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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Sensory Ride into the Heart of Imagination, July 13, 2004
This review is from: Gideon's Dawn (Paperback)
In the spirit of C.S. Lewis and J. R.R. Tolkien, a new breed of Christian authors is venturing into the world of fantasy, attempting to open the reader's mind and draw parallels to the life of faith. Michael Warden, writer, adventurist and pastor is one of those daring souls. And he delivers a powerful punch in his thriller, Gideon's Dawn. Gideon is a confused and conflicted college professor who battles fierce rages when all of a sudden a routine earthquake-watching expedition launches him into another world in which he is a complete stranger but whose characters quickly brand him as a Kinsman Redeemer. It's a title he quickly rejects and a world that he struggles to understand. Gideon's Dawn reveals the treasure that results when a person of faith fully explores the depth of human imagination. It draws not-so-obvious parallels to the Christian experience and yet leaves the reader spell-bound, searching for clues to the meaning of this strange new life of Gideon. Wardens' characters are rich, his plots complex, and the story flowing in style and substance. This book is no cookie-cutter page-turner, but a deep and intriguing novel that will exhaust all of your senses. He leaves Gideon as a character with a rough past and a flawed life. He is someone with whom we can identify-imagine being lifted from normalcy into a strange world where Words have power and where thoughts are not kept silent but can be read by your peers? And yet it is in this life that Gideon finds his purpose and calling. If you enjoy a good story with many twists and unpredictability, then Gideon's Dawn is for you.
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
fundamentally derivative, ultimately promising, January 3, 2004
This review is from: Gideon's Dawn (Paperback)
Practically my first impression (it began as I perused the map which opens the book's content) was, "Mr. Warden takes his cues from Stephen Donaldson." Donaldsonian themes, titles, character flaws riddle the book, particularly its world-building elements. There on the southern frontier of the map is Castellan Watch instead of Kevin's Watch. An accident propels a self-doubting antihero into another world where he immediately costs a salt-of-the-earth family a great deal of sorrow (but one of them will die in his stead later, shaming him with grace). The antihero initially refuses to embrace the messianic destiny the land attempts to foist upon him. An ancient ruler once uttered a curse that deeply scarred the land, but the patches that remain unscathed are fecund (I believe Donaldson's word is "viridian") beyond belief, a shock to the antihero's Earth-dulled senses. Sound familiar, Land and Thomas Covenant fans? Gideon finds a Council of Lords, repositories of ancient wisdom the scholars have not yet been able to decipher, soundenors (for Stonedowners), Wordhaveners (for Woodhelvinin---by this point in the book I was wondering where the Woodhelvinin were, and sure enough, here they came), etc.
I instinctively subtracted all this from Warden's world to find out what he really put into it besides converting Donaldson (and the odd Jordan or Lawhead influence), and found little but muzziness--an ill-defined, tepidly-flavored world. This isn't fair to do of course; all authors are derivative, and if we excised all Anglo-Saxon influence from Tolkien (just to pick an example), we wouldn't have much but muzziness either. I can only plead that Warden tempted me to see nothing but his influences, since he didn't digest them very thoroughly. Soundenor for Stonedowner, I ask you! I AM thrilled that Warden founds his world on Words and languages. That is a good cornerstone for some unique fantasy.
As I said, the initial, world-building part of the book seemed obviously derivative. The plot grew on me (and, hey, I read Christian fantasy---I'm used to plots staggering around a bit) until by Chapter 49 I wrote, with a bit of surprise, "Good Chapter." I think it had to do with Gideon being stripped down to hope as opposed to despair (something Thos. Covenant would be loth to admit). The plot twist at the end did take me by surprise, and so I'm ready to say that I am looking forward to "Waymaker" coming out soon. I will read it and expect to enjoy it, even if it is a carbon copy of "The Illearth War." I liked "The Illearth War" anyway.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow. Like a New Tolkien for our Generation., March 15, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Gideon's Dawn (Paperback)
Wow. It's hard to believe that Gideon's Dawn is Michael Warden's first novel. He writes with such imagination and vision that the characters and setting seem to come alive right on the page. The story goes something like this: Gideon Dawning is a burned-out teaching assistant at the University of Texas. When he takes a group of undergrads on a geology expedition, he is summarily and unexpectedly transported into a whole new realm---birthed into this place through the chaos of an earthquake. Here he is taken (mistaken?) against his repeated protests as a long-foretold messiah. The result is a journey of hardship and discovery as he makes his way through a world where words have power and "there is no magic, only words of life and death." Have to admit I approached this one with skepticism, but was won over almost immediately by the lyrical prose and depth of story Warden has created. I'm told it took him 10 years to write---and it was worth it. Fans of Terry Brooks, Tolkien, or CS Lewis should eat this up. Warden is a bright new star in fantasy fiction...Let's hope he keeps writing for another 50 years.
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