Book Review: The Shivered Sky

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

The Shivered Sky     Amazon US PB Amazon UK PB Amazon Canada PB
Matt Dinniman
Class/Genre:   Fiction   Fantasy   Religious Fiction
Silver Lake Publishing, June 2003, $19.95, 448 pp.

One by one five humans from Earth are taken naked to a deserted beach and it is only as each one regains their wits that they realize they have died and gone to Heaven. However, Heaven is not the place of their dreams but a battle zone where demons are in control and pockets of angel resist trying to stem the tide of defeat. Nowhere in the realm is the Creator and the demon armies are very well organized making slaves out of humans.

The five humans find an underground tunnel that will take them into the woods near Cibola, the citadel of angels, now run by varying demon armies. While in the tunnels they find perisceptors, weapons of light that can kill the demons but only one of the humans can wield that weapon with skill. When the angels see perisceptors they begin to believe that the humans are part of the prophecy that will restore the true order in the Heavens.

The angels resent the humans and blame them for the present situation. This is not a typical good vs. evil work of speculative fiction but a case of wishing for the lesser evil is to triumph and win the war. The five humans all have a specific role to play and are the true stars of THE SHIVERED SKY because they are willing to fight for the light no matter how much they are hated and reviled. The demons will remind readers of the enemy in wartime. Matt Dinniman is one hell of, make that heavenly, fantastic storyteller.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner