Book Review by Terry James

The Creator of all things has said that whatever man has imagined , that he can do (Gen 11:6). Although the context of that declaration is one in which the Creator had to stop man from building the tower that was meant to usurp the Throne of god, the God-Given creative minds of mankind have informed, instructed, and in the case of K.M. Paradice’s novel,  The Chronicles of the Sons of None, entertained us for millennia. Reading this author’s work illustrates in dynamic fashion that imagination was meant to be used for good rather than for evil.

The Chronicles of the Sons of None is, in my estimation, a high fantasy novel worthy in the tradition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.

Occasionally, rarely, and perhaps only once in a blue moon, some lone soul somewhere on the earth experiences a life-changing epiphany that alters the course of the entire human race. Such is the occasion when Connor Bridges, a recent photography school graduate, has his first encounter with the immortal Joshua.

This is the story of seven adopted siblings, taught by their parents to walk in the ways of God, who find Their strikingly ordinary lives are abruptly and irrevocably altered when they discover their father’s well-kept secret that as a young man he had been contacted by an immortal, Joshua, who prophesied their adoption into the Bridges family before they were born. Their lives are predestined from the foundations of the earth, at least one of them called to be the Keeper of the key, that key which unlocks the best-kept secret since the earth’s creation. And exactly what secret does the elusive key unlock?

Follow Connor’s adventures from the pier at Tybee Island, Georgia, to an ancient Roman villa in Jerusalem, to the warm winter sunshine of South Florida, and to the legendary island nation of Atlantis as he and the key are relentlessly pursued for the interests of both good and evil.  Will Connor fulfill his destiny?

I find the following promotional text about this terrific fantasy work to be accurately descriptive.

“Discover a saga of human and immortal lives intricately intertwined as together they battle Romulus, a never-aging human, once righteous but now a declared enemy of all that is holy, who seeks to dethrone the Almighty Himself. In this heart-pounding odyssey where ageless beings, guardians of the throne of God, take on the form of the sons of Adam, the line separating dreams from reality often blurs as this action-packed tale moves seamlessly between the spirit world and terra firma… You will be thrilled with the description of heaven’s courts where loved ones lost from the shores of earth are eagerly about their Father’s business in eternity. “

K.M. Paradice has indeed produced a  story that evokes in the reader’s imagination, the  highest, most noble qualities of the Creator’s majestic Character as He deals with His Creation.

Kudos to the craftsman of this modern day venture into the realm that melds earthy reality with  the supernatural.

The reader is in for a treat when reading what well might become a tale of classic proportion.

Book Review by Terry James

Desert storm, the first Gulf War, grabbed the attention of the world’s diplomatic elite and stirred the anxieties and fears of much of earth’s inhabitants. The geographical region that comprised ancient Babylon was thrust thunderously, in lightning-like fashion, into the spotlight of end-times thinking.

Since that time, Bible prophecy seems to scroll across our news headlines in an astonishing, minute-by-minute unfolding of issues, events, and geopolitical conditions that set the stage for Christ’s second coming. The essence of all the wickedness of the world seems to have been supernaturally lifted from across the globe to which it has been scattered, and been flown back to and concentrated at the earthly fountainhead of evil—Babylon. Modern-day Iraq continues to be as much a worry to the international community and to the rest of the world as does that most prophetic nation of all—Israel. Zechariah, chapter 5, seems to be fulfilling in this generation.

Babylon—it is the city and nation mentioned second only to Israel and Jerusalem in the Bible. Nebuchadnezzar is the earthly king of importance in the Old Testament second only to King David and perhaps to David’s son, Solomon. This great king’s kingdom was given end-of-days significance like no other. King Nebuchadnezzar was the earthly potentate who serves as the apex of all earthly kingdoms, according to the prophecy given Daniel the prophet.

Daniel both told details of and  interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s prophetic dream, in which the king had a night-vision of a gigantic, metallic, man-image. When Daniel had finished detailing the dream, he said, in beginning the interpretation: “This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold” (Daniel 2: 36-38).

All of the world-dominating kingdoms that have ruled in history past are encapsulated in this prophetic dream-vision of the metallic man-image, beginning with the “head of gold”—King Nebuchadnezzar and his rulership. Much more astounding, however, is the fact that the final kingdom—the regime of the much-speculated-over beast, the Antichrist—is to be found lurking just ahead in the feet of Nebuchadnezzar’s prophetic vision. You and I are presently a part of the forming of the last of this prophetic man-image.

And this is where Dr. Joseph Chambers speaks with unique creative skill to this generation about things involving that ancient prophecy. He orchestrates a literary work that reads like history surging powerfully through the annals of time, making the learning about where we stand on God’s prophetic timeline enthrallingly entertaining. It is a novel  that cannot be classified as fiction. It occupies a category all its own—one I prefer to call “faction.”

The author weaves intrigues and romance, as well as the brutish nature of the times, into a story about the king and his  princess, Amytis, who becomes his queen.

Nebuchadnezzar: Head of Gold is  a magnificent love story, with, as example of that fact, one of the seven great wonders of the ancient world—the Hanging Gardens of Babylon—being constructed just for the king’s wife. But it is Chambers’ skillful finessing of ancient biblical history that is all-important in bringing the reader an epiphany-producing understanding of where troubling although exciting events of today in that area of the Euphrates will culminate in the consummation of human history and the return of Jesus Christ, the King of all kings.