Authors I know


In association with Amazon.ca.	In association with Amazon.com.	In association with Amazon.co.uk.	An affiliate of ChristianBook.com.

[Home]
[the Christian]
[the Bookworm]

[Authors I know]
[Lois McMaster Bujold]
[C.S. Lewis]
[H. Beam Piper]
[Books on Temptation]
[Bookdex]

[the Joker]
[the Music Fan]
[the Wirehead]
[the Writer]
[Not the Greg you're looking for]

Authors I know

The more I think of it, the more I'm surprised at how many authors I know personally. Just a small sampling includes John Keith, David Lochhead, Bruce Milne, and of course Robert Slade.

John Keith
	The First Few Wars are the Worst: His Grace Has No Measure by John F. Keith 1998 Kentville: Gaspereau Press. 256 pp. Paperback: [Abebooks.com/Amazon.ca] There's a standing joke in my family that you can tell how spiritual a person is by how successful they are when my Dad takes them out fishing. This is because my Dad has long had a habit of taking visiting pastors and missionaries out fishing, and for some reason, they tend to get more fish than other guests. (Thus, the pastor or missionary who comes home from a fishing trip "skunked" comes in for a lot of ribbing.) Probably the person most responsible for this link between fishing and spirituality is John Keith, who was for many years the General Secretary of the Canadian Baptist Overseas Mission Board (now Canadian Baptist Ministries.) John is a fishing fanatic, and at least once, he and Dad spent the day out fishing in the middle of a cold, nasty, Vancouver January. A few times, I was out in the boat along with John, and he passed on to me some missionary wisdom which I treasure to this day. All of this is to say that I thought I knew John Keith pretty well. But, as I came to realise through reading this book, I didn't know the half of it. You don't think of a missionary as someone who has trouble facing up to their fears. Certainly John and his wife Ginny have lived through things which would make most sane people run away screaming. Yet John does not seem to see himself as brave, and describes himself as struggling with fear through his early life. He gives God the credit for bringing him safely through all those fearful situations. (The title is not as tongue-in-cheek as it may first appear. The Keiths have been evacuated from war zones from Angola to Yugoslavia. The subtitle is even more apt, however, as it is God's grace which has led them through so many perils.) I should not leave you with the impression that this book is all seriousness, though. John has always been an entertaining storyteller, and he invites us to laugh along with him at some of the funnier situations in which he has found himself. Aside from learning more about John and his life, I found this book interesting for its record of the beginnings of Canadian Baptist involvement in the former Yugoslavia. In a very real sense, John and Ginny paved the way for me to follow later on in Croatia and Bosnia. John arranged for the first team of Canadian Baptist Volunteers to visit Croatia, and introduced them to Stevo Dereta, the man who would later found the Life Center.
	Wars Are Never Enough by John F. Keith Castle Quay Books, 2005 Paperback: [Abebooks.com/Amazon.ca/Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk] John is back, this time with a biography of another man for whom I have great respect: Joao Matwawana. If you don't know the Matwawanas' story, you might expect a standard "hard luck" story, telling about the hardships they have been through. Joao and his wife Nora were born in Angola, and were actually John Keith's students at a Bible School in Northern Angola when war broke out in 1962, as nationalists strove to drive the Portuguese out of the country. The Matwawanas had to flee to neighbouring Zaïre, and have since had conflict overtake them several times in different places, as fighting broke out in Angola (twice), Rwanda and Burundi, and Zaïre. However, this is not a story about conflict and suffering, but about peacemaking and reconciliation. Despite offers from all sides in Angola's civil war, Joao steadfastly refused to "take sides" even when taking one side might seem to offer benefits such as security or financial rewards. Joao has never let himself be swayed from his mission by the considerations others take for granted. When refugees from the fighting in Rwanda and Burundi were crammed into refugee camps in Eastern Zaïre, the U.N. administrators of the camps denied Joao permission to work in the camps, because he didn't have a big enough budget to "matter" in their eyes. But the U.N. only had enough resources to keep the camps secure during the day. So, in the evenings, when other N.G.O.s left the camps, Joao went in, and went about his work. While diplomats talked about power sharing and brokering deals, Joao talked about forgiveness and reconciliation, and his distinctly Christian stance gained him the respect of all sides in the various conflicts, gaining him a hearing when normal diplomacy held little hope for progress. If you want to understand the conflicts which have been going on in Central Africa over the past four decades, and especially the recent developments which have ended the various wars, then you must read this book to get the complete picture.
David Lochhead
