Customer Reviews
Christian sci-fi that takes you to the brink of heaven - By: Daniel Jolley, 31 Dec 2005 
I imagine that many people look upon Christian fiction as some type of monolithic genre offering very littlein terms of variety or thrills. To see just how wrong such thinking is, one need look no further than the prolific author Bill Myers & his extraordinary novel Soul Tracker. What you have here is a science fiction thriller that explores the deepest of human emotions while never straying far from the central message of God's love. I must say I have not read a great deal of Christian fiction - I haven't even gotten around to the Left Behind series yet - but Bill Myers has certainly awakened my interestin a genre that by all rights should be very important to me.
Soul Tracker is an emotional exploration of a father's grief over the loss of his teenaged daughter, a death made all the more troubling because it was suicide. David Kauffman feels largely responsible for Emily's death & tears himself apart wondering what he could have & should have done differently for his little girl. Most of all, though, he desperately needs to know whether she is OK now, wherever she may be. He is not a religious man, so he approaches an expert on dying, Dr. Gita Patekar, hoping this expert can point him to someone who can communicate with the spirit of his daughter. Patekar herself is a complex & fascinating character. This Nepalese-born thanatologist had to grow up on the streets, forced to do horrible things to take care of herself & her little brother; she is now a Christian, but her faith is more analytical than emotional. Shein fact finds herself unable to love or be loved, an emotional victim of a past she wishes she could forget.
Dr. Patekar tells David that communication with the dead is impossible. Based on her analysis of the dead girl's journal, however, she finds reason to believe that Emily found Christ before she died. This possibility might have eased David's mind somewhat - if he had not started receiving communications from "Emily," including a radio dedication & an electronic phone message. Then a friend of Emily's tells him that the girl's death was strange & may not have been a suicide at all. By this point, nothing is going to stop David from trying to contact his little girl. His quest takes him to Life After Life & Dr. Patekar's employer there. The company has found a way of recording the first moments of death among a large sample of the dying & has created a virtual reality machine which allows individuals to relive an amalgamation of those dying experiences. Life After Life is not the humanitarian corporation it seems, however, & David & Gita soon find themselvesin deep & potentially fatal trouble, their only allies a street preacher & his ragtag group of skid row youths.
Myers engineers a thrilling & poignant ending to the novel, taking readers to the very brink of heaven itself. God's great Love is made manifestin the pages of this novel, & that makes it a book sure to touch the heart of anyone, especially Christians. The science fiction aspect of the plot makes for a thrilling readin & of itself, drawingin non-religious readers & introducing them,in a far from heavy-handed manner, to the central tenets of the Christian faith. If you're worried that Christian fiction might be too preachy for your tastes or just plain boring, this exciting novel should dispel many of your doubts.
