Showdown (Paradise Series, Book 1) (The Books of History Chronicles) [Audiobook, CD, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Ted Dekker (Author), Kevin King (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2005

Welcome to Paradise.  When a stranger named Marsuvees Black appears in Paradise, he brings with him a message of hope and love. Or is it death and hate? Perhaps neither–perhaps both. He seems to know too much about the town’s many unspoken secrets, and he himself holds the greatest secret of them all. As black clouds and sandstorms envelop the town, it becomes almost impossible to get in or out. It quickly becomes apparent that Paradise is being isolated for a reason. But why? Ted Dekker’s latest adrenaline-laced thriller has been proclaimed as his most original, daring tale to date. A tale that will take you further than anything he’s ever written. A tale that will leave you wanting more.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dekker's readers will recognize many of his mainstays: mysterious forces causing havoc, characters who may or may not be what they seem and open, faith-based questions about the very nature of reality. In this page-turner, the residents of Paradise, Colo. (a one-saloon town in the mountains), encounter Marsuvees Black, a purported preacher who claims God sent him to bring "grace and hope" to their town. Meanwhile, at a nearby nondenominational Christian monastery, monks fret over a rebellion among the gifted children in their care. Dekker (Thr3e; Blink) impressively paces the novel, maximizing suspense and intrigue by solving the novel's myriad mysteries at the exact point readers will likely be guessing at them. For example, it will dawn on readers by the middle of the story that a certain type of connection must exist between the monastery and the town. Dekker rewards that discovery by explaining the connection, but still leaves enough questions open to keep readers sleuthing to the end. While there are gory scenes and small problems with the story (especially the implausible, unethical circumstances under which the students at the monastery have been procured and studied), Dekker delivers his signature exploration of good and evil in the context of a genuine thriller that could further enlarge his already sizable audience. (Feb. 10)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Ted Dekker is known for novels that combine adrenaline-laced stories packed with unexpected plot twists, unforgettable characters, and incredible confrontations between good and evil. He is the best-selling author of The Circle Trilogy (Black, Red, and White), Blink of An Eye, Heaven’s Wager, When Heaven Weeps, and Thunder of Heaven and the co-author of Blessed Child and A Man Called Blessed. Raised in the jungles of Indonesia, Ted now lives in Texas with his wife and children.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Oasis Audio (January 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1598591053
• ISBN-13: 978-1598591057
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 4.9 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,480,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Born of Black...., January 11, 2006

By 

Rebekah Martin (MI,USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Showdown (Paradise Series, Book 1) (The Books of History Chronicles) (Hardcover)

Into the small town of Paradise, Colorado comes a stranger clothed in black. Calling himself Marsuvees Black, the man claims to be there to bring hope and love. But strange things are happening while Marsuvees in there. People are seeing things, acting different: as if everyone's attitude in the formerly quiet town has shifted toward anger, hatred, and paranoia.. Johnny Drake, a boy in the town, knows that something is terribly wrong, but doesn't know how to stop it.

At a hidden monastery near Paradise, a secret school for children is disrupted as a young student named Billy explores the forbidden tunnels underneath. He has found a dangerous secret there, and through Billy, a number of the other students have also been lured down into the tunnels. While Billy doesn't truly understand what he discovered, he will change the lives of a whole town and begin an almost unimaginable series of events.. It will be a showdown between good and evil- as only Ted Dekker can write it.

One thing when reading a book by Ted Dekker is that you can never expect exactly what you'll read. He has a habit of making the unthinkable seem plausible, along with giving a totally new perspective As usual, I devoured this newest book in one evening, barely able to sleep after I'd finished. The book was great! Finally understanding the connection between Billy, the Blank Books, and what happened to Thomas Hunter in the Black Forest (from The Circle Trilogy) was an added bonus. Showdown is a must-read for everyone who has loved Ted Dekker's books.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Classic Good vs Evil, March 31, 2006

By 

Lance Ortiz (Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Showdown (Paradise Series, Book 1) (The Books of History Chronicles) (Hardcover)

This is my first experience with Ted Dekkar after hearing rave reviews for his other books from friends and family. I was a little leery because many Christian fiction authors do not write that well (with the exception of Peretti). I figured I would try Dekker's latest attempt to get my feed wet. Well I was not disappointed. Dekkar is a very good writer, above average for the suspense/thriller genre in general, and knows how to weave an interesting and thought provoking yarn.

