The Begotten 3: Illuminate the Negative

(Yes, I know the song doesn't go that way.)

So what about Lisa T. Bergren's The Begotten almost made me hack up a hairball? Two main things: research and a kind of revisionism. They're closely related.

Research
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a language geek. The Begotten has a large amount of Latin. Hands up, anyone who sees what's coming! I've got a long list of bugs in the text, but most of them would take way too long to explain. So let's hit a few examples.

In the prolog, an iconoclast Byzantine bishop (say that three times fast) encounters a Latin text and totally blows the translation for no discernible reason: "Abyssus ad abyssum invocat" (Bergren omits "ad" so I put it back at no extra charge). It's from Psalm 42:1, but he reads it as "Hell calls to Hell." Get real. "Abyssus" is a Greek loanword; however little Latin he may know (and he gets "invocat" right), if he read the Septuagint at all he'd recognize the reference: "Deep calls to deep."

We run into more Latin when the word for "wisdom" is given as "sapientiam" (p 174--why the accusative ending here?) and "healing" is rendered "sanem" (p 206). But "sanem" isn't even a noun: it's a verb meaning "(that) I might heal."

The Lady Daria has a habit of translating the Vulgate for us as text from the NIV. The two translations use different source texts and translation philosophies, so while they generally agree, there are amusing spots where they don't.

Non-linguistically, at various points there is concern expressed that the Gifted will be grabbed by the Inquisition for committing miracles without a license. However, this was more than a century before the Spanish Inquisition, so Cardinal Fang and the Comfy Chair hadn't been invented yet. All they had to play with at that point was the papal inquisition, which wasn't even in full swing, the Cathars and Waldensians having been reduced to occasionally recurring roles.

As a related point, Gianni supposedly has hauled away a lot of jaywalkers and other heretics in his career to date. But this was a lull period, heretic-wise: a century earlier or a century and a half later, sure, but not in the first half of the fourteenth century, so far as I can tell.

For that matter, the Catholic Church didn't mind people going around healing and such anyway; they just checked to make sure it wasn't a fraud and didn't lead people astray. Many saints did miracles. As to the teaching of heresy--well, the Lady Daria eventually shows that they may have had a point. We'll get to that in a bit. (If you're one of those rare individuals who would rather know the truth about the Inquisition than unquestioningly accept the usual myths--the Wikipedia site is helpful, but you might also check here.)

Another oddity is handfasting. It turns up at various points as an entrenched tradition in fourteenth-century Siena, but I find no reason to believe it was known then and there. It apparently originated in Ireland, migrated to Scotland, and from there eventually became known elsewhere. The sources I've checked say that it was either a quickie marriage for those who didn't want to wait for all the formalities or else simply a betrothal. It was not a trial marriage, which is implied in the book. I thought there was a clue in the Italian Wikipedia, which has an article on the topic, but the very fact that the title of the page is the English word argues that it wasn't a common practice in Italy--otherwise they would have a native word for it. The article doesn't say otherwise. Today, handfasting is mostly associated with Neo-pagans and Wiccans.

Revisionism
Remember what I said about the Church taking a dim view of unlicensed preachers? On pp 290-294, the Lady Daria gives a sermon on the topic "All You Need is Love." It certainly out-kumbayas Jesus' usual message about repentance as the warm fuzzies lead to belief and salvation. No repentance, though. Maybe they didn't need it. In any case, it sounds a lot like the fuzzy sermons you can hear in a lot of modern churches. Where are Cardinal Fang and the Comfy Chair when you need them?

Then there's the Raptured Pope Syndrome, named in honor(?) of Tim LaHaye. As Is Well Known, the more godly a Catholic becomes, the more Protestant he becomes. A sufficiently godly Catholic will turn into a Baptist or perhaps even Tim LaHaye. This shows up late in the story. It starts with Father Piero informing the Lady Daria that she doesn't need to confess to him; she can take it directly to God (pp 236-237). I'm not even Catholic, and I could present an extremely strong argument for the Catholic doctrine of confession. Why can't he? Answer: because his scriptwriter is a Protestant who doesn't seem to understand Catholicism. (Fiddly point: at the close of this section, we get an actual quote from the mysterious epistle. It refers to Jesus as the Word--more Johannine than Pauline.)

