June 2007

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AR Horvath's Birth Pangs Spero book 2 tolkien potter lewis AR Horvath's Fidelis Book 1 One of Birth Pangs Series Role Playing Game RPG Stage of Game After the Desolations

Read an Excerpt of Spero

"Spero is an imaginative fantasy that subtly instructs, entertains, and intellectually provokes the reader. It is fascinating reading. I'm definitely hooked on this series." Jean Heimann at Catholic Fire.

"...intelligent as well as inspiring..." Terry Barga at whattodoabout.com.

Please visit www.birthpangs.com/cart to buy Spero

(and Fidelis) from the author or to buy from Amazon.com

Fidelis, my first book, is Latin for faithfulness. The second book, Spero, is Latin for hope. Spero is an exploration of what hope is and why we need it. It is an exploration of what things are good to put our hope in and what things are bad to put our hope in. In the fictionalized America of the future portrayed in the Birth Pangs series, all of the things that people have traditionally put their hope in have been brought low. There are no government agencies, no schools, and not even churches. In the face of daily perils, people have to figure out how where they are going to place their hope.

It is interesting to me that the political candidate running on 'hope' is also running on 'change.' I think this illustrates the root of the problem. The best place to put your 'hope' is where it won't shift beneath your feet. Also, we need to be clear about what things we hope to overcome. Nearly all of our systems and institutions are geared to address certain day to day realities that are important but not, I'm afraid, ultimate. There is one problem that surpasses them all: death.

Spero is about people- even good people- putting their hope in lesser means to tackle lesser problems and being confronted with the consequences of that approach. Spero is about being confronted with our chief problem and challenged to consider what possible solutions there might be to that problem... and whether any of these are within our control, or obtainable by our own effort.

Status of Book 2

June 12, 2007 in Blog, General | No comments

There is quite of stuff going on right now in the world of A.R. Horvath.  To begin with, we recently had a baby girl.  That’s great, but she’s got Spina Bifida.  So, it has been a drain on time and resources traveling to hospitals and what not.  Along with that, we’ve been turning our 1 bedroom house into a 4 bedroom house.  (We have four kids)  Only in the last week have I got back into the house and only yesterday did I get the new office online.  I still have a great many projects around the house before I can settle in to start up book 2.  (Birth Pangs will be 7 books total, if you didn’t know).

That all said, much of book 2 is done- inside my head.  That’s the way it went down with book 1 as well.  It went through my brain for weeks and weeks and then I finally got the opportunity to sit down and write and it all just spills out.  This is in fact why I do have the first 20 pages or so of book 2 already done.  It was in my head and driving me NUTS so I had to sit down and write it.  It’s killing me not to write the rest but I simply must get these projects done.

I do have a big Birth Pangs related event coming up.  I will be at Cornerstone Music festival (here:  http://cornerstonefestival.com/ ) promoting my book as well as some of the Christian ministry activities that I am involved in.  It’s not the sort of thing that someone just ‘happens’ to be in town for, so despite the fact that there will be close to 40,000 folks running around, it’s not the kind of thing that a myspacer is likely to wander into.  That said, if you ARE a c-stoner, feel free to look me up among the hundreds of booths!

C-stone will be from June 25th to July 1st ish.  It is in July that I plan on sitting down to write book 2 and hope to be done by November… if I succeed, be looking for a Spring release!  Kudos to anyone that can guess the name of book 2… you should be able to figure it out from hints and details in the book.

Anyone that has already read book 1 is welcome to read the first pages of book 2.  Just let me know- authorATbirthpangs.com.