Nathan James Norman
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Nathan James Norman

Husband. Father. Pastor.
Storyteller. Reader. Comic Fan.
Slave of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Orchard Church

Review: Death's Doors by Lars Walker 

10/19/2015

8 Comments

 
“There are always great men, and they always need support,” said Haakon.
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Summary: In the near future, suicide is a constitutional right. Tom Galloway is just an ordinary single parent, trying to keep his rebellious and depressed teenage daughter from going to the Happy Endings Clinic. If there's one thing he doesn't need, it's a tenth century Viking time traveler dropping into his world. But Tom is about to begin the adventure of his life, one that will change the whole world.

Review: Lars Walker crafts a chilling dystopia in Death’s Doors. Unlike many contemporary stories with similar settings, this novel goes into the grim details of what this future-version of America looks like and why. Religion is heavily regulated so-as not to cause discomfort to others. Infants may be disposed. Autonomous persons, even children, can opt for physician assisted suicide. People will do anything to avoid pain. There are no heroes anymore. Everyone is looking for comfort.

Greatness does not arise from comfort.

And in this context, Walker utilizes an old speculative fiction device. He brings a man of the past into the present. I almost skipped over this book because of this plot point. I’ve seen it done too many times. Walker, however, turns the device on its head. He doesn’t bring a good man back to the present. He brings back Haakon, a tenth century Viking. Haakon hates Christians. He is brutal and violent. He treats women like objects to be won or used.

Haakon isn’t a complete villain, though. He brings perspective into this comfort-obsessed dystopia. He is a complex character who I found myself simultaneously applauding and condemning. By coupling this Viking with our well-meaning but powerless protagonist the character dynamics become quite dramatic.

Death’s Doors contains aspects of both science fiction and fantasy. I dare not say more than that, lest I ruin the plot.

I found myself highlighting numerous passages in the book. Like C.S. Lewis I find Lars Walker quite quotable. Typically, I don’t go out of my way to notate fiction. I marked twenty-nine passages in this book.

My only complaint is that the book is available only in an electronic edition. While I enjoy reading digitally, I also like to place great books on my bookshelf. Death’s Doors should sit right next to my Charles Williams collection.
Even though the novel is a work of speculative fiction it is grounded in reality. Death’s Doors was so wonderfully crafted that I would love to sit down for a meal with Lars Walker someday just to pick his brain.

I’d even be willing to eat Lutefisk to do so.

Rating: 5/5 (I Loved It!)


Find it here on Amazon.

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8 Comments

Beast by Marker Carver Releases Today!

9/29/2015

0 Comments

 
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Today The Crossover Alliance releases their third book, Beast by Mark Carver and Michael Anatra. 

Beast is a character driven, action novel set on a massive oil rig. 

​Here's the blurb:
MAN UP.

MFEC-19, aka "The Beast," is an offshore oil platform behemoth in the Pacific Northwest. Kyle Hamilton, an experienced derrickhand who has survived a brush with death, is its newest resident. Forced back into the drilling world to pay for his wife's cancer treatment, Kyle is thrilled and terrified to be part of the team that keeps the monster in check.

But the Beast bows to no man.

One slip, one mistake, and hell breaks loose above the storm-swept water. Kyle and his crew find themselves in the fiery jaws of death as the Beast thrashes itself apart, unleashing an industrial cataclysm unlike anything the world has ever seen. Using his quick wits, hoping for good luck, and praying for a miracle, Kyle tries desperately to save himself and those around him, but the will to survive comes with heavy costs.

And the Beast will show no mercy.
Peter Younghusband, the Christian fiction review guru, has a great review over at his blog. 
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​A few months ago, we produced an action-pact excerpt over at the Untold Podcast. You can listen to it here.

Grab a digital or physical copy of Beast today!
0 Comments

Lovecraft and Eschatology Post On Speculative Faith

9/4/2015

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A few weeks back E. Stephen Burnett asked me to write a guest post over at the Speculative Faith blog.  I agreed and had no idea what to write about.

