New Book Alert: Melia in Foreverland by Thomas H. Milhorat, M.D.; Beautiful Spiritual Allegory About The Existence of God and The Meaning of Life and Death

New Book Alert: Melia in Foreverland by Thomas H. Milhorat, M.D.; Beautiful Spiritual Allegory About The Existence of God and The Meaning of Life and Death

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book with a three word title



Spoilers: Since I began this blog, every year I find a book that becomes a spiritual fantasy journey that asks a lot of questions, has a lot to say, and fills this Reader with wonder at the journey and themes. Probably since my first experience with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, I have always been looking for that kind of book. Quite often, I find it and it becomes one of my favorite books of that year.

In 2017, it was Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. In 2018, it was a one-two punch of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and Clive Barker's Imajica. Last year, the book that captured my heart and soul the most was The Unseen Blossom by Zlaikha Y. Samadi and L'Mere Younossi.


This year, I am proud to say that I have found another book that can be added to that illustrious pantheon. That book is Melia in Foreverland, Thomas H. Milhorat's spiritual allegory which asks many of the ultimate philosophical questions such as "Is There a God?", "Why does evil exist?" and "What is humanity's purpose?" in a moving fantasy of a young woman questioning her own faith and reason for existence.


Melia is a typical 16-year-old farm girl from Orion, Kansas in the late 1940's. She believes in God, but has not really thought about it beyond a shallow sense of vague faith. She questions those beliefs when her cousin, Emma, announces in tears that her beloved dog, Fanny, was killed in a senseless accident. The loss causes Emma to consider what she calls "the second matter": She doubts the existence of God and wonders why the Supreme Being would allow death, randomness, and evil into the world.

Melia can't find answers within her own superficial faith. Her family as well suffered from the death of her baby brother. She hopes to find the answers to give Emma reassurance. She is well read, since her father, a physician, shared books of Virgil, Dante, Plato, Gallileo and many others with her. However, Melia is still left confused, downhearted, and unable to say anything beyond simple platitudes. She wants to find the right words to assuage Emma's grief and find answers to her own questions, but how?

One morning, Melia finds herself walking along a strange road that says "This Way to Land's End." She also finds a strange man with Mediterranean features and wearing artisan clothing. He is Publius Vergilius Mero, AKA Virgil, the Roman poet and philosopher who wrote works like "The Aenaed." Virgil is the first person that she encounters from the world, Foreverland (the place mortals call Heaven, Nirvana, The Elysian Fields, The Other World, and so on.). No, Melia's not dead, but she will go on a journey that will give her and Emma the answers that they need.

Like all travelers on their journey, Melia needs a guide. Virgil introduces Melia to her guide, Dante Alighieri de Firenze, author of The Divine Comedy. Since in his classic allegorical journey, Dante was guided through the Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise by the virtuous Beatrice, Dante pays the favor forward by being the guide to a young woman, Melia.

Astride upon Pegasus, the noble flying horse from Greek mythology, Dante, Melia, and Melia's dachshund, Schnapsie travel to various stopping points in Foreverland that are in the stars. They encounter many well known scientists, astronomers, philosophers, artists, writers, and others who provide various answers to Melia's thought provoking questions.

The world building is beyond lovely. The travelers move beyond time and space to visit known stars in the Universe that are inhabited by various legendary characters. They include Polaris, the North Star, which serves as a grove and exterior classroom for Aristotle and Antares, where Charles Darwin shows Melia evolution in action.

Like many of the best of these types of books, the settings are almost dream-like and stretch the boundaries of imagination. After all in reality, no one could live on these stars. But that doesn't stop Milhorat from using his imagination to create whole societies of people, animals, and nature that lives and thrives on them (even if those lives are technically deceased).


The most striking of the settings is Sirius, a location of beautiful townhouses and canals and is the home of many artists, musicians, entertainers and such. Most of the Sirius residents even have to be incognito because where there are entertainers there are fans, even deceased ones.

One of the more delightful passages is when Melia has her portrait painted by Leonardo Da Vinci with Vivaldi playing in the background. Using his studies of the human body, imagination, and keen use of light, Da Vinci captures Melia as both a young and older woman in different stages of life. Melia also gets into a conversation with Rene Descartes and Euripides about human tragedy in the dramatics and in reality and how they affect and change us. This conversation shows the meaning that art and literature have in capturing moments that we can admire, stare in awe at their beauty and wonder, and study and learn from.


Another setting that has a personal link for Melia is Betelgeuse. Not because she's a Michael Keaton fan. Because Betelgeuse is her favorite star as it is used to guide farmers during harvest seasons the way sailors use Polaris during navigation. She realizes that she has a personal connection with the star, because her ancestors reside there. She meets family members like her great-great grandaunt, Pauline. Encountering her family helps Melia learn that she is one of a long link stretched through time. That link helps provide Melia with some much needed answers through her own life and future.


While the book takes a spiritual journey, it is not what one would call overly religious. It does not push one religion over another. In fact, Jesus Christ gets scant mention. There are characters, such as Virgil and Aristotle who were alive in pre-Abrhamaic times that have their own beliefs based on their background. Even people like Galileo Galilei and Charles Darwin, who made enemies of religious people with their scientific research, make appearances and speak about their work suggesting that science and spirit are simply two different languages that describe the workings of the universe. God, Himself,d not make a personal appearance and instead exists in all things, nature, animals, and in others who do goodness. Of course that the land is called Foreverland and not Heaven or Nirvana or a more conventional name with conventional means to reach it, suggests that they are simply different names, words, and followings for the same thing. That the Spirit can take any form it chooses and humans use their own terms for it.


One of the most thought provoking chapters is when Melia encounters "The Walking Dead" (not the show), the deceased that are headed in two directions. The dead include two children who were murdered in a violent crime who are headed down a path of white polished chalcedony. Their murderer then is led down a path of nuggeted coal down a dark tunnel. This encounter puts Melia in a conversation with Dante and Aristotle about the nature of good and evil. Aristotle measures evil in different levels from Involuntary Trespass (actions that are beyond one's control, for example a child or animal running in front of a car and getting hit when the driver doesn't see them) to Pure Evil (evil for evil's sake such as incest, sex crimes, hate crimes, genocide, premeditated murder, slavery, and genocide.) This description suggests that the terms good and evil have more forms and shades than many believe and are not always the same actions and meaning.


While this adventure is designed to help Emma, it also helps Melia. She is able to think beyond the simple platitudes and superficial faith that she spoke about but never understood earlier. Melia's trip to Foreverland opens her mind to greater thinking and deeper reasonings. She sees the universe as a fuller more elaborate place than she had before.


Melia in Foreverland is a book that begins with one question, but asks many and leaves the Reader to interpret their own answers. Most of all it surrounds these questions inside a beautiful dream world that will never be forgotten.