teGeorge.com

Fantastic Flying Books are why I Keep on Writing

Posted on February 4, 2012 by tegeorge 2 Comments

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is an animated film and new book app for the iPad that should inspire writers and readers alike. Ironically, I first saw this film the same day I received a critique from a novel contest I entered last year. In the words of the people that produced the animated short …

Inspired in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, “Morris Lessmore” is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor.

It takes a little over 15 minutes to view this delightful film but is well worth the time. Just don’t forget about me when you’re finished because Fantastic Flying Books are why I Keep on Writing.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

We writers do a lot of strange and torturous things on this crazy road toward publication. We often write for years before even thinking about letting anyone else take a look at what we’ve written. Then we join groups of like-minded masochists and subject ourselves to each other’s awkward and sometimes painful attempts at self-expression.

Somewhere along the way in this phase we actually finish a novel or other book and decide to take a plunge in the deep end of the literary pool. And this is where the fun really begins.

If we go the traditional route (as I have so far) we find an agent, promise to give him or her 15% of anything we ever make on that book, and proceed to do what none of us are wired to do – WAIT, and WAIT, and WAIT.
Tired of waiting we do things we hope will grease the wheels of publication justice. Most notably we join associations, attend conferences, and enter recognized contests. It’s a gamble of sorts: If I win a notable contest then perhaps some publisher will see the light and give my agent a call or like 99% of us, chances are I won’t win because only a few can.

This brings me back to the critique that came in the mail. Long story short, out of a couple hundred entrants I made it to the second round (whatever that means) but didn’t make it to the top 10. I already knew this but was looking forward to seeing the judge’s reasons.

Some of the observations were invaluable. I do need to work on mechanics more. I hated grammar in high school but loved literature. Reason being; I didn’t like rules but could get inside teachers’ heads and tell them what they wanted to hear about a story. Loving to read didn’t hurt either. But dangling participles and split infinitives – are you kidding me?

Then came critiques that made me wonder if the judge perhaps got my manuscript mixed up with someone else. Here are just a couple of examples of the judge’s remarks along with my humble observation:

The code breaker Hu was at times brilliant … but in other times a moron, in thinking he could just disappear in the mountains while a manhunt for him was on. – Okay, except Hu had no idea anyone would be looking for him except the person he left behind in another city. That is plainly stated in the scene in question.
Rachel was intelligent and insightful, so she helped the elements of the story move along at a good pace while adding some sexual tension in the story. – Thanks for the compliment but just one problem; Rachel was feared by everyone, called Iron Pants behind her back, and was in no way romantically involved with any character in the story.

This is the point where I take a deep breath and remember why I write. Fantastic flying books are why I write. Words are wonderful things that have a life of their own. So for now, I’ll take my lumps, learn what I can from these observations, keep on writing, and believe someday those words will land where God wants them to land.

How about you? What can you learn from the criticisms that come your way? Are you learning from them at all? Since they’ve already landed at your feet you might as well make the most of them.

An Author's Heart, My Writing Journey, On Writing

The Google+ SEO Advantage

Posted on February 2, 2012 by tegeorge 3 Comments

Thursday Freebie: No strings attached help for those trying to communicate through social media and the web. No strings attached means just that; why put in all the work required into learning without sharing that knowledge with others? Check Be sure and share this link with all your friends.

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If you’re on the fence about diving into the deep end of the Google+ pool, here is one compelling reason you need to go on and take the plunge. People who have been using Google+ consistently are noticing something different when they search their own name. Their Google+ Profile is outranking their Facebook and Twitter profiles they have worked on for months and even years.

So why do Google+ profiles show up in searches so high in page rankings? The answer lies in how Google searches its user base compared to how Facebook allows its user base to be searched. Facebook actively blocks Google from crawling most of its content.It allows Google to crawl Fan Pages but not regular profiles.

Posts and replies between users on Facebook that mention your name are often missed by Google search spiders. The end result is that your name being mentioned on Google+ has a greater search engine (SEO) presence than anywhere else.

