(cont.) There is foreshadowing of things to come all throughout the narrative. Before Lucifer’s revolt, the Prince tells Michael, as he will no doubt tell Judas in Book Two, “What you do, do quickly.” And all throughout, the Prince is agonizing, as he will in the Garden of Gethsemane before his crucifixion, as if it were always imminent. For example, when Noach is hammering nails to build the wooden ship that will save his family and many animals from the Flood, the Prince feels the hammering of the nails that hold him to the wooden cross.
The reader cannot help but draw similarities between Prophecy of the Heir and C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, since they are built around the same Biblical narrative, though Lamont begins POTH much earlier than Jesus’ death and resurrection, and reframes actual Biblical events, whereas C.S. Lewis’ work is only related to those events thematically. Aslan is the Prince, willing to die for Narnia/Ariel. The Witch is Lucifer/Shaitan, who wants only to corrupt and rule, or mercilessly destroy, Narnia/Ariel.
This is a LOTR-influenced, fantasy-inspired work of literary apologetics that reminds the reader of the spiritually tumultuous mood of Frank Peretti’s ‘80s spiritual warfare books, This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness. The reader can see the element of fantasy in the existence of centaurs, pegasoi, a unicorn, swords, jewels, keys and staffs of different materials that perform actions in response to certain words, a key and a particular sword which behave like the “one ring” in LOTR, the ability to ‘quest’ toward someone (read someone’s thoughts), referring to humans as ‘mud-race’, crystalline vials that carry visions, forces of good in battles against forces of evil, ancient poetry, the master training the apprentice, using Mauveth to power their jewels, and during the pre-flood world to make dead reptiles’ parts into invisible necessities (scales into armor, etc.). However, the Shaityrim of POTH are nothing like the Balrog of LOTR, and more like immortal, taller versions of humans. The male angels and demons do not have wings, only their horses do (and also the seraphim, who are female angels).
Standing apart from the works of JRR Tolkein, Frank Peretti, and Anne Rice, Prophecy of the Heir is a retelling of the Biblical narrative, from Genesis to the birth of Jesus, similar to 1998’s The Book of God, by Walter Wangerin, which presents the Bible as a novel, from Abraham to the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost (in which Michael and Gabriel make only brief cameos). No doubt JC Lamont’s second book in this trilogy will involve a harmonic narrative of all four Gospels, wielding much more creative license than a combination of the Gospel segment of Wangerin’s The Book of God and Johnston M. Cheney’s powerful The Life of Christ in Stereo—the latter being an actual Gospel harmony one may just rush right out and read after finishing Prophecy of the Heir, as Lamont is in the process of crafting Book Two of her trilogy.
Ichthus77 