One Helluva Day! (Review of Day One, by Nate Kenyon)

Talk about a bad day! (And a good book) John Hawke never had a worse one, what with the killer AI sending every machine in sight, and even the cops and the military, to kill him (and a large percentage of the rest of the population). But the worst part is he's separated from his family, and doesn't know whether they've survived some very human evil. And this is the best part of the story, in my opinion, very much like the movie version of World War Z where the danger to the main character's family is the "macguffin" that drives the plot, and rather effectively. I'm sure Kenyon plotted and started this novel before he saw that movie, so it isn't a ripoff, but another effective version of the same hook. And the action is good, too. As a writer myself I especially liked how he introduced us to the characters' pasts while the disaster was starting and escalating, to keep our attention early. A few flaws, I thought, but definitely a certified page-turner. [Parental Info: Some R-rated profanity and gore, but no significant sexual content.]

If Silhouette Was A Movie (Main Characters)

Now that I have finished Kaleidocide, the sequel to Silhouette, and sent it off to the publisher, I have some time that I can do something fun that I've wanted to do for awhile. Macmillan Films is trying to get a movie deal for Silhouette, so I thought I would find some photos online that would show how I imagine the characters, locations, vehicles, weapons, etc. Is this how you imagined them when you read the book? Leave comments with your thoughts about them if you want.

No better place to start than with Michael Ares, the main character. He is from England, so how about Luke Evans, who looks something like the Michael of my imagination...



And then for Michael's wife Lynn, how about Naomi Watts...



Michael and Lynn are both in their thirties, Michael is ex-military (special forces) and Lynn was raised in an orphanage at the Presidio founded by Saul Rabin's late wife Kathryn. The glasses Luke Evans is wearing in the pictures could easily be the net glasses that Michael uses throughout the book, and Naomi Watts is not only beautiful, as Lynn is, but could also embody the domestic and innocent parts of the character's nature.

Interestingly, the two actors also have the same color eyes as the characters in the book.

WORLD Magazine Q&A

An excerpt from my interview with Marvin Olasky:

Photo by Art Cox/Patrick Henry College

Dave Swavely is the pastor of a Pennsylvania church, the father of seven, and the author or co-author of several nonfiction books and one new novel, Silhouette.  

Pastor and writer. Do those two callings go together? The discipline of writing, having to think through the way you’re using words more than when you just talk, is good for my trade as a pastor. Fiction published in a secular market gives me the opportunity to make connections that I wouldn’t otherwise make with people who are uninitiated to the Christian faith.

Which calling came first: pastoring or writing? When I was a little boy, I began to write. If somebody would have asked me even when I was very young, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I would have said, “A writer,” and I actually also said, even, “A novelist.” I majored in creative writing. I didn’t believe I was called to be a pastor until I became one after college. 

Let’s talk about your futuristic action/mystery novel, Silhouette. It’s published by a big New York house, Macmillan, and doesn’t have much about Christianity—although the main character is starting to sense that he’s missing something. He’s being exposed to Christians, liking some of the things he sees but mostly disliking Christian ideas—yet Providence behind the scenes is working in his life.

It’s set in a post-quake San Francisco, which has become a city-state ruled by a semi-benevolent dictator, so it and the draft of your sequel have some violence and sexual (not explicit) situations. Any good literature will contain both the sacred and profane, because life is full of both. Authors get shot at from both directions. In the Christian publishing world you can’t have too much of the profane or they won’t publish you. In the secular publishing world you can’t have too much of the sacred, or they won’t publish you or they’ll try to cut it out. It’s hard to write about the sacred and profane, to have a place for it to be published and read in today’s market, and also to do it in a way honoring to the Lord, where the profane serves the purpose of showing how great the sacred is. 

The bad news makes us understand more our desperate need for the good news? Experiencing the bad news through the characters shows how great the solution is and how much it’s needed.

(For the rest of the interview, click here)

Truth in Dickens' Fiction (and a great movie version of it)

I just love this DVD! Some Dickens novels I read first, then check out the movies, but some I watch first so I can have a picture in my mind of the characters and places, and then enjoy the nuances and details of Dickens' depiction. This one I've watched several times without reading the novel yet, and it's one of my favorites ever. Tom Wilkinson narrates Dickens' semi-autobiographical tale (an "exaggerated" and "edited" version of his life, we could call it), Daniel Ratcliffe plays the young David, Bob Hoskins as Mr. Macawber, Maggie Smith as Betsy Trotwood...what's not to like? And the rest of the characters and settings are just right too.

