Skin

          What would you do if you were in an oppressive cult that would beat you if you touched an outsider? I’ll tell you what Wendy Davidson did… She escaped. It’s been seven years since she broke free from the bonds of domination and she’s trying to make a new life. When the thriller/horror called Skin opens, this is where we find her. She’s headed east across the country to meet her mother, the rain is pouring and she just wants to reach the next town so she can bed down for the night. But there’s more to Summerville than meets the eye.

            Colt Jackson is a member of the Summerville Police Department, answering a 911 call about a gunman on the loose in the middle of town. Carey Schultz is trying to get his sister Nicole to the Summerville Hospital to get her snake bite treated. And Jerry Pinkus? Well, Jerry Pinkus hasn’t come into the story…yet. A triple-tornado is about to touchdown in Summerville and everyone is trying to get to safety. Through a series of fortunately unfortunate events, Colt, Wendy, Carey, and Nicole find themselves in a house above the city, trying to outlast the storm. But, in the morning, when they come outside, they find that something disastrous has happened… the town, all of it, is gone. The only thing that can be seen for miles is desert, plain desert. Well, that and the house and adjoining library. A fallen electric line stops them from going towards where the town was and there isn’t much point going anywhere else. Suddenly, the library door flings open and out runs a twenty-something year-old gamer, one called Jerry Pinkus. Jerry is missing his right index finger at the second knuckle. So, now they are a group of five strangers, stranded in the middle of nowhere, when, to add to the mix, the gunman shows up. Turns out he’s a sadistic killer bent on ridding the world of ugliness. Soon, they are faced with the decision of killing one in their number or all dying. Neither choice is picked. Next thing they know, the town is back. The story begins to quicken as the town continues to vanish, and then reappear as if on a whim. And, to make matters worse, the killer knows who they are… like really knows. The quintet begins to balk and accuse one another of being the killer, wondering how this psycho, this Sterling Red can know so much about all of them, when none of them know him. Or do they?

            Skin, written by Ted Dekker, is a page turner for sure, and, although there many unexpected turns, the craziest plot twist is saved for the very end… the very, very end. I would recommend this book to the older crowd as it deals with a sadistic killer. The point is, beauty is not skin deep, and everyone is ugly. Ugly with sin… but there is a cure for ugliness. 

Forbidden

                Forbidden, by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee, is an intense, futuristic thriller about a man named Rom, his three friends and a dead world. Dekker and Lee do a fantastic job of keeping the reader’s fingers busy… meaning; this book is quite a page turner. Although set over five hundred years in the future, they paint the world as not having changed much. It almost seems more Victorian then modern.

            Rom is a young, handsome funeral singer. He has never known love, hate, or any other emotion because he is emotionless. But then so is everyone else on planet earth. The story goes that, in 2005, scientists found the DNA chemical that creates the emotion of fear. Over the next few years, they similarly found the chemicals that made up every other emotion that a human feels. A nuclear war broke out and thousands were killed, so the scientists realized the only way to save the human race from annihilation was to rid it of emotion. They released an airborne virus into the atmosphere that stripped humanity of all emotion… except for fear.

            On a certain overcast day, Rom is making his way home from a funeral when he finds an old man, or rather, an old man finds him. He gives Rom a package and tells him to take it and find a man called the Book. Before Rom can ask any questions, the man is killed by some police officers. Horrified, he runs for his life, not thinking that all will be well if he just gave the package up. When he arrives home, his mother asks why he has blood on him so he tells her what happened. She becomes equally scared and tells him to take it in, but he counters that, because he ran, they will still kill him. The argument is cut short when the police show up at the house. He runs, but not before he sees them but his mother’s throat. Running out of options for safety, he goes to his friend, Avra’s, house. He asks her to help him and she agrees. They run and in a church where Avra asks him what is in the package. Realizing that he doesn’t yet know, they open it and find a vial of blood wrapped in leather, which is covered in writing. The writing tells them that in drinking the blood, they will find life. Rom takes the vial, seeing that there is nothing left to lose, and drinks a portion of it. The energy that courses through him is so powerful that he passes out. While he is unconscious, Avra also drinks a portion of the blood and she collapses under the force of life. When they wake, they realize that they really never were alive and that the whole world is dead. Two more of their friends drink some of the blood and the foursome begin to uncover the past… in order to save the present and restore life to a dead race.

            With many twists and turns along the way, this book is virtually impossible to put down. Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee have written this in such a wonderful way that it is gripping yet not just entertaining. Smoothly woven into this novel is biblical imagery and beautiful description. The most interesting part is describing what emotion is like from the perspective of one who has just found it. I would recommend this book to a more mature audience because of the graphic nature of the murders and a detailed (rather bloody) fight sequence.

Immanuel's Veins

Over the next few blog posts, I am going to post book reports that I have written. Here's the first...
Oh, and normally people save the best for last  but I can't, this is one of the BEST books ever written... ever. (Not counting the Bible, of course)

Immanuel's Veins 

            In the fictional tale, Immanuel’s Veins, author Ted Dekker explores the reason for the Cross in a roundabout way. Although I have had great pleasure in reading Dekker’s other novel’s,  I thoroughly enjoyed this story better than any other I have read. The amazingly weaved plot, spectacular imagery,  and the presentation of the gospel are the work of master wordsmith.

            Immanuel’s Veins takes place in Moldavia, in the late 1700s, following the character Toma Nicolescu and his companion. Toma is a soldier in Catherine the Great’s army and has been sent with his companion, Alek Cardei, to guard the Cantemir sisters. Against orders, Toma falls in love with Lucine, one of the sisters, but struggles between love and duty, knowing that he must fulfill the latter. Then, a suitor, Vlad van Valerik seeks Lucine’s hand, but neither she, nor Toma, feels comfortable around him. But, as Lucine feelings toward Vlad change, Toma is left at war with himself. Knowing that he loves her, he questions his motives for trying to expose Vlad. Is it jealousy or duty that is prodding him? What will he do now?

            Many of Ted Dekker’s books are dark. When asked about this, he said, “When you are trying to reach a culture that has watered down the line between good and evil, you need to paint evil with a very dark brush,” and Immanuel’s Veins doesn’t part from this trend. The plot doesn’t take as many twists and turns as he is known for writing, but that doesn’t make it  inferior to his other novels. He uses both first and third person as he penned this masterpiece.  The descriptions he presents are well-worded and not trite, “…now hot fingers snaked through her body, tingling and burning along her wounds, and then, deeper, through her veins to her extremities like molten lava finding its way through cracks and down narrow channels. It burned her fingers and her toes and it made her face hot.” Combined with these two elements of professional story writing, he presented the gospel as well, “All of the blood sacrifices, which I had always considered barbarous, suddenly made sense. That blood, however symbolic on the altar, had true power as much as evil had manifested itself in the blood of this beast. Surely this is why the Christ had bled out on that cross of torture. Not for a religion, not for Christianity or orthodoxy, but for the heart of man.”

            In conclusion, it is in my opinion that Immanuel’s Veins is a masterpiece composed of epic plot, skillful description, and beautiful gospel. I believe that it will become a classic among Christians, if not the world.