truth

Continuing on with the interview:

Why pick a post-nuclear war setting to explore these themes:  first, the theme of human virtue and fortitude, and, second, the theme of ultimate truth?

Interestingly, what I wanted to do in the book decided this setting.  I didn’t start out wanting to have a Mad Max landscape.  A Mad Max landscape was the natural outgrowth of some of the purposes of the book.  What I wanted to get at is a point where everything is stripped away leaving only individual people striving on their own, free from the structures of government, church, and civilization.  There aren’t many plausible scenarios that can give you that and one of the things I wanted to remain is plausible.  I know that there are fantastic elements to the book… but under my argument (slowly revealed over all the books), is that everything in the books can actually be true in our own world.  So, how do we get from the world we are in now to a world in which every man has to fend for themselves, rebuilding what they believe and how they think free from peer influence?  A post-apocalyptic setting is required, unless I want to have a completely fantastic Perelandra world.

Now, I wanted that setting to help lay out virtue and fortitude and even ultimate truth because I believe we take the crutches of society for granted.  I am not saying that society’s influence is bad or improper, only that we shouldn’t take it for granted.  We like to think of ourselves as good and righteous and brave people, but really, what would we be like if there was no policeman to think about or no armies to concern ourselves with?  I think we need those curbs, but my point is that we shouldn’t fool ourselves about ourselves.  We may only be civil because it is imposed on us.  But what if those curbs weren’t in place?

If the curbs weren’t in place, we’d really find out the robustness of our virtues.  We’d find out if we’d behave if there was no policeman to tell us to do so.  We’d find out if we were brave when confronted with an injustice or a dastardly deed we had no policeman to call, but had to do something ourselves.

This ties in now with the question of ultimate truth.  You don’t have anyone telling you what is right or true anymore, yet each and every one of us has an innate sense that there are right or true things, though we grasp at them and nearly always fail to meet our own standards, let alone the standards of others (think CS Lewis’s Mere Christianity, the first chapter).  What are you going to do?  You can’t rely on authorities- authorities are gone.

In the Birth Pangs world, this is the real situation and the people struggle endlessly with them. But I do not think that our situation is much different.  We still have to answer the same questions, only now we might say there are too many authorities, too many voices telling us what is true and real.  Our problem is sorting them out and that basically requires the same process and methodology as starting over from ‘scratch.’

I should say that I had wished to make a clean slate in the Birth Pangs world, with literally everything stripped away, but found that I couldn’t.  The same principles I explore are the ones that demand that certain realities persist.  There are still lingering tensions from past hates, for example.  The UN has come in and taken away all of the guns, and a gunless world truly gives us an opportunity to be courageous and test our mettle, but I couldn’t realistically get rid of them all.  That meant an on-going discussion about ‘gun rights’ which couldn’t be avoided.  There are various political movements that surface that have their origins in our own times, and I couldn’t realistically suggest that they were completely gone, either.  What to do about them forms a backdrop to the series.

Still, the main objective I think was reached:  people found out what they were made of without the boundaries and crutches of ‘civilized’ society and likewise flail about for ideas on determining the source and nature of real truth.

Book 2 hit 96,000 words last night and I expect to be at about 105,000 by the end of this week. After that I expect just another 40,000 or so. I think it is clear that I won’t be able to have the next book out until Christmas 2008.

Q4. Another major theme that creeps in the background is the role of truth, and how you have an average guy like Fides who could care less abut the ultimate truths and meta-narratives of history constantly having his conscience nagged by these demons, these demons of truth and history. This begins with his being given a Bible and develops with his relationship with Fermion, a mysterious traveler who seems to know a thing or two about truth. Can you speak a little to this overarching theme?

Gladly. From a big picture point of view I think we all tend to begin our investigation into truth against a backdrop of already assuming certain things are true. For example, we think that it is true that we even exist. We take it for granted. We take for granted that our senses don’t deceive us and that our brain accurately interprets the sense data and that our mind processes objective reality. Based on these assumptions we turn our attention to areas of inquiry such as religion, politics, philosophy, ethics, science, etc.

