Customer Reviews

Arena

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Karen Hancock truly hits the daily double with Arena, her first novel. Not only is it a fantastic story of exciting science fiction, it is also a powerful allegory for the Christian experience. I would urge prospective readers not to dismiss this book out of hand just because of its spiritual dimension, however - Arena tells a wonderful, exciting, and gripping story that any lover of good fantasy will greatly enjoy. The novel's allegorical depth is rich and complex, but it is by no means overpowering. You needn't fear that Karen Hancock will be pushing Christianity down your throat. You don't even have to judge the main character's incredible growth in a Christian sense; it's certainly there, but you can enjoy this story for its own sake and still take a seed of something very powerful away from it.

The book's protagonist, Callie, is a young woman in her mid-twenties who has yet to find her place in life. She has a low-paying job but yearns to be a painter, and her family is all in the business of trying to find her a man. She is trapped, frustrated, and floundering. In need of money, she accompanies her friend to a psychology experiment promising to help her get more out of life. Unable to back out at the last minute, she finds herself transported to the Arena, a whole world that cannot yet does exist - the mother of all obstacle courses. About all she has to guide her is a suggestion to stay on the white road and a manual, most of which is gibberish to her. She gets off to a bad start, quickly discovering just how dangerous a place the Arena can be. Exotic plant life and hideous animal creatures are a danger to life and limb, malevolent beings called the Watchers turn up all over the place to tempt and dishearten her, and the fellow human beings she eventually meets up with pose the biggest danger of all. Luckily, Callie first encounters a guy named Pierce, who saves her life and takes her into the confines of a small community. Some of these people have been in the Arena for years, searching for the exit that is supposedly easy to find. The answers are all in the manual, but the manual is soon ignored or forgotten.

Callie thus finds herself in a fight for survival in an alien world. Friction among her compatriots leads to dissension and separation, as everyone seems to have their own ideas for getting out; many eventually fall prey to the seductive dangers of the Arena. You really get an exciting adventure story in these pages, full of ambushes, encounters with wild creatures of malevolent power, and a mental struggle to keep going when everything seems to be lost. Callie has to conquer her many fears if she is to survive, and every step is a struggle. As time goes on, Callie gets an understanding of the place and the purpose behind it, and it is the link she establishes with the master of the Arena that sustains her. The closer she gets to the final exit, the more dangerous the journey becomes, and the more she has to depend on her spiritual link with the Arena's overseer. The men and women of the Arena are vividly human characters with their own flaws and problems, including the man seemingly chosen to lead the community back home. No one has the power to return home on his/her own; the true test comes in putting your faith in another, greater power.

Some will say that the allegorical nature of this story is too obvious, but I thought the Christian nature of Callie's journey through the Arena was subtly yet powerfully done. As I said, you don't have to read the story in this allegorical way if you do not want to. I think you should, though, as it makes this novel something extraordinarily special. I won't go into the parallels between Callie's journey and the Christian's journey here, but the one greatly reinforces the other. As a Christian, I was deeply impressed by some of the insights embedded in Arena; in this fantastical setting, Hancock helps you look at your own spiritual journey in entirely new and instructive ways, drawing connections that surprise, exhilarate, and inspire you. From this perspective, the whole journey seems so simple; it is only man's nature, fears, and limitations that make the journey such a needlessly hard and difficult one. If you're looking for a work of Christian science fiction that really and truly works, Arena is the book you've been waiting for.

I loved this book. I hardly ever read fiction because I sometimes feel furthering my relationsihp with God is not going to happen by reading fictional stories. However, Arena has changed my mind! This book has made me see how much I was holding back from God, and gave me a big reality check. I came away from this book desiring deeper intimacy with God. I think it was the relationship that Callie had with Elhanue, and the way Hancock portrayed him as a friend and constant companion that made me see how I have been ignoring it.

I am a Christian, and quite a strong one, but it has been awhile since I have been unsatisfied with the level of intimacy I have with God.

I also thought the love story between Callie and Pierce was captivating. It was so well-written, and I love the fact that Callie only started to become attracted to Pierce after she got to know him. So many novels start with love at first sight. Their romance actually caught me by surprise (okay not entirely, but it was not obvious at the beginning that they would fall in love). I also thought Hancock did a great job of showing that Callie and Pierce struggled with passion and attraction to each other. People aren't perfect, even born-again spirit-filled Christians. I thought it made them seem human, and I was able to relate to them!