For a few years I've kicked around a theory about horror writer     H. P. Lovecraft and the simultaneously glorious and horrible Day of the Lord. My Lovecraft-reading Christian friends have summarily rejected this every time I've presented it, but I went ahead I put out my theory anyway.

I assume it will be further rejected and ridiculed. But now it will be done so on a larger scale!

Check out the article and explore this great blog and website!


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Background on "Snow and Ash" and My Year In Hell

11/10/2014

12 Comments

 
This past year has been a living nightmare.

It was also an emotional hell. This is the backdrop of the "Snow and Ash" story appearing in The Crossover Alliance Anthology: Volume 1.

UPDATE: "Snow and Ash" has also been produced as an audio drama by Untold Podcast. Listen for free here.

***Spoilers beyond this point, grab a free copy before continuing***


Late last year my wife and I accepted the placement of a little foster child. We'll call her "Hummingbird" here.

She was placed in our care because we were considered a "pre-adoptive" family. When Hummingbird came into our home, we were told the adoption would be relatively short.

It wasn't. We just adopted our daughter this past week.

We loved Hummingbird from the moment she stepped foot into our home. She was about sixteen months old when we met her. Initially, the visits with her biological parents were difficult, but manageable. We were just getting to know our daughter, so her mood swings seemed normal.

But pretty soon, the agency moved her visits to a location which required a four hour commitment, twice a week. The visits were an hour and a half each, but my travel time became almost two and a half hours. I lost a full day worth of work every single week.

The trauma to my little girl was far worse though.

I would tell Hummingbird that we were going to a "visit" as we got into the car. She rebelled. She scream. She cried. Every single time.

Then I'd have to drive with her for a prolonged period of time for the "visit". I tried to make these experiences as easy as possible. I told her she would have fun, then I would pick her up and we'd go home again to see mommy, and Daisy & Duncan (our cats). The drop offs varied, but I often had to peel her off my leg to coax her to her biological parents.

Several times she managed to climb up my legs into my arms, and clung to my chest.

To her, I was her daddy. I was the man who was supposed to protect her from those who would harm her. I was supposed to shield her from pain and trauma.

But to the State of Michigan I was little more than an over-glorified babysitter.

I had no rights. I could not make decisions about who could see her and who could not. The State put me into a damnable position: Take her to these visits where she would be traumatized twice a week, or have her removed from the only mommy and daddy she's ever known.

Hummingbird was a self-confident, bold, joyful and happy little girl before these visits. When she was returned to me after an hour and a half, Hummingbird was scared, timid, clingy, sad and depressed. On the way home, I often pulled over into a parking lot so I could take her out of her car seat and let her hug me as she soaked my shoulder with tears and snot.

Twice a week.

Most people in my life cannot understand this horror. I hope they never do.

Over and over, family and friends would tell my wife and me, "God is on your side. This will all work out. She will be yours." But they did not sit in court hearing after court hearing. They did not see the court's obsession with reunification. They didn't talk to caseworker after caseworker about the possibility of Hummingbird going back to the biological parents' care. Or relative placement. They didn't live under the microscope of agency visit after visit in our own home. They've never been in a situation where they couldn't tell their traumatized daughter that they would never leave her. At any moment she could have been removed from our care.

And God... well God wasn't doing much for this little girl. I prayed over her every night. I pleaded with God in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ every day. I laid both of my hands on Hummingbird and blest her moments before each and every visit: "May Yahweh protect your heart, soul, mind, and strength. May He protect you where I cannot. May He fight for you where I am powerless. In Jesus' Name. Amen."

And people continued to say, "God wouldn't let her be put back into a situation like that. Don't worry."

But the reality is, God does allow people to go through horrible things. Even very frightened, very little girls.  

I trusted that God was all powerful. And believed that he was in control. I believed he had a plan. But his plan might have very well been that Hummingbird be shown the grace and gospel of Jesus Christ, and then be placed back with her biological family to begin a long process of redemption for them. And God's plan might very well have involved terrible abuse of our little girl so she could be a harbinger of salvation.

This was the backdrop of "Snow and Ash" in The Crossover Alliance Anthology: Volume 1.

