John Hyde - Amen

[vaughan]

Futura - 1981 - 218 pages

This is my first novel by John Hyde (The Prediction is sitting on my shelf as well).

I must say I was suitably impressed. After some "heavier" reads lately, it was a welcome respite.

Amen tels the story of the battle between good and evil. Every 1000 years Satan accumulates enough strength to make a bid to take Dominion over the Earth and all of our pitiful souls. It's up to the chosen ones to meet the challenge head-on, and to cast Satan back into hell!

The highlight of the book, for me, was the Prologue. It's a short tale (five and a half pages in length) take of a baby-sitter and the parents of a 6 month old. It's really an incredible opening, one of the best I can recall in recent times.

It's never going to match that, and in the very next sequence we're tuned into the more traditional realm of heads turning around, Popes getting vomited on, and the ever pervading smell of Sulfur.

Things culminate at the portal to hell as the Catholic church and Satan do battle.

There are some gruesome murders along the way, and one of two twists as well, it would be criminal to let you in on them. Suffice to say, while the book does sometimes become a bit predictable, it's a worthy little read.

My first time with Hyde then, and it was a pleasant stay in his imagination. Kudos, Mr. Hyde, wherever you are.

[blackmonk]

This was my second Hyde novel. The first being The Devil's Kiss and I pretty much agree with your comments, vaughan.

The opening is a shocker, for sure, but then I found some set pieces a bit too derivative of The Exorcist (the chauffeur's rotating head, verbal abuse and projectile vomiting in the Pope's face) and The Omen (statue toppling from the upper part of a church to kill a person below). Hyde even name-checks The Exorcist by having it showing as a very unlikely choice of in-flight movie!

Having said that it is a rip-roaring, good-fun read filled with excrement flinging cacodemons with a penchant for raping victims whatever the gender - and that, I suppose, is all that's important!