Why read a novel about angels?
Because we rock.
No, really. Why read about angels? Aren't they all harps and songs and boring things like that?
Again, we rock. We're not all about sitting on clouds and strumming our harps. If you take a look in the Bible, you find angels doing all sorts of things, not just singing. Yes, "all the morning stars sang together" in Job, but we also shouted for joy. Looking in the Bible, you'll find angels waging war, saving people's lives, feeding people in the desert, defeating entire armies of humans, calling down Heavenly fire, administering plagues and healing the sick. We experience joy and express God's wrath. At least twice angels appear to lose patience with humans who refuse to believe in the miraculous.
Consider the double-standard: if Jane were to write about Martians, would you ask me why? No? But angels? Oh, horrors. But why? Angels are fantastic creatures; much of what humans think they know is pure speculation; we have super-human powers; we face issues of Earth-shattering importance and yet have a nature close enough to human that human readers can relate to us.
But the Seven Archangels angels aren't really Biblical, are they?
How so? The Bible says angels experience emotions, that they have names, and that they can have interpersonal relationships. In fact, the book of Daniel implies these relationships can be contentuous at times.
If you're going to say, "Well, angels shouldn't tease one another or get into arguments with each other--they should be totally peaceful all the time," I have to ask you why you believe that. Job comes right out and says that God finds fault with His angels! That would imply that yeah, we're not perfect. Only God is perfect. We might come close, and we live in true harmony with God's will for us--but that doesn't mean we don't have friction.
And you're going to say, "Why? If you're in harmony with God's will, how could you guys ever disagree?"
And I'll let Uriel answer you, straight from the pages of Seven Archangels: Annihilation:
"None of us is big enough to contain and understand all of God, even with unclouded reasoning abilities. God designed us all a little differently from one another so that spread out over the whole of creation, eventually one of us amplifies each aspect of himself. But given that, doesn't it make sense that the angel of justice might argue with the angel of mercy? Or," Uriel added, winking, "that an angel embodying God's creativity might argue with God over a schedule?"
If that's not good enough for you, in Daniel, Gabriel says the guardian angel of Persia fought with him and detained him for twenty-one days. So don't believe me or Uriel if you don't want to--fine. But don't argue something is unBiblical when it's right there in the Bible.
You're talking a lot about God. Is this book full of preaching?
No. The author shudders when she picks up a novel and finds only a thinly-disguised sermon. (Ask her someday about the book she hurled against the wall! Man, that was hilarious, even if she had to waste twelve bucks and several hours of her life for that to happen.)
In fact, I just did a global search on the document, and the words "sinner" and "salvation" never appear.
The point of Seven Archangels: Annihilation is to tell an interesting story about interesting characters, which is why the bulk of the website is about the story and the characters. While the novel is written from an admittedly Christian worldview, the author did her best to make sure it is enjoyable to non-Christians: there is no preaching, no "thou shalt nots" and no altar-call at the end. The book was beta-read by non-Christian readers (and writers) who were specifically asked to look for those elements.
What does it mean that the book is being serialized?
The magazine Mindflights is going to publish one chapter a week beginning in January, 2008 and finishing in August, 2008. The novel in its entirety will be sold at the same time through the Double-Edged Publishing website, here, and at Amazon.com and BN.com.
Not to be crass--but why should I buy a book I can read for free?
That's not crass at all! In fact, we're hoping you go read the chapters for free. But once you get to chapter three, you're really not going to want to wait a couple of weeks to see what happens next, and by around chapter eleven you're going to have your fingernails buried in the seat of your chair. Do you really want to wait until August to see what happens when you can find out sooner? If so, then by all means, save your money. If not, the novel is available immediately and you can stay up all night reading it (and then drop me a line in the AM.)
If you come to the book late, the other thing to consider is that reading on a computer is tough on the eyeballs. It doesn't bother an angel so much because we can just grab the story out of the computer's memory, but human eyes have problems focusing when you stay up until two AM trying to find out what happens next. (In other words, if you cry, cry because the story wrenches your heart, not because you're having eye-strain.)
Why the title "Seven Archangels: Annihilation"? Why not just "Annihilation"?
Glad you asked. Although Annihilation stands alone, there are two other books written using the same characters and in the same "universe." (Seven Archangels: An Arrow In Flight, and Seven Archangels: Sacred Cups.) If Seven Archangels: Annihilation sells well enough, the other two may see the light of day.