There is a serious flaw in this approach if we’re really trying to get to the whole bottom of things and that flaw is that our explanations for reality also have to explain the things I listed above. You can’t pick and choose what you want to explain. We find that we instinctively take much of what we think we know based on the authority of others. That is not necessarily an insult. Let’s face it, we only have our own narrow experience of reality and to fill out the broader picture we’ll need to hear about other people’s experience of reality- providing those people really exist too, of course. But taking assertions of fact about reality on authority exposes us to other people’s presumptions and things they take for granted, and of course they only have a narrow experience of reality, too.

So what is the average person to do? Provided he cares, that is, and Fides initially doesn’t care. But going against the grain of reality can start to hurt after a time, so eventually Fides has to address the issues. What can he do? The most important thing is not to prejudge things.

If we take an issue like the existence of God, it is easy to find atheists running around talking as though we were obliged to take a naturalistic view of things by default, and any assertion about the existence of God has to be backed up by extraordinary evidence, while any naturalistic explanation is preferable, even with no evidence in sight at all. Now, there is no way anyone can know such a thing without first knowing that there isn’t a God or that if there is one, he’s indifferent to us. You can’t prove this assumption, you can’t verify it, it is axiomatic. But if you’re starting over from scratch- that is, you’re beginning your investigation into reality with fresh eyes, then you know you can’t start with such axioms. Certainly if you have such an axiom it is hardly worth saying that you don’t believe in God and think the evidence for God to be weak. Of course you’d say that. Your axiom forces you to.

Now, the existence of God is certainly something that Fides is exploring but that is not the only thing he is exploring. For example, he is witness to realities such as honor, bravery, courage, beauty, love, and other intangibles. His account of reality has got to respect these things as realities requiring as much explanation as an apple falling to the ground. We explain an apple falling by invoking gravity. How do we explain gravity? See where that is going?

In this context, then, the importance of history in uncovering truth rather than relying on something like the scientific method alone, which is largely constrained to this present moment, is laid bare. For if you must rely on authorities to some extent and other people’s experiences of reality to inform your own experience of reality, then it is not enough merely to consult your contemporaries but also those who have come before you, as well. A contemporary might say something like “Miracles aren’t possible” but if credible voices in the past attest to seeing a miracle, you’re in a bind. You can’t know that miracles aren’t possible. But even if they’re possible it doesn’t mean they happened. And if they don’t happen to you, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened to others.

Now, Fides finds out that these musings are important in other ways. For example, he experiences righteous indignation when witnessing the slaughter of largely defenseless travelers. If some other people want to kill some other people, what is that to him? Why is it all the more bitter when he sees that they are defenseless? Why should he care? But he does care.

This requires an explanation. Preferably a good one. Fidelis is largely a story of Fides constructing the best explanation for everything we experience, not just mechanical observations about the empirical universe, but also of loyalty in the face of imminent death and his own passions and longings.

LA CROSSE, Wisc., – A.R. Horvath’s new novel, “Fidelis,” is the first of a seven-book story arc that grapples with humanity’s courage and hope in the face of a history of pain and suffering.

“Fidelis” takes place in a not-too-distant or unlikely future, and tells the story of a man crossing the new landscape of an America that has been crippled by disease and ravaged by nuclear strikes, struggling to find his way home. As his journey reveals the horrors and wonders of the altered world, he awakens to realizations about his own soul.

The book wrestles with issues such as truth and propaganda, manhood and bravery, fact, and faith in an adventure story packed with action and suspense.

Horvath, a church worker who became a trucker for a short time, said the series sprang into his mind during his last month on the road when he, like the main character, was separated from his family for long periods of time.

Christians might identify some parallels in Horvath’s novel with the themes in the Bible but Horvath points out that his writing is not geared exclusively, or even targeted, for Christian readers.

“It is an exploration of what it means to be human, and an inquiry into what worldview best explains both man’s goodness, as well as man’s badness,” says Horvath. “You would think after this last century, we would not need to be reminded of man’s badness, but it seems we do. In the Birth Pangs series, no reminder is necessary, just as after the Holocaust no reminder was necessary.”

