Review: And the Next Big Thing after vampires/zombies/werewolves will be … Angels & Demons!!!  Inventive debut series beginning!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 03 23, 2014
I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.And my honest opinion is …This is a great debut novel which features highly original and inventive elements (primarily with regards to future technology that blends the scientific and the spiritual) and the biggest plotline possible:  the battle between the forces and desires of Heaven, Earth, Hell and other dimensions.  (The Heaven and the God here are the Christian conceptions.)“From Heaven to Earth” is clearly a series beginner that sets up the underlying tensions, alliances, and goals of what is sure to become in the next book of this series a gigantic battle.The book has a complex (but not overly so) story arc and it features one unique element that adds variety and interest to the story as it progresses:  the main characters can and do undergo startling transformations that point to overarching grand designs of the Universe that are not yet laid bare.All of this brings me to my main observation about the technical storycraft underlying the writing of this book.  With a complex storyline involving various forces and factions, it is a major success in storytelling to be able to “keep everything together” and this book does that.  It's highly impressive that a debut novel independently released (i.e. without the editorial resources of a big publishing house) is able to maintain this level of cohesiveness and is also able to maintain a consistent tone from beginning to end.  These alone are huge achievements that point to much thought and time spent by the author in the “world-creating stage” of writing this first book in the series.Another interesting aspect of the storycraft here is the blending of the mundane and the magical – this is refreshing and offers some clever snippets of dry, subtle humor.But there are more gems here than just