November 18th, 2009

Day 3, whoohoo!

The Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour has had a great week promoting THE CURSE OF THE SPIDER KING (COTSK), a new novel written by Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper.

If you are coming to this review but haven’t read my previous one’s, you can find them here:

• Day One — an EXCELLENT book.
• Day Two — a few trifling points of improvement.

Anyway, today I want to cover the Spiritual aspects. There could be some minor plot spoilers below. Click to read on.

Follow up:

Ellos Is Clearly God

In the beginning of the book, a few character talk about “Ellos” as if he were the God of their world. A secular kid might think this is polytheism—each world has its own God, but…

Later, Anna, a Sentinal, says this to Kat:

“Kat, you’ve no doubt been wounded by very mean and shallow people … people who don’t realize how beautiful differences are. In Allyra you don’t need to worry about such things. You know, we have a saying in our home world: ‘Ellos cares not for garments, flesh, or any outward thing. Ellos cares for the heart.’”

“Ellos?”

“It is our favorite name for God.”

Therefore, Ellos is established clearly as the single, one God of this world, as well as the Elven world.

The Clever Use Of Scripture

Not only do Wayne and Chris include references to God, but they have included a direct reference to John 1:5 (ESV) and John 3:19. In the passage below, elves are fighting against a Wips—a shape-shifting smoke creature—and it can only be killed by reciting the Word of God:

Travin laughed. “‘Hear the words light. Light has come into the world, and the darkness has not overcome it’–that was very dramatic, don’t you think, Vendar?”

“Using the words of Ellos, our mighty God, is the only way to inflict harm on a Wisp.”

“Still, you gave quite a speech!”

“Laugh if you want, Travin, but once you’ve dealt iwtha Wisp youself, you won’t be so smug.”

“Smug? Nay. I feared for my life! …

This happens another time, too, when Mrs. Finney dispatches an assassin Wisp at a school right before he kills her.

Dependence On God Is Shown

Besides the Sentinals, Kiri Lee emerges as the most spiritually minded character. She prays or thanks God three times. Once, she even quotes some long scripture from Romans 8.

Powerful stuff, and fit in so naturally that you hardly notice it.

Setup For Later Books

Even though the references to God is fairly frequent in this book, other deeper spiritual themes are missing.

But I fully expect Wayne and Christopher to hit harder on deeper things in future installments in the series.

Having setup a dependence on God, it is only a matter of time before one of the main characters starts thinking more about serious issues, and themes emerge that communicate the basic truths of the gospel.

My Son’s “Curse Of The Spider King” Book Trailer

Along with Jon Maiocco and Christian Miles, Leighton is putting together a book trailer that will incorporate 3D CGI elements. Here is a 3D render of the spider my son has created:

Cool and scary, eh?