Reviews and Comments

Soooon...

Just like a Salman Rushdie novel would be!

Technically started reading this last year. Time to finish it!

This is the first of Brandon's "secret novels" whose publication was funded by Kickstarter. It's fun and enjoyable and had lore bits for those wanting to sink their teeth into the wider Cosmere.

I also imagine it does fine on its own.

More pirate jargon, matey! Also, looks like this book will have the first on page appearance of a motherfuckin' dragon! Yolen!

Onward to part 4!

This is perhaps the most hopeful of Ito's work I've read.

Which is to say it didn't end with everyone doomed to a completely horrific fate.

Gashunk!

One can look at this as a Catholicism 101 and it is best read this way. Trent's purpose is to evangelize, hoping to convert but willing to settle on creating tolerance for the Catholic faith (which, honestly, is a first step to conversion).

For the reader, it gives a broad view of Catholic faith, beliefs and practices. This book, by its apologetic nature, is going to present the basics in as good a light as possible. To Trent's credit, he does not treat the reader like an idiot and mostly succeeds in good faith (guffaw) engagement.

So if you are looking for a readable and short introductory overview of Catholicism, this wouldn't be a bad choice.

Part 3 and part 4 deal with some basic mechanics of Catholic belief and organization. It is in part 4 Trent addresses the "first controversial Catholic topic", in addressing the pedophile priest scandal.

The final part will deal with the other basic controversial Catholic beliefs.

Yarg, mateys!

Part 2: Jesus and the Bible.

As expected, the book continues to funnel down from addressing general atheist/deist questions that may be asked of Catholicism and through the course of this part, narrows it down to questions that may be asked by a Trinitarian Christian. First, Trent tries to go from the general argument for a God to the argument that Jesus is God incarnated into man. These arguments are weak sauce. Next, he gets more specific and defends a Trinitarian view of God. This is much better (provided you ignore the previous step of proving the divinity of Jesus) After that, he goes into why he believes in the Bible but not in Sola Scriptura, which will flow nicely into the next part about the "whys of Catholic church structure"

Part 1: Truth and God Pretty much opens up with addressing questions that might be brought up by an atheist or general dontgiveafuck person. Structured to be built upon to funnel from the general "there is God and Truth" to specific claims like "God is the Catholic God" further down the book.

Wooo, free book!