THE SONG OF ALBION by Stephen Lawhead
My husband bought me the The Song of Albion trilogy because Lawhead is a Christian and he thought I should try some “Christian” fantasy. I’m a Christian, but I was reluctant. I tend to avoid Christian fantasy and, until recently, Christian music. If Christians are going to contribute to the arts (or science, or anything else), we need to make sure that our contributions are excellent. We can’t sacrifice the quality of the work just to promote a message. Christian music used to be just awful, but now there is plenty of good stuff out there! (Although I admit that I still prefer Nine Inch Nails.)
But, the books were a loving gift, so I read them, and I was very pleasantly surprised! This is one of those time/place-traveling fantasies — a couple of Oxford grad students stumble upon a door into a time and place that is steeped in Celtic mythology (I learned a lot about that).
The writing is excellent. The story is interesting, meaningful, and epic in scope while still progressing rapidly enough to finish in three books. The story contains all of the elements I look for in a fantasy: vivid description, many interesting and well-developed characters, problems to solve, quests, romance, war, tension, and intrigue. The ending was surprising and satisfying and made clear the overarching Christian theme. That’s an interesting parallel to C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia: modern English folks travel to a different world and we end up with Christian allegory. But, The Song of Albion isn’t for kids.
I really enjoyed this book. The lack of melodrama (as "plot") was a feature, not a bug, I think. Parts…
good points Mariion-. I actually had meant to talk about the ham radio but the review was getting long (I…
You got your review up before I could even write one. I loved this book--one of my favorite reads of…
Hey, any book with a ghost, a goat girl AND a vampire can't be all bad, right?
Whoa! Cool.