Praise for ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM

Forgive me for repeating a reader’s praise of my work, but if you recall my theory which I recently posted that the proper motive for writing is not fame nor money nor the applause of crowds, but merely to touch the heart of that one reader one might never know who knows what your work really means.

Here is a reader for whom I am happy to have done my work.

You may keep the applause of worlds for more popular books. I am writing for this one, and for anyone willing and able to be for me the one, the only one, for whom I write:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R1OVH7X9F93LMV/ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ASIN=B00N9760GO

Bright Star,” indeed

 

It was very difficult for me to sort through my feelings in reading One Bright Star to Guide Them, for it is a complex book wrapped in a simple premise.

Many of us have read Narnia, watched Star Wars, or heard some other adventure story where the average joe hero is plucked from his simple and boring life to be taken on A Quest, usually taken out of his world (as was the case with Narnia) and thrust into an unknown environment to fight some evil or right some wrong. It’s a tale as old as the first heroic myths.

Ah, but what happens when the Quest ends? Lewis touched on it – very briefly – in The Last Battle. 3 of the 4 children from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe return to Narnia, but one sister got too wrapped up in the trappings of being “an adult.” She chose to forget. It quite probably was the greatest tragedy of that series. But that’s all we get about the Pevensies’ time after Narnia.

Mr. Wright takes us on the most bizarre of hero’s quests: the one that takes place AFTER the quest, and that takes place in the “real world.” In so doing, he brings back a bit of the magic of Narnia and – much like Lewis’ Chronicles were a parable to point the young reader to Jesus – One Bright Star reminds us that there is hope when youth has faded, innocence lost, and the black-and-white morality of a child seems but a memory. There is hope that a man can find “childlike faith” and find again the magic and joy of belief. That restoration of faith and hope is why I marked the book 5 stars; because it took me back to my First Love and reminded me of that otherworldly joy I felt when reading Lewis’ timeless novels.

ADDED LATER: I seem to have a second ‘one reader’. Here is shining praise indeed from another reviewer:

‘Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know
that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.’
G.K. Chesterton

I will admit to being a John C. Wright fanboy, and that I regard him as the finest prose stylist writing in SF/Fantasy today. With those biases admitted out front, I must say that this is Wright’s best piece of work I’ve yet read. John C. Wright is either taking dictation directly from Elfland, acting as Oberon and Titania’s personal scribe, being visited by the ghosts of Lewis, Tolkien and T. H. White, who whisper stories to him when the moon is full, or he has mastered the children’s fantasy story like no one since Madeline L’Engle, I don’t know which. Instead of his usual baroque filigreed prose, the writing in this story is stripped down, simpler, and yet retains the ability to imply depths and heights without directly glimpsing them. Wright weaves a tale of what happens after the quest is over, that is just as good as a story of the quest itself. For anyone who loves Fantasy, this is a must read. It will transport you to that far green country of your youth, where there was nothing more important on a Saturday afternoon than whether or not Frodo destroyed the ring, or if the Witch was defeated, or the rightful King Crowned.

Mr. Wright is the best in the field and fully deserving of the honorific of grandmaster. Mr Wright, I do not know how you do it, but you have brought us a story from the uttermost West, bathed in the light of the Two Trees.

Thank you.