Paperback
ISBN: 1595540210
Pub. Date: February 2005
Book Description
Enter an adrenaline-laced epic where dreams and reality collide.
Fleeing his assailants through deserted alleyways, Thomas Hunter narrowly escapes to the roof of a building. Then a silent bullet from the night clips his head…and his world goes black.
From the blackness comes an amazing reality of another world-a world where evil is contained. A world where Thomas Hunter is in love with a beautiful woman. Then he remembers the dream of the chase as he reaches to touch the blood on his head.
Where does the dream end and reality begin? Every time he falls asleep in one world, he awakes in the other-both facing catastrophic disaster. Thomas is being pushed beyond his limits…even beyond the limits of space and time.
Black is an incredible story of evil and rescue, betrayal and love, pursuit and death, and a terrorist’s threat unlike anything the human race has ever known.
Some say the world hangs in the balance of every choice we make. Now the fate of two worlds hangs in the balance of one man’s choice.
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This book was very strongly written. As a novelist, I can see that it took Dekker a lot of time and effort to create an alternate world where Thomas Hunter traveled through his dreams. The ‘other’ fantastical world where he travels when he ‘dreams’ kind of reminds me of the paradise that God promises us in the New Testament. It also reminded me of the Garden of Eden in the Old Testament. I noticed in this other place that they did not eat meat (that I can recall). They would eat different fruits and the fruits had healing powers.
POSSIBLE SPOILER BELOW:
Also, in this other place, Tom is ‘chosen’ by Rachelle. She wants him to woo her and win her over so that she can be his woman. This is not soemthing that Tom particularly wants to pursue initially, but he does get into the Great Romance as time goes on, and he figures out what needs to be done to win Rachelle over. I sense The Great Romance is symbolic of something else? Since fantasy and sci-fi is not my usual genre, I don’t always get all of the points that are being made. I’m not a deep reader, so sometimes I might miss something if it’s sci-fi/fantasy.
When Tanis is tempted by Teelah with the fruit and he eats it, and then the black bats attack the perfect-like world, well, that was obviously like the serpent tempting Adam in the Old Testament.
The ending left me stunned, though. I guess it was written that way so that you would automatically read the next book in the installment. I would highly recommend this book to all who want a good sci-fi/fantasy read.
The Great Romance is symbolic in of a wedding in the sense that Scripture describes marraige as the metaphor for how Christ loves the church. It is that love that the Great Romance describes, and it is the reason Elyon has it with Thomas, just as Thomas has it with Rachelle.
Thanks for clarifying that, Anonymous. I wrote this blog post fourteen years ago and barely remember the book! February 2005- my son was not even born yet and he’s thirteen! It was kind of you to leave a comment. Have a blessed day.