The Choosing ~ Review and Author Q&A

The Choosing
A Seer Novel 1
By Rachelle Dekker

Not to be chosen would yield a cruel fate 

of my own making

All her life Carrington Hale has believed the truth that has been taught to her - her worth is based only on her ability to be chosen.  If, on the day appointed for her to be chosen ends with no one wanting her, it is her own fault. She wasn't worthy.  She wasn't good enough.  She is to be forgotten - to become a Lint.

Carrington was suppose to be chosen, it was all but assured.  But something went wrong - she must have done something wrong.  She wasn't suppose to be a Lint. That wasn't what she spent years of her life training for.

The Choosing is a beautifully written story that is filled with heartache, cruelty, hope, and love.  Taking place in a not too distant future, the world as we know it has ended. A small remnant has created a world based on the rules of one man - a world of structure.  A world in which rules are not to be questioned.  A world where you have one chance to find your worth.  A world in which service is your duty.

But when a second chance is given Carrington's world will never be the same.  Is it possible to choose a different path than what she has been taught?  And if she does what will be the cost?

The Choosing is both beautiful and painful in a way that touches one's heart.  This book has the potential to make one look at one's own life and examine where one finds one's own worth.  Is one's worth determined by the world's standards or is it determined by the measure what is in our heart? Do we see ourselves through the eyes of God or the eyes of the world?

This is the first is a series and I for one can't wait to see what comes next in this world, a world that has lost its way in the name of rules.

I was provided a copy of this book by Tyndale in exchange for my honest review and tour participation.

About the Author . . . The oldest daughter of New York Times bestselling author Ted Dekker, Rachelle Dekker was inspired early on to discover truth through storytelling. She graduated with a degree in communications and spent several years in marketing and corporate recruiting before making the transition to write full-time. She lives in Nashville with her husband, Daniel, and their diva cat, Blair. Visit her online at rachelledekker.com.

Author Q and A with Rachelle Dekker
1. How did you come up with the story for The Choosing?
   This is a hard question because it has many answers. I wanted to write a theme-based novel about identity. I wanted to write a dystopian novel. I wanted to write in a world that was familiar, but in a setting where I could change the way the world worked. It actually is several ideas I’d been toying with pulled into one story. Once I landed on Carrington’s core revelation and story arc, I simply fell in love with her as a character and drew the rest of the story around her. That’s usually how it works for me. I come up with a character, good or bad, and create the story from there. 

2. Throughout the book, Carrington struggles with understanding her identity and worth and what is true. Why did you decide to write about the theme of identity? 
    Someone once asked me, If you could leave one message for your younger sisters, what would it be? The answer was always the same: I would pray they knew what they were worth. Identity is everything. There isn’t a theme that doesn’t start with identity, or circle back to identity. Knowing who you truly are is the greatest journey we face. Am I enough; am I worth it? I believe everyone faces these questions, and I sought out to explore them through this story.

3. The Choosing is the first of a three-book series. What can we expect in the next two books? 
    More struggles with identity, but in different ways. Familiar characters dealing with fear and worry and forgiveness. We’ll walk with our characters as they continue to understand the true way of Aaron’s Father. More excitement, more romance (of course), and more self-discovery.

4. What is it like being Ted Dekker’s daughter? Did your father help you with the writing process?  
    Being Ted’s daughter is wonderful! He’s the best, but then I hope many daughters feel that way about their fathers. He is a bit of a mystery, though. Sometimes, even sitting at the dinner table, I can tell he’s lost in thought, and I wonder what it might be like to have his mind.

    It’s been a blessing to watch him write and struggle with writing, so that now when I struggle I have an understanding ear to talk off. He is always willing to talk me through the emotional and mental side of writing (which is where the biggest battles lie in wait) but as far as story, for the most part he lets me fend for myself. It’s always been important to me to write through my challenges on my own. To figure out scenes alone. In fact, he didn’t even read The Choosing until I was already in conversations with Tyndale about publication. I think that’s because he wanted me to believe I could do it on my own.

    But when I doubt my ability as a writer, and when I forget who I am, he is the one I call. And he reminds me that life is a journey of remembering and forgetting, and helps me in remembering once again.

Our Dried Voices ~ Review

Our Dried Voices
By Greg Hickey

Our Dried Voices is set in the future on a distant planet. Humanity has called the planet Pearl home for several centuries, but the technological abilities that were used to accomplish this seem well beyond the intellectual abilities of those who live in the colony.