I, like Erik, did not want to become a father. Not like this anyway. I found myself having to bear the majority of these burdens and it was terrible.

In the story Erik declared himself an enemy of Christ. During my own torment, there were moments where I was furious with God for not intervening. For not putting a stop to this all at once. It felt like Jesus had become my enemy. And in modern literature, I noted, there are not too many people who see themselves as enemies of Christ. Typically,  a person gets angry at God, then walks away and becomes a functioning atheist. But if I'm being very honest, there were moments where I felt if I lost Hummingbird, I would be angry at God for the rest of my life. And even though I knew he was stronger than me, I would be his enemy for the rest of my days. Hence, Erik opposed his people's conversion to Christianity.

Finally, the scene where Honey Bee is forcibly taken from Erik, was the scene that first appeared in my mind. It was how I felt twice a week. I could fight. I could pray. But in the end I was utterly powerless to help my daughter. When it came down to it, any number of thugs could take my daughter and there was nothing I could do.

And yet, in the story God was still in control. Even Honey Bee, though she was abused greatly, could see a higher purpose in the pain.

I wrote "Snow and Ash" at the Darcy Library of Beulah. It was downhill from the location of the visits for Hummingbird. I initially went to the local McDonalds to wait for the visits to be over, but I was harassed and stalked at that location, so I found this hidden away library.

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I love this library. In fact, it is the best small-sized library I've ever seen.

I hope I never go there again, though. It would be too traumatic for me.

After prying my daughter from my leg and handing her trembling body over for the "visit," I would go down to the library, pull out a composition notebook, and write.

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I also listened to the Beowulf Soundtrack composed by Alan Silvestri. It put me in the viking mood I needed to be in. But this too, is something I have no desire to revisit. I love this soundtrack, but it dredges up deep trauma for me.

One more thing. The author picture featured on the Crossover Alliance page for the book is a picture I took on June 3, 2014 at Douglas Park in Manistee, MI. I took this photo moments after parental visits were suspended. I knew my wife and I still had a long journey ahead of us. (And we did. It took six months of battling to adopt our daughter). But for Hummingbird, the trauma was over. As far as she would be aware, victory was accomplished on that day.

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So while that place is called "Douglas Park" to me it will always be called "Yahweh Yireh," The Lord Provides. He rescued my little girl on that day.


Amen.

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12 Comments

Background on "Proverbs - A Fairy Tale" or Why I'm Not A Total Perv For Writing This Story

10/10/2014

5 Comments

 
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I'm not a total pervert for writing "Proverbs - A Fairy Tale" included in The Crossover Alliance Anthology.

One of the members of the judging panel for the anthology wrote this:

"This piece is seriously creepy! Gross! I also wondered if your church members read this knowing it was from you [. . .] would most likely hold an impromptu board meeting and have you sacked as Pastor . . . ."

If you haven't read the story yet, it is free for a limited time for your Kindle. Or free indefinitely from Smashwords. Ordering options are all here.

SPOILERS BELOW
The origins of this story are rather interesting. (At least I think so).
Back in 2001, I took a Creative Writing class at SUNY Orange from a professor who liked to be called "Mike". At this point I had already written Untold, half of Untold Trials (which has never been published) and a plethora of short stories. So I entered this class, presented my stories by reading them out loud, and time and time again Mike savaged the stories. He often cited how religious they were, and how no one could relate to anything written in them.

Also he banned us from writing "Darth Vader riding on a white horse" stories. (I think he meant speculative fiction.)

Now, in retrospect, all of the stories I presented in this class were mediocre. In my defense, though, they were no worse than the stories other students presented.

As I sat in the class, I noted Mike would praise any stories with sexual content. The more graphic it was, the more praise ensued.

This was long before I was a pastor, but I had been in ministry leadership for a year at this point. And like any good preacher, I asked myself Who is my audience? and How can I communicate to them?

Simultaneous to all this, I had been studying the book of Proverbs. As I read through the book, I began to notice there was quite a bit of time in that book warning young men about adulteresses and adultery and fornication. Proverbs used some rather visual metaphors to highlight these warnings.

Bing!

