In the war with the Fallen, three teenage nephilim and the priest who raised them battle to prevent those cast out of Heaven making Hell a reality on earth. But when their mentor is fatally wounded he is forced to reveal his true identity as one of those he fought so hard against. His dying words send them on a dangerous journey to uncover their origins and into the lair of the darkest of angels.
Book Description
Nephilim follows the adventures of Sebastian, Catherine and Paddy as they fight against the Gregori (Fallen Angels). The fact that they are half human half angels gives them an edge. They are led and trained by a Priest named Brother Tobias and base themselves from Venice. The book uses Christian Mythology as ingredients for face paced adventure story. Everything is told from the perspective of Sebastian and he narrates the action throughout the book.
I wondered for a while how to categorise this book. Most tales in which Fallen Angels are the enemy are at least borderline horror. After all Lucifer and his fellow fallen angels are the ultimate symbols of evil. But Nephilim doesn’t fit into this genre; this is an adventure story pure and simple. Tame enough to be read by young adults there is not much here that would prevent the squeamish from reading it. In fact there isn’t a trace of horror within its pages and the Gregori lack any form of dread, even when Lucifer makes an appearance he fails to instil any form of fear.
I really wanted to enjoy this book. The storyline had a great deal of potential which sadly failed to appear. What the story lacked most was any kind of depth. Nothing was treated with more than a cursory glance. The novel is filled with questions that begged to be answered and you are left wanting. Brother Tobias whose background motivates much of the tale is given very little explanation. The story of the Gregori is barely outlined and this lack of detail created other issues. The three main characters differ greatly in physical detail and each has a unique power. Sebastian has the ability to see future events, Catherine can feel and follow other’s pain and Paddy is a berserker. But these powers are little used and aren’t used as story hooks. Worse still is the fact that all three characters seem to be personality clones. The author sadly didn’t distinguish between the three different personas. They all reacted and responded to the events around them in pretty much the same way, never arguing or disagreeing about their course of action.
Christian mythology has a wealth of readymade background and detail that just wasn’t used within this tale. The Gregori seemed no more than gangsters with guns. I think these fallen angels were banished from heaven because they were chronic underachievers rather than for their rebellion. In conclusion Nephilim is an OK book but there are much better Angel books out there. I award this 3 stars.
2 comments:
Darkiss Angel
Thanks for buying this and good work on making detailed and thought out comments on works that you review. I hope you don't mind if I add a comment as the author, but I feel there may have been a misunderstanding behind this books intended audience. Your comment that it is tame enough to be read by young adults was correct, it is a book for middle teenagers. I am primarily a childrens and young adult writer and aim for readers of the likes of Charlie Higson's The Enemy and James Patterson's Maximum Ride series; so not older teens or adults. Of course this is hard to tell from amazon and people will stumble upon Nephilim for their kindle (which truth be known does not necessarily lend itself to the teen market that well yet, in my view) and maybe think it is more like many of the older market angel fantasies currently available. You are correct to say that there is a wealth of Christian mythology out there that is ignored (though not in the research for the book). It originally had too much depth and this meant that it stopped being appropriate for the target audience and trial readers found it too overwhelming. What you may have recognized, though, is a potential to rewrite it as an adult book with this detail reincorporated and greater depth in the plot and character development - which is food for thought. One thing it was never intended to be was a horror, and in fact acknowledging it as an adventure story was accurate to intention. There are questions left unanswered, some you rightly recognize may need some developing in this book, but others which are dealt with in the second part of the series which I am currently working on. However, I do appreciate that there might be more development in terms of how they react to what happens around them and that is something I am going to reread it for and look at some alterations.
Thanks for your honest views. Yours is a professional site and I can see that you do not pass judgement flippantly, so I hope you don't mind me adding to this.
Best wishes
Martyn Housley-Smith
I hope that this finds it way back to the author Ibjust finished the book and I am 28. I believe it is a great story but lacks some detail and us in need of some good editing I hope that you are working in a sequel.
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