Chuck Black
1. Starlore Legacy series
Where do I start?
This series is unlike any I’ve ever read.
Imagine taking on the challenge of creating an action-packed Science Fiction story that spans thousands of years. Create the worlds, the advanced technology, and then the conflicts, relationships, villains, heroes, and galactic-wide high stakes. Think “Star Wars.” Got it? Now, make this fictional story an awesome ALLEGORY. Of what? The Bible. Creation, mankind’s fall, God’s plan of redemption!
Far greater scope than allegories like The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, The Starlore Legacy will take us… well, so far (Book 6), to the sacrificial death of The Merchant.
The allegories of the Exodus, key Old Testament characters and situations, John the Baptist, the Roman occupation, and more?
It’s hard to describe, so I’ll refer you to reader comments and the author’s own comments (his FB page and emails). Let me just say that I would LOVE to see all this on the “big screen!” And, at some point in the future when it’s all complete, I look forward to binge-reading (or listening to the audio books) all the way through again!
Oh, the difference between reading and listening to audio books? Chuck (see his engineering background) provides helpful CAD drawings of various equipment and devices in his books! The audio books? Exceptionally well acted (not just read) WITH sound effects!
Awesome.
2. Wars of the Realm series
I almost made a BIG (!!) mistake!
The beginning of Book One, Cloak of the Light, seemed geared more toward teens and didn’t really catch me. I ALMOST stopped listening. Would that have ever been a HUGE mistake!! (NOTE: Chuck Black’s audio books are not just narrated; they’re “acted” and include sound effects!)
Do you like Frank Peretti (Piercing the Darkness; This Present Darkness)? THAT is what you’re in for with Chuck Black’s War of the Realm series. Maybe even more so!
The first book primarily focuses on “this” world: “Tragedy and heartache seem to be waiting for Drew Carter at every turn, but college offers Drew a chance to start over—until an accident during a physics experiment leaves him blind and his genius friend, Benjamin Berg, missing.”
The second book, Rise of the Fallen, is an awesome conjecture of what may have occurred in the unseen heavenlies since before “end the beginning,” and how the fall there has led to a battle for hears and souls here that continues to this day. Brilliant writing: “Validus soon finds himself on a mission that will push him beyond his abilities as he battles to protect Drew Carter, for the Fallen are coming for him. Legions of them. As Validus races against time to discover why Drew is so important to humanity’s survival, can he stand between Drew and all who would destroy him?”
And the trilogy’s finale? Light of the Last brings the battles together; our world and that world: “Surrounded by spiritual warriors and targeted by demons, Drew’s faced with an impossible decision that will forever alter the destiny of America…and his own soul.”
As a retired USAF Colonel, I appreciate the military backstory and underlying influence throughout. As a Christian/SciFi author, I’m very impressed with the intrigue, conspiracy, plot twists, and character arcs (which, by-the-way, smoothly continue through the series). I admire the solid “sanctified conjecture” of what may be going on all around us, unnoticed except for the results. Having said that, non-Christians will also enjoy this, and may find themselves not only entertained but intellectually challenged to consider the unseen forces intensely at work in our world today.
