CSFF Blog Tour: The Bone House

The universe is big. What’s more, it’s awfully crowded.

It may be hard to tell, but they’re there, just a ley-leap away – countless worlds, people beyond number. Very few people know this; very few have traveled the ley lines to other dimensions. And those few people are constantly running into each other, often in extremely unfortunate ways.

In The Bone House, second book of the Bright Empires Series, Stephen Lawhead continues his grand exploration of the mutliverse. Most prominent of the explorers, but by no means the most adept, is Kit Livingstone. He is driven and pulled into adventure by forces greater than himself – the mysterious workings of ley lines, Lord Burleigh, Wilhelmina Klug.

I read the first book, The Skin Map, and thought it was science fiction, even if unconventional science fiction. It’s strange, then, that The Bone House struck me much more as fantasy. I think it was partially the turn toward Mediavel times, with a priest who talked about the tongues of angels; I think it was mainly that the story, for the first time, fully left our world. Earlier it took us to a different London, a different Prague, a different Egypt – but still London and Prague and Egypt, so that this science-fantasy series has a distinct flavor of historical fiction. But The Bone House goes beyond history.

In one area, however, it is thoroughly, classically sci-fi: going crazy with time. Hence we can simultaneously follow the Man Who is the Map and everyone searching for the Map That was the Man, back when he was alive. Lawhead, dealing with multiple dimensions, plays rather loosely with time. Even some of the characters’ storylines are out of order.

The chaotic mixing of dimensions, chronologies, and characters may bother some readers. I enjoyed it. It was intriguing, it kept me on my toes, and it conveyed the bewildering profusion of the multiverse.

But in the jumble of stories and realities, Lawhead asserts purpose and order. Everything, we are told, happens for a reason; all is as it should be – even for those who travel the multiverse. The Bone House was unexpectedly religious, a quiet but steady stream flowing through the book. Yet there was one incident I must raise that, though religious, was not at all Christian. At one point a hero of the book goes to a pagan temple; its priest perform divination for him  – and it is absolutely accurate. I leave this for your consideration.

The Bone House is not a story with much speed, but it has a lot of depth. It lingers in distant times and strange places, portraying each one vividly and sometimes beautifully. The characters are also diverse, also well-rendered. They are complete and convincing, even when, like Dorian Wimpole’s scorpion, they are not wholly lovable.

Then there is the series’ great adventure – the exploration of the universe. Walking the ley-lines begins to feel, in this second novel, to be only part of it. The philosophical discursions, the breathtaking climax, the talk of lives bound together and threads woven by a master of the loom – all seem to be driving to what is both at the heart of the universe and beyond it. The Bone House is a work of spreading imagination, of breadth and intrigue – a masterpiece of speculative fiction.


Now for the links:

the author’s website, and

The Bone House on Amazon;

best of all, the links for the blog tour:

Noah Arsenault
Red Bissell

Thomas Clayton Booher

Beckie Burnham
Morgan L. Busse

CSFF Blog Tour
Jeff Chapman
Carol Bruce Collett
Karri Compton

D. G. D. Davidson

Theresa Dunlap

April Erwin
Victor Gentile

Tori Greene
Ryan Heart

Bruce Hennigan

Timothy Hicks

Christopher Hopper

Janeen Ippolito
Becca Johnson

Jason Joyner

Julie

Carol Keen

Krystine Kercher

Marzabeth
Katie McCurdy
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Joan Nienhuis
Chawna Schroeder

Kathleen Smith

Rachel Star Thomson

Donna Swanson
Robert Treskillard

Steve Trower
Fred Warren

Phyllis Wheeler
Nicole White

Rachel Wyant

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

10 thoughts on “CSFF Blog Tour: The Bone House

  1. I also found the inclusion of accurate divination in a Christian novel interesting. But I thought it fit that character in that world.
    Looking forward to read more of your thoughts over the next couple of days.

  2. Thank you. The use of divination by two apparently benign characters was a little troubling to me. In the Bible God treats divination as a horrible evil, repeatedly listing it alongside sorcery and child sacrifice. I don’t think Stephen Lawhead meant to recommend the practice as moral or efficacious. Still, I wish he’d either left the divination out or handled it with more obvious Christianity.

  3. Shannon, I’m still waiting for the other shoe to fall re. the divination. It is such a contradiction to the other spiritual elements, so I can’t imagine that it won’t play a part later on, which I assume is why he included it in such graphic detail. It was troubling to me, but only because it made me realize that people lived those beliefs. Makes me think that the Hebrews leaving Egypt and following God but holding onto their idols had those kinds of false ideas as part of their past. It also made me understand more about the Levitical laws prohibiting the drinking of blood.

    Great post.

    Becky

  4. Wonderful review and post. You articulated everything I felt about the book a lot better than I could have. I totally agree about his going crazy with time. At the beginning of many chapters I had to stop and think about where/when the point-of-view character was in relation to everything else that had happened. Maybe a little confusing, but he did it masterfully.

  5. It’s interesting, Becky, that the scene helped you understand the Bible better. For myself, I’m trying to reserve judgment. Overall the book was Christian, and like you said, there may be more coming on the divination. We can’t fully critique Stephen Lawhead’s handling of it until he’s done.

  6. Thanks, KC! It was the out-of-order storylines that threw me for a loop. When I read the scene with Haven, her father, and Burleigh, I assumed it was a different Haven in a different dimension. It was chapters later before I really understood what I had read. But if I couldn’t enjoy a little confusion now and then, I would not be such a fan of speculative fiction.

  7. Thank you. I’m looking forward to the next book, too – especially after the climax of this last one.

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