Book Review: The Minor Protection Act
While the binding was obviously from a print-on-demand (sometimes called vanity) press, the cover art spoke of attention to quality. So I was impressed when the book arrived. Reading the plot description also seemed intriguing. But I know that sometimes these novels that serve a dual purpose as a warning against something (Michael Farris's Anonymous Tip, William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick's The Ugly American for example) have a tendency to have bad endings (otherwise, where's the importance of the warning?) and sometimes deal with issues that hit close to home (as did Anonymous Tip). So, I was prepared for that.
What hit me hardest, though, was the improbability of the initial setting. A novel will touch you in direct proportion to its believability. The more real it seems, the more poignant the story. But making a story seem real takes lots and lots and lots of footwork. Details that many of your readers would never even get, will, nonetheless, throw off the story for the rest --and you never know which detail which reader will need, so you have to be as thorough as possible.
The story begins with the suicide of a teenager dealing with the conflict between her parents and teachers encouraging her to explore her attraction to the same gender, while a Christian friend tells her of another option, God. The friend is blamed for the suicide and imprisoned.
That poured cold water over the story right there. That was too much implausibility to ask a reader to swallow in just the first few pages. Had I not been reviewing it, I would have set the book aside right then and there and not continued.
The story goes on with new legislation, made into law, that allows the government to remove the children from Christian homes.
The book sinks lower into the far fetched for several more chapter before leveling out and finally delivering some drama worth reading, but still without bothering to make things very believable. Much of the structure of what the author develops was actually believable, but only to someone who knows the willingness Christians truly have to help each other, as well as the Providence of God.
But the Providence of God is not enough to make a story believable, especially when the overall message is targeted toward people who wouldn't necessarily believe in God's hand in their life. Besides, for the most part God delivers His Providence in such a way to force us to still exercise a measure of faith. Yes, He'll make things turn out, but He rarely draws us a road map.
Evolutionists argue that the Universe is massive randomness on such a scale that the illusion of structure emerges. Christians, on the other hand, see the universe as a masterful plan by a genius so far above us, that the illusion of randomness emerges. So when writing Christian fiction, it is important to allow for that illusion of randomness, and not have everything packaged too neatly.
I'm a stickler for believability, so that offset most of the book for me. If you aren't as picky about that, then the other parts will more than likely make it a very enjoyable book for you. But that being said, I am still bothered that the real target audience, those that underestimate the goals of the enemies of Christendom, will likely not find the book palatable, given the lack of a realistic foundation.
Oh, and while still lacking in realism, the ending wasn't a depressing one, as many precautionary novels are. Endings can sometimes make or break a story. This one redeemed it a little bit.
Posted by Danny Carlton at December 26, 2006 11:52 AM