Yes, it did... I nearly stopped reading... :D

I like the cement encasing idea!

I wonder if cremation would have been a permanent solution to the Seth problem.

Probably not - given the resurrection of the fiery crash victims (eg Galen). I was hoping for something simple, like the Wicked Witch of the West's water or Superman's Kryptonite.

Question:

In the previous version, Brant and Tom left the kid, Josh, tied up in the house when they steal the car to go rescue Peg. In the revision, I had Brant shoot the kid. Some people feel that killing any child in fiction is crossing a line that shouldn't be crossed. I thought that the killing spoke to Brant's state of mind.

Any thoughts on this?

Unfortunately I did not have time to participate in the group reading this month, so I can only give my opinion in general.

I think that in fiction there should be no lines which cannot be crossed.

Yes, I agree with this, especially since the whole book was about death/awakening...

A lot of other horror fiction have children die one way or another... sometimes gruesomely.. :eek:

The scene was shocking. I didn't think it crossed any uncrossable line, as this child was no longer a "human child" and the action was necessary and understandable.

If you were trying to show that Brant had gone over the edge then it was fine. However, I personally hope that, if the kid was subdued I would have never been able to shoot him... even knowing that he would die once Seth did.

BOb

Killing a child just just for shocking people is a weak thing to do.
But if it felt right when you write this scene, you shouldn't fear 'hurting' people feelings (IMHO).

It's an horror novel, not teletubbies after all ! :D

And the kid was already dead so ... :rifle:

I just finished it! I enjoyed it. As others have said it does have a Stephen King flair to it (Seth is kind of like Randall Flagg). I liked getting to know the characters in some depth because it made me care more about the outcome.

One thing I noticed was that this was a low tech book. Aside from Brant's laptop. There was no searching for "Eloise" online or trying to contact help by cell phone.

I was also of the same mind on cremating Seth. His ashes would then be placed in a very small urn which would then be encased on concrete and thrown into either a volcano or the ocean (whichever was handiest). ;)

Heck, George R R Martin had his Fevre Dream vampires kill and feed on a baby, so shooting a kid who was already dead seems tame in comparison, and I'm sure there's far worse out there. I think having him shoot the kid reflected Brant's state of mind at the time well.

I enjoyed the book, and found the inclusion of the shorts at the end of the book a nice little bonus.

There are a lot of well-worn tropes in this book, but I enjoyed it because the characters had just enough depth to keep it interesting. I also liked the puzzle - how do you defeat a god? He's underwater now, but where will he be in 100 years.

I also like stories that make me think about just how far I can push my own sense of morality. Could I kill my child to bring it back to life? Is it then, still my child? If not, can I kill it again?

The book isn't great literature, but it was a good entertainment.

I just found this thread. I was expecting it to be announced on the home page like the voting was.

At any rate, I thoroughly enjoyed Risen, and will be coming back for some more Strnad in the future. I especially enjoyed the short stories, which I read before reading the novel.

For anyone interested in seeing how Jan Strnad operates in another medium, may I recommend the graphic novel, The Sword of the Atom. It's published by DC, and can be ordered at Amazon. The story opens with Ray Palmer (the Atom) catching his wife in a compromising position with another man and ends in a South American rain forest where he has encountered a hidden society of six-inch tall humanoid descendants of aliens who crash landed on Earth in the distant past. Will he return to his wife, Jean, or will he find a new life and love among the aliens? It was a very enjoyable and suspenseful book.

No question; dump that cheating @#!$. Enjoy some good alien lovin'. Once you go alien you won't go back!

Sorry... I haven't been front paging the discussion threads... perhaps I should.

BOb