A few nights ago I stumbled upon a PBS show, an episode in a vast series on the Inquisition. This episode focused on the Cathars, and the total and brutal suppression of this ‘heresy’ in the early fourteenth century by the Catholic church. Having read about this moment in history many years ago, I remained on the channel, and then one word fired off a strong association. The word “light” was mentioned as part of the Cathar belief system, and I remembered Robert Shea’s novel All Things Are Lights. Immediately after the show I looked up Shea on Wikipedia, and sure enough that book did deal with the Cathars and Inquisition. (It’s bad when you know it’s faster to look up the book on the internet rather than search through your own shelves for your copy.) Lo and behold there’s a link to an official Robert Shea web page.
Shea, which died in 1994, wrote my favorite historical novel, Shike. The external page on Shea is managed by his son, Michael, who’s written fiction himself. If you haven’t read Shea’s hard to find historical fiction, the text for All Things Are Lights has been made available online at that web site, as well as an outline to the planned sequel to Shaman.
I, too, enjoyed Shea’s novel, All Things Are Lights and was delighted when, two years ago, I travelled through France and stopped in Carcasonne. It brought the novel back to me. Check out the website: http://www.carcassonne.org/carcassonne2.nsf/pgeaccueil
Thanks for mentioning this. I already knew about the Shea website and free novel, but I think it would be great if others would read this wonderful book.