If Mike wanted sexually perverse stories, I would give him a sexually perverse story. And I would do it by weaving these metaphors from Proverbs into an adultery story about a man's descent into darkness.

Armed with my paternal grandfather's Catholic Bible (complete with baptismal names and their meanings) I gave both my protagonist and antagonist names which meant "dark" or "darkness".

Side Note: Why in the world would anyone give their son or daughter the name "darkness" during his or her baptism?!

The day of presentation came. I passed out the story. I read the story out loud.

After a long moment of silence, the first comment came from another classmate: "Dude, that was the most disgusting thing I have ever read."

The rest of the class agreed and reiterated the comment.

I smiled.

Then Mike chimed in, frustrated, "It's kind of a fairy tale, though."

Another classmate responded to him, "Man, what kind of fairy tales are you reading? This is gross."

As the class began to once again reiterate how disgusting and perverse the story was, I smiled again and said, "Good." I pulled out a stack of papers, "Here's the Bible verses the story was based on."

As the single sheets of paper were passed around no one spoke a word. Everyone was in shock. Even Mike. After everyone had enough time to read the verses I broke the silence, "The story is supposed to be disgusting. It is an image of what adultery really is. I'm glad you all found it ugly. This story is what adultery is like."

I got a B - on the piece.

This early version of the story was titled "Daily Bread and Proverbs 6:26." But Mike was right, this was a fairy tale. A dark fairy tale. So I changed the title to "Proverbs - A Fairy Tale" to reflect the genre.

I updated and expanded the story a number of times. It was overhauled and re-written from the ground up in 2006 for my final Creative Writing class at SUNY New Paltz. There, the professor said the story lacked a sex scene. But he liked it, and if memory serves correct, he gave it an A. (Maybe an A-).

After this, I put the story away.

There was no audience for it. It was too sexually charged for the Christian market (which often understands "Christian" to mean either "safe" or "family friendly"). And it was too pregnant with Christian imagery and themes for the general market.

Then Mark Carver incited David N. Alderman to put out an anthology of short stories for The Crossover Alliance.

This story came to mind immediately.

With some minor updates thanks to David Alderman and Jess Hanna, "Proverbs - A Fairy Tale" finally found its audience.

In all honesty, I am a little concerned about potential backlash from the publication of this story. I've no doubt that there are certain churches and ministries (and publishers?!) who will have nothing to do with me because of this story.

But at the end of the day, if this story has given an accurate image of adultery in the spiritual realm, and can sink into the minds those considering adultery, then it's worth it.

Also, it's biblical. I included the original Proverbs sheet (1984 NIV verses!) I handed out to the class thirteen years ago. When you read it, I think you'll agree . . . the Bible was my outline for this story.

If the Bible doesn't shy away from portraying the ugliness of sin, then neither will I.

Get The Crossover Alliance Anthology: Volume 1 here.
Directly from Amazon here.
5 Comments

Help The Anthology Get Into The Top Ten! 

9/30/2014

0 Comments

 
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Last night The Crossover Alliance Anthology was #4 in Christian Fiction Anthology on Amazon (not terribly impressive), and #39 in Christian Science Fiction!

This is a great start to our small, little independent project.

If you can, please consider helping us get into the top ten on Amazon by purchasing the Kindle edition of the book. It's only $0.99 .

Also, help us promote the book via social media by sharing this post, the kindle link, or The Crossover Alliance page.

Here's the direct link to the Kindle edition.

Why help out with this project?
1. All funds are going toward promoting Edgy Christian Speculative Fiction
2. The involved authors will have their other works promoted
3. It will go a long way toward impressing my wife (she's not easily impressed)
4. It will promote Christian storytelling
5. There's nine great stories
6. If this anthology is successful, it will open the door to more stories by more authors in more mediums!

If Kindle isn't your thing, or you want to check out the entire book for free before supporting it (via smashwords), you can find all ordering options here (including paperback version).

Please help us get to the top ten on Amazon!
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The Crossover Alliance Anthology - Available Now

9/26/2014

0 Comments

 
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The day has finally come!

The first Crossover Alliance Anthology is now available!