This story started out with some very strange things happening. There were also two separate seemingly unrelated story lines proceeding at once. But about half way through the book things seem to come together and make a little more scene in the context of the far out premise. Dekkar also develops a number of interesting characters who play a key role in the story. But what got me was, late in the book it became evident that the story was a subtle, and at times not so subtle, allegory. Some folks might have realized it earlier than me, but it made me go back and examine what I had already read and realize what a fine job Dekkar did in this respect. This fact made me enjoy the book even more. Note that I am being vague so not to spoil anything for others who want to read this book.

This story is classic good vs evil, and I would say it would be more along the lines Dean Koonz or Stephen King than your typical Christian novel. Note that there are some disturbing and graphic scenes. There is also a good message here, yet I did not feel it was to heavy handed. The interesting yet strange premise along with good character development and the presents of the allegory make this a very enjoyable read.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars "Showdown" at the Not So OK Corral, December 24, 2006

By 

Kris St. James "Soli Deo Gloria" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Showdown (Paradise Series, Book 1) (The Books of History Chronicles) (Paperback)

Ted Dekker is a total "hit or miss" with me. I began my foray into his work with Thr3e and literally could not finish the book. But, assured by a friend I trusted, I gave him another shot and picked up Black. I was not disappointed. The day I finished Black, I got Red and the day I finished Red, I began White. I absolutely loved The Circle Trilogy, so you can imagine my eagerness when I discovered Showdown, which is roughly a continuation of the Trilogy, centering around the mysterious Books of History which bring written words into real life.

Showdown begins with promise, builds weakly, and putters to a pathetic end. Is there any action in Showdown? Plenty, I suppose. Actually, Showdown is a fairly gory and violent story. I would not recommend it to anyone under the age of maybe 15. If it were to be made into a movie as written, it would be rated "R", "PG-13" at the least.

The story is about a tiny, isolated town in Colorado. It literally has one grocery store, one church, one beauty shop, and once had a movie theater. The town of Paradise (such an awfully cliche' name, all things considered) has a population of about 400, but we only really get the feeling that it's populated by about twenty. The remaining population are only briefly referenced a few times, which skews the feel of the story, in my opinion.

The opening scene is pretty good, actually. Johnny Drake, a boy of about fourteen, is sitting with his old (very old) friend Cecil as a stranger decked out in what can only be described as a gunslinger's getup from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, strides into town on foot. Marsuvees Black is an outlaw prophet come to Paradise to bring the sleeping residents a message of "grace and hope" and to shake things up a little.

In the first few pages, Black murders 80 year old Cecil by scaring him into a heart attack and Johnny Drake is the only witness. From this point forward, young Johnny is the only person in Paradise who is able to resist the charms and deceptions Black brings to the town.

Beginning at the Episcopal church that night, Black calls a town meeting where he wows the people with a sleight-of-hand show that really gets everyone's attention. Who doesn't like to be entertained at church, after all? He openly challenges the pastor, Father Stanley Yordon, who leaves almost immediately the following day for a conference with the Bishop in Denver and does not return for several days. I was fully expecting Stanley to return and do something of consequence, but in all fairness to the story, he was absolutely useless as a character except that Dekker needed a church and a church needs a pastor. Well, and there's the affair with Johnny's mother, Sally. And their child. I won't spoil that should anyone reading this actually decide to read Showdown. Still, it really didn't add to the story.

