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"We have stepped off the cliff and are falling into madness."Thomas Hunter is caught between two shocking realities, each facing a meltdown of epic proportions. When he dreams in one world, he awakens in the other. In one reality, Thomas is a respected military leader urgently trying to deliver the vastly outnumbered Forest People from an agonizing calamity that will end life as they know it. In the other, he's trying desperately to work with the world's top leaders to stop the release of the deadliest airborne virus ever created.
Series: The Circle Series (Book 2)
Genre: Adult Fantasy
Publisher: Thomas Nelson; Anniversary edition (February 3, 2012)
Page Count: 528 pages
Well I purchased an omnibus so I've gotta read this thing. XD I remember this book the most from the graphic novel I read years and years ago, but I believe this book is my favorite of the series.
The Plot: As with the previous book, there are two plots going on: the happenings on present Earth and the future. I found myself a little more interested in the present day earth happenings because Atlanta got infected. Those are my peeps. XD The future plotline was strongly allegorical what with a very parallel storyline to Jesus and the Pharisees. I thought it very interesting that even Thomas was acting like a Pharisee.
The Characters: Thomas matures a lot because of all of the time that passes when he didn't dream for fifteen years. I like this Thomas a lot better than in the previous book. There are a lot of twists with the characters and many things that Dekker foreshadowed in the previous book are coming to light.
I like Kara a lot. She's a good sister and her love and faith in Thomas is very admirable. I also like Rachelle a lot and she has a good character arc as well. Qurong is a good villain and he gets even more interesting when his identity is revealed. I like that more characters from the past and future are connected, even villains. ;)
The Setting: The story switches between the future which consists of forests and deserts and the past which travels through many environments such as France and Washington D.C. I feel like the Earth environments aren't as fleshed out as the fictional ones. Dekker fleshes out Thomas's dreaming ability by bringing in a scientist to study Thomas and this allows us to scientifically delve into it, which was pretty cool.
Epic Things: I really like the parallels between people in the two timelines.
The Theme: A big one was worshipping the religion of Christianity instead of God himself. Thomas and the other forest dwellers are so concerned with keeping up with the Great Romance that they don't recognize their savior is right in front of them.
Content Cautions: There isn't too much. The worst is someone is tortured by having a needle thrust into their arm to the bone, someone is shot in the head, a character is shot multiple times with arrows, and a character is brutally beaten.
What We Can Take Away For Our Writing:
1.) Plugging the Ears of a Captive - I thought this was very interesting and makes complete sense. I've never seen this done before. But you can tell a lot about a location if you know what it sounds like. Doing this left this captured character completely in the blind.
How this can be applied to writing: Have you thought of your characters doing this?
Conclusion: Overall I enjoyed it! Four stars!
Ted Dekker is a multiple award-winning, New York Times and international bestselling author of over 40 novels.
His work has reached tens of millions worldwide and has been translated into numerous languages and adapted into major feature films (Thr3e and House). In 2013 NPR readers nationwide named him as one of the top suspense writers of all time.
Ted's passion is simple: to explore truth through mind-bending stories that invite readers to see the world through a different lens. Story is the shortest distance between the human heart and truth, and to this he has devoted his life.
Check out my review of the first book in the series, Black!
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