Someone from one of the Facebook groups I follow was asking for recommendations for really high quality Christian fiction, especially science fiction, and this book by author Shawn Smucker was mentioned. In fact someone said that all of Mr. Smucker’s work was worth checking out. So I did.

This story is sort of a murder mystery/detective story with a horror/supernatural twist, and it was engaging. I liked the suspense and the slow unfolding of all the plot threads to come together in the end —almost seamlessly. But without giving away any of the story, I must say that there’s a Chekhov’s gun problem. Remember Chekhov’s gun?

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

Something significant happens at the beginning of this book, and it turns out to be irrelevant. Not a red herring, but just not nearly as significant as it should be or as it’s made out to be at first. The main character does something, something dangerous and stupid and just plain wrong, but it never comes back to bite him. I guess that happens in real life just as unused guns hang on the wall in real life sometimes, but in fiction it is somewhat disconcerting. (Not everyone believes in the Chekhov’s gun rule. Ernest Hemingway “valued inconsequential details” in a story, according to Wikipedia.)

Other than that niggling little detail, Light From Distant Stars was a good read. I thought I might be interested in checking out something else by Shawn Smucker someday. However, as I look at descriptions of his titles they all sound like borderline horror, a genre I’m not too fond of. So maybe not. If you like weird, paranormal, ghostly kinds of stories with a Christian subtext (not overt, not preachy), then you might like Mr. Smucker’s books.