Rachel Starr Thomson

Hunter Brown is an average ninth grade boy: good at pranks, bad at first impressions, mediocre at life. Things have been harder to deal with since his father disappeared years ago, but Hunter makes do. Until, in a Neverending-Story-meets-the-Matrix moment, he opens an ancient book and learns that everything he ever knew about his world is wrong.

Not only that, but everything he ever knew about himself is wrong.

Raising my arm to the mirror I wiped the steam away, expecting to see the usual bushy blond hair and oversized ears that reminded me of my father. What I saw instead made my stomach lurch and the blood drain from my face in horror. Something was wrong with my reflection.

Hunter’s terrifying visions collide with reality as he finds himself running from evil spirit-beings that are tracking him in his own hometown. The only way out is into the world of the book — Solandria, where the Codebearers fight an armed resistance against the Shadow. Where Hunter must learn the way of Via, Veritas, Vita — the Way of Truth and Life. Where he’ll face the most powerful enemies and terrifying truths imaginable, and where he’ll finally learn that “By his fear, a man declares his master.”

Hunter Brown and the Secret of the Shadow is a fantasy adventure, an allegory for tweens and teens that’s likely to be read by even younger kids. With that in mind, I make my first caveat: this book is not Anne of Green Gables. It makes use of scary imagery from the start, as Hunter watches a giant red serpent swallow up his town in a vision, falls into an empty grave, and finds himself swimming (or more accurately, drowning) in a lake full of chained dead bodies. While the violence isn’t especially graphic, sometimes it’s gross. And there’s definitely plenty of tension to go around.

At the same time, the book’s frightening images and villains also lend it its greatest strength: this is not a story that shies away from big questions. The truth is that Hunter is not a good guy. He is a sinner who will find out just how deeply his own nature is capable of betraying him and those he loves. As I got deeper into the book, I found myself squirming a little because, the more I identified with Hunter, the more I had to recognize that I’m not a good guy either.

Hunter Brown deals with big issues. It lets us know that our world is in serious danger. It wrestles with questions of free will and Divine sovereignty. It reminds us of eternity.

“You see, Hunter, while there will be some who no longer play a role in the pages you travel, I can assure you those who have been rewritten will never truly die. No, they are at the beginning of a new and wonderful story, one in which there will be no ending, and every page is better and more beautiful than the one before.”

But the book isn’t all serious lessons and scary images — there’s a lot of George Lucas-style fun here, too. One of my favourite scenes involves iguas, giant lizard steeds that run up the trunks of redwood trees and leap from limb to limb while their riders, clipped into their saddles, hang on for dear life. Hunter is personable and often funny.

While young readers are liable to enjoy this story, writers may find themselves throwing fits over certain technique and editing issues (such as the inexplicable spelling of “reins” as “reigns,” done so ubiquitously that I second-guessed myself and checked the spelling to be sure it was wrong!). By the end of the first paragraph I was itching to grab a red pen (whatever happened to commas between independent clauses?). I hoped that the story would grab me enough to make up for this, and while I never stopped desiring to add commas, I found that it did.

Hunter Brown isn’t without its problems. It’s not great literature or seamless writing; not, as I said, Anne of Green Gables — but then, it’s not supposed to be. It’s supposed to be an engaging, exciting story that shares some powerful truths.

In that goal, it certainly succeeds.

One of my first thoughts when I picked up Hunter Brown and the Secret of the Shadow by the multitalented Miller Brothers was “Boy, reading sure has changed.” Nonfiction underwent the transformation years ago: a book is a Web site is a blog is a Wiki is a link to a whole lotta more information. Fiction is changing more slowly, but the Miller Brothers illustrate (both literally and figuratively) the way the arts and technology intersect in our culture. A book is a picture is a game is a Web site is a trailer is animation is a community.

Which, if you feel that a story is more than just the words that tell it, is pretty cool.

Hunter Brown, the first book in the Codebearers Series, looks like it’s supposed to be more than a book. The cover art and many of the interior illustrations are done in a computer graphics style by the Miller Brothers themselves, and their Web site features animations, desktop backgrounds, and trailers using the same artwork. The pages have that faux dirty look, and I was particularly drawn in by the notes and book pages within the book, complete with unique handwriting and symbols. There are definitely times when this book feels like it’s crossing over into reality!

