Sinners and Saints: The Real Story of Early Christianity by Derek Cooper

Sinners and Saints: The Real Story of Early Christianity

by Derek Cooper

Dr. Cooper was born and raised in East Texas (The poor benighted soul.). He attended college in Texas, where he met his wife, they were married in the Northeast. After graduating college, he attended seminary and began teaching Spanish at Phil-Monto Christian Academy outside of Philadelphia; though he eventually entered a Ph.D. program in historical theology and graduated in 2008. It was shortly before his graduation that he was hired as an associate professor (Okay, so there are six ranks for people who teach in universities. The first are Graduate Teaching Assistants, who are the lowly graduate students. However, while their rank is lower they have better pay and benefits than the adjunct faculty. Typically adjuncts are paid below minimum wage, have no job security, and no benefits. Excuse me as I add “university admin” to the list of people we’re gonna Robespierre in the revolution. After that are the Lecturers, who teach but don’t do research. They at least get paid with benefits, and have minimal job security - at least they have to be fired, as opposed to the adjuncts who’s semester contracts are just… not renewed. After that, we get the almost mythical tenure-track. An Assistant Professor is someone who teaches and does research, but who hasn’t gotten tenure yet. Tenure is basically “The only way to fire me is if I do something really bad like sleep with a student or embezzle funds.” It’s protection from the capricious whims of administration, so you can study what you want without having to kiss their golden rings or worry that you’ll be fired for reaching conclusions they don’t like for political or economic reasons. Which is why admin has been getting rid of it in favor of adjuncts, and increasingly no longer let you have tenure if you just publish lots of papers. You have to bring in shitloads of grant money, signaling to Admin that you can play ball with the Bourgeoisie and genuflect appropriately. If you don’t get tenure after six years, you’re gone and will have a hard time getting hired elsewhere as anything but a lecturer, or going into industry or civil service. That’s what I did, I decided to skip that precarious rat-race hell entirely because I don’t hate myself that much. Once you have tenure, you’re an Associate Professor, and Full Professor is basically a level-up from that after you’ve had tenure for a while. It is actually really surprised that he got hired on with tenure straight out of graduate school. Especially in 2008. Maybe religious institutions do things differently, or this one only has the two professorial ranks: tenure track, and already has tenure..{As you might have noticed my editor has opinions on how college education works}) of historical theology and global Christianity at Reformed Episcopal Seminary, in Pennsylvania. He has also served on the pastoral staff of two churches and regularly leads students and pastors on trips in Israel, Palestine, Turkey, and Greece. He currently lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and three children and is still teaching and writing. He has written such works as Introduction to World Christian History and Exploring Church History and translated Philip Melanchthon's Commentary on Proverbs. He is also the co-editor of the Reformation Commentary volume on 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, and 1-2 Chronicles. Sinners and Saints is his latest book published in 2018 by Kregel Publications, a Christian book publisher based out of Grand Rapids Michigan.

Dr. Cooper is as you might have guessed from the above is a devout Christian and fairly active in the Church, so why is he publishing a tell-all style book on the early history of Christianity? According to the book itself, he has many reasons (Other than, of course, the tendency toward scholarship you find in certain less-charismatic branches of Christianity. Like, the Lutherans and Anglicans/Episcopals still actually do honest theological and historical research. A tradition that has fallen out of favor among say… Southern Baptist clergy.). First of all, the tendency towards painting the early church as an organization of pure, sinless people who knew no quarrels or internal conflicts is both untrue (And how!) and honestly harmful. It only helps push people away from the Faith. It is healthier for everyone if we confront our dirty laundry and are open about our past. Additionally, in the United States at least there is a severe lack of knowledge about the early Church once you get past the end of the Biblical book of Acts. Most Protestant Churches prefer to focus entirely on teaching the Bible (and to be fair to the Churches my experience is getting most Church goers to understand and become familiar with the Holy Text at the center of our Faith is in and of itself a monumental struggle [Honestly, I think it’s left many of the Protestant churches intellectual pauperized, because in many but not all of them - Episcopals and Lutherans, for instance, are notable exceptions - this tendency has translated down to the clergy. This is why you see a tendency toward young-earth creationism in many of them, and why a great many of them cannot meaningfully defend their faith intellectually. It is far more stimulating arguing with a Catholic or Lutheran priest over your average Southern Baptist pastor. And don’t even get me started on the “Non-Denominational” churches.{I think I did alright, that said it is honestly a struggle to get some Church goers to basic Biblical literacy}) which means when you get out to the 2nd century, it's as far as the average American knows a vast empty blank spot. I can say from personal experience as a young man that it was hard to find sources aimed at laymen as well. This leaves us without context. Without an understanding of how we got to where we are and if you don't know how you got here, you'll never be sure where you're going. Dr. Cooper is attempting to at least address some of that problem with this book. This does place him among the growing but still somewhat behind the scenes reform movement-building in Protestant churches in North America. I won't go too much into that however since this is a book review not a discussion of current politics.

There's a wide variety of subjects covered in the book like the strange fringe cults that developed on the outer edges of Christianity in the first century when Christianity was itself a fringe movement. Dr. Cooper does well in not only examining some of the more widespread ones but explaining why there was such fertile ground for this and things were such a struggle. He makes a point of explaining that in the 1st century the vast majority of Christians were illiterate because most of the population was back then. Even if they weren't, books were massively expensive items, owning your own Bible back then would have been like owning an Aston Martin. Let's be honest the Bible isn't a small book and when every page has been handwritten the page count matters (And this was before there were monks who devoted large portions of their lives to hand-copying religious texts. It is also worth noting that not everything was written in the same language either.). On top of that, there wasn't really an agreement on what books should be in the New Testament. While Dr. Cooper doesn't go into depth on the struggles over what would be considered canon and what wouldn't be, he does give us a look at what the struggle meant as every Bishop and Priest fully believed that if they lost, their failures would condemn legions uncounted to hell (Keep in mind, these were not small differences like whether the Host is transubstantiated or not. Rather, it’s stuff like whether or not Jesus was a human or fully Divine, or whether they should include entire books like the Gospel of Mary, or even the Gospel of Judas. Yes, there is one of those, it is really really Gnostic.{This is the subject of one of the chapters, the early church spent a lot of energy on this}). Dr. Cooper also gives us a look at not so fringe behavior that honestly freaked out the pagans of the time and would likely freak out Christians and non-Christians today. Such as the Martyrdom cults that would hold feasts in graveyards and venerate the corpses of martyrs, the nude baptisms which undoubtedly alarmed pagans who realized just what their newly converted spouses were heading off to when they got word of that. As well as the love feasts and Christians greeting each other through the holy kiss that generated all sorts of rumors. It didn't help that people on the fringe were willing to prey on the unlearned and uncertain to make those rumors true and the long struggle of Christian churches to police themselves and put an end to that kind of exploitative behavior would lay the seeds for future misdeeds and brutal behavior by the Church, but that's looking far ahead of the book's time frame.

He also discusses the compromises and failures of the Church when dealing with the wealthy and the subject of slavery (Which is kind of a problem when you’re savior really really didn’t care for the wealthy or existing class hierarchies. I said in an earlier review that being both a communist and a Christian is remarkably easy, Cold War propaganda and politics notwithstanding. This is why Liberation Theology is a thing.{Ah Liberation Theology, so much fear, and ink spilled over it}). The failure to confront slavery is both understandable and terrible. It's understandable considering just how widespread and omnipresent slavery was in those days. It's terrible because this failure by the Church meant that widespread suffering and degeneration of fellow humans was not only ignored but tacitly allowed (And doctrine was used to prop it up in the 19th century when it was seriously questioned.). Which led to it being encouraged in some places. The ramifications of these decisions are still with us today, as pre-civil war southern pastors would use these decisions to excuse their own system of oppression and violation, leaving us still saddled with the scars and lingering wounds of American Slavery. These failures came as Christianity moved away from being a fringe religion that was considered anti-social and deviant to a respectable religion with followers at every level in society. This led to problems because it's hard to square having the 2nd and 3rd century equivalent of billionaires sitting in the front row when today's reading was Jesus' sermon about how camels will walk through the eye of the needle before the wealthy get to heaven. One way of squaring the circle was to push wealthy members to support the poorer members of the Church and to donate funds for the maintenance of Church buildings and property (in the 1st century most churches were home churches but by now public churches were being built). This is where we see the Church assuming the role of charity and distributor of goods and services for the poor and just like today where a lot of critics point to that distribution having a political edge to it, there was one back then too (And then there is the Heresy that is the Prosperity Gospel…). Not that everyone got on board with treating the wealthy with kid gloves even back then the backlash to political decisions was well underway. For example, we have John Chrysostom, aka the Golden Mouth, who preached an agenda of a social gospel that would make even my editor happy with him, at least on this subject. For example, declaring “refusal to share our own wealth with the poor is theft” and asking one wealthy Church goer how many poor people were starving so he could wear a single ruby (Yaaassss!). On top of that, he walked the walk, refusing to throw lavish parties for wealthy backers and living in a very simple manner. Which made him beloved by the common people but loathed by upper society. John would take this message all the way up to the imperial throne in 397 AD which would result in him being banished... Twice. Dr. Cooper is quick to point that John Chrysostom was a deeply imperfect human being though, as he would also preach savagely against the Jews of the Roman Empire and inspired anti-Semitic laws and actions in his time (Ugh. I should have seen this coming. Look, bro, your savior was himself a Jew. All the disciples were Jews! You literally worship a crucified Jew!). Antisemitism is another failure and a recurring sin of Christianity that still causes an immense amount of suffering in the world today. While it's true that Christianity didn't create the Antisemitism that was present in the Roman world, it sure as hell spread it to new places and gave it a new lease on life in others. I shouldn't have to explain to you readers why or how that affects us even in the current day and I do mean today, not the 1940s, not 1970, today (We’ve got a Nazi infestation again kids, they’ve breached the Treatment Threshold, time to exterminate! Okay, real talk time. Back in the 19th and early 20th century, aggressively Christianizing Jews was a thing. Like, there was church encouragement to adopt and Christianize Jewish orphans, of which there were many due to pogroms and working conditions at the time. That’s the reason why I don’t know my great grandfather’s original last name, in this particular case the culprit was Mormonism, but it was common in more… conventional denominations as well. My family tree just stops. Thousands of years of history and cultural heritage just…erased. Not as an act of charity or compassion but as an act of antisemitic devotion. They crossed a god-damned ocean to do it, specifically for that purpose. It was so complete that my family didn’t even know that’s what happened for nearly a hundred years. It hurts me in ways I cannot even describe in words. During the Holocaust, the Roman Catholic Church made this their policy. They would hide Jewish children, convert them, and then refuse to give them back to their surviving families. Families that in abject desperation took them to the church for safety. Antisemitism is one of Christianity’s original sins if you’ll pardon the expression, and it is one which it has yet to fully acknowledge or repent.). Maybe if we can all admit we have a problem we can confront it and solve it. I'm not hopeful but it's worth a shot.

