Absolute rubbish. I mean it. If you are not ridiculously blinded by your religion's views and have no brain you might be able to enjoy this book. Maybe, if you're utterly, and completely, idiotically dimwitted and deficit.
And that's an insult to dimwitted people.
I picked up this book because I am an obsessive supernatural fan and hey look! Stories about archangels. Season nine is a long way away, may find myself some other way to get my daily dose of angel.
My first impression of the novel is that the writing is hilariously bad. I swear... is there no other way to describe "one hundred enormous white owls". Or the honestly ridiculous and endless descriptions of jeweled everything. Every description seemed to be filled with endless lists of various jewels.
Bad writing I can forgive. Not everyone who has an imagination is gifted with the ability to convey it with words. Totally understandable. And I understand how difficult it can be when you have a good plot in your head, and you dream up these amazing worlds, but words fail you. THAT IS OK.
I was very disappointed (at first) there was no mention of everybody's favourite angel Castiel (or Cassiel). But then the novel delved from ridiculous into horrendous and I was glad my baby escaped
But there are some things I cannot forgive. Page 200 of my copy, when the good angels are reporting what Lucifer (or Satan) has done to the human race.
"The forbidden angelic illuminations of the scientific arts... knowledge of the clouds, the celestial bodies, the signs of the earth astrophysics, earth sciences, electricity"
So basically you know, established facts about our universe, obviously Wendy Alec missed the fact that humans made these discoveries themselves.
But then it's made out like God set rules against these things being known to humans. Um... WHAT THEY ACTUAL FUCK. She likens scientific discovery to teaching humans how to kill each other. Basically to spell it out for you
"OMG SCIENCE IS SIN".
I'm not trying to make statements about religion and what is correct and all that.
But to say that this human construct, this complicated, wonderful thing we do were we give things names, we explore and look at this universe around us, and try to make some sense of something we barely understand, is a sin? That is offensive to me firstly as a human being and secondly a scientist.
When I got to do a study on something, I;m not sitting in a lab laughing like a maniac and saying "WITH THIS DISCOVERY I SHALL DRAW MAN AWAY FROM GOD AND CONDEMN THEIR SOULS TO HELL". No. I do it because I want to understand.
And there are some religious people who don't want to understand the world they live in. They are happy just believing that a god made everything and gave them these rules and that's their life. i think it's silly and stupid to silence curiosity, but they do have a right to chose how they live their life! And I am no worse, for being curious, and wanting to understand and learn about things.
I'm not a Christian, but I do know many who see their science as an exploration of the world they believe they were given by God. And I think, according to a lot of Christian belief, that if our amazing world is a gift, I highly doubt a loving, benevolent creator would refuse us the right to seek to explain it in ways we understand! To suggest otherwise is completely stupid.
I do know there are religious people who blame science for the loss of faith in their institutions. But honestly science is not the cause of the problem. I didn't leave church because science led me astray, I left church and do not go to church because it is not in line with my personal beliefs! Maybe one day, I might! And if that is the case, I will not renounce science for blind faith, I will continue to love science and study and seek out knowledge.
I feel that to demonize something that is so beautiful displays a profound lack of understanding of what science is. To say that evolution is an ungodly science I can to some extent understand, but astronomy? Meteorology? Biology? Physics? Chemistry? Electricity? All of these things impact your life Wendy Alec. If they are gifts not from your God but from your Satan, than I expect you live in the wild, live some sort of caveman, completely removed from all the wonderful scientific discoveries and fields that make your nice, easy, 21st century life a breeze, an enable you to write inane novels full of mindless dribble.
And this book is not going to help you with your faith AT ALL. In fact, Supernatural does a far better job of portraying Lucifer's fall and struggle, and his complex relationship with Michael and Gabriel.