Salvation's Reach

This book is the thirteenth instalment of Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series. In this one, the Tanith First are tasked with a top-secret mission from Crusade Command itself - they are to infiltrate a place* and retrieve as much useful data as they can from it and destroy as much of the rest of it as they can. Obviously, this is an extremely hard mission, so the Tanith even have three Space Marines tagging along with them.** With no spoilers, the mission doesn't go to the exact plan, but it goes to plan well enough to be considered a success - even if a stow-away spy gave away their ship's location early on and there was a resultant space battle*** that could have risked the lives of many senior Imperial commanders - and they get away largely intact. There are a handful of upsetting character losses, but one of these was a long time coming and is couched by the fact that it's defended by a heroic sacrifice; and really the only major takeaway from Tanith losses in this one is "absolutely feth Meryn."

* I couldn't think of a better word and didn't want to fatten that sentence up too much by describing what it actually is. Salvation's Reach is an area of remote space where the wreckage and junk leftover from millennia-worth of void-battles has aggregated together under its own gravity, collided, fused, and become a misshapen small-planet-sized Thing floating about far away from anything else. The reason it's of interest is that Anakwanar Sek, the chief lieutenant to the Chaos commander Gaur, in this current Crusade, has been using the place as a secret lab and testing ground for all manner of warp-craft, war machines, and new terrible means of killing and traumatising Imperial forces. So there you go.

** It's a minor point, but one of my favourite things in this book is the fact that Nahum Ludd manages to assert authority over these three Space Marines even when they're in the thick of combat-readiness. Pretty badass for a junior commissar.

*** This is also one of my favourite bits - the Chaos ships that follow them out of the warp all shout their own names over and over through the vox, like giant evil metal Pokémon. The best of which has to be TORMAGEDDON MONSTRUM REX! - I mean, if that isn't one of the silliest most extreme names for an evil spaceship you've ever heard I don't know what to say to you.

Blood Pact

This book is the twelfth in Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series - and while still harrowing and full of threat in many places, I think this is probably one of the most entertaining of the bunch. It reads like a bloody Guy Ritchie film, with all the various players faffing about and colliding and trying to second-guess each other against a backdrop of apathetic violence. This story is, with very little stretch of exaggeration, Traitor General in reverse: that is to say, Imperial forces are holding a traitorous general from the Blood Pact (an elite Chaos force) prisoner - and a crack-team of Chaos infiltrators have come to Balhaut (where as it happens the Tanith First are on a well-earned break after the horrors of Jago) to come and assassinate him. I know I'd read this before but for some reason remembered hardly anything of what happens in it - sure, there are moments of extreme violence and horror - but it's also a very funny book. The meddling of the Inquisition again rears its head with interesting consequences, and the band of outlaw Tanith who contribute heavily to saving the day are probably my favourite subplot. I also really appreciate Gaunt's commandeering of an agoraphobic coroner to help them win out over the loyalist Blood Pact infiltrators. A lot of fun. And no serious losses on the Good Guy front! I know that's a spoiler but it's very rare to have a Ghosts novel where you can genuinely relax in knowledge of that. One final thing - I know in his Inquisitor novels (see Eisenhorn, Ravenor, Bequin etc) Abnett has shown us intriguing glimpses of the non-frontline "normal life" of Imperial worlds before, but it's cool to see how the Tanith First adapt (or in Rawne & co.'s case, refuse to) to life among such relatively safe normality.

