I found Phillip Dodd’s Angel War novel very
interesting. It is one of those books that I had to sit back and think about
after reading it. The fictional story of who Satan is and how he came to be who
he is as told from his own perspective. Dodd has truly written a Christian Sci-Fi.
The story begins with the emergence of God himself and then
from the time of the creation of the angels and the heavens and continues
through the history of man to the end of the earth, at least as we know it. One
of main things that make this novel so unique is that in all of the creations of
God, the Angels, and Satan with his fallen angels, machines are used to create.
They also use time jump and vortexes along with space ships and magical weapons
in the conflicts of the story. Angel War emphasizes the love and
connection of family and friends and the loneliness of the loss of these
relationships. Also, there seems to be little difference between the society of
Heaven, the society of Hell, and the society of Earth in that all beings have
purpose, jobs, relationships, and individuality. No one rests on clouds
plucking harps or writhes in flames scaring lost souls. The main difference is
in the attitude or moods that the societies live and work with.
Dodd does very well with weaving the Bible, creation in
particular, into this science fiction story. My first impulse while reading was
rejection of some of Dodd’s creativity because I started out reading it from a
Christian perspective. I needed to regularly to remind myself that this was a
science fiction story with a biblical theme. The beginning was slow for me,
with the history of the creation of the clans of angels and how it all began.
However, as the story played out I realized how important the beginning history
is to understand the events throughout the story. Dodd has woven an interesting
story from a very unique perspective. This is one of those novels that will
need to be reread to see the whole story – possibly several times.
