Reader’s Diary

Stephen Lawhead

In this, the first book in Lawhead’s “Song of Albion” trilogy, two grad students, an American and an Englishman, cross over into the “Otherworld” - Albion - the land of Celtic myth. The narrator becomes a warrior in Albion and takes part in a war which threatens not only that world, but our own.

There are supernatural forces in Albion, forces of good and evil, but Lawhead doesn’t emphasize magic. That, along with the absence of the usual orcs and elves, keeps “The Paradise War” from being yet another Tolkein knockoff. The Otherworld is more vibrant than our world; it has great appeal to the narrator and Lawhead communicates that appeal to the reader. On finishing this book I was eager to spend more time in Lawhead’s fantasy world and immediately picked up the second volume of the trilogy.