2 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
Griff D. Johnson is a Christian, albeit not the usual one. He refuses to believe that God created man and woman for them to disobey Him and for Him to punish them. God is love personified, so how can He be so cruel? Johnson’s musings keep him busy, and one day, Eve herself comes to tell him the naked truth. Spawn of My Error: Eve’s Odyssey is the result of his five years of fellowship with Eve, the mother of all living.
One fine evening, Eve apprises him, “Dude, I have an interview with News One Southern California. It’s time to tell all.” It’s apparently time to reveal why God allowed the first couple to fall.
Johnson utilizes interesting characters in this fantasy piece. These include the media people, heroes and villains from Revelation in the Bible, human brainchildren like Tarzan, the blue Avatars, and the Greek mythological character Cassandra, and many more. The hodgepodge can be entertaining to the reader who loves trivia, but it may be endlessly confusing to one who wants focus in a book.
I can divide the book into five distinct parts. The first centers on the main characters: Eve, Dude, and the media people, Rick, Cindy, and Stan. We also meet the media mascot, the dog Chipper. This part culminates with the televised interview. Parts two to five see more characters and scenarios being introduced. I am wont to think of the five parts as separate stories. Of the five, I found the story on the moon, the fourth, the hardest to appreciate. The devils there gave me one hell of a time. I struggled to comprehend their cryptic “demon-speak” and cringed at their diabolical guffaws. (I am sure that hell would be eternal torture; I better do my best not to end up there.)
The book is rife with paragraphs discussing God’s goodness and expounding on Christian values. However, being a “free-thinking” Christian, Johnson also employs provocative language and expletives galore. These may cause traditional religious folk to cross themselves.
The book is all dialogue, huge chunks of it. There are various challenges in digesting the conversations. The author is averse to dialogue tags, so the reader is left to guess who is talking. This is especially difficult when there are more than two characters conversing. The author also shuns the commas needed in direct address, furthering the confusion. Moreover, his dialogues are peppered with ellipses such that many of the statements are mystifying fragments.
The editing is hideous. The author does not favor commas; he also dislikes hyphens. Apart from the missing punctuation, there are misspellings and misused homophones. As the subject matter is not exactly simple, I had a seriously difficult time deciphering some of the messages.
Johnson has a very fertile imagination, and his book will appeal to those with the same gift. His Eve is intelligent, beautiful, and strong; she also has a unique and stunning power. Women readers will delight in her portrayal. Fans of Revelation will find the moon battle reminiscent of John’s visions, with the added novelty of seeing the devils plotting their malevolent stratagems.
I am giving the book 2 out of 4 stars. I deducted two stars: one for the bad editing and the second for the convoluted conversations. Johnson’s work deserves no less. Readers will come away from it with lots of lessons to ponder and will hopefully understand Eve’s error in judgment on that fateful day in Eden. I suppose this understanding is what Eve asks of us who believe that she is our mother and that we are her spawn.
******
Spawn of my error
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like Miriam Molina's review? Post a comment saying so!