Sinners and Saints covers roughly the first 500 years of the history of the Christian Church, it is mostly focused on the Church in the Roman Empire, as that's the part we have the most written records of. He does, however, provide a chapter to discuss missionary work in the first century to places like Armenia, Ethiopia, and India. The book itself is well-organized, split into ten chapters each devoted to a specific topic. This does mean that unlike how history books are traditionally organized, Sinner and Saints isn't chronologically organized. So you'll find yourself moving from time to time as required by the topic. There are strong points and weak points to this approach, it allows you to cover a single topic with a fair amount of depth and without having to space it out by time period. This makes it easier for the reader to trace changes and see the effects over time. On the flip side, you do run the risk of unmooring the topic from the time frame and leaving the reader feeling like they're just dealing with an endless “now” instead of concrete periods in the past. I’ve got mixed feelings about this approach as I can see both the pros and cons. What I don't have mixed feelings about is the language and word choice for this book. Dr. Cooper chose to use informal and fairly everyday language, I honestly prefer this over using the formal delivery that you'll see in most older textbooks that manage to make even world wars dry and dusty subjects (The best history books, even with sprawling page counts like A Distant Mirror at almost 800 pages, choose to use informal language. Incidentally, I’d recommend that one without reservation if you ever want to study the 14th century.).

Dr. Cooper has written an interesting look into the early centuries of Christianity and the human mistakes and outright sins that plagued its early years. Which is a worthwhile project. The book is easy to read and clocks in at about 170 pages, counting the prelude and afterword. This is incredibly slim for a history book and I honestly wish it was about a hundred pages more (Given the subject matter, I cannot disagree.). I should note a couple of things though, first of all despite the informal and easy to read language this is definitely not a book for children. Dr. Cooper doesn't get graphic but he doesn't pull any punches in describing some rather strange and morbid behavior. Additionally, I don't think the book works very well on its own, although it is not really meant to. So I would suggest that anyone meaning to do a real dive into Early Christianity might want to pair this with a book that has a more mainline focus. In such an area, Sinners and Saints would really shine I think filling in the details and shining a light on neglected corners. By itself, a reader might be tempted to think this is all there is to history which isn't Dr. Cooper's intent. That said, this book is a worthwhile read and I do think it's time for the Churches of North America to start looking at our history beyond the Bible, even if getting the average Church goer to appreciate it seems more a labor of Hercules than the labor of a Saint. Sinners and Saints: The Real Story of Early Christianity by Derek Cooper gets a B+ from me.

If you enjoyed this review, consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where for a dollar a month you can vote on upcoming reviews and themes. Next month join us for a patron selected book, Fight the Good Fight by Daniel Gibbs as we return to science fiction for a bit. Until then, stay home, stay safe and as always Keep Reading!

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

The Blood of the Lamb: The Riddled Man By Mark Rogers

The Blood of the Lamb: The Riddled Man

By Mark Rogers

First, let me just say I hope everyone had a good and safe Easter. I know things are a bit rough right now but remember folks, love thy neighbor, stay home, and wash your hands. Alright, that said, I feel we discussed the universe and the setting more than enough last week. So this week, let's just get into it. Fair warning there are spoilers here as I will be discussing some of the differences between this book and the gospels that inspired the core concept. So let's dive straight into the last book of this trilogy (Spoiler Warning the bible?  I mean… Okay.  Pretty sure we’re past the spoiler window on that one.).

The Riddled Man starts off right after The Devouring Void ended. The last fortress of the last order of demon worshiping sorcerers has fallen, their slaves freed and their leaders destroyed. However, the new Grand Master of the wizard-priests of the Sharajnaghim named Khaddam as not let the grass under his feet grow in consolidating his power. First was his move to kill all the demon worshipers who surrendered, breaking the old laws of the order (They’re demon-worshipping sorcerers, I see the logic, but damn.  At least in our iron age, killing your prisoners or just not taking any was normal.  Here he’s actually violating the rules.  Interesting.). He was clever in ordering it right after the battle. when tempers were running high and some of the men were still desperate to atone for having unknowingly supported demon worshiping infiltrators. In fact, the only man who had the guts to argue against it was our boy Erim, who made it clear he would refuse despite many men calling him a coward. This is after Erim had helped lead an advance squad to infiltrate the fortress and open the gate, which frankly makes accusations of cowardice rather feeble (Yeah that’s… like, one of the most dangerous things someone can be ordered to do.). It is, however, realistic. As often as not, accusations of cowardice are more about cowing people into line or making the accuser feel better about their own actions. Khaddam knows not to get his hands dirty though, instead praising Erim for his willingness to stand his ground (Oh this asshole is smooth…). He also knows to strike when the iron is hot, as when bringing his victorious troops back home, he turns around and introduces a new oath. Everyone in the order must swear to take the orders of the council of masters as the dictates of their own conscience and submit without question to the orders of the Grand Master (Oh Hell No!  Prediction, having not read to the end: He worships Satan or the equivalent.). 

    Mr. Rogers does a good job of building up to this moment across the entire series. Every character has been hounded by demons while awake and asleep, had friends and brothers butchered or turn on them and is feeling a massive charge of conflicting emotions. They are surrounded by a crowd driven near savage by a combination of fear, shame, anger, and a need to renew their membership in the group. The temptation is massive in a situation like this and it's a great example of how things go wrong like this when a group is targeted by an unscrupulous leader who is willing to stir up their fears and rage and play on their emotions for power (Yup!  See every authoritarian asshole ever.). Khaddam's hold on power isn't uncontested however, as Erim and others see what is going on and prepare to either flee or fight. While Khaddam does use them as a target for the larger group willing to obey him, it's really just a distraction to keep everyone from his true target, Essaj, the Son of Man, God incarnates on the Earth. Because while most of the order believes that Essaj must be either a madman, a heretic or a fraud. Khaddam believes Essaj is exactly who he says he is and intends to torture and murder him because doing so will bring about an end of the universe and the utter obliteration of the universe and everything within it (Wait what!?  He’s been a nihilist death cultist the whole time!  Dun DUN DUUUUUN!  Or is he just literally Shaitan?). To do so he will stop at nothing to convince Essaj that creating the universe was a mistake and that he should end it and his chosen arguments are pain and humiliation. He'll stop at nothing to get it done, even if it means using the entire Order he's duped into following him as ablative armor to do it (Look bro, once you’ve reached the stage of “torturing and murdering God, not for justice, but to end existence” there’s no “even if” moralizing to be had.  The brakes are just off.  No scruples left.{there’s never any justice in torture}). Which, to be fair if you're committed to ending everyone and everything, what's leading a thousand or two young men to their horrible deaths on top of that? Besides if it works, they'll avoid eternal damnation because everything will be completely erased, so you could even argue you're doing them a favor in a twisted way. A favor they wouldn't need if not for you but still! 

