This book was given to me for Christmas this past year. I had been wanting to read it for awhile, partly because Randy Alcorn wrote it, but mostly because my brother lives in China and I am interested in the religious climate there and the persecuted Chinese church.
On recent flights to and from the east coast, I had time to read the whole thing. It was an engaging story, but not my favorite Alcorn work. A few years ago I reviewed his book Heaven on this site, a book that I loved and intend to reread. I think I have decided that I enjoy Alcorn's nonfiction more than his novels (I've also read Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments and his novels Deadline, Dominion, Lord Foulgrin's Letters and The Ishbane Conspiracy). Not that his novels aren't fun to read, but they lack the style and quality of my preferred works of fiction--i.e., the classics.
Still, it was a good book. It contained Alcorn's signature feature of concurrently telling what is going on in heaven while the events in the story are unfolding on earth. I have no idea how accurate the story is as far as what is actually happening in China, and I think that was my biggest distraction. Because Alcorn is not able to reveal the source(s) of his information, the reader occasionally questions whether Alcorn has any idea what he is talking about. I also found the backstory highly improbable and random: Harvard graduate/east coast native relocates to Portland, Oregon and works his way up the corporate ladder to a V.P. position with a big-shot microchip company that is putting all its efforts into marketing in China. It just seemed like a strange way to get the protagonist to China in the first place. I also thought too much of the dialogue was contrived; I sometimes felt like the characters were reading a script instead of conversing naturally. But in spite of all that, I still enjoyed the story and I finished it in a matter of days, which is a good sign. :)
On recent flights to and from the east coast, I had time to read the whole thing. It was an engaging story, but not my favorite Alcorn work. A few years ago I reviewed his book Heaven on this site, a book that I loved and intend to reread. I think I have decided that I enjoy Alcorn's nonfiction more than his novels (I've also read Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments and his novels Deadline, Dominion, Lord Foulgrin's Letters and The Ishbane Conspiracy). Not that his novels aren't fun to read, but they lack the style and quality of my preferred works of fiction--i.e., the classics.
Still, it was a good book. It contained Alcorn's signature feature of concurrently telling what is going on in heaven while the events in the story are unfolding on earth. I have no idea how accurate the story is as far as what is actually happening in China, and I think that was my biggest distraction. Because Alcorn is not able to reveal the source(s) of his information, the reader occasionally questions whether Alcorn has any idea what he is talking about. I also found the backstory highly improbable and random: Harvard graduate/east coast native relocates to Portland, Oregon and works his way up the corporate ladder to a V.P. position with a big-shot microchip company that is putting all its efforts into marketing in China. It just seemed like a strange way to get the protagonist to China in the first place. I also thought too much of the dialogue was contrived; I sometimes felt like the characters were reading a script instead of conversing naturally. But in spite of all that, I still enjoyed the story and I finished it in a matter of days, which is a good sign. :)
1 comment:
you know, I read that book, and it really hit me on a deep level - but I don't even remember the main character. I only remember the Chinese character... huh. that's interesting.
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