The Google+ SEO Advantage
How Google+ offers better search results

Internal Linking

Google+ makes it exceptionally easy to link to a lot of people you don’t even know through circles. It isn’t unusual for people who have labored on Twitter for months to have a thousand followers to accumulate three times that amount in their Google+ circles in weeks.

The circle strategy of Google+ makes for fantastic internal linking. The more your content is shared in other people’s streams and profiles, the more your content is crawled, indexed, and chosen as important by search engines.

Incentivized Inbound Links

Google now displays author photos in its search results. It takes a little effort on your part to take advantage of this but the dividends are well worth it. To learn how to set up inbound links click here.

Indexable Content

Because Google indexes and searches everything in your Google+ profile, there is much more for web crawlers to find out about you.All of the following and more in your profile are searched.

Biographical Information
Full Text of Public Posts
Photos
Links to people who have added you to their circles
Everything you have ever +1’d

All of that text adds up to thousands of searchable characters. Compare that to the 160 characters Twitter allows for biographical information and your profile on Facebook that looks more like an auto-generated pamphlet to search engines.

To test this out go to SEO-browser.comand compare your Google+ and Facebook profile. My Google+ Author Page profile provided four times the number of characters searched compared to my Facebook profile.

Characters searched in Facebook Author Page Profile = 71
Characters searched in Google+ Author Page Profile = 278

On-Page Optimization

Title tags are one of the most significant aspects of on-page optimization. Google allows much longer and descriptive title tags than either Twitter or Facebook. Many Facebook title tags often show up as only three words in searches. The end result is that Google+ title tags offer more to be searched, thus better search results.

Google+ Author Profiles in Search Results

Only Google+ can be searched this way! By linking to Google+ profiles in search results, they create an advantage that no other social media service can duplicate. Since Google first introduced author photos in search results, people have rushed to get their photo included. The reason is simple: rich snippets (as with photos) increased click-throughs.

publishing, social media Google+

On Lord Byron, Vampires, and Big Headed Writers

Posted on January 31, 2012 by tegeorge 12 Comments

If you run in the same Facebook circles I do, you’ve probably seen an image like this over the last few days. More than one writer, it seems, identifies with Lord Byron when he said, “If I don’t write to empty my mind I go mad.”

I understand the sentiment to a certain extent but wonder if we writers fail to understand how Byron came to say such a thing. We write from an innate drive to tell a story, to unveil a mystery, to ask big questions, and to entertain and challenge readers.

Sometimes, however, we writers have a pesky habit of getting a bit too full of ourselves. Visit the blogs and websites of various writers and you will come across impassioned and often volatile conversations about the craft of writing. To read some, one would think we are developing cures for cancer or have been called to lead readers to the promised land of “good writing.” Let me be the first to confess I have been at the front of the line for such parades at times.

There’s more to say about this later, but perhaps we should stop and think about the poet Byron and his quote a little longer before making it our brand.

Just to refresh your memory; Byron is considered to be one of the greatest poets of the last few centuries. He is also often credited with being the inspiration and impetus for the popular mythos of the vampire. Years before Bram Stoker came on the scene, John Polidori spent the summer of 1816 with Lord Byron and then wrote, The Vampyre. Most believe Poliodori used Byron as his inspiration for the pale, decadent, and aristocratic image so common in the genre.

Along with being an accomplished writer, George Gordon Byron had a number of other less worthy accomplishments. His life was marred by aristocratic decadence, debt, and numerous affairs (including it was rumored with his half-sister). Modern researchers are confident Byron was decidedly bi-polar. When he died at the age of 36, Lady Caroline Lamb remarked that the poet was “Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know.”

Now back to that quote, “If I don’t write to empty my mind I go mad.” We writers are prone to present our stories as the byproduct of almost uncontrollable forces. Some talk about their muse that wakes them up with a new scene for their work in progress. Stephen King offers an earthier and less Greek goddess image when he speaks of his ideas coming from “the boys in the basement”.

