Customer Reviews

The Bone House (Bright Empires)

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(37)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

One year ago, less one week, I posted my review of Stephen Lawheads "The Skin Map", which is the first book in the "Bright Empires" series. Here, then, is the second book in that series. The Bone House continues the story of Kit Livingston in his quest for the skin map. One piece has been found, but the stakes have been raised. Kit has inherited this quest from his grandfather, Cosimo, but Kit is now on the run, and, except for the help of his surprisingly resourceful girlfriend Mina, on his own.

This book was a pleasant surprise. It is an incredibly rare series which gets better in the second book, but Lawhead has done just that. He has maintained the depth of character development, excellent descriptions of the scenes, and at the same time upped the pace and removed my one qualm with the first book in this series: the confusion of jumping from time to time. In this book, he is much more careful to place cues at the beginning of each chapter so that you know where you are, in the story at least.

Conclusion: 4 Stars. Conditionally recommended. The only condition is that you like a mix of history, science fiction, and fantasy. Really though, you should like it, it's fun reading.

This book was provided by Booksneeze for review.

The Bone House continues the tale begun in The Skin Map, as Kit Livingstone furthers the quest given him by his great-grandfather, to restore a map that charts the ability to travel the multiverse using ley lines. His girlfriend, Mina, who was caught in seventeenth-century Prague, is likewise furthering her establishment among the powerful of the age while developing her own knowledge of ley travel. Both are racing against others also intent on pursing the pieces of the skin map, others willing to do whatever necessary to succeed.

I thoroughly enjoyed this second installment in the Bright Empire Series, a series with such a vast scope that it is truly an ambitious accomplishment. Lawhead is a master with the pen, and his ability to set the scene and create tension are superb. His writing is powerful, and I was immediately caught up again into this fantastic fantasy world that he has created, a journey winging through space and time and history into dimensions uncharted. The characters are intriguing and only growing more so as their respective histories unfold. Kit's experience at the end of the book was absolutely fascinating and I did not want the story to end! Although there are a number of characters to keep track of, their collective focus on ley travel and its secrets kept the story focused and easy for me to follow.

I absolutely loved this book, and am left craving for more. I cannot wait for the next installment, The Spirit Well, coming September 2012. I highly recommend this book and give it 5 out of 5 stars.

Note: I would greatly advise reading the first book in this series prior to embarking upon The Bone House in order to fully appreciate the grandness of this series.

This book has been provided courtesy of the publisher via the Booksneeze program for the purposes of this unbiased review.

I've always been intrigued by the idea of time travel and multiverses. I also enjoy historical fiction. With the Bright Empires trilogy Lawhead attempts to meld the two together with an epic story that stretches across continents, universes, and centuries. The Bone House is the second book in the series and follows immediately after The Skin Map. If you have not read the first book you need to pick it up first otherwise you will be completely lost.

I really enjoyed the historical elements of the book. Lawhead does a good job of capturing the sites, sounds, and smells of the world that his characters inhabit. He takes great pains to make sure the reader experiences what the character experience.

The overall story arc is also fascinating. I won't go into details because I don't want to spoil the plot, but he keeps the tension levels up by keeping a dark and mysterious tone throughout the whole of the work and a tension that something huge is bubbling right below the surface.

The things that didn't work well for me were the often plodding pacing and rather boring characters. The one character that felt and sounded real to me (the same thing with the first book) was Mina. I wanted to skip to chapters about her because she was just much more interesting than any other character. Also, while Lawhead does a good job painting a picture of the environment he often does this to the detriment of the story. The story is needlessly bogged down by overabundant descriptions of things that could easily have been stated in a sentence or less but instead take whole paragraphs.

On the whole, if you enjoyed the first book you should enjoy this one. If you did not enjoy the first book you probably won't enjoy this one. I like the concept and story arc enough and enjoy reading about the character of Mina enough that I will persevere through the sequels to see what happens. Hopefully Lawhead can pick up the pace in the storytelling department in his future books.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

The second in the five-book Bright Empires Series, The Bone House lives up to Stephen Lawhead's reputation as one of the finest science fiction/fantasy writers today.

An ambitious work, it is filled with vivid descriptions of foreign lands, gripping action and a plot that moves through multiple worlds. Lawhead sculpts a believable universe and peoples it with memorable characters that come to life as you read.

Following Kit Livingstone, the story tracks his progress in trying to locate the skin map, a map that supposedly shows the connections between multiple dimensions and worlds. But his steps are dogged by the ruthless Archelaeus Burleigh, who will stop at nothing to get his hands on the map.

