Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent and different -- Begins and ends on A, March 29, 2006
This book is entertaining and readable, but keeps going beyond expectations.
The biggest surprise was simply that it was so good overall, at least in the top 10% of books I've read in its genre. It compares favorably, and is similar in ways, to some books by Madeleine L'Engle and Ursula LeGuin. Richness and complexity are the features I found that set this book apart from many others.
Moral complexity is one feature. The tale explores themes of mercy. justice, and the tension between them, but not with glib answers. (And truthfully, I started reading the book expecting less depth.) A question it asks toward the end is who is responsible when a person who has received mercy harms others once again.
I kept thinking I had pegged the "moral" or simple message of the book and Hannes' development, only to be surprised again. For example, I thought of "would-be-messiah learns his lesson," "naive do-gooder encounters institutional evil," "young man learns that mercy triumphs justice," "good guy succumbs to the lure of seduction of power," and so on. Instead, I kept being surprised as the book and character kept breaking those stereotypes. In my experience, it's uncommon to find this level of complexity in similar books.
The story itself is likewise full of surprises, twists and turns, never gratuitous but well-woven. The writing and language are excellent as well.
In summary, an outstanding and unusual book, and one which makes you think.
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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Tale of Justice & Mercy, September 4, 2005
Hannes was born a serf, but became an apprentice to the Pipelord of the Guild of Pipers. Sent to Hamelin to rid it of the plague of rats, Hannes finds that someone has deliberately brought the rats there. Someone does not want him to succeed, is willing to kill him and any who offer him help, including the mayor's lovely daughter.
The McCune's have written a tale that pulls the reader along with Hannes the piper as he tries to find who is behind the rat plague and seek at the same time to do justice. But can he temper his justice with mercy?
I enjoyed The Rats of Hamelin and have passed it on to my own lovely daughter.
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28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Page Turner, May 1, 2006
This is a complicated little story. A town at war with the pipers guild, a child at war with his father, both at war with memories of things from the past. All the people hold onto memories, stories and the past, and no one knows how to forgive or move forward. It is the story of justice and mercy. For too long Johannes the Master Pipers Apprentice, on his first solo mission focuses on justice and forgets mercy.
This is a great tale of mystery and suspense and redemption. The redemption is both personal and corporate.
In this story the Pipers Guild is the church and to enter the pipe-world through pipeing is to enter the spiritual realm through prayer. Though this story is not explicitly Christian much can be read into the story. It would be a great read for a Christian, a family, or the common man on the street. Barry Lopez in Crossing Open Ground states: "I felt exhilaration, and a deeper confirmation of the stories. The mundane tasks which awaited me I anticipated now with pleasure. The stories had renewed me in a sense of the purpose of my life.
This feeling, a inexplicable renewal of enthusiasm after story telling is familiar to many people." These are the feelings this book invoked in me. Like other classics, This Present Darkness, or The Narnia Chronicles or many other. This is a book I will return to again and again and each time it will drive me deeper to prayer and to seek justice in this world but always justice tempered by mercy.
As Johannes states in the book "My life as a piper was going to be hard, harder than I had ever imagined. Apprenticeship was over - now the clubs and arrows were real. The grim weariness in the pipelord's face, watchful for the next attack - now that would be my weariness. I would always be a pilgrim." P. 255 I would r-write this paragraph for my life as "My life as a Christian is going to be hard, harder than I ever imagined. Apprenticeship is over - now it is time to enter the battle. Time to be on guard against the evil one who wanders to and fro in the earth. I will always be on a quest!" And with that this book calls us forth to enter the spiritual battle.
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