But ultimately, that has less to do with the fact that you can become a Codebearer on the Web site or decode special messages in the book’s pages, and more to do with the fact that this edgy novel for kids and teens deals with some very big, very real spiritual issues. When Hunter sees a vision of his world as it really is, we get a glimpse of our world as it really is — and it gives whole new meaning to the phrase “You won’t believe your eyes.”

Tomorrow, I’ll review the book in depth. Wednesday, I plan to conduct an interview with the men behind the book — Christopher and Allan Miller, who besides being awfully talented guys are also homeschool graduates! In the meantime, I encourage you to check out their Web site, where you can read the book in its entirety, watch a trailer, become a Codebearer, and learn more about the brothers. Their blog is worth reading as well.

Here are this month’s tour links:

Brandon Barr
Keanan Brand
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Shane Deal
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Marcus Goodyear
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Ryan Heart
Timothy Hicks
Jason Isbell
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Magma
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
Wade Ogletree
John W. Otte
Steve Rice
Crista Richey
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
Jill Williamson

Many times I have read the writing advice, “If you’re going to be a writer, you just have to write — park yourself in a chair and write something every day, no matter how small” and nodded sagely, smug in the knowledge that I do that. I write. The park-self-in-chair method has worked rather well for me, producing over 14 book-length manuscripts (I haven’t counted recently), not including short stories or articles.

But lately that advice makes me squirm. I haven’t written in weeks. No nonfiction other than marketing letters and press releases for Hiding Place; certainly no fiction. Write for fun? It’s been ages. I am so busy doing writing-related work that I have no time to write!

(This blog is an obvious exception. It’s either keeping my skills whetted or stealing valuable fiction time — you judge which.)

For now, I’m going to take this as a season. Objectively speaking, my plate is heaped Everest-high, and it can be good to take a sabbatical from any discipline now and again. Objectively speaking, my plate will shrink back down to normal about mid-May. Then I will write again, and all these months of character-stretching work, ministry, and new experiences will have made me a better, more mature, more capable person, and that will spill over into my stories. I hope.

In the meantime, if you haven’t read any of my writing, there’s a lot of it on this site :). You can read Taerith,  a novel about a young wanderer at the crossroads of good and evil, in its entirety. Or check out Letters to a Samuel Generation, a collection of essays on walking with God. “Journey” is an allegory in the vein of Pilgrim’s Progress. Worlds Unseen, my first fantasy novel, is available for download as a PDF, as is Part One of Tales of the Heartily Homeschooled. Or, if you feel like supporting a starving artist, you can even buy books ;).

And if you do read any of the above? Please, leave me a comment and let me know. Even writers who aren’t writing love to know they’re being read.

One of the greatest things about truly classic stories is how well they lend themselves to being interpreted in more than one art form.  With every new form, artists can explore and enhance the themes of the story and communicate them to audiences in powerful new ways.

Right now, my days are doubly busy because I’m working to bring a classic true story to the Niagara region in the form of a ballet. The story is The Hiding Place, and in its own way, you could say the tale of Corrie and Betsie Ten Boom’s journey into the darkest places of the Holocaust is a reinterpretation, too — it’s a 20th century look at God’s age-old story of love, hope, and redemption in the midst of man’s greatest darkness.

The Hiding Place was written by Corrie Ten Boom in the early 70s. Since then, it has been made into a movie, performed as a play, and now given as a ballet. With its power to celebrate, mourn, and worship, I find dance an especially potent art form in which to convey such a heartrendingly, humbly awesome story.

Have a look at the event Web site to see what we’re doing to bring this story to Niagara (and if you’d like to help, you can donate or even buy tickets — we’d love to see you there!).

Coming next week — I’ll be looking at another reinterpretation of an old, old story: the tale of Arthur, king of the Britons, as told by Burns Family Studios. Pendragon is one of the most ambitious independent Christian films to date, and it was produced by a pair of homeschool families with the help of many an independent young creative like you and me. I plan to watch Pendragon with my own family tonight, and along with my review, I’ll be conducting an interview with Marilyn Burns. I’m excited!