Only in Death

This book is the eleventh in Dan Abnett's increasingly-stomach-wrenching Gaunt's Ghosts series, and in my opinion it's probably the best of the lot. I mean, it's so intense, that I started it out of why-not-ness immediately after finishing the previous instalment - and then, feth sleep, I read the whole damn thing in one sitting, only getting up to pee or refill my canteen.* Sent to the arse-end of the dusty planet Jago, the First end up tasked with guarding a mountain fortress called Hinzerhaus - which deserves special mention, as it's No Joke the main character in this book. Hinzerhaus is creepy as all fuck**. This book is incredibly atmospheric and 97% of that comes from Hinzerhaus. (Well, okay, quite a lot of it comes from an old friend who has been sent off to become incorporated into the Imperial psyker forces as well, but I won't spoil that.***) It may feel like something of a slow-burn, this one - but when things get going, they Get Going, and I genuinely felt "they all might actually die" with a seriousness I'd not felt since Vervunhive in book three. Anyway, I'll stop rambling here for want of not giving spoilers - except to say 1. I hope Maggs got therapy, 2. Baskevyl was the MVP of this book by a long shot and everyone would've died if it wasn't for him, love it (one of my favourite characters), and 3. the chapters with Mkoll and Ezsrah on their little quests is just - ah, chef's kiss. Yes, this is the best Gaunt's Ghosts novel. So far, anyway.

* Which I only did once. Having drank half a litre of water over about two hours, I then spent the next eight hours carefully rationing my next half a litre, out of solidarity with the regiment. If you know, you know. I did get a little dehydrated but I think it added to the experience.

** An atmosphere intensified perfectly straight from the opening line of the book - "There was a rumour circulating through the troops, nobody knew who had started it - that scouts from another force had discovered a huge valley full to the brim of dry and dusty human skulls, all with their tops sawn off." (slight paraphrase there, I've already reshelved the book and can't be bothered to get it back off just to ensure accurate wording. that's the vibe)

*** Although I wish I could. You deserve a warning. The fate of that character made me openly weep it was so sad and touching and just fethed-up in the way only something in 40k could be.

The Armour of Contempt

This book is the tenth Gaunt's Ghosts instalment from Dan Abnett, and it's probably the most horrific - not the most upsetting, merely totally grim & dark in its portrayal of war in the grim darkness of the far future. Here we get to see the Tanith First-and-Only (with newly-incorporated Belladon troops) return to Gereon to finally liberate it from Chaos forces. The narrative is kind of split in two - one stream follows the main regiment as they try to make contact with whatever remains of the resistance, so they can help them overthrow the incumbent Chaos leadership; the second (and far more intense) follows those members of the regiment who have been on RIP (retraining, indoctrination and punishment) protocols and are therefore assigned to be - eh, yeh, essentially cannon fodder in the worst front of the whole planetary assault. This book more than any other Ghosts novel is full of sucker-punches: you'll think something awful is about to happen and then it hasn't, or you'll think safety has been achieved and then BAM-feth. Witnessing what has become of Gereon after so many years of Chaos occupation is tremendously disturbing. And again there is another heart-breaking loss at the end which I won't spoil. One uplifting thing I will say about this book is the reintroduction of Merrt as a major character - he quickly went on to become one of my favourites. Oh, and there's meddling by the Inquisition, which Gaunt's lot haven't had to deal with for a while, but it's entertaining to see how they handle it.

His Last Command

This book, number nine in Dan Abnett's increasingly-upsetting Gaunt's Ghosts series, takes place about a year-and-a-half after the Gereon mission. Despite an extremely rocky path getting back into Imperial safe-space, Gaunt and his team find yet another major problem to deal with: in their commander's absence, the Tanith First-and-Only have been subsumed into a Belladon regiment under the control of one Colonel Wilder. Which would be enough to contend with, if it weren't also for the fact that the Sparshad Mons antique "city" thing the Guard are trying to clear Chaos forces out of is a completely insane place, and terrifying monsters keep appearing out of nowhere. Gaunt and his team's reappearance disturbs things not only for Wilder and the Belladon but also for the Tanith and Verghastite troops who had assumed them all long-dead. This vein of doubt and discomfort runs throughout the book, as does the increasing apparency that - having survived on a Chaos-held world for fifteen months, these prodigal comrades are on another level of proficient in dealing death and destruction (not to mention, quite seriously-questionably corrupted from their long exposure to Chaos). The Guard win the day, but it's a close call, and one only made possible by the heightened specialisation of the Gereon team and their return into the Imperial intelligence networks. The ending of this book is heart-breaking, even if it's characters you barely know.* Is that a spoiler? Probably. Sorry.