    This seems like a faintly ridiculous villainous plan to most modern readers I think. Because we all know that if you kill the Messiah that he just raises himself from the dead and comes back even more glorious and more powerful (Like Obi-Wan). That said, put yourself in the sandals of our characters, to them the idea that the one true God and Creator of the Universe would ever deign to put on flesh in the first place is practically insane. The only reason anyone is considering this is that Essaj has made it unavoidable to think otherwise when you come face to face with him. To the point that even the High Priest of the Temple openly refuses to move against him. God is eternal and that fact upholds the entire universe, which cannot exist without its God. So if God dies, how can the universe do anything else but die with Him? I actually like this because it shows that Mr. Rogers isn't thinking like a 21st-century atheist or Christian, he's at least trying to think like someone from the 1st century AD. To someone like that, the death of God is something horrid to prevent at all costs (No one has thought to redefine what death is, obviously.  Haven’t grappled with what immortality really means.  That Is not dead which can eternal lie, etc.). To us, the death of God is the moment before our greatest victory.  A difference to think about there. 

    Erim, now completely converted to the idea that Essaj is God is now racing against time to protect his wife, his life, and rally enough forces to take the powerfully protected fortress of the Order and prevent this. It's gonna be hard however because Nawhar has been ahead of him working to turn one of Essaj's disciplines against him and Erim is marked as a heretic on top of that. Another wrinkle is the plan is much like Christ, Essaj is planning on going willingly into captivity and accepting the torment and death (Bit of a sidebar here.  Antisemitism has often been excused in recent centuries on the grounds that Jews killed Christ, but that does not and has never made sense.  Jesus of Nazareth planned on dying.  Being tortured to death was something that was basically pre-ordained by God and was for esoteric reasons that make no sense to me required for mankind’s salvation.  The death of Jesus was, in this arrangement, literally God's Will.  Insert Deus Vult jokes here.). This is not something that anyone but Khaddam seems to realize but Khaddam is, in fact, counting on it. Of course, there are some wrinkles in Khaddam's plan, such as the turmoil in the Order has been noticed on an imperial level and now entire armies are being mobilized to put an end to this. Because now the Khan himself is getting involved and he's bringing enough friends to put an end to this one way or another. The final confrontation will take place at the fortress of the Order, as men, demons and the Son of God are all here for a showdown that will determine the course of history. Whether the center of that confrontation is on the field of battle or in the catacombs of the order, wherein the chamber where the Grand Masters are buried, an altar to Satan (Called it!) has been erected and the tools of torture have been gathered is something I leave up to the reader (And here lies the problem of swearing to suborn your conscience to the will of another person, as opposed to a set of ideas.  It was also the problem with the “democratic centralism” of Marxist-Leninism.  Whatever the Central Committee says is binding on all lower divisions down to the justification and is thus communist by definition… Seriously, to see this in action, go watch The Death of Stalin.). 

    This last volume has less overt theological discussion than the prior two but it could be considered a practical demonstration of theology in a way I suppose (Praxis?). While the story does in a broad way follow the beats we expect from the Gospels, Mr. Rogers puts in a lot of effort to make changes to that story while preserving the overall structure. In short, this is a very different version of the death and resurrection of Christ. One that is changed to fit the context of the universe it takes place in. He does this without doing any violence to the core of Christ's teachings and avoiding modern politics. Additionally, he does a fairly decent job of presenting those teachings in their original context, which is incredibly important to understanding them. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a substitute for actually studying the Bible and doing research into the time and place that Christ taught in. This is a fantasy novel, not a religious text and shouldn't be used as such. That said, he was able to do so and tell an engaging and interesting story that shows a great level of skill and shows how flexible the fantasy genre can be with thought and work. I wouldn't call this book perfect however, I still feel that the characterization is thinner than it should be after 3 books and I'm honestly less happy that Essaj's disciples are basically glorified extras in the series (Given the narrative framing, I’d take care to ensure that isn’t your own bias creeping in.  Imagine the Bible told from the perspective of people outside the cadre of Jesus.  Peter and the like are not going to be very important until after he’s dead.{Maybe but if we’re telling a story using Jesus’ story as a frame, the disciples are major characters and you’re not going to realistically interact with Christ without interacting with them}). There are also questions raised in the story that aren't answered, for example, there are repeated suggestions that with the death and resurrection that the time for sorcery is over. However, there's no suggestion of what people should use in its place, as sorcery is the primary means for fighting demons. Being a Christian, I assume that Essaj's followers are granted a measure of his Authority over spirits and such and use rituals, not unlike exorcisms but this is never really addressed in the text. Which is a shame, because after all the disciples were able to do such things. That said, I do consider this a good ending to a good series that at the very least made an attempt at theology in a fantasy setting and told a good story. I'm giving The Blood of the Lamb: The Riddled Man by Mark Rogers a B and a recommendation if any of this sounds interesting. For myself, I'm glad I read this series and I'm really glad we finally got to the end. 

Well, it feels good to finish a series!  If you enjoyed this, consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where for a dollar a month you can vote on upcoming themes and reviews.  Next week, we're gonna switch gears and go non-fiction with Sinners and Saints, The Real Story of Early Christianity by Derek Cooper. Until then, thanks for your support and as always Keep Reading! 

The Blood of the Lamb: The Devouring Void By Mark E Rogers

The Blood of the Lamb: The Devouring Void

By Mark E Rogers

I always meant to get to this book, but something always came up. I finally decided to just bite the bullet as the subject matter is somewhat appropriate for Easter (Hello everyone.  So, your editor is both a Communist and an Atheist - yes there are Christian Communists it is actually very easy - while your glorious reviewer is an ideological Keynesian Liberal and a Christian. Somehow we’re best friends, and together we fight fascism.  I normally have some fun gently mocking religion and Frigid hasn’t killed me yet.  However, because religion does bring comfort to many in the benighted times we live in, and many of you might desperately want to attend religious services and be unable to right now, I’m just not going to do it, out of a sense of solidarity with my fellow humans.) The Blood of the Lamb's story runs under a simple concept. If there is more than one universe and Christianity is correct in its assumptions about God and the covenant, then wouldn't Christ visit each one? It also goes further to say that each universe would have broadly the same story, one of a messiah coming to earth being born of a virgin, preaching in the backwaters regions of a monotheistic people and fulfilling prophecies until he is executed by that's people's religious authorities only to rise again. The details, however, would wildly change according to the history, culture, and needs of each universe. For example, if The Fall didn't occur until the third generation of humanity, then humanity would be different and may even have access to powers and knowledge that our species of humanity did not (Interesting theological perspective: There is a lot of theological hay made over the Genesis account of creation.  Creationists are often that way axiomatically because they cannot conceive of the covenant and the need for Christ without the Fall, which requires a literal interpretation of Genesis.   However, food for thought: what if Genesis 1 is a parable, and isn’t about the fall of Mankind, but an individual loss of innocence?  Think about it, you come into the world, you learn about it - naming the animals and so forth - but inevitably, something happens that hurts you, and you lose your innocence.  Depending on how you want to take it, this could be your moral innocence, or psychological.  Either way, the result is the same.  The individual is no longer perfect, no longer whole, and thus unable to enter the Kingdom of God without help.  Just a thought.  I may not believe it, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it.) It's in such a universe that the trilogy of The Blood of the Lamb takes place. Now I won't go over Mark E Rogers because I did so when I reviewed the third book, way back in 2017. But since it has been 3 years let me do a quick recap.

A people known as the Kadjafim, an ethnic group united by their shared religion, has been conquered by the Silver Horde of the Great Khan. The Great Khan, however, left the religious authorities of the Kadjafim - a group of wizard-priests called the Sharajnaghim - in place. This is partly because the Khan prefers that the Sharajnaghim do a lot of the troublesome parts of governing for him like tax collecting for his tribute or hunting down and executing troublesome heretics. This is fairly clever as it drives a wedge between the people and their local government while keeping the horde's operational requirements low (It is also useful because forcibly converting monotheists to a new religion leads to rebellions {If the government tried to convert me, I’d certainly get excited, to put it mildly}). It's also because the Sharajnaghim are very useful in the war against demon worshipers called Black Anarites, who engage in blood sacrifices and unclean magic. Meanwhile, the people are very discontent under the horde and rebellion seethes under the surface and heresy runs rift as people look for the Expected One, the promised Messiah from God who will bring liberation. It is in this strange but familiar milieu that Essaj Ben Yussef appears (So his step-dad’s name is still basically Joseph, huh?), preaching a new doctrine in the backwaters of the Kadjafim, performing miracles and calling himself the Son of Man. The Sharajnaghim dispatch three of their own to investigate and these three are our main characters. Erim, an expert in theology and fairly skilled fighter. Sharif, who may be the most powerful sorcerer in generations. Lastly is Nawhar, a deeply intelligent but troubled young man who is skilled in exposing fraudulent miracles. They were best friends before meeting Essaj but now are deeply divided. Despite having to admit that the miracles were genuine, Nawhar walked away hating Essaj at a deep level. Sharif is neutral but troubled as he couldn't detect any magic use by Essaj, ruling out sorcery. Which was a huge thing when they saw Essaj raise a dead man, something even the mightiest of sorcerers couldn't do and they could not explain it (Just gotta say, if a verifiable miracle was performed in front of me like the resurrection of Lazarus, I’d become a believer real quick.  Being a Christian Communist wouldn’t be that hard.  I mean, I’d have a Savior who chases money changers around with rawhide and castigates the rich for being terrible people, which they universally are, because you cannot get and stay rich without dicking a lot of people over.  It is impossible.{Resurrection would be a big one for me.  Christian Doctrine says there’s only one power who can do that, even then I’d be… On guard}).  Erim walked away shaken and deeply troubled but believing that Essaj is exactly who he says he is. Sharif and Erim also walked away married to a pair of half-sisters who worship Essaj. Nawhar seems to be more upset about this than anything else as he loathes the physical and is very sexist regarding women as entirely physical and incapable of much else (Huh.  Almost sounds like he wants to be a Gnostic, deep down in his soul.  Also reminds me of Saul of Tarsus.{Which is a whole conservation because Paul wouldn’t have gotten very far without the support and protection of a number of wealthy and powerful women in his ministry}). If you pushed me on it, I would say that Nawhar reminds me of some rather unpleasant Church Ladies I knew and I admit to some satisfaction at how the comparison would offend both sides. 