Don’t get me wrong; I understand fully that feeling of being overwhelmed by a story or a character. Ask my wife. It took her a while, but she finally found a way to lovingly tell me to shut up about these mental convolutions and just write for goodness sake.

At the same time, it seems the idea we are on some kind of an urgent mission to get those words out of our heads and into other people’s heads is a bit overblown. I don’t know about you but I read because I like to read. And, I write because I want to and I can.

Writing isn’t my life. As a believer in Christ how can it be? In the same way your job, hobby, family, football team, political persuasion, etc. shouldn’t be your life either. Ask yourself this; when people read your stories, observe you at work, talk with you at school, do they perceive “if you don’t do that one thing you will go mad?”

Now before you think I don’t have the same off-the-chain thoughts that come to other writers consider the following bit of prose. I jotted them down at 3 AM months ago and for the life of me I still don’t know where they came from or where they belong.

Angels whispered at the far edge of the creosote flats, the persistent hum of their wings hinting at rescue from my darkness. And then in the acrid void they grew silent. Of course they must. After all, I once killed an angel.

An Author's Heart, Christian Fiction, My Writing Journey, On Writing Christian fiction, my life, Writing styles

Facebook Timeline: Help for the Holdouts

Posted on January 26, 2012 by tegeorge 3 Comments

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So you’re the one that said, “I’m not taking any more changes from Facebook” and along came Facebook Timeline. This probably arose from some misguided idea that you can take advantage of something on the Internet that is free and never see it change. Of course, Facebook is going to make “big announcements” about “major changes” about as often as the media declares a new front runner in the Republican primaries. It’s called marketing and staying in the spotlight.

My advice is to make peace with the changes and take advantage of them. Here are some quick tips for using the new Facebook Timeline.

1. Play “Hide and not seek”

Be prepared to click “Hide from Timeline” a lot. Sure that photo of you at the party was funny at the time but you wish your friends hadn’t posted it to your timeline at 5 AM. To hide a post on your timeline, hover your cursor over the top right corner of the Timeline post. If you have had a Facebook account for very long it would be wise to spend an hour going back over your virtual past chronicled in the Timeline. A quicker way to handle this is to pull up your Facebook “Activity Log”. From there you can hide or remove posts on your profile much more efficiently and in less time.

2. Smile – That’s a Really BIG picture!

Photos now take center stage with the Facebook Timeline. You should choose a “primary photo” that has a high resolution and looks good when displayed at the top of your Timelines. Small photos are going to appear grainy and not so flattering.

3. Beware of those Geotags

If a friend geotags your album “Summer Vacation,” the world isn’t going to just see that great picture you took of your get away cabin. Now they will know exactly where that cabin is on Google Maps. If you don’t want people knowing this information you have two options: untag yourself from every geotagged photo in your photo albums or ask friends to manually remove geotags from every photo you’re in. It’s a pain in the neck but it is what it is. My advice – don’t advertise where you go on vacations on Facebook unless you want everyone in the world to know about it.

4. Be Cautions about 3^rd Party Apps for the Timeline

There are now a number of very cool apps for Timeline. But as you should have already learned with other apps, be very cautious. Some 3^rd party apps will tell people where you eat out all the time, what music you listen to, what movies you watch, etc… Using my MOG app to let people know I just listened to Jim Croce just tells them how old I am. Revealing where and when you eat out is a prefect invitation for someone to help themselves to your household goods.

Manage your apps by clicking on “Account Settings” in the very top right pull-down menu on your profile. When you click “Apps,” you’ll be presented with a list of all the apps that have access to your Timeline. Remove those you don’t want. Even with those you want you should click on “App activity privacy” and set who can and can’t see content posted by that app.

5. Get a Different Point of View

This is a very nice option on Timeline. Click the gears icon on the far right of your Facebook Timeline and you can see what anyone you choose sees when they view your Timeline. Click on the “View As” option. When you do this you see how the public, a group, or a specific person sees your profile. This will help you decide if your settings are like you want them.