The people of the colony remind me of the Eloi, of H.G. Wells Time Machine.  Not that they are in any way a duplicate of the Eloi, but rather they are simple and emotion seems entirely lacking.  They've allowed the ease of their existence to stunt them mentally.  They don't seem able to think an original thought nor take the initiative to start a task that hasn't been trained into their herd like existence.

But when calamities begin occurring that threaten the existence of both the colony and those who live within its boundaries, a "hero" steps forward.  Samuel notices the incidents and their impact on the colony.  As the effects and troubles continue Samuel begins to think.  And as a result he starts to change.  But why are these people attacking the colony?  What is the purpose behind these acts of sabotage?  Samuel is determined to find out why and to end these threats.

But what he finds is not what he expected.  Will the last remnants of humanity survive?  Or will Pearl finally be rid of this human settlement?

Our Dried Voices is both interesting and disturbing.  A world without want whose sole purpose is pleasure and utter ignorance.  Having come from a world where knowledge was responsible for their ease one would think knowledge would have been valued and passed down through the generations. It's sad to think that knowledge and learning could be abandoned.  Yet this is a common theme in both this work and the earlier mentioned Time Machine and it is a sad commentary on what some view our distant future.  Samuel's growth is welcome one and a glimmer of hope that the thirst and quest for knowledge is not dead, it just needs a spark to ignite it.

I was provided a copy of this book by the author through PUYB in exchange for my honest review and my tour participation.

Book in the Spotlight:

Title: Our Dried Voices
Author: Greg Hickey
Publisher: Scribe Publishing Company
Publication Date: November 4, 2014
Pages: 234
ISBN: 978-1940368931
Genre: Dystopian / Science Fiction
Format: Paperback, eBook (.mobi / Kindle), PDF

In 2153, cancer was cured. In 2189, AIDS. And in 2235, the last members of the human race traveled to a far distant planet called Pearl to begin the next chapter of humanity.

Several hundred years after their arrival, the remainder of humanity lives in a utopian colony in which every want is satisfied automatically, and there is no need for human labor, struggle or thought. But when the machines that regulate the colony begin to malfunction, the colonists are faced with a test for the first time in their existence.

With the lives of the colonists at stake, it is left to a young man named Samuel to repair these breakdowns and save the colony. Aided by his friend Penny, Samuel rises to meet each challenge. But he soon discovers a mysterious group of people behind each of these problems, and he must somehow find and defeat these saboteurs in order to rescue his colony.

Book Excerpt: 

I

The sound of the bells echoed across the colony. They sounded five times, and by the end of
the fifth peal everyone had stopped what they were doing and started to walk toward the
nearest source of the noise. The bells had a tinny, hollow sound to them. To be sure, it was
unmistakably the sound of bells, but it lacked that rich, thunderous, rolling swell once heard
in passing by an old church at the top of the hour. Instead, it was as though the sound of real
bells had been recorded and re-recorded ad infinitum until only bell-like sounds now
remained.

The bells called the people to the midday meal. All across the lush meadow, the colonists fell
into a kind of reverie. Moments earlier, they had been romping through the meadow or
splashing in the river with the joyful abandon of children, while others napped blissfully at
the base of a modest hill or fornicated with some momentary lover in the shade of a
spreading tree. But now their innocent laughter, their hushed excited voices, their
intermittent shrieks of pleasure all ceased for an instant as they moved as one toward the
sound of the bells. As soon as the fifth toll had faded in the air, the human noise resumed as
though it had never been silenced. The colonists walked eagerly but unhurriedly, small,
hairless, brown-skinned people, all barefooted and dressed in simple, cream-colored smocks.

The bell sounds came from the seven meal halls spread throughout the colony—long, tall,
rectangular buildings erected from the black, craggy rock characteristic of the mountains of
Pearl, now smoothed down and cut into bricks and painted a soothing off-white. Another
smaller building abutted one end of each meal hall. Their wan stone façades matched those
of the larger halls and there were no discernible entryways in their solid exteriors.

As the colonists entered each meal hall, they lined up along the right-hand wall to wait for
their food. The walls were painted a pale sky blue, and on the far wall was a small square
hole. One by one, each diner stepped forward in line, a small, red light above the hole
flashed, a short clicking and whirring noise sounded and then a round, firm, dark brown cake
appeared at the edge of the opening. One by one, each colonist took the proffered meal cake
and carried it over to one of the many wooden tables or out into the meadow.

