Pros: fast paced,relevant topic, interesting, character development excellent
Cons: run-on sentences hinder at times, can not put it down
The Bottom Line: Truth is stranger than fiction. We were given this book in a very weird way. It is a first in a series of excellent spiritual fiction adventures-well worth the reading.
Caprig's Full Review: Frank E. Peretti - This Present Darkness
Another night grasping fruitlessly at elusive sleep. Thoughts rambling aimlessly through a clouded mind trying to make sense of .....
RING!!!!!!!!
The cluttered silence was pierced by an earsplitting bell.
Reluctantly, dragging footsteps scuffed across the battleworn floor to silence the intruder.
"Hello?"
"Hello! I am calling from __________ agency to inquire if you would like to purchase gold.."
Oh, great. Another idiot telemarketer. I was DEFINITELY NOT in the mood for this garbage.
I interrupted his reverie.
"Look, Bub. I have spent the last several nights being strangled by disembodied spirits that masqueraded as the idiot's grandmother that lives downstairs. I have had to battle a possessed dog next door that tried to kill me, and poltergeists in the church down the road. My husband and I do not even have money to invest in comic books and we are trying to survive yet another night of this miserable existence. Do you think we REALLY want to invest in gold????"
Silence. There, I fixed this guy.
"Um, would you mind telling me more about this situation?"
WHAT? THIS I did not expect.
I was so overwhelmed with frustration and responsibility in this unbelievable drama that my family (and a few others )were living through in this nightmare town that I no longer cared what this guy or anyone else thought.
He asked for it.
I spent the next 2 hours telling this perfect stranger about bizarre things that we had experienced in this town that we were living in. Everything from the infamous fair and the people trying to take over the town to the demons that lived in the little church down the street and threw things at people when they tried to clean it.
There was so much to tell, I was sure that this guy would think I was nuts.
But he listened very intently. He told me that he believed me and was wondering if I would mind him calling us now and then for updates to our story. He was paying for this call on his dime from the other side of the country.
So, faithful to his word, this man called us every few weeks. He was not disappointed. There was so much to tell him that he had a few hours more of fascinating stories to hear. He would continually tell me that I should write a book. He was insistent that this kind of book would sell a million. I told him that we were barely staying alive and I had no time to write a book. However, he persisted.
It had been about a year or so since he first started calling us. He was the sweetest man with the most amazing patience we had ever seen. He would encourage us to hang on while many others just walked away. There were times when his call was the only encouragement we got from humans.
One day, it happened.
RRRIINNNGG!!!!
I plodded to the phone half expecting a gutteral voice to greet me from hell.
"YOU DID IT! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME????? I CAN NOT BELIEVE YOU DID NOT TELL ME!!!! WEIRD PSEUDONYM, BUT AT LEAST YOU DID IT!!!
I figured out it was R---.
"Look, R----, slow down, I do not know what you are talking about."
It took me some time to get him to slow down and tell me what the heck he was talking about.
It seems that somehow R--- got the idea that I had written my book. He said that his boss had just gotten the very first printing of it from the publisher (his boss was some big wheel who had connections) and he knew from the first page on that it was our story.
After I finally convinced him that this was NOT our book, he then told us that he was sending it to us Express Mail. Express Mail was nowhere near as common then as it is today, so I knew it must have really gotten him riled up.
When the book arrived, I recoiled from it. Oh, man, just what I needed. Some idiot's Christian fiction book with the usual religiously odious mumbo jumbo in it.
I figured that R---- would not be calling again for a while, so I would figure out how to deal with this later. I decided that I would not waste my time reading some stupid fiction book. We were living enough of a Sci-Fi novel as it was. I did not need to read some dopey fiction.
I put the book on the table.
One night, when it was quiet for once in the apartment, I decided to give it one chance. I told God that if the book was something we were supposed to read that I wanted to know by the 3rd page. After that, if it was not ringing at all true, I would put it down and not read it.
I picked up the book with great trepidation. I disliked Christian fiction that tried so pitifully to compete with the secular market. I braced myself for the let down.
After I got to the middle of the second page, tears streamed down my face. We had actually SEEN a scene like this in our town. ALL of what it described.
I finished the book that night, amazed at the perception of our wonderful friend. He was right. This WAS our story- so close to it that I had to shake myself to remind myself that it was just a fiction book.
This book was THIS PRESENT DARKNESS by Frank E. Peretti.
It took a lot for me to bring myself to read this book, let alone enjoy it. Had we not lived through strikingly similar events in the book long before it was written, I might have passed over this book and not read it. I might have read it with skepticism and just brushed it off as a novel, surely not true, and maybe overdramatized.
WHAT IS THIS BOOK LIKE?
In essence, this book is about the battle between good and evil- heaven and hell. There is not the usual esoteric good versus the nebulous evil in this book. Good has definitive players and evil has players with names, personalities and wills.
There are angels protecting and demons fighting to take over a town, people, districts, and minds.
There are people committed to the good side, people committed to the bad side and people who are still undecided.
There are various types of non committed people in this book. Some are atheist,some agnostic, some idiotic, and there are also those that are easily led.
This story has great depth of the characters. There are arguments, difficulties to overcome and development of character that makes stories about battles, regardless of their origin fascinating. War brings out things in people that normally are not seen. That is the case in this book.
The style of the book is written similar to a screen play with short scenes and a lot of switching back and forth. It is not particularly difficult to follow and does keep the reader's attention. There are a few times here and there where the run-on sentences are a bit distracting. Most of the time, however, it is not a hindrance to the reader.
