Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Book Tour - Return of the Guardian King

Sorry I'm late jumping in on this month's Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy tour. I have reasons, but I think I'll pop them into a separate post.

Return of the Guardian King is book four in a series by Karen Hancock. She's received awards for all the books so far. Return of the Guardian King could well continue that trend!

I first learned of Karen Hancock a couple of years ago and inter-library loaned the first book of this series The Light of Eidon and Arena (a stand alone in a different universe.) When Return of the Guardian King, which came out April first, became slated for this month's tour, I decided to put my money where my mouth was and to order the first three books from Amazon. Which I did. I am currently about 2/3 of the way through the third book and am finding many strengths to this series. I'd intended to have the third book, Shadow over Kiriath done in time to leave it with Hanna before we left on Sunday (I'd left The Light of Eidon and The Shadow Within for her to read.) However, my weekend did not go as planned, so Hanna has to wait for book three.

One of the things that I struggle with as a writer is how to make a fantasy setting come alive within a Christian worldview, especially in having a *fake* religion that supports Christianity but isn't it. Karen Hancock does a good job of this, I think. In fact, she so impressed me with her abilities that I emailed her when I was doing the worldbuilding for Marks of Repentance and asked her about it. She helped me to think through some of the aspects to consider. Thanks, Karen!

Have a look at what some of these other bloggers have to say about Karen and her books: Nissa Annakindt, Wayne Thomas Batson, Jim Black, Jackie Castle, Karri Compton, Frank Creed, CSFF Blog Tour, Gene Curtis, D. G. D. Davidson, Chris Deanne, Janey DeMeo, April Erwin, Kameron M. Franklin, Linda Gilmore, Beth Goddard, Marcus Goodyear, Andrea Graham, Katie Hart, Sherrie Hibbs, Sharon Hinck, Christopher Hopper, Heather R. Hunt, Becca Johnson, Jason Joyner, Karen, Tina Kulesa, Lost Genre Guild, Kevin Lucia and The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium, Rachel Marks, Rebecca LuElla Miller, Shannon McNear, Caleb Newell, Nicole, Eve Nielsen, John W. Otte, Robin Parrish, Rachelle, Cheryl Russel, Hanna Sandvig, Chawna Schroeder, Mirtika Schultz, James Somers, Tsaba House Authors,
Steve Trower, Speculative Faith, Daniel I. Weaver, Dawn King, Rebecca Grabill , Jill Hart.

1 comment:

Rebecca LuElla Miller said...

Glad you were able to join in the tour, Valerie. Now of course, you have me wondering what wrong this past weekend! Hope it's not something tragic.

How cool that you asked Karen specifically about your work. AND that she answered. She's a gracious sister in Christ.

Becky