* True fact - this was the first Gaunt's Ghosts book I ever read. I found it in my local library, a fourteen-year-old who had been painting and playing Warhammer 40k for about four years, but had never read one of its books - and even with no familiarity with the characters or context, the sheer scale and depravity of war I was exposed to in these pages blew my tiny young mind. Needless to say, I read it twice, took it back, paid my late fee, and as soon as I could afford it started buying up the whole series from the start. And part of me still wishes I hadn't, because however good they are, Dan keeps stabbing me in the feel-bone.

Traitor General

This book is the eighth in Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts saga, and let me tell you it's the most harrowing yet. Not by a long shot the most upsetting, but the most consistently intense and unnerving throughout. Gaunt and a small crack-team of elites from the regiment* are tasked with a top-secret mission to infiltrate Chaos-held world Gereon, meet up with the local resistance, and then find and eliminate - oh, you guessed it from the title? - an Imperial Guard general who has turned traitor. This is a hard swallow, this book. The portrayal of a human life under the Imperial regime is often bad enough but under Chaos - it's fething insane. Anyway, I won't tell you how the team get on with their mission, but I will say that this book contains some of the most outrageously badass scenes** in the entire series, and also introduces one of the coolest characters, Ezsrah ap Niht, into the regimental fold. So there's that.

* I won't say who, but you wouldn't be at all surprised, if you're familiar with the series so far, that it includes Criid, Varl, Larkin, Mkoll, Bonin, Brostin, Rawne, and Mkvenner.

** I mean, Mkvenner could probably have done this whole book on his own. He is ridiculous.

Sabbat Martyr

This book is the seventh of Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series. Fuck me. I can't do this. Yes I can. So. The Ghosts are sent to the tactically-insignificant world Herodor - where, to everyone's surprise, the reincarnation of Saint Beatti herself is present to lead the crusade into glorious victory. Except Gaunt doesn't believe it's really her. Regardless of whether it is her or not, the Tanith and Verghastite troops have to contend not only with a typical Chaos assault of the main hive-city, but also with a subversive ploy by the archenemy to assassinate the Saint using a small coterie of incredibly-dangerous specialists. And while the ensuing fights that the Ghosts and these specialists get into are incredibly cool and punchily well-prosed, again, this book ends with a loss that puts George R.R. Martin to shame for its sheer misery and meaningless wastefulness.

Straight Silver

This book is the sixth instalment of Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series. Yes, I've finally calmed down from the fuckeries at the end of the last one to come back to re-reading my way through. I may regret this. Alternatively, I may just force myself to get through them all as fast as possible so then I can just sit back and let the trauma fade for several years before I feel the need to revisit the series. Anyway, here the Tanith First are sent to Aexe Cardinal, where a horrifically-overblown trench war has been raging for decades. Aristocrats are in charge, which makes for a delightfully Sharpe-ish* butting of heads over tactics, priorities, and whatnot; aristocrats also make up a hefty proportion of the non-Guard troops involved in the war, which largely explains why it has been going on so long. Incompetence and cowardice are on full display, and Ibram Gaunt is in full swing as a leadership-empowered Commissar - which doesn't make him or the regiment very popular. I have to say that the depictions of a trench war in this book are absolutely heart-rendingly gross; they made me feel the realities of what an absolute shitshow that kind of thing must be like far worse than any World War 1 film ever has.

* Dan always has said that the inspiration for doing the Ghosts was "Sharpe in space".

