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
April 16, 2012
Screwtape For The Twenty-First Century
A review of
Richard Platt As One Devil To Another (Tyndale House Publishers, 2012)
208 pp $15.99 ISBN-10: 1414371667 ISBN-13: 978-1414371665
Reviewer: Forrest W. Schultz
C. S. Lewis, who excelled as an author in various forms of literature, wrote one of the best satires of all time -- The Screwtape Letters, in which a senior devil advises a junior devil in the techniques of tempting humans. The book under review here is an update of Screwtape for our time. The theology and style are the same and most of what is satirized is the same. The difference is the inclusion of such modern phenomena as television, computers, silicone implants, and deconstruction. Platt does not provide his senior devil with a name as memorable as Screwtape and the ending of his book is not as good as Lewis's "Screwtape Proposes A Toast" but otherwise, as Walter Hooper says, "it reads as if Lewis himself had written it".
Hooper, who for a long time now has been the top authority on Lewis, wrote the Preface to the book, which includes this plaudit. I join him in recommending Platt's book to any reader who enjoys well written sophisticated satire in the tradition of C. S. Lewis. It is remarkable that Platt, like Lewis, is able to communicate so much of God's greatness and love as well as warnings aganst sin in this literary medium. And even in those discussions where the reader may not agree with all that is said, e.g. about computers, he will find find the writing to be thought-provoking. It is by no means stodgy, though, and some of it is downright silly, such as Hell's University being called "Tempt U.". This is a treat you will definitely want to add to your library.
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