A Refreshing Tale that Turns Stereotypes on Their Heads | The Shadow and Night (The Lamb Among the Stars,...

Science Fiction for the Christian | The Shadow and Night (The Lamb Among the Stars, Book 1) | Chris Walley

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	• The Shadow and Night (The Lamb Among the Stars, Book 1) Chris Walley Tyndale House Publishers, 2006 - 640 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

This one will really blow your mind...

I have travelled far in the realms of fantasy and sci-fi... to Narnia, Empyrion, Middle Earth, Byntar and Albion, but never have I journeyed so far away as this book has taken me. Nor does anything even come close to the distance we encounter in "The Shadow and Night". As I opened the book and read the first pages, the thought came to me: perhaps this is the story I have been waiting all my life to read - or the tale I have always wanted to write. Well, not quite. But darned close to it.

In the Year of Our Lord 13000, the Lord's Peace is about to come under attack. Over eleven thousand years have passed since the Great Intervention; since that time there have been no wars, indeed no evil at all among humans. The Assembly's far-flung colonies have been created from inhospitable planets over thousands of years of terraforming and atmospheric adjustments.

But I'm not just talking about physical or temporal distance. The people on these worlds are redeemed, almost unfallen, incapable of sin. Far-advanced technologies are a part of daily life, but not overbearingly; simple, useful concepts are a joy to behold, such as the personal diary: a computer, telephone, camera, journal, dictaphone all in one; and the perfection of the Internet to a virtual-reality library containing all the information in the known universe.

The most distant Made World is Farholme, six hundred light years from Earth. Merral, the forester, finds himself an unwilling fighter for the cause of good when he becomes aware of strange happenings at his uncle's farm. The array of characters surrounding Merral is headed by Verofaza, a visitor from Ancient Earth, sent to investigate reports of a possible threat at Farholme.

The sudden re-entry of evil to the universe is all the more terrible because no one has any experience to deal with it, whether on a global or personal level. Temptations go unrecognised at first, and negative feelings are puzzled over as unknowns. Clues to the impending threat are woven in from the beginning, almost utterly harmless to start with, but creeping in with unabated increase of the suspense factor.

The author is an advocate for "slow creation", in other words, God-designed evolution, as this is taken for granted by all the characters. In the story, evolution appears to have passed from being a theory and is presented as a proven fact.

Nonetheless, the writing and the story drew me in from the first page. Descriptions and characters are sharp and vivid, from sunsets to animals to spaceflight, and particularly the unknowing innocence of saintly heroes in the face of insidious evil. Yet they too must grow, and that is what they do.

I'm glad the two books are joined in one volume here, because the first, while ending at a quiet moment, provides no conclusion to the mystery of what is going on. That is the epic quality of these stories; there is no quick-fix solution anywhere to be seen, but at the same time the reader is dragged into a personal journey of unimaginable proportions.

In the second part, things get exciting. If the first part is gripping suspense, then the second is pumping adrenaline. A peaceful people must prepare for war, and the tale moves increasingly from sci-fi to include the realm of fantasy - but it fits. After all, in a tale at the very end of time I would consider it normal for angels and fallen angels to appear. It's like seeing a war from the inside, up close and personal, with all the emotional reactions of those involved.

Vero changes almost overnight from a timid graduate to a decisive army organiser, studying ancient war histories and pondering a good many Ancient English metaphors along the way. Of course they don't make much sense to him, but that doesn't stop him using them. There is also much telling revelation of the first-time soldiers' initial excitement at battle, followed by the grim horror of reality.

This book will make you think. It will shoot you into the far distant future and make it believable. And it will take you all the way back to the roots of evil, and the triumph of good. If you're anything like me, it will surprise you, shock you, and bring you to the edge of laughter and tears. You will see yourself in its pages, and you will be reminded of the almighty power of the Lamb among the stars. Certainly a most incredible feat of writing (it took me around fifteen hours to read!) - I look forward to getting hold of the next installment. Much more is yet to come for the people of Farholme.

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A Refreshing Tale that Turns Stereotypes on Their Heads

This edition of The Shadow and Night by Chris Walley, Ph.D., includes the first two books of his The Lamb Among the Stars series: The Shadow and Night and The Power of the Night. The series continues with The Dark Foundations and concludes with The Infinite Day.

In the Assembly of a thousand terraformed worlds are held together by instantaneous travel through interstellar gates, the reality of good and evil is not questioned--the Creator intervened in the course of human history ten thousand years before and banished evil from the lives of men and women.

But now evil returns.

And when Farholme's gate is destroyed, the remotest world is cut off from the safety of the Assembly. Suddenly, the people must battle an adversary thought long vanquished while confronting an alluring malevolence that springs from their hearts, minds, and souls.

Dr. Walley writes with an understated smoothness comparable to the style of a fellow British writer--H.G. Wells. His prose does not call attention to itself--this is not a cliff hanger--but page by page, he steadily builds story tension as every avenue of escape is cut off from his characters.

"They were separated by no more than twenty meters, and Merral could see the face clearly despite the shadows. It seemed to him that, despite its flattened appearance, the face was more human than ape. The large brown eyes seemed to stare at him, and Merral decided that if the face conveyed any emotion at all, it was of a cold intelligence and a determined and calculating hatred."

Most books in the SF genre depict stable societies as dystopias, be they theocratic, such as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, or secular, such as Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Social stability comes at the cost of human freedom and vibrant creativity. Particularly in the America, the bureaucratic State has been personified as the villain, and the hero becomes the lone ranger who fights against unforgiving societal rigidity.

Dr. Walley turns this story tradition on its head. What if a truly good and stable society were to arise that did not sell its soul in a Faustian Bargain? What if the people were so unpretentiously sublime that they did not know they were good? Where would pride or boasting be? What appeals to me most about this story is that Dr. Walley pulls off these tricky themes without any insincere preachiness directed at the reader. The characters act because of who they are, not because Dr. Walley has a point he wants to make.

And into this world, evil comes. Night falls. How can mere men and women survive?

"We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the World." John 9:4-5

Highly Recommended

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Science Fiction for the Christian

I have finished the first of the two books included under this one cover. I was more than pleasantly surprised. Chris Walley has done a phenomenal job combining Christian eschatology with well written science fiction. The only drawback to this series is that it is keeping me up late at night when I should be sleeping. I can't wait to get my hands on the next book.

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Right up there with Ted Dekker

I echo all the other reviews. Note there are only 5 stars to date! I found this as good as Ted Dekker's circle series. Ted has more adventure along the way, but this story has thought provoking dialog, stuff that makes you think. Chris has very thoughtfully come up with a unique society, far more creatively than most fantasy writers. This is great science/fantasy fiction. There is romance too.

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Awesome!

I really don't have much more to add to the other reviews. I just whole heartedly agree! I have been counting the days since summer 07 until the last book in the series, The Infinite Day, is published in June '08.

In the spirit of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lamb among the Stars series weaves the worlds of science and the spirit, technology and supernatural into something unique and haunting. On the faraway planet of Farholme, humans live in peace under the gentle rule of the Assembly. War and evil are ancient history. But suddenly, almost imperceptibly, things begin to change. Slowly a handful of men and women begin to realize that evil has returned and it must be fought.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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