"Beneath the Silent Heavens" by Brian Christopher Moore

I occasionally read fantasy stories, but it’s not my favorite genre. But I would gladly read more stories like Beneath the Silent Heavens.  

Noe is a boy who considers the animals his friends. When an evil presence arises in the woods, it is Noe who figures out a way to combat it and destroy it. Even as a boy, he becomes something of a legend among the animals. 

 

The years pass. A young female tiger living in a distant land feels the call to find Noe. Her parents know the legend, but gently try to dissuade her from pursuing the notion of finding him. But the call proves too strong, and the tiger begins her quest. Other animals have heard of Noe, and a few describe how she’s to find him. But not everyone welcomes her with open arms; she is a tiger, and they all know what tigers like to eat – animals like themselves.

 

Noe had grown up and grown old. He and his family, which were still among the very wealthiest in the region, are now the objects of increasing ridicule and, occasionally, violence. For Noe had heard a voice, and he heeded what the voice told him to do – but a great boat on the side of a mountain. A bad time is coming. 

 

Noe lives in a society that’s wealthy and decadent. The old ways, and the old virtues, are increasingly ignored. Noe becomes an object of persecution because he rather stubbornly clings to the old virtues – a reminder to others of the evil they do.

 

The tiger meets Noe, and he sends her on a mission, helped by an ox and a deer. And the mission is to tell the animals that the bad time is coming. They’re largely ignored and even attacked. But they do what they were told to do – and that was to speak of finding the refuge.

 

Beneath the Silent Heavens by Brian Christopher Moore is the story of Noe, his family, and the tiger. It’s more than a fantasy story for children; I suspect it’s aimed squarely at adults rather than a younger audience. And it’s more than a retelling of the story of Noah and the ark; it is a rich re-imagining of the story, and it suggests that the times of Noe (or Noah) were not unlike our own times.

 

Moore received s Ph.D. in literature degree from the University of Dallas. He is a member of the blogging team at Eclectic Orthodoxy, a site focused on the Gospel, the church fathers, and orthodox faith. (And if you can find any more information about him, please share it.)

 

Beneath the Silent Heavens is a Gospel story, a prodigious feat of imagination, and, perhaps most of all, a story of hope and refuge in dark times.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Culture Wars 2023 – As it turns out, traditional Muslims have children, too – Terry Mattingly at Get Religion.

 

Amazon’s ebook charts are full of AI-generated spam – Gavia Baker-Whitelaw at Daily Dot.

 

When Ideology Corrupts Medicine – and How One Reporter Exposed It – Bari Weiss at The Free Press. 

July 17, 1775: The Start of the Beeline March – Kevin Pawlak at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

"The Door on Half-Bald Hill" by Helena Sorensen

When you begin reading The Door on Half-Bald Hill, the wonderful fantasy story by Helena Sorensen, you find yourself thrown into the ongoing story, without much explanation or back story. It’s not unlike being pitched into a fast-moving river; you bob and weave as the current carries you along. You think you might be drowning, and then you’re not. You’re swimming. 

This s a tale of the land called Bailelean, a place not unlike Ireland. It’s the twilight of the time of the Druids; each community once had its own Druid, Bard, and Ovate or Healer. But the number of Druids is dwindling; since the last Bloodmoon, something has been going very wrong. The River Adder is increasingly poisoned, the land is dying, people are getting sick, and food is becoming scarcer. 

 

In the community of Blackthorn, the Druid Corann is facing a new reality: his powers are diminishing, and his magic doesn’t work as before. The new ovate, a young woman named Zinerva, is encouraging the people to embrace death. The Bard, a young man named Idris, has previously had one primary responsibility – to keep and tell the Word, the collection of stories, epics, and beliefs that have nurtured the people for generations. But at times Idris finds himself unable to speak – and unable to stop what is clearly the growing menace of death.

 

Helena Sorensen

A handful of people realize that their Druid is unable to help and their Ovate not only won’t heal but has embraced darkness. Their hope centers on Idris, but first Idris must understand what it is he must do. Because something must be done, or they will all die. 

 

You flow with the river of this story, thinking initially you’re going to drown. But you surface with a sputter, tread water, hang onto a passing branch, and then you swim. And you swim into what is a marvelous story, filled with so much imagined and created detail that you think you’re part of the Blackthorn community. And when you finish the tale, you discover that you are. It’s that powerful of a story.

 

Sorensen has also published a trilogy, under the heading of The Shiloh Series, which includes Shiloh, Seeker, and Songbird. She’s a frequent contribution to the online sites The Rabbit Room and Story Warren. A speaker on writers and writing, she lives in Nashville. 

