The Prophet Motive, by John Bimson, is fundamentally about the narrow divide between understanding and misunderstanding. This swings from the minor and often hilarious slips which constantly hover in the background of English-American conversation, right through to the life- and world-threatening consequences of extremist interpretation of biblical prophecy.

The book was originally written with an expectation that the year 2000 would see an outbreak of millennial doomsdayism. As things turned out, this did not happen on a large scale, and even the excitement about the year 2012 – complete with feature film – was rather understated. However, The Prophet Motive can still be read as an echo of contemporary thought and preoccupation. Like so many former prophets, you just have to move the dates…

The book is undeniably funny, though with a very dry British sense of humour that some people may not click with. If you read it, be prepared to find serious subjects tackled in an offbeat way. The scenes towards the end, with multi-way puns on the word “seal” are something of a tour de force, and show up the military habit of thought as just as rigid and fundamentalist as the extreme religious group they confront. Conversely, if you cannot find humour and a sense of fun in tackling biblical prophecy, fringe views on the end of the world, middle eastern relationships, and archaeology, then this book is not for you. The position is summed up in the closing words, “Laughter… fosters self-critical detachment and has the power to defanaticise. I believe it is no coincidence that the Essenes of Qumran imposed penalties on members who giggled.”

The primary technical vehicle for the plot is the investigation of the history of Israel in the couple of centuries before and after the time of Jesus. It is handled with skill and accuracy, including the state of Dead Sea Scroll research up to the time of writing the book (the late 1990s). The wide variety of motives that different people and groups have for looking at this period is captured, together with the whole spectrum of ability levels and preconceptions.

The book is very much plot driven, and only one or two of the characters change to any real degree from start to end. I did feel that the very last episode (Project Peter, Phase 2) was rather too easily dismissed as a non-event in favour of the climax of the personal quests of the two main characters. I suspect that Phase 2 was only really brought in for two reasons. First it takes the triumphal edge off the successful struggle against Phase 1. Secondly it allows a very cool snippet of humour turning the tables on the millenarianism that dominates the book. On balance, though, a potentially much more serious threat is casually discarded in a few words.

Sadly The Prophet Motive is currently out of print owing to the demise of the small press who took the project on, and at the time of printing no thought was given to electronic publication. It is to be hoped that this might change with the revolution in publishing which has happened in the last few years. Technically the book has been well proof-read and well edited, and I think it has good mileage in it still.

I really enjoyed this book, and think it would be accessible to a general audience. Certainly it helps already to know something about the areas tackled – the interpretation of prophecy, the nature of archaeological work and evidence, and so on. However, there are enough explanations along the way that if you did not know much about (say) the Dead Sea Scrolls beforehand, you will get to know what you need.

For me this was a four star book. I don’t often read fiction set in the present day, nor stories that are quite so plot-focused. So for me personally, the book missed a few elements which I look for. However, I would certainly recommend it as an exciting and entertaining read, and am very glad to have come across it. I suspect that people who are more familiar with this genre might rate it with five stars.

Finally, a disclaimer – John was my PhD supervisor a few years ago when I was working on Triumphal Accounts in Hebrew and Egyptian. However, that was long enough ago, and on a sufficiently different area of biblical and related studies, that I don’t feel this has compromised my objectivity at all.

Today’s blog is a book review, but unusually for me of a work by a long-dead author, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1623-1673). She published The Blazing World back in 1666, the same time that John Bunyan was serving a prison sentence for his beliefs and Samuel Pepys was writing about the Great Fire of London. I came across it in a list of seminal female science fiction writers which circulated on Google+. Nowadays it is available on kindle at a very reasonable price, and no doubt elsewhere as well, a fact that might well intrigue and amuse Margaret.

As I go on to say in the review, the book is not for readers who crave a fast-paced plot with regular cliff-hangers. Its concerns are very different from those of many modern authors. But as a window into the forward-thinking perspective of an older time, and as a precursor to much modern writing, it deserves better exposure. Happily, it is taught as part of some English literature university courses here in the UK, and available electronically to an interested modern reader. Long may this situation last!

==============The review===========

I first heard about Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World through a friend on Google+ and was intrigued. A female science fiction writer from the time of the Plague and the Great Fire of London? Since the kindle version is so extraordinarily cheap I had to follow this through, and am very glad that I did.

First though, let me say that not all readers will enjoy this book. It is, naturally enough, written in an older form of English in which many words do not have quite the same sense as today. The most obvious example is “artificial“. Today, if we see “artificial” in contrast to “natural” we tend to think that using “artificial” suggests that the thing is lacking in some way, clunky in comparison with the natural. But in the 17th century, it was used to indicate that something has been made by art, or artifice if you like, and so reveals something of ingenuity or creativity, as opposed to a raw product. A precious stone just out of the ground would be natural; the polished and shaped gem would be artificial.

Also, Margaret had no interest in fulfilling the plot expectations of some modern critics. Many things do happen, and I found the overall imaginative sweep gripping, but you won’t find a visceral cliff-hanger every few pages. Personally I liked this and it was a refreshing change from some of the formulaic modern material one encounters.

Finally, Margaret is just as interested – perhaps more so – in the philosophical shape of her world as the material one. There are descriptions of the physical layout of the Blazing World and how it might be accessed from our own. But there are also long sections in which one of the main female characters engages in intellectual debate with some of that world’s schools and learned institutions. Some of these are sympathetically presented, others plainly satirical, though you would have to know more than I about the intellectual landscape of her time to really appreciate the satire. It’s a bit like reading parts of Dante and trying to puzzle of why a particular person is being lampooned.

All in all, some modern readers would become impatient and frustrated with the book. For those who persevere with it, the gentle charm of the book draws you in. There is an inter-planetary war, and the invention of devices like submarines and torpedoes, but the real interest is in the intimacy of human contact, and the ultimate superiority of the world of the imagination over the world of external things. Particularly striking examples are “Why should you desire to be Empress of a Material World… when as by creating a World within yourself, you may enjoy … as much pleasure and delight as a World can afford you“, and again “if any should like the World I have made.and be willing to be my Subjects, they may imagine themselves such… but if they cannot endure to be Subjects, they may create Worlds of their own“. This theme increasingly comes to drive the narrative.

I became convinced as I read that modern authors such as Arthur C. Clarke have been influenced by The Blazing World. I was particularly reminded of the passage from 2001: “So almost certainly there is enough land in the sky to give every member of the human species, back to the first ape-man, his own private, world-sized heaven–or hell” – though in that case Clarke was thinking purely concretely in terms of stars in our galaxy, rather than imaginatively.

So five stars from me, along with a sincere wish that in whatever form Margaret might yet survive, she is able to receive modern appreciation of her work. This tale is not for everyone, certainly not for those who are impatient for a high-octane or erotically-charged plot, but personally I thoroughly enjoyed meeting this work and its author.