Book Review: Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey

Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Extra time for reading in these days of pandemic lockdown has found me galloping through The Expanse, the excellent sci-fi series from James S.A. Corey. If you haven't read the series but you think it sounds familiar, you may be thinking of the also-excellent television series based on the novels, originally aired by SyFy but picked up by Amazon a few years ago. This is one of those few instances where the book and the movie/show are both excellent and worthy of all the time you can invest in either or (preferably) both.

Persepolis Rising moves the story considerably into the future of the Expanse universe. The crew of the Rocinante are dealing with aging bodies and a desire for changed lives, but as is often the case in this series, circumstances disrupt these plans and the final act of the larger narrative begins in earnest. To say anything more detailed would involve all kinds of spoilers, so I'll just leave the synopsis there and advise you to start all the way back at Leviathan's Wake so you can truly appreciate the story when you get to Persepolis Rising.

What I genuinely appreciate about The Expanse as a whole is the way its authors (James S.A. Corey is the nom de plume for Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham) are determined to build a world in which the science isn't actually fictional. There are no wings on the Rocinante- it flies with a theoretically possible fusion drive and maneuvering thrusters. In space, no one can walk on the floor of a ship without thrust or spin gravity. Speed is governed by how many G forces the human body can endure, not by hyperdrives or warp speeds. I love Star Trek, Star Wars, and all kinds of other space operas, but The Expanse universe is filled with plausible science AND compelling narrative AND deeply developed characters you come to love and despise and pity and cherish. There's so much here that even on this third time reading this novel, I'm discovering new plot points and being delighted by stuff I've forgotten is in there.

The plan is for this series to end after 9 books, and I'm somewhat dreading that final page turn, because I haven't enjoyed a series this much in years - it might rank right up there with The Lord of the Rings in terms of holding the excellence all the way to the end (looking at you, Wheel of Time & A Song of Ice and Fire). Embarking on this series is a big undertaking, but trust me - the journey will be worth it in the end.


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Daily Online Chapel - Powers

Once Midland University made the move to remote classes, I started doing a series of Daily Online Chapel services. Here's today's version:

Living with Grace in Anxious Times

While scrolling through social media recently, I saw a colleague I really respect get blasted by someone in their community. Publicly. That's just one example of some alarming abuse that's been happening lately. Here are some others:

• A pastor receives the agenda for an upcoming Council meeting and "Accomodating Pastor's children in worship" is an agenda item. 
• Online video worship services being critiqued for not being professional enough.
• Pastors observing recommended social distancing & strict visitation policies at local hospitals being criticized for not visiting members in person in the midst of a pandemic.
• Furloughed ministers being asked to continue providing pastoral care for the communities which are no longer paying for that care. 

These are times of high anxiety, fear, and grief. Anxious, scared, and grieving people are rarely capable of exhibiting their best behavior. Even when accounting for the current environment, however, it's disturbing to hear these stories of abuse from colleagues I know are doing everything they can to provide pastoral care to the communities to which God has called them.

In this time of uncertainty, change, and fear, we can present a counter-narrative of faith, endurance, and love. In fact, we already are. The situations I described above are all true, but they are the unfortunate exceptions. I've seen congregations shift to video worship services and graciously laugh about our lack of sophistication & polish. Several congregations have scheduled parades of members, driving past the houses where their ministers live and honking, waving, singing, doing something fun to tell their pastors and deacons they are loved and appreciated. Phone trees have been set up so that every member of a congregation gets a call from a fellow member at least once a week. How many of us have hosted a Zoom Bible Study or caught up with friends at a distance?

Learning one new skill requires a period of trial and error, of failing a little bit less each time until we build up the competency desired. Most of us will never be Tour de France-level bicyclists, but almost all of us learned to ride a bike at some point in our childhood, right? We learned how to ride by falling down until we didn't, until that crazy balance clicked in our minds and bodies. We developed that competency over time, usually in private, and eventually we were able to not even think about how to ride a bike - we just hopped on the seat and took off.

