Book Review - The Eli Diaries (various authors)

By Ian Acheson @achesonian

Those of you who have read any of my “best of” posts of the past few years will have seen my enthusiasm for episodic fiction where a story is developed over months/years, sometimes by multiple authors, by releasing individual episodes (novellas) monthly. Harbingers was a 20 episode series featuring five authors including one of my favourites, Frank Peretti.

Last year I discovered Bill Myers, one of the Harbinger creators, had produced another series based on one of his earlier novels, Eli. Once again, Myers has collaborated with a bunch of authors to deliver monthly episodes. I’ve recently finished the seventh and am keen for the next one.

The Eli Diaries is a story that explores the question: what would it be like if teenage Jesus turned up in 21^st century America? And not just Jesus but his disciple mates and his Bethany family of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Oh, and no series would be complete without a teenage Mary Magdelene and Satan.

Like Harbingers, a different author voices a different character for each episode. The only real constant in all episodes is Eli Shepherd. This weird sixteen year old, who has a heart of gold, seems to discern things and events before they occur, and occasionally heals people. Eli works in his family’s surf shop.

We meet Benjamin the Pharistic youth leader who is is gunning for Eli believing he is leading his flock of youngsters down a dangerous path.

Some of the episodes have been a bit scratchy but the last few have been beauties. They deal with issues of youth: bullying, keeping up with the Joneses, beauty, brawn and brains, revenge and lust. Woven through most of the episodes are demonstrations of grace, mercy and love.

Once again, I’ve found the episodic style of story telling to be compelling (like a good TV series). I’m excited to read the new series that our own Narelle Atkins is involved in (A Tuscan Legacy) that launches soon that takes a different approach to episodic fiction once again. Eight weekly episodes, eight different authors, all with a Tuscan flavour.

Consistent Delivery

One of the challenges from an early readers perspective of an episodic series is there is a need for consistency in delivering episodes. I’ve started some episodic-style series where the first episode lands and another one doesn’t land for months. This is especially difficult when one episode ends on a cliffhanger and by the time the next episode lands you’ve lost interest and in fact forgotten there was indeed a cliffhanger ending.

So if you’re an author producing such fiction may I encourage you to only drop the pilot or first episode when you’ve got the next few ready or almost ready to drop.

I was fortunate that when I downloaded most of the episodes of The Eli Diaries they were only $0.99, however, I notice they’re now $3.51. But remember over 7 episodes it’s between 500 and 700 pages of reading. If you want to try it out perhaps start with Number 4 (Not Good Enough) that features Martha.

What episodic fiction series have you read recently and would recommend?

Ian Acheson is an author and strategy consultant based in Sydney. Ian's first novel of speculative fiction, Angelguard was recognised with the 2014 Selah Award for Speculative Fiction.You can find more about Angelguard at Ian's website, on his author Facebook page and Twitter