SON OF PERDITION: Chronicles of Brothers

Son of Perdition, W. Alec (Warboys Publishing, Ireland, £7.99)

This book is the third episode in a series called the Chronicles of Brothers which is intended to reach a total of 7 volumes. It is a crossover between several genres - thriller, science fiction and stories of the legendary history of Christianity. Son of Perdition moves around many settings in Earth and supernatural realms and, while the bulk of the book is set in 2021, long sections return to earlier periods as far back as 1981.

The book centres on the De Vere brothers - Adrian is EU President, Jason is a media tycoon and Nick a playboy archaeologist in a highly technically advanced 2021 following a nuclear war whose destruction is briefly referred to in a list of some cities that have been totally destroyed - there are 17 including Moscow, LA, Berlin and Manchester - and the list is a mere throwaway line!!

A knowledge of Christianity’s legendary background would be useful to the reader since the archangels, the fall of Lucifer, the book of Revelation, and the rise of the Anti Christ jostle for our attention. Historical knowledge would also be valuable as many cataclysmic events from Revolutions through assassinations, wars and terrorist attacks to the cocaine trade are attributed to the dastardly forces of evil under the control of Lucifer. A final area where some information would be helpful is that of conspiracy theories especially concerning the Illuminati.

I’m inclined to describe the book as Dan Brown ratcheted up many levels and expanded to cover a series of volumes! The cast list is enormous and a list of characters is helpfully provided at the end of the book - 6 pages of it are divided into Earthly - De Vere family and associates, the Brotherhood of the Illuminati - and Heavenly and Fallen.

If you enjoy such themes this book will be very Heaven to you. It has a very wide sweep which might be easier to encompass if you had read the previous 2 volumes. In relation to its position in a series there is a feature that I dislike - the ending is only a spring board to the next book. I found the futuristic science rather effective, the political machinations wide and complex, the thrills somewhat muted by the overarching theme and the religiosity not to my taste.