Imagine this book in the middle of that explosion. Oh yes. That’s a lovely mental image.
I’m going to hold that in my head as I read the second book in this series next month and as I read Summa Elvetica in October. Why, you ask? Because this project has managed to raise $5,125 dollars for RAINN and other organizations doing similar kinds of work and, well, I apparently like pain.
#readingVD Doo da da doo doo…https://t.co/Pt8zREZt5y
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 5, 2015
#readingVD *cracks knuckles* Only ten more pages to go. LET'S DO THIS THING.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
Chapter 29: I’ll Be Watching You
#readingVD Chapter 29: I'll Be Watching You. Epigraph from Galatians.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD that's not a creepy-ass chapter title at ALL
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Chris wakes up in bed, grateful he closed the shades because he's got a HELL of a hangover.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD okay, not really but that would have been awesome.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD He's been awoken by a persistent knocking at the door. It's Jami. She wants to go to church. The one in the school.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Wait a minute. How did it get to be Sunday. Wasn't it Wednesday earlier? With the weeknight service?
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Anyhow, Chris doesn't want to go to church. Jami is disappointed, but doesn't get sharp with him.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD So Chris goes back to sleep and as he drifts, half-asleep, Melusine shows up and smooches him.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD that wakes him up in a way his sister and Jesus just can't.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Melusine is still as hot as ever with her horns, crimson hair, and seductive curves.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Chris is annoyed but kind of happy to see her.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Melusine acknowledges that they're on different sides for now, but reminds Chris that Kawm and Lucifer haven't forgotten him.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Melusine is tempting Chris with the power he had while serving the devil but then he sees what she's trying to do!
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and he grows a backbone and kicks her out! She won't leave! She taunts him! He prays her away!
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Then Mariel shows up! And tells Chris he needs to arm himself! By reading the Bible!
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and Chris can't properly arm himself if he is also concerned with what other people think of him!
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD then Mariel does a slow fade and…Chris goes to church.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD he manages to find his sisters in the throng of 700 people who go to this elementary school church.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and Jami is just SO HAPPY and Holli sees and ARMY OF ANGELS in gymnasium.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD And then they all sing.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD THE END. (well, still the author's note to go. but that's it for the story.)
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
Yawn.
Author’s Note
#readingVD Author's Note. No epigraph.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD the first sentence of this is a claim that the invisible world of spirits described in the book is real.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Just like gravity is real, so are angels and demons. This is an analogy that Beale makes.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD The central theme of this book is supposed to be the question of evil and how we respond to it.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD with a lot of bad prose and turgid homoerotic descriptions, apparently.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Us modern folks have a hard time admitting that evil is a thing! And that people who do evil are CONSCIOUS AGENTS OF SAID EVIL.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD so let us look at Theodore Beale's recent actions through the lens he himself has described.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD or let's not because I think we all know that he is, at best, a Jerkbutt. And goes downhill from there, fast.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Sin is beautiful seductive, and always always entertaining. So I guess this book isn't sinful because it wasn't entertaining?
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and we're all sinners in the hands of an angry God
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD aha, now we get to the part where Beale talks about how he wholeheartedly embraced a sinful lifestyle.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and that this is why he has concentrated on the question of evil in this novel.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Up until 4 years before this book (1999, so 1995), Beale was not a Christian.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD This is despite the fact that he appears to have been raised in a fundamentalist home (his dad worked for Pat Robertson).
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD I expect Beale would say that he was just pretending up until 1995 or something.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD until he got Jesus, Beale claims to have been living what the world considers an ideal lifestyle.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Which is totally defined by Hollywood: the car you drive, how hot your dates are, and how happy you feel.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD this is a weird way to define ideal lifestyle but okay whatever, man-child.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Beale found all this really boring and he craved more excitement and more thrills. Again, let's not look at recent events.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD When Beale compared his life to his friends who were Christian, he knew he had to make a decision.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD because he'd seen positive changes in their lives.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD so this is totally like picking a team? Beale became a Christian because he envied what his friends had?
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Beale has another friend who doesn't understand how a loving God can send anyone to hell.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD But Beale knows that hell is our natural destination bc we are drowning in a sea of sin & self-destruction.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD OKAY THEN.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD but we can all get out of that sea of sin by grabbing onto the Jesus lifeline!
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD HOWEVER–it's just not enough to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you have to fight against the forces of evil!
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD I am having a hard time reconciling this kind of earnest author's note with, well, the spittle-flecked crap Beale spews now.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD the EARTH IS A BATTLEFIELD, y'all. (Didn't L. Ron write that series already?)
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Beale closes out this author's note by making some book recs for non-believers.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD first one is Greg Boyd's Letters from a Skeptic which sounds a little inspired by Gosse's Father and Son.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and the second book recommended is CS Lewis's Mere Christianity and this makes me sad because I mostly like that one.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD also the Narnia books are brilliant, y'all.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD then there's a plug for the website associated with this book which still exists in the wayback machine.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD So if folks want to peruse or read some Really Terrible Poetry: https://t.co/aOLahkz5pm
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD I'll note that the bad poetry and religious stuff is on earlier iterations of the site.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD but most of all, of course, Beale recommends one read the Bible. He likes the NIV translation the best.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and the book closes out with Beale's hope that God blesses and protects the reader.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and with that, it's a wrap. Over 60 donors, entirely too many tweets, and over $5,000 raised to help combat sex abuse.
— Natalie Luhrs is a Hugo Finalist! (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
THE END.