All isn't well in the order as the upper ranks of the Sharajnaghim are being slaughtered by demonic assassins and most are sure that the priesthood has been infiltrated by the demon worshipers. As a result, the order shudders under the twin blows of grisly murders and rampant paranoia, it comes to the edge of splitting along factional lines accusing each other of being pawns of the demon worshipers. There's only one thing to do, destroy the demon worshipers in their last stronghold, and tear out the heart of the enemy before it can rip apart the Order. As traitors are unmasked and an army of sorcerer-priests gathered for a march on a fortress of nightmares and death, there is more going on under the surface. Because despite all of this, the order won't shelf the issue of Essaj, even as faith in him and his words start spreading in the very gates of the Order fueled by the miracles that Essaj displays at need (That is some impressive dedication to orthodoxy, right there.{It’s about what I expect.  To use your own statement, if I saw someone commit a miracle in front of me and was able to prove it wasn’t a fraud.  I’d still be rather cagey and uncommitted until I could be completely sure who sent them.}). Everyone who witnesses them is left shaken even as the religious authorities who question Essaj are disturbed by his theology. This leads to Erim and Sharif facing pressure to divorce their new wives to show their loyalty to the Order. At a time when everyone's loyalty is being questioned. 

The Blood of the Lamb is different from other fantasy series in its willingness to not just engage with religion but with theology. Now, some of you are likely asking aren't those the same thing. To which I have to say, no, not really. Religion is much more about people than anything else, the biggest concern (there are exceptions) being in how to ensure people worship and behave correctly. Theology is more concerned about well, God if we stay in a Christian context. Someone who studies theology is studying the millennia-long attempt to understand the nature of God and come to a greater understanding of Him and His will. Now theology in a Buddhist or Hindu context is going to be different but I'm not comfortable enough with those traditions to get into that and will leave that to people who practice those traditions. A secular comparison that may offend my editor, is that religion is kind of like engineering but theology is kind of like theoretical science (That is actually not offensive at all.  It’s an apt comparison.). While theology in The Blood of the Lamb isn't going to win prizes for deepness or original thinking, it's at least present and engaging in it. In this case, there are some interesting twists like having the Satanic figure of this universe (called Tchernobog,) argue that all organic life is inherently foul, vile, and awful and obliteration is called for. This is mirrored in Nahwar's ideas that matter is inherently corrupt. This is a Gnostic doctrine that has shown up in Christianity repeatedly over the centuries so putting it in the mouth of the devil is an interesting stance (It’s actually pretty telling, and we know where he would have stood on the Albigensian Crusade.  And it is also interesting, because that very corruption of the World is a core part of many Christian doctrines, if not taken as far as it is under Gnostic belief structures; which are not solely Christian, but show up in Judaism and Islam as well.). Meanwhile, Essaj seems to revel in the physical (but not sexual) aspects of the universe and encourages people to be happy and kind to each other. His repeated use of the slogan, those who are not against us are for us is straight out of the Bible, specifically Mark 9:39-41 and is even used in the right context (That is actually pretty cool.). 

The book isn't all theological ruminations however, as there is also a war to wage. Erim and Sharif are both tapped to be in the vanguard of a daring nighttime assault on the last fortress (It’s a punishment detail, due to their marriage, isn’t it? {Not really, they’re best suited for the mission one being a very skilled fighter and the other a strong sorcerer}). This means leaving their wives behind in a fortress that isn't as safe as they think it is and marching into hazardous terrain to confront men who have been preparing for this attack for centuries. This isn't the only field of conflict, as omens and portents abound and almost everyone is afflicted with powerful nightmares. Especially our three main characters, as the demon they confronted in the last book spoke to them about what would happen in the future. One of them will fight on the side of the demons. One of them will fight for the truth and another will stand back and allow his love to be butchered. Mr. Rogers does an amazing job on this front showing us that the demonic doesn't just attack our characters physically but mentally and emotionally, whispering half-truths when their guard is down to wear away at their resolve and determination. Showing them possible futures to shake them to their core or tempt them to do the unthinkable. Which is another point in the book's favor, if you're going to adopt demons or evil spirits into your story, you can't write them as just another monster for the hero to defeat with his or her sword. Because such beings are old, intelligent, and they hate you completely and they don't want just your death. They want to tear you down completely, to see your mind undone, your courage shriveled into nothingness and to make you hate yourself before they kill you (This is in contrast to Lovecraftian entities.  To those, we mere humans are just… there.  Like ants or fish are to us.  However, they are so beyond us that they are incomprehensible.  But they are not malicious per se.  Demons are exactly as alien, but they are malicious and they know us in the way we cannot know them.{I don’t think we would want to understand them honestly}). By addressing the mental and emotional level of being under attack by something that has literally crawled up from the Christian concept of Hell, Mr. Rogers has done a good job to show what it means to fight them.

The book isn't perfect, however, clocking in at 200 some odd pages it tries to wrestle with concepts and tell a story of storming a fortress and of an Order being torn apart while giving us a version of the Gospels and covering the internal doubts and temptations of our main characters. This means it doesn't do any of them as well as it could if it just focused. For example, there isn't much time spent on characterization for Erim and Sharif's wives, Khalima and Zehowah. For that matter, we could have used more time on Sharif, Erim, or Nawhar. The followers of Essaj, their version of disciplines, are barely in this book as well which is kind of frustrating. This is a failing of ambition though so I prefer that to a book that just luxuriates in mediocrity. Not to mention I do honestly wonder if this book could be written in today's modern political climate, which is odd to say considering it was published in 1991 (It probably could be, but it would have to either double down on a progressive and inclusive Christianity, which from this it seems to lean toward or go full Supply Side Jesus.{Bringing modern politics into it would cheapen the work.  The faith is bigger than the struggles of the moment}). I still enjoyed it and the book made me think and consider things that most fantasy books won't even touch so I appreciated that as well. This book wouldn't be to everyone's taste and I'm not sure there's a wide audience for it. That said, I feel this book came from a place of respect for Christian traditions and teachings (which you should have for any real-world religion you decide to borrow for your fantasy novel, real people believe in them after all [Even I agree on this.  Whatever I might think about religion, it is important to people and has a very long intellectual tradition behind it that is worthy of a certain respect, even if I do mock it from time to time.]) so I don't view this experiment as a bad thing honestly, even if it's not entirely successful yet. I'm giving Blood of the Lamb: The Devouring Void by Mark E Rogers a B. There's always space for trying something interesting after all.

If you enjoyed this consider joining us over at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where you can vote on upcoming reviews for as little as a 1$ a month.  We also hold discussions on upcoming theme months and other ideas.   Next week, we finish this series so we don't have to wait until 2023 for me to get the 3rd book.  Join us for Blood of the Lamb: The Riddled Man.  As always thanks for your support and Keep Reading!

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Regular text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Part III: A City and a Mission from (the sea) God

Part III: A City and a Mission from (the sea) God

The Professor started working on the Fall of Gondolin in 1917 inside an army barracks on the back of a sheet of military marching music (I feel like he might have been inspired by the Somme). This makes it the single oldest element of Middle Earth as far as we know and the center point from which The Silmarillion grew. We know that it would be read aloud to the Exeter College Essay Club in the spring of 1920. The book itself contains several versions of the story as Professor Tolkien would return to it, again and again, to revise and edit, never quite being happy with it. Now before the release of this book, the 1917 version would be released in The Book of Lost Tales, with the version in The Silmarillion basically contains compressed versions from other writings. Now as far as I can find, the version in the Silmarillion is considered the definitive version, while some of the other versions may be more detailed but unfinished or maybe versions that don't fit into the finished world of Middle Earth. So for those of you feeling lost here in my ramblings, allow me to try and provide context.

