Jedidiah Palosaari |
09/07/2001
Wow! This was a *great* book. I don't exaggerate when I say this is the best Christian Sci-Fi I have ever read. I enjoy Lewis' Space Trilogy very much, perhaps more than Dream Thief, but, while the Space Trilogy is technically Sci-Fi, Lewis' writing style and his understanding of science, even for when he wrote it, makes Lewis' works read more like Fantasy. Lawhead is the first Christian author I have ever read who has a believable future- true science fiction. Though I've read only four of Lawhead's works so far, I far prefer his Sci-Fi to his Fantasy.
It is great to see that we (Christians) still exist in the future. In every other book I have ever read, and I have read a lot of science fiction, the Christians are not ever mentioned, as if a plague came and wiped all of us out sometime in the late 21st century. Religion in Sci-Fi is given short shrift in general, but, if mentioned, it seems to usually be anything but monotheistic.
This isn't a Christian dogma book, where everything is allegorical- Christians, and God, are simply an integral part of the storyline, and there is a Christian worldview behind it. Yet there are many non-Christians who play important roles as well, including a number of the key protagonists and heroes. A non-Christian should not feel intimidated in picking up this book- it is a very good read. The story line catches you, moves quickly, and it's almost as if you're out of breath waiting for the next event. Though the one disappointment I had was sometimes it felt like sections of action were skipped and only referred to after the fact, I stayed up a couple nights till 2 or 3 in the morning till my eyes could no longer focus and my brain kept rereading the same paragraph.
And Lawhead doesn't even go for easy answers with his Christians. They aren't conservative/fundamentalist, as Christians are commonly portrayed as all being, but clear and logical thinkers. Christianity isn't presented as a Western religion, which is accurate, as it has not been in numbers since the 70's, now that most Christians are in the 2/3rds world, and if the Nestorians are included, it was primarily an Asian religion until 1000 AD. Indeed, the primary Christian in the book is from the largest Baptist state in the world, Nagaland, India. Christianity also isn't shown as just a moral belief with an idea of some great deity we can pray to, but with an excluded middle. This is a God who can and does work miracles- amazing, believable ones- just as He does in real life.
Would that this were a genre, rather than, as it would seem, the only book of it's kind out there. The biographical conversion story is an old, valuable format in Christian literature. Here now it has been merged with science fiction in an engrossing and believable way. And in an inspiring way. Too often when I read science fiction I come away with a sense of hopelessness. Often the underlying worldview of the author, seeping through the pages of his or her work, is one without hope, in the sense of expectant joy about the future. This was not the case in Dream Thief. The reader gains a strong understanding that God is working all things together for the good of those who love Him. One identifies with the main character feeling a number of times that all is lost, and the situation too dire to be saved. But when looking back throughout the experience, retrospectively God's hand can not be ignored. I could easily recommend this to friends to read so that they might draw closer to truly understanding and being one with God.