A more troubling case arises on pp 248-249: Believing that spiritual conflict is imminent, Father Piero decides to baptize a couple recruits without the usual waiting period and other niceties. Does the urgency of the situation justify the move? Consider a very similar case in 1 Sam 13:8-14. As Samuel noted in another, slightly less similar case, "Obedience is better than sacrifice" (1 Sam 15:22--and v. 23 too, as long as you're in the neighborhood). Why doesn't Piero simply commend them to the care of the God in whom they believe? This is almost salvation by works.

(For the curious: it's true that baptism in the NT was usually without ceremony, but it was also often done by people passing through the area quickly. I don't consider the preparation period necessary, but I do consider it wise. Meanwhile, flouting standard operating procedure out of panic sets a bad precedent. Piero does seem to have a rebellious streak.)

Conclusion
So what about the story as a whole? I doubt most people will read it at the same level I did, but they will still pick up good and bad ideas. The problems are annoying, but they aren't fatal. I just wish Bergren would take the time to understand the Catholic and medieval viewpoints. They weren't idiots back then, and (Thank God!) they weren't precursive clones of us. C. S. Lewis said that every age has its own errors and that it is blind to its own and misunderstands those of other ages. The Begotten proves him right, but perhaps the sequel will do better.

So as a yarn with some good points, I'll recommend it with reservations and hope for an improvement in the sequel.

Other blogs on the tour:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Jackie Castle
Karri Compton
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Beth Goddard
Marcus Goodyear
Todd Michael Greene
Michael Heald
Christopher Hopper
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Terri Main
Margaret
Melissa Meeks
Pamela Morrisson
John W. Otte
Rachelle
Ashley Rutherford
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachelle Sperling
Stuart Stockton
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Robert Treskillard
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise

The Begotten 2: Accentuate the Positive

So what's right with Lisa T. Bergren's The Begotten? Many things, most of which may seem minor. But then, most of the points that bothered me are relatively small as well: if I weren't a multifaceted geek, I wouldn't have spotted them and might not care. But the good points I spotted and did care about are worth mentioning.

Characterization and description are well handled. There is only one time (p 314) where I thought characters had switched places--based on hormones, I expected Rune to have Vito's response and vice versa. But considering the size of the cast, that's not bad, and even that case may be justifiable.

There are some minor points that may be coincidence, but if not, they're somewhat clever. For example, the main story takes place in Siena in 1339, eight years before Catherine of Siena was born there. I can't help wondering whether that will come up in a later book, at least indirectly. Second, it's ironic that Siena at that point was ruled by the Nine in a kind of counterpoint to the Gifted, who draw their gifts from among the nine listed in 1 Cor 12:8-10. (For Pentecostals and Charismatics, it's interesting that the two missing from the Gifted's list are tongues and interpretation.)

But one of the most important things about a story is how it ends. I enjoyed the ending of The Begotten (and not in the sarcastic "I enjoyed that it was over" sense), and that improved my overall view of the story. Bergren appears to understand that spiritual problems require spiritual solutions. A lot of Christian writers today try to resolve spiritual matters through human cleverness of some kind, and I even get the impression occasionally that they have to have a physical, mechanistic explanation for anything spiritual. That would make spiritual phenomena just a subset of the natural world, which would agree with what the atheists claim. The fact that Bergren affirms the spiritual is itself important.

Tomorrow I'll tackle the things that yanked on my gag reflex and present my conclusion on the matter.

Other blogs on the tour:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Jackie Castle
Karri Compton
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Beth Goddard
Marcus Goodyear
Todd Michael Greene
Michael Heald
Christopher Hopper
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Terri Main
Margaret
Melissa Meeks
Pamela Morrisson
John W. Otte
Rachelle
Ashley Rutherford
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachelle Sperling
Stuart Stockton
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Robert Treskillard
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise

The Begotten 1: Intro

(I apologize in advance for this. For various reasons, some of which I'll explain later, I find it hard to take this novel seriously, though it's generally well written. But it does engage my gag reflex, resulting in reflexive gags.)

Lisa T. Bergren's The Begotten attempts to bring a da Vinci Code feel to a Christian novel. It concerns a Latin version of what appears to be a lost Pauline epistle--another letter to the Corinthians. The letter first shows up in the prolog as an illuminated text in progress. Though slated to be destroyed by iconoclasts, it survived another six hundred years, part of it being handed down from priest to priest. (That it was still legible demonstrates that they washed their hands first.) The epistle predicts the rise of the Gifted, a group of Christians with First-Century gifts: Wisdom, Discernment, Healing, Faith, Visions, and so on. (There are no ties among the gifts, to the relief of men everywhere.)