 

I’m not a heavy reader of fantasy stories, but The Door in Half-Bald Hill is not a typical fantasy story. It is a finely wrought, and finely written, story of peril and redemption.

Rabbits at War: 2 Green Ember Stories by S.D. Smith

For several years, children’s writer S.D. Smith has been creating a series of swashbuckling adventure stories – all starring rabbits. First was The Green Ember, told from the perspective of two children whose lives are upended with an attack by wolves. And it is much greater than an isolated attack; the wolves are making war upon the rabbit world.

The Black Star of Kingston is a prequel to The Green Ember. Ember Falls is the second installment in the main series, and the third – Ember’s End – is due to be published next week (its publication date moved up a bit because of the general upheaval from the coronavirus epidemic). 

Smith has also published two related stories, more of novella length.

The Wreck & Rise of Whitson Mariner takes place during the great wars. King Whitson Mariner is sailing to safety, carrying a precious cargo – the royal jewels, elderly women, other women and children, and his own family, Queen Lillie and Prince Lander. Sailing on another ship with him is Lord Grimble, who might be better named Lord Grumble, a sour and resentful aristocrat who seems to believe hem and not Whitson, should be king.

And sure enough, Grimble turns out to be a traitor, in league with the feared dragons. Whitson’s ship is tricked onto treacherous rocks and is shipwrecked. Queen Lillie is kidnapped by dragons. The cargo is lost, and those aboard who are not rescued die in the water. Lieutenant Massie Brunson is ordered by the king to stay with Prince Lander at all costs. The prince, for his part, is soon seen running into the woods on shore. Massie knows he’s needed with the rescue, but he obeys the king and follows. And a great adventure ensues.

In The Last Archer, Jo Shanks is Living at Halfwind Citadel. It’s wartime, and Jo is desperate to prove he’s as good an archer as the famed Nate Flynn. But he doesn’t seem to make a very good soldier – he oversleeps, he has an unpolished sword, and his commanding officer has little use for him. But there’s an archery contest, and Jo proves his skill by not only placing but coming very close to beating Nate.

Nate needs a temporary replacement on his team of archers, and he asks Jo to fill in. Jo discovers that Nate is nothing like Jo imagined him to be. He still has trouble with the commanding officers, but he finds he’s fitting in with Nate’s crew. And then the wolves attack and enter the citadel itself.

Both stories have underlying lessons aimed at children (but equally valid for adults). They’re about obedience, mistaken impressions, trust, and having courage in the face of overwhelming odds. Using rabbits instead of children likely takes some of the immediate terror out of the situations, but children will identify with Massie, Prince Lander, Jo, and Nate. These are rollicking good stories, with good messages. 

Related:

My review of The Green Ember.

My review of The Black Star of Kingston. 

My review of Ember Falls.

Top illustration by Zach Franzen: Whitson Mariner takes up the Stone Sword of Flint. 

“Be’askaas” by Nicholas Kerkhoff

It’s a fantasy novel that doesn’t read like a fantasy novel; that’s the first surprise.

The second surprise is that I can’t quite figure out why. 

And the third surprise is that I decided it doesn’t matter; this is a fascinating story.

Be’askaas is a land comprised of mountains and hills, plains and valleys, a big land full of farms and towns, kingdoms, open spaces, forests, and various kinds of people who may, or may not, be like each other. It is a land of wizards and necromancers who can do strange things, like create zombies. It can be terrifying or at least scary to run into one, but they’re not really all that common. And occasionally farmers have use for zombies as well, like when a bull dies right before the ground was to be plowed for planting. The farmer can ask the local wizard for help in raising the bull to the undead – at least until the plowing is done.

Be’askaas is the title of a novel by Nicholas Kerkhoff, a fantasy story (sort of) that doesn’t sound a bit like most fantasy stories. Many contemporary fantasy stories seem derivative of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Even with its wizards (and an intelligent dragon), Be’askaas does not. 

Thirteen-year-old Rafe and his younger brother Gywn face tumultuous change. Their family is breaking up; the family farm has been lost. One older brother joins the army, another goes to make his way in the city, a sister is marrying the local blacksmith and two other sisters are headed for the nunnery. The two boys are apprenticed to a wizard, a necromancer who lives several days journey away. And so, they make their way to their new master.

Nicholas Kerkhoff

They’re greeted by the wizard’s servant, a decayed zombie, and soon find themselves doing the familiar work of a farm. Then the wizard begins their training. They learn the casting of rudimentary, simple spells (like the raising of the dead bull) and they find they’re enjoying the work. At least they’re being fed well.

And then, one day, the soldiers arrive, and the real adventures begin.

