Throw-Back Friday: Black by Ted Dekker

I never had a chance to read Ted Dekker’s novel Black (2003), which is the first in his Circle Series. Dekker has a lot of presence in the Christian literary world, so I thought I should give it a read. I can recommend it to anyone who enjoys science-fiction adventure, and it’s totally clean. 

The story follows the main character, Thomas, as he is thrown between two realities by virtue of his dreams. His two waking worlds are both “real” to him, and despite protests from both he decides neither of them are merely dreams. This is evidenced by his lack of restful sleep and (spoilers) by his body manifesting the consequences of one world into the other. 

It’s a huge idea for Dekker to take on, and I think he does a good job from the 2003 context. The current “Earth” reality centers around a pandemic whose virus is a man-made construct, ready to wipe out the population of the world. It’s a bit eerie reading Dekker’s projection of what such a pandemic would look like. He had that same trust in government we all had back then, and I had a moment of wonder over how much many of us have changed in regards to seeing government as the “good guys.” 

Dekker’s alternate world is much more fantasy-fiction with a deep Edenic, pre-fall consciousness. As a theologian, I enjoyed this expression of the duality much more than the 21st-century pandemic apocalypse. Dekker plays with Biblical themes and ideas. What would a world have looked like pre-fall if man had been able to procreate before the consequences of sin? The naive paradise brings healing to Thomas on multiple levels, even teaching him how to be the kind of man needed back in his modern context. Tragedy strikes, however, and Thomas quickly falls into a situation in which both worlds depend on his leadership to survive. 

Black ends on bit of a cliffhanger, and I quickly procured book 2, Red, to continue the story. Full disclosure, I’m stuck midway through book 2. A pitfall many action-adventure writers fall into is to focus on details in a way that loses the pace and movement of the story. Dekker doesn’t do this in Black, but he is working so hard to connect the dots in Red that I’m having a hard time staying in the story. I’ve heard book 3, White, is quite good, and I might push through… or skip ahead.