Gondolin was founded by King Turgon, who is not our protagonist but is the most tragic figure in this story in a lot of ways (Is he though? There’s a lot of those.). The city was located in a hidden mountain valley that was ringed by mountains that were damn near impassable except for secret tunnels. After Morgoth delivered the curb-stomping to end all curb-stompings to the elves in an event they call the battle of unnumbered tears (Now THAT is a name.), King Turgon lead his people to this valley that he had been lead to by servants of Ulmo, who is the god of the sea (it's more complicated than that but we're going to keep it simple [There are several different sea gods, each with different aspects of our Dark Mother the Sea. Think of it as a Valinar overgod of the Sea, with several Maiar gods who handle the minutae]). Here almost a 1/3rd of Feanor's nation hid out, hoping to hold this small patch of peace against all the armies of darkness by being unknown and unnoticed. Morgoth, however, knew they were out there somewhere and like a gamer who will not rest until he's gotten all the achievements for his latest console game, hunts them unceasingly. Enter our main character, the mortal man Tuor, a dude who is gonna reshape middle earth and do a good part of that in bed. Warning, spoilers are coming up!

Now, most of humanity has thrown in with Morgoth at this point because he's basically unchallenged on Middle Earth and everyone saw what fighting him got the elves. However, there were a number of tribes, houses, and nations that fought alongside the elves and Morgoth never forgave that. Because he's Satan and Satan doesn't forgive (Morgoth is an even bigger capricious dick than the biblical God of the Old Testament. <Editor pokes the Christian reviewer because this is day three of editing and he deserves this>{you deserved it and you know I can pull out enough events to justify that statement 3 times over}). One of these groups of humans was the House of Hador, whose army was wiped out covering King Turgon's retreat. So they were enslaved by the humans who served Morgoth and this was the world that Tuor was born into in. Despite that, he grows into a strong and intelligent man and becomes an outlaw when he realizes his favorite pastime is killing Morgoth's servants (He demands 500 Morgothian scalps). His life is changed however when, through divine intervention, he's lead to the seaside and given a mission from (the sea) god Ulmo. Ulmo has had enough of Morgoth's crap and can convince the rest of the gods to get off their shiny thrones and work for a living just this once but the gods want to see one more effort from the elves and mortals. Because gods, in general, won't do anything unless they know the mortals are gonna do the heavy lifting, write that on your hand (The Valinar really are worse than useless. “Oh, we won’t do anything to stop our Evil Brother unless the mortals do all the work. Nevermind that we cursed the Elves for going to try. This really is all our fault but whatever.”). So Tuor needs to take a message to King Turgon for Ulmo explaining the situation. Of course, Tuor has no idea where Gondolin is and is also Middle Earth's Most Wanted right now. However, Ulmo provides, mainly through a magic cloak that makes Tuor unnoticeable and a new elf buddy who knows the way to Gondolin. Tuor’s role in the story is a heroic one, but in the end, it’s to do what he is told. He keeps faith with Ulmo and does what Ulmo instructs him to do. Later he follows the advice of his wife, keeping faith with her. Tuor is the faithful man but not a passive one because he understands that true faith impels action. He is also rewarded for his faith (Oh Good, he didn’t end up like Job! Poor Job.) but let’s keep going.

Once there, Tuor delivers Ulmo's message. It's time to shit or get off the pot, either arm up and gather up the remaining elves and loyal humans and fight one last battle - where Ulmo promises divine aid and that the orcs will be so crushed that they will never again bother the good people of Middle Earth - or gather the people of the city and make a run to the sea where Ulmo will take them away to sanctuary. If they don't Gondolin is surely doomed because nothing stays hidden forever and most of them will die in fire and pain. This is the pivotal moment of the tale because Turgon has a choice; to either trust in Ulmo for victory and safety or do nothing and seal his own doom (And because the God of Fate cursed his people, we all know what he’s gonna do.). King Turgon refuses to leave his city, trusting in his own secrecy and work to ensure his safety and his lack of faith destroys the largest remaining part of his nation. This is a recurring theme in the greater mythology of Middle Earth, that a lack of faith dooms people to greater suffering and pain even if it seems the easier act in the short term. It's also one of the places where Tolkien's deep abiding Christian faith surges into full view as part of the story. Don't get me wrong, Tolkien's Christian beliefs undergird and create the foundation for everything in Middle Earth but here it's right out in the open. King Turgon’s pride in his own intelligence and skill prevents him from keeping faith and he’ll pay for that (In fairness, if I knew there were gods, and those gods were fucking useless most of the time… so my take-home message is that deities are all either assholes or complete idiots. These are, after all, the morons who gave Morgoth work-release. When he killed the light trees, they should have gendered up and gone after him. Instead, they cursed the mortals for doing it.). I do want to suggest a quick alternate theory for those of you who would prefer a non-theological explanation though. Turgon is a blood relation of Feanor, through his father, Feanor's half brother Fingolfin. As such it's entirely possible that he was on a genetic level just incapable of refusing to make the most drama-laden choice of telling a god thanks but no thanks, I'm going to hang out and wait for Satan. Especially after centuries of doing the smart thing and keeping drama to a minimum. Either way, Turgon's choice means that his descendants will have to fight the orcs until the last elf leaves Middle Earth and humanity will have to solve this problem the hard way (Given that these deities are about as useful as Hedonism Bot when it comes to taking down Morgoth, is there really any guarantee that had he taken the other options, that things would have turned out any better? Ulmo can promise Divine Aid all he wants, but ultimately the rest of the Valar are responsible for Morgoth in the first place. If they can offer divine aid to help the mortals attack Morgoth, certainly they could use that same Divine Aid to help them defend Gondolin. Ah yes, but that isn’t the point. The point is to punish the mortals for not keeping faith with a pantheon of quasi-deities that have shown themselves to be spectacularly useless, and were even cursed into making bad decisions by said quasi-deities.). Everything in this story is decided from this choice and Professor Tolkien doesn't flinch from this but rides it down in flames on a level you won't see exceeded until R Scott Bakker starts writing (Content Warning on literally everything that man writes. For what, you ask? Everything.). Turgon, however, isn't all bad, he invites Tuor to stay as a member of his family and Tuor says yes after getting one look at the elf princess Idril.

Idril is a princess of elf kind, born at the zenith of their power and glory in Middle Earth and like Luthien, her mother was a minor goddess however her mother had well... Died (it's a complicated story), so Idril had to learn and grow on her own but she was already wiser than her father and argued with him in favor of Tuor and his message. She also falls in love with Tuor and in time they are married and have a son. It's on her advice that the plan which allowed them to escape the fall of the city is hatched and carried out, and her own action that saves her son from death during the Sack of Gondolin. Idril’s role here is, well, to be the smart sane person. She’s the one who comes up with the idea of creating an escape tunnel of their own. She’s the one who figures out who can be trusted and who can’t. The city does fall in time and Tolkien gives us a tale of horror, treason, and tragedy, all the worse because if one person had had an ounce more faith then this all could have been avoided and much of the pain and suffering of Middle Earth avoided (Funny how those deities punish an entire civilization for the stupidity of one person.). However, even in that horror, Tolkien weaves drops of hope and light. Idril and Tuor work together to lead an escape and while many dies, many are saved and they find a safe place to settle. Furthermore, it is their son who shall fulfill Ulmo's plan and deliver the salvation of Middle Earth, not once but twice... In a way (remember what I said about Tuor reshaping Middle Earth from his Bed?).

The reward of Tuor and Idril for their faith and their actions to hold to their faith is not just escape from the city. They also find sanctuary for their people and their son. Earendil, their son, grows up free and safe. He learns to fight, sail, and more. He also finds and marries a lovely woman named Elwing, who happens to be the granddaughter of Beren and Luthien. They have two sons, named Elrond and Elros. Now when the gods finally got off their pampered butts, mostly because Earendil figured out how to goad them into action, they were all given a choice of immortality or becoming mortal. Elrond chooses immortality and stays in Middle Earth. Elros chooses to be mortal and after living a long life, dies. Thousands of years later, one of Elros’ descendants would return to Elrond, a ranger of the north, heir to two kingdoms and in love with Elrond’s daughter. If you have seen the movies, you know the rest of this story.

The Fall of Gondolin is a tale of hubris and tragedy. It is a tale where faithless family members sell an entire people into destruction to save themselves. Where the loss of faith by one man can doom an entire people and where everyone pays the price for bad leadership and their own unwillingness to call out that bad leadership (My anti-deity message here is obvious.). It is also a story of hope in the darkest hour and how no disaster is so complete that something can't be saved from it through faith and wise prior planning (Wise prior planning is important. Honestly, I don’t think that faith is important when it comes to the conclusion that Gondolin could not stay secret from Satan forever.). So even in the darkest hour and if everything seems bleak, know that there is a light on the other side of the suffering. It's honestly a powerful and thoughtful story in every version. That said, I do think the book would have limited value to a person who wasn't a Tolkien fan. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who, for example, couldn't really bear the Fellowship of the Ring (Hah! That pun has layers.) and in some versions, the language is very similar to that used in The Silmarillion. Which doesn't bother me because I grew up with the King James Bible, so the language choice in The Silmarillion just makes me feel vaguely nostalgic. However, some of y'all may find the language dense and dry. I also find the book fascinating because it gives us a window into the process of Professor Tolkien and his never-ending struggle to build the world of Middle Earth, which made the fictional world in many ways a living, breathing thing that grew and changed and evolved. If you have an interest in such a process then the book is of some value to you I think. Now I greatly enjoyed it and I'm giving the Fall of Gondolin by Professor JRR Tolkien an A but with the warning that you need to know the context here to get the full experience.

