The Return

Current System Configuration: Physical Fitness Mode
Earworms:
-Jin/Shin/Ki -MAN-GOD-MACHINE- by Yuichi Ikusawa [JRock, Kishin Houkou Demonbane OP]
-Ages of Power by Freedom Call [Power Metal]
-Subarashiki Shin Sekai by Flair [JPop/Trance, Namco vs Capcom insert song]
Sustenance:
[Breakfast] Grilled ham and cheese sandwich
[Lunch] Fruit magic's pesto spaghetti and choco-banana shake.
[Dinner] None yet. Antonio's despedida tonight.
[Coffee] Homemade mocha (just ordinary coffee+Swiss Miss mix. I don't have espresso, sadly.)
Current Read:
-Wormwood by G.P. Taylor

My brother's finally coming home tomorrow night. I really miss the guy even if I visited him last summer. It'll be great to have him here again. I guess I always take his presence for granted. Most of us are like that, anyway.

He just graduated from High School in the US. He did pretty well there; he was exempted from practically all his final exams because of his performance. He'll be staying here for about 8 months, as he will leave for Singapore next April. He's most likely going to take up Management and Culinary Studies at Temasek Polytechnic. At least he'll be much easier to visit in Singapore, and as I have plans of eventually working there, it won't be such a big problem.

~~~~

Wormwood has been an interesting read so far. It's not particularly excellent; I find it too dark, the imagery too squalid. Nevertheless, I'm sure it's an accurate portrayal of 18th-century London. My main issue with G.P. Taylor's work is that I find his world view confusing and inconsistent with the Christian ideas that he is trying to present. Of course, his main target audience is the goth demographic, trying to draw them to faith in Jesus Christ through his horror novels. That was certainly clear and present in his previous novel, Shadowmancer, but in Wormwood I'm having trouble seeing who the good guy really is.

There is no clear protagonist, though I see two who are experiencing the story in a similar way: Dr. Sabian Blake, an astronomer and master of the Kabbalah, and his servant girl, Agetta Lamian, a flea-bitten teenage girl with a knack for thievery. Both are caught up in things they do not understand, a web of deception. They both encounter angels who tell them more about the greater scheme of things, although Agetta's angel is a remorseful and disempowered being who had been doomed because he had fallen in love with a demonic sorceress.

The plot seems smooth---the action rises, slowly but surely, through each cryptically-entitled chapter (most of them have Latin or Hebrew titles). As I see it, Wormwood is much more allegorical than Shadowmancer, which was very literal in its treatment of the use of magic and salvation. More to come when I finish the novel.