But there are also dark powers and semi-dark powers involved. As the story proper opens, a mysterious Sorceror is committing human sacrifice in a papal crypt, to the great annoyance of some knights of the Church. (It probably didn't sit well with the victim, either.) And soon we discover that both the Sorceror and his nemesis in the Church hierarchy, Cardinal Boeri, know about the Gifted and plan to use them for their own ends. The Sorceror hopes to turn them to the Dark Side and use their powers; the cardinal hopes to use them to advance his career (perhaps even making Pope) and return the papacy to Rome. (It was then touring Avignon.)

Anyway--Father Piero is priesting for a convent when he encounters Lady Daria d'Angelo, victim of a relationship gone sour. She's staying at the convent with her childhood associate Hasani, a freed slave who acts as her bodyguard. It's all normal enough, except that Piero has seen her before in an illumination drawn six centuries earlier.

Soon Piero, Daria, and Hasani are on their way back to the d'Angelo estate in Siena. Piero's gift is Wisdom; Daria's is Healing. No one knows what Hasani's gift is, but they keep him around anyway. Then they encounter some knights of the Church being ambushed and mostly killed by the Sorceror and friends, though Daria manages to salvage the leader of the knights, Gianni de Capezzana. (Trivia note: wines aside, shouldn't that be di Capezzana? Maybe it's Latin.) He apparently has the gift of Faith, which wasn't quite as useful in combat as ducking or common sense. He also has the gift of Warming up to the Pretty Healer While Trying to Act Businesslike, a gift more in evidence than the stated one.

Once they reach Siena, they beef up the d'Angelo security, get involved with local politics, and add a few more characters. Meanwhile the Sorceror and Cardinal Boeri show up (in separate vehicles, yes; carpooling be hanged), intent on tracking down the mysterious new healer (Daria) in the area, and through her, the Gifted as a whole. Daria isn't being quite as discreet about the occasional miracle as she could be, and there's a lot of confusion between her and the Sorceror, who also heals, though not in God's name.

Will Daria keep her secret? Will the Sorceror beat the cardinal to the Gifted? Will Hasani turn out to be brighter than the rest put together, at least in a pinch? Will the struggle between Good and Evil reach an electrifying climax? I won't answer any of these questions, but maybe I'll be a bit more serious tomorrow as I list some of The Begotten's strengths.

Other CSFF Blogs on the tour, almost certainly not as silly:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Jackie Castle
Karri Compton
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Beth Goddard
Marcus Goodyear
Todd Michael Greene
Michael Heald
Christopher Hopper
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Terri Main
Margaret
Melissa Meeks
Pamela Morrisson
John W. Otte
Rachelle
Ashley Rutherford
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachelle Sperling
Stuart Stockton
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Robert Treskillard
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise

Never Ceese 6: Why It Matters

This has produced a bit more chat and less discussion than I had hoped. To clarify what I've said so far, I've repeatedly acknowledged that the book is well written. I do have problems with the logic and theology, and these are not based on whether certain models for werewolves and vampires are followed. Rather, the question is whether there is a model. From what I see, I doubt it. There are logical contradictions and theological problems:

Richard is both dead and alive simultaneously. His heart apparently does not beat, but his blood evidently circulates; he does not breathe, except when he does, and his physiology simultaneously is and is not normal.

His curse appears to be mere suggestion (his aversion to "holy" things acts like a psychological phenomenon), yet it has effects (levitation, not showing up in mirrors, etc.) that psychology cannot explain, unless we allow psionic activity, which is theologically troublesome.

The curse is also a problem because it can be addressed (at least partially) through non-spiritual means. It's like curing a demoniac with electric shock therapy. This implies that the spiritual is simply another form of the physical--a view that can't be reconciled with the Bible.

Then there's the matter of someone who has been convincingly declared dead getting all chatty at the end. ("Oh, yes, I was dead, but I'm better now. It was only the 24-hour death, you know.") All in all, a splendid argument for cremation.

Okay, so what? Why does it matter? Can't we just do simple fiction? Simple answer: no.

There are at least two reasons for this. To begin with, Christians are indwelt by the omnipotent, omniscient Creator of the Universe; we have "eternal life," which properly does not mean merely life that keeps going like a drum-banging rabbit, but life that is from outside the Universe itself.