Kerkhoff is a writer and filmmaker who lives in Santa Cruz, California. In addition to a number of short films (he has a YouTube channel), he has written a sequel to Be’askaas entitled Fates of the Dead and a collection of short stories, poetry, and other writings, Art, Age, and Alcohol.

Be’askaas is a well-written novel; it includes discussions of philosophy and science, the meaning of life, the proper way to learn, and other subjects. It is a fantasy story, but it has a contemporary sense to it that marks it as something different and exceptional in the genre.

Top photograph by Ethan Hoover via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The Last of the Tolkien Tales: “The Fall of Gondolin”

Gondolin is a city created by elves, hidden away in the mountains, the last outpost of light in the First Age of Middle-earth, when the evil forces of Morgoth have conquered almost everything else. Morgoth knows this city must exist, and he regularly sends search parties of orcs to find it. Its end is almost inevitable, and the story of that end is told in The Fall of Gondolin, the last of the unpublished tales of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Opposing Morgoth is Ulmo, the god of the sea, who raises up Tuor of the race of men. Tuor undertakes three great journeys in his life. 

The first is his journey from his own homeland toward the sea, subconsciously hearing the call of Ulmo. 

The second is his journey to Gondolin, where he comes to live and marry Idril, the daughter and only child of the elvish king. Tuor and Idril have a son, Earendil, who, outside the arc of this story, will have a son named Elrond of Rivendell, a main character of The Lord of the Rings.

Tuor’s third great journey will be to lead his family and a small remnant of the elves of Gondolin to safety, after the destruction of the city. 

And thus ends one of the great publishing stories of modern times.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

“Lynessa’s Curse” by Adam Collings

It is a time far into the future. Mars has been terraformed and colonized by Earth, but civilization reached a point of collapse, subsiding into a kind medieval period not unlike what we know as the Middle Ages, the period between the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the rise of the nation-states in Europe.

Alistair, a farmer in a feudal domain called Garibaldi Manor and ruled by Lord Gareth , is in love with Lynessa. Then he learns that she has the skin ailment known as “the curse,” and is to be banished. The curse begins as a skin ailment (not unlike leprosy) and eventually ends in death. Alastair and his older friend Waleran are allowed to take Lynessa to the camp of the banished. There they hear of a possible cure, and eventually are allowed to undertake the quest to find it.

Adam David Collings’s short fantasy novel Lynessa’s Curse is a standalone story that is part of a collection of related stories published as Medieval Mars. It’s a good introduction to the collection – the story is intriguing and fast-paced, the narrative filled with details of what a terraformed Mars (and its various peoples and animals, including giant lizards that spew acid and flying reptiles) is like. Fantasy requires a suspension of belief, but when well done offers a riveting story, which is what Lynessa’s Curse is.

Adam David Collings

Collings, who lives in Tasmania, Australia, is a writer of speculative fiction. He says he draws his inspiration from his “over-active imagination, life experiences, and faith.” He also hosts a YouTube channel, Stories with Adam Collings, where he gives full rein to his storytelling and related activities.

The goal of the quest by Alastair and Waleran is technologies of Old Earth, left behind and now hidden in a place “where the three rivers converge.” The place turns out to be guarded by the lizards and a people hostile to outsiders. But Alastair, a farmer with virtually no fighting experience, is determined to save Lynessa. It is his transformation that’s at the heart of Lynessa’s Curse.

Illustration: the artwork for Medieval Mars.

Patrick Carr’s “By Divine Right”

By Divine Right is a novella by Patrick Carr that is largely part of a marketing plan. But it also happens to be such an intriguing story that it both stands alone and serves what it’s designed to do – entice the reader to a new fantasy trilogy that begins publication in Late October.

The trilogy is The Darkwater Saga, and the first volume due Oct. 27 is The Shock of Night. If this volume and it successors live up to the promise of By Divine Right, then it will be a very good trilogy indeed.

The setting is the capital city of Bunard in the kingdom of Collum. The story is told by Willet Dura, a reeve (or guard officer) in the service of the king. Some years previously, the kingdom had been at war, and, called up to fight, Willet had missed his ordination as priest by a week. Because he fought and killed in the war, he is no longer eligible to be a priest, and least in the order he had prepared for.

The is a land where gifts are important. Nobles and the wealthy each have a gift – beauty, craft, sum, parts, helps, or devotion. Gifts are vitally important, the “currency” around which society is centered. Only the king has all the gifts, which are transmitted to each generation. Sometimes gifts are split among children, reducing their power and effectiveness. Common people and the poor rarely if ever have a whole or part of a gift.

Patrick Carr

Willet becomes involved in the whole subject of gifts when he investigates the murder of a man whose gift was stolen. As it turns out, others have been killed and their gifts stolen. Someone is killing people and collecting their gifts, which can mean only one thing – someone is planning to usurp the kingship.