6. Make Sure you Have Things Sorted Right

There are two basic options for the order in which your friends status updates appear: Recent stories first or Highlighted Stories first. If you don’t know this already that second option allows Facebook to decide which stories appear first based on your past activities. If you have over 500 friends, this is generally the best option to choose.

Got all that? Just remember, as soon as you feel comfortable with Timeline Facebook will probably introduce another latest and greatest. That’s bad for users but at least it gives me something to write about and even make a nominal living from.

Uncategorized

“Not Writing” and Einstein’s Brain

Posted on January 24, 2012 by tegeorge 3 Comments

Like writers often do I was up far too early a few mornings ago. And like many writers, if they will admit it, I found myself “not writing”. Instead I was glued to a documentary about Albert Einstein.

Before you judge me for laziness here’s a news flash. One of the beauties and pitfalls of being a writer is that just about anything can fall under the category of research. As Burton Rascoe so aptly put it, “What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he’s staring out of the window.”

Some call such activities a waste. Daydreaming never gets anything accomplished they say.Apparently they didn’t know Albert Einstein. Labeled learning disabled as a child and a failure on his first university entrance exam, Einstein spent his early twenty somethings working as a clerk in a patent office and doing a lot of pondering. It was during one of these pondering times as he looked out his office window, that he realized Isaac Newton’s law of gravity was flawed. The rest of course is history.

After Einstein’s death in 1955, a Princeton Hospital pathologist by the name of Thomas Harvey decided he wanted a closer look at the brain of a genius. The fact he failed to ask the family’s permission and then refused to return his prize cost him his job.

For years after that, Harvey kept Albert Einstein’s brain in a jar. From time to time he offered slices of it to researchers. Many theories were offered from studies of these samples as to what made Einstein the genius he was. One famous study conducted by Sandra Witelson of McMaster University found that Einstein’s brain lacked a “wrinkle” called the Sylvian fissure. From that she hypothesized the Noble Prize winner had a brain in which its neurons were freer to communicate with each other.

In a scene fitting a Dean Koontz novel, Harvey and a freelance writer by the name of Michael Paterniti decided to drive cross country to meet Einstein’s granddaughter. The two made the trip from New Jersey to California with the brain of the smartest man of the century bobbing around in a Tupperware bowl in the trunk of a Buick Skylark. You can read about that odd adventure in Paterniti’s book, Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s Brain.

At the age of 85, Thomas Harvey could stand the responsibility of guarding Einstein’s brain no longer. He wrote, “Eventually, you get tired of the responsibility of having it.”

Writers (at least most of us) have a kinship to Einstein. I said a kinship not sameness. I have trouble spelling quantum mechanics much less understanding it. But most of us can’t resist pondering. Speculative and suspense writers in particular spend a lot of time asking, “what if” and “why not”. Romance and historical writers spend equal time imagining characters and situations and settings.

As readers, we get to carry those writer’s brains around in our own kind of Tupperware bowls. They’re called books, and Kindles and Nooks. We are allowed the privilege of becoming a part of their ponderings. Sometimes the experience is enlightening. Sometimes entertaining. Sometimes exasperating. Regardless of the outcome, it’s a magical thing to hold someone else’s brain in your hands.

Perhaps, like Einstein, reading will even lead you to do some of your own pondering and thinking. Done any “not writing” lately? Why not put the results in a Tupperware bowl and share it with the rest of us?

And now the words of a famous philosopher on the subject of thinking…

Gomer Pyle thinking under a bucket

Culture, On Writing characters, Writing styles

The F-Pattern: Why People Don’t Read Web Sites

Posted on January 19, 2012 by tegeorge 6 Comments

How do people read on the web? – They Don’t.

That’s right; people don’t so much read on the web as scan.

Enter the F-Pattern

Jakob Nielsen’s usability guides have become the gold standard for easy to read web pages. Eye tracking studies carried out by Nielsen demonstrate that visitors to a web site read content in what follows an F-shaped pattern. That means visitors to a site generally read from the upper left of the web page, and then skip to fix points further down the page and read to the left again.

