The Skin Map by Stephen R. Lawhead

The Skin Map by Stephen R. Lawhead was an easy book to read, despite its length. As I sit down to write a review, however, I have mixed feelings about how to portray it. It’s a science-fiction/fantasy type book in that its primary story line is that there are Ley Lines, which are portals to alternate realities. The characters in the book are on some sort of quest to gather pieces of the skin map, which is a man’s skin on which directions to reaching to the alternate worlds were tattooed, while at the same time keeping them away from the “bad guys”.

The different chapters of the book were interesting, but the book as a whole was very disjointed, not giving enough information to satisfy me. For instance, many of the chapters were given to developing the character of Wilhelmina—but then she was just left until she swooped in at the end in combat-type gear from who knows where. The ending was not a conclusion by any means, rather it brought up more questions and had me thinking, “Huh?” The characters were not developed very thoroughly and some of them ended up dying, without much care given to that, which was a little weird to me too.

I understand that there is another book in this series scheduled to be out in September of this year, and this second book may clear up some of these issues, but I believe that a well-written book should be able to stand alone, without needing a future book to explain it well enough to enjoy.

On the whole, this book had potential, and it was an easy read, but truthfully, I would not recommend it at this point—perhaps when the second book comes out I’ll change my mind, but based on the book itself, there it is.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review.