Monday, May 7, 2012

Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee

Many years have passed since civilization's brush with apocalypse. The world's greatest threats have all been silenced. There is no anger, no hatred, no war. There is only perfect peace... and fear. But a terrible secret has been closely guarded for centuries: Every single soul walking the earth, though in appearance totally normal, is actually dead, long ago genetically stripped of true humanity.

Fleeing pursuit, with only moments to live, a young man named Rom stumbles into possession of a vial of blood and a piece of cryptic writing. When consumed, the blood will bring him back to life. When decoded, the message will lead him on a perilous journey that will require him to abandon everything he has ever known and awaken humanity to the transforming power of true life and love.

But the blood will also resurrect hatred, ambition, and greed.

Set in a terrifying, medieval future, where grim pageantry masks death, this tale of dark desires and staggering stakes peels back the layers of the heart for all who dare to take the ride.
With one month from the release of the series' second installment, I finally finished Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee's highly-acclaimed Forbidden, which I first started reading in October 2011.

The first in the Books of Mortals trilogy takes place in an alternate future in which fear is the only emotion genetically allowed. Although the setting and story are certainly good, the book failed to meet its hype. The book was slow, and even got to be quite boring in many places. It's a struggle to get through, making an unpleasant experience.

The antagonist is a man named Saric. He was given a serum by alchemists that brings back some of his emotions, but only the horrible ones. Basically, he was turned into a beast in a world that knew only fear. He sickened me to the point that I truthfully say I have never hated anyone, real or fictional, more than I hated Saric. That is not how to write a good bad guy! A well-written bad guy is one who you can see reason behind; one you can sympathize with. Ted Dekker has a trend of writing antagonists who are mentally unstable and/or retarded, and no offense to him, but that is the most annoying kind of bad guy in any story. By the end of Forbidden I literally wanted to butcher Saric.

There was a flaw in the story's concept. It's an awesome concept for a setting, but it's not possible to get rid of all emotions except fear. Among the characters who could only experience fear, I saw other emotions as well, such as confusion and desperation. Those could be considered attributes to fear, but that's irrelevant, because they're also emotions separate from fear. If someone in that universe suppresses their fear, they can still be confused, causing a major flaw in the idea of no emotions but fear. Other emotions are necessary in order to have only fear, and that in itself is contradictory.

Forbidden was good, but there were a lot of things I had a problems with; all those listed above, in addition to all of the blood, gore, and sexuality. There's nothing necessarily wrong with having blood, gore, or sexuality in a novel, as long as they don't go overboard. I, for one, am someone very easily grossed out, and there was a lot of gore that I wasn't comfortable reading. The authors could have been just as realistic in their writing while just being less explicit. I know that, because they've done so in the past. As for the sexuality factor, the main evil character, due to his dark emotions, was quite a pervert, wanting to bed every woman he laid eyes upon. He very nearly raped one of the main characters at one point. Another reason to be irritated at Saric and his idiocy.

Yes, yes, as everybody told me, the book improved massively by the end. The pace quickened, the story developed, and everything turned out really cool. But does a book getting good by the end classify it as a good novel? Unfortunately, not this one. If the entire first half of the book had been retold in half the length, it would have been twice as good. Considering the story got good by the end, I'll be eagerly awaiting the release of Mortal, the second in the series. Poor, poor Forbidden, however, is left with only three stars out of five. If not for the second half of the book, it would have been left with two.

7 comments:

  1. :0 i thought the book was amazing. i love having blood, gore, and sexuality in a novel. and the more mentally unstable bad guy, the better. i love creepy dark bad guys doing horrible things such as almost rape, but then being stopped. i will agree with you though that i did see Other emotions besides just fear. have you ever read ted dekkers Immanuel’s Veins ?? that was an amazing book with great characters.

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  2. I actually loved the book. I thought the premise was great and very Ted-like. The love in the story was well-written--some parts even better than The Circle, I think. Its a good thing we're all allowed to have our own opinions!

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  3. Heather, of course I've read Immanuel's Veins. THAT was a great novel. :)

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  4. So far, this is the only Dekker book I gave less than 5 stars. (I gave it 4.) I'm going to agree with Heather about liking blood and gore in books--to me, that makes a novel more exciting.

    Part of my trouble with Forbidden was visualizing the setting. I kept imagining it as medieval-like and it was hard for me to combine that image with the advanced technology. I don't mind sexuality in books as long as it isn't over-the-top (like in Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy); I actually really liked the scene where Rom and his lady friend (I forget her name already) discovered honest-to-God romantic feelings for each other.

    And yes, Immanuel's Veins was awesome. What were we saying about sexuality? ;)

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  5. There was a lot of sexuality in IV, true, but at least Vlad wasn't a pervert like Saric. :P

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  6. The antagonist is a man named Saric. He was given a serum by alchemists that brings back some of his emotions, but only the horrible ones. Basically, he was turned into a beast in a world that knew only fear. He sickened me to the point that I truthfully say I have never hated anyone, real or fiction, more than I hated Saric. That is not how to write a good bad guy! A well-written bad guy is one who you can see reason behind; one you can sympathize with. Ted Dekker has a trend of writing antagonists who are mentally unstable and/or retarded, and no offense to him, but that is the most annoying kind of bad guy in any story. By the end of Forbidden I literally wanted to butcher Saric.
    I can't help remember that once you said that Dekker's villains were stupid because they were flawed. Now, in this review, you are saying the opposite. And no, the emotions that Saric received were not all evil ones. The emotion of wanting someone can be good if it is used in the way God created it.
    You said, "Among the characters who could only experience fear, I saw other emotions as well, such as confusion and desperation. Those could be considered attributes to fear, but that's irrelevant, because they're also emotions separate from fear." WHAT? Horrible argument. I could say that the fact that they're separate emotions, but that is irrelevant because they are attributed to fear.
    And if you have a problem with the violence that was in Forbidden, than I wonder why the heck you are reading Dekker's other books. Immanuel's Veins, anyone? A vampire slitting a woman's throat with his finger nail, and then bleeding someone to death against a crucifix isn't more violent than someone getting cut in half or their throat slit (not very descriptive). And what about some of the other books you have read such as Steven James? Prologue, of The Pawn: Two teenagers slitting their wrists in a bathtub and the description of the blood shooting across the tub like a jet? Yeah, I am pretty sure that's more descriptive than Forbidden.
    And how else did you expect Ted and Tosca to write the intimate scenes? As if they have felt passion before? They are discovering what has been given to us as human beings.

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  7. 1. But Saric didn't use the emotions for good, because he wasn't capable of doing so. His urges for blood and sexual desire, and don't forget his feelings of hatred, anger, etc. were far too strong for any possible good to come anywhere near the surface. Basically, he felt only "evil" emotions, as I said.

    2. You didn't finish the context. Characters experienced confusion when they weren't feeling fear, meaning in those cases confusion *wasn't* an attribute to fear.

    3. I admit Steven James writes a lot of uncensored gore, but he always has a thrilling, can't-put-down story to go along with it. As for Immanuel's Veins, the gore in that was nothing to Forbidden, IMO.

    4. For your last point... I don't really get what you're asking.

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