Forbidden (The Books of Mortals) [Hardcover]

Ted Dekker (Author), Tosca Lee (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 13, 2011 | Series: The Books of Mortals

New York Times bestselling author Ted Dekker teams with Tosca Lee to create this gripping thriller set in a desolate future.

Many years have passed since civilization's brush with apocalypse. The world's greatest threats have all been silenced. There is no anger, no hatred, no war. There is only perfect peace... and fear. But a terrible secret has been closely guarded for centuries: Every single soul walking the earth, though in appearance totally normal, is actually dead, long ago genetically stripped of true humanity.

Fleeing pursuit, with only moments to live, a young man named Rom stumbles into possession of a vial of blood and a piece of cryptic writing. When consumed, the blood will bring him back to life. When decoded, the message will lead him on a perilous journey that will require him to abandon everything he has ever known and awaken humanity to the transforming power of true life and love.

But the blood will also resurrect hatred, ambition, and greed.

Set in a terrifying, medieval future, where grim pageantry masks death, this tale of dark desires and staggering stakes peels back the layers of the heart for all who dare to take the ride.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for FORBIDDEN:

"...mammoth twists and head-pounding turns that will have readers and book clubs debating the roles of emotion and logic that drive human existence." (Publishers Weekly )

Dekker and Lee have created an intriguing future world...poised on the edge of vast upheaval. [They] draw readers into it and make them eager to read more..." (Booklist )

"FORBIDDEN: The Books of Mortals rocks with the same level of intensity and brilliance as Dekker's Circle Series. Riveting, resounding, and a magnificent blend of Dekker's and Lee's styles. I devoured FORBIDDEN." (James L. Rubart, bestselling author )

"With great plot twists, compelling writing, and unanswered questions, this is a must-read for Dekker fans..." (Library Journal )

About the Author

TED DEKKER is a New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty novels with a total of more than 5 million books in print. He is known for thrillers that combine adrenaline-laced plots with incredible confrontations between good and evil.

TOSCA LEE is a New York Times bestselling author whose works include Demon: A Memoir, Havah: The Story of Eve and the Books of Mortals series with New York Times bestseller Ted Dekker. She is best known for her strong prose and humanizing portraits of maligned characters.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Center Street; First Edition edition (September 13, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1599953544
• ISBN-13: 978-1599953540
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.2 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (151 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #82,445 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 49 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Cover, Awesome Trailer, but Story Is Disappointing October 25, 2011

By K. Grant

Format:Hardcover

Review by Kara Grant

I don't like giving bad reviews and I consider both Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee far above the standard of talented writers, but Forbidden did not satisfy me as a reader. I'm glad so many others have enjoyed this book and given stellar reviews, but I am not one of them.
I was excited about reading Dekker's newest achievement and seeing how his co-author Lee added to the story. Both are extremely gifted storytellers. However, this book didn't grab me until I got to chapter 19. I was disappointed with the first few pages because it was told more like a summary than a story at first. I could not picture a society without emotions, it still doesn't make sense to me how DNA can be stripped of the very quality given to us by God. I get living in fear, but who are we as humans if we don't feel emotions? It's like every human being has become logical and there is no care or concern for others. The very first thing the book describes is a funeral setting, but there is no love or loss mentioned. There is no heaven or hell, only an afterlife. And fear is the motivation for everything; if you obey every law of the Order and live accordingly then when you die your soul will spend eternity enjoying Bliss (the absence of fear). However, if you break any law, cause disorder or you're born with defects then you will end up in Hades because the world's Maker will refuse anyone else. I had a difficult time accepting that even in fiction. Who would want to die under that pressure?

I could understand wanting to live in a society that has no hatred or war, that's ideal, but I don't believe that the authors put the story together very well illustrating this. It's all summarized. I also didn't feel any connection with the characters in the story. Many important characters die in this story before the last page, but I didn't have any remorse for their deaths. I kept thinking about the Pod people from the body snatchers movie or the Eloi in The Time Machine who feel nothing when the Morlocks take them (no emotions, only survival matters). I kept asking myself throughout, what's the point?

The story follows two characters who get access to a vial of blood and ingest it immediately, Rom and Saric. There are also several minor characters, but it's mostly from Rom/Saric's perspectives and the people around them. Rom is the good guy, Saric is a sovereign in the story who becomes corrupted after drinking the blood. The story is mostly about their inner transformations and reactions to having the blood in their system. One cares about finding out the truth and restoring peace to a system that is hypocritical and corrupted (perfect peace being impossible to achieve when the Order is hiding a secret) while the other wants to rule the world and doesn't care what must be done to get there. They both have to come to grips with their mortality and both must face conflicts and doubts along the way.

There is graphic violence in this book, but just as the characters have no emotions I wasn't moved by the killing/fighting. The best thing I can say about this book is that it's not creepy or scary at all. Dekker is very good at making stories symbolic so I tried to see that symbolism in Forbidden. The vial of blood is the blood of Jesus in my mind, once you've accepted it you're forever changed. The only god mentioned in this story is the Maker so there's no message about the trinity or the cross. The blood makes a person die to self so that they can have their minds opened up, there is no preaching or emphasis placed on relationship with the Maker in this book. There is law and everyone must follow the Order or face brutal consequences. The characters come to life with the blood, they have emotions, their perspectives change, they have something to live for other than fear, and they are amazed by the difference. The blood is pure and there is a dramatic reaction once the person takes it. The next book in this series will be Mortals, but I've had enough with Forbidden. It's a good story, but it's not for me.