God in Creation

This book is the second (after this one) in Jürgen Moltmann's systematic theology series; as you can tell from the title, this one deals with creation doctrines. Though Moltmann approaches the topic quite innovatively from an ecological perspective - placing God and creation in relation to each other within their own spiritual and natural ecologies. This book took me a long time to read - if I must admit, I started reading it way back in late 2017 when I was still working at Church Army, but found it too difficult; but since getting nudged back onto Moltmann in more recent years, and having found his first book of systematic theology relatively manageable, I decided to embark upon the rest of his series, and found it somewhat workable, though it was a real mental test compared to most of the other Christian literature I read.* In any case, I have now finished it, and found it profoundly enlightening on a number of half-baked questions I've always had about creation but had never articulated, as well as a number more of things I'd never even wondered but now having been made to think about them am astounded that most Christians seem to be able to slide along without deep doubts in their cognizance about such things. Moltmann is that kind of theologian; he thinks into the weird corners and flushes them out with ecumenical sources, biblical wisdom, and fat old logic.

   It would be completely disingenuous of me to say I can summarise what Moltmann says in this book. I hope the introductory paragraph is enough to entice you as to the aim and style of his book in his overall systematic theology project, and following from here I will give a very brief list of the chapter subjects covered in this volume.

1. The idea of God being in creation as an introductory chapter
2. Specific considerations of the significance of this in the ecological crisis**
3. How God, and we, know creation
4. God as the creator
5. How time relates to the act of God's creation
6. How space relates to the act of God's creation
7. The duality/unity of heaven and earth
8. Evolution in creation
9. Human beings as God's image
10. Embodiment and the soul as the end of created works
11. The Sabbath as the feast of creation
12. An appendix comprising various symbols of creation

   Many of these might seem quite dry, or even irrelevant, to what you might consider core themes or issues in creation doctrine; but trust me, once Moltmann gets his teeth into one of these things, it becomes interesting as anything. And illuminating in ways you had probably never imagined. But anyway. So that's it for Moltmann on creation - merely volume two in his systematic theology series. Since finishing this one, I have acquired volumes three, four and five - Christology, pneumatology, and eschatology respectively - so I suppose I'll see you again soon for breakdowns of those.

* Maybe that says more about most Christian literature than it does me or Moltmann... you make your mind up.

** I have to say, it is fucking affirming to have such an adept theologian tackling creation issues through the lens of the "ecological crisis" way back in the 1980's, when that kind of language has only just barely entered the mainstream consciousness now in the 2020's.

The Conquest of Bread

This book by Peter Kropotkin is one of the seminal founding texts in our modern understanding of anarcho-socialism. I had previously read it as an impressionable sixteen-year-old - but now with a much deeper education of politics, economics, and philosophy - I genuinely hold to the ideas herein far stronger than I had then.

   This book is a masterfully mathematically inarguable treatise on how anarcho-socialism can be the most efficient and humane means of organising a political economy along egalitarian lines. I  realise that given the age of the book the numbers comprising its core arguments are in sheer need of an update for the 21st-century, which given how much things are changing these days may again need another update every two or three years to come - but the underlying principles remain solid. Kropotkin's assessment of industrial here is timeless; the ideas about social organisation, to the workers as to their capabilities and to the citizens as to their needs is a core tenet of "small c" communism; this is a model of how a political-economic body could function sustainably for the best of its members with no impingement on those around it can flourish.

   This book was a key text in my rational radicalisation as a teenager - and having re-read it so many years later it seems it still makes a great deal of sense. Capitalism is worse than a virus; it is simply unnecessary. Once the means of production are consolidated, for the workers not to be in democratic control of them implies an undue influence that is not in the best interests of the surrounding society. We, the proletariat, must demand control in such manner - or industrialised societies will never get over their "hill" of liberalism and embrace the truth of political and economic equality.

   There are many more ruminations on this great book that I could lay forth but I think the key points have been made. Revolution, whether democratic or sectarian-violent - are inevitable - but they best way to guard against that is to issue such structures to the workers in the first place. In 2023 it seems like a silly argument to make, when "artificial intelligence" is already starting to cannibalize the jobs of artists, writers, translators, coders, and so many more - but does not that simply drive home the urgency of such a revolution?