	Theology in a Digital World By David Lochhead Paperback: [Abebooks.com] Computing in the Church is a relatively new field. While there are now many software developers pursuing the market, and several periodicals devoted to the topic, there are not many books on the subject of how to use computers in the Church. Good books on the use of computers in the Church are rare indeed. Theology in a Digital World is an even rarer breed. It is a penetrating look at the way computers affect the way we look at the world, God, and each other. David Lochhead, the author, taught at the Vancouver School of Theology. He also ran a Christian computer Bulletin Board System (BBS) in Maple Ridge known as Agora. In addition, he was a moving force in Ecunet, a coalition of denominational computer communication networks. Although he was knowledgeable about the technical aspects of computers, and especially computer communications, Lochhead avoids technical jargon in this book, focusing on the impact of information technology as a whole, rather than on specific computers. For this reason, Theology in a Digital World is going to remain an important resource for years to come, regardless of advances in technology. However, the mere absence of dated material is not what makes this book stand out. Lochhead collected six essays which reflect his commitment to thinking through the issues raised by computer technology at their deepest level. One quote must suffice from this eminently quotable book: God loves people - we believe that. Creativity is a gift of God; we believe that too. Why then do we draw back from the next step - that God loves the products of human creativity? Does God love a Michelangelo painting? Probably. Does God love the Apple II? We pause on that one... ("Does God love Compulers?" p. 41) The questions that Lochhead raises are important and powerful ones, which challenge the Church to rethink the impact of the information revolution, not only upon the Church office, but on the pulpit and seminary as well. While I would not give the same answers that Lochhead provides, (in particular, I differ with his view of community) I wholeheartedly applaud his thoughtful discussions, and hope that this volume provides the spark for a methodical exploration of the relationship between the knowledge of God and the exploding study of knowledge itself.
	Shifting Realities: Information Technology and the Church By David Lochhead Paperback: [Abebooks.com/Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk] I want to make one thing clear: this is all David Lochhead's fault. Back in the ancient mists of computer antiquity, my brother sat me down in front of his computer, dialled up a number, and said, "Here. Play with this." "This" was Agora, a bulletin board system (BBS) which was run by David Lochhead. Now, I had used a modem before, and called a few online systems, but Agora was the first system I had ever called which was devoted to discussing Christianity. There were theological liberals, there were fundamentalists, there were unbelievers, and there were people like me who just enjoyed being a nuisance to others. And behind it all was David's incredible patience with technological "newbies", and his remarkable ability to be civil and agreeable, even with people (like me) with whom he didn't hold many theological convictions in common. Since then, technological innovations have come and gone. Agora BBS is long gone, as are most of the others I have used. The Internet has gone from nothing to being practically everything when it comes to electronic communications. Through it all, David displayed a remarkable ability to see past the trends and the hype and discern the deeper issues raised by information technology. David passed away in June, 1999 after a stroke. I thank God for the privilege of knowing him. This collection of essays shows some of David's thinking about the issues raised by information technology, and how IT interacts with Christian faith and Christian communities. His earlier work, Theology in a Digital World, was perhaps more profound, but as far as I know it's out of print. I strongly recommend David's work, because he raises important questions. Whether you agree with the answers he comes to or not, I believe that it is important to consider the questions.
Bruce Milne
	Know The Truth: A Handbook of Christian Belief by Bruce Milne Paperback: [Abebooks.com/Amazon.ca/Amazon.co.uk/Amazon.com/ChristianBook.com] My family has gone to First Baptist Church for five generations, and Dr. Bruce Milne was the senior pastor of that church from 1983 to 2001. You might say we know each other. Bruce is well known in Baptist circles, having served in both Canadian Baptist Ministries and the Baptist World Alliance. He's well-known as a speaker. But it's possible that even more people know of him through his books, and probably the best-known of those is Know the Truth. When people ask me whether they should read Know the Truth, I am usually compelled to caution them, "Well, he is British." That is my shorthand way of warning people that Bruce's writing style is quite concise, as many British authors are, in comparison to North American ones. One black preacher is reputed to have described his preaching style as, "First, I tells 'em what I'm a gonna tell 'em. Then, I tells 'em. Then, I tells 'em what I done told them." Many North American writers follow the same rules, giving plenty of warning when a point comes up, and then recapping it afterwards. This makes works easy to read, although the information density per paragraph tends to be low, since there are so many "bridging" phrases. On the other hand, Bruce just "tells 'em." If you can get used to a concise, information-dense writing style, you should find Know the Truth to be 288 pages of solid meat.
