Eternal Life explored in “Beckon” – CSFF Day 1

Welcome to another edition of the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour!  To find out more about it, please visit here.

If you’re stopping by for #WriteMotivation, I’ll have that update posted on Thursday this week (CSFF will be from today-Wednesday).  Also, would everyone visiting do me a HUGE favor, and go look at my poll for some possible book titles?  I just want opinions .  The more, the merrier!

This month’s book is Beckon by Tom Pawlik.

The back of the book:

Some things weren’t meant to be discovered.  But once they’re unleashed, there’s no turning back.
Beneath the town of Beckon, a terror hides, lurking in the darkness.  Waiting.

Three people are drawn to the small Wyoming town for very different reasons.  Anthropologist Jack Kendrick comes looking for clues to his father’s disappearance.  Police officer Elina Gutierrez arrives in the near-deserted town on the trail of her missing cousin.  And George Wilcox is lured by the promise of a cure for his wife’s illness.

All are looking for answers.  But as they draw closer to discovering the town’s chilling secret, the real question becomes. . .

Will their quest uncover a miracle, or release an unspeakable evil?

It may just be me, but Beckon reminded me of the anime/manga Fullmetal Alchemist (I haven’t actually read the manga, just watched both anime series, and I like Brotherhood better).

There were a few parallels.

Lost fathers . . . eternal life . . . bad guys who supposedly couldn’t be killed . . .

Yeah.

What really made me think of Fullmetal Alchemist was the way eternal life is gained in Beckon.

If you’ve watched or read FMA, you’re familiar with something known as the philosopher’s stone (which is a historical term as well, back when people actually tried to turn lead into gold).  In FMA, the premise is that this stone allows an alchemist to do alchemy without having to account for equivalent exchange (what is being ‘transmuted’ must be equal to the original object).  Human transmutation is forbidden because you can’t measure the worth of a human soul.

A philosopher’s stone is only made through human transmutation, though – it is a stone that holds human souls in it, thus giving the wielder limitless power and/or “eternal” life, depending on how they utilize it.

In Beckon, eternal life is also gained through the souls of other people, but it has to be ‘taken’ daily.  People are drawn into the cult by being promised cures for incurable diseases.  In this book, Miriam and her husband are offered a cure for Alzheimer’s without being told of the other ‘side effect’.

What if you were promised a cure for an incurable disease, but not told that it would also increase your lifespan as long as you took it, and reverse the aging process?

I think that I would be horrified.  To find out suddenly that I may be completely healthy, but I’m going to not age anymore (and potentially look younger – this would be a big problem for me.  I turn 27 next week, and last summer someone asked me what grade I was in *headdesk*), and I’m going to watch everyone I love die? What a mind trip.

But that also begs the question – what would make eternal life worth it? I know what my answer is, but I want to hear yours!

To buy the book on Amazon, just click on the picture of the book above.
To find out more about Tom Pawlik, please visit his: Website   Blog   Facebook page   Twitter

And, since CSFF is a blog tour, please visit the other participants!

Noah Arsenault
Julie Bihn
Thomas Clayton Booher
Thomas Fletcher Booher
Beckie Burnham
Brenda Castro
Theresa Dunlap
Nikole Hahn
Ryan Heart
Bruce Hennigan
Janeen Ippolito
Becky Jesse
Jason Joyner
Carol Keen
Leighton
Rebekah Loper
Katie McCurdy
Shannon McDermott
Karen McSpadden
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
Joan Nienhuis
Faye Oygard
Crista Richey
Kathleen Smith
Jessica Thomas
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Shane Werlinger

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Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in cooperation with the CSFF Blog Tour.

 

One Year Blogaversary – A Look Back

One year ago today, I made my first post on this blog.

I had no idea how much it would grow and evolve!  I remember thinking, If I have a thousand views in six months, I’ll be so happy!

Well, I’ve definitely surpassed that.  I have averaged a little over 1000 views per month throughout the year – some have been vastly higher, and some much lower.

I was thrilled when I got my first subscribers that weren’t my real-life friends.  Momfog was one of the first, and I’m glad that she still pops by every now and then.  She always makes me smile.

I’ve met many other wonderful people, like Tameri Etherton, Christy Farmer, Jessica Therrien, and KT Hanna.  This is just a small sampling!

I have almost 160 subscribers right now (ignore the number in the sidebar – WordPress counts all my Twitter followers too *rolls eyes*).  I’m in awe that all of you think I have something worthwhile to say every now and then!

I joined Twitter. THAT has been an adventure.

I ran a story contest – which I have vowed never to do again.  Or at least not until I’m much better at time management.

I documented an entire NaNoWriMo with day-to-day updates, even when those didn’t actually happen daily.

It’s been amazing year.

Here’s to another!

 

Fulfilling Your Purpose – Sunday Devotional

. . . I heard the voice of the Lord, saying,
Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?
Then said I, Here am I; send me.
~ Isaiah 6:8 KJV

Everyone has a story to tell, a purpose to fulfill, that is placed there by God.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you . . .”
~ Jeremiah 1:5 NKJV

Webster’s 1828 Dictionary has several appropriate meanings for the word “sanctify” (if you haven’t been raised in a church or religious organization, you may not have ever heard this word).