I'd like to thank everyone for sticking with us through this multi-part experiment.  If this is something you enjoyed, consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads. A dollar a month allows you a vote on upcoming reviews!  Next week we'll be reviewing The Devouring Void, by Mark Rogers book II of the blood of the lamb series and that review will be just a single part review.  Until then, thank you and Keep Reading! 

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders. 

The Fall of Gondolin Part II: Context is (Not) for the Weak

Part II: Context is (Not) for the Weak

Now before diving into the book, I think I should explain the greater story that The Fall of Gondolin fits into. Which I can do, because I’m stuck at home and remember that bit about no boundaries? That greater story is The Silmarillion, the prelude of Lord of the Rings, only all of this takes place thousands of years before a Hobbit goes over the Misty Mountains and finds a funny little ring. The Silmarillion is basically the mythology and history of the elvish peoples of Middle Earth. It explains why there are elves, orcs and a dark lord. It explains why the orcs are enslaved to the dark lord and why they both hate the elves and the elves hate them. It also explains why the elves are a fading and disappearing people in Lord of the Rings (And how Dwarves were basically an angel’s pet project that got Divine Permission, and why Ents exist.). Now I’m gonna skip the creation of the world and the early drama surrounding it and focus on the relevant bits. So keep in mind I’m only boiling down maybe… A third or a quarter of the book for y’all. Because otherwise I’ll be reviewing the Silmarillion and I’m not that crazed… Yet (No, he is exactly that crazed. He just knows that I will kill him, like Sting in Dune).

To boil it down, a group of angels were given stewardship of Middle Earth after it’s creation. To keep it simple we’ll just call them gods, it’s more complicated than that but it doesn’t matter for this story (Tolkien was catholic so that fuzzy boundary between angels and gods is home turf for him.). Here’s what does matter, Morgoth the fallen angel/god is in Middle Earth and he wants to be the only god there, he’s basically Satan. For a while the gods dwell alone in Middle Earth, taking over a western continent and building their own private paradise. Morgoth however squats in Middle Earth plotting, scheming and corrupting everything he touches. The gods are content to ignore him because they're not very proactive (No they are certainly not. And it’s not like there weren’t red-flags.). However, they realize that the elves are going to be showing up and they’re showing up in Morgoth’s backyard (Ooops). So they panic and actually do something, don’t get attached to this, guys, it’s a rare thing (It really is.). They storm Morgoth’s home, scatter or put down his corrupted servants and take him prisoner, throwing him in time out. Then to make sure that the precious elves don’t get hurt, they sent heralds out inviting all the elves to forget Middle Earth and come crash at their much cooler and nicer paradise. While some elves decide to stay in Middle Earth, a lot of them decide to check out first class, as it were. The elves grow, prosper and learn a lot from the very gods who were there when the world was created. Morgoth pinkie swore he wasn’t evil anymore and so was granted work release (Oh for fuck’s sake!). One more thing that’s gonna be important was the sun and the moon didn’t exist yet, instead there were two trees that illuminated the whole world in a soft, gentle nourishing light (Don’t ask me how this works.). First let’s meet the elf that makes everything after this happen in the worst way possible.

His name was Feanor, and Feanor isn't a drama queen. He's the bloody God Emperor of Drama (Sitting upon his golden throne, being fed Psykers to keep the cosmic lighthouse burning wait… wrong God Emperor)! In fact, he couldn’t even be born without making it a massive production, his birth was so draining that his mother claimed that she would never be able to bear another child (What? I mean, okay, but they’re hanging out there with literal god-angels and she still deals with a painful childbirth? What?). Because Feanor had taken all of the power she had for children for himself (Wait. So Elvish babies are literally thaumaturgic parasites then, who can steal their parents magical essence?{Elves can sense… Souls? I guess you call it? So they can feel the Soul growing when pregnant from what I’ve read and Feanor’s soul...Yeah}). So exhausting was carrying an unborn Feanor and his ego that she literally laid down and died, which had never happened before in Elvish history (... WTF. But what did she do? She was in the West? Just lie down and her soul goes down the street to the Halls of Mandos and he’s like “Oh hey, I wasn’t expecting you!”?). Now Elves kinda reincarnate but Feanor’s mother wasn’t having it, she was quitting life (That makes no sense. “I have had a child, and his ego was so huge that allowing it to grow inside me destroyed my sense of self and left me in such profound existential despair that I’m just gonna go hang out with Mandos until the end of days.”{Look man, that’s what myth says, she basically fled to the Halls of Mandos and refused to come out}). So Feanor’s father was given permission to remarry, also a first in Elvish history. For additional firsts, in some versions, Feanor refuses to attend the wedding. Possibly because he wouldn’t be the center of attention there. If you think I’m being harsh on him, just read to the end. Now to be fair, Feanor was a mad genius, he single-handedly created the Elvish alphabet and mastered any craft he cared to. In fact, it was studying the light of the trees and trying to figure how to top it that Feanor created his greatest masterpieces and the biggest sources of trouble in all of Middle Earth. There may have been some spite involved as well because in some versions he asked Galadriel for a lock of her hair and she told him to piss off (But Gimli got one. Awwww. Also, how strange is that? Who does that?{Girls giving a lock of their hair to men they were fond of was actually common in some northern cultures. Not necessarily a romantic tradition either. Galadriel was also considered to have the most beautiful hair of all time, like better than goddesses}). So he builds the Silmarils to prove he didn’t need her hair anyways. The Silmarils were three gems that Feanor crafted from unknown substances and within burns the purified light of those ancient trees. Making them the shiniest things in the universe. Morgoth took one look at those jewels and wanted them more than anything else. Of course, Feanor would have nothing to do with Morgoth, but the wicked spirit had a plan. Due to Feanor’s father remarrying, he had half brothers, among them Fingolfin who was almost as great as Feanor and way easier to get along with (Little brothers who have to put up with their insufferable older siblings can be like that.). So Morgoth started a whispering campaign to pit half brother against half brother and succeeded wildly. He also taught the elves how to make weapons, of course, Feanor figured how to make better ones just from examining one. Which led to Feanor pulling a sword on Fingolfin and threatening him. In public. In front of hundreds. This led to Feanor being punished by banishment and Morgoth’s role being revealed. So Morgoth fled… Or so everyone thought (Clearly, work release without so much as a probation Angel is going so well.{but he pinkie swore!}).

The gods, after hunting for Morgoth and thinking they had run him out of paradise, decided to attend to the fights he had caused. They held a party and ordered Feanor to come because otherwise he wouldn’t and asked Fingolfin to come along as well. Feanor came, but in high dudgeon and refused to wear the Silmarils or anything befitting a party. He remained huffy even while being forgiven by Fingolfin, you know, for threatening to murder him, with a sword, in broad treelight. Of course, Fingolfin, having grown up with Feanor might have just regarded that as Tuesday (Probably. “Look bro, you know you do this all the time. So do I, obviously. But this is the first time anyone else saw in order to be mortified, so I have to forgive you in public.”). While everyone was partying, Morgoth killed the trees plunging the world into darkness, stole the Silmarils, and killed Feanor's father, who had gone into banishment with his eldest son (You know, just to be a dick.{Feanor didn’t manifest his dramatic tendencies out of nowhere}). At first, no one knew that the Silmarils had been stolen because everyone was busy panicking that the world had been plunged into utter darkness and were trying to figure out how to fix it. Because making the trees had taken so much out of the gods they couldn’t just make them again, but they realized that the Silmarils could be used to reconstruct the trees. They all turned to Feanor and asked him to give up the Silmarils to save the world. This would involve breaking the gems though and Feanor couldn’t hope to remake them. This is a common theme in Tolkien’s work that once you create your masterpiece, you won’t ever be able to remake it. Feanor stands silent, the whole world wrapped in deep and unbroken darkness… And tells the gods to go to hell, they can have the jewels over his dead body (Feanor, you have been accused of Anti-Soviet behavior. The court finds you guilty, and sentences you to be shot). Because to hell with the world, there’s drama to be had! It’s then that the news comes, Morgoth also stole the jewels and killed Feanor’s father. Feanor, justified for once, throws a fit of epic proportions and leaves the gods screaming in rage and grief.