Written with characteristic sweeping panoramas, The Bone House is never static. A wonderful sense of movement and change pervades it from the very first page.
The characterizations are never dull, and Lawhead has a way with description that, once read, provokes an accompanying flash of recognition and personal recollection that realizes "yes, that's it!"

Become like Coleridge and willingly suspend your disbelief as you turn the pages of this book to enter into an interdimensional race! Put your feet up, lean back in your favorite chair and let this author's words take you on a journey that won't disappoint.

The Bone House (Bright Empires)

The Bone House is a difficult book to review. It is the second installment of the Bright Empires trilogy, following "The Skin Map." That book had a strange ending in that there was no ending. It just stopped. No closure. And end, but no ending. It was interesting to the point of being a page turner, but the ending was odd.
The Bone House continues the pattern. There is a small section of introduction to bring the reader up to speed on the characters - and that is very helpful. But, as The Skin Map ends, so begins The Bone House - and continues. The plot of the series is the quest for a "parchment" of human skin which has been divided into sections and hidden in various places. The places are in different times and dimensions which are reached via portals called "ley lines."
I would recommend this book on the condition the reader first read The Skin Map and plan to read The Spirit Well - the final installment due out in September 2012. The whole story of time/space/dimension travel is immensely intriguing and I want to find out what happens to all these folks. The good guys, the bad guys, and the ones I haven't quite figured out as of yet.
Until then, I guess we'll just have to hold on for the finish.
Thomas Nelson provides a free copy of these books for review through their "Booksneeze" Program [...] ; however, I am not required to give a positive review of the book.

Steven R. Lawhead's, The Bone House is the second book in the Bright Empires Series. Lawhead continues to develop his imaginative work in this novel - a blending of C.S. Lewis, John Bunyan, Dan Brown, and Albert Einstein.

The Bone House is a fascinating mixture of fantasy, ontology, metaphysics, science, and time travel. But the notion of "time travel" does not exactly do justice to what the author intends to convey in his novel. He writes more of a so-called multidimensional universe. Speculative to be sure but it makes for interesting reading.

Lawhead builds the plot line based on volume 1. In this work, we find Kit "traveling" on an adventure (along with a host of other characters) that lead to destinations filled with peril and intrigue, ultimately culminating in the discovery of the Bone House.

My biggest criticism is that the story is a bit hard to follow at times. So interested readers will do well to plunge into volume 1 before tackling this novel. Positively, Lawhead writes with a great deal of creativity and introduces basic elements of the Christian worldview into the fabric of the story line. Not my cup of tea - but 3 stars for a valiant effort.

I received a complementary copy of this book from the Thomas Nelson Booksneeze program.

In my review of The Skin Map, I expressed puzzlement (and, I'll admit, disappointment) that while the story was typically Lawheadian, the writing was sub-par. It felt like it was written in haste without that careful wordsmithing that has make Lawhead one of my favorite authors. I'm very happy to say that The Bone House is a vast improvement, and sees the erudite Lawhead at the top of his game once again.

What will undoubtedly frustrate some readers is the fact that it is not a self-contained story, but rather a few more fragments of a much larger tapestry. If you think of The Bright Empires series, of which we now have two of who knows how many volumes, as a single, coherent sentence, this book (like the first one) is a few almost random words that will eventually fall into place. That being said, there is nothing actually random about it. While we do jump around in time quite a bit, and follow several storylines (some of them of the same characters at different points along their own personal timeline), the sequence in which the author chooses to reveal the story makes perfect logical sense. This is proving to be a very Big and Ambitious concept, even for Lawhead, who has never been one to do things on a small scale. There is a lot to follow here; some readers might find themselves lost or confused or frustrated by the non-linear approach. But those of us who appreciate complexity and riddles and very well-plotted, many-layered stories will truly revel in this. I read it in a single day, unable to put it down.

Just a few small things that I liked about this book:

Lawhead makes the many different times and places that we visit very real, so we can see them, feel them, and smell them.

His characters, while still not as deep as I would like (but I believe we are early in the series and they will continue to be fleshed out) are at least very well-defined. The ones we're supposed to like, we like wholeheartedly, and the ones we're supposed to hate, we hate with delightful relish. And the ones we're not sure about continue to be complex and puzzling.

I kept thinking I could predict what was going to happen next, and with very few exceptions I was way off. Especially towards the end - by that time I had given up trying to figure out where it was going, because it went places I would never have seen coming. This is something I highly enjoy, because as an author myself I'm rarely surprised.

I really did enjoy all the jumping around in time and having to keep on my toes. Very enjoyable for me, and I was never lost or confused. To me it all made perfect sense as it unfolded.

