The self-proclaimed "ordinary fellow", Obert Skye, has written the first installment in a promising new young adult fantasy series surrounding his young hero, Leven Thumps. Leven is a fourteen-year-old orphan who lives with his "mother's half-sister," who despises him, in Burnt Culvert, Oklahoma. Magical beings from "Foo," the place where all the dreams and hope of the world are kept, are watching over Leven for the time when he must fulfill his "fate" to save this unseen world of Foo. The only hope for Foo, and for mankind, is to destroy the gateway accidentally created between the two worlds by Leven's grandfather. Otherwise, the evil Sabine and his minions will be able to control both the real world and Foo, and the hope of mankind will die.

As Leven begins to learn about his "fate" to save the world, he's joined on his journey by a 12-inch furry sidekick named Clover, a teenage girl named Winter, and a displaced king, Geth, in the form of a toothpick. This eclectic group battles the evil Sabine's doubt-producing plots and monsters in a race around the world (without money or transportation) to destroy the gateway to Foo before it's too late.

This is the first effort of Shadow Mountain (and perhaps any affiliation of Deseret Book) that I am aware of to publish a fantasy novel. While this is a valiant effort, and I'd like to see more, Skye borrows many things from other fantasy series for Leven Thumps that have been successful, but seem a little cliched here. For example, like Lemony Snickett has done in his A Series of Unfortunate Events books, Skye is very secretive concerning his own personal background. On the book jacket it states regarding Skye, "Born a number of years ago in a town just about the size of the one you are living in, Obert Skye is an ordinary fellow with an extraordinary story to tell." And, similar to the Narnia books, Leven Thumps, to the LDS reader, is overtly metaphorical. It very well may be that Shadow Mountain wants to keep Obert Skye's background a secret so that non-LDS readers will not be put off by Skye's LDS background. Nevertheless, without ever saying so, Leven Thumps is clearly a book "by, for, and about Mormons."

Consider the exchange between the evil Sabine [Satan] and Leven:

"Think of it, Leven. With Foo here, there will be nothing you can't do."

"That's impossible," Leven said. "You'll destroy everything."

"There is no impossible," Sabine snapped. "Geth [Christ] and his self-righteous belief," he scoffed. "The dreams of man are not my concern. If you destroy that gateway, Leven, you will be destroying the possibility of perfect lives for everyone. Geth doesn't want you to know this. Geth wants Foo just as it is, so that he can rule over everyone." . . .

"Think of it," Sabine twitched. "With Foo here, you will have it all. Geth wants to trap you, cut you off."

I wouldn't consider this exchange particularly subtle in describing the LDS doctrine of the plan of salvation. This is just one of many examples in the book that points to my belief that Obert Skye is using fantasy as a metaphor for LDS beliefs. However, the non-LDS community probably will not know enough to catch these overt references, and I didn't find that it distracted from the story.

While I very much enjoyed the creativity of Skye in his monsters, and even in his "fate" in resolving various problems, I found the end of the book to be somewhat anti-climatic and odd. Perhaps Skye wasn't intending to end a book at that spot when he started the series and an editor wanted to break the series up into several books. I'm certainly willing to give Skye and Shadow Mountain the benefit of the doubt - particularly on their first fantasy book. This is a book that I and my children (10-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl who is a good reader) liked very much. I would highly recommend it and want to see more of what Shadow Mountain can do in the years to come.

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Dave Hansen
November 14, 2005