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A Vision of Beasts #1
Creation Descending
NEW DARK AGE
Centuries after the Cataclysm, men struggle against ignorance and fear.
Technology is dead.
Bands of humans cower in hiding— from beasts, and men more vicious than beasts.
Dug within a mountain by scientists long dead, Saluston is a safe haven for the Hunter and his people. Outside wait danger and death. Inside means safety-until attack comes unforeseen.
Escape would mean fleeing Saluston.
The only alternative is battle.
Centuries after the Cataclysm, men struggle against ignorance and fear.
Technology is dead.
Bands of humans cower in hiding— from beasts, and men more vicious than beasts.
Dug within a mountain by scientists long dead, Saluston is a safe haven for the Hunter and his people. Outside wait danger and death. Inside means safety-until attack comes unforeseen.
Escape would mean fleeing Saluston.
The only alternative is battle.
- GenresFantasy
222 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 1, 1984
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 5, 2023
I read this in one night when I was a teenager, and have had it since. I've remembered the whole trilogy as one of my very favorites.
On revisit, it started off pretty fun. It reminds me of watching old 80's cartoons, like Thundarr the Barbarian. It just wasn't quite fun enough to make it past its shortcomings. The frequent references to famous books got tiresome. The writing was pretty repetitive. For instance the phrase "insane rage" appeared rather frequently, and twice in two pages at one point. One guy is constantly described as bear-like, and switching it to ursine still counts.
The Margo character is the smart one, and you know that because she speaks exclusively through a thesaurus. That gets as annoying as you could imagine. Maybe some would find it funny.
There is no sense of how long ago this nuclear apocalypse is meant to have happened. Characters refer to their ancestors, but then there's other characters that had lived through it. Then there's the animal life that's mutated to the point of being almost alien, which would have taken a ton of time. That's addressed at length in book three...
I would have looked past all of that if I still felt the same pull of adventure, but I guess after 25 or so years it's just not the same. For much of the book, it's characters ducking down another corridor when one needs to appear. I never did have a good sense of what the layout of Saluston was supposed to be. So it comes off as a laundry list at parts, someone runs down a corridor, ducks around two corners, hides in a cell, so on.
I have to mention the part where Derek is having his second fight with an ape monster. His woman Eva, never mentioned without how skimpy her costume is also being mentioned, comes flying out of nowhere completely naked and saves him by stabbing the monster. I looked back to see if I missed a reason why she was naked, and didn't see one. Then a page or two later she's back in the fur-kini. Ok then.
It's really sad to keep getting disillusioned by my old favorites, and the fact that I enjoyed it so much back then means it must have some merit. I'm only giving it two stars because I know what I like, and this is no longer it. 25 years ago, five stars for sure.
On revisit, it started off pretty fun. It reminds me of watching old 80's cartoons, like Thundarr the Barbarian. It just wasn't quite fun enough to make it past its shortcomings. The frequent references to famous books got tiresome. The writing was pretty repetitive. For instance the phrase "insane rage" appeared rather frequently, and twice in two pages at one point. One guy is constantly described as bear-like, and switching it to ursine still counts.
The Margo character is the smart one, and you know that because she speaks exclusively through a thesaurus. That gets as annoying as you could imagine. Maybe some would find it funny.
There is no sense of how long ago this nuclear apocalypse is meant to have happened. Characters refer to their ancestors, but then there's other characters that had lived through it. Then there's the animal life that's mutated to the point of being almost alien, which would have taken a ton of time. That's addressed at length in book three...
I would have looked past all of that if I still felt the same pull of adventure, but I guess after 25 or so years it's just not the same. For much of the book, it's characters ducking down another corridor when one needs to appear. I never did have a good sense of what the layout of Saluston was supposed to be. So it comes off as a laundry list at parts, someone runs down a corridor, ducks around two corners, hides in a cell, so on.
I have to mention the part where Derek is having his second fight with an ape monster. His woman Eva, never mentioned without how skimpy her costume is also being mentioned, comes flying out of nowhere completely naked and saves him by stabbing the monster. I looked back to see if I missed a reason why she was naked, and didn't see one. Then a page or two later she's back in the fur-kini. Ok then.
It's really sad to keep getting disillusioned by my old favorites, and the fact that I enjoyed it so much back then means it must have some merit. I'm only giving it two stars because I know what I like, and this is no longer it. 25 years ago, five stars for sure.
September 29, 2022
Some time after an unexplained Cataclysm, the sad remnants of humanity huddle in the mountain bunker of Saluston. Only the mighty Derek the Hunter braves the outside world and the mutated beast things that live there. But Saluston face a threat from the inside. The subhuman, cannibalistic Gunks that live below the bunker have been organized by a mysterious organization and are attacking the Saluston survivors. Can the mighty Derek save humanity?
So as I read a book, my mind plays out a sort of movie in my mind. For this book, the movie was a low-budget, possibly Italian movie. Complete with bad costumes and cheap sets and the Beastmaster himself, Marc Singer as Derek.
Creation Descending is a bad book. Derek is a near-Mary Sue and the other characters are cartoonish. The Gunks knives are invariably described as 'filth-encrusted'. Another character has a 'little round head' we are told over and over and over. It's hack-work.
But like those cheap exploitation movies I compared the book to, it is also lots of fun. Not in spite of the short-comings, but quite probably because of the short-comings. I first read this book when I was twelve or so and even then, I understood it was schlock. But even so, I reread it a couple times over the years. When I stumbled across the sequels years later, I was overjoyed.
If you understand what you are getting into, it's a fun read.
So as I read a book, my mind plays out a sort of movie in my mind. For this book, the movie was a low-budget, possibly Italian movie. Complete with bad costumes and cheap sets and the Beastmaster himself, Marc Singer as Derek.
Creation Descending is a bad book. Derek is a near-Mary Sue and the other characters are cartoonish. The Gunks knives are invariably described as 'filth-encrusted'. Another character has a 'little round head' we are told over and over and over. It's hack-work.
But like those cheap exploitation movies I compared the book to, it is also lots of fun. Not in spite of the short-comings, but quite probably because of the short-comings. I first read this book when I was twelve or so and even then, I understood it was schlock. But even so, I reread it a couple times over the years. When I stumbled across the sequels years later, I was overjoyed.
If you understand what you are getting into, it's a fun read.
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October 23, 2025Mass market paperback
August 23, 2017
I absolutely LOVED this book growing up. A very interesting take on the post-apocalyptic genre.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews