Alizel's Song - Bill Pottle

I had such high hopes for the book. In the author's note, he asks "Could the Works of God in nature give us a lens through which to understand the Works of God in Scripture?" Being a fan of Creation Ministries International, I was really hyped up by that question. Unfortunately, the book actually compromises the Bible, which means I can't recommend it.

The book is about the rebellion of the angels against God. It follows Alizel, an unranked angel who participates in the fight against the fallen. The book is really an imagining of how the angels might have fallen. What I liked about this book would be the characterisation of the angels and how the story flowed at a good pace.

To me, there were two huge problems with the book - the book's stance on evolution, and the role of God in the book.

My hopes were deflated from the start, which quoted Genesis 1:1 and then said:

"At least, that's how they would describe it fifteen billion years later. Shortly after that - so soon, in fact, that it was almost no time at all, they'd call it the "Big Bang"."

From there on, the book shows that it believes in the old-earth theory of Creation, and that life came about through evolution. In fact, according to this book, life evolved, and when humans were created, God went down to earth and breathed life into human. The most obvious problem with this theory is that for life to evolve, not only is new DNA that has not previously existed need to spontaneously appear, death is needed too. Which would mean that the whole 'curse of death' becomes a moot point because humans would be marked for death from the start. Which makes the Fall a moot point. Which makes the Crucifixion and Resurrection a moot point too. So yeah, it more or less undermines the whole of Christianity.

My second problem (which is not as big as the first problem) is the role of God in this book. While the book clearly states that God is the one that sustains all the angels, he is plays a surprisingly small role. The main actors are definitely the angels. God probably speaks less than ten times in the entire book. However, I did ask about it this, and it seems that tradition holds that Michael the Archangel is the one that led the angels in the war against Lucifer. So it might be that this is accurate.

In conclusion, this book has an interesting plot and interesting characters. In most cases, that's enough to make me heartily recommend it to you. But, the compromise of the Bible makes it such that I do not recommend this book.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for a free and honest review.
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Eustacia Tan joined Into the Book in May of 2011. She has always loved reading, but particularly loves fiction, apologetics, and theology. She has a love for God, and hopes to someday go to the Japanese people as a missionary.