As a Christian, the icing on the cake for me is Dickens' propensity for illustrating God's sovereign providence, even over evil acts and persons, which "causes all things to work together for good" (Romans 8:28). Some critics have said too many coincidences come together in Dickens to be believable, but I believe like he did that it happens all the time, though we may not see it from our limited vantage point. The fictional narrator is able to see it, however, so we can too as we watch the events unfold through his eyes.

An example is the terrific scene where Miss Trotwood tells off Mr. Murdstone and his sister, saving David from a fate worse than death. She can "peg" the abusive husband because she endured one herself in the past, and she has the passion and resolve to stand up to him for the same reason. The hand of providence used her past misfortune to insure a bright future for David, and provide a greater measure of redemption and meaning for her own life as well.

Echoes of Eden Review and Recommendation

This is one of the better graphic novels you've never heard of. My friend Marvin Olasky's writing kept me interested throughout, and the art and production are nice. A fictional story with intrigue and action, but also with much true information about the uncanny connections of world religions that "echo" the story of Eden in the Christian Scriptures. Interesting issues to think about while the story develops, but not too "preachy." Highly recommended for those readers who like some truth with their fiction.

You can purchase it here.

If Silhouette was a Movie (Other Characters)

Macmillan Films is working on a movie deal for Silhouette, so I thought I would find some photos online that would show how I imagine the characters, locations, vehicles, weapons, etc. Is this how you imagined them when you read the book? Leave comments with your thoughts about them if you want. This is my final post in this series--next I will do some posts with pictures for my second novel, Kaleidocide.

Harold Harris, who is a "net jockey" and leader of the squatters who have taken over the Red Tunnel, might look something like this...



A Korean tech named Kim helps Michael with his investigation, and then ends up in a Blade-Runneresque chase through the streets of San Francisco, being pursued by Michael, Paul, and their remote-controlled "falcons." Kim's wife, Angelee, plays a significant role in the sequel (see my next series of posts).



At the "summit" meeting of world leaders that Saul Rabin hosts toward the end of the novel, one of the guests is Stanford Glenn, who is one of the most powerful men in America, which is declining and decentralized, but is still very influential in the world.



Stan Glenn appears in the second book, and so does another guest at the summit meeting. General Zhang Sun is the militaristic ruler of China, and seems to have an animosity toward Michael, from which flows the primary plot of Kaleidocide (and the reason for the title, in fact). So this is a good way to end this series about Silhouette and transition to another one about the sequel.

If Silhouette was a Movie (Locations)

Macmillan Films is working on a movie deal for Silhouette, so I thought I would find some photos online that would show how I imagine the characters, locations, vehicles, weapons, etc. Is this how you imagined them when you read the book? Leave comments with your thoughts about them if you want.

The novel is set in the San Francisco Bay Area in the future, after a devastating earthquake destroyed much of the city, like the quake that did so in 1906. The damage might look something like this...



Former police chief Saul Rabin formed the Bay Area Security Service and rose to power by being the one man who could establish order in the ruined city, with the help of his force of "peacers" who have been given a license to kill. Much of the city was rebuilt, and BASS erected their huge "castle" at the summit of Nob Hill and a network of underground passageways like the "Red Tunnel," which in the novel has been invaded by squatters who are protesting the company's dictatorial policies. Imagine the building below about three times bigger, and you will have some idea of how the castle would loom over the city.



Saul Rabin also converted the ruins of the historic Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill, next to the castle, into a high-tech jail. He repaired the gothic facade and named it the Grace Confinement Center, which seems oxymoronic, but he explained that "it is grace--they could be dead, but they're only locked up."



During the story, Michael Ares and Paul Rabin visit a place called "Chinatown Underground." The Chinese citizens who remained in the city constructed it when they razed and then rebuilt the ruined buildings of the former Chinatown, to accomodate the growing population of refugees from China, because that country had become so much more militaristic in recent years under the leadership of General Zhang Sun.



Finally, the former military base called the Presidio was rebuilt to house an orphanage, the pet project of Saul Rabin's wife Kathryn. Lynn Ares lived at the Presidio after her parents were killed in the earthquake.