Rabbit Legacy by Ellen C. Maze
(TreasureLine Publishing, 2011)
Just when you thought it was safe to take the garlic down from your windows…
Of course, if you’ve read the first book of Ellen C. Maze’s Christianized vampire trilogy, Chasing Beth Rider, you already know that garlic won’t do any good against these bloodsuckers. Nevertheless, by the time that story was finished, it seemed the vampires were pretty much finished, too. But no–in Rabbit Legacy they’re back, and they’re looking for revenge.
The good news is that the sequel has built on the first book’s strengths. It has more depth of feeling, more insight into character, and more boldly faces hard questions of faith and theology. It is in every way a better book.
Can the vampire be saved?
Again, we aren’t dealing with “real vampires” in the Bela Lugosi sense of the word, but rather with a cryptic race called “Rakum.” We learned in Book One that the Rakum originated with a demon and have lived in secrecy among the human race for thousands of years. Maze’s boldness in throwing out all the vampire story conventions has allowed her to do interesting things with plot and character development.
Now, we don’t want to spoil everything for readers who intend to read these books but haven’t yet done so. But I think I can get away with saying that these stories are parables about redemption. Can someone who’s been feeding on human blood, and committing all sorts of fiendish crimes for literally hundreds of years, be saved by Jesus Christ?
If you’re a Christian, you already know the answer to that question. But to find out how such a person can be redeemed, and what that redemption looks like, you’ll have to read the books. I cannot in good conscience give the game away.
Count Yorga, come back, all is forgiven
It’s a dreary business to go into a bookstore and see the array of vampire novels, representing I don’t know how many different series and their authors. They seem to be pitched mostly at adolescent girls, as a kind of pornography that the publisher can get away with. Instead of being carrion that walks and talks, these vampires are invariably “sexy”–oh, my aching back!–and the damsels who get their blood sucked by them get to be young and beautiful forever, and have all sorts of cool adventures… Sorry, I just can’t go on with this. If these books are not the bedpan of popular literature, I don’t know what is.
Ellen Maze’s stories, written in the service of Our Lord, are not a bit like those others. They do contain a bit more gore and graphic violence for my personal taste–but then she isn’t writing about a church social, is she? Given the situation, a certain amount of mayhem is unavoidable.
Where she excels–and this is no small achievement–is in making her stories about something important. In fact, they revolve around the most important subjects we know of: our relationships with God and with each other. On these two hang all the law and the prophets.
To me, everything seemed to come a little too easily to the characters in the first book. We cannot say that about Rabbit Legacy. One scene in particular stands out: a quiet scene between the heroine, Beth Rider, and Marcy, a middle-aged woman who has spent most of her life loving an ageless Rakum and now wonders what’s to become of her. As the two women confronted these issues and tried to understand each other, as Marcy reached out to God but didn’t know how, I found myself very strongly moved. It stirs me again, just to write about it.
You won’t find anything like that in those other vampire books. And its presence in Legacy suggests that the third book in the series will be even better.
Wow! You have blown me away again, Lee. I just thank God that you stumbled upon my work. Now I must share this everywhere! Hugs and blessings heaped on you and your ministry, Ellen C. Maze
Just so you know, folks, I don’t owe Ellen money or anything. I’m not kidding about her book–it’s as good as I said it is.
Am glad to see you concur with my assessment. Ellen is a great writer and thinker.
Forrest
It strikes me as an adaptation of the fallen angels/nephilim story.
I read it before I was exposed to a lot of the fanciful, para-Biblical nephilim stuff that a certain author’s books made so intolerable to me.
The biggest problem with understanding the nephilim is that there’s not much information to go on. It is brought up in Genesis and I’m certain that there’s something to it, or it wouldn’t appear in bible canon. However, a great deal of what is written on the subject comes from apocryphal sources, one of which, The Book of Enoch, is referred to in scripture. But that doesn’t make it scripture.
I have all sorts of books and DVDs that provide some useful information, but that doesn’t mean that I agree with everything said therein nor do I consider it completely true. I’ve always been fascinated by the expansion of the Universe and the discovery of this, as told by Carl Sagan, makes for interesting reading. This does not, however, mean that I agree with Sagan’s views on planetary and stellar evolution. I absolutely do not.
Sources, such as the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees, in my opinion, should be taken with a grain of salt. There may be a degree of truth to them, just as there are truths in Sagan’s Cosmos, but books such as Enoch and Jubilees were not included in bible canon for good reason. If God saw fit to inspire the Bible and to preserve these texts, I would expect that His spirit was involved in the process which collected these various writings into one collection, known as bible cannon.
So, some of the more audacious claims regarding the nephilim that have made the rounds strike me as highly questionable. Genesis only states that “These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown”. There is the biblical example of King Og, who had an unusually large bed, but I can’t use that as the basis for believing in 30′ giants.
The other aspect of the story, that these were the offspring of demons (materialized fallen angels) is at least as interesting as any discussion of physical stature. If indeed, Genesis is describing spirit creatures that materialized and fathered children, the greatest implications are not about the size of these offspring, but about the moral dilemma such a thing would cause.
Quite recently, I heard a discussion between two religious leaders regarding the Book of Enoch and other apocryphal sources. While they urged caution and reminded the listener that these should not be given the weight of scripture, the rest of their discussion seemed informed by the book of Enoch. My personal choice, after some deliberation, is to stick to canonized scripture.
Lee — you honored me greatly with this post, and thank you HUGELY for showing it to me again. Seeing it now that (finally) Book 3 is heading out has renewed my encouragement and joy that what I’m trying to share really is REDEMPTION. Book 3 is called RABBIT REDEMPTION and God-willing, we shall save as many as we can.
God has sent me encouragers along the way because this topic is touchy, but it really is spiritual warfare at the utmost.
NEPHILIM – that comment is bang-on. The Scriptures are not wordy on this topic, and studying the history, language, and culture surrounding these verses will still produce varying interpretations. I was playing with this Nephilim idea when I sent the demon down to start the Rakum race.
You saw it in Book One, when the angel of God, Emunah (means “faithfulness” in Heb) tells Beth Rider– “…At the dawn of mankind, the Four fell and were sent to earth…” — And I gave them Hebrew names that would work for my plot along the way. For example, the prince demon of lust created the Rakum race (hehehe).
“Zahdone, prince of pride and arrogance.
Rah-keel, prince of false witness and gossip.
Zara, prince of every sickness, affliction and trouble.
And Ta’avah, prince of covetousness, lust and murder…”
Wait till you see how these evil princes rear their heads for the finale.
You have blessed me greatly with your feedback!
Hugs–ellen