Archives of Anthropos

Storyline - Books 1-5 - The Sword Bearer, Gaal the Conqueror, Tower of Geburah, The Iron Septre, Quest for the King - This series is an allegory of children from our world who are called to another, Anthropos, to fight evil and grown in character and morals. As they are in Anthropos, they learn truths, about themselves and others, and learn how to defend themselves and trust in someone who loves them.

Author - John White

Age Group - 11 and up

Positive - The series promotes morals and fighting of evil. They also teach not to give into evil when it gets tough or seems hopeless. Also, they show forgiveness when the character does wrong, even when the character thinks they can't be forgiven or back to Gaal (the figure who depicts God or Jesus), he takes them back and tells them he loves them.

Negative - The characters do some naughty things but these are used to show that they are wrong things and what happens when you give into them. The children are also shown that you can still be forgiven of the bad things they do and can turn away for them. So they are necessary for the storyline so the characters can grow. Some of the things the characters do are listen to evil and turns their back on Gaal or the Changer, one joins a witches club and tries to do spells (no spells are chanted or told in detail in the story), and depend on themselves. In book 5, one character is jealous because his brother can see this blue smoke that is leading them somewhere but he can't. He knows he shouldn't be jealous but he says he can't help it. How this is solved is that he than can see the blue smoke. (There might have been the use of the 'a' word a few times but I can't remember too well)

Writing - John White wrote a interesting allegory of the Christian faith but is not the most intreging I have ever read. Don't get me wrong, I'm still glad I read them and would love to borrow to friends but I have read better. Sometimes you know that a particular character was in this group but now have no idea where they are because the author just stopped talking about them. Also, books 1 and 2 are very well written with wonderful storylines, are well told, and captivating. But books 3 and 4 are not the best of stories or as well told as the others. Book 5 was fine but I wished the ending had been a little better. The religious truths were wonderfully put together and shown in the books.

Personal Opinion - A series I enjoy reading and would like to read again and/or borrow to a friend. It is not the best series I have ever read but it is certainly not the worse either. The character are well developed and the storylines are interesting but, sometimes, the putting together wasn't so good.  I am looking forward to the last book in the series, The Dark Lords Demise, which I have not read yet. If you can get your hands on this series, read them.

Links - There isn't a website for the series but I found some links that were interesting. This one (http://www.lamplighterpublishing.com/prodinfo.asp?number=AOA) has information about each book and this one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archives_of_Anthropos) is wikipedia information.