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.
Thanks for doing this, it was briliant! (And I feel for you, getting through must have been tough)
But I mostly wanted to point out that Narnia books probably aren’t as great as you think, I’ve loved them as a child and recently I’ve found Ana Mardoll’s deconstruction of the series… and oh boy. I really erased from my brain/just didn’t notice a lot of bad stuff in these books. Seriously, you should read them again or check out Ana’s website.
Also: I’m kinda sad that “The War In Heaven” was that bad (I knew it was going to be like this bc Vox Day, but ehhh) because books about angels have a lot of potential… especially if the person writing them isn’t that much into christianity side of things. For example, in my country we have a series of really popular fantasy books about angels where God has basically disappeared one day leaving his Seraphim in charge (or rather they decided that they are in charge) and everything is really grey, the “good” angels are not any better than most “bad” angels and everyone is confused. And angels shoot guns. And Lucipher never wanted to be a ruler or a chief rebel, but he complained and then things got out of hand. And lake of fire is a popular holiday resort. Also, everyone has anime hair colours. General awesomeness all around. Of course, Vox Day could never write anything as good.