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112. How Does Fiction Help Us Love Our Enemies Even If We Must Defeat Them?
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Vivid, Ashley Bustamante
My Soul to Take, Bryan Davis
Into Shadow's Fire, Mark Castleberry
Deceived, Madisyn Carlin
Arena (2022 edition), Karen Hancock
Kurt Nickle-Dickle of Whiskers, N. J. McLagan
"In a city where debts are paid in blood, one young man will learn that everyone needs help sometimes if they want to survive." New in the Lorehaven library: A Matter of Blood, Lauren H Salisbury
Son of the Shield, Mary Schlegel
Maxine Justice, Galactic Attorney, Daniel Schwabauer
Mordizan, Alyssa Roat
Prentice Ash, Matt Barron
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The Choice, Bradley Caffee
The Obsidian Butterfly, Lani Forbes
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When The English Fall
“When The English Fall tells a bittersweet tale of community and commitment that plunges fearlessly into hard questions about the end of the world.”
—Lorehaven on May 20, 2022

Clawing Free
“Clawing Free is an absorbing tale that seamlessly joins modernity and myth.”
—Lorehaven on May 13, 2022

Vivid
“Ashley Bustamante’s Vivid paints a world built on secrets and carefully controlled color palettes.”
—Lorehaven on May 6, 2022

Prophet
“If great fiction dares explore culture wars, it must show more than perfect people smiling before a flat backdrop. Frank E. Peretti’s 1992 novel Prophet reflects this reality.”
—Lorehaven on May 4, 2022

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112. How Does Fiction Help Us Love Our Enemies Even If We Must Defeat Them?
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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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/ Library
Author:
C. S. Wachter
Ages:
adult young adult
Genres:
fantasy
BookTags:
medieval The Seven Words series
Publisher:
Indie published
“C. S. Wachter flings thematic windows open to sunlight and storms.”
—Lorehaven review, summer 2018

The Sorcerer’s Bane

Raised in darkness, called by light, a young slave boy challenges the might of a demonic sorcerer.
C. S. Wachter · fantasy for adult, young adult readers · February 2018

Know this. You are my property, my slave. My word shall be your law.

Can prophecy be thwarted? Sigmund, ancient sorcerer and wielder of heavy magic, believes he already knows the answer. After all, what chance does a weak, voiceless slave boy have against the power and might of the demon’s growing darkness? But what the sorcerer fails to realize is that the One has already claimed the boy, and placed within his spirit a glowing ember of light in a world of abuse and violence.

Seven worlds linked by mysterious wormholes called skipping lines.

Seven sealed Words of Light hidden in time.

One heir of prophecy called to reclaim the Words, and bring the Light of truth.

Book 1 of the The Seven Words series.

Review of Sponsored Review: The Sorcerer’s Bane

C. S. Wachter flings thematic windows open to sunlight and storms.
Lorehaven Review Team, summer 2018

On the grand spectrum of emotional resonance, fantasy stories often seem rather limited in scope. There’s the Old Fairy Tale—that gruesome cautionary fable. And there’s the Modern Fairy Tale—that cutesy romp through wonderland.

Fantasy can be high or low, light or dark, urban or rural.

But in a genre of comedic glades and nihilistic wastes, it’s rare to find a tale that spans the gamut as convincingly as The Sorcerer’s Bane. With this first installment in her Seven Words series, C. S. Wachter flings thematic windows open to sunlight and storms.

Seven words for seven worlds. It’s been a thousand years since deliverance from evil was prophesied to the portal-linked planets of Ochen, and now the time of the Light Bringer draws nigh.

But dark forces conspire in secret.

C. S. Wachter

C. S. Wachter self-published The Sorcerer’s Bane in 2018. She lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and has enjoyed Christian fantasy all her life.

CSWachter.com
@CSWachter

Explore this novel at the Lorehaven library.

On the evening of his sixth birthday, Rayne, crown prince of Ochen and sole scion of the blessed line, is kidnapped by Sigmund, a dispossessed sorcerer obsessed with vengeance. For ten long years the prince is enslaved and brainwashed in preparation for Sigmund’s coup de grâce: the day Rayne is assigned to assassinate his own parents and end the blessed line forever.

Ten years. Easy to write; not easy to live. And the reader is made to live it. With scant respite, the living nightmare of Rayne’s young life unfolds in anguished detail. The subjugation, manipulation, brutality, and vampiric abuse is unrelenting. Despair circles like a vulture. And yet as the darkness grows, pinpricks of light shine all the brighter. This isn’t a cynical narrative.

How can The Sorcerer’s Bane feel so dark and yet remain so bright? The secret’s in the scale. Those petty cruelties that daily crush Rayne’s spirit are matched in specificity by small kindnesses unlooked-for. Readers behold brief visions of beauty in everyday life, and simple joys like morning light, fresh snowfall, or honey on toast.

When someone is subjected to pitiless degradation, it’s so much easier to appreciate the little blessings we otherwise take for granted.

Yes, this is a tale of endurance, but also a parable of compassion. For the friends who sustain Rayne don’t know of his true nature. They cannot guess how their faithfulness in the little things—like feeding a dirty slave boy, or leading him in prayer—will shake the councils of the great and turn the knife-balanced fate of Ochen. And is it ever any different in our world?

However, at times The Sorcerer’s Bane is numbingly repetitious. Its characters pensively speak in an oddly modern way. Its spiritual world has mixed elements: both mystical platitudes and Christianity-in-all-but-name.

Yet despite all this, the story avoids a sense of preachiness, even during actual sermons. That’s because every drop of insight dispensed by wise old men or wise old scrolls is a ladle of water in a desert of pain. It can’t be sentimentality when it’s earned with blood and tears. And in the worlds of Ochen, the bringer of light must first pass through the darkness.

Best for: Adults seeking astonishment by all of life’s horror and splendor.

Discern: Pervasive sadism, emotional and physical abuse, gruesome violence and torment, brief mild language, and some suggestive humor.

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Lorehaven magazine, spring 2020

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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.