I am a big fan of Stephen R. Lawhead, and was very excited to see that his son, Ross Lawhead, is working on a fantasy suspense trilogy.

About An Ancient Earth #1 : The Realms Thereunder by Ross Lawhead

Ancient legend tells of an army of knights that will remain sleeping until the last days.

The knights are waking up.

A homeless man is stalked by a pale, wraithlike creature with a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth. Maimed animals and a host of suicides cluster around a mountain in Scotland. And deep beneath the cobbled streets of Oxford, a malicious hoard besieges a hidden city.

Freya Reynolds is a university student with a touch of OCD and an obsession with myth and folklore. Daniel Tully is living rough on the streets of Oxford, waging a secret war against an enemy only he can identify. Years ago, they found themselves in a world few know is real. They have since gone their separate ways and tried to put that adventure behind them.

But the mythical world is now bleeding into our reality—a dark spiritual evil that is manifesting itself in forgotten corners of the British Isles. Alex Simpson is a Scottish police officer who specializes in hunting mythical creatures. Together, they must confront the past, the present, and points beyond to defeat the ultimate threat to humanity.

Nothing they’ve seen so far prepares them for what awaits . . . in The Realms Thereunder.

My Review

I’m so disappointed…

That is, I’m disappointed that I have to wait a WHOLE YEAR to be able to read the 2nd installation in this trilogy, because The Realms Thereunder has captured my attention, and I am REALLY looking forward to The Fearful Gates being released in September 2012.

Within the first few pages of The Realms Thereunder I knew it was my kind of book. The story starts in the year 1524, then jumps to ‘Eight Years Ago…’ and then to ‘Now’. The book then goes back and forth between ‘Eight Years Ago’ and ‘Now’ throughout the whole thing. This kind of thing would possibly drive my husband batty, but I enjoy it immensely.

Not only did the flashback effect intrigue me, but a few phrases used early in the book really caught my attention:

• said in the pub/alehouse in 1524 – “You bicker like a pair of divinity scholars…”
• thought by a frustrated present-day Freya, on being kicked out of a class at Oxford for engaging the lecturer about English mythological histories – “Things weren’t ‘true’ or ‘not true’ just because they wanted them to be. History didn’t follow the rule ‘the most convenient is true.’ But it was impossible to explain to anyone you didn’t want to listen.”
• wonderings by an eight-years-ago Daniel, upon entering a very old cathedral on a school field trip – “Marveling at this amazing building, he felt part of something much, much bigger than himself, and he knew he was the only one who felt it. It was like he understood what the church was feeling – and old, proud indifference to the chattering, squabbling children who were walking inside of it. It was s though all the shoving and pushing and jockeying for attention and importance – all these things that affected him so much – were irrelevant to the enormous, beautiful building. It was created for something else.”

I could go on and on, but I’ll share one more from the first 50 pages of the book:

• Two ancient knights are awakened from an enchanted sleep when Daniel blasts a horn in their sleeping chamber, and the very fierce-looking and extremely large knights are quite frightening to Daniel and Freya. Somehow, they are all able to understand each other’s speech. My expectation of these knights was that they would be very formal, or very gruff and perhaps crude, and certainly angered at being roused from their sleep by mere children. So I was expecting something very different than light-hearted banter between the knights – ” ‘… would you speak to us the year?’  ‘You want to know the date?’ ‘If it would pelase you.’ Daniel told him. The knight broke into a wide grin. ‘Ah, do you see, Ecgbryt?’ he said, addressing the other. ‘We have slept past the second thousand. You owe me your mother’s golden gyrdel.’ ‘When I have found my mother…’, the other replied, examining his long beard disapprovingly, ‘and asked it of her, it is yours, Swiðgar.’ “

The twists and turns that The Realms Thereunder takes make this a “can’t put it down” kind of book – what’s next, what’s next, and then what? It didn’t take me long to read the 376 pages.  Besides jumping between ‘then’ and ‘now’, in the ‘now’ time there is also a jumping into another world, for Daniel, and into an alternate reality, for Freya.  Honestly, I found Freya’s situation to be quite confusing and quite interesting, but rather than detracting from the story, this odd and awkward and gap-filled part of the narrative kept me asking for MORE, and reading further to find the answers. Daniel’s other-world experience parallels Frey’s in some ways and as ‘coincidence’ would have it they are both able to escape from their situations at the same time to come back together and figure out what needs to happen NOW.

In addition, there’s another ‘now’ part of the story that weaves its way into the whole very quietly, obviously connected somehow, but that connection isn’t resolved until the final pages of this first book. Dragons, trolls, keepers of the sleeping knights, the ancient city underground…. it all starts to come together just as book #1 is finishing.

I have a daughter who turned 12 in June, making her just a tad bit younger than Daniel and Freya were “eight years ago”, and I thought Ross did a pretty good job of portraying how just-turned-13 year olds might respond in a given situation. Of course, they rise to the occasion, and do more than most children their age would ever dream of doing, just by virtue of having been placed in unusual circumstances.

I noticed themes throughout the book that felt slightly reminiscent of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, and even Harry Potter (without feeling over done or cliche):

• a door that only opens to certain people, under certain circumstances {all the ways to get into Narnia, secret passages in Harry Potter};
• a boy waking someone from an enchanted slumber with a special instrument, discourage by the girl he’s with {Magician’s Nephew};
• interesting, unexpected, capable, and good-natured ‘helpers’ for the boy and girl along their way {in this story, the Knights; in other stories Puddleglum the Marshwiggle, or the Fellowship of the Ring, etc.};
• a quest that can only be fulfilled by humans {many instances in those other series to compare to};
• a journey into the depths of the earth {The Silver Chair, The Lord of the Rings, and Half Blood Prince};
• funny underground creatures who think only en masse and make not a lot of sense {reminded me of the Dufflepuds of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader};
• a horde of unearthly people’s changed by living under the earth for so long {orcs and goblins and gnomes};
• Modwyn, the ward of the ancient underground city, reminded me Galandriel, though sadder and more stern, perhaps.

And so, you can see why I’m definitely going to be reading book #2, but I’m not tremendously excited about having to wait a year for it!  LOL!

Writing with a style all his own, but obviously having learned much from his father, Ross Lawhead delivers a captivating tale of many worlds, larger than they seem quests, and the forces of good trying to get ahead of the forces of evil. Undergirding the whole story is a vein of faith, a sense of this being part of something bigger, and of a destiny that being woven together by Someone with a Plan, and is only fulfillable with the help of a greater Power.

If you enjoy fantasy, suspense, and mythology, The Realms Thereunder is a book I would definitely recommend for you.

Book has been provided courtesy of Thomas Nelson and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. Available at your favourite bookseller from Thomas Nelson.