THE SERAPH SEAL by Leonard Sweet and Lori Wagner

The Seraph Seal is a 2011 science fiction novel by Leonard Sweet and Lori Wagner. In 2048, a history professor finds clues about the impending end of the world, and must race against the evil president of USAmerica (seriously) to keep him from usurping control of the new and coming world.

The Seraph Seal is an obvious mash-up of religious- and apocalyptic-themed stories and pseudosciences, including The Omen, The Omega Code, The Da Vinci Code, numerology, and Mayan doomsday theory. The theology in this book, particularly the eschatology, is also a nonsensical hodge-podge, although the Christian bits float on the top.

The writing in The Seraph Seal is indefensibly amateurish. The story has some solid geopolitical foundation (the authors have clearly done quite a bit of research), but the storytelling is just awful. The preposterous plot turns on a string of convenient coincidences, and the story jumps continually from one-page scene to one-page scene. Beyond the fact that there about three times as many storylines as the authors can handle (a second American civil war gets about three pages and doesn’t matter anyway), there is no opportunity for any real degree of character development, nor any chance for the reader to invest or engage in what’s going on.

The authors employ a large cast of boring, flat, characters, all of whom are brilliant, good-looking, gifted, and so on – and none of whom receive any character development whatsoever beyond the main protagonist, and him only slightly. And there are other problems. The story’s made-up “lost” scriptures are laughable. The ending, should the reader be diligent enough to make it that far, may make the reader wonder whether there was any point to the book at all. I could go on.

The authors call The Seraph Seal “engaged fiction” – they go out of their way to point out, at least to their minds, how realistic it is. The novel is prefaced by a non-fiction essay, and the last twenty percent of the book is speculation on the future of science, politics, and morality – this is a muddle of current events and “reports” from the fictional world of 2048. Given the shoddy quality of the purely fictional portion of the book, this material isn’t compelling, although it’s more interesting than the novel itself.

The Seraph Seal is a chore to get through, even skimming. In terms of storytelling, it fails abjectly. It’s astounding that Thomas Nelson would publish a book in this state.

RECOMMENDED AGAINST

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. 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.”

FLATLAND by Edwin A. Abbott

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is an 1884 novella written and illustrated by Edwin A. Abbott. Here, a square that lives in a two-dimensional world relates his experiences there along with his travels in one- and three-dimensional worlds.

The social classes of the country of Flatland are described in such a way as to lampoon the Victorian social hierarchy. Every inhabitant of Flatland is devoted to climbing the social ladder; order is prized more than liberty; women belong to a lower class of their own. Abbott here is not particularly subtle in his criticisms, and one must imagine that the narrow thinkers that accused Abbott of misogyny really must not have been paying very close attention (these are the nineteenth-century analogs of people who think Stephen Colbert is really a conservative).

This dated aspect of the tale may not have particular relevance for a modern audience, but Flatland still has plenty of value. Abbott’s one- and two-dimensional worlds are impressively imaginative and quite well thought-out. Flatland is immersive, and along the way, Abbott manages to work in a number of profound thoughts on existence.

Flatland’s lasting legacy is its discussion of dimensions. Just as Abbott takes the reader through the two-dimensional square’s travails in comprehending a third dimension, so the reader is challenged to imagine a fourth. And Abbott does an excellent job of this, whether one considers this fourth dimension as time (as per general relativity) or an extra aspect of space (this is quite a bit harder to imagine). It also works if you consider the tale an allegory for God and the spiritual realm (Abbott was a rather prodigious theologian), which is not by any means a stretch given the “preaching” done in the story. In any case, it’s marvelously thought-provoking.

On the whole, Flatland is a well-imagined, well-reasoned, stimulating work.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

THE FIGHT OF OUR LIVES by William J. Bennett and Seth Leibsohn

The Fight of Our Lives: Knowing the Enemy, Speaking the Truth & Choosing to Win the War Against Radical Islam is a 2011 book by William J. Bennett and Seth Leibsohn. Here, the authors, in criticism of  the use of what they call “soft” tactics in the war against terrorism, advocate a clearer identification of and stronger opposition to America’s enemies.

One of the highlights of The Fight of Our Lives is the authors’ excellent and savage attack on the media and the government’s fixation on political correctness. Much of the politically correct language used concerning the fight against terrorists has, as the authors say, blurred the issues and muddied the waters. And the authors are correct that this seems to be a form of appeasement, and that it would be better to be firm, to be resolute. The authors’ analysis of radical Muslims in the United States who slipped under the radar because of this focus on political correctness is eye-opening.

