The Resurrected Ones

When I saw this book listed on Thomas Nelson's Booksneeze site, I thought it sounded interesting--a book focusing on characters who came out of their graves after Jesus's resurrection. However, the premise wasn't used to its full positional. 

The author seems to be caught between fiction and non-fiction, especially in the latter chapters, where lectures about wind patterns interrupt the narrator's story.  The characters lack fullness. All three of the main characters fall into common stereotypes and never develop beyond their limited role. Their brief interactions are equally cliche--a Puritan witch hunt, a strange northern tribe, and a truly bizarre encounter with Martin Luther which may or may not have a basis in fact.

On a literary level, the sentences lack variety. Many paragraphs have five or six sentences that end in an exclamation point. Some of the scenery descriptions are beautiful, but they’re sometimes used unnecessarily, and the early chapters are almost entirely flashbacks.

The fictional flaws are compounded by theological flaws. The strange hybrid of genres makes it difficult for readers to tell which elements are orthodoxy theology and which are imaginative additions. The timeline of events between Jesus’s resurrection and ascension seems lengthened, with persecution of believers before the ascension.