Near the front of the line at one hall, a male colonist turned to face the man behind him.

“Hellohoweryou?” said the first man.

“Goodthankshoweryou?” replied the second man.

“Goodthankshoweryou?”

“Goodthankshoweryou?”

The two men stared blankly at each other for a moment. Then the first man blinked and said

“Goodweathertoday.”

The second bobbed his head and grinned. “Betterenyesterday.”

They continued to gaze at each other with vapid expressions until the first man turned around
and stepped forward in line. The two men were right. It was Tuesday. It rained on Mondays.
And thanks to the colony’s weather modification system, it had rained every Monday, and
only on Monday, for hundreds of years.

****

When about half the colonists at this particular meal hall had received their food, an adult
woman moved to the front of the line. A young boy, no taller than her waist, stood behind
her. The woman stepped up to the wall, the red light above the hole flashed… and nothing
happened. There was no clicking, no whirring, and no meal cake emerged from the hole in
the milky blue wall. Some people a few places behind the first woman, by now so accustomed
to the regular pace of the line, stepped forward in anticipation of her taking the food and
continuing on. When the line did not move, they bumped awkwardly into the colonists in front
of them, very much surprised that there should be a fleshy, breathing, human body in their
path instead of empty space. Those closest to the front of the line fell silent when they saw
the woman had not yet received her meal, and then the silence spread evenly and
rhythmically down the line, like a row of pillowed dominoes falling to the floor. Yet all the
colonists continued to wear the same insipid half-grin on their faces as they waited patiently
for the food to be dispensed and the line to creep forward once more.

A long, loud, whining shriek from the young boy waiting with his mother at the front of the
line broke through the stillness, and it was this sound, not the actual interruption of the food
service, which seemed to have the greatest effect on those in the hall. The boy did not cry.
He shed no tears, and the sound which emerged from his mouth was not a breathless and
choked sobbing, or even the petulant howl of a child’s tantrum. It was a primal, animal moan
that rose from the depths of his unfilled stomach, rushed up his throat with a cold and
persistent ferocity and forced its way over his teeth, throwing his head back as it broke from
his lips. No one tried to comfort the boy. His mother did not even turn around to look at him.
Her weak smile faded, but she continued to stare at the dark hole in the wall, still waiting for
her meal to appear. Then a child some dozen places back in the line picked up the boy’s
howl, and then a woman farther behind did the same. Soon the entire line was wailing loudly.

Those colonists who had already received their meals hunkered over their cakes and stuffed
their last bites into their mouths. One of them stood up, bumping hard into his table. The rest
followed. They walked hurriedly to the door, brushing past the onlookers from outside who
had gathered to see what all the noise was about. Those still in line stared dazedly at the
others around them, at the now half-empty hall, an incipient question forming somewhere
deep in their skulls.

A man in the middle of the line broke their unsteady ranks first. He ran, stumbling over tables
and chairs bolted to the floor in his maddened dash toward the doorway. The rest of the line
scattered in his wake. Out through the door they went, cracking bony limbs on the wooden
furniture in their paths, pushing and trampling one another as they all tried to force their way
through the doorway at once, like blood cells pumped through a clotted artery.

Those who had already finished their meals stood outside in a loose ring several meters away
from the entrance of the food hall, and as the wild runners pushed their way through the
door, they began to run as well, picking up the wail of the unfed as they went. They ran in no
particular direction, a single mass exodus from the hall, teeming out across the gay green
meadows, up and over the soft, undulating hills, and their cries rippled throughout the once-
peaceful fields to fill the void left by the cessation of the bells with a sound far more vibrant
than those stale chimes which had just called them to their uneaten meal.

Purchase The Book:

 Amazon    Barnes and Noble    Goodreads

About the Author:
Greg Hickey was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1985. After graduating from Pomona College in 2008, he played and coached baseball in Sweden and South Africa. He is now a forensic scientist, endurance athlete and award-winning writer. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Lindsay. You can visit Greg’s website at www.greghickeywrites.com.


Connect with Greg:
Author Blog: http://kinesophy.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GHWrites
Twitter: https://twitter.com/greghickey5
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8421481.Greg_Hickey