Only a psychotic, devotionalist, fundamentalist asshole could like this book.Take out the side plot with Helen and Lacy, and Ted Dekker could have written a decent thriller. But the "mythological" side of this book ruined everything.First of all, you can't create a protagonist that readers need to sympathize with, and then turn around at the end and say, "He was all wrong in everything he did." You can't invest a reader into a character, and then make him a stupid bad guy. That doesn't work in real novels. To end the book saying that Helen was right doesn't work because she was hardly developed as a protagonist. It's like she's only a...what do you call it...yes, PLOT DEVICE. She is used to show that Kent is all wrong, how could he not see it before? I seriously sympathized with Kent and didn't blame him for doing anything he did.Second of all, I can't believe that Ted Dekker would follow the views he portrays in this book. To tell a man whose wife and son have died and whose fortune has been stolen from him that he is a murderer and suffers because he does not accept God is just a JACKASS thing to do. Dekker portrays Christians in this novel as crazy, asshole fundamentalists. Helen is the epitome of everything there is to hate about Christians. She condemns a poor priest who is shocked that she can do something impossible. There is nothing wrong with being surprised or shocked when exposed to something that doesn't happen often or ever - look at Paul/Saul or Moses!Third of all, I can't follow a plot that expects its readers to take all of the supernatural events within it without question. Dekker introduces these odd "visions of heaven" without explaining why they happen. I also don't buy that Helen, Gloria, and Spencer could accept these visions without any sense of shock, fear, or questioning. QUESTIONS, FEAR, OR SHOCK DO NOT MAKE A BAD CHRISTIAN. Dekker couldn't expect all of his readers to take these supernatural events without wanting to know why they were happening. Helen's explanation at the end of the "novel" as to how the whole plot was based on Job's story was poor and stuffed into a three page chapter.Fourth of all, the entire idea of faith is lost in this novel. Most good Christians will tell you that the point of Christianity is the FAITH - the belief in something you can't see. So can you praise Helen, Gloria, and Spencer for believing in something they can actually SEE? Can you blame Kent for never believing since he never saw what they saw? What kind of acceptance of God is this when they've actually seen evidence of God, unlike all REAL believers? What about all us poor normal people who rely on faith alone? This completely underlies the whole idea of God wanting his children to believe in him without good evidence.Fifth of all, on a more personal note, Dekker needs to take his voice out of his characters. It is completely unbelievable that every single character - Helen, Lacy, Kent, etc. - talks to himself. All of the characters in this novel talk to themselves, and ALL characters use these three following exclamations: Goodness! Heavens! Good Heavens! This makes all of the characters exactly the same and indistinct. Dekker needs to learn to make characters distinctive by associating different dialogue/dialect with different characters.Basically, I feel like I have just finished reading a book that points fingers at every poor person who has ever suffered loss, betrayal, or, uh, ANYTHING ELSE HUMAN. "Heaven's Wager" was simply a gigantic, fundamentalist metaphor that tells its readers to turn to God now or you will be driven to suicide.The only good part about this book involved Kent's revenge and the revelation that the first chapter was taking place in a prison cell. I only feel a little better knowing that this was one of Dekker's first books - so maybe this is just crappy writing in comparison to his better novels, like "Blink." His writing got better, hopefully, after this one.Oh, and I could hardly call this a love story in the way the back cover presented it.
I am re-reading this book, because I love the peeks into heaven described. While reading the Heaven Trilogy (Heaven's Wager, Thunder of Heaven and When Heaven Weeps), I find myself really yearning for more and a much deeper relationship with God. My spirit just soars while reading it and thinking about my favorite parts. Here is a quote from just one of the many sections that really make me think:"Can you imagine a man living in a fish for three days? I mean, forget the story—could you imagine that happening today?” He dropped his eyes to the sidewalk and studied the expansion cracks appearing beneath them every few feet. “Hmm. I suppose. You have a reason for asking?” “I’m just trying to nail down your orientation, Bill. Your real beliefs. ’Cause lots of Christians read those old stories in the Bible and pretend to believe them, but when it gets right down to it, they can barely imagine them, much less believe they actually happened. And they certainly would balk at such events happening today, don’t you think?”"So much of this book really makes me think; in fact I will think about a section for days. Also, I am reminded that God really does choreograph entire events, just to bring one person to Him. Which makes me realize how important we are to God, not because we are worthy, we are not at all worthy, but because He loves each one of us so much. In the book, I'm reminded that no matter what we have done, God will forgive us, if we ask for it, and also turn from our former life. I mean, He sent His son here to die for us, and Jesus left His glory in heaven, to come here, obey the Father and die in order for us to be righteous, again, all we have to do is ask Him.I've also read the Circle series, and the Martyr's Song series all on paperback. On the back of each book it says they he combines adrenaline-laced plats with incredible confrontations between good and evil. This time I am reading on the Kindle and look forward to getting all of Ted Dekker books in the eBook format, because these book are amazing.
What do You think about Heaven's Wager (2005)?
Going into this book I knew it was Dekker's first work, and I was expecting something like his more recent works (Bride Collector, Thr3e, etc) and I was kind of disappointed. I found the book hard to get through, it felt more like I was reading it for school than out of enjoyment, but once things started picking up after the death of his wife, and son, and the whole bank robbery scheme came into play, I was definitely more interested. My favorite character had to be Helen, although at first the
—Jessica Moniz
It took me a long time to wade through this long (almost 400 pages) book. It follows "When Heaven Weeps" in the "Martyr's Song" trilogy timeline. The un-Christian love interest in that book is a judgmental over-Christian in this book. She's the mother-in-law of Kent, who loses his wife, future fortune, and son, in quick order. The major portion of the book has Kent scheming to -- and finally succeeding in -- stealing back "his" bonus money and revenging himself against the two bosses who successfully stole credit for his work. I confess to mixed feelings about that particular quest. The bosses definitely deserved payback, but not all of the banking world's customers, who unwittingly contributed an (admittedly small) amount to his "reward" fund. The "Heaven's Wager" is obviously a reference to a new version of the heavenly wager between Satan and God for Job's soul, with Kent playing the part of Job on this go-round. But where Job at least had his faith to fall back on, Kent has an anti-faith attitude, and his vicious internal judgments about EVERYBODY he meets (which he hides behind false smiles) make him a thoroughly unlikable protagonist. I think I'm going to take a LONG break before I tackle the third book in the trilogy, assuming I ever decide to read it, which I'm not sure of at the moment.
—Ed
Heaven's Wager is a great book by Ted Dekker. It is a fictional book about a guy named Kent who has a job making a banking computer system. It is called the Advanced Funds Processing System (AFPS), and is going to save the bank millions of dollars. He is so excited that he goes home and tells his family the good news. The bank is going to give him ten percent of what they save. He plans a bunch of trips, and spends money without a care. He is going to Miami to show his system. There were other coders making the system, but he did almost all the work. He gets a message telling him to go home immediately when he gets there. He flies home, even buying a trinket on a stop over, not knowing what would happen next. He comes back, and his wife was in the hospital. She had been sick that day when he left. He runs in the room where his wife is, and knocks over an IV machine. His wife dies, because she had meningitis. Kent doesn't come to work for a few weeks. The other workers had presented his system. He gets to work, and something is strange. He then finds out that the presentation didn't even mention him. Then his boss tells him that he is the boss, and so he was going to get the money. Kent is mad and goes to a lawyer to get his money back. I think this book does a good job at showing the greed of people.
—Jonathan
