Customer Reviews

Black/Red/White/Green (The Complete Circle Series)

5 star:		(67)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Wow! I have recently discovered Ted Dekker as an author and this is the best thing he's done. It is very difficult to take biblical themes and translate them into different settings without either offending or watering down the truth. If you've never read Ted's work and, especially if you like SciFi/Fantasy, this would be a great place to start. This started out as three different books (Black, Red, White), you could buy Black to get started but I guarantee you'll be buying the next two.

I was given "Black" as a gift and I loved it!! Was totally hooked and had to buy the other books in "The Circle Trilogy". This book puts all 3 novels in one. It is not too bulky and the font size is easy to read. I love the parallel between the Circle world and our own Christian biblical history. It gives you a different view of the most important aspects of being a true Christian: Love, Hope and Faith. I definitely recommend this series to both teens and adults.

I'm a new Ted Dekker fan, and found this all-in-one trilogy a great way to go. I started reading a copy of Black from the library, and knew I'd be wanting the other two books right away. The hardcover trilogy was an excellent buy, both in cost, and as a book that I will look nice in my own library. I found the Circle Trilogy to be incredibly compelling - in the beginning I couldn't put it down just because I was so curious to figure out what was going on. It's fantastical, thought-provoking, and great story-telling.

This book reads like CS Lewis meets Jason Bourne. For the first few chapters, you aren't sure what's going on - every time the main character goes to sleep, he wakes up in another world and vice-versa. Both worlds are real. And both worlds have loads of trouble for Thomas Hunter.

Both world's stories are compelling and, while not totally dependent on each other, definitely have implications in the other world. Dekker does a masterful job of creating 2 completely unique realities that are completely believable. And since the story is told from Thomas' perspective (for the most part), you really get to go on a wild ride.

Once I got about 1/2 way into "Black" - I was hooked. I think I read the rest of the book (all three books are now in one volume) in a few days. I couldn't put it down.

I loved the beautiful imagery of God's love and the use of water to symbolize so many things. It's a wonderful, unique and compelling book that I strongly recommend!

I bought this book on the recommendation of a friend. The story was intriguing, keeping me hooked from the beginning to the end. In some ways, it reminded me of the Chronicles of Narnia, another of my favorites.

My only issue was with the formatting on my Kindle. Since it is in the Topaz format, I couldn't change the font typeface, etc. Also, the icons or whatever they are that start the first line of a new section would NEVER be completely drawn, leaving me to have to puzzle a bit to figure out what it said -- there were even some leftover pixels between some words within the paragraphs [for example at location 12358]. These formatting problems definitely interfered with my reading enjoyment. If this was in the normal Kindle format, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to my friends. As it is, I'd suggest that they wait until it is, or just buy the paper books.

Amazon should state in their description that a book is in Topaz format!

I bought this Trilogy for my Kindle 2, but because it uses the new "Topaz" format -- which allows publishers to embed their own fonts, apart from the default font the Kindle uses -- the typesetting for this book ended up being horrible. Even enlarged it caused me constant eyestrain until I finally gave up and stopped reading. I'll have to find this used in print someday, if I ever want to read it. Users should have a choice over what font the book uses, rather than letting publisher's decide what looks good to them.

Thomas Hunter is caught between two worlds. One world, a virus is promising to kill all of mankind. In the other world, the normal is beyond his comprehension. In this trilogy, the struggle to determine what is the true world if there is a dream world and how does he live in both worlds.

Thomas Hunter remains torn throughout Black and most of Red as to what world is even real. He becomes the leader of a select few that ban together following Elyon. While The majority followed Qurong. The armies outnumbered twenty to one, the attacks on the villages often, and the numbers remaining alive are enough to keep Thomas Hunter and the forest guard busy.

But more than the tale itself is the underlying parallels to Israel as a nation and the Biblical account of their lives. This is truly a work of Sci-fi that will wrap you up and not let you go until you are through reading the entire series.

Christian Fiction author "Trainer" trilogy

We've all heard of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien, a trilogy that had a whole lot of Christian symbolism that Christian could pick up on and get immediately and, even if a nonChristian didn't get it, they enjoyed the story anyway.
We also know of the Matrix trilogy, where a young computer hacker ends up becoming the savior of an alternate earth.
This trilogy's a mix of both in a most unique way. It's about Thomas Hunter, a young agnostic (due to his pastor father not being the example he needed to be) who lives with his sister... and getting killed by a headshot. Simple enough. That is, until he wakes up in another Earth thousands of years in the future. And it is not a future like we've ever imagined, it's more like LotR than the Matrix.
Anyway, to put it basic, while there is much symbolism and references to pop culture (and very silly jokes here and there), there's a good reason it's a trilogy. But I won't tell you why, you'll have to read it to figure it out, and it's well worth the read!

I was overly impressed by "The Circle Trilogy." Black, Red and White are the books contained respectively. Each book is fresh and beaming with a vast range of emotions; to which Dekker does exceptionally well. So much vivid imagery, well versed characters that you learn to love or hate. Down to earth, yet very insightful and in depth. These books opened Dekker's realm to me and I'll never turn back. The only downside to this venture was the thought finding other books that complimented my personality and principalities as much as The Circle.

Fortunately that was as easy as reading Dekker's other books. The Circle Trilogy still remain my favorites, as they portray Dekker's expertise in painting out brilliant yet believable fantasy elements. To which I was surprised in discovering, as I'd previously read Adam. In "Adam" themes enthralled on scientific, spiritual and page-turning suspense. Ted did a breathtaking job there too. This guy is amazing and unbelievably talented.

Ted Dekker at his best. Once you start you won't stop until you are disappointed that it's over.