Summary: A decent second book in a Christian science fiction (young adult) series. Falls a bit flat with some characters but overall worth the read.
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Eternitiy’s Edge is the second book in a contemporary Fantasy trilogy. I think it is officially listed as a Science Fiction, but seems more fantasy to me. The Echoes from the Edge triology is about Nathan Shepherd, a 16 year old from a talented family. His parent disappear during his violin performance (apparently killed) and he is thrown into inter-dimensional fight.
In the first book (my review), the good guys and the bad guys are defined. The hero’s team is assembled (Kelly, the daughter of Nathan’s dad’s old friend, Daryl, Kelly’s best friend and a variety of support characters.) We find out that everyone on earth has not, one, but two, counterparts (on the other two dimensions of earth).
The bad guys are trying to merge the dimensions (or destroy them, sometimes it is not completely clear). It is Nathan’s role to find his parents, save the three dimentions, and heal the damage already done to the three Earths. These three tasks often seem to lead in different directions, and it is unclear if they can accomplish all three.
There is an underlying theme of whether it is ever appropriate to kill innocents to save the world and in general whether acts are inherently inappropriate or situationally inappropriate.
Nathan is a bit of a goody two shoes and his internal conflicts can be a bit over the top for me. Maybe it is because I am an adult and these books are aimed at the older end of young adult fiction. But while I think the discussion is good, I think that it can get a bit silly at times.
Overall, I think this series is very original. It is occasionally hard to follow the stream of the story, but keep going and it will sort itself out. The second book took a little while for me to get into it. I read about a quarter and then put it down for almost a month. But then I finished the last 75% in two days. I will probably wait a little bit to finish off the series, but I do recommend it.
There are Christian themes in these books. Several of the characters are Christian and pray and read scripture. It is not a strong focus of the books, and at this point I am not sure how much it adds to the story. But Christian science fiction/fantasy is hard. So I have to give Davis credit for attempting it. And even more credit for writing an original series that is not a “Christian version” of another series.