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race

This book by Reni Eddo-Lodge does what it says on the tin; a staunch and well-argued case for how race has been historically argued and understood so poorly by white people that people of colour may as well give up their hopes. Though that is not what Reni's argument concludes on, nor her career as a speaker on racial issues; it is clear throughout how white fragility conspires to minimize if not ignore the contributions on these topics made by the people affected by them. I won't summarize her points here - only say that if you are a white person, especially if you are a white person who doesn't "feel the benefit" of being so, you need to read this book.

A Wilderness of Mirrors

This book by Mark Meynell is, as its subtitle puts it, a Christian apologetic via an exploration into "trusting again in a cynical world". And boy, is it timely. In fact maybe too timely - but we'll come back to that point later. First let's get a grip on what it actually talks about.

   The first part of the book looks into the legacy of fracturing trust in the modern age. In three heavily-endnoted chapters, Meynell talks about the failures on this front of our ruling authorities (although largely here drawing on historical examples, which is all very well, but I would have liked a bit more of a juicy socio-political analysis), our mediating authorities (informers and the like), and our personal authorities (or caregivers - though the chapter swiftly brushes aside both the medical and teaching professions within a single page and then is mainly charged with the failures of the church*).

   The second part is a short, theoretical pair of reflections on the loneliness-inducing alienation, lostness and paranoia that we can all-too-easily succumb to in such a climate. These chapters are fine enough I guess, but Meynell doesn't really say anything that hasn't already been said in far more insightful ways by both academics and meme-smiths, so I won't toot the horn for this middle section too much. I also think he entirely fails to address a few key factors that are driving our sense of alienation, betrayedness and paranoia - the rampantly shifting techno-social landscape, the death throes of late capitalism, the ecological crises, to name just three. You can probably think of more. A bit of legwork in talking about the sociology or political-economic theory of trust would also have been appreciated.

   But it is in part three that we get to the meat of the book - the Christian apologetic section. Firstly he deals with the biblical conception of original sin as both the starting-point and to-some-degree justification of such a culture of mistrust: this was an interesting chapter and made a lot of connections I hadn't seen before. The next three chapters are far more simply predictable: Jesus is the one we can trust; the Church is the society in which we can start to break away from patterns of cynicism; the gospel is the message and narrative we need to begin building a more trustful future. Nothing bad, but nothing original: especially in the final chapter, a few more pragmatic pointers about how to break through psychologically or socially into the cynical miasma of the postmodern world wouldn't have gone amiss.

   As I hinted in my opening paragraph, the real problem with this book is that it came out too soon. It was published in 2015, and while "post truth" was already a thing in certain academic circles at that time, it wasn't yet the predominant socio-political normativity - had this book been put together even three years later, let alone six and he'd have had all the Covid madness to break down to boot, it could have had a lot more to draw on and impactfully say. But that's a pretty cynical two cents to dig into a book which is a perfectly respectable Christian apologetic speaking into a vital issue in most of the contemporary western world. It's not great reading, but it's perfectly readable, if that makes sense. I'd probably only recommend this to you if you're already a Christian and you're specifically looking for a resource on how to engage the cynicism of our times; as exhortational as the final sections were for me as a believing reader, I really doubt they'd convince anyone who wasn't already convinced of the Truth beyond truth in a world where truth barely even exists anymore.

* Something I am all too familiar with, as the elder of my old church The Crowded House, one Steve Timmis (who, interestingly enough, wrote one of the blurb reviews on this very book - he describes it as "well researched, well written, and well worth reading" - I tentatively agree), was pushed to resign as CEO of global church-planting network Acts 29 and as leader of the church for persistent allegations of bullying behaviour and fostering a culture of spiritual abuse under his leadership. I have talked about my personal journey in all this in other posts which I'm not going to bother to link here, but if you're really interested feel free to search through my blog's (not inconsiderable, I know lols) history until you find the particularly long, whingy posts.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

This book, a collection of medical-theological reflections by eminent surgeon Dr Paul Brand edited together and fleshed out a bit by Philip Yancey, is an actually miraculous read. It will both make you appreciate the complex marvel that is the human body in ways you probably never knew if you're not in the medical profession, and further to this, its interwoven reflections (which I will talk about in a moment) really drive home the New Testament metaphor of the Church being the Body of Christ in fresh, compelling ways, that make this a powerful apologetic for the Church as the vehicle of witness in faith. It is also quite beautifully written, often dealing with intricate biological subjects but never getting bogged down in jargon; and when making its wider points it does so with a deftness and clarity that makes the book extremely easy reading. I finished it in two [not-even-that]-long sittings.