42 of 48 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Forbidden, proof that Dekker's best days are behind him? October 11, 2011

By Mathachew

Format:Hardcover

I kept telling myself Ted Dekker's next book will be better than his last. I kept telling myself that he would not continue to pull the same shenanigans of old and thrust illogical interactions in unbelievable situations and yet again, use love as a gimmick. I kept telling myself that he is capable of writing a great story and that when I finished the book, I would be happy with what I just read. The truth of the matter was self-evident: Dekker's best days are well behind him.

Many spoilers follow.

So what exactly was wrong with the book? Though the book was not downright awful, it was bad enough for me to be happy that I finished it so I could move on to something more meaningful and enjoyable. Those are not details, so let me begin. The entire premise is destined for problems and was evident from the opening chapter when Rom did the illogical thing and went against everything he ever knew and trusted a crazy old man he only met seconds earlier. Many characters felt like rehashes of previous Dekker novels and one distinctive scene read like it was ripped straight from Green. In typical Dekker fashion, one person confesses their love in record time. Cities, countries and continents are given names in a cheap effort of creating a new world unlike any we have ever seen. I can appreciate the effort in creating a unique setting, but it all combined to make little sense. Brahmin, who are royalty, felt like vampire knock offs without the fangs, and by the end of the book, you still do not know why there are people who have translucent skin (Brahmin) and regular folk like us. Once the symbolism of the world being "walking corpses" was introduced, the reader is overloaded with the concept to the point of annoyance because of the way certain characters kept treating it as a physical death, not an emotional one.

A cryptic message written in Latin is decoded, giving some insight into the blood Rom is given in the book's opening chapter. Here's an excerpt:

I have a sample of purest blood of unknown origin marked only "TH," which proved resistant to the strain.

Readers of The Circle Series should immediately note the TH being Thomas Hunter, savior of humanity in the year 2010. Based on the timeline of when Chaos occurred in Dekker's Lost Books Series, Forbidden probably takes place in the year 2550, possibly closer to the year 2600. Would the man that saved humanity really be that unknown roughly 40 to 90 years after saving every person from certain death? Seems unlikely, but this is hardly a primary point of emphasizing the book's numerous problems.

Murder is illegal and security is overly lax (if not non-existent), yet there are well trained killers working for the Order who strike with deadly precision and leave a mess of evidence without making the slightest effort in covering their tracks. If this is the case, surely there would be rumors of such atrocities (since they exist to hunt down and destroy the Keepers) and would not be as unbelievable and unheard of as portrayed. The Order's alchemists are always conducting experiments (the details of which remain mostly vague), one of which is the ability to restore some emotions. Rom is able to sneak into these lairs in a disguise, yet despite the Order being aware of this trespass, several main characters successfully repeat this two more times using the same method. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice, shame on Dekker and Tosca. The icing on the cake was the book's terribly flat ending. I do not think the events leading up to the shocking moment could have been more monotonous and ill conceived. It is pretty clear not a lot of thought went into it because it truly plays out without much sense.

Ted Dekker has written some great novels. Unfortunately, I believe his last great novel was BoneMan's Daughters, which came out in 2008. Since then he has pumped out two books a year and each one progressively worse than the others, with an exception to Immanuel's Veins, which still remains tied as my most disliked Dekker book, along with Lunatic and Elyon. I do believe this book is the straw that broke the camel's back. I am a completionist at heart and there is only one book that I have stopped reading. I considered doing it again, but I can finish a book this long in two or three days, so I stuck with it, trying to enjoy the book but failing. Forbidden (The Book of Mortals) is the first book of a trilogy and while there are some decent parts, it suffers as a whole and I have no intention of reading the rest of the series. I can only suffer through so much whimsical, immediate love before I find myself clawing at my eyes to make it stop. If this is the first or one of the first Dekker books you have read, I strongly recommend sticking with his earlier works as they are, hands down, far better than anything he has put out recently.

32 of 39 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Horrible first half and ok second half October 12, 2011

By Jocelyn Messier

Format:Hardcover

I am having a hard time reconciling with the fact that most of the reviews about this book are good!. I am giving it 2 starts because of the last 40% of the book. The first 60% are worth just about 0 star. Overall I am extremely disappointed. What's wrong with the book?. Here are a few blatant examples (warning some spoilers).
1) A few hours after being handed a package containing a vial full of blood he decides to drink it. There are no instructions as to how muych to drink but he drinks only the correct amount. 3 other people also dring the blood and they also have no idea how much to drink but they also drink just the right amount. But this is beside the point. There is not a single human being (especially one who only knows fear) who would drink that blood for almost no reason as is the case in the book. That part is utterly unbelievable and as avid readers you know as well as I do that believability is one of the fundamental rules of good writing. If you don't have believability then your writing is in deep trouble. This is only one examples. The main characters in this book do many other things that people would simply not do (normal or not).

2) Another fundamental rules of good writing is to make sure that what you write has at least a secondary purpose. So if you describe a street lamp, for instance, then there must a reason that goes beyond just providing you with a mental image of the surroundings. When you describe the lamp you should, for instance, indicate the dim light emanating from the lamp is illuminating only some of ROM's face leaving his eyes in shadows, enhancing his determined look (something like that). This book does some of that but it also fails to do that a lot more often.

3) I am no psychologist but if people were only able to know fear then they would not quite behave the way people do in the book. I don't remember clear examples where that was obvious but believe me you will have those thoughts yourself when you come across some of the situations.

It felt like the book was written by a 12 year old and then was revised by an adult writter. I really had to force myself to get past the first 60% of the book and the only reason I did was because the other reviews had mentionned the fact that it was better after the first half (and it was!). I only hope, if you decide to buy the book that your experience with it is not as disappointing as mine.