I first heard of this indie science fiction author from my friend Rhiannon, who has known David Alderman since high school. He writes, in his own words, “edgy Christian speculative fiction”. Justine has complained before about the lack of real Christian fiction out there so when I heard the description of his writing I was very interested.
I decided to try his first book in his series, Black Earth: End of the Innocence. Here’s the synopsis from Goodreads:
On the evening of his high school graduation, Nathan Pierce collapses on stage. Plagued with visions of a strange girl intent on killing herself, he wonders if his mental instability is a consequence of the deadly car accident he was in days earlier.
Heather Rhodes, wracked with guilt because of the fatal wreck, finds she is unable to forgive herself and begins to question her own beliefs. While the death of a newborn weighs on her heart, on her mind is the strange gift she was able to use to protect her and Nathan in the accident…a gift that Heather wonders may have just been a figment of her imagination.
Cynthia Ruin, aka The Pink Rabbit, decides that her high school graduation night should be used for partying, not traveling down the football field. At a nightclub in Scottsdale, Cynthia finds more than she bargains for when a stranger from her past decides to exact his revenge on her for a prior rejection.
Nathan, Heather, and Cynthia come to realize that their current problems are nothing compared to the stars falling from the sky. During the global crisis, the President of the United States makes it her personal mission to keep the country on the right track to becoming a world superpower, while a hostile entity known only as Absolute threatens her administration.
Meanwhile, word starts to spread that the falling stars may not be stars at all…
Let me start with this: if you’ve been frustrated with Christian fiction before, don’t write this book off and definitely give it a try. He doesn’t hesitate to communicate real life as it is. No rose-colored glasses, no G rating. I’ve never read another book like this one because it’s definitely sci-fi but with a Christian twist, I don’t really know how else to explain it. It’s like a mid-apocalyptic, dystopian, science fiction novel that combines some of the ideas in the book of Revelation in the bible.
I really liked the way he chose to tell the story. There are several very different and unique story lines told from very different and unique characters. There’s a female president, high school students, reporters, and campers. It’s one of my favorite writing techniques because I’m able to understand what’s happening from each angle and as a reader it’s fun to try to predict how they’re all going to come together. It also kept the pages flying because if one of the story lines halted at a cliff hanger I’d be rushing through the others to get back to it, I needed to know what would happen! The only thing I would complain about here is that I saw some possibilities of combining a few of the characters and I think that not only would’ve simplified the story but also allowed for the deepening of it as well.
This book had no shortage of action and adventure. There are all of the elements a science fiction geek like me loves: aliens, time travel, super powers, and government conspiracy. I thought the combination of an alien invasion with Revelation-style end times was very creative and something I never would’ve thought of. I would recommend this book to a sci-fi fan who is looking for a Christianity-influenced fiction book.
Oh, and the ending? A total cliff-hanger. Hopefully I’ll have the time to start book 2 soon!