Here's the rundown of stories:

Snow and Ash by Nathan James Norman
Doors of Babel
by David N. Alderman
Broken
by Travis Morrill
If it Causes You to Sin
by Jess Hanna
Blood Ace
by Allan and Aaron Reini
Sanguinem Inimicum
by Mark Carver
Spellbound
by Jess Hanna
Proverbs - A Fairy Tale
by Nathan James Norman
The Spigot
by David N. Alderman

In the days ahead I will share my thoughts on my own stories, as well as this entire project.

You can get the digital version for free from Smashwords. Or you can throw some modest funds toward the organization and purchase a physical copy (under $7) from Amazon!

Head over to The Crossover Alliance for all purchasing options!

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An Interview on Action Figures

9/16/2014

0 Comments

 
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The cat is out of the bag.

I collect action figures.

It shouldn't shock anybody. After all, various action figures have appeared for almost two years in my book reviews. And if you've ever stopped by my church office, you've seen at least a dozen figures hiding out on my desk (up high so the little ones don't touch them)!

But! For the first time I actually talk about my collecting habits. Paeter Frandsen over at the Spirit Blade Underground Podcast interviewed me on this topic a few weeks ago.

We talked about my collection, the philosophy behind collecting, and the appeal of such a hobby.

Listen to the interview here.

And be sure to file this blog post under: "Things That Will Get Nathan Fired."
(Cross index: "Things The Orchard Church Tolerates")

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Review: The Tears of Nero

8/25/2014

3 Comments

 
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Summary: When a madman calling himself Nero abducts five strangers to a mysterious island, events are set in motion that may very well trigger the catastrophic events of the Book of Revelation. These five strangers quickly discover that Nero intends to torment these five people in his sadistic games as he asks the question, "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?"

Review: Jason Brannon opens The Tears of Nero with explosive intrigue and action. The reader, like the protagonists, are thrown right into the conflict without reason or explanation. This is a gutsy move on Brannon's part. On the one hand, it grabs the reader's attention. On the other hand, though, it results in very little upfront characterization. Indeed, the opening chapters of the novel are propelled forward by plot and not by the characters. But something interesting happens as the five strangers traverse the dangers and traps of the island... as they get to know each other, we begin to bond with them. It took me time to care about most of the characters, but before I knew it, I really did.

The Tears of Nero is an amalgam of genres. Adventure, spy, supernatural tale, and esoteric religious thriller all accurately describe this story.

This book took me a long time to read. Not because it is massive (although it is long) or because it was boring. By no means! Personal life events severely limited my free time. The result, though, was that I was able to spend months inside this supernatural mystery. The story built over months, and the tension paid off in the end.

I only have mild criticisms for the book. The Nero character's timeline of life events didn't always seem to add up for me. And the main crux of the book, Why does God allow bad things happen to good people? has a reasonable answer by the end of the book, but as a theologian I anticipated a more robust response to this age-old "problem of evil."

Beyond those hiccups I enjoyed the world Jason Brannon has created. And while this is a stand-alone novel, Brannon sews into the narrative a few subplots that will work their way into a follow-up novel.

Fans of spy, cult-plots, supernatural warfare and religious thrillers should check out The Tears of Nero. It's a great book.

Rating: 4.5/5 (I REALLY Liked It!)

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If you want to check out Jason Brannon's writing style, be sure to listen to his short story, "The Fourth Key" featured on Episode 12 of the Untold Podcast!

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(Same name... Different Nero!)
3 Comments

The Crossover Alliance Anthology Trailer

8/20/2014

0 Comments

 
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The Crossover Alliance is releasing a short story anthology next month.

Spearheaded by David N. Alderman, the Crossover Alliance
is a community built around readers and writers of edgy Christian speculative fiction.

I have two stories in the upcoming anthology. One is an absolutely disgusting piece I wrote years ago. It is both disturbing and intensely biblical. Up until now, there was simply no place appropriate to publish it. The second story is the single most beautiful narrative I have ever written.

So, there is ugliness and beauty.

Sounds a lot like real life, right?

You can check out the book trailer below, and find more information about the upcoming book over at the Crossover's website.

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