The following graphic is an actual clinical study in which web reader’s eye movements were studies in depth. Red and yellows indicate where the readers’ eyes focused. Blues indicate where readers’ eyes spent little time.

Principles that are evident from this pattern of reading include:

The first two paragraphs are most important on a web page. Most web visitors will read the first two paragraphs fairly closely before falling into scan mode. Therefore it is essential those few lines contain the most important information you want your visitors to know.
Scanners don’t read a web page word by word; they extract what appear to be important paragraphs, sentences, and phrases.
Sub headings, lists, and bullet points take advantage of the F-Pattern and alert a visitor’s eyes to places in the text where they need to focus.
Carefully placed and limited use of titles, bolds, and italicized text are essential in communicating to scanners.

The Inverted Pyramid

Print journalists have long employed what is called the inverted pyramid format. A news article always begins with a catchy headline and an attention grabbing summary first paragraph. From there, a news article follows an inverted pyramid with the most important information at the top working down to the least important information at the bottom.

When considering your web page or blog design, always remember the pattern of most important to least important information. The obvious question you will have is, “what is most important in this web content?” Here again, we look back to print journalists to help determine what is most important in our web content.

Long before the Internet, print journalists came up with what they called the Eight News Values. These values help determine how important information is. Here are the six most important.

News Value of Proximity – The physical or emotional closeness of information to your audience. Information that can be made personal by the reader is highly important.
News Value of Currency – Information that is a hot topic of conversation to the kind of people who generally read (or scan).
News Value of Timeliness – information that is needed now but will not be as powerful later.
News Value of Conflict – not necessarily controversial but rather information that readers are likely to be emotionally invested in.
News Value of Impact – information that is likely to affect a large group of readers.
News Value of Human Interest – typically considered soft news or feature-style stories.

There are no hard rules as to what is important in the content you want to place on your web site but these serve as a good starting point. One thing is certain, visitors to your site do not read your content, no matter how good it is, like they would a magazine or book. Understanding how they scan information is the starting point to presenting content they are sure to remember.

eReaders, Uncategorized

The Kindle Owners Lending Library and Black Helicopters

Posted on January 12, 2012 by tegeorge 11 Comments

CAT Bradley, a friend of mine, knew she would spark my interest when she tagged me on Facebook with the following post. About 60,000+ eBooks have recently been removed from the B&N Nook store (and other vendors), and are now only available on Kindle.

Before I proceed I must first offer a disclaimer. I am a dedicated NOOK Tablet/Color user. While Amazon lovers were still dreaming of a tablet I was happily using my NOOKcolor for everything from a great reading experience to watching Netflix and Hulu Plus. And, on the occasion when it was the only way possible, reading Kindle books with my Kindle App – ON MY NOOK!

Now on to the matter at hand; the link offered was to a site called Pixel of Ink. This site is dedicated to featuring free and bargain eBooks and recently posted the following article:

Due to the lack of new Free eBooks available for the Nook we will no longer include Nook links in our posts. Where did all the Nook freebies (and deals) go? The lack of Nook books seems to be due to a special deal that Amazon offered to Authors: In exchange for listing their eBooks exclusively on Amazon, their books automatically get included in the Kindle Owners Lending Library. As a result, about 60,000+ eBooks have recently been removed from the B&N Nook store (and other vendors), and are now only available on Kindle.

The idea of the Amazon Lending Library is great. Here’s how it works. Authors agree to only list their books with Amazon and therefore receive a royalty for every book “rented” through the Kindle Owners Lending Library. This is very inviting to self-published and indie published writers because it gives them exposure they can’t seem to get any other way.

Recently I posted an article about Andy Andrew’s new non-fiction work, “How do you Kill 11 Million People?” I noted how spoiled readers are becoming in expecting cheap or almost free eBooks. This all seems like a blessing to readers, but is it?

A quick Google search landed me on comments from a number of published authors who are reluctantly playing Amazon’s game but also aware of the big picture. Consider this post on Goodreads from a self-published author with several books on Amazon’s “exclusive” program.