He goes straight to his people and through sheer force of will convinces them that the only conceivable option isn’t to ask the gods for help but to pick the swords that Morgoth taught them to make and march to war on him. Because no elf, dwarf, orc, man or god is going to wrong Feanor on this level without punishment. Feanor proposed to leave paradise across a wide sea and wage war on Satan himself and his people, after a lot of arguments, agree. They start marching and when the gods tell them to drop this clearly terrible idea, Feanor tells them to go to hell! He leads them to the city of another nation of elves, who had the ships they needed but those elves weren’t having it. So Feanor decides he’ll just take them and when those elves resist? Out come the swords and Feanor starts his campaign of justice by butchering innocent elves just trying to stop him from stealing their boats! This causes the god of Fate to come out and curse the elves, telling them they are marching into a clusterfuck of epic portions and suffering they have never known. Everything the elves do will fall to ruin, they will die, and those who live will have all the joy drained from life as they suffer tragedy after tragedy (Never piss off the God of Fate. Never tempt Fate. Because if you do, he will curse you so hard your great great grandchildren will be completely fucked. Where is Justice? The God of Justice is nowhere to be found ever.). All of it springing from their own decisions and actions. Feanor… Stands up and tells the god of Fate to go to hell. Because tragic and doomed or not, what he and his elves will do will be the most amazing and metal deeds ever done and the god of Fate grants the point and leaves.

Feanor isn’t done yet though, seeing that a large part of the elves following him are muttering about the need for new management, he decides he needs to take action. So in the middle of the night, he loads up his loyalists and his sons and takes all the boats abandoning a large chunk of his own people. He sails to Middle Earth and burns the boats, and in some versions, he burns his own son to death in one of the boats because he doesn’t think to check that everyone is off the boats first. The elves he abandoned turn to his half brother Fingolfin, who is utterly rip shit and instead of marching back to ask forgiveness of the gods, they decide to march over the North Pole so they can fight Morgoth and tell Feanor he’s a dick to his face. Many of them wouldn’t make it. This tells us that Fingolfin has his own temptations to the dramatic and that his side of the family isn’t free of it (This is what happens when you also look up to your insufferable older brother.).

This is the level of leadership Feanor brings to his people in a war with Satan and after many heroic, noble acts which are undermined by the shortsighted greed, fear, and rage of the elves... They get their asses kicked, partly because the elves can't resist fighting each other, as you may have noticed! You know, because fighting the legions of hell just isn't enough war for them, they have to stab each other now and again to keep it fresh. They became a scattered people, hunted by orcs and evil men who if they catch them will either kill them or drag them off to eternal slavery. With only a few hidden redoubts left, that are sniffed out and destroyed one by one. Gondolin is the greatest of these hidden redoubts and the last one. It is a city beautiful beyond belief populated by a people who are learned and artistic and doomed.

Join us tomorrow when we finally get to the actual book!  In Part III:  On a Mission from (the sea) God. 

red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

The Fall of Gondolin Part I: A Professor (a Girl) and a World

The Fall of Gondolin
By JRR Tolkien
Edited Christopher Tolkien
Part I: A Professor and a World

I know, you're asking why on Earth would I sit down and review a work by the most well-known fantasy author and the guy who created an entire genre of fantasy because he bloody well felt like it? Because readers, with everything going on in the world right, I figured a display of how my presumption and pretension quite literally knows no bounds might be amusing (And he’s right. They know no bounds. In fact, if you look at the length of this review you will note that he attempts to ape Tolkein’s literary style.{I am merely trying to be thorough}) Additionally, a reminder that even in the most frightening of times that we can save ourselves if we keep our heads and our hearts might be worthwhile right now. So let's turn to it, I'll start by looking at Professor Tolkien himself (Oh god… Come on Bro, everyone reading your reviews knows this. A hit movie was literally made about his life {We provide the author’s information as available. Always!}.).

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein of the Orange Free State, which was annexed by the British Empire in 1902 and is currently the Free State Province in the Republic of South Africa. His parents, Arthur Reuel Tolkien and Mabel were English, having moved to the Orange Free State when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British Bank (Ah, Meta-colonialism. Wherein British settler-colonists colonize the dutch/french/german settler-colonalists). Tolkien had a single brother named Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien. When he was 3 years old, his mother took him and his younger brother to England, for a long family visit. His father was supposed to join them but died of rheumatic fever in South Africa (Back before the invention of antibiotics, strep throat could actually kill you. And now, thanks to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, we could go back to those storied days of yesteryear. Although, it is worth noting that half a million people develop rheumatic fever right now due to the lack of such basic drugs as amoxicillin. Oddly enough, mostly in the areas economically and socially devastated by the scourge of colonialism.). Mabel took her sons and moved in with her parents and homeschooled the boys. Professor Tolkien by all accounts was a talented pupil, learning to read and write at the age of four, and spent a lot of time learning botany. His greatest interest, however, was in languages. Mabel was disinherited by her parents when she converted from the Baptist Church of her parents to Catholicism, they also cut off all support for her children (Dicks). Four years later Mabel died of acute diabetes (Fun fact: the dude who figured out that diabetes could be treated with insulin sold the patent for one canadian dollar so that the treatment would be accessible. Now, in the USA, people die because the cost makes them ration insulin until they die.) and Professor Tolkien was sent to live with Fr. Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory (basically a small chapel). Professor Tolkien spoke well of the man he referred to as Father Francis, saying that it was from him that he learned charity and forgiveness.

While there, Professor Tolkien attended King Edward's School (a private school founded by King Edward in 1552) and later St. Philips. He failed his first test to enter King Edward's at the age of seven but passed on his second try. It was here that three events that would be incredibly important for the Professor and the rest of us occurred. First, in his early teens, he had his first encounter with a constructed language. Animalic - a language invented by his cousins - was replaced by the more complex Nevbosh that the Professor, his cousin Mary, and others hammered out. The Professor was not entirely satisfied by Nevbosh and went on to invent Naffarin. This is not something he would stop doing as any fan could tell you. The second was when he and three of his friends founded the T.C.B.S (Tea Club Barovin Society), now this was mostly them talking in a tea shop or smuggling tea into the library (Because they were all British, they needed that tea. Like Victorian cocaine… except they also had cocaine.). Others would join over the years. This was Tolkien’s closest social group and he would stay in close contact with them until death did they part (And oh boy was there some death!). They shared their writings with each other, their thoughts and hopes. Even after leaving school, they would write to each other often and meet up to hold “councils". The third was that Professor Tolkien met the literal love of his life, Edith Mary Bratt. He was 16 and she was 3 years older than him, both of them were orphans and they spent a lot of time together, which ended up with them deciding they were in love. Father Francis was less than amused at the idea of his charge falling for an older, protestant woman (Gasp!) and was decidedly less thrilled at the nosedive the Professors grades took. As such Father Francis ordered Professor Tolkien to have no contact with Edith until he was 21 and then he could do as he liked. The Professor obeyed to the letter. I have to admit I am somewhat mystified by this obedience but this may be because as a number of my friends could tell you, obedience has never been my strong suit. He wouldn't contact her for three years...

That said when he turned 21, he wrote Edith and in a letter told her everything that had happened, stated that he still loved her deeply and proposed. He had no job, no money, and few prospects. Edith was living with a family friend and was engaged to a brother of one of her school friends. She wrote back as such but asked him to come and visit her, which he did and after a day together she had broken off the engagement and returned the other man's ring (It’s so sappy and sweet…{Not if you’re the other guy or his family}). It was 1913, and although no one knew it, they were a year away from being shattered in the First World War. Professor Tolkien was less than thrilled to leave Edith, interrupt his college education and head off to war (Which means that he had far more sense than many young men at the time.{Which offended British society deeply, but then most of these people thought of war as a game}) and instead entered a program to delay enlistment until he finished his degree. He passed his finals in July of 1915, graduating with honors and was commissioned within days as a second Lt in the Lancashire Fusiliers. His letters to Edith show him as being rather unimpressed with the British Officer Corps (Look, officers are terrible all the time, but Edwardian British officers? Fuck me sideways…{You can look at my review of 1914 for some extra details folks, all I’ll say is Marines treated that way would mutiny} Russian officers were so bad that even the Cossacks in Russia let the February Revolution happen.). He married Edith after finishing his training in 1916 and after a couple months was posted to France. He compared leaving Edith to death (Well, um… it was WWI so… Take an entire generation of young men. Then go and ask Tom at Blendtec if they will blend. The answer is, as always, yes. Oh! Tommy smoke, don’t breathe this!).

