BOOK REVIEW: "The Age of Apollyon" by Mark Carver

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I first stumbled across author Mark Carver on Goodreads, through the Action/Adventure Aficionados group, where he was seeking recommendations for Gothic-flavored action stories. In a shameless bit of self-promotion, I recommended my very own novella, Resurrection Bullets, which he promptly read. Well, it turns out that Mr. Carver not only enjoys reading Goth-slathered thrillers, he writes them as well, and I immediately grabbed one of his novels, The Age of Apollyon.

Turns out it's not just a good thriller, it's a good Christian thriller.

You're forgiven if you consider the phrase "good Christian thriller" to be oxymoronic. The realm of Christian speculative fiction is populated by authors who tend to play it safe, but Mark Carver is not one of those authors, and the result is one of the best Christian thrillers you'll read this side of Dekker or Peretti.

This is an end-times scenario, occurring in the aftermath of what is called the Manifestation, when Lucifer Incarnate revealed himself to the world. Satanism becomes the dominant world religion and Christianity is driven underground. As religious genocide steamrolls across Europe, it appears God has fallen silent, the guardian angels' swords sheathed. Believing that violence is the only option, a righteous man named Tourec picks up his guns and starts assassinating Satanic priests and waging a bloody war against the forces of darkness.

So those forces slither up to Patric, the half-brother of Tourec, and command him to neutralize his sibling, threatening to destroy his fiance and unborn child if he fails. Because, ya know, that's what demonic dirtbags do.

In this age of sanitized Christian fiction, Carver dares to go for dark and edgy with violence (though rarely explicit), profanity (mild stuff), and sex (suggested, never graphic). While none of these elements would raise an eyebrow in the secular literary world, they are rather bold for a faith-centric novel. I mean, a demonic seductress performing oral sex on a Satanic priest? Yeah, this ain't Grace Livingston Hill ... and the Christian fiction market is better for it. The world is a nasty place and it would be even nastier if the devil himself manifested here and his infernal church ruled supreme. When we're talking about Hell incarnated on earth, it's probably reasonable to expect people to say things like "damn" and "son of a bitch" and occasionally get laid and/or violently slaughtered.

As an action writer myself, I would have liked to have seen a bit more gun-blazing and bullet-blasting, but that is not a legitimate negative, merely a preference. Carver was clearly aiming for more of a thriller scenario than a pure action story, and he pretty much nailed it with extra helpings of Gothic atmosphere and plenty of twists and turns. That's not to say there is no action, because there definitely is; just don't go in expecting a glut of guns 'n' guts. This is The Age of Apollyon, not the latest installment of The Executioner series.

Bottom line, if you're seeking something dark, daring, and different in the Christian thriller genre, carve out some time to read this novel.