Just for the record, I have a well-known author friend who’s in the Kindle lending program. Rather than making 75% on a book sale, he makes just 10-Cents on a book rental. He had 300 books rented during one recent period. That means he made a whopping $30. I know it’s wonderful for all you readers who like books as cheap as possible, but what happens when all the good authors say: “Forget it. I can’t make enough money for writing to be worthwhile.” Then there’ll just be the 99-cent first novels by aspiring authors. Have fun.

So where’s the conspiracy? Amazon has just announced it is preparing to unveil its own imprint. Their end game is not so secret; they want a cradle to grave monopoly on books.First tier authors are already rebelling against the Lending Library with a number of lawsuits underway by major publishing houses like Hachette and Random. Are the publishers angels? Certainly not. But at least they do thrive in a competitive environment. Amazon wants no competition – plain and simple.

Perhaps Amazon’s exclusive strategy will make a few struggling authors some real money. But in the long run I can only see one real winner. Surprisingly to some it won’t be the author or the reader. Monopolies never benefit anyone except those holding the monopoly.Will Barnes and Nobles look for a way to do the same thing? Perhaps. If they do, they can park their black helicopter right next to Amazon’s in the “aren’t we stupid consumers” garage for all to admire.

Until then, I have yet one more reason to love my NOOK. I’m sure Amazon is quaking in its boots.

Culture, eReaders, publishing eBooks

How Do you Kill 11 Million People

Posted on January 5, 2012 by tegeorge 12 Comments

Andy Andrews is best known for motivational and what some call fuzzy fictional stories that inspire. So how does a successful New York Time bestseller leave his comfort zone and write a book with a title like, How Do You Kill 11 Million People?

For those who have visited the author’s, History Summer Camp Series, perhaps that question is not so hard to answer. Andrews is an admitted late blooming history wonk. But his interest goes far beyond that of a collector of facts. He is more concerned with how often we fail to make logical connections between the past and present.

How we govern each other, what our society allows and why – very few of us intentionally connect the truth of the past with the realities of the where we have ended up today. (p. 15)

Be forewarned; this book is short, blunt, and sobering. In typical eBook spoiled brat fashion, one Amazon reviewer gives the book two stars for this reason: “Although the basic idea is a good wake up call, it really should not have the selling price it does by any means. $1.99 would have been the fair price for the Kindle version of this book.” If you share the attitude that the value of the words of a book is solely determined by its length and format I would suggest you not waste your time reading any further.

Did I mention this book is blunt? The first 20 pages introduce us to some staggering numbers that chronicle what populations allowed to be done to themselves in the last century. Consider the number of people exterminated by their own governments from 1914 to 2000.

Mexico, Pakistan, Baltic States – 1 million each
Turkey – 2 million Armenians
Cambodia – 3 million (nearly half the population)
Soviet Union – 69,911,000
Nazi Germany – 11,283,00

The sobering part of Andrew’s premise is that in many ways the Holocaust victims of Nazi Germany “allowed” themselves to be killed. He asks the question this way:

Why, for month after month and year after year, did millions of intelligent human beings – guarded by relatively few Nazi soldiers – willingly load their families into … cattle cars to be transported by rail to one of the many death camps scattered across Europe? How can a condemned group of people headed for a gas chamber be compelled to act in a docile manner? (p. 22)

What follows is the author’s brief yet detailed account of how Hitler and Eichmann managed to carry out their “Final Solution” as the citizens of Germany and for a good while the rest of the world, looked the other way. The bottom line answer is simple yet difficult to swallow. These words near the end of How Do You Kill 11 Million People? state the author’s premise the best:

The danger to America is not a single politician with ill intent. Or even a group of them. The most dangerous thing any nation faces is a citizenry capable of trusting a liar to lead them. In the long run, it is much easier to undo the policies of a crooked leadership than to restore common sense and wisdom to a deceived population willing to elect such a leader in the first place. Any country can survive having chosen a fool as their leader. But history has shown time and again that a nation of fools is surely doomed.

