Review of “The Bone House” by Stephen Lawhead

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Dona Watson

I enjoyed the first book in Stephen Lawhead’s Bright Empires series (The Skin Map) so much that I eagerly looked forward to book 2, The Bone House. I really wanted to like this book.

But…I found the book a little hard to keep up with. Generally, I’m a pretty fast reader but it seemed like it took me longer than usual to work my way through this one. Maybe it was the sheer volume of characters and storylines, but I suspect the trouble I had following along was due to the rapid shift from one storyline to another. Just when I got interested in one character’s story, it was abandoned and we switched to another. Unfortunately, that happened several times, which made it difficult for me to stay engaged.

All of that aside, however, I’m still a bit intrigued by the premise of the book. In it, the characters travel through time and alternate realities, manipulating events in one world in order to change events in another. While that is not a unique premise, there is something different in The Bone House. That would be ley lines, straight paths of energy that form the “roads” between worlds. By his own admission, Lawhead drew his inspiration from the work of Alfred Watkins, who dubbed the term after noticing that familiar landmarks in England seemed to be linked in straight lines.

In The Bone House, the heart of the story still concerns the search for the skin map introduced in book 1. This parchment of human skin contains symbols one traveler tattooed on himself to keep track of the pathways leading from one world to another. Throughout The Bone House, the characters continue their search for the skin map in order to adroitly navigate the paths from one reality to another. In addition, the ultimate goal is to use the skin map is to find a hidden treasure, the contents of which remain unknown.

My comments aside, if you were intrigued by book 1 in this series, you should give The Bone House a try. If you are interested in the story as a whole, I recommend you start with book 1 (The Skin Map), otherwise you might find it a bit difficult to keep up in book 2.

The Bone House
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publish Date: September 6, 2011
ISBN-10: 159554805X
ISBN-13: 978-1595548054

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Free for Kindle: Kay Kenyon, Stephen Lawhead

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Dona Watson

Ready for more freebies from Amazon? Yesterday I found two more free e-books for Kindle, one sci-fi and one fantasy. I haven’t read Kay Kenyon’s sci-fi Bright of the Sky but Stephen Lawhead’s fantasy The Paradise War is one of my favorites.

The Paradise War, Song of Albion, Book 1
By Stephen R. Lawhead, Amazon link here.

The official cover blurb:

From the dreaming spires of Oxford, Lewis Gillies drives north to seek a mythical creature in a misty glen in Scotland. Expecting little more than a weekend diversion, Lewis finds himself in a mystical place where two worlds meet, in the time-between-times–and in the heart of a battle between good and evil.

The ancient Celts admitted no separation between this world and the Otherworld: the two were delicately interwoven, each dependent on the other. The Paradise War crosses the thin places between this world and that, as Lewis Gillies comes face-to-face with an ancient mystery–and a cosmic catastrophe in the making.

Bright of the Sky, Book 1 of The Entire and the Rose
By Kay Kenyon, Amazon link here.

The official cover blurb:

Kay Kenyon, noted for her science fiction world-building, has in this new series created her most vivid and compelling society, the Universe Entire. In a land-locked galaxy that tunnels through our own, the Entire is a bizarre and seductive mix of long-lived quasi-human and alien beings gathered under a sky of fire, called the bright. A land of wonders, the Entire is sustained by monumental storm walls and an exotic, never-ending river. Over all, the elegant and cruel Tarig rule supreme.

Into this rich milieu is thrust Titus Quinn, former star pilot, bereft of his beloved wife and daughter who are assumed dead by everyone on earth except Quinn. Believing them trapped in a parallel universe—one where he himself may have been imprisoned—he returns to the Entire without resources, language, or his memories of that former life. He is assisted by Anzi, a woman of the Chalin people, a Chinese culture copied from our own universe and transformed by the kingdom of the bright. Learning of his daughter’s dreadful slavery, Quinn swears to free her. To do so, he must cross the unimaginable distances of the Entire in disguise, for the Tarig are lying in wait for him. As Quinn’s memories return, he discovers why. Quinn’s goal is to penetrate the exotic culture of the Entire—to the heart of Tarig power, the fabulous city of the Ascendancy, to steal the key to his family’s redemption.

