The Skin Map

"The Skin Map" (Stephen Lawhead)(audio) - This book was provided for me by the publisher.

The Skin Map is the first book in a series very much like Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia".  You can also compare it to the purely secular "Merchant Princes" (Charles Stross).

The world is like our own, but there are "ley lines" which provide access to alternate Earths.  Like most alternate Earth settings, some worlds are behind in time (although, apparently you cannot move to a world ahead of your own time).

The main character is a young man (Kit Livingston), who has not made much of his life.  Kit is coming to that conclusion himself when everything changes.

The story follows Kit, his girlfriend, Kit's grandfather, and a mysterious man - who has the "skin map" tattooed on his person (as a flashback).


The ending is somewhat of a cliffhanger, but the book is satisfying in itself.




In the audio format, it is very accessible.  The reader has a soft, pleasant, English accent and the pace is steady (not too fast or slow).  His inflection is well modulated to indicate different speakers, with unique voices for all the characters.  There are only four or five tracks per CD, so if your player has trouble keeping your current place you might have some difficulties getting back to where you left off.

That covers the basic outline, but how does it look from a Christian perspective?

First, anyone who has problems with magic, or druidic sorts of things will not be happy.  Things like Stonehenge and ancient mounds form the basis of Kit's "ley line" travel.  It is really pretty time, in my view, but I want to give fair warning for the sensitive conscience.

Second, I didn't really see anything that promotes or encourages a Christian worldview, nor any Christian themes.  Again, that's not a problem for me.  It is much like Tolkien or Lewis.

Finally, I am most grateful that it is lacking in the gratuitous sex and course language that permeates most authors today.  I did notice one weird usage of part of Numbers 22:21 (KJV) ;)


Overall, I prefer Lawhead to Stross ("Merchant Princes").  It promises to be an interesting and well done series, and I will definitely read the next book.

Pro-life Failure

Excellent post from Al Mohler.

"Voters in what is believed to be the most pro-life state in the union overwhelmingly voted down a statement that declared personhood for every human being from the moment of fertilization onward. The horrifying reality is this — the scare tactics used by abortion rights activists included some truths that even pro-lifers evidently do not embrace."

I often wonder why our politicians do not do something about the life issue, it seems they are actually representative of the people...

What is Christian Fiction?

I'm into disc 8 (of 9) of "The Skin Map".  This has led me to think about "Christian Fiction", which is what it is labeled as...

Several possibilities:

1. Written for Christians
2. Written by a Christian
3. Written from a Christian worldview (hopefully goes with #2)
4. Written to promote Christianity

This is not an area I have a lot of experience with.  A good second hand account is "The Shack", which many people permitted because "it's just fiction".  However, it was written from the point of view of aberrant theology - so it is hard to see any way it can be called "Christian" (unless you mean #1 or 2).

The only examples I can think of that I have read are the Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis, and the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) books by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Both authors are Christian (as much as we can tell).  Not theologians, or rock solid on every doctrine, but seemed to hold the faith until the end.

The Space Trilogy seems to appeal to Christians more than non-Christians, and is reasonably consistent with the Christian worldview (although, more allegorical than literal).


But what about LOTR?

There are actually a lot of Christian themes in the books.  However, when I read them, I didn't see them (they are not explicit).  Furthermore, Tolkien pretty much created the whole industry for high fantasy (D&D, etc.) - which many Christians oppose.


I'm not sure where to place The Skin Map.  It is certainly not overtly Christian, but that cannot be seen for sure until the conclusion.  It is fairly Molinist so far, which is where a lot of Christians are... (although I would consider it heterodox, and potentially dangerous).

The End of Jobs

(continuing my series on economics)

Finally getting around to another news article which triggered this whole thing...

He has many insightful points.  It reminds me of thoughts I had when I first read about nanotechnology (Drexler's "Engines of Creation") - that there could come a time of "vacation for everyone".  This is the world of Star Trek (particularly Next Generation) - fantasy twenty or thirty years ago, now suddenly upon us.

"And so the president goes on television telling us that the big issue of our time is jobs, jobs, jobs -- as if the reason to build high-speed rails and fix bridges is to put people back to work. But it seems to me there's something backwards in that logic. I find myself wondering if we may be accepting a premise that deserves to be questioned... Our problem is not that we don't have enough stuff -- it's that we don't have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff." (emphasis added)

This captures the problem succinctly.

Economics is the science of managing scarcity.  As an engineer, I like to think the purpose of engineering is to make more stuff more efficiently, and to make jobs obsolete (even our own).

This is the goal, but we operate under the assumption that it can never be attained (like an asymptote).  Further, we expected much greater heights (a space faring civilization).  Now it seems we have peaked sooner.

The problem is twofold:
1) (As seen by Drexler) The frightening conclusion is that the wealthy can simply eliminate the underclasses (who are no longer needed to sustain them).  Or similarly, the underclasses eliminate the wealthy (and probably start in on each other).  If you only need a handful of people to run the economy, eliminate the rest.  (This is why even atheists should be against abortion, on principle).

2) We have no path from here to there.  We have 1% of the people with most of the wealth.  We still have some jobs that have to get done that people don't want to do.  We have little or no (or mostly negative) science, experience, and skill in distributing things needed and requiring things get done apart from the system of jobs and money.

The Mind of God

"The Mind of God" (Paul Davies) - I seem to recall the name Davies in Christian apologetics.  Hopefully, it is referring to some other Davies, but this was not really solidly Christian.

The book is fairly short (232 pages to end notes), but took me a long time to get through.  It is basically a survey of different cosmologies, with some of the history.  Davies is never really clear on which he favors.

He does make some things clear:

1. The Bible is not to be taken seriously in matters of origins
2. Evolution is true
3. He has faith that mankind can come up with all the answers

 His openness towards mysticism was probably the most disappointing.  I will probably do a separate post for that.

New Review Coming

You know you're taking too long for a review when the company goes through a name change and it still takes you a year to get your review done :)

The Nelson Blogger Book Review program is now under the Book Sneeze name.

I became eligible for a new book as soon as my review for the last one was done, but I had held off.  I am behind on my reading, and I wasn't sure what to read next.

Then I received notice of a new audio book available: "The Skin Map".

This should be ideal.  It is Christian fiction, which I have read very little of, but would like to read more.  And it is audio, so I can listen to it during my commute, without interfering with all the other reading I need to do...

Orthodox Study Bible

(finishing my (three year!) review of the Orthodox Study Bible)

This has been the hardest part to write...

The Orthodox Study Bible is very beautiful, and filled with insight into the Eastern traditions.  The English translation of the LXX is very interesting.  It is certainly an excellent resource for those in Eastern rite churches.

My worry is for shaky Evangelical Protestants, who will see many Roman Catholic traditions fortified in these pages.  The Eastern view of Mary is very much in line with the RCC view (possibly even more extreme, if that is possible).  It saddens me that the Orthodox view Protestants as a branch of the Roman church, further from themselves, rather than closer to the teachings of the apostles.