DISQUS

Hey, thanks for the link. Looks like you have a very cool resource here. I'll have to spend some time here.

Oh, I am totally loving this!

Nothing wrong with a dancing rock monster, now is there?

My six year old's review of Pirates Who Don't Do Anything:

It's fun, it's funny, and it's cool!

What an endorsement. I'd like to meet Phil Vischer too.

I think about the Amish shooting last year, and how the people there genuinely LIVED forgiveness, blessing the family of the shooter specifically. That is the power of the gospel. And the world actually dropped its cynicism for a time and noticed.

I lost a job last year in a pretty suspect manner. One of my employers was a Christian.

I forgave them quickly. I continue to forgive them quickly whenever I have hard feelings about what happened (which left me out of work for 4 months and may have damaged my professional reputation). Was my first forgiveness inadequate, since I had hard feeligns again? I don't think so. However, it is human to feel angry over being wronged, and sometimes new things come to life.

What happened in Colorado was so much worse than anything I've gone through. I'm sure the director will go through a storm of emotions, up and down over and over. But we can establish the direction we're going to go at the start, to make for an easier time staying the path. If he starts with forgiveness, how does that compare with starting with anger, rage, bitterness, and things that are much more harmful - and harder to deal with after the fact.

As with you, my prayers are going out to these folks in Colorado right now.

This is one series where I can wholeheartedly say that you shouldn't miss out on it. Lawhead's depth of storytelling is really on display here.

As always, a wonderful analysis!

This has been an interesting thread to follow, seeing as I participate in both the CSFF and the CFBA blog tours, as well as Mary's tour.

As a participant, I can say that if I fall in love with a book, then I'm going to give it several mentions on my blog, as well as recommending it personally to people IRL. I would suggest that this phenomena is not unique to me in these blog tours, and that there is a lot of hidden benefit when this happens. I know that you are trying to find objective benefit, but I thought this was worth pointing out.

Occasionally I'll come across a book that I don't like. I can't deny that since I was sent the book for free, there's a little internal pressure to review it benignly, but I feel it is an integrity issue to be truthful. If someone comes to my blog, I want them to think that they're getting a fair assessment. I haven't seen negative blogging mentioned, but it is probably even harder to measure.

A recent book even incited me to cause it to be a little controversial. The CFBA did the book Illuminated, and I felt it was gratuitous in its violence and said so in my review. I even started a series on violence in the CBA off of it. For those who like gritty stuff, this may be a positive, but others who are squeamish may avoid it. It may be like the old Tootsie Roll Pop commercial - "the world will never know."

I'll be watching for more analysis. Thanks Marcus.

This is interesting information. Since I participate in a couple of blog tours, it will influence how I will post in those from now on. I will be watching for any more info you may come up regarding this.

I was thinking about this post yesterday. My mom read to me a lot, always giving inflection to make the reading interesting. She says I was reading by 4. I can't quite recall...

One of her favorite moments of mine in elementary school was when my 2nd grade teacher told her she loved to call on me to read instructions or other things in class, because of the inflection and enthusiasm I showed when doing it. Because of her I've always been a strong reader.

I heard a prophetic type say once that there is no balance, as we need to be where God says we need to be. While I fully agree with the concept that our lives if totally guided by the Spirit will not require "balance", I also think we can't shrug off the idea. Obviously the church hasn't figured God out in his fullness, or we wouldn't have problems with grace vs works, sovereignty vs free will, etc. If we could know fully we wouldn't need balance, but until that day I think it is a useful idea to use. (A Victorian would write Balance then, right?)

Marcus,
Hey, I'm going to ask a favor. Check out my Monday post for tour about heroes and comment on it. I would appreciate your thoughts on that in light of what you posted here.

Good stuff - thanks!
Jason

Marcus,
I thought you had some wonderful thoughts in here. I agree that this blog tour has been the most interesting one so far, but maybe for the wrong reason.

I thought that SFC hit a lot of critical points about the book, but it seems that something caught his high horse and that came out in the review.

You hit on a real conundrum about the blog tour. On one side, it is promotion for a book. I don't want to be negative, (especially when getting a free book), but it just didn't work for me. However, I don't want to be a cheerleader - if people come to me for reviews, I hope they are honest. I know of one Christian review site I don't bother visiting because I've never seen anything besides "rah, rah, another wonderful read!"

I hope you stick around and help us find a middle ground to this in the CSFF tour. I've been exploring your site a bit and am impressed with what I've seen. Either way, be blessed.

Jason