NEW SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY REVIEWS
Reviews Of Recently Published Science Fiction And Fantasy Books
Reviewer: Forrest Schultz schultz_forrest@yahoo.com 770-583-3258
Blog Address: http://newsciencefictionandfantasyreviews.blogspot.com
September 4, 2012
Cain Is Alive (But NOT Well)
In T. L. Gray's Paranormal Alternate History
A review of
T. L. Gray The Blood of Cain, 2nd ed., Book 1 (Carrollton, GA: Vabella Publishing, 2012)
$15.95 226 pp ISBN-10: 193823006X ISBN-13: 978-1938230066
Reviewer: Forrest W. Schultz
T. L. Gray has crafted a remarkable fantasy by placing the events in the Biblical account of Cain into an alternate history generated by imagining that Cain gains immortal life for his body but suffers intense agony in his soul as he seeks to find salvation and to end his painful estrangement from God. [Into this alternate history Gray also incorporates, with some significant revisions, two old elements of speculative fiction -- Lilith and vampires.] In Gray's story Cain wishes to regain the relationship with God he once had, which is strikingly similar to the story in Wayne Barlowe's God's Demon in which a demon, remembering the blessed communion he had with God in Heaven, decides to repent and seek restoration of that fellowship with God. The demon succeeded; we do not know if Cain will be successful because we only have Book 1 of Gray's story.
The characters in The Blood of Cain are well crafted and the story is well told, although I did not like all the jumping back and forth between ancient times and the present -- I wish all authors would quit doing that and just tell the tale in chronological order! Some of the story takes place where Gray lives -- in the Carroll County town of Temple -- Yes, Temple!! Gray took good advantage of this serendipity! It is also fun to see Cain and other ancients in modern sports cars and jet planes.
This story, though generally very well thought out, violates a fundamental law of ecology just as her Milledgville Misfit violates laws of physics. The story does rightly see that a vampire, being immortal, could NOT drink human blood without being poisoned, but it fails to realize that ALL matter was "poisoned" by God's Curse upon the ground after the Fall of Adam. So, no plants and animals could be sources for food and drink by an immortal whose body could not live in our fallen ecosystem because of the ecological recycling principle.
There are other things I would like to discuss but can not do so without giving away the story. One thing I can do is to ask the reader to note the similarity which Lilith's relationship to Cain has to Eve's relationship with Adam -- that was a real stroke of genius, coming up with that!!
I highly recommend this highly imaginative literary creation -- a very thoughtful as well as exciting read!
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