Post #2 CFRB January Tour

Time Masters, Book One: The Call is the featured work for January’s tour by the Christian Fiction Review Blog. Click the book cover to see the book at Amazon.

From the moment I first read the synopsis I was intrigued. Time travel, a Scotsman (those who know me know how much I love Scotland), fantasy and true love all contained in the same novel. I couldn't imagine what could be better, only to discover that Time Masters was also full of spiritual truth embedded as an intricate part of the tale!

Time Masters captivated me and I highly recommend it. I found the premise creative, the theme of virtue uplifting, the writing descriptive and the story highly engaging.

Musings on Book One: The Call

There is a Creator God who created races both Muiraran and Human. Then He ordained that they must co-exist and intermarry in a very unique way for the future of both races. You see, Muirarans have two hearts. One heart functions much as a human heart. Yet, the other must be fed by something specific, a hunger that the Creator gave that individual Muiraran, that can only be channeled through a human mate. Muirarans also contain special abilities, that when placed in loving submission to a human mate can change the course of history.

While being drawn up into a fascinating story, I also found myself captivated with the spiritual concepts in Time Masters. The spiritual concepts were told in a subtle way and beautifully woven into the fabric of the story.

The Hunger of the Second Heart:

I literally spent days after finishing The Call musing on the second heart of the Muiraran. My musings drew me to reflect on my own heart and a quote by Blaise Pascal, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”

Beauchamp’s Muirarans appeared to be a beautiful picture of the most basic need of humans to know and enter into a personal relationship with God. The Muiraran must mate with a human and feed her heart or die. What an interesting reflection on one of the most foundational of spiritual principles; that if we do no join our lives to Christ and fill our heart with His life then we likewise will perish.

True Virtue, True Love:

Other powerful themes in Time Masters were the reflections, comparisons and contrasts of love. I so appreciated the depiction of an imperfect, yet upright and virtuous main character. Dallan, the Scotsman, exemplifies virtue and real love; love that protects, cherishes, and is not self-seeking. His nemesis, on the other hand, portrays a clear picture of love corrupted. In him we see love strangled by selfish desires which leads only to lust and destruction.

I appreciated the clear portrayal of sex as a portion of a loving relationship, but a thing to be guarded and treasured and given in conjunction of the mutual submission of the whole life to one’s mate.

Time Masters: The Call also contained a true Biblical picture of submission in love. The contrast between submission as it is meant to be and the high price of the corruption of love that came from the abuse of submission was very well done!

Discussion Questions:

Also, I was pleased to see the discussion questions at the end of the book. Reading and discussing novels had a tremendous impact on me during my teen years and continues to be a wonderful critical thinking exercise. I believe that Time Masters would be a wonderful book for teens, young adults and virtually all ages to read and discuss, especially due to the clear portrayals and inherent warning about love, sex and virtue that are packed into an amazingly creative and well written fantasy.

Finally, check out Cathi's Chatter for a great summary of the novel and Grace Bridges post for another review highlighting some of the fun elements of the novel .