We can't be ordinary. Nothing we do can be ordinary. And it is nearly blasphemy to say otherwise: it's like saying the Atonement never happened.

One of the things that got Israel into a lot of trouble was the idea that they wanted to be like other nations, with idols, a human king, and so forth. It didn't work, because they were God's chosen people, and he wouldn't let them be ordinary.

Sound familiar? When we say that we want to produce dreck like everyone else (and we certainly try), aren't we doing the same thing? But we're called to a higher standard, and we can't escape it. (And for the record, no, I'm not calling Never Ceese dreck. I'm speaking generally.)

But there's another reason: we are our brother's keeper. You may say you're not a teacher, but just as we are all witnesses to those around us, so all Christian writers are teachers to their audience, especially if that includes the unsaved, which is hard to avoid. When they read our stuff, they'll say, "So that's what Christians think about X." Like it or not, we've just taught someone something, and given the various warnings about false and careless teachers in the Bible, we'd better hope we taught them well.

(This is why I don't think Christians should write unless it's part of their gifting as teachers, evangelists, prophets, apostles, or whatever. There are plenty of unsaved people out there doing their own thing; we don't need any more like them from our own crowd. We don't even need all the pagan writers we have! But people who write as unto the Lord are a rare gift.)

And thus my fussiness about details. We do all this as unto the Lord, so we should be careful, especially in theological speculation. We all err, despite our best intentions, and we must trust God to make up for our ignorance and folly. But we owe it to him to do our best.

Never Ceese 5: Blood New and Old

Uncle: We are calling in a couple of experts from outside our series to discuss Sue Dent's Never Ceese. Ladies first, or order of birth? Oh, let's begin with Heather Blair, an aethereal serving as one of the Sons of God, as featured in the Changelings series. With her is Martin--I didn't catch the last name?
Martin: People don't, for some reason.
Uncle: Anyway, Martin is a Herald; his origin story is "Credo," from Light at the Edge of Darkness. He confronts and destroys demonic strongholds, including the occasional werewolf or vampire.
Martin: However, Ceese and Richard are not the kind of creatures I have dealt with. In the short story "Death Trap," I did visit a vampiric man in hopes of turning him to God, but he was an anomaly. Most are like the creatures in "Sheep Among Wolves": demons animating bodies. And most werewolves are like those in the same story, preferring the power of their curse over true freedom. But freedom is available for any who are willing to submit to God.
Heather: That's been my experience too. Although we usually leave such matters to Heralds, since the demons are almost always former daimones--minor angels under our authority--we sometimes deal with them ourselves.
Uncle: That leads to my question, then. What is missing in Never Ceese?
Martin: By the lady's leave, I would venture my opinion first. There is a curse without anything to empower it. Would you agree, Miss Blair?
Heather: "Heather" is fine, sir. Yes, the curses aren't curses--at least as they are described.
Uncle: That is what I wondered about. Why aren't they curses? What is missing?
Heather: A curse is an attempt to change reality--to bind it in some fashion, usually against God's design, unless it is simply an appeal to Justice, as in Jotham's case in Judges. As such, it requires a binding force. In the case of something that warps the image of God as both lycanthropy and vampirism do, that will be a demonic force--and a very powerful one.
Martin: And yet there is no demon in Never Ceese. The cursed people are estranged from God, and that is typical, but a spiritual problem requires a spiritual solution, and that doesn't seem to happen here.
Uncle: Not even with prayer?
Martin: Prayer is important, but our Lord believes in work. Usually a habit of years shall not be conquered in a moment. Besides, if there is a demonic component, demons are intelligent, so a minor circumlocution such as "not unholy" for "holy" wouldn't fool it for a moment. No, this is treated more like a physical law than a demonic manifestation; yet it must be the latter, not the former.
Heather: There's also the matter of who prays. Modern Christians, especially in the West, assume that everyone has the same authority in prayer. There's some truth to that, but not everyone has every gift. As a Herald, Martin has authority to cast demons into the Abyss at will. As a Guardian, my authority is similar. But that doesn't mean just anyone can do it--at least not so swiftly. A demon powerful enough to bring about the curse--actually two demons--would not go quietly, in my experience, or at least not without the intervention of an Apostle, a Herald, or a Guardian. And even our Lord has some noisy exorcisms.
Uncle: Final comments, then. Did you enjoy Never Ceese, and would you read the sequel, Forever Richard, due out later this year?
Heather: I prefer older fiction.
Martin: As part of my call, I don't read fiction much. Bunyan is good, though, except for his reflexive anti-Catholicism.
Rod/Titan: It was pretty good for the most part. I'm a bit curious how the ending is explained in the second book.
Allen/Tachyon: I mostly liked the book, but it was like the ending set up for another book but also closed the door on it. Besides, if Rod reads the second book, I'll hear all about it anyway.
Clarice/Goodcheer: If Mom and Dad wouldn't let me read the first one, they sure won't let me read the second one.
Tom/Darklight: I don't see how the thing Rod got bleeped over last time can be resolved properly. I'd kind of like to see Heather or Martin go after the bad guys in the second story, but that won't happen.
Charlie/Micromegas: Sue Dent is a great writer, and I hope the next story will be even better. I wish she'd pay more attention to God: he's always the center, so if we get him right, everything else comes into focus.
Genie: Like Martin, I don't read much fiction, though I am looking forward to finishing the Chronicles of Narnia. And I'm working on the Ultimate Suits for the League. I know it's overkill, but I'm thinking of implementing complete quantum encryption for the systems. Even a demon couldn't figure that out.
Uncle: I wouldn't be too sure. I'll look at the next book. If it's any good, I may simply buy the Writer's Café Press; it would be a reasonable investment in Christian literature.
Rod/Titan: Will you change the name to the Troika's Café Press?
Uncle: There is no Troika, Titan.


