The Tulip Driven Life

By: Thomas Clayton Booher I have always enjoyed science fiction, and more recently, fantasy. I read The Gods of Mars , by Edgar Rice Burroughs as a young lad, and was pleased when Carl Sagan mentioned in Broca’s Brain that he also did at about the same age. He was more erudite than I, however. He later looked back upon it and his youthful fascination was dampened when he realized that it was far more fiction that it was science. His point was that the best science fiction has its roots in scientific fact. His novel, Contact , was written on that premise, and it was a good read. I tend to agree with him. There are deep wonders in the creation no matter which direction we look in. We can look outward and marvel at the billions of galaxies whose sizes alone are incomprehensible populating a volume of space that is billions of light-years across. Or we can look in the other direction until we encounter subatomic particles that take up only billionths of an inch. There are k...

By: Thomas F. Booher Teenage angst is one of the main themes that runs throughout Captives, and I think it's the best part of the book. I was just as interested, if not more interested, in how the characters from Glenrock would react and behave in their new environs (and the temptations that come with it) as I was in how Levi, Mason, and the rest would save them. This, in fact, is the first question Jill Williamson asks in her discussion questions at the end of the book, and I am glad she has them there. Being a 23 year old man, recently married, expecting a child in exactly a month, I can still remember what it was like to be single and looking. The desire to be loved, to give love, to make love, that's what's on the brain of the teenage boys and girls in this story, and that's how it is in real life. Also, the sticky temptations, such as Mason and Omar both having affections for their brother's fiancee -- that's real too. One thing I want to poke at, h...

By: Thomas F. Booher I usually do these reviews to point out what I think is both good and bad writing. I do this so the readers and perhaps the authors themselves (if they read and are willing to consider my thoughts) can improve in their writing and storytelling. My belief is that some Christian fiction authors have fallen into certain styles of writing that are not seen as much or at all in non-Christian fiction writing. Thankfully, Jill Williamson avoids most of that in Captives. However, I was so inundated with characters and their names at the beginning of the story that I was having trouble sorting people out, let alone getting to know them and their place in the story. Maybe others can sort many characters out better than I can, but even if they can, I don't know if flooding your reader with characters up front is helpful. The story does jump from many different characters and their perspectives, so in a sense there are multiple protagonists and main characters, but o...

By: Thomas F. Booher Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars. When I review books, I have a scale in my mind, and various criteria that go into it. I keep mental notes, and sometimes write them in the margins on each page. Shortly before the halfway point of this book, I was ready to give up on it. The story moved too fast to grasp it or get a feel for the many characters. Attempting to do so felt like watching a car fly down the highway as you sit from your porch. By the time you locked onto something, the scene or characters shifted. Beyond that, the lame "cursings" uttered by Jordan drove me crazy. Worse, I didn't think Omar's (and some of the other characters') actions and reactions early in the story were true to life, which put me off.   I'll detail those concerns in subsequent posts, but I want to say that the second half of the book was vastly improved. It was almost like Jill Williamson vaped some grass, and a ten at that. The story slowed a bit, ...