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In his Scottish play, Macbeth, Shakespeare writes of life, saying, “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” The sound and fury levels abound in this apocalyptic novel that is about much more than the city of Detroit mentioned in the title.
Can one young high school lad save the world from monstrous evil? Possibly. Certainly it helps if he’s being aided by gun-wielding priests like Father Gary and Father Gordon from the Order of The Guardians. Wisecracking skeletons skilled in the art of death and dismemberment also lend helping, if somewhat bony, hands to the grim task of dispatching marauding dark humans—or the even worse Dead Dark Humans. Think of them as particularly hungry zombies on steroids. Michael, the high schooler, also possesses the ability to shape shift into a ferociously lethal Hellhound—an advantage not to be taken lightly. Still, the fact that half of Michael’s soul is pure and the other half evil, tends to thwart his progress from time to time. However, in a war between heaven, hell, limbo, and various other unknown parts of the universe, one must do what one can.
Gordon is an energetic author who writes with fevered intensity about hellish encounters between moral and decidedly immoral foes. He’s at his best when describing pitched battles that often result in pools of blood and severed body parts. Corpses litter his pages frequently as do misapplied and/or misspelled words. Of course, if you’re a (pardon the pun) diehard fan of science, supernatural, occult, or fantasy fiction, you’ll be happy to know that the editing miscues pale in comparison to the honorable hero’s ongoing struggle to save souls, loved ones, and even himself.