   The book is split into four sections, though there is initially quite a long preface by Philip Yancey which is excellent reading in itself, mainly reflecting on his friendship with Brand and how the older man was a source of much inspiration to his faith and also just a marvellous human all-round, doing much great research that revolutionized leprosy treatment in the 20th-century.

   The first of the four main parts is about cells. Their central metaphor here is drawing on the imagery the apostle Paul uses (see 1 Corinthians 12, the second half of the chapter) to talk about individual members within the Body that is the Church, and how each needs to perform its duty to the benefit of the whole; cells are the perfect metaphor to carry this forward. Seven bitesize chapters (all the chapters in this book are bitesize, part of what makes it so readable) deal with: the nature of this membership as individual entities; the specialization of those members; the innate diversity of the individuals all working together; the intrinsic worth of each individual member; the total unity of all members as one collective; the duty of service to the whole demanded by the whole of its members; and finally "mutiny" - which in cell terms means cancer (and this chapter uses this metaphorical understanding of the Body of Christ to talk about the hoarding of wealth/food/time in the global context of the Church in a world where there is so much need with such adroitness that it alone is worth reading the book for).

   The next, bones. Metaphorically here Brand and Yancey are talking about the doctrinal elements that support Christianity from its core - the Law, the character of God, and such. Its chapters deal with: the notion of having a frame from which everything else either hangs or is contained; the hardness necessary to deal with knocks and turns of life; the freedom enabled the human body by the marvel that is its skeleton (also this chapter contains a "positive re-spin" of the Ten Commandments that are just brilliant); the essential capacity for growth and healing; the adaptability to new contexts and activities; and finally we get a brilliantly insightful chapter that talks about the dangers of legalism by inversing the metaphor and considering creatures that have exoskeletons.

   The third, skin. In the Christian metaphor this is all about love, as you'll hopefully see is fairly obvious from the brief sketches of each chapter. They talk about skin as: something visible, by which the world recognises our outward form; perceptive and sensitive in relation to its environment and other things and people; compliant in its flexibility and durability; full of an immensity of inner interconnections that transmit information; essential to the physical and emotive experience of embodied love; and lastly capable of confronting threats and protecting innards.

   And finally, the body's capacity for motion. The metaphorical application is somewhat looser here, ranging from reliance on the Holy Spirit to keep us tapped into "the Head" of the Body (that is of course Christ) to the need for the Church to be on its toes in responding to things around it. Chapters: the concert of muscle activity that is movement; the balance between all facets of moving parts; why dysfunction occurs and how it can be remedied; the need for a stable, trusted hierarchy for effective function (this makes the shift from muscles to nerves); the guidance of the whole by the executive operation of the Head (or the brain, depending on what side of the metaphor you're looking through); and the capacity of the whole to be real, meaningful, as a human presence in another's life.

   I would heartily recommend this book to Christian readers as an illuminating work on what it can, or should, or does, look like to be part of the Body of Christ; moreover from that gospel angle it will bring you to an incredible perspective on the magical sack of electric meat that is you, your own actual body. Brand's memories of his medical exploits, in particular those from among the leper communities whom he served so diligently, selflessly and effectively, will leave you breathless. Similarly I would recommend it to non-Christian readers who all think this is a pretty weird metaphor, and Brand and Yancey's brilliant collaboration here will leave you scratching your head in wonderment but substantively better informed about why we use this phrase to talk about the Church - and what a perfect metaphor it actually is.