This week’s “passage” is a movie, the first short from Lamplighter Publishing. In this “new dark age,” a few will defy the darkness. This is a must-see for everyone who uses words to shine light in our culture!

“With every word, with every page, with every story, we defy the darkness.”

Renae shares her top ten school supplies as she
hosts this week’s carnival of homeschooling:

http://lifenurturingeducation.com/2009/03/10/carnival-of-homeschooling-top-10-school-supplies-edition/

Check it out!

A cliche is a really good descriptive term — so good, in fact, that everyone uses it! You’re probably familiar with many of them. Run like lightning. Could hear a pin drop. Pitch black. Quick as a bird. (Or my favourite, “Quick like a bunny.”) Red with anger. Tall as a tree. Pretty as a picture. I’ll stop there :).

When you describe something, cliches will often come to mind first. They’re comfortable, like an old ratty pair of slippers, and in our minds they still retain signs of their less-ratty glory. But you don’t want to leave them in your writing. Your goal is to help readers see something as they have never seen it before — not to recall an old, stale image.

Cliches do have one excellent use, though: they can be great jumping-off points for more original description. Put a new twist on an old cliche, and see if you can come up with some new ways of seeing. If you’re up for a challenge, write a list of ten cliches. Then have fun unclicheing them!

Run like thunder, every step echoing in the still, damp air. Pin seemed to rattle like artillery on the floor. So dark the blackness felt like a sticky ooze. Dashed off like a duck for water. So angry his face gained red and white streaks like a Canadian flag. Tall and graceful like a birch among stumps. Pretty as an old picture, faded and a little wrinkled, but framing the past in her eyes.

Enjoy :).

Jim Cox of the Midwest Book Review, a publication which gives special consideration to small presses and self-publishers, sends out a monthly e-mail report. Last week, he recorded one of the strongest Februarys ever in the number of new books submitted for review. Seem strange, considering that we’re going through an economic recession? In Jim’s words, “How to explain this seemingly contradictory phenomena of the worse the economy gets the more small press books are getting published?”

Here are some of his thoughts:

Firstly, the publishing lists of the New York conglomerate publishers (the Simon & Schusters of the publishing world) are reducing their lists making it harder than ever for first time writers and mid-list authors to get published. So they are turning to smaller, regional, academic, and even POD
companies to get their works into print …. people getting laid off of white collar jobs are turning to writing and publishing as a means of making money because they now have the enforced leisure time to do so — and the already present computers and word processing softwares associated with ‘desk top publishing’ that make it fairly easy to carry out.

Add to that the proliferation of POD subsidy presses which are making it extremely easy for anyone to get into print, along with the comparatively low costs of publishing these days, and you have some good reasons for writers to write — and publish — in this day and age.

But what about readers? Will readers keep buying books, in print or electronically, when their wallets are tighter than usual? As a self-published author, this is a question of some importance to me. My own experience is encouraging, as my book sales so far are higher than they’ve ever been. But it’s still early to tell.

Last Tuesday I had the fun of going on JoJo Tabares’s Grace Talk Soup podcast and talking about writing and reading, among other things. Some of our discussion played off the “At Home with Christian Fiction”  interview she’d done the week before. We talked about reading as an escape — fiction as a place where readers can go to escape from the pressures of life, and hopefully come away ministered to in some way and made stronger. (You can still hear the both episodes — just scroll down and check out the “Past Episodes” list.)

I’m wondering if that need for escape — which increases when life is difficult, as during a recession — is good news for writers and publishers who are looking to reach new readers. What do you think?

Good morning everyone!

I’ll be on JoJo Tabares’s Internet radio show "Grace Talk Soup" today at 11:00 to talk about my testimony, my writing contest, and probably some other stuff as well. You can listen during the show or anytime afterward. Here’s the link:

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=19736

And if that wasn’t enough, my latest article, "Confessions of a Legalist," is up on Boundless:

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001986.cfm

Good evening gentle readers! Rather than posting a passage today, I wanted to remind you all that the deadline for the Book Review Contest is fast approaching. All entries must be turned in by March 15 to be eligible to win a copy of any of my books or one of our donated prizes.

Full details are here.

For some great examples of reviews that specifically address writing techniques, check out some of the latest posts from the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour.