Ted Dekker ‘Burn’ should be

finished reading Ted Dekker new book ‘burn’ last nite that he wrote with some woman lady – dude, don’t do that again. Took me so long to get into it because nothing was happening – well there was a plot and some money and a fire and a whole colony of dead gypsy’s except the three who escaped that the story revolves around, but just not in the must-turn-the-page thriller mode Dekker normally works into his books – i was bored a lot of the time and just waiting for it to get good, still waiting Ted.

in its favour it did suddenly get a bit weird towards the end but the whole ‘twist’ if you want to call it that was very forced and absolutely ridiculous (as opposed to most of his other thrillers where it is possible stuff) and just not very satisfying

Burn scores a boring ‘piece-o-crap’

for great Ted Dekker check out ‘Three’ and the Circle Series (altho maybe pretend Green never happened cos that also felt a bit like desparation from someone not knowing how to end things) and Blink and then House which he wrote with Frank Peretti.

Deadfall by Robert Liparulo [and bad christian movies]

so we wait with bated breath til some Christ-followers can actually write, direct, film and act in a movie that is worth watching… there have been some that come close but at the moment it’s still ‘secular’ movies like The Blind Side and Dead Man Walking that seem to portray Christian love, grace, acceptance and forgiveness better than any ‘Christian’ film i am yet to see, and i sadly still believe that most ‘Christian’ movies are pretty rubbish [you disagree? post your ‘Christian’ movie of choice and let’s see if i’ve seen it]

in the meantime though it is exciting to see that the Christ-following authors have strongly gotten their act together, altho to be fair if we look back to Pilgrim’s progress and C.S.Lewis’ Narnia books i spose we can say that’s been happening for a while. But when i discovered my first Ted Dekker book titled ‘Thr3e’ something in me jumped and said ‘it is time.’ As much as i think Francine Rivers catches the heart in some of her stories [to be fair, only read Redeeming Love and The Atonement Child] and i really did enjoy both the ones that read, i think that her writing is still painfully cheesy at times and she doesn’t quite do it for me [and millions disagree and that’s okay – nice stories, not great writing imo] but Ted Dekker arrived and boom!

again there were authors like Frank Peretti whose ‘This Present Darkness’ series blew me away at the time altho most of his subsequent books failed to produce the same kind of response in me [‘House’ by Peretti and Dekker on the other hand…] and the Left Behind series guys who also provoked a ‘wo’ in me(at the time, altho stopped halfway through cos they couldn’t keep up with me, but then once they started writing prequels and left behind for kids i think i got a lot more suspicious about their motivationals and lost interest)

i had seen Ted Dekker books in christian bookshops for years and was always wondering if they were any good cos seemed to be a bunch of them and if they were good then a bunch of cool stuff to read, but never got round to making the move of trying one out. then i think someone recommended ‘Thr3e’ and i read it and was hooked and have now almost pretty much run out of Ted Dekkers and wait patiently (like for Terry Pratchett) for the next one – i describe him as Stephen King if he was a Christian and yeah ‘Thr3e’, ‘Blink’, ‘Circle Series,’ ‘House’ and others are well worth the read – very, very dark some of them, hectic thriller with supernatural elements but never going too far into the message-preaching realm but giving enough to make you think – very real characters, honest, raw, rough writing and page-turning stuff – difficult to put down

which brings me to Robert Liparulo – happened to venture into gospel direct last week and saw these two hardcover books which looked intriguing called ‘Comes a Horseman’ and ‘Deadfall’ for R55 and R40 which is nothing for a hardcover – never heard of him altho there was a Ted Dekker endorsement in the one book so thort let’s give it a try and yeah, he’s no Ted Dekker but he is not too far off…

equally dark and supernatural in terms of ‘C a H’ being about secret societies and anticipation of the antichrist and ritual serial killings but again some good characters, some hardcore action and some pretty decent writing… and now reading Deadfall which i am enjoying even more – occasional semicheesy trying-that-little-bit-too-hard line of dialogue, but generally riveting stuff

sadly, i think he only has one other book out – ‘Germ’ – so i might have to add him to my pile of authors-who-need-to-write-quicker-so-i-can-read-their-stuff but for the time being (with half of Deadfall to go) i am happy…

anyone else read him? thoughts? feedback? other good reads?