Sourcery

This book is, it should need no introduction - one of the inimitable Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. And in this one the incompetent wizard Rincewind finds himself caught in a baffling and threateningly-apocalyptic scenario, as a new Sourcerer has turned up at the Unseen University and had turned the whole culture of magic on its head and inside out. It is up to our plucky hero to muddle his way through this without being turned into a piece of bellybutton-fluff or something - which could very easily have happened, given everything else that seems to be going on. I've read a fair few Discworld novels but this is the maddest so far. And if you have half an idea what goes on in a normal one that should shock you. I'm not reading them in order, mind you. But I am trying to read all of them, given enough time, and luck in charity shops. That said, Rincewind is always a brilliantly entertaining protagonist for the comic fuel of Pratchett's imagination, and this instalment in the ongoing exploration of Discworld is no exception: hilarious, mind-boggling, slightly scary, thought-provoking, all at the same time. There are no other authors who can do what Pratchett does. I would say read this, but really just flop open a page of all the Discworld novels that exist and stick your finger down at random and start there, and then repeat until you've read them all. That's more or less what I'm doing, and it seems to be fun enough.

The Cloven

This book is the third and final instalment in Brian Catling's utterly phenomenal series of novels, preceded by The Vorrh and The Erstwhile; and oh man was this trilogy worth sticking with, no matter how bogged down and lost I felt at times wading through its depths.

   Characters collide. Plot threads intertwine. Answers are unwrapped and mysteries implode back into the dark heart of the forest from whence they came. Angels go mad and back again. Humans find themselves thrust up against their closest relatives and hate what they see. War begins to raise its ugly head, and colonialists and locals alike begin to panic, to plan, and in some cases to abandon ship altogether and leave chaos behind. Nothing will be the same again - except the Vorrh itself, though even that will take time to rest and recover. But you, dear reader? You certainly won't be the same again.

   Having finished the trilogy I am now probably about 60-70% certain that I could tell you maybe half of what definitely happened in these books. But I don't care. These are not novels you read for surety, for comfortable solidity or easy solutions to the riddles posed. This is a trilogy that makes you feel like you are wandering through the Vorrh, slowly losing your mind at exactly the same time that your instincts are sharpening and your ancestral memory deepening. To say that this is a well-written trio of magical novels would be like saying that The Godfather series is a well-directed trio of mobster films. I have never read anything like this and I doubt I will again. These books made me laugh maybe once or twice per instalment, brought me to the verge of tears two or three times per instalment, but kept me in a state of suspended anxious confusion and tension for at least three-quarters of the whole length of each. They just don't let up, but they never tread the same ground twice either. I honestly think these may be some of the best fiction I've ever had the privilege of reading for their sheer immersive quality. Read these if you want an itchy mind.

the Last Battle

This book is C. S. Lewis's final instalment in The Chronicles of Narnia - and oh boy, if you were to read back through this month's worth of posts you would see me saying some pretty ungenerous things about this saga. Not undeservedly, I will say. As much love as I have for Lewis as a Christian apologist in my experience so far his fiction is streets behind that of the man who turned him to Christ* in the first place.

    Plot-wise it's relatively simple - there's a sneaky ape called Shift who finds the skin of a dead lion and persuades his donkey friend called Puzzle to wear it and pretend to be Aslan so that he can take rulership of Narnia to his own benefit. King Tirian, a descendant of Caspian, tries to clear matters up but soon becomes embroiled in the larger schemes. Eventually Eustace and Jill (from prior books) are summoned and start making more headway in unravelling the conspiracy, eventually even summoning as a bonus Peter, Edmund and Lucy (Susan is not allowed as she apparently doesn't believe in Narnia anymore) to help thwart the plot. Which they do. The actual eponymous "last battle" is extremely short and small-scale, even if it's very important for the story itself - but what makes this book a worthy conclusion to a seven-novel saga is its final three or four chapters. Basically, having achieved everything that that world was meant to, Narnia just ends, under the controlling supervision of Jesus Aslan. As disparaging as I may at times have been of this series throughout these posts I genuinely do think their moral core is incredibly strong and edifying, especially for children readers or listeners, and this final segment is where in my opinion that shines through the strongest - this last bit of the saga where Narnia is being wrapped up back into the fabric of creation is not only the most powerful part of the series but some of the most beautiful allegorical fantasy I've read anywhere. Lewis is very clearly trying to communicate some of the boundless hope found in Christian concepts of the transition between the dying creation of post-Fall Earth and new-Built Heaven - and it shows, in glorious imagery and a resoundingly satisfying conclusion to the whole series of seven novels.