The cover of the book has the first painting of an artist I have come to love named Ron DiCianni. It is a great addition to the storyline of the book.
WHAT IS THE STORYLINE
Ashton is a small town.
A new man in town named Marshall Hogan attempts to reform the local newspaper (after purchasing it) from a haphazard operation to a high caliber paper. He came from the NEW YORK TIMES and big city life, so he has seen many things. He approaches life from an analytical reporter's mindset and is not easily swayed by emotionalism. Marshall is accompanied by his wife, Kate, and his daughter Sandy. Marshall and Sandy constantly butt heads and their aggitation is a bane to the Hogan household.
Bernice Kreuger is the top reporter that works for the Ashton Clarion newspaper. She has a nose for news and often finds herself in the middle of controversy. There is a past in her life where her sister committed suicide and she has determined to uncover the truth behind her sister's death. She does not believe it is a suicide.
There is Henry Busche, known as Hank. He and his family recently moved to the town where Hank is the new pastor of the Ashton Community Church where he is the praying man who often seems to stand alone against the tremendous forces of darkness that threaten the inhabitants of the town. Hank and his family are the targets of prejudice and harrassment of people in the town that want them gone.
Oliver Young is the religious pharisee of the other church in town. The one that hides behind animal rights, religious tolerance and world peace as his creed. This man is the kind of "Christian " man you love to hate. You know he is a hypocrite, but you can not put your finger on why until late into the story. Technically, he is sounding right, but you know something is terribly wrong.
Alf Brummel, the chief of police, is also acting very suspiciously. There seems to be something behind an unusual ability to skirt the issues and sidestep the truth. He seems to have an unusual ability to pull one over on even the smartest of people.
The cast of characters is long and interesting. There are people who are steeped in a very dark plan to take over the town and use it for a breeding ground of spiritual cancer. They use unwitting people to follow along in the plan. All of those that do not have a spiritual grounding in the good side, end up being pawns for this dark conspiracy.
Although Hank seems alone through most of this battle, there is a cast of characters that come along to join him in the prayer vigil that he has begun while in the town to save it from the darkness. You see that Hank is far from alone and the heavenly host that guards him and his family is always with him.
The base for the operations of the dark side wanting to take over ends up being found in places that may surprise the reader. There are a lot of twists and turns to the plot that keep the reader guessing and interested to see the conclusion.
COMMENTS ABOUT THE BOOK
As I said in the beginning of this review, I have personally lived through much of what happened in the book. The war around us all is intense and intricate. Angels and demons do fight over people, places and rights to inhabit certain "districts". Praying people DO affect this battle.
This book has a little bit of "Hollywood" glitz to it. There is a Star Wars flavor to the swords having trails of glittering light when the angels wield them. There are trails of red smoke when a demon is vanquished for the moment.
Strip that away, and you still have a very substantial book that will get most readers to view the world around them with a little different perspective.
Cynics will be tempted to get all weirded out because so many Christian readers have heralded this book almost as high as the Bible. There is a tendency of the American Christian community to lift up Christian things as being lofty and excellent when they are really not that great.
This is not the case with this book. As far as being a worshipper of Frank Peretti, I was further shocked after reading this book, and its sequel, PIERCING THE DARKNESS (which also has amazing personal relationship with us ). I had become convinced that Mr. Peretti really understood and related to the small crowd that actually experienced such intense spiritual warfare in the trenches. I could not wait to talk to him.
FRANK PERETTI IN PERSON
We had the pleasure of attending a small session with Frank between reading the first and second books. His manner of speaking is delightful and he has clearly experienced things that none of us can imagine. He had a disease when he was young that made his tongue swell so big that it would not even go in his mouth. As a result, he was alone a lot and developed this animated imagination that delights those that love storytellers.
We were scheduled to see Frank Peretti again after reading the second book. By now I was convinced that he was really spiritually savvy in the field of warfare and the fight over our modern society.
A rock fell at the pit of my stomach when I heard what he had to say. In essence, he was really puzzled at the reaction his books had received. He denied having any knowledge of the spiritual world and maintained that the books were simply stories that he manufactured.
Then it occured to me how much of a miracle that these books really were. Here is a man who claims to know little about spiritual warfare writing a book that is so close to the truth that we lived through that only a miracle could have brought it all together. The time was ripe for the message to be brought to the masses, I guess.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
This is a book that is entertaining, heavy at times and very thought provoking. Some people maintain that it is not suitable for children, but our son asked for the book on tape for his 5th birthday. He listened to them over and over and it changed his life. There were a few times when his prayers and knowing his rights in the spiritual realm literally saved our lives.
We heard from Frank, himself, that the Spielberg people bought the rights to the film way back in the early 90's. Most likely to shelf the thing so it would not make it to the screen - a common practice in the film industry. That is my opinion, not necessarily true. Who knows why it never made it to the screen? Frankly, I think Spielberg blew it by not making this one into a movie. He would have made a lot of money.
If you have not heard of this book and are looking for one of those "edge of the seat" books, this is a good choice. It is fun to relish the scary adrenaline pumping action , yet comforting to know that there are "good guys" in the book.
Next time you wonder why that car did not hit you when it sure looked like it was going to or why that gun did not go off when it should have.....you might think twice about the angels watching over YOUR life and what a battle they may be fighting over you ......
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