After getting to very briefly (and shallowly) know the characters in Paradise, we move to a mysterious monastery where a group of orphans are attending a special school. In reality, they are the unknowing participants in a spiritual experiment organized by the headmaster, David Abraham (yes, just like Abraham in the Bible). It turns out that Marsuvees Black is one of the monks "teaching" the 37 or so students at the school. The students are taught primarily through writing. Everything centers around writing and for good reason: the mysterious blank Books of History we first hear about in The Circle Trilogy have appeared here. If you were perplexed by Dekker's ending in White, you will now solve the mystery of who Billy is. Billy is a thirteen or fourteen year old "orphaned" student at the seminary who is an exceptional thinker and writer. In fact, his only real challenger is Samuel Abraham, the son of the headmaster.

We learn that there are forbidden tunnels under the monastery and that Billy has been tempted by Black to enter them where he discovers the blank Books of History. (The Books of History have he ability to create history based on whatever is written in them, so long as the writer has "the faith of a child", which, given the age of the children, was a bit unconvincing to me. Whoever has seen a preteen who was filled with nothing more than angst and sarcasm?) Billy also discovers the giant worms (which are never really explained) that live in the tunnels and excrete a hallucinogenic sludge that seems to help blind him to the evil lurking about. In time, Billy begins to coerce his friends to visit the forbidden tunnels, which finally leads to a "debate" (one of the many "showdowns" of the book and just about the weakest "debate" I've ever read), resulting in a drastic change in the way the monastery operates. A majority of the students follow Billy down into the dungeons and are conscripted into helping him write his story. A story about an evil prophet who visits a sleepy little town called Paradise, Colorado...

I won't belabor on with more details, except to point out that the story is just incredibly weak. The characters are extremely shallow and the circumstances are just too unbelievable, even as a supernatural fantasy/thriller. Dekker does a poor job creating characters you care about, which is surprising because he did such a good job of that very thing in The Circle Trilogy. Several characters are brutalized, some are murdered, and I found I just didn't care. I felt I was just reading words on a page (actually at the half way point of the book, I was seriously wondering whether I would even bother finishing it. It did get better after that point, but only just.) One big problem I had was how unusually remote the town was. It just didn't make sense when the phones went out and the power failed that SOMEBODY didn't notice. Don't these folks have families? If you live in a remote area, aren't there like REGULAR deliveries or some sort of near DAILY contact made? What about law enforcement? Heck, what about the MAIL?!

The central message of Showdown is actually very good and full of meaning to Christians. "Grace and Hope without Love is powerless." In the end, sacrificial love is what saves the day. But his way of telling the story--of illustrating the power of love--had no power. Young Samuel's selfless act in the end meant absolutely nothing because he had nothing invested and therefore, nothing risked; no real reason to give his life to save the people of Paradise (or his "dear friend" Johnny), and without that very important connection, it had virtually no meaning for me and therefore no power. Words on a page.

I felt I had been beat over the head with allegory instead of told a fascinating tale about characters I cared about and those wonderful blank books. I didn't even hate the villains! How can you not at least hate the villains?! Lack of good character development really hampered the story. Dekker does a passable job with dialog, although he has the fourteen year olds sounding like eight year olds at times, and like proper Victorian ladies at other times. Who winks anymore? If I see a fourteen year old kid winking at another kid, I'm calling the cops. I also found his use of everyday language in the narration to be annoying. It almost read like a fourteen year old had written it. Hmmm...

The biggest problem I had with the story is the way the extreme conflicts were resolved. Far too trite and fatalistic, in my opinion. There's just no tension without risk, and NO risk where fate is concerned. Well, they were "fantastic" in a sense and would look cool on a movie screen (anybody see a pattern here?), but they just didn't make much sense. Dekker seems to draw out the story with a few "key" revelations that don't make sense, either. Yes, the revelations themselves made sense, I guess, but why his characters kept them hidden until "everyone was ready" did not. It became clear that he needed to push the plot and stretch the story. Big mistake, in my opinion. It subtracted credibility from his characters and from him as an author.

As I said, I absolutely LOVED The Circle Trilogy (Black, Red, and White), but I wouldn't recommend anyone waste their time reading Showdown. On a scale of one to five, I rate it a solid two. (Hey, at least I finished it! I couldn't finish Thr3e!) It's obvious Ted Dekker is a good writer from The Circle Trilogy. Why he didn't put those same skills to use in Showdown is the biggest mystery of all.