    So, as I said in my post about the first of these, and as I do for all sequences of posts about series of books rather than singulars, I have been reserving my overall reflections until this last one.** Thankfully that doesn't mean I have to spew out an absurdly long thing here as my totality of thought looking back on the Chronicles of Narnia are pretty simple. I could even do it in a mere four point-paragraphs. Here goes:

1. Clive Staples Lewis is a far better non-fiction writer than he is fiction. I mean, I haven't read all his fiction, but I haven't read all his non-fiction either, but on balance I think this is a fair assessment of just how the communicative parts of his brain work best. Though that said, The Screwtape Letters is technically fiction and is my favourite thing of his that I've read to date... so... don't take me seriously.
2. All of these characters are pretty dull. Their flaws are obvious and superficial if they exist at all, their approach to problems is pragmatically plot-development-oriented, and they all have they same manner of dialogue. All except Jesus Aslan, of course, but he's a special case.
3. Speaking of Jesus Aslan, it bears to mention that fellow Inkling Tolkien was not a fan of the Narnia series because, among other given reasons, he thought its religious allegory was too on-the-nose. And he was right. But then the two authors had different purposes; J.R.R. was seeking to create an agelessly original yet academically-legitimate mythology for the English peoples, while C. S. just wanted to make children excited about discipleship in a new, engaging way. Different strokes, innit? (see image below)
4. Overall recommendation: I think I would have enjoyed this series far more if I'd been at all familiar with it as a child. Obviously I saw the movies as the were coming out in the early 2000's, but though my parents read the whole series to most of my siblings they never did with me - I was already in too deep with my own literary taste, I suppose. But that said I do think that Christian allegory or not this is a very rich and entertaining series of fantasy novels, that even despite its evangelical bent is by no means proselytizing literature and can be enjoyed on its own merits as fantastical story, with relatable (if arguably a bit predictable) protagonists and a lot of thematic & plot developments that can be on their own terms pretty thought-provoking to a young mind.

So yeh, overall, I don't think this seven-novel series quite deserves the hype it seems to have of being in the same ilk as Tolkien and Le Guin for the best fantasy series of the 20th century, but it has a lot going for it and I can easily imagine younger readers absolutely eating this up. Go for it.

* Well, one of them; though having learnt more since writing this post I have to give most of the credit to Owen Barfield.

** One additional thing I will say - the editions I were reading was a box-set of seven separate volumes as opposed to the single volume linked in these posts, but I couldn't find it in online booksellers. I don't know about the linked version but mine had copies of all the original black-and-white illustrations from the first-published novels - and while I appreciate their inclusion I can't say that they were of a notable quality and their addition didn't really do much for me.

the Silver Chair

This book is the penultimate instalment (in chronological reading order anyways) of C. S. Lewis's Narnia series, and is HANDS-DOWN the weirdest. Eustace, from the last book, along with his vaguely-apparently-friend-from-school Jill, gets sucked back into Narnia in what seems to me an obfuscatorishly strange train, but never mind; once back there Prince Caspian is now in old age, so Trumpkin the dwarf and Puddleglum the marsh-wiggle are the main guides around the magical world; there's the eponymous silver chair with an ancient curse on it, at one point they go way deep underground into the realm of 'earthmen', Jesus Aslan shows up eventually - everything you may expect by this point from a Narnia novel. I did enjoy reading this more than most of the rest of the series, but I think largely out of a sense of bewilderment than actually being impressed by the prose or the story being told.