Andrew Peterson’s On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

Do you want to read a thrilling novel about the conflict for the fate of the world between the Fangs of Dang (snake-men, seed of the serpent) and the seed of the woman (little children who have lost their father and have a strong, noble mother)? Let me commend to you Andrew Peterson’s On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness.

The other night my sweet wife was at book club and the bed-time routine was my responsibility. We got to reading this one and had a hard time stopping! The boys finally got to bed, and I couldn’t resist finishing the book. The music in the pages is full, and there are moments when the minor keys would overcome the majors, only to have the melody of beauty, truth, and goodness resurface and triumph. O the gladness of the flames of hope rising out of the embers and ashes to burn brightly again! (As if from a great distance, the tune of AP’s song, “In the Night, My Hope Lives On” wafts faintly through the leaves).

Explaining why he plays the dark keys and not just the white ones in his stories, Peterson states:

“Sometimes it is necessary to paint the sky black in order to show how beautiful is the prick of light. Gather all the wickedness in the universe into its loudest shriek and God hears it as a squeak at best.”

This is the first book in The Wingfeather Saga, which having read I promptly bought the second volume and am eager to see the third appear.

Check out the Series Website, where there are illustrations, an encyclopedia, maps, and more.

Peterson celebrates art, music, and literature, and puts mathematics in its proper place. There are hints of a wider back story, a framing meta-narrative along the lines of what the Silmarillion provides for The Lord of the Rings. I’m eager to see how these hints, some of which are embedded in lovely poetry, get teased out.

Thank God for Andrew Peterson, in whose music and literature we hear echoes of the beauty just around the bend. Those lovely traces of something better call us to the world for which we were made–they summon us to live the nobility and virtue worthy of the high call placed on those made in the image and likeness of the one true and living God.