Day of the Labyrinth, The
Embodied love meets empire in a fantastic history of friends and companions of Constantine the Great.
Embodied love meets empire in a fantastic history of friends and companions of Constantine the Great.
Embodied love meets empire in a fantastic history of friends and companions of Constantine the Great.
Action & adventure, Alternative history, Historical
For readers age 9 to 90, this fast-moving adventure novel tracks the fantastic history of a diverse group of companions in their attempt to subvert the Roman Empire with justice and love. Grappling with the realities of war, violence and selfish ambition as they interface with peace, friendship and belonging, it investigates the potential of love as an alternative way of being.
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I’m really enjoying your story and the writing itself. You describe well and the action flows. Your characters are accessible and there is an ongoing challenge for the reader in the threats of both culture clash and relationally within the family. The blindness and dreams together give it a quality of fantasy similar to Madeleine l’Engle’s books particularly as your main character is a young female. I like that. l’Engle uses children like Lewis did. ~ Jane Schofield-Almond, history teacher and publisher
After reading many texts written by my friend Roger, here I am embarked on a fascinating labyrinth which reflects well the themes of his theological, philosophical, historical and political research and his passion for understanding the inextricable cogs between the church and all forms of empire. Often overwhelmed by the depth or the height of his university-level views, here I am finally embarked on a romantic story that resembles reality so much that one wonders if this novel is not quite simply a historical narrative that translates the subjects that fascinates him and allows access to these subjects which are at the heart of the work of the Holy Spirit. In this labyrinth we feel a little lost because it has its sources some 17 centuries ago, but we feel inexorably led towards an outcome that sheds light on what we are still fighting against in the 21st century with the dream of a kingdom of love, of a precise and cruciform path that opens the way to peace and reconciliation between humanity and earth, humanity and heaven. Each page allows one to feel the passion and the inspiration, the aspiration and the intercession, the attention and the tensions between a twisted past and an uncertain future. The bad men and the good men, a perverted race and a new humanity, in each detour of this labyrinth I perceive my friend Roger who embarks us in the incredible, the real, the historical, major or minor transitions, where the angels, demons and myths intertwine, attract and repel each other. Entering this labyrinth does more than tickle your imagination, it forces you to get out of it, to continue reading, to discover the end, and forces a personal reflection on what it means in our 21st century. Having had the privilege to join the author for 2 days in a key city that this novel starts and ends with I can witness first hand the tangible and exhilarating presence is still there and makes me doubt that this book is just a novel and raises a hope that life, love and peace is a plan that will prevail. Long to dive in the ones to come… ~ Samuel Rhein, French Christian leader and university lecturer
Time will tell whether this book brought me back to Christianity. Be prepared to be torn back to a time when to be a Christian was to be a rebel: against empire; against violence; against the notion of personal gain. A marked contrast with all that Christianity has become a symbol of in our times. Mitchell takes us on a journey between illuminatingly-researched history and fantasy, digging into Christianity’s deep past to give radical presence to eternal social and political questions: Can love and hierarchy coincide? Can we build a new world in the shell of the old? What does the righteous path look like? ~ Dr Timothy Stacey, Researcher, Urban Futures Studio, Utrecht University and Co-Founder and Co-Director, AltVisions.org.