He continues, “This is one example of where the influence of Rowling, Lewis, and Tolkien come into play. Evil is real in their worlds and there are serious consequences when dealing with it, or ignoring it. Their worlds are not ‘they lived happily after’ worlds. Good people die and stay dead. But there are things worse than death. And there are things stronger than death, too. The undying hope of the human race requires an explanation and not every worldview succeeds in giving one. The clash of worldviews in the face of societal collapse forms the backdrop to “Fidelis.”"

To purchase, learn more, or read a sample, visit Horvath’s website www.birthpangs.com. Horvath is also available for interviews and speaking engagements.

Copies of “Fidelis” (ISBN 0979127610) can be obtained through his site, Amazon.com, and Barnes and Noble.

This release can be downloaded in pdf and printed by clicking here.

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 CONTACT: A.R. (Anthony) Horvath (author)
PHONE: 608-385-2629
EMAIL: author@birthpangs.com

Christian Author Challenges Readers’ Perceptions, Explores True Nature of Humanity in Book, Fidelis La Crosse, WI Few fiction authors seek to challenge their readers with their literature these days. That’s a trend Anthony Horvath would like to see changed. His new novel, Fidelis, is the first of a seven-book story arc that grapples with humanity’s struggle through pain and suffering, and Horvath is not afraid to explore deep issues and topics with his readers.

Fidelis takes place in a not-too-distant or unlikely future, and tells the story of a man crossing the new landscape of an America that has been crippled by disease and ravaged by nuclear strikes, struggling to find his way home. As his journey reveals the horrors and wonders of the altered world, he awakens to realizations about his own soul.

Horvath, a church worker who became a trucker for a short time, said the series sprang into his mind during his last month on the road when he, like the main character, was separated from his family for long periods of time.

The intangible characteristics that make the human race indomitable are expressed as the book wrestles with truth and propaganda, manhood and bravery, fact and religion in an adventure story packed with action and suspense, as well as a deep examination of our own existence.

Christians might identify some parallel of Horvath’s novel with the Epistles of Paul, particularly 2 Corinthians 4:7-10 and 2 Corinthians 6:3-10, but Horvath points out that his writing is not geared exclusively, or even targeted, for Christian readers.

It is an exploration of what it means to be human, and an inquiry into what worldview best explains both man’s goodness as well as man’s badness, says Horvath. You would think after this last century, we would not need to be reminded of man’s badness, but it seems we do. In the Birth Pangs series, no reminder is necessary, just as after the holocaust no reminder was necessary.

An excerpt from the first chapter is available for free online at http://www.birthpangs.com/download-part-of-chapter-1/. The website hosts a spin-off role-playing game and a discussion board frequented by the author.

Fidelis (ISBN 0979127610) is the first book in the seven-book Birth Pangs series. It is available for purchase from http://www.birthpangs.com, as well as Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

From Donald Hank, writing for WorldnetDaily.com:

“Fidelis” is fluent, gripping and written as though the author had actually been there. I saw not a word out of place or any word that may have qualified as filler. That’s why I simply couldn’t put the book down. Neither could my 13-year-old son.

But more importantly, I felt as though I were in a gold mine with nuggets of wisdom popping up everywhere… READ THE WHOLE REVIEW.

From Jean Heimann at the Catholic Fire blog:

In his clear, easy to read writing style, Horvath presents us with a story that grabs our attention from the first page and holds it until the very end. He introduces us to an interesting array of characters, which he describes in picturesque terms, [who] speak for themselves… READ THE WHOLE REVIEW

From Josh M, on Amazon.com: Left Behind meets The Dark Tower, July 30, 2007

Fidelis is the first book in the Birthpangs series by A.R. Hovath. If you have ever read the Left Behind series or Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series you will fall in love with this book. I could hardly stop reading it and have been reccomending it to everyone I know. I plan to give this for birthdays and Christmas until the next book comes out.