Robert Slade
	Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses: How to avoid them, how to get rid of them, and how to get help By Robert Slade Paperback: [Amazon.ca/Amazon.com] You might say that I know this author pretty well. In fact, I have an autographed copy of the first edition sitting on my bookshelf. It's signed by my brother. So it might be argued that I'm am not completely unbiased about his work. Nevertheless, it is quite clear to me that it needs to gain wider circulation, since even normally quite technically adept people are continuing to propagate rather harmful misinformation about computer viruses. At the very least, this leads to people being "taken in" by virus hoaxes which circulate on the Internet with monotonous regularity. (You think I'm overstating the case? I get panic E-mail on a regular basis, telling me not to read any E-mail with a certain subject, and warning me of dire consequences if I do. I'm also asked to forward such messages to "everybody you know." People who get taken in by such hoaxes then generate a geometrically increasing flurry of panic E-mails, which, at the very least, clog up the system and slow down the delivery of more important mail.) Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses is clear, accurate, comes with a disk full of anti-virus utilities and an extensive section of anti-virus software contacts and product reviews, and is a lot faster and easier to read than its size implies. And besides, if you're really nice to me, I might be able to get you the author's autograph.
	Viruses Revealed: Understand and Counter Malicious Software By Robert Slade Paperback: [Amazon.ca/Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk] Five years on from the latest edition of his first book, my brother the famous author comes out with a new title, this time a collaborative effort. That they managed to get a forward written by Eugene Spafford should be a sign to those in the know about computer viruses that this is a work which deserves serious attention. As a collaborative effort, it has strengths and weaknesses when compared to Rob's solo work. First, the prose style is of necessity jumpier. Each of the authors brings his own style and his own interests to the work, so the different chapters show up those differences. This can make the book a bit tougher to get through, because there is no single flow of thoughts to get used to and move with. In particular, the humour is a bit more self-conscious than I am used to from my brother. (He can make you laugh till it hurts once you get him going.) On the other hand, the diversity of interest and expertise does bring questions to this work which might never have occurred to any of the writers other than the one who first raised it. I eagerly await a second edition, in which, hopefully, those new and intriguing questions can be dealt with a bit more smoothly. I would also like to point out, in my brother's defence, that he isn't happy with the incredibly hideous covers of either book. Authors get no say in that sort of thing.
	Software Forensics: Collecting Evidence from the Scene of a Digital Crime by Robert M. Slade Paperback: [Amazon.ca/Amazon.com/Amazon.co.uk] My brother, the computer guru, is back with a new book. This time, his subject is software forensics. That is, studying a trojan horse, virus, worm, or other malware to try to determine who wrote it. I have to admit that, since this is not as common a topic of conversation over the dinner table as computer viruses (the subject of Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses and Viruses Revealed), I was a bit dubious of my ability to make much sense out of such an arcane topic. I may not know the topic, but I should have known my brother: just as with his earlier works, he takes a complicated topic and explains it in a way that any reasonably intelligent person should be able to understand, without oversimplifying things. Albert Einstein is reputed to have said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." There is a tendency, when trying to explain something complex to a person whose knowledge lies outside that field, to simplify things so much that what you say is partly untrue, and that person would need to "unlearn" the simplification before advancing much farther in that field. I have always tried, when explaining things, never to simplify so much that I say anything untrue. My brother obviously goes by the same principle. I will not even attempt to deal with the subject matter of the book here. While it is possible that you, gentle reader, are responsible for securing computer systems at your workplace, and thus have need of the tools Rob discusses, the odds are against it, so I will content myself with saying, "My brother's got a new book out! Isn't it cool?" I will note, in passing, that Rob wears the nasty comments about his books which collect on Amazon with some pride. If his works did not inconvenience the "black hats", they would not go to so much effort to try to discourage people from buying them. (Although having a group of people out to torpedo your work probably doesn't help sales.)