He was heading right into the Battle of the Somme, the largest battle of the Western Front and potentially one of the bloodiest battles in history (Weeee! All because an idiot kid failed to assassinate the one powerful advocate for compromise in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, stopped to have a bite to eat, and got a second shot - pun intended - followed by a bunch of Queen Victoria’s snotlings having the mother of all family feuds! {Explain the French Republic not only involved but gleefully escalating then?}). He found himself developing an affinity for the working men who made up the enlisted ranks (who would later become the model for Samwise Gamgee) and loathing his job, as he found himself considering the work of bossing other men around to be the most improper job for any man (And he was right.). He took part in assaults on German fortifications; the Schwaben Redoubt and the Leipzig Redoubt. Both of these were deeply prolonged engagements with attacks, counterattacks, and possession of the fortifications in question swinging back and forth in a matter of days. Edith following the Professor's movements on a map of the western front was near frantic with fear that the next knock on the door would be news of her husband's death. Meanwhile, Tolkien's unit suffered just as heavily from lice and disease as they did German weapons (More heavily, really.). In October of 1916, Tolkien became one of those casualties, contracting trench fever from the unnumbered lice that infested the battlefield (And the delightful bacterium Bartonella Quintana probably saved his life. Make no mistake, however, Papa Nurgle does not love you, so stay the fuck home, wash your hands frequently for 20 seconds with literally any soap you have on hand and don’t touch your face.{I’m stuck at home until April 30th. Don’t make it longer folks, the reviews might turn unhinged}). He was invalided to England in November of 1916, which likely saved his life, as every friend from his King Edward's days were killed in the battle except for Chris Wiseman. Professor Tolkien's battalion was almost wiped out in the Somme after he left. Professor Tolkien would spend the rest of the war alternating between hospitals and home garrison posts. It was here, despite the suffering, that one of the seeds of middle earth was planted by Edith. The Professor detailed (Exhaustively{don’t be catty}) how Edith and he went into the woods around his duty station one day and in those woods, she danced and sung for him. A memory he carried so deeply that he immortalized it in the person of Luthien, the demigoddess, who for love of a mortal man, ran Sauron out of his own fortress and would choose mortality to follow her love into the unknown darkness that awaits mortals. Which takes the whole bit about worshiping the ground she walks on to a whole new degree. Tolkien was officially demobilized in July of 1919 and released from the Army in 1920 (And somehow didn’t die from the 1918 flu. Speaking of which: Papa Nurgle does not love you. So stay the fuck home, slay the virus with soap, and do not touch your fucking face. Failure to follow these commands will bring agents of His Most Holy Inquisition down upon your heads, and you will be slowly executed for Heresy.)
Tolkien got a job with the Oxford English Dictionary working on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter W (Mother of God) but was able to swiftly re-enter academia. Taking a post at the University of Leeds and becoming the youngest professor there. While there he produced A Middle English Vocabulary and worked with E.V. Gordon on a definitive edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; both of those becoming the academic standard for several decades. He would also translate Pearl, a middle English poem, and Sir Orfeo, a middle English version of the story of Orpheus; this time as a king rescuing his wife from the fairy king and with a happier ending than what poor Orpheus got. In 1925 he returned to Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and with a fellowship at Pembroke College (It’s one of the constituent colleges at Oxford. Basically this means he was instant-promoted to senior faculty with tenure.{So not something we would see in these fallen later days?}). Now during all this time, he had been tutoring undergraduates privately, among them young ladies from Lady Margaret Hall and St Huges College, as most colleges weren't coed yet. Furthermore, Women's colleges were always in need of good and trustworthy teachers, since women professors were, to put it mildly in short supply (It was rather difficult for women to get PhDs). Tolkien being a rare beast, a married professor and on top of that, a man besotted with his wife was considered perfect for the job. It was during this that the Hobbit was born, when grading papers one fine day (that he was miserable over being stuck inside grading the horror that is the average undergrad's work goes without saying) and on a blank page in the middle of an essay (Ugh) he wrote, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” (you know, If I ever just had a random blank page in the middle of a lab writeup or research paper, I’d probably fill it with doodles or something too.). From this starting point, he wrote the Hobbit and the first two volumes of Lord of the Rings were written, although they wouldn't be published for some time yet. Now the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit grew from a large body of earlier works that the Professor had labored on since 1914 but before this but never published but we'll get to that.

It wasn't the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings that first brought Tolkien's attention however, it was a lecture he gave in 1936, entitled Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics. Before this, most critics and experts focused on Beowulf as a historical document, disdaining the fantastical elements. Instead preferring to mine the story for historical details or pre-Christian theology. Professor Tolkien quoted earlier critics who openly loathed the inclusion of monsters and dragons as unworthy of such an old tale and treated such things as extraneous. Professor Tolkien instead argued the fantastical elements were instead key to the whole narrative and Beowulf should be studied not just as a historical document but as a work of art in its own right. On top of that, he staked out his ground as Beowulf having a deep and serious theme of mortality. Professor Tolkien basically launched a stunning defense of the cultural importance of myth and the study of a myth as such as a tool to understand a culture and a people. Today we take that for granted but at the time there was a certain studied dismissal of such things. I would dare say that in some overly self-important quarters there is still such a dismissal, but you should never wave away the power of a myth over a people (Troll time: Indeed, just look at how people cleave to The Bible. It is clearly myth, but on the other hand, to dismiss it as culturally important would be the height of stupidity. You simply cannot understand anything European until you understand that book, and the history surrounding the interpretation of it.{Or the Manifesto!} The Communist Manifesto isn’t a myth. It’s a very early expression of Marx’s ideas regarding revolution, that would later be given an intellectual grounding in Das Kapital and other works, to be refined by later writers. If you want Myth, let’s talk about Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il or Chairman Mao.{Gonna disagree, the Manifesto does what a number of myths before it does. It lies out a history, divides people into an us and them, explaining who their enemies are and why they are enemies. It lays out a model of behavior for a better life. Now Das Kapital wouldn’t count as a myth in my book, as it’s an out right study of capitalism at the time. But the Manifesto? Certainly and frankly I think Marx may have been aiming for that in some part. The Manifesto is, after all, a recruiting tool meant to convince people to embrace capitalism. It is certainly treated as such by a number of communists even if you aren’t among them.}). A myth without a people dies and people without at least one myth will find themselves absorbed into peoples who haven't lost their myths. I would argue on my own that you cannot separate a culture or a people from their myths, because one feeds into the other. We also see here in Tolkien's pointing out Beowulf's concern over mortality, a mirror in his own works concerning mortality and how people grapple with it. Professor Tolkien later admitted that Beowulf was one of his most important and treasured sources. An entire generation of critics and scholars seized on Tolkien's argument with eager glee and it even generated excitement in the press of that day being written of in the New Yorker and New York Times. It helped that Tolkien developed a bit of showmanship in his presentation, beginning by belting the opening lines in the original Anglo-Saxon in a voice that students would later compare to none other than Gandalf (Unpopular opinion: Gandalf was an unconscious self-insert {Are you sure it wasn’t Beren?}). On top of all this, he published The Hobbit in 1937. However, he was soon overtaken by yet another World War and this one much worse than the last.

In 1939 he was asked by the British government if he would serve as a codebreaker and he said yes. He reported to London and took the instructional course at the Government Code and Cypher School. It was decided in October of that year that his services would not be required however and he returned to teaching. In 1945, he moved to Merton College at Oxford and became Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and remained such until his retirement in 1959. He completed the Lord of the Rings in 1948, published in the 1950s, the first in 1954, Two Towers in 1955 and Return of the King in 1956. I will leave off discussing these books for a future date when we have space and time to really look into it (Thank Azathoth). Due to increasing attention and fame, Professor Tolkien took steps to preserve his privacy and his family’s, moving to Bournemouth, a seaside resort patronized by the British Upper Middle Class. He was lukewarm but Edith was thrilled as between the Professor's intellectual and celebrity status, they gained easy entry into polite society. She truly enjoyed being a society hostess and the Professor was pleased to see his beloved wife so happy. So he stayed there until she died in 1971, after which he returned to Oxford where he stayed until his death in 1972. His youngest son Christopher took over his notes and papers and would work to share the further works of the Professor with the world. We will have to postpone looking at Christopher's life (don't worry the Children of Hurin, and Bern and Luthien are still waiting for us and as I mentioned my presumption and pretension knows no bounds). The Silmarillion, the most complete version of the mythology and history of Middle Earth was published in 1977. Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle Earth, a 12 volume set was published in 1980. Thereafter there was a long silence until The Children of Hurin was published in 2007. The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, a poem modeled after old Norse poetry was published in 2013. The Fall of Arthur, a narrative poem composed in the 1930s setting King Arthur in the Post Roman Migration Period as British warlord fighting Saxon invaders was published in 2013. Beowulf, a translation and Commentary was published in 2014. The Story of Kullervo the retelling of a 19th century Finnish Poem was published in 2010 and reissued with additional material in 2015. The Tale of Beren and Luthien in 2017 and lastly the subject of our review The Fall of Gondolin, was published in 2018. Some writers publish less and of less quality when they are alive, and here the Professor through the work of his son is publishing good work almost 50 years after his death. That's the power of a legacy. So let's turn to that legacy (Can you imagine Christopher going through his study after the funeral? “Jesus, Dad. Now I see what was more important than helping me build that treehouse.”{Do British kids even get treehouses? I was always told that was an Americanism. That said I’m pretty sure the Professor would be all about that.}).

This was Part I of a 3 part review, join us tomorrow where we provide a brief look at the relevant backstory of the novel, Part II Context (is not) for the weak! See ya tomorrow!

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen
Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders