Back in 2011, I read through Ted Dekker's
Circle Series, which included the four novels
Black,
Red,
White, and
Green. At that time I was just starting to enjoy reading fiction. Dekker's works helped to provide me with an appreciation of the art of writing and of crafting a layered tale, that not only entertained, but also made me think. I also came to find that stories allowed me to relax my mind and to let go of thoughts and worries and junk that had been pulling at me. The elements, characters, plot points, and themes of Dekker's
Circle series would not be contained to just four novels, as Dekker spread them far and wide in his
Books of History Chronicles. If you read his
Lost Book,
Paradise, or
Outlaw series, as well as any number of his stand-alone novels, you will find cross-over characters and plot points. Over the last several years, I have read through each and every related book, save one, Dekker's
The Blood Book. This title was used by Dekker as a promotional item, sent only to a limited number of his readers. Just recently, however, he made this book available on his website and I grabbed it.
The Blood Book is not a standard novel of prose by any means. It was prepared as a journal of several of the dark characters in the series, with the primary entries by Ba'al, high priest of the Horde, Lover of Marsuuv, and sworn enemy of Thomas of Hunter. The book contains notes from Ba'al's chief alchemist on his studies and autopsies of different creatures that occupy parts of Other Earth, including the Shataiki and the Roush, his personal reflections on the Albinos and the Eramites, and a diatribe against the forest dwellers and their false god Elyon. Ba'al also details why the power and approval of Teeleh is superior to Elyon.
The work was written to provide background information to further flesh out some of the characters in Dekker's narratives and was a fun and interesting read for a fan (such as me) of these tales. I suspect that Dekker too enjoyed the process of piecing this together as he worked with his friends and fellow authors Josh Olds and Gregg Hart.