Other participating blogs:
The Christian Fiction Review Blog
A Frank Review
Susan Kirkland
Melissa Meeks @ Bibliophile's Retreat
Geralyn Beauchamp @ The Time Mistress
Cathi Hassan @ Cathi's Chatter
Caprice Hokstad @ Queen of Convolution

Never Ceese 4: Superheroes of the Roundtable Discussion

Uncle: The cast members of The League of Superheroes have been called in to discuss Sue Dent's Never Ceese. For the record, though it doesn't matter currently, this is set during Genie At Large, the follow-up to LoS.
Rod/Titan: These discussions always are. It's amazing how many books we can read in about a week.
Genie: While I could have read it easily in a few minutes even without much time compression, there was no need: since Steve has read it, we effectively have done so as well. Likewise, we can have an infinite number of discussions like this because we are operating outside of our own timeline.
Rod/Titan: Too metaphysical for me.
Genie: Nonsense. The concept is similar to some thought experiments in quantum physics, such as those involving parallel universes.
Rod/Titan: They aren't the same thing.
Genie: I never said they were. "Similar" and "identical" are only similar, not identical.
Uncle: Returning to Never Ceese, I found the story engaging, but I can't vouch for its religious content.
Rod/Titan: I thought it was okay, but there was some weird stuff, like the ending, where SPOILER CENSORED.
Hey! No fair censoring that!
Uncle: We're trying to avoid spoilers.
Rod/Titan: Well, if you're going to censor me anyway, why should I bother?
Allen/Tachyon: Wow! If Rod shuts up, the rest of us get twice as many lines! It's almost like being in a state of grace!
Clarice/Goodcheer: I'll tell Mom you said that.
Allen/Tachyon: She'd agree. But she'd also yell at me. Anyway, the tall, silent type has a point: for me the ending was the weakest part. The story builds okay, and it really shifts into high gear when Ceese and Richard come to America, but the ending bugged me.
Uncle: Why? I admit a little disquiet there, but I'm trying to leave this to you.
Allen/Tachyon: And I'll leave it to Tom. He's the one with the lit major dad.
Tom/Darklight: I think Dad only let me read this as a prelude to a theological discussion. He does that.
Rod/Titan: And we get caught in the fallout too.
Allen/Tachyon: I thought you were shutting up.
Rod/Titan: And I thought you were just a hallucination of mine, so we're both disappointed.
Tom/Darklight: Anyway, for me the problem was that the epilog is out of sequence: it includes at least one scene that should have come a chapter or two earlier. Then there's the point Rod tried to mention, the one where two people who shouldn't even be around have a discussion, but I'm not going to get bleeped by going further.
Uncle: What about you, Micromegas?
Charlie/Micromegas: I thought it was sad. We do tend to take the long way around, and they could've solved their problems far more easily just by taking them to God. He's stronger than any curse. But it was realistic that they blew off the easy way.
Uncle: Goodcheer?
Clarice/Goodcheer: Mom and Dad said it was a bit old for me, so I didn't read it. But Genie did.
Genie: I have no known parents, and Uncle didn't forbid me to read it. On the other hand, fantasy is not my preferred genre. I like things that are self-consistent.
Tom/Darklight: You like the Chronicles of Narnia.
Genie: That's different. They're beautiful.
Charlie/Micromegas: It's because of Aslan, Genie. You can meet the One he's based on, you know, and he is even better than the Lion.
Genie: It is my nature to believe only in verifiable data. Perhaps that's my curse.
Charlie/Micromegas: It's a common curse to claim. I just hope you don't take the long way around like Ceese and Richard.
Uncle: The matter of the curse is important, and it leads me to an observation: there is something missing in Never Ceese, but none of you mentioned it. So tomorrow we shall call in some experts from outside our series and see what they think.


