The Shivered Sky [Paperback]

The world of the Shivered Sky is not heaven or hell - it is another existence altogether. Cibola, the city of Angels has been overrun with demons from other worlds. The billions of Angels are caught unawares and the city is lost on fateful day.

The war is over and the angles are trying to just survive. Our wayward humans; Indigo, Gramm, Dave, Ricco, and Hitomi find themselves thrust into this war without knowing whose side to fight on. The Demons attack them, but the Angels treat them like slaves. Confused about all this, our gang realizes nothing is as it seems. Luckily, this group has been given possession of an awesome weapon, periscepters. These weapons look like a simple flashlight, but the light blasts from them disintegrate any Demon in its path. Periscepters have 'true light' which destroys Demons but is harmless to Angels and humans. The war between the Angels and Dominion controlled Demons escalates with our human's caught in the middle.

Shivered Sky is not what it seems. This Dark Fantasy is extremely engaging with an original story line. Each chapter brings more understanding of the world and its inhabitants. The ending is climatic and a complete surprise. Cibola is an amazing city with incredible buildings with unknown characteristics. Dinniman has created a diverse, imaginative world that will entertain you just with its descriptions.

Another interesting aspect of the Shivered Sky is that God is missing. The book is not about any religious theology, but about the struggle to survive and learn from past mistakes. God is missing for a reason that will become apparent towards the end of the book

According to the author's website, Matt Dinniman currently resides in Tucson, Arizona with his wife and family. He is the senior editor at Artichoke Down Press, and has had many occupations throughout his life. He has worked as a pizza delivery driver, a security guard, an EMT, a private investigator, an editor, a telephone psychic, and an obituary writer--and that's just the beginning. His award-winning fiction and non-fiction has been published all over the world. The Shivered Sky is his first novel.

Although I was expecting much more, this book fascinated me. The descriptions of the angels closely matches their traditional counterparts, but I can't figure out why Dinniman didn't draw upon this same tradition for his descriptions of demons.

One of the most depressing facets of the book is the fact that in effect God no longer exists. He doesn't appear at any point throughout the entire book, although he is perhaps mirrored in one character whom we meet towards the end. I understand that a war between angels and demons would be understandably shorter when God is fighting for the home team, but it was still a noticable absense. There is no hierarchy of demons either - Lucifer does not exist; instead, the demons are ruled by a council of twelve. Strange.

BUT, if you take the book for a terrific story in a world which borrows elements from Christianity, then you'll enjoy yourself. When all is said and done, "The Shivered Sky" is more of a riff of Christianity than a mirror of Revelation that is the "Left Behind" series. While I'm still anxiously waiting for the book in which the war between Heaven and Hell is powerfully written about, I'll definitely read "The Shivered Sky" while I'm waiting.