Customer Reviews

Empyrion 1: The Search for Fierra

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

 

 

This book and its "better half" (literally) constitute, in my geeky opinion, one of the best stories you are ever going to find. If you enjoy science fiction and fantasy but grow weary of the dark demonic themes, the graphic sex and the endlessly pointless story lines which many of those books contain, you will find this story to be a breath of fresh air. Empyrion is an old book- I discovered it over 20 years ago- yet the themes are so universal that even some dated political references do not detract from the riveting story. This review encompasses both books (the other book being Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome) because the second book is not a sequel. It is the second half of one story.

I hesitate to call this book "Christian Fiction" because in my experience that means "cheesy, preachy and crappily written". It would be better to say that this is what every intellectual Christian (read: nerdy Christ follower) has always wished for in a novel but has so rarely found. It is a rare blend of strong science fiction and excellent writing that will not leave you feeling like you need to go wash your brain out with soap. There are profound spiritual messages here- more than you will find in most theological tomes, yet you will never feel preached at or condescended to. You will just walk away inspired and intellectually stimulated.

A quick rundown would be that our "hero" (who is deeply and wonderfully flawed) has the unlikely name of Orion Treet. Through a series of events, mainly involving Treet being equal parts an expert and expendable, he finds himself on a space ship hurtling its way through a wormhole. The mission that he and his team are charged with is to check up on a terraforming project on a distant planet. A previous team was sent to plant a new Earth colony there but, after brief contact, was never heard from again. The reason why and the fate of the terraforming team is the basis of the story. I will tell you no more because I feel that this story is best read as I first read it: without spoilers. I picked this book up in an Army bookstore overseas, not knowing either the author or the book. I had no idea that it was written by a "Christian Author". I just liked the blurb on the back. Suffice it to say that it is one part space travel, one part adventure and one part political commentary with a smidge of time travel thrown in for good measure.

Do not be deterred if you have read some of Stephen Lawhead's more recent books and found them too tedious. I am a huge fan of his older books including his wonderful fantasy series, The Dragon King Saga, but he tends toward the very scholarly historian's voice in many of his newer fantasy books which is not my cup of tea. In fact, I think you could get a PHD in Celtic history from reading some of his books. This is not like that at all. This is just a darn good story.

If you enjoy this book, immediately buy Mr. Lawhead's other very old but wonderful science fiction story Dream Thief. You will not be disappointed.

I've read both volumes, so consider my review to be applicable to both.

I've been a fan of Lawhead since I first read Byzantium in the late 1990's. I've read it at least three times, and once on the Kindle. I consider Byzantium to be the catalyst for my love of historical fiction. I've read several other Lawhead works: The Pendragon Cycle stands in my memory even more vividly than Byzantium. The Dragon King and The Celtic Crusades are just as wonderful.

When I was reviewing new and recommended releases, I saw this one with a publication date March 2011, two months ago. I immediately downloaded it, but upon reading the forward, I was mildly disappointed to see that this was a reissue of a book Lawhead wrote many years ago. It would appear that Lawhead is starting to self-publish, or at least re-issue previous books under his own name.

Well, I quickly "got over it", because I hadn't read these books, but it would have been more appropriate if this Kindle edition was listed in the main book entry on Amazon as another binding edition.

As a re-issue, it looks like the original printed material was simply scanned and converted to a Kindle book. Huge numbers of OCR errors abound; once, a page number even appears in the middle of a page. To be honest, it looks like it wasn't even copy-edited for errors.

The above are the only reasons I give it a three-star. Otherwise, the story gets a four-star.

Even tho this was written early in Lawhead's career, it shows the author's versatility.

Two completely opposite societies spring from a single colony: one utopian, one dystopian. The protagonist is sent to ostensibly write a history of what is assumed to be a the first off-world colony in it's early stages. Traveling via a wormhole, he arrives to find thousands of years have passed. Now his goal is to figure out what happened, and why such a drastic split occurred.

The story is a study in good vs. evil. Can a utopian society, one that is pledged heart and soul to peaceful existence, co-exist on a planet with a society that is bent on the destruction of everything good? Being pledged to cause no harm, even to those who seek to harm them, is the sin of omission as harmful as the sin of commission?

This doorstep of a book is more commonly split into two. However I have the full 900 page version (with smallish print). As a story it's not so bad. Orion Treet - a historian - is paid handsomely to visit the new colony world of Empyrion, established a few years previously. On arrival though, things are not at all as expected and over the course of many pages it becomes clear that 3000 years of colony history have past, and that very early in the life of the colony there were disasters that almost destroyed them. What is more, there has been a split that saw rival fighting colonies, that throw the new visitors into a war.

This book failed to grip me though. It is to my knowledge Lawhead's only foray into science fiction. There are some nods to other works in the story - particularly to Dune by Frank Herbert, when Treet et al. are crossing a desert. In some ways this book is like Dune - but not, I am sorry to say, in depth of vision. Rather it is long winded with a tendency to get a little boring!

Ultimately the story is a good one, but I think it could have been delivered in a book one third the size of this one - then I would probably have enjoyed it.