This global pandemic has stripped away most of our former competencies and left us all juggling job and family requirements that were unthinkable less than six months ago. In a sense, we've all been told we can no longer walk, or even ride a bike: everything is on a unicycle now, everyone has to do it, and it all has to be done where everyone can see. We're building new competencies in every aspect of our life and work, all at once. We are falling down - regularly, often, and publicly. It's a painful time to be a person.

This is a time for grace if ever the was one. This should be our primary language in the church, but we've adapted so well to the cultural language of performance and production that grace is an unfamiliar dialect - it sounds familiar, but it'll take some time to be fluent in it again. This is a time for grace with ourselves. This is a time for grace with the limitations imposed on us by this pandemic we cannot control. This is a time for grace with our families and housemates who grow every more wearying and annoying with each passing interminable day of social distancing. This is a time for grace with co-workers who still don't know how to mute video conference calls or don't have a private spot where kids or spouses won't pop into the background. This is a time for grace with Council members who are insensitive or even absent because they're worried about losing their jobs. This is a time for grace with all of this and more. 

We once believed grace was easy, right? Here in the American midwest we are particularly good at the sort of grace that left room for grudges while presenting an outwardly peaceful countenance - the sort of thing Dietrich Bonhoeffer called 'cheap grace.' Now we're discovering how difficult the actual practice of grace can be, and also how essential it will be moving forward in a world which will long remember how we responded in this hour of pandemic. Faith, endurance, and love - this is how we live with grace in anxious times. May God's Holy Spirit fill you with this grace, and may it flow through you into the world around you, now and always.

Book Review: The Last Wish by Andrew Sapkowski

I came to The Witcher from the Netflix series, and in researching the books online the PCGamer website recommended starting with The Last Wish as it establishes Geralt of Rivia and does a fair amount of establishing the universe of these stories.

On the one hand, I really enjoyed this collection of short stories. This book is basically half of the first season of the Netflix series, and from what I've learned, I expect Sword of Destiny to fill out the rest of that season.

If you liked the Netflix series, you'll like this book. It's obvious the series creators wanted to strike the same tone of moral ambiguity in their show that they found in the books. If anything, the showrunners amped up that ambiguity - Sapkowski paints a kinder picture of Geralt and the world he inhabits.

On the other hand, it's odd beginning a series with a collection of short stories, particularly one which is framed as something like a flashback episode. The framing story involves characters who haven't appeared in the series as of yet, but you get dropped into the story with very little exposition all the same. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to connect with the story if you began with this book having not seen the series.

I think I'll try the first published novel, Blood of Elves, next, rather than follow PCGamer's advice and continue with the next story collection. Perhaps that will seat me in the story a bit more firmly.

On the whole, if you enjoyed any of A Song of Ice and Fire you'll enjoy The Witcher, particularly if you're more a fan of fantasy than you are of political intrigue.

Book Review: Dear Church by Lenny Duncan

"Christianity at its core is subversive. But radical evil wants complacency, not subversion...Radical evil wants walls up around our hearts, around our congregation's life, and around this country. Division is how evil operates. We have all become intractable... 

To walk away from a theological commitment to the least of these is to leave Christ on the cross and ignore what happens three days later. To pretend that this isn't our time to stand up and speak a good word over this world is gross misconduct. If I don't accept this call now, I should be defrocked. If the church doesn't accept this call now, it deserves to die."

Book Review: From a Certain Point of View

From a Certain Point of View by Elizabeth Schaefer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a fun idea: collect a bunch of authors and have them write a tribute album of sorts to Star Wars: A New Hope wherein the stories are told via the eyes of non-central characters. Like most of these volumes, the results are mixed. Some of the stories are daring, original, and well-told. Some, well, aren't. Of particular note for me was Glen Weldon's story of the mouse droid who encountered Chewbacca in the hallways of the Death Star, as much because I enjoy Weldon on NPR's "Pop Culture Happy Hour" podcast as the story itself.

It was certainly a quick, entertaining read during vacation, which is great because no one wants to be laboring away at tough reading on vacation, right?


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