From Afar: The Journey of the Three Magi

Fascinating! Perfect read for the Advent season.

This book is interesting and an easy read. It is well researched. If you ever wanted to delve more deeply into the story of the magi, this is a great story to help you do it. Although it is fiction, by reading it you will feel like you are there. I highly recommend this book.

I read this book and got a copy for my son and another for my nephew. It was that good! I had the benefit of reading this in the first two weeks of January. It had the effect of extending the Christmas season for me. This year, an extension of Christmas is a real blessing. The author extracted more meaning from the nativity in a manner that was easy to read and engaging.

This is an excellent book with a vivid and real depiction of the ancient world before Christ. It demonstrates how imperfect people who are seeking valid truth can be impacted if they’re willing to submit to the truth. So it is extremely relevant to our time.

Recommend this book for those who are interested in travelling with the magi to see the newborn king. I am currently on my second readthrough because I enjoyed it so much the first time. You can tell the author did a great deal of research for this book.

Under the Watchful Sky was gripping but From Afar much more so. This is a beautiful work of imaginative story-telling, bringing to life plausible backstories of the Three Magi. It is a fast paced and exciting read from the first page that all lead to the beautiful and peaceful presentation to the Holy Family. The last page is particularly wonderful as one imagines the exciting movement of the Faith in those times.

An excellent work from a master story teller. Bravo.

Excellent, easy and enjoyable to read. Purchased this book for Christmas and found it in my stocking. I found this it to be the historical view I was for which I have been looking for some time now. I wanted to gain insight into what it would have been like for the pre-Christian world to receive news of a Savior. This books tackles that perspective through the eyes of none other than the three Magi. Pagan astronomers of the ancient world - with its star charts, astrology, pagan gods, and rising and falling empires - may have been growing tired of the constant disappointments offered by a world where gods seemed to be of man's imagination. But then, they read the skies one last time...and the rest we know.
Mr. Roger Thomas fills in the details of what may well have been that kept me turning the pages well past my bedtime. Thank you Mr. Thomas.

Who were the Three Magi, who visited the newborn Christ in the manger on the first Christmas? From Afar presents a historical fictional account of who these men were, and what they had to endure to go from Persia to Roman Judea. Having grown up with watching movies on the Nativity, it was refreshing to see not so much who the Magi were, but an aquainting of the setting of which these men lived in. It's tempting to think that a journey from Persia to Bethlehem, though long, was otherwise uneventful, like going on a simple road trip for the weekend. The Massacre of the Innocents under Herod would be a clue as to what kind of a world Christ was entering, and what the Magi lived with. I recommend From Afar for its prose and historic approach, apart from the varnished Hollywood portrayals we're used to seeing every Christmas.

I would give it a 5 star. Loved this book. Found it so meaningful.

I absolutely loved the story. It's action-packed, but filled with nuance. Roger Thomas's story-telling is masterful. The whole story is very fast-paced, but then when it slows down for the climactic nativity section, that's really when it turns into a beautiful masterpiece.