City of Dreams (!HERO)

Rating:
Summary: A new angle on an old story!
Review: City of Dreams is a VERY EXCITING book for anyone who wants to read about Jesus in a fresh and unique way. What if Jesus had his ministry in New York? This book shows us the cultural relevance of the biggest story of all time. The plot not only displays a beautiful picture of the man Jesus (named Joshua Jones in the book), not only takes us through eventful and suspensful twists and turns, but also gets us excited about more books in the future -- all to learn about, and be touched by,the incredible life of the most influential man in all of history.

Rating:
Summary: My eyes were opened
Review: I traditionally haven't enjoyed any previous attempt at creating a contemporary version of the story of Jesus because Jesus ends up being wierd or the story is too contrived. City of Dreams kept me reading because it seemed completely plausible in today's society...it has all the intrigue, contemporary issues, energy and fascination with unusual charaters that I like in a good read. And the book surpised me on a number of occasions when I was caught up short having to rethink what I thought I knew about the life of Jesus.

Rating:
Summary: Subtleties Aside!
Review: I'm a longtime Lawhead fan. He is a master of scene and setting. His writing is full of the real-life struggle many of us face in our faith. With these attributes in mind, I looked forward to this new series.

The idea is straightforward. The gospel story is dropped into a near-future setting, with New York City as the primary background. Alex Hunter, an agent for an international group called ICON, is hot on the tail of religious extremists. When one of the extremist leaders is murdered, Hunter is drawn deeper into this violent web.

Sounds promising, but it devolves quickly into a transparent tale. The danger of retelling the gospel story is that we already know what's going to happen. New ideas and subtleties are necessary to keep us involved and to give us fresh perspective. Unfortunately, for me, this was predictable and stale. I wanted to like it, but I found myself skimming pages, waiting for something unexpected, for a new twist. When I ran into the NY governor, named, you guessed it, Pilate...I groaned aloud.

For a quicker read, I'd suggest the graphic comic book version.

Rating:
Summary: Subtleties Aside!
Review: I'm a longtime Lawhead fan. He is a master of scene and setting. His writing is full of the real-life struggle many of us face in our faith. With these attributes in mind, I looked forward to this new series.

The idea is straightforward. The gospel story is dropped into a near-future setting, with New York City as the primary background. Alex Hunter, an agent for an international group called ICON, is hot on the tail of religious extremists. When one of the extremist leaders is murdered, Hunter is drawn deeper into this violent web.

Sounds promising, but it devolves quickly into a transparent tale. The danger of retelling the gospel story is that we already know what's going to happen. New ideas and subtleties are necessary to keep us involved and to give us fresh perspective. Unfortunately, for me, this was predictable and stale. I wanted to like it, but I found myself skimming pages, waiting for something unexpected, for a new twist. When I ran into the NY governor, named, you guessed it, Pilate...I groaned aloud.

For a quicker read, I'd suggest the graphic comic book version.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent read!
Review: Lawhead does it again! The writing is superb. This is a great book for young and old alike. My favorite aspect of the book is how the authors recreated modern times to exclude the impact Jesus Christ has had on our culture. It's amazing how much of an impact he made on every aspect of American life. The first chapters were a little slow, but I couldn't put it down after that.

Rating:
Summary: Needs some touch up work
Review: Not a bad story line, not really a bad book. But in a couple of places I found some bad editing (the word "what" was used where the word "that" should have been). I also left the book thinking that there was more time to set development than character development. I still dont know all that much about Hunter or what makes him tick (beside wanting to be promoted back to a higher rank that appears to have been stripped from him early in the book), I think I know more about the Antagonist (Simon) than I do the main character of the book. But over all, its worth the quick read.

Rating:
Summary: What is Publisher's Weekly talking about?
Review: Okay, there is NO profanity in the book. Did Publisher's Weekly actually READ the book? It is an engaging tale that brings the historical Jesus Christ into a tangible context. The story is gritty and raw--just like the biblical account.

Rating:
Summary: A comic book without pictures
Review: The story seems interesting, and it is. But it's not written well. The Lawheads were trying too hard to make Hunter into a hard-nosed agent and were explaining too much. Like when someone mentioned a terrorist organization they belonged too, they made it a point that Hunter filed that away in his mind so he'd remember it. Well, no duh he would! Also, there is really only one plot line - the one described above. There are no subplots at all! So, basically, it's like a comic book, but with no pictures.

And the names were sometimes groaners - instead of John the Baptist, it's "Washer John"; "Pilate" is the last name of the governor of New York; instead of Mary Magdalene it's "Maggie"; and Nicodemus is shortened to Nick. You get the idea .

I think the graphic novel is a better choice than the novel trilogy.

Rating:
Summary: AWSOME BOOK!
Review: This is a wonderful book, read it and find out, as there slogan goes, "What if he were born in Bethlehem, Pennsylania?" This is just the intrductery book so you won't see to much of Hero till the end, but you can follow Hunter and see how he got in such deep *&*%.

Rating:
Summary: No stars at all for this tripe
Review: This is one of the most poorly written books I've ever tried to read. The writing is pedantic at best. Frankly, I couldn't finish this piece of crap. The cover blurbs made it sound interesting, so I decided to try it. Wrong move on my part. There are too many well-written books around to waste your time with this thing.

I didn't know it was supposed to be a "christian" book until I read the reviews here. I couldn't force myself to read enough of it to find any christian propaganda. I can't believe any reviewer here can honestly think this is good writing. If you do, you really need to read some decent literature for a change, not just stuff mass-marketed to sheeple. WWJB - what would jesus buy. So sad.