Welcome to my site

What can I say? I'm so pleased that you've come here. I've spent 5 years blogging, more than that building websites and have been writing "professionally" since 2003. I'm here to help writers with their writing, encourage people through this life, and point them to Jesus. That's the most important thing. So stay tuned. Check this site regularly as "some of the features" may change. I'll need help from time to time, because I'm not perfect. If you're perfect, please go to another site. I'm pretty sure you won't fit in here.

Unbalanced Scales

I'm sure everyone in the U.S. already knows that we are in danger. The problem is that so much of the rhetoric and the old rules are just antagonizing things.

For instance, only weeks ago all the media could do was talk about going over a fiscal cliff. Now, however, that cliff seems to have disappeared and they are talking about spending ceilings. I don't know about you, but this tells me that the people in Washington (D.C) don't know what they're talking about.

Then comes the IRS looming on the horizon. It's hard enough to get around with their hands in our pockets year round, but they expect an extra-special bonus via our Income Tax. We've been gritting our teeth and baring this for years, but now it's becoming harder and harder to find the forms to fill out, even if you can understand them, so you can send them in and pay that tax. I'm of the inclination that if they want my money they should come and fill out all the forms and make it easy. I'm not one of these people who expect freebies. It's just that the founding fathers didn't get paid, and if they did it was by their district, and probably in feed or livestock. I say we go back to that. You want to get out of our $15 trillion debt, then stop paying the people who aren't listening to us when we say, "No taxes."

I know, that's idealistic, but this country was built on ideals, and hard work made it work. That is until the government decided to pay for those who didn't want to work. Take a good idea and present it to Congress or the Senate and the first thing they do is appoint a special task force to investigate the problem. Oh, and all those tax problems we face, they do not face. How'd that happen. Whatever happened to "We the People..?"

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

RAVEN'S LADDER, by Jeffrey Overstreet


I'm way overdue with this review, but I had other commitments that took precedence. I hope Jeff doesn't take offense at that.
The Story: With the fall of the House of Abascar and King Cal-Marcus, his son, Cal-Raven leads the survivors into the "Expanse" in search of a home for a New Abascar. He is led by a vision and the wise words of one of the sages. Yet this advice flies in the face of the established religions and most social practices. Cal-Raven finds shelter to be something of an illusion. The people are growing weary and in need of rest, but Cal-Raven seeks out the 14th tower of the Tammos Raak's former kingdom. Enticed to seek refuge in Bel Amica Cal-Raven presses on, but things don't always go as planned. He finds himself, and his people in Bel Amica, and in dire need of escape from that place. This is a story about the prince and some stalwart allies found in the most unlikely of places, both high and low.

The Review: It's difficult for me to give a proper review since I'm coming in on the 3rd book of a series, but I'll do my best. I found that his descriptions, even names, so rich that you could feel, sense, smell and almost touch what he portrayed. While I though a "vawn" was another kind of a hores-like animal (it's actually a reptile), I still had an image in my mind that allowed me to continue the story without interruption. The story is told fairly well, although it gets so complicated at times, especially in the beginning for someone who has just started reading him, that it was very difficult to put the story together. While eventually the story does come together and is, in fact, quite a rich story, I felt that there were still some pieces of the puzzle missing or misplaced. If I had to guess I would say that Mr. Overstreet was directed to trim down this novel to meet the word count for Waterbrook's guidelines. That's sad, because you can almost sense he had so much more to say. The parts he chose to remove seemed to be important transitional accounts that would have tied the story together much better.
Okay, now that I have all the bad stuff out of the way, let's get to the really great stuff. We have a wandering prince leading the rag-tag remnants of a once great nation through the most dangerous of places. Their love for him is great, but none greater than Tabor Jan, the chief warrior who stands by his side. You have, in this work, not just good verses evil, but perceived good being unveiled for the evil it is, as well as perceived evil being unveiled for the good it is. You have a troop, a nation of stragglers, finding refuge in a neighboring land, only to find its enticements are stronger than bars of iron on a prison cell. You have internal conflicts, heroism on many levels, weaknesses and outright evil. It is the Keeper against the Seers, and if I were to put it in modern language, to assign this to today's political climate I would mark this as the Lord and His followers against the false prophets and false teachers of our age. For no one holds a greater bondage over another as the one who convinces the other that his prison is a palace hall. This seems to be the bulk of the story, the heart, and the internal conflicts that many of the main characters face make for excellent reading. I'm sorry it took me so long to get this out, but it took me a long time to read it, and, as I said, I had other commitments.
Bottom line, if you like fantasy, good verses evil with lots of action and intrigue this is a book you should look into. However, you may wish to get the first 2 installments of this trilogy so you don't start out lost as I did. God bless and enjoy.

David Brollier
Follow the following Logos to where you can purchase Raven's Ladder



Important: This book was received free of charge for the purpose of reviewing it. However, I wish to state that this does not alter my feelings about the book. I've listed the pros and the cons I saw in this book. This statement is necessary, unfortunately, by new federal laws (and I thought we had Freedom of Speech)
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