Even in the short form of the novella, Carr develops the main plot and sub-plots. Characterization in the story is especially strong; the characters are almost immediately recognizable and understood. (Readers have noted this in his previous trilogy of books, The Staff & the Sword.)

A good story in and of itself, By Divine Right suggests there’s an even better story coming.

Photograph by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission. 

S.D. Smith’s “The Black Star of Kingston”

Amazon made a mistake.

S.D. Smith’s new children’s book, The Black Star of Kingston, is scheduled to publish July 13. But Amazon shipped some pre-orders early.

I was one of the beneficiaries of the mistake.

And what a rollicking good story this is. Yes, it’s a children’s story, but it stirs the blood and makes you want to take sword in had to fight alongside the characters in the story.

The Black Star of Kingston is a kind of prequel to Smith’s first children’s book, The Green Ember, with the story taking place about 100 years before (I reviewed The Green Ember here in February). A prequel, yes, but it provides context for the story of the green ember and the critical role it plays it the history of the rabbits.

S.D. Smith

Yes, rabbits, rabbits with names like Fleck the miner, and Galt, Gavin, King Whitson and Queen Lillie, Prince Lander, Massie and so many more. Some years prior, they had fled the destruction of their home and many members of their families, founding the town of Seddleton on the shores of Lake Ayman.

The settlement needs fuel, however, and to cut down too many trees is to make the rabbits vulnerable. They look across the lake at the brooding, dark mountains beyond – which Fleck believes are a likely source of coal. Eventually, the king outfits an expedition. The rabbits do find coal, and something else, something evil, something that will seek to destroy them, their families and their town.

Zach Franzen

It’s a heroic story, demonstrating what happens when an ordinary individual (Like Fleck the miner) follows his convictions and rises to what can only be called heroism.

Like The Green Ember, this story is illustrated by Zach Franzen, who gets the rabbits exactly right. A sequel to The Green Ember is scheduled for publication in 2016.

The Black Star of Kingston is not only a children’s book; it is a book to be read by adults to children – for the benefit of both.

Top photograph: Cover illustration of The Black Star of Kingston by Zach Franzen.

C.S. Lakin’s “The Sands of Ethryn”

A king thrown into a trance. A power-hungry vizier. An evil spirit awakening from a sleep of thousands of years. The discovery of what looks like a tall tower, buried in the desert sands. Archivists trying to deciphering ancient scrolls. Add them together, and you discover C.S. Lakin’s The Sands of Ethryn, the sixth novel in the Gates of Heaven series.

It may be well be the best one in the series so far, and that’s saying a lot.

The central idea behind the series is the concept of gates – that from ancient days, heaven had established seven gates to keep evil in the world at bay. Lakin has constructed a story around each of them. In The Sands of Ethryn, the city of Ethryn has developed near the established gate, but it is ailing: the city’s river is drying up, and families have begun to move away.

Nearby an archaeological dig is underway, and a remarkable discovery has been made – a tower, a very tall tower, just how tall no one can yet tell because it is buried in sand. Palace archivists are set to work searching ancient scrolls to find references to the tower and possibly translations of some of glyphs carved into the structure. Then the king of Ethryn visits the dig site to see an uncovered altar, and when he touches an altar gemstone, he falls into a deep trance.

This provides the opportunity for the king’s vizier to consolidate power. He has tapped into an ancient source of evil, one associated with the tower, and it takes over his human form. Standing against the evil are Hashubah, the king’s primary archivist and keeper of the library of scrolls; his granddaughter Ra’daf, who is a young scholar in her own right but limited because she’s prone to seizures and blackouts; and Avad, an archivist who has grown up with Ra’daf and secretly loves her.

As she has in some of the other books in the series, Lakin plays with the idea of time, that characters can slip through time or are suddenly forced to slip through. The king in his trance becomes a young man in a village, who is forced to become part of the massive slave labor gangs building the tower.

With the right mixture of action, suspense, and a little romance, Lakin has written a compelling story. She blends the Biblical account of the Tower of Babel with a work of her own imagination, and she explores how heaven operates outside human understandings of time.

The Sands of Ethryn is not a simple story; it must be closely read to catch all of what Lakin has packed into it. It is, however, a deeply satisfying story, rewarding that close reading.

Lakin was the author raised my interest inw hat fantasy writing can do. She has one book to go in the series. I can’t wait to see how she completes the stories of the gates.

Related: My reviews of the other Gates of Heaven novels:

The Wolf of Tebron

The Map Across Time

The Land of Darkness

The Unraveling of Wentwater

The Crystal Scepter

Photograph by Lynn Greyling via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.