All I have to say is, this book has changed me and the way I see God. I highly recommend it!

My friend Phyllis encouraged me to read "Arena." I had been disappointed with Christian speculative fiction in the past. "This Present Darkness" is a great read, but it's hard to get to know the characters. I had gotten tired of the "Left Behind" series. Since Phyllis had read several books I raved about, I figured I owed her. So I picked up "Arena" expecting a hokey Christian novel.

Surprise. This book was a blast to read. Hancock created characters I cared about. "Arena" has an excellent balance of romance, action, and suspense. The author paced the story in such a way that I couldn't wait to discover what happened to the characters. By the end of the first chapter the protagonist is already in deep trouble.

A few times I wondered "where did that come from?" (like the armor of the characters, for example). I may have just missed some things since I read the book quickly. It didn't mess up the story, however. Sometime in the future, I will have to reread "Arena," and see if I just skimmed over some of these introductions too quickly.

Hancock's "Arena" reminds me of something Connie Willis would write. To be honest, with all the action and fighting in this novel, any thirteen-year-old aethist science-fiction geek would devour "Arena" with relish. The allegory to a Christian lifestyle is there, but not over done.

I would love to see this book turned into a movie or mini-series on the sci-fi channel. People would probably enjoy it as much as "The Matrix" and, trust me, the ending is much better.

Callie Hayes is still at loose ends after graduating college, and doesn't have a serious relationship or any good prospects. Encouraged by her friend Meg she signs up as a volunteer for a "psychological experiment," and finds herself transported to a harsh alien world to carry out her assignment. Unfortunately she didn't pay much attention during the orientation and quickly finds herself lost, over-whelmed and in mortal danger.

The story quickly progresses as Callie struggles to survive and somehow get back home. In the course of her struggles she faces the limits of her own intellect, learns how much of her own effort is futile, and begins to understand faith in a much deeper way. And learns how to maintain contact with, well, God. And meets Pierce who is at first arrogant and obnoxious, but... well, you'll just have to read it. It's quite exciting and it will keep you turning pages.

Yes, it's an allegorical story about a Christian's spiritual journey; you can also read it as a plain old whiz-bang adventure story. It works either way.

Author Karen Hancock makes it clear from the beginning that this is a Christian book dedicated to Jesus Christ. For the most part she handles her material deftly and without preaching, but there are times when the theology becomes just a bit heavy-handed. And there are times when she offers too much explanation for all the strange happenings, rather than just showing the reader. Sometimes there is too much blood and gore, too much danger, too many impossible situations, but--hey! I still kept on reading, and so will you. This is not a perfect book, but a good one and an uplifting one as well. I recommend it. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber

There are stories that are realistic in tone, but not at all true. And there are stories that are clearly fantasies, yet are filled with truth. _Arena_, like other literary classics such as _Lord of the Rings_ and the _Narnia_ books, falls in the latter category.

The book's cover has several quotes from other authors referring to _Arena_ as "allegory", but I don't think it really fits that description. Certainly it's not the sort of story in which a character named Faith wanders through the Desert of Despair in search of the Oasis of Hope. Hancock respects her readers' intelligence enough to write a story chock filled with deeper meaning without having to hit them over the head with a clue stick. Back in my day, they didn't call this sort of writing allegory. They called it good literature. If you must call it something else, call it an extended metaphor. Or perhaps a novel-length parable. But whatever you choose to call it, this isn't just another tired rip-off of _Pilgrim's Progress_.

You will find as many overt references to "God" or "Christ" in this CBA-published book as there are in the LOTR Trilogy or the Biblical book of Esther, and yet there are few (if any) scenes in this book in which a Christian worldview fails to shine through. Oh, God *is* in the Arena, all right. Just don't look for him to appear by that name, along with a host of characters all saying "Praise the Lord!" and "Hallelujah!" and doing all the right things at the right times until someone says the "sinner's prayer", because _Arena_ isn't a thinly disguised sermon like most CBA offerings. This is a story in which characters display realistic feelings and make hard choices--often even wrong choices--and where even the "good guys" don't always know God's will, or have all the right answers.

