Day 3 CSFF Tour: The Fatal Tree

Yes, I was supposed to submit a review yesterday. But you know what? Since I'm sick as a dog and on meds, I'm giving myself a break. Thanks for doing the same.

As I did last with the previous book in this series, I will not keep spoilers out of the review, because it's nearly impossible. So don't read it if you haven't yet read the series and don't want things ruined for yourself. That said, this won't be very in depth, basically because of the aforementioned sickness. Others on the tour will have done a more than adequate job, and so I'm sure you'll find interesting opinions with them.

Things find themselves going from worse to worst--the very fabric of the multiverse is tearing apart and a cataclysm bringing a finality to all of it looms before our characters. But that is the nature of fiction--calamity is brought only to solve it.

Kit and Mina, along with newer characters Cass, Gianni, and others, have found that the key to saving life is to find again the Spirit Well (which Kit had found once before when he saw Arthur Flinders-Petrie using it to bring his dead wife back to life), and somehow undo that act of God that should not have been committed. And the way to the Spirit Well is through the Fatal Tree, also the sight of the Bone House from Kit's prehistoric travels. And they, as always, seek escape from the wicked Lord Burleigh, who has a change of heart (of sorts) thanks to Etzel's Christlike actions towards him while in a Prague prison.

As many of my other tour members have mentioned, the heart and actions of Etzel are not easily forgotten, and remind us that the smallest kindnesses in Jesus' name can bring forth enormous change in a person or in the world. This aspect of the book was my favorite, as I have recently been pondering this personally and what it means in our lives as believers.

I give the book a 4.5 out of 5 and the series a 5 out of 5. The small caviats I may have had are quickly swept away by the positives and I recommend the series to all who have a brain that they are not afraid to use.


I received a free copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.