Other participating blogs:
The Christian Fiction Review Blog
A Frank Review
Susan Kirkland
Melissa Meeks @ Bibliophile's Retreat
Geralyn Beauchamp @ The Time Mistress
Cathi Hassan @ Cathi's Chatter
Caprice Hokstad @ Queen of Convolution

Never Ceese 3: Curses Foiled Again

(Yes, I punctuated the title correctly. Thanks for noticing.)

The big deal in Sue Dent's Never Ceese (outside of the two main characters truly figuring out who they are) is finding a way to break the curses they're under. Oddly, little is said about what the curses are. Someone who is cursed feels cut off from God: it's painful (but not impossible) even to refer to God or holiness. On the other hand, such people heal quickly and don't age, though they also can't reproduce.

Vampires have the added quirks of extreme sensitivity to the sun, which really burns them up, and getting mobbed by bloodsucking bats whenever they're low on plasma. (This is extra odd: it's like waiting until someone's driving on fumes to siphon his gas. But I suppose the vampire's weakness at such a moment makes him an easy target.) These bats are always around, apparently, which makes me think they live in the vampire's undies. On the other hand, vampires get to levitate and ignore mirrors (or vice versa).

Werewolves? Well, they get to Hulk out furry fashion. They also seem to have some kind of telepathy going.

Now the quirk here is that, this being a modern story, we have to have some kind of quasi-scientific mechanism for all this. Easily handled: there isn't one. Seriously: there is no way I can think of to ascribe all this to some quirk of physics. These are therefore spiritual phenomena, in this case the work of demonic forces, not natural ones.

One of the major modern assumptions implicitly held even by Christians is that everything has a physical explanation. Angels should show up on film, the Flood was a natural event of unusual proportions, and so on. But there's a catch: if there is no spiritual dimension to anything--none that makes any difference, anyway--then is there a spiritual dimension at all? This is the argument of modern atheists such as Dawkins and Harris: ultimately physics explains everything, so there is nothing for God to do or be.

Trying to find a physical explanation for vampires and werewolves likewise tends to minimize the spiritual aspect. Their "curse" could be a subconscious response to their purely physical ailment. Indeed, even the oddball effects such as levitation could be psionic ("psionic" being the catchall term for behavior pre-scientific people called "spiritual") and thus ultimately a matter of physics.

But if the curse is purely spiritual, how do people who are bitten (in the case of werewolves, they may be clawed) get the curse? And how can it have any effect on the modern wonder drug, stem cells?

Okay, M.A. in English at work, so don't bother with boots--get out the hip waders. In fact, go for a wet suit.

If I had to come up with a "mechanism" for the curse, I would note that demons can "haunt" or "possess" an item, such as an idol. So let's start with vampires, because they're easier. (And not just in the sense that they like to neck.) What if the vampire's blood (which represents life--Leviticus 17: 12–14) is itself cursed/possessed? If there is a certain amount of give and take in the bloodsucking (Never Ceese, p 249), then the victim picks up a cursed/possessed object in the process, along with a spirit hitchhiker. (Despite Richard's tendency to use small animals for blood, there are never any reports of vampire rodents. Figure that out.) We may also suggest that this curse somehow deforms the blood cells, which means that the token mad doctor may have found a meaningless anomaly in the affected stem cells.

