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A review by nathan_porrata
White: The Great Pursuit by Ted Dekker
adventurous
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Back when I was a teenager, this trilogy of books was one of my favorites. It was one of the very first book series I read, and it helped make me into the lifelong reader I've become. It has an excellent premise and some great ideas, and since I've not read it since I was young, I wanted to revisit the world and see if it held up.
It didn't.
Dekker is a thriller writer. He writes short, fast paced books that are short on character and long on action. That's great for most of his books. But this trilogy is only half thriller. The only half is an allegorical fantasy series much like Narnia, but written for adults, not children. When I was a teen, the only fantasy I'd ever read was Lord of the Rings. Now that I'm an adult, I've read a ton more fantasy, and I'm in a better position to say that Dekkers fantasy writing sucks. He wants to build this fictional world and write it like a thriller, but a thriller doesn't need to world build. Thrillers are set in the real world, so the author need not spend time describing the world. But when your setting is an alien world with little in common with our own, yeah, it's important to spend the necessary time to flesh it out into something real. Dekker doesn't ever take the time to do that, and so it's shallow.
The allegory is extremely forced and heavy handed. But especially in the third entry. The romance between Hunter and Chalese is cringe inducing and never feels real. The world is never properly described. The characters actions are contrived. The villain's are cartoonish. Meanwhile the real world plot line, that's actually halfway decent, is ignored for huge portions of the book to focus on the silly otherworld romance.
I wrote after Red that Dekker really needed to make these books longer, and I stand by that. But he should have made RED longer, and cut out all the nonsense from White entirely.
It didn't.
Dekker is a thriller writer. He writes short, fast paced books that are short on character and long on action. That's great for most of his books. But this trilogy is only half thriller. The only half is an allegorical fantasy series much like Narnia, but written for adults, not children. When I was a teen, the only fantasy I'd ever read was Lord of the Rings. Now that I'm an adult, I've read a ton more fantasy, and I'm in a better position to say that Dekkers fantasy writing sucks. He wants to build this fictional world and write it like a thriller, but a thriller doesn't need to world build. Thrillers are set in the real world, so the author need not spend time describing the world. But when your setting is an alien world with little in common with our own, yeah, it's important to spend the necessary time to flesh it out into something real. Dekker doesn't ever take the time to do that, and so it's shallow.
The allegory is extremely forced and heavy handed. But especially in the third entry. The romance between Hunter and Chalese is cringe inducing and never feels real. The world is never properly described. The characters actions are contrived. The villain's are cartoonish. Meanwhile the real world plot line, that's actually halfway decent, is ignored for huge portions of the book to focus on the silly otherworld romance.
I wrote after Red that Dekker really needed to make these books longer, and I stand by that. But he should have made RED longer, and cut out all the nonsense from White entirely.