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