Update - New Book Coming Soon!

(Painting: "In a Library We Are Surrounded by Friends," by L. Block, 19th cent., watercolor and pencil)

In lieu of any substantive reflections on theology or culture today (except to say that where Muslims are concerned, we ought to do what Jesus commanded us, loving our neighbors and loving our enemies, period), I have a publishing update. If you read this blog occasionally, you probably know that in 2009 and 2012 I published a trilogy of fantasy-adventure novels, from which I received many reports of pleasant experiences in the reading of them, earned less in total than I earn in one week at my (not-very-high-paying) job, and gained three devoted fans. 

St. John of the Cross' Map of the Classic Spiritual Journey

This wild success has driven me to fling caution to the wind and continue creating literary masterpieces which only the few truly enlightened people in the world will ever appreciate (such as my three fans). And since Christian fantasy/adventure proved to be such a booming genre, I decided to take it up a notch and write a Christian fantasy adventure that is, at the same time, a complex allegory of the classic conception of the spiritual journey. I know, I know...you're already salivating, anticipating such a riotously entertaining frolic through the multiform stages of sanctification that you won't be able to put it down. Well, take heart, because the time is near. 

This book, which first began to take shape as a whimsical spiritual autobiography in a burst of creative inspiration while wandering the streets of Windhoek, Namibia, has been the product of nearly a decade of labor, love, and occasional lassitude. It was accepted with some excitement by the publisher of my fantasy trilogy, OakTara Fiction, but because of a series unavoidable delays in publishing backlog and in the availability of the editorial staff, I decided to pull it out of their publication queue and instead get it directly into the hands of the waiting masses as quickly as possible, before those masses started hacking into my computer in desperate attempts to find a copy of the manuscript. 

This coming week, I will engage the prodigious talents of the blind computer algorithms that live inside the "cloud" high in the stratosphere of Amazon.com to create paperback and Kindle e-book versions of my allegory-adventure. I'll post the news of its availability on this blog as soon as it's ready. 

Engraving from the 1778 printing of Pilgrim's Progress

This book would make a great gift for either the surly teenagers or the affable theologians in your life. If you liked Pilgrim's Progress, but thought that you would have liked it more if you had lived three hundred years ago, not cared about a cohesive plot, and enjoyed speaking King James English, then this book is for you--a Pilgrim's Progress for today's Christian, full of both the sparky spontaneity of evangelical fervor and the magisterial beauty of the ancient Christian tradition. When asked to describe it, I usually say that it's something along the lines of "Pilgrim's Progress" meets "Shrek." Intrigued? Well, stay tuned. The next big name on the New York Times Bestseller List (Arcane Fantastical Allegories section) is on its way!