Violence, horror, demons, angels, a heaven abandoned by God, and more action and dead bodies than one thought could possibly fit into 431 pages. That roughly sums up Matt Dinniman's first novel The Shivered Sky. After five humans meet grizzly deaths they materialize on a forgotten beacon in heaven with new, improved bodies and much more trouble in store for them than they ever had on earth.

The five humans: Indigo, Dave, Hitomi, Rico and Gramm learn God has long ago left heaven to make a new world big enough to fit both humans and angels. In God's absence demons from the outer worlds have overtaken heaven's city, Cibola, and have killed off most of the angels leaving the incoming human souls to be used as food, labor, amusement, and pleasure toys for the ruling demons. The five quickly get caught up in the battle between the demons and the remaining angels after finding long lost weapons, periscepters, that have the power to turn the war to the angel's favor and put the five of them in position to make an ancient prophecy come true.

This novel is both action packed and very imaginative. Not only does it take you on an adventure, it explores on many different levels the possibility of dying and finding the afterlife to be something quite different from what you were expecting.

I would have given this 5 out of 5 stars instead of 4, but I had just one problem with it. I don't think the author spent enough time wrapping things up at the end and giving the reader a satisfactory conclusion to this epic. As a reader this is one of my pet peves. Particularly, all the answers to one of the characters, The Unraveller, seem to come out of no where all of the sudden. I want to see what ends up happening to the characters, not just be told how things will turn out for them. I wish the author would have just extended the book another chapter or two and wound down a bit more gradually. Others may disagree with me on this point, but personally I wanted a little bit more at the end.

Still, overall this is a great book. If you like action, horror, demons going splat, and if the storyline doesn't offend your religious beliefs, then this is a book that should definitely be on your reading list. Thumbs up to Mr. Dinniman!