Trail-Mix Readers discussion

PLease leave your review of Imogene's Message here. (A review on Amazon and/or Goodreads is optional)

Imogene’s Message will appeal to Sherborne’s intended audience—readers who enjoy stories about celestial beings and angels and who want to embrace a message of tolerance and acceptance. Sherborne cleverly lays out the emotional hooks to keep her reader’s engaged, their fingers crossed and hopeful to the last page. She follows the formulas laid out by Bob Mayer’s in his successful Area 51 series with sympathetic heroes, nefarious villains, government agencies, convoluted conspiracies and other worldly powers.

It will not appeal to readers who want a character driven narrative whose characters overcome adversity by finding inner strength and gathering resources and allies. Which is sad, because I’m one of those readers. I really wanted to like this book and, except for the religious polemics, found myself enjoying the plot and pacing. At least I did until halfway in when it went totally sideways, backwards and inside out.

Think of this book as The Day the Earth Stood Still with the child Imogene as Klaatu, the Archangel Rahmiel as Gort and featuring battles between American commandos and Soviet fifth columnists, not to mention firefights between good and bad Aliens (maybe the Greens and Grays). The only thing missing was the lightsabers.

Nor will Imogene’s Message appeal to feminist readers who believe women don’t need men to fight their battles. The female characters, particularly the heroine (or rather the victim) Xantara, basically sit back and let the men do the saving. At almost every turn, when Xantara or Imogene are endangered, her husband or son, a reporter, or the angel Rahmiel step in to save them.

Xantara tells her family, "I ask myself, do we have any control over our lives? I think not." My former publisher, the late Susan Bright of the Plain View Press, a feminist and a worshipper of the Goddess would have shuddered to hear these words.

I'm trying to be fair, and I know the book is intended to be an appeal to religious tolerance, but, I haven’t had an experience like this since my friends and I went to see the premiere of the original Red Dawn in Dallas. (We were organizing the Tent Cities to protest the Republican National Convention.) During the scenes when Harry Dean Stanton slapped his sons through the barbed wire for crying at the prison camp because real men don’t cry, and Leah Thompson held onto a live grenade when she died so the Russians wouldn't rape her corpse (and then we heard the explosion in the background), we found ourselves laughing out loud.

We didn't mean too. We didn't particularly want too. We just couldn't help ourselves. And in Dallas, in 1984, during the Republican National Convention, that was a dangerous thing to do. (The other patrons, still wearing their cowboy hats, even many of the women, would turn around to stare at us with eyes like like the barrels of sawed-off shotguns.)

(view spoiler)[In spite of her profession of religious tolerance, Imogene’s Message isn't particularly tolerant, and the polemics are almost insufferable. Her portrayal of Christian fundamentalists is as skewed her characters' portrayal of Wicca, Sikhs and the religions they persecute (and, being raised fundamentalist, I would be the last to defend them).

I believe Sherborne wants to be ironic, but when she portrays the villains as demon possessed, and depicts a scene in which the dying fundamentalists are seized by demons and snatched to hell, she reinforces the same judgmental stereotypes the book renounces. I’m also curious that the celestial beings aren’t from a Judeo-Christian heaven but another galaxy, whereas the demons are depicted in a real earthly hell dimension and not on a planet in their own galaxy. This seems even more curious in light of the fact that Rahmiel announces that, of all the planets in the universe, earth is the worst.

Sherborne also wavers between the Guardians professing a policy of detached non-interference and sending the troops in, guns (or swords or light beams) blazing, whenever Xantara's in trouble.

Finally, Sherborne robs readers with any real sense of mystery not even halfway through the book, when the guardians tell Xantara Imogene will return from the dead. Given the title, Imogene's Message, it isn't hard to figure out exactly how the book will play out. Imogene will come back from the dead, she'll appear before a crowd like Jesus/Klaatu and send a message from God/the Guardians tell them to love each other or a terrible punishment will fall on the planet. There will be fight scenes and chase scenes to prevent Imogene from delivering the message, but truth will prevail. (hide spoiler)]

Sherborne calls Imogene's Message a thriller of extreme prejudice. The extreme prejudice seems to transfer over to her feelings as well.

If the readers who love the book get their wish Sherborne will already have a sequel in the works. If the rest of us get our wish, the story ends here.

The Guardians have spoken....It’s a series.

Phillip T. Stephens is the author of Cigerets, Guns & Beer and Raising Hell. He is also the author of Poems, Parables and Prayers for the Third Millennium (Plain View Press, 2001), promoting religious tolerance and acceptance. You can follow him @stephens_pt.

How can people see the spoiler? When Carol tried to read the review, her iPad said, "Spoilers removed."

I got the spoiler just fine.

A much better version of this book, featuring a war between celestal beings from different galaxies over earth is Doris Lessing's Canopos in Argos (Shikasta) series. Lessing, who wrote the Golden Notebooks, was an atheist whose vistion of faith closely resembles Christianity and the ideals of Sherborne's Guardians.

starting with Re: Colonized Planet 5

http://bit.ly/1zRsE7Y

So does anyone know how people who can't see spoilers can turn them on? Is there a setting I don't know about. Or do I have to do it on my end?

I think that it is a personal setting for each profile. I vaguely remember having to decide if I wanted to view spoilers or now...maybe...vague memories are all I have of setting up profiles.

Even though I am not a particular fan of the genre, I did read Imogene's Message. At times I was charmed, at times chilled, but most often, I was confused. There was a huge cast of characters and many were introduced at random, right up until near the end of the book. Although I eventually understood their significance, they did not seem to flow into the story line with ease.

I was particularly confused near the end of the book, in the 'showdown' at the church. In a very brief scene, Alistair and Sean fight and the candlestick "pierced the young man's forehead and he dropped". Since Alistair was not mentioned a single time after that, not even when each escapee was named, I decided he was the one to die. The entire escape lost its effectiveness, because I was thinking how uncaring his parents were at his death. (A later passage mentions that Riordan's brother died, meaning Sean.) Poor Alistair is totally forgotten, but by the author.

I have no particular comment about the whole good vs. evil, light vs. dark plot of the book, except that I won't be reading the sequel. Too fanatical for my tastes. For the most part, the book was well written, I just didn't care for the story.

Sorry to say, only 2 stars from me.

I finally heard back from goodreads. spoilers are hidden on iPad reviews for some unfathomable reason.

Weird...

Hi. Here is my review of Imogene's Message (posted on both Amazon and Goodreads):

This story had such a powerful start, I loved the first chapter and even got a ways into the story but then it kind of went sideways for me. The writing is good, there were some graphic, gruesome scenes but they held my attention and kept me wondering where the story was going - I'm always rooting for good to win over evil, and there was definitely some evil in this story. This story clearly outlined and gave a really good sense of the fanaticism and small mindedness of some. The characters were well crafted. Unfortunately I found myself about halfway through and felt disconnected from the story and from Xantara, well any of them really. I think the story idea is great but too many characters were constantly being introduced, almost right to the end. I'm a fan of thrillers and meeting lots of characters but not introduced so late. Also I lost touch with Xanatra who's story I thought this would be about as she was who it started with. There wasn't anyone who was present enough throughout to connect with. In some cases I also felt that resolving the issue was too rushed. The story which started out great seemed to become more about sharing a message then about the story. With some changes this would be a great read.

Thank you, Maggie! I certainly appreciate your review and participation in our previous BOTMs! How many stars did you give it?

Jen wrote: "Thank you, Maggie! I certainly appreciate your review and participation in our previous BOTMs! How many stars did you give it?"

Hi Jen I gave it 3 stars.