Book Review

"Binding of the Blade"

About 2005, I discovered a fantasy series known as “Binding of the Blade” by a Christian teacher named L.B. Graham. Over the past three years, he has released the third, fourth, and, more recently, the fifth books. Graham’s books are most certainly as Christian as they are advertised to be. There is a sense of Christian morals, of Christian hope, and of the dependence that we have upon our Savior as we go through our everyday lives. The series is centered around an event that happened several centuries earlier: when the Satan character tempted a man to fall, and he did fall, bringing down the rest of the human race down with him. Despite this grave failure, there is hope. Allfather, the lord and creator of the fantasy world, promised that one day a boy would come and that his sacrifice would reverse what happened centuries ago. The series focuses on the fulfillment of that promise, which is gradually fulfilled and completed in an excellent ending in the fifth book All My Holy Mountain. The series has several Christian allegories, plenty of big battles, a couple of romances, and lots of travels, discussions, and the like. There are memorable characters like the faithful tiger Koshti, the sharp-tongued Mindarin, and the blind prophet Valzaan. I highly recommend the series to Christian teens as it is an easy read and is deeper in content than most literature today. And, you readers will be lucky because you don’t have to wait a whole year for the next book. =)