Monday, October 24, 2011

CSFF Blog Tour: The Bone House by Stephen Lawhead

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received an ebook copy of The Bone House courtesy of the publisher.

Independently of the CSFF Blog Tour, my laptop chucked a hissy fit and banished said ebook to the more inaccessible reaches of cyberspace, and refused to allow me a re-download in time to read it for the tour.

And so it has transpired that if you want to read my review of the book as part of the official tour, you will have to jump a handy ley-line and try to hit the seventh sphinx on the left. Which, it has to be said, is kind of a shame, because the first volume in the Bright Empires saga, The Skin Map, was actually rather good, and the sequel - at least as much of it as the technology would allow me to read - seemed to be following in the same vein.

The Bone House continues the story of Kit Livingston, following his (at the time) inexplicable rescue from the depths of a pyramid somewhere by his once-useless girlfriend, Mina, who unbeknown to Kit, became a dimension-hopping Lara Croft at some point. That is not a plot-hole, mind; this is a time travel story, and that Mina's transformation from drippy girlfriend to Prague coffee entrepreneur to time travelling heroine is initially unexplained serves only to reinforce the reader's empathy for the bemused Kit, who thought the quest was his to complete.

On his website, Lawhead describes the Bright Empires series as his most ambitious work to date; given the variety of locations, time periods and POV characters the one and a bit books I've read so far cover, I can well believe that. There is certainly a lot going on; sometimes I get bogged down trying to keep track of all the threads and characters in a sweeping epic like this, but so far I think Bright Empires is striking a nice balance for my taste (and attention span).

Of course, it doesn't hurt that the whole timey-wimey nature of the story is just my cup of tea to start with, but suffice to say, I will be leaving The Bone House on my Christmas list (yes, I'm old skool. No kindle here). And I will review it properly, at some point in the future; don't wait for that though, take a nose round the rest of the tour, then get yourself a copy (I recommend the ley-line friendly hardback edition).



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1 comment:

Rebecca LuElla Miller said...

So sorry, Steve. I had been excited that we could actually get you a copy this round. What a bummer.

Becky