He is simply a spectacular writer and wordsmith. A rare quality these days, when people want everything dumbed down. Kudos to a brilliant writer who continues to be brilliant rather than catering to the lowest common denominator.

The end of the last chapter left me staring at the page in dismay, wishing it continued. Now. This moment.

Overall, a very entertaining and satisfying read that gives us a few more threads in the growing tapestry. Despite a slightly weak first volume, I suspect that by the end, if they maintain this level of quality and coherence, this will end up being my favorite of Lawhead's many series.

I have to admit - the description of this book sounds fabulous.

For me though, the reality was different. I really struggled to get into this book. After I started, I realized it was the second book in the series and I was able to get it cheaply at Amazon. However, even trying to read that one was difficult. I only made it part of the way through each book.

I like sci-fi. I like time travel. I think that these books were difficult for me because I didn't have the full understanding if their universe. Things moved quickly and it was hard for me to remember from one reading session to the other where/when everyone was.

I like Stephen Lawhead's books. I have read a few others that I enjoyed. For some reason however, this one did not grab me and pull me into the story. I will definitely try them again later.

I received this book from Booksneeze. I was not required to write a positive review (obviously). All opinions are my own.

Beginning the Bright Empires series with The Bone House without having read The Skin Map first, has left this reader with the feeling of entering a science fiction mystery movie during the middle act. I was swiftly drawn into the lives and actions of the different characters as quickly as the next chapter. It is heady brew, but having to wait until September 2012 is like leaving after the second act and having to come back later to see how it comes out. I felt stuck in the middle. The concept reminded me of going to the Saturday matinees as a child every weekend to follow the adventures of Flash Gordon.

The Bone House continues story threads from the previous book, The Skin Map, which opened the series. In fact, if you haven't read The Skin Map, don't read this book. You'll just get very confused. It's clear the five-part Bright Empires series must be one giant tale, rather than five smaller ones. And what a tale it is.

At the end of The Skin Map, our hapless hero Kit Livingstone has been mysteriously rescued from the brink of death. The rescuer is none other than Kit's formerly clueless girlfriend Mina, mysteriously appearing and whisking him away. It's still sad, though. The ruthless bad guy, Lord Burleigh, did succeed in murdering Kit's mentor, Kit's great-grandfather Cosimo.

Cosimo had handed Kit a task, finishing Cosimo's work of finding and decoding the Skin Map, while eluding Burleigh. But who will tell Kit how to pick up this task? Kit, a newbie, has much to learn. (The Skin Map is a grisly artifact, parchment made of the torso skin of Arthur Flinders-Petrie, a pioneer in ley travel who recorded his findings in tattoos on his own torso. The map has been divided into five pieces and hidden.)

It turns out Kit's former girlfriend Mina, on her own, is becoming an expert in ley travel and can teach Kit some things. Ley lines are lines of geological force along the surface of the earth which in this series can catapult a person into another dimension. These other dimensions are alternate universes, ones spawned whenever any major decision is made on the home world (ours). All the possible results of those decisions create alternate universes based on differing assumptions. The result is an infinity of universes, all pretty similar, it seems, and connected by these ley-line energy pathways. It's possible to move from one universe to another rather consistently, with some practice.

In The Bone House we find out plenty about the background of bad guy Burleigh, but not everything-we still don't know what's motivating his ruthlessness. And we meet another main character, Douglas Flinders-Petrie, the amoral grandson of the man who gave the world the Skin Map. All these characters are hopping through hot spots in various worlds, chasing each other, trying to get the Skin Map and something more. What? Kit still doesn't know. Something motivates Burleigh to murder and attempt murder, again and again. What is it? Does the mystery have something to do with the stars?

What do I think?

This book is another 1/5 of a massive construction which is becoming clearer. Details of ley travel are explained in this book, and key characters discuss their faith in a benevolent God.

This faith in God in a book about multiverses is critical for me, a Christian. The multiverse idea was coined by atheists trying to explain how man could have evolved from nothing, with such low probabilities at key points of the evolutionary theory. If you multiply our universe by infinity, surely in one of those universes the probability will be high enough that evolution could indeed have happened. So some people, such as physicist Stephen Hawking, actually believe the multiverse theory is true and use it to support their atheism.

Lawhead, on the other hand, uses the multiverse idea as the basis for a massive adventure tale romping across worlds. The yarn is beginning to remind me a bit of Star Wars, with an young clueless (at the beginning) hero suddenly bereft of his mentor, an unbelievably dastardly villain (whose past is not fully revealed yet), and a very capable heroine, along with other characters. There's an appropriate dose of mystery at the core. I'll be very interested to read the next installment.