The Final Summit
Andy Andrews
After his wife dies, David Ponder finds himself listlessly wandering his apartment with no purpose to his days. His sorrow is interrupted, however, when the Archangel Gabriel appears to him and takes him to a summit where, along with five of the other Travelers of history, he will determine what humanity needs to do in order to save themselves from a dark fate of their own making.
The premise doesn't sound promising, initially, because it's sort of an oddity. Once you get yourself further into the text, however, than the first pages, you learn that Travelers are people who have gone into the past and met great figures of history to learn things, generally escorted or guided by an Angel or Archangel of some sort. In these travels, they are supposed to take the tidbits of wisdom and apply them to their lives, growing as people and sharing their knowledge [if not their story, since people might think they're kind of bonkers]. Still a bit whiffy for you? A little nonsensical?
To be fair and honest, the plot doesn't have to make much sense for at least this book--there are two previous that I've not read, I was given this one randomly--because the whole point of the book is a discussion of philosopohical ideas that can be applied to contemporary society for the betterment of humanity. The plot is really just a reason to get a handful of historical greats sitting at a table for a bit of a chat., and while I was extremely dubious at first, once the ball got rolling with David, Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln, I was simply entranced. I read 80% of the novel in one night and would have undoubtedly finished, but for an interruption.
One of the reasons the book is so engaging is that there is no exposition, or rather the entire thing is exposition. It is literally a roundtable with a handful of folks talking about what they believe, what is important to them, and what has happened to them to formulate these opinions. Consequently, the majority of the book is dialogue, and it flows steadily without feeling overwhelming. It was very interesting to have historical greats chatting it up and doing a little bit of hero worship, and I look forward to investigating the previous books in the series that set up the whole idea of the Travelers.
Andy Andrews
After his wife dies, David Ponder finds himself listlessly wandering his apartment with no purpose to his days. His sorrow is interrupted, however, when the Archangel Gabriel appears to him and takes him to a summit where, along with five of the other Travelers of history, he will determine what humanity needs to do in order to save themselves from a dark fate of their own making.
The premise doesn't sound promising, initially, because it's sort of an oddity. Once you get yourself further into the text, however, than the first pages, you learn that Travelers are people who have gone into the past and met great figures of history to learn things, generally escorted or guided by an Angel or Archangel of some sort. In these travels, they are supposed to take the tidbits of wisdom and apply them to their lives, growing as people and sharing their knowledge [if not their story, since people might think they're kind of bonkers]. Still a bit whiffy for you? A little nonsensical?
To be fair and honest, the plot doesn't have to make much sense for at least this book--there are two previous that I've not read, I was given this one randomly--because the whole point of the book is a discussion of philosopohical ideas that can be applied to contemporary society for the betterment of humanity. The plot is really just a reason to get a handful of historical greats sitting at a table for a bit of a chat., and while I was extremely dubious at first, once the ball got rolling with David, Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln, I was simply entranced. I read 80% of the novel in one night and would have undoubtedly finished, but for an interruption.
One of the reasons the book is so engaging is that there is no exposition, or rather the entire thing is exposition. It is literally a roundtable with a handful of folks talking about what they believe, what is important to them, and what has happened to them to formulate these opinions. Consequently, the majority of the book is dialogue, and it flows steadily without feeling overwhelming. It was very interesting to have historical greats chatting it up and doing a little bit of hero worship, and I look forward to investigating the previous books in the series that set up the whole idea of the Travelers.
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