In fact, the word "choice" pretty much sums up what _Arena_ is all about--the free will which God has given us to make our own decisions, to seek His will or to only satisfy our own desires, the freedom to learn from our mistakes and grow from them, or to repeat our bad choices over and over again until they destroy us. It is a story that reveals unconditional love and grace, but also reveals that willfulness and wrong choices will lead to painful, yet just, consequences. Our choices, and whose guidance we choose to follow or disregard, determines our outcome. Simple as that. And just as difficult. In order to help people make the right choices, the Arena provides a written manual, and also a Benefactor. Sound familiar? And just as in real life, people in the Arena are not any better at trusting in authority or following directions than we are.

This is a bad thing, yes? Well, no, because this means that _Arena_ has believable characters whom we can all relate to. I saw myself in so many different guises while reading this book--both myself at my best and myself at my very worst. And often I'd see both of these sides of myself in the same character. You see the full spectrum of human nature in this book. You also see lives being transformed--some for the better, and some for the worse. You see characters dealing with inner struggles and battling with temptation. Sexuality is dealt with very realistically here. Although you won't find any sex scenes graphically described (if that's what you're looking for, leave this book alone and go find something under a "Harlequin Succumb" imprint or something similar instead), Hancock doesn't shy away from creating characters whose feelings of attraction for each other can cause problematic choices. But as we all know, and tend to forget, temptations are not always sexual. In fact, they're more frequently not. We struggle daily with the temptation to give in to our fears and insecurities, to control our own destinies, to give in to our pride, to bask in our self-righteousness, to reject God daily and go our own way. We long for relationship and intimacy with God and with others, yet frequently pull away from these things the moment we sense that things aren't going our way, according to our own self-limited notions of how things ought to be.

_Arena_ is a book that will stick with you even after you've read the last page. I finished the book on a Saturday night, yet the next day I was constantly reminded of it. I had read the book fairly quickly, reading more for story content than for the deeper meaning (although I suspect it's pretty nearly impossible to *not* see some of the deeper meaning in _Arena_ right from the start, at least if the reader shares the author's worldview), but the sermon and Sunday School lesson on Sunday morning brought out even more of _Arena's_ hidden treasures. There was hardly a Scripture reference or pastoral anecdote that didn't contain something that didn't make me smile and think "Yes! That's so right, so true...and didn't I just read an example of that last night, when so-and-so did such-and-such? Why do we *do* that to ourselves?" This was a book that I finished one night, and immediately began re-reading as soon as I could the next day, wanting more.

This is a book for anyone who enjoys fiction that holds up a clear mirror to life. This is not a book for the squeamish, though. If you think that books should contain no unpleasantness, avoid _Arena_. If you think violence is completely out of place in a Christian book, this is not the book for you. Sorry, but real life is frequently violent, and _Arena_ doesn't shy away from depicting reality in any of its horror, as well as in its beauty and splendor. Sometimes our choices, or the choices of others, lead to horrific consequences. _Arena_ shows this unflinchingly. It displays, in the limited world of the fictional Arena, the hellish depths to which we all have the potential to sink, and the heavenly heights to which we all aspire, even when we ourselves hamper--occasionally even knowingly--our own ability to get there.

Arena is an unforgettable ride into the marvelous and frighteningly symbolic realm of fantasy. For a first novel, like a uniquely exotic painting, Karen Hancock has proven she possess an ability to write with such clarity her words can vividly be seen. Her story telling is tightly composed of poetic prose and is abundantly littered with flamboyant images. Arena is jam packed full with originality, heart-pounding scenes and amazing characters.



For a chance to earn a few extra bucks, two friends, Callie and Meg, agree to take part in an experiment. What they don't realize is the experience will effect them for the rest of their lives. Alex is an employee in place to inform the women about the rules of the test. After separating the women, he provides them each with a knapsack and a survivor's manual (perhaps symbolic to the Bible). They are then suddenly transported from earth to another world.



The experiment is nothing like what the women and many, many others bargained for. A simple rule applies. Stay on the white road and keep moving. Subjects are safe on the white roads. Though the concept sounds easy enough, it immediately proves a much more difficult rule to follow. The weird world is filled with threatening creatures and dangerous mutants. And the arena is populated with seemingly hundreds of people who veered off the road and have spent endless years wandering, looking for some kind of salvation, or an exit.



