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The Shadow Lamp (Bright Empires, #4)

Stephen R. Lawhead

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Sep 02, 2013 Werner rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

In recommending this book to series fans, I'm intending to underscore the fact that if you haven't read the previous installments, this is not the place to start; this series is one that absolutely needs to be read in order. Even for reading the Goodreads description (which sets up the premise pretty accurately), if you haven't read the first three books, the characters and things referred to will be mostly meaningless to you. How well you liked the previous three volumes will also be fairly pre In recommending this book to series fans, I'm intending to underscore the fact that if you haven't read the previous installments, this is not the place to start; this series is one that absolutely needs to be read in order. Even for reading the Goodreads description (which sets up the premise pretty accurately), if you haven't read the first three books, the characters and things referred to will be mostly meaningless to you. How well you liked the previous three volumes will also be fairly predictive for how well you'll like this one; the quality and texture, strengths and weaknesses are very consistent across all four of the books that have been written so far. (The fifth one, The Fatal Tree, is expected to be published this fall.) A number of the observations in my reviews of the first three installments would be applicable here as well.

My Goodreads friend Jackie and I are buddy reading this series; again, she rated it a star higher than I did, and noted that compared to the previous books, this one has more plot progression and more interesting scientific speculation. Both points are true. The ultimate threat to the universe, which will reach the crisis point in the last book, is now taking clear shape; and it's a threat integrally involved with cutting-edge speculation in quantum physics.

Ley-travel neophyte Cass Clarke had a vision, in the preceding book (The Spirit Well), of the total annihilation of the multiverse. At the time, I attributed this threat to the agenda of a personal entity opposed to God's creative purposes. The threat to these, it turns out, is very real, as Lawhead explains through the mouth of his ley-traveling Roman Catholic priest and astronomer, Gianni. But we're not dealing with a malevolent personal entity; the cause of the danger is more prosaic and "natural," though not fully understood yet by our characters. Without spoilers, what is clear is that it involves "a threat to the future," closely related to the theory that time flows from the future to the past, rather than the other way around. Personally, I find this idea, and a lot of the rest of the underlying "science" or pseudo-science, to be implausible, and that's a major factor that gets in the way of suspension of disbelief.

As usual for this series, there are a lot of vivid scenes of events across a variety of alternate-world dimensions, though none of these worlds are explored very fully. Some of our key characters are developed a bit more here, in fascinating ways. The excitement and suspense quotient is high, with such plot elements as a running sea battle with pirates, a life-threatening sudden flood, flight from marauding invaders, the search for an Egyptian tomb, and the vicious skull-duggery of top series villain Burleigh and his "Burley Men." A valuable bonus is Lawhead's appended short essay "The Great Divide," probing the supposed opposition between science and religion, and occasioned by the author's visit to the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli at Rome, with its monument to Galileo. His recounting of the real story behind Galileo's clash with the Inquisition will likely provide you with factual information you didn't know, whether you're a serious student of history (like me), or someone whose only knowledge of the affair comes from the essentially cartoon version purveyed by the history-as-propaganda school of historiography.

Not Lawhead's best work (by far), but still a crucial installment of an entertaining series --and a serious appetite-whetter for book five! ...more

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