But will his daughter and wife welcome rescue? Ten years of brutality have forced compromises on everyone. What Quinn will learn to his dismay is what his own choices were, long ago, in the Universe Entire. He will also discover why a fearful multiverse destiny is converging on him and what he must sacrifice to oppose the coming storm.

This is high-concept SF written on the scale of Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld, Roger Zelazny’s Amber Chronicles, and Dan Dimmons’s Hyperion.

The Skin Map, by Stephen Lawhead (CSFF Blog Tour)

Posted on November 2, 2010 by Dona Watson

Published in September 2010, The Skin Map is Stephen Lawhead’s newest book to hit the shelves. A departure from his previous historical books set in old England and Scotland (or following Arthurian-era characters into Southern Europe and the Middle East), The Skin Map is in some ways a return to a few of his previous novels (The Dream Thief and the Empyrion two-book series come to mind) in that they focus less on medieval time periods and more on a blend of fantasy and science fiction.

The Skin Map is Book 1 in the Bright Empires series, which is currently planned to be 5 books in its entirety. By his own admission, Bright Empires is his most ambitious series yet. It’s something he’s been thinking about doing for 15 years and now feels the time is right. As Mr. Lawhead says, “Now I am finally writing it, because I think I can finally do justice to such an intricately woven storyline. Bright Empires is the most challenging work I’ve ever undertaken, and I’m alternately exhilarated and terrified by it.”

The first thing that impressed me about Mr. Lawhead’s latest book is the amount of research that must have gone into this novel–from ancient Egypt to theories surrounding ley lines purported by amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins in 1921. In fact, ley lines (alleged alignments running from ancient monuments and megaliths and thought to resonate with some type of mystical energy) are the underlying “technology” underpin of the book. It is these ley lines that transport the main character to places he didn’t expect to be in ways he never expected to exist.

I found an interesting 2-minute video trailer showing Mr. Lawhead talking about the books in his own words. Enjoy!

For more information on Stephen Lawhead and his books, I encourage you to visit his website:
http://www.stephenlawhead.com

This post is presented as one installment of this month’s Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy (CSFF) Blog Tour. You might want to check out the other bloggers who are also posting reviews. You will find their URLs in the sidebar to the right. (For those of you receiving this via e-mail, visit my website’s home page, http://www.fantasyandfaith.com, and see the right sidebar.) A copy of The Skin Map was provided to me by the publisher for review purposes in connection with the CSFF Blog Tour.

About the book:
The Skin Map
Published by Thomas Nelson
ISBN-13: 978-1595548047
Hardcover, 448 pages
Retail price: $24.99 (currently on sale at Amazon for $16.49)

Here’s my Amazon affiliate link: The Skin Map by Stephen Lawhead

Tuck, by Stephen Lawhead

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Dona Watson

[amazon-product alink="0000FF" bordercolor="000000" height="240"]1595540873[/amazon-product]Tuck, the third book in Lawhead’s Robin Hood trilogy, was recently released by Thomas Nelson. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but I did enjoy the two previous books in this series, Hood and Scarlet. I’m a big fan of Stephen Lawhead and am looking forward to reading Tuck. Here’s the official summary:

The story of Rhi Bran y Hud concludes as Abbot Hugo and the Norman invaders attempt to wipe out King Raven and his flock once and for all. Their merciless attack, the first of many to come, heralds a dark and desperate day for the realm of Elfael. Bran and his few stalwarts desperately need encouragement and reinforcement if they are to survive. Bran and Friar Tuck, a most unconventional priest, ride north to rally the tribes of Wales to the fight, making new friends, and even more powerful enemies along the way . . . .

The final installment of the completely re-imagined epic of the man known as Robin Hood-told in a far more eerie, earthy, and elemental way than ever before.

—————–

To receive future posts via email, you can subscribe to my blog here.