That said, the book as a whole oversimplifies matters to an alarming degree. The conflict is framed here, completely black and white, as America, the secular nation, versus (radical) Islam, the religion. And while the authors rightly condemn the tactics of the terrorists, America is at liberty, they say, to do whatever is necessary to defend itself – thus at the same time that the authors criticize terrorists for killing civilians, they defend America’s bombings of civilian centers and use of torture (which they actually deny happened). Here, America seems to be the end-all of human achievement and is, in fact, in no way to blame for anything. The entire book rings profoundly hypocritical.

The authors push their fearmongering ultra-right wing hawk agenda at every turn, and the tone of this book is simply awful. The authors are deliberately pejorative, beyond what is useful, to any and everyone with whom they disagree, whether it’s radical Muslims, President Obama, or his administration. It’s one thing to be anti-appeasement; that’s fine. But theirs is a gospel of retaliation without accountability, and they don’t seem to think particularly much of either the Constitution or diplomacy.

Coming from the publisher Thomas Nelson, the reader might expect this book to consider the conflict from a Christian perspective; it doesn’t. Far from it. There’s about a page here glossing over the concept of Christian “just war,” and outside of Chapter 7, “False Peace and True Peace,” in which the authors rebut the argument that Christianity and Judaism are more violent religions than Islam, there’s really no other mention of Christianity, and certainly nothing in the book is considered from a Christian point of view. This is not in and of itself a condemnation of the book, but it may helpful for the reader to know what he’s getting into.

The authors’ treatment of faith is one of the book’s major problems. The authors seem to have no real respect for faith or its accompanying tenets, for Islam or any religion. This is shown most clearly in their laughable “solution” to the whole mess – to “fix” Islam. Islam, the authors say, needs reform, which means that its theology and doctrine must be adapted and brought in line with secular America’s modern sensibilities. “Moderate” Muslims, say the authors, are the ones who will be willing to do that. The authors are, in essence, looking for the Muslim equivalents of reformed Jews and non-practicing Catholics. And best of luck with that.  

While it is neither without merit nor valid points, The Fight of Our Lives is, on the whole, an oversimplified and fearmongering response to real and serious issues.

NOT RECOMMENDED

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. 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.”

THE MOON POOL by Abraham Merritt

The Moon Pool is a 1919 “lost world” fantasy novel by Abraham Merritt based on two of his short stories. Here, a scientist leads a small band beneath the surface of the Earth in pursuit of others abducted by an evil entity called “the Shining One,” whereupon they discover a lost civilization on the brink of war.  

Merritt’s writing is wonderfully imaginative and extraordinarily detailed. His ideas, his places, his devices, and his underground world are enthralling. The Moon Pool does have a certain charm. And yet the writing has a lot of problems.

Pacing is the most egregious issue. The book crawls in many places, and for long stretches. This shouldn’t be; there’s plenty happening in the story, but Merritt’s writing ranges between verbose and extremely verbose. The storytelling is further hampered by a cast of flattish characters spouting corny dialogue, a great deal of which neither develops the characters in meaningful ways nor moves the story along.

Merritt devotes paragraph upon paragraph to his vivid descriptions of subterranean wonders, and yet the reader’s sense of place is often poor, as Merritt can scarcely ever be bothered to tell the reader where, specifically, his characters are, or where that might be in relation to the other places he’s depicted.

There are other issues. It’s painfully convenient how quickly all the characters learn the subterranean language. Much of the mystery of the underground world isn’t resolved until much too late in the book, and then by way of a massive expository dump. The book’s climax, an epic clash between warring factions, should be exciting, but the resolutions are clichéd and predictable.

The Moon Pool has been cited as an influence on Lovecraft’s “Call of Cthulhu.” As far as horrific creatures emerging from lost cities beneath the sea to ravage humanity go, that seems reasonable. Beyond some basic thematic similarities, however, there’s really no comparison.

Merritt isn’t read a great deal these days, and now you know why. On the whole, The Moon Pool feels like a missed opportunity, and it’s too bad. As it is, there are no doubt plenty of better books in the genre. And yet…The Moon Pool would probably make a pretty good film.

NOT RECOMMENDED