- For the record, this scene doesn’t happen anywhere in the book.
Hello Internet!
I just finished reading this book that I got from the library, and I thought I would go ahead and share my thoughts.
The book covers the first adventure of Kale, a former slave girl who is told to go serve in the court of Paladin (that world’s version of Yeshua or Jesus) after she discovers a dragon egg. However, after she discovers even more dragon eggs several of Paladin’s warriors bring her along to help them in a quest to recover a rare dragon egg from an evil wizard.
First off, it is a very interesting world. Most of the “good” guys are of the seven “high races” created by that world’s version of God, while most of the “bad” guys are mockeries of them known as the “low races”. Magic is treated either as a rare super power you are born with, or else a species’ ability. At the same time, the characters are able to pray and call on their version of God’s power to aid them, without making it seem like just another kind of magic, which I appreciated.
Now that I’ve said the obligatory nice things, I have to say that, as interesting as the world was, the execution of the story left much to be desired. Probably the biggest problem was how suddenly the author threw new things into the world. From the very beginning Kale keeps coming across things she thought were only legend, but we had never heard of those legends ourselves. Other times she recognizes things instantly and the narrative more or less stops so we can be filled in. These things would not be nearly as much of a problem if we had some sort of baseline to compare these changes to, but this doesn’t happen until near the end, if that.
If the story had started with Kale in her home village, so we could get a couple chapters of what “normal” life is like for her, as well as getting her first curveball as it happens, rather than getting bits and pieces of her former life through flashbacks. As it is, it felt most of the problems and solutions came out of nowhere.
Then there is the ending. Kale is supposed to be tempted by the wizard, but after all that had happened, her so called “temptation” seemed flimsy. I never had the slightest doubt she would make the right choice.
Now to be fair, this is the first book in a series. I happen to own Dragonlight, a late book in the series, which may be better as the author grew more experienced. I’ll let you all know once I read it if the later books are worth plowing through the first one.
Till next time,
Goodbye Internet!
Entertainment: Evil?
Hello Internet!
Yesterday I was just browsing the internet and I came across this comment someone made: “Entertainment is the devil’s substitute for joy”. Well, I could just dismiss it as overly fanatical, but I think I’ll try to analyze the argument instead. After all, there are times when we can be so focused on being entertained that we lose sight of what is important, and thus lose our sense of joy. Plus, it sounds very biblical, so a closer look at what the Bible says about entertainment to see if it backs up this message would be beneficial.
One example of entertainment is song. During the latter days of King Saul’s reign, he would be troubled by a “distressing spirit” and could only be refreshed by David playing his harp (1 Samuel 16). Given that David was chosen by God to be the next king of Israel, I find it unlikely that God disapproved of him using music to entertain Saul.
What about stories? We all know about the parables of Yeshua (Jesus), and how He used them to teach important lessons about God and Himself. However, most of His audience didn’t understand the meanings of these stories. Even His disciples only understood them after He explicitly explained them. To everyone else, they were just entertaining stories. While He sometimes expressed disappointment that they didn’t understand, that didn’t stop Him from continuing to tell them. So even if He would have preferred that they learned from the experience, just being entertained didn’t harm them.
That seems pretty conclusive to me, but if anyone can point out evidence in the Bible that I missed, feel free to let me know in the comments.
Till next time,
Goodbye Internet!