So what about werewolves? Since they are only contagious in wolf form, I would suggest that the communicable cursed matter is the wolf form itself: if it enters your body through biting or clawing, it passes on the curse. To keep it simple, we'll assume that the target is the blood again, since it will normally be involved in a bite or clawing. The lycanthropic demon then tries to take up residence in the blood, which it curses as in the vampire.

The problem here is that it should be possible at least for a Christian to reject this either immediately or eventually. But that I'll leave as a problem for someone else.

Next time: some of my characters take a whack at the story.

Other participating blogs:
The Christian Fiction Review Blog
A Frank Review
Susan Kirkland
Melissa Meeks @ Bibliophile's Retreat
Geralyn Beauchamp @ The Time Mistress
Cathi Hassan @ Cathi's Chatter
Caprice Hokstad @ Queen of Convolution

Never Ceese 2: Be He Alive or Be He Dead

One of the things I could never figure out about Sue Dent's Never Ceese was whether Richard the Vampire was basically alive or dead.

Now, you're probably saying, "Sheesh! What part of 'undead' do you not understand?"

That would be the "undead" part. Or at least the "un-." You see, even an animated corpse is basically dead. If you have a taxidermist and an animatronic engineer get together, they could make any corpse move around a lot, but it would still be a corpse. On the other hand, if you're alive, you're "un-dead." So consider the data:

It's apparently unusual for Richard to breathe or have a pulse (pp 194-195). Yet his breath is described as "hot" (p 234). Also, even if he can breathe at will, the nicotine in his cigarettes will have nowhere to go: without normal cardiopulmonary function, it won't enter his bloodstream and affect him normally. He nonetheless considers smoking relaxing. How can that be?

As a related point, the whole idea of Richard's having plastic surgery (p 94) implies a lot of problems--anesthesia, reflective surfaces during surgery, and so on. And the operation probably wouldn't succeed: his healing powers would probably restore his original features.

Actually, solving this is child's play compared to figuring out a rationale for the curses, which I'll take on tomorrow. And although I don't like to say this, I can't justify my analysis without engaging in a major spoiler or two. (If you want a proper explanation, e-mail me.) But for the record: Richard is basically alive, not dead, and I can only suggest that the "dead" behavior (lack of breathing and pulse, for example) is a kind of illusion produced by the curse. His being alive makes the smoking and plastic surgery easier to accept, among other things. In other words, he probably does breathe and circulate blood, though presumably at a much-reduced rate, but it's masked by the curse--which makes the curse all the more difficult to explain. I'll try to do it tomorrow anyway.

Other participating blogs:

The Christian Fiction Review Blog

A Frank Review

Susan Kirkland

Melissa Meeks @ Bibliophile's Retreat

Geralyn Beauchamp @ The Time Mistress

Cathi Hassan @ Cathi's Chatter

Caprice Hokstad @ Queen of Convolution

Never Ceese 1: Intro

Sue Dent's Never Ceese is a horror story about a vampire and a werewolf and the possibility that they may escape their respective curses. (The vampire, Richard, is more reluctant about this than Ceese, the werewolf.) There's a reasonable amount of action, and the characters are engaging; the language is a bit rough, especially toward the end, and the nature of the action might bother some people, but probably not actual horror fans. We also have a mad scientist who is out to harness the curse for his own twisted end. How twisted? Well, let's just say he can't sit down without screwing himself into the chair.

Someone else on the tour will likely go further into the plot, so I'll deal largely with the stuff that other people usually can't be bothered to think about. For example, this is written by a Christian, so the theology involved is worth a look--and it's tricky, to say the least.

I've dealt with the theology of horror in general and of vampires and werewolves in particular before. You really ought to look at those posts, but for now, a quick recap: Horror is the most theological fiction genre other than perhaps allegory, because it deals with the Big Issues (Life, Death, Free Will, Fate, etc.). I consider lycanthropy as usually presented to be theologically troublesome, but it could be a good allegory for sin. I generally prefer vampire theology, though the old and theologically straightforward version is seldom found these days.

Tomorrow, I'll look at something that puzzled me a lot: is Richard (the vampire) fundamentally dead or alive?

Participating Blog links:

The Christian Fiction Review Blog

A Frank Review

Susan Kirkland

Melissa Meeks @ Bibliophile's Retreat

Geralyn Beauchamp @ The Time Mistress

Cathi Hassan @ Cathi's Chatter

Caprice Hokstad @ Queen of Convolution