holes, it simply failed to hold my attention. Even at halfway through the book, I could have put it down and would not have wondered long about what happened next.

On top of this, there were minor point-of view (POV) problems (mainly from a poor attempt to mimic the fairy-tale voice, in my opinion), and the writing was very choppy from trying to create tension from rapid POV changes. An occasional two- or three-paragraph scene is fine, but the constant switching is hard to follow sometimes and it ultimately diffused tension, not created it.

The Content: Like the writing, the content of the Redwall was unimpressive.

There are several murders, deaths and injury from war, whippings, and references to temporary starvation. Most are not over done, although I found the number and descriptions of the snake’s kill somewhat disconcerting even as I understand the necessity to keep bringing a character forward that won’t show predominately until the last quarter of the book.

But for me, more unsettling were some of the undercurrents. I can’t identify them all, but together they left behind a feeling of something off-kilter. However, I can name a few things.

• There are a number of instances of talking with the dead/the intervention of the dead. They usually occur through dream sequences and in a way that most times isn’t clear that’s what is happening, to either the reader or the protagonist. It is similar, however, to how the original Star Wars portrays Luke’s mentors after death.

• Attitudes of vengeance and deep-seated hatred among some of the good characters, which seemed condoned instead of rejected.

• The protagonist’s obsession with finding an object which is declared to have no magical properties (and therefore useless beyond symbolism) to the neglect of helping his friends—and is rewarded for this.

• The appearance of godliness with the power—e.g. the abbey’s setting and way of life with little connection to any form of religion, much less Christianity.

And these are only the most obvious things.

Summary: Great writing might make a book worth while reading, even if the content is questionable, such as with Princess Academy or Ender’s Game. Great content can provide so much encouragement or edification as to overcome mediocre writing. But Redwall has neither. With average writing and questionable content, it doesn’t seem worth the time to read this 351-page tome.

Ratings: Writing—1.0, Content—1.0, Overall—2.4

Answering Machine

Beeeeep!

Thank you for calling. I’m sorry that I’m not around to take your call at the moment. I’m out gallivanting around the West, pretending to work on my novel while I stare out the window at mountains and look for the elusive jackalope.

Nonetheless, your call is important to me, and so I’ve installed several options for your convenience:

If you wish to leave scathing criticism of my work or person, press one, so that your comments can be immediately trashed—I mean, stored for future reference.

If you have glowing praise, press two to have your words recorded in stone. Please remember to speak clearly!

If you claim to be a friend or long-lost relative, press three to file your name, supposed relation, and message with my security team (one can never be too careful these days, you know). When they complete their background check and approve your message, I will respond as soon as I can find cell phone service. (Or is that “if”?)

If you are an agent calling to represent me or an editor with a book contract offer, press four and your call will be immediately forwarded to me.

Finally, if you are none of the above or just utterly confused, press five to review ten more options.

Thank you again for your call, and may your day be filled with the conveniences of modern technology!

Personal Limitations: Occupational Hazards

Work comprises a large chunk of our time. It may be a “common” forty-hours-a-week occupation or an always-on-call job like motherhood, set-your-own-hours of an entrepreneur or mixture of a student’s life. But no matter the schedule worked or the pay scale, the majority of us, from the kindergarten student to the volunteer retiree, spend most of our life working at some level. Is it any wonder then that our work habits affect our fiction habits?

So the bigger question is how? How does fiction and work interest?

• What does your work require? As a novelist, I read many books I otherwise would might not, so that I might increase my knowledge of craft and market. Likewise, a parent will read novel after novel not on their wish list to keep up with their children.

• What is your work’s social environment? I had a teacher who watched movies so that she could converse with her co-workers and provide a Christian perspective on it. On the other hand, I, as a solitary writer who currently rubs shoulders mainly with other Christians, feel neither pressure nor obligation to see any particular film.

• Does your work bring other limitations/freedoms? My younger sister works as paramedic, allowing her to dissect certain violent films (such as The Passion of the Christ) that I cannot watch because of my writer’s tendency to view the story emotionally.

Princess Academy

Title: Princess Academy

Series: Stand alone

Author: Shannon Hale

Genre: Mid-grade (8-12) Fairy-tale

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Princess Academy:

The east says it’s dawn
My mouth speaks a yawn
My bed clings to me and begs me to stay
I hear a work song
Say winter is long
I peel myself up and then make away

Miri woke to the sleepy bleating of a goat. The world was as dark as eyes closed, but perhaps the goats could smell dawn seeping through the cracks in the house’s stone walls. Though still half-asleep, she was aware of the late autumn chill hovering just outside her blanket, and she wanted to curl up tighter and sleep like a bear through frost and night and day.

Then she remembered the traders, kicked off her blanket, and sat up. Her father believed today was the day their wagons would squeeze up the mountain pass and rumble into the village. This time of year, all the villagers felt the rush for the last trading of the season, to hurry and square off a few more linder blocks and make that much more to trade, that much more to eat during the snow-locked months. Miri longed to help.

Wincing at the rustle of her pea-shuck mattress, Miri stood and stepped carefully over her pa and older sister, Marda, asleep on their pallets. For a week she had harbored an anxious hope to run to the quarry today and be already at work when her pa arrived. Perhaps then he might not send her away.

Unschooled mountain girls are forced to attend an academy to prepare one of them to be a princess.

The Writing: What shall I say? Princess Academy has received a coveted Newberry Honor (for being a runner-up for the Newberry Medal, awarded for outstanding excellence in children’s literature) and has received it for good reason.

The writing is clean (no excess verbiage!) and vivid, with enough details to bring the story to life without long, overbearing descriptions. The characters are varied, likeable, and act with all the conflicting emotions and desires you’d expect in a real person. The plot is engaging and has steady tension, culminating in a satisfying climax and resolution.

As I said—everything you’d expect from a Newberry Honor winner.

The Story: As this is a secular book, content is where I expected Princess Academy to rub against my grain. But though there are a few things to note, the story is simply a delightful read about the importance of family and friendship, overcoming competitive jealousy, and finding your place in the world—which might not quite be where you think you want it to be.

As for the issues to note:

• Quarry-speech: This is the major “fantasy” element in the story. The protagonist uses a special type of stone that threads through the mountain to trigger memories in other characters so she can convey specific thoughts to them. It could be construed as some kind of magic or animism. However, I found it more like telepathy, frequently found in both sci-fi and fantasy, except here an external object is needed to make the telepathy work. The quarry-speech is also more limited than telepathy; ideas cannot be planted—only shared memories triggered—and another’s mind cannot be read.

• The mention of a creator-god, and pagan priests who “divine” from where the next princess will come: There are only a couple passing references to these, used mainly to give legitimacy to the plot.

• Cruelty of a teacher: This includes punishment by withholding meals or a trip to see family, isolation in a dark closet (where a rat resides), and whipping across the palms. These punishments aren’t overdone, with only the minimum used to flesh out characters and add motivation for the protagonist.

• Cheating on a test: At one point, the protagonist uses quarry-speech to remind other students of the answers for a major test. On one hand, cheating isn’t right. Yet on the other, this scene demonstrates how the willingness to help a competitor to succeed—even if detrimental to self—can break down barriers, and provides a crucial open hand of reconciliation to an antagonist.

The Summary: Princess Academy is well-written, with many good themes through it and nothing more dangerous than the stuff found in classic fairy tales like "Cinderella." I found it a fun book to read, with some surprising twists for a fairy-tale story. There are a few content concerns, but they should not be a problem for most readers.

Ratings: 5.0 (writing), 2.0 (content), and 3.8 out of 5 stars (overall)

Ready to read some great writing? Order Princess Academy here.