Though Andrews never names a political party and repeatedly disavows any particular agenda, I have no doubt various and even opposing ideologies will attach themselves to his words. Such will be a disservice to the truths presented here. Liars and a willingness to be lied to are not the sole territory of one party. This book and history shows there is plenty of that to go around and be shared by all.

This book was not provided free by Thomas Nelson but was rather purchased with the hard earned money of this fellow “ship of fools” passenger.

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Andy Andrews is the author of The Noticer, The Final Sumitt, The Butterfly Effect and many more New York Times Best Sellers. Hailed by the New York Times as a “modern-day Will Rogers who has quietly become one of the most influential people in America,” Andy Andrews is an internationally known speaker and novelist whose combined works have sold millions of copies worldwide. He has been received at the White House and has spoken at the request of four different U.S. presidents.

Culture, Reviews

Immanuel’s Veins–Ted Dekker

Posted on January 3, 2012 by tegeorge 1 Comment

This is a reprint of my review at Unveiled last year. For a short time only, this excellent story of horror, suspense, evil, and ultimate love is available in the NOOK format for $3.40. A great price for a great story!

Toma Nicolescu and his companion Alec Cardei have seen more battles and faced more fierce enemies than either can remember in their service to their Empress, Catherine the Great. And now they have been sent on a special assignment to protect a Moldavian countess and her two daughters, Lucine and Natasha. The countess is a free spirit who has raised her daughters to live for the moment and whatever love (or lust) they care to explore. Such instantly appeals to Alec who both acknowledges being the lover of the pair. But not Toma. He is a warrior, bound by duty and honor to the will of his empress.

It doesn’t take but the first night’s banquet to make Toma realize he and his companion in arms have walked into something neither anticipated. A group of Russians have been invited and while strangely alluring, Toma senses they are also equally dangerous. It doesn’t take long for him to realize he should have paid more heed to the strange old man he and Alec met before arriving. When Toma called him a devil the shriveled character had replied, “I am not the devil … he is more beautiful than I.” But Toma does not believe in the devil or God so he did not listen. That will all change in the few days to come.

Immanuel’s Veins is in some ways a radical departure for Dekker as he tackles what appears to be a historical romance. But at its foundation, this is a return for the author to themes he so profoundly explored in The Circle series. That leads me to wonder if Toma is too closely similar to Thomas Hunter to be coincidence. And I wonder if Dekker will admit to it since he swears this isn’t a vampire novel. Yes, a vampire novel. And a testament to the power of this story is my aversion to all things vampire. It’s not that I have anything against the good vs. evil story of the legends that continue to swirl around old Vlad the Impaler of Transylvania. But this reviewer avoids band wagons and has grown tired of the modern interpretation of the legend that has turned the blood suckers into sympathetic cases driven more by 20 something angst than evil.

In a way only Dekker can, he puts the bad back into Vlad (forgive the pun). What Toma encounters in Vlad van Valerik, a Russian aristocrat, challenges everything the soldier has always been sure of. And though duty and honor are the driving force of his life it is his love for one of the daughters, Lucine, that becomes his north star. The greatest lesson Toma has to learn is that he can no longer trust in his sword and strength of will to fight every battle. Evil runs in the veins of Vlad van Valerik and only something more powerful can overcome him – the blood of Immanuel’s veins.

A warning – this is not a book for the faint of heart. Nothing is held back in drawing a picture both of the blackness of sin and evil or the effect they have on the human soul. Just as in Black, Red, White, and Green, Dekker turns the heart inside-out and shows us what wickedness looks like when it breaks beyond the veil of the hidden spiritual and shows itself in the flesh. You will never forget what Toma feels as he looks into the black pools of temptation that rest in the eyes of Valerik’s daughter. Nor will you be able to set aside how quickly the suave exterior and sweet words of Valerik transform into something akin to the very breath of hell.