You follow the journey of Fides through the post-apocalyptic areas of the Americas. If you liked the premise of Left Behind but didn’t like how it was so in-your-face about Christianity, then you will really enjoy this book. It gives you ideas of Christianity without telling you how to think and act. It gives you a foundation on which to build your own opinions.

This book makes for great discussions and arguments on what humanity is and what it should be. It makes you think about your life and actions. This would be great for book clubs or discussion groups.

From Nick, on Amazon.com: Awesome Read…, April 13, 2007

I have seen this book compared to Harry Potter and other literary classics, but AR (Tony) Horvath’s book FIDELIS, is in a class by itself. From the very begining to the end, this book makes you think, and also keeps you guessing. There are some bits of flashback to set up the story, and as you delve deeper into the story, you realize why an event took place… and again it makes you think!Twists and turns on every page, filled with an interesting array of characters, each with their own story and tale. I can only look forward with anticipation on the next installment. This is the kind of wait as when JR had been shot on Dallas, in the 1980′s and kept America talking for an entire summer about “Who Shot JR”. Well I know I will be talking with my friends over the summer to ask some of those same type of questions! I will not divulge anything here, as I do not want to spoil it for you… But it will definately keep you guessing!

I would not be surprised if Hollywood came knocking in the next few months, and unlike Harry Potter, this story takes place right here at home… most likely in the not too distant future.

From an anonymous reviewer on BarnesandNoble.com:

Lord of the Rings, meet Mad Max!‘Fidelis’ is an expertly-crafted adventure of human drama set in a chaotic post-nuclear America. The main character is Fides, a blue-collar ‘everyman’ from the Midwest, who unwillingly becomes a man on a mission, the importance of which is hidden from him. That is , until it’s too late to turn back… From the initial, terrifying plot twist, to places of quiet solitude, to desperate battles involving massed armies, Fides finds both conflict and comfort in the most unlikely places and people, and ultimately, from an unlikely source, the inner strength which had always eluded him. Anthony Horvath has delivered a first-class adventure , a spellbinding saga which I found to poignant, thought-provoking and magical. Packed with surprises and edge-of-your-seat action, ‘Fidelis’ captivates from start to finish.

Brett M, a US soldier in Iraq says, The plot continues to thicken and there is never really a dull moment! Masterfully written and well researched

From Elijah, on Amazon.com,

“There are precious few authors these days trying to use fantastical settings to grapple with deep, personal issues. In fact, “Fidelis”, Horvath’s first fictional work, will probably be the only novel you’ll come across these days that explores topics like truth and propaganda, manhood and bravery, and fact and religion as the deep, perplexing ideas they are–ideas that we can’t understand except in the context of real struggle. Horvath presents this struggle in an equally intriguing post-nuclear America where humanity is exposed and purified in the flames of civil-war and anarchy.As a first attempt to explore such vast topics in an equally vast setting, Horvath sets a high precedence that will make future additions to this series a real challenge. I wait in eager anticipation for the many secrets and mysteries of the Birthpangs world to be unraveled in his future books.”

From Tammy, on Amazon.com, “Great story! I had a hard time putting this book down. I was very intrigued with the “future” portrayed by the author.”

From Rareairpug, on the Birth Pangs Discussion Forum,

“From the opening chapter, Fidelis is full of action packed chases and dangerous encounters with startling twists around every corner. Fides meets a wide array of characters on his travels, and most of them are more than what they seem. From the strange necklace around Fides neck, to the book he receives from Corrie, to the enigmatic words of his fellow traveler Fermion, Fides is surrounded by mystery. Will he find the answers he seeks?

Fidelis takes the reader on an edge of his seat thrill ride from start to finish. Nothing is certain in the world of Fides, and caution is a must for survival. The climatic conclusion of the novel will have readers anxious for the next installment of Birthpangs.”

From Scott, in an email to the author,

“Your descriptive style put me front and centre during the battles, which were very well-concieved and realistic from a tactical point of view,(no invincible “Rambo’s”) and therefore quite realistic. I think I found myself on the edge of my seat more than once!”