It means:

To set apart for a holy or sacred use.

To prepare for divine service.

To cleanse from corruption.

But what does this have to do with writing?

If you’re a Christian, then nothing you do is just for the sake of “doing it”.

And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus . . . and whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of inheritance . . .
~ Colossians 3:17a, 23-24a

Essentially, if you call yourself a Christian, everything you do, say, or write is under scrutiny – both by the world, and by God.  There is no reward from the world, but God offers everlasting rewards to those who answer His call.

The written lasts for generations, after all. Are you writing what you want to reflect on your name and on God’s name?

And are you living up to the potential He placed within you before you were even born?

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Quick Poll – Help me decide a title!

If you want to read more about this story, you can find it here.  For reference: this is a fantasy story with romantic elements, and it will be upper-YA/New Adult genre.

 

The Last Keeper Blog Tour – Author Interview with Michelle Birbeck

Hi everyone, welcome back for one of the last stops on Michelle Birbeck’s blog tour for her new release, The Last Keeper!  Today, we have Michelle herself here for an interview, so pull up a chair and grab a cup of tea!

RL: Hi Michelle, thank you for being here today!  Congratulations on your first book – I’m sure this a thrill you’ve been anticipating for a while.  Will you tell us a little about your inspiration for this story?

I suppose it started when I was still in school and read my first supernatural books, the Nightworld Series by LJ Smith. Since then I’ve read everything I’ve come across and been fascinated by supernatural creatures. But then I got to thinking about why they’re all so strong and fast and yet hiding in the shadows. It got me thinking what if there was a reason they stayed there? What if they didn’t want to be there but there was something stopping them from simply taking over the rest of the world. And if there was something like that, how would they do it? What sort of being would they be and what sort of abilities would they have to do such a thing? Then as the story progressed in my mind and I started putting the pieces of it together, I wondered what lengths the vampires and other supernatural creatures would go to in order to break that hold someone else had on them.

RL: Vampires are obviously the ‘it’ of fiction right now, though much of the time they’re being portrayed as the good guys.  In The Last Keeper, they play the role of the bad guy.  What factors played into your decision to have the vampires and the Keepers in conflict with each other?

My vampires are generally psychopaths. Some of them deal with it a lot better than others, and a couple of them are exceptions, but in general, they’re all a bit crazy. Kind of like the axe murderer next door who everyone said was such a sweet guy. They can be sweet and seem like the nice guys on occasion, but really they’re almost always plotting how to kill everyone. And that sort of mindset doesn’t like being repressed, by anyone. So it seemed only natural to me to have them fight with everything they have against what the Keepers are trying to do. Of course, for the most part the vampires don’t see why it’s right for them to stay in the shadows.

RL: How did you develop the race of the Keepers? Which came first for you, the Keepers or the vampires?

The Keepers came first. After I decided what they could do, I went to work on the mythologies behind the vampires, witches, and Weres. I didn’t want to do something that had already been done, but at the same time I wanted to incorporate some of the common aspects that everyone would recognise about the races. So I took what I knew, l looked at the world the Keepers had created, and then altered the races so that everything fit and was a combination of traditional and my own.

RL: True love and soul mates play a major part into the plot – when a Keeper finds their mate, they call them a weakness.  Would you tell us some about that idea and how you came up with it?  What will it mean for Serenity?

Every race and character has to have a weakness. None of them can be perfect. And what more profound weakness can you get than the one person you fall in love with? Love makes everyone do stupid things. We kill for it, fight for it, protect it. It makes us jealous and angry, sad and scared. Having their partners as their weakness takes everything that love is/does and wraps it up into one ticking time bomb. It gives the Keepers everything they’ve ever wanted, and can take it away just as easily. For me, it embodied some of my greatest fears, and I think some of everyone’s fears when they’ve been in love. But at the same time, it is, I think, everyone’s greatest desire to not know a day without the person they love.

What it used to mean for the Keepers was that although their time was limited, they found happiness. And knowing that they’d never have to live a day without their partners held some measure of comfort.

For Serenity, she gets her happiness, but none of the comfort. Because as the last Keeper, she knows that once Ray loses his life, the world loses theirs, too.

RL: I have living relatives who remember and fought in World War II, so the time period has always fascinated me.  Why did you choose the World War II setting for the story?

The settings were actually picked around the timeline of events in the book. I knew what I wanted to happen, and when I wanted it to happen in terms of the book, so when it came to looking at settings, I had a good idea of where to start. Also, being from the UK, I wanted it to be set here but at the same time be set in a time that was universally recognised. And when I started looking into various options, World War II was the one option that stood out the most for me. There was such a wealth of culture and events that happened during that time, which fit brilliantly into the book and the storyline.

RL: Thank you so much for stopping by, Michelle, and good luck! I enjoyed reading The Last Keeper, and I hope many others will as well!

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