Immanuel’s Veins is a story of power, lust, love, evil … and redemption. And it reminds us that redemption did not come without the greatest of costs. It is most appropriate that Toma comes to understand this in the darkest of places in the most hopeless of moments. After all, isn’t that where we come to really comprehend what redemption is?

Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Publication Date: September 2010

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Ted Dekker (born October 24, 1962) is a New York Times best-selling author of more than twenty novels. He is best known for stories which could be broadly described as suspense thrillers with major twists and unforgettable characters, though he has also made a name for himself among fantasy fans. Dekker’s novels have sold over 5 million copies worldwide. Two of his novels, Thr3e and House, have been made into movies with more in production. Dekker resides in Austin, Texas with his wife Lee Ann and two of their daughters.

eReaders, Reviews

Cliff Graham–The Lion of War

Posted on December 31, 2011 by tegeorge 4 Comments

The second installment of Cliff Graham’s Lion of War series comes out in February. In the coming weeks I will review Covenant of War and feature the author. Until then here is my review of the author’s groundbreaking debut novel, Day of War.

He was so very tired, unable to make sense of love and hate and covering. The faces of girls tore out at him from the darkness … screaming … He lay back, The stars stretched out vividly. The warrior of the stars was visible now, his mighty bow drawn. Across the galaxy, the lion roared his challenge, and the warrior met it, for all time, placed there by Yahweh for men like him to see.

Day of War is the story of a restless mercenary and the warlord rumored to one day be king to whom he pledges his allegiance. Benaniah’s troubled spirit has not been satisfied with skirmishes with Amalekites, Philistines or even one-on-one contests with man eating lions. But in the mysterious warlord David, he senses something of destiny. Something worth living and dying for.

By way of disclaimer I must admit Biblical novels are not my favorite. Too often writers, in an effort to spin a good story, try to one-up the sacred account. Plus, telling a story in which anyone who has read the original already knows the plot and giveaways is seldom done with the effect of great fiction. In this case debut author Cliff Graham has not only managed to stay true to the Scriptural account and avoid the usual pitfalls of such novels but has raised the bar to level that will take quite a while for anyone else to surpass.

Once joined with David’s men, Benaniah soon becomes acquainted with what the troops call, The Powerful Three, Josheb, Eleazar, and Shammah. They have all been on a campaign far from their home base of Ziklag bolstered by iron weapons from the Hittite Keth, a master forger. We are warned in the preface that this is a story of war written by a man who has seen it firsthand. There are pulse pounding battles with killer lions, terrifying raids on helpless civilians and heroic charges against overwhelming odds. This is the story of David’s Mighty Men, a diverse and disaffected group of warriors held together by their leader’s charisma, military leadership and the unyielding sense he hears from a God that has become a dim memory to those he leads.

What sets this story apart, however, is the depth Cliff Graham plums, in exploring the nature of manhood and the relationships forged between those men in the most horrific of circumstances. Benaniah is a great warrior but he is also a man beset by guilt, insecurities and nagging frustrations. Many of David’s band of misfits simply follow him for the sake of plunder and women. But Benaiah perceives something more in the warlord many call The Lion. He sees a man of purpose with a supernatural destiny. He sees a man who hears a voice he wishes he too could hear and understand.

For those who say fiction from Christian publishers does not touch on the realities of life enough, I suggest they might rethink that after reading Day of War. This is a brutally honest book. It tells of broken men seeking to make some sense out of a broken world. It is the ultimate antidote for the whimsical and too often feminized version many have come to believe a follower of God to be.

Review copy provided by Zondervan

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cliffGraham 244x300 Cliff Graham–The Lion of War

Cliff Graham was born in Dallas, TX and raised in Rapid City, South Dakota. He has been a Military Police soldier, Army officer, pastor, and author. He names Michael Shaara, Steven Pressfield, Louis L’Amour, and Bernard Cornwell as the most influential authors in his career. Cliff is an avid outdoor enthusiast, spending time in the mountains along the Utah-Idaho-Wyoming borders, where he lives with his wife and sons. During breaks in writing, he enjoys speaking at conferences and churches about King David and his warriors.

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