Pierce is a man who has spent more than five years wandering. He has been captured and tortured by beasts. He is shaky and unconfident and one of the most unlikely leaders. However, it is believed by some it will be he who shall lead the chosen out of the Arena and back to their lives on earth. Pierce first saved Callie when she arrived. Through the time spent together, searching for a way home, the two have bonded more than either would have considered possible. Together, along with a handful of other believers, their seemingly impossible voyage only gets more and more impossible each day. Faith may be the only thing to save them and to deliver them safely out of the Arena.



Karen Hancock is a powerful storyteller. She knows how to be subtle. She knows how to build suspense and write white-knuckle action scenes. Arena is one of the best-drawn fantasy novels I have ever read. I am in eager anticipation for Hancock's next novel.

--Phillip Tomasso III, author of Johnny Blade & Third Ring

Suspense!Romance!Adventure! Arena would definitely be listed as one of my favorite books!The author has a awesome way at starting the action right off from the beginning.Karen Hancock writes terrifically,never keeping out any description on anything.When I was reading Arena,it kept me on the edge of my seat,wondering,anticipating what was going to happen next.Although,it almost has too much romance and mushy stuff for my taste,THIS BOOK IS AWESOME!I would not recommend it for younger kids though.
Like I said,except for maybe too much romance and kissing at some points,this book is full of incredible description,suspense,LOADS OF ROMANCE,adventure,and sooooo much more.I could say loads of more stuff about this book,but I must regret ending here.
I ABSOLUTELY RECOMMEND READING THIS BOOK! (Though if youre not into romance,I wouldnt recommend it.) I have heard that Karen Hancock is going to make a volume 2 for Arena. I really hope thats true!!!!

This book will change your life. Read it, I beg you.

I hated to put it down when I was done. Thankfully, Ms. Hancock wrote other books that I could pick up. She is a truth-teller and holds nothing back. Some things you really wish she would hold back, they are so convictingly correct about human nature. My favorite things she lays on the table, though, are the truths about the One who loves us despite all our flaws. I love fiction books because you are able to see the things you've always known in a different setting. It challenges you to decide if you really believe what the Bible is saying. Whether you believe God is who He says He is and He can do what He says He can. And, do you really believe you are who God says you are and that you can do what God says you can do?

Read Karen Hancock's books. Wow. They are the most enjoyable tools God has used in my life to this date.

This book is a must must read for all! I have read this book numerous times and each time I finish, I love it all the more! Karen Hancock has given us a masterpiece of literature. In a way it is a science fiction version of "Pilgrim's Progress". The characters are so real and loveable I sure you will love them as I do. Although it is a great science fiction book in and of itself, it has an underlying current and message that will renew Christians and their relationship with Jesus Christ. I thank Jesus that He has blessed Karen Hancock with the ability to write such wonderful books... I await future Hancock books with expectation.

Karen Hancock is a new strong voice in a genre that is sadly lacking in quality writers. Arena, her debut novel, is a bold Christian science fiction adventure.

The protagonist, Callie Hayes, finds herself transported into the Arena, with only a manual (Bible), and a few other provisions. The arena, representing the world we live in, is a violent and evil place but the rape and brutal murder Callie witnesses is presented but not dwelled upon or described in gory detail. While in the Arena, she encounters Watchers (demons) and Trogs, humans who have given into evil. Callie must fight her way through this strange world with others from Earth including a Christ-like friend she meets during the journey.

Christian art, by its very nature either glorifies God or presents ideas about the faith. This novel is allegory, presenting abstract Christian principles in the form of a planet scale arena. Some authors present the Christian aspects of their work subtly, other are more blatant. Ms. Hancock manages to do both in a single novel. The first portion of the novel, Called, is a superior adventure story that could be read by anyone and enjoyed. The Christian principles are there but subtle. The second part, Transformed, is a thinly disguised retelling of the war in heaven, the fall of Satan and the role of Christ in redemption. This part is told, not shown to us through the actions of the characters and the overall plot of the story. It is not subtle. The third part, Raised Up, is again a superior adventure where the allegory is laid in the plot and action.

Despite my criticism of part of the novel the strength of the overall story carries the reader through. Non-Christians can still enjoy the science fiction adventure of the novel however, I strongly recommend Arena to fans of Christian science fiction.

Kyle Pratt