Arena

Arena, by Karen Hancock

This book was included in my amazon order for an extra 99 cents. It was probably better than the other books in the order, combined.

Imagine Pilgrim's Progress meets a John Wayne-Matrix fusion meets the movie Labyrinth, yes, the David Bowie Labyrinth. It was Pilgrim's Progress in the sense that the characters were on an allegorical journey resembling the walk of life and passage to Heaven. It was the Matrix in the sense that the characters were pulled from their own world into this journey world with high-tech equipment and fancy weapons that despite it all, are still handguns and rifles being used by unsophisticated outback-cowboy-type people. And it was Labyrinth because, well, the characters were supposed be intelligent enough and follow clues to find their way out of the Arena. (The book had nothing to do with David Bowie's hair.)

In addition to all that there's a romance story arc to appeal to the sappy romantics who didn't realize the book was not their genre. It also reminded me of the TV show Firefly in the sense that the characters encounter unearthly creatures, the dust and grime and unlawfulness of the wild West, the sophistication of space travel, and the hustle and bustle of modern city life, all within the same plotline.

I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone. There's something in it for everyone and I think that it is one of the best books I have read. It nearly made me give up on my own writings, because I felt that there was nothing I could possibly come up with that would be more imaginative than Arena. (Don't worry, immediately after that I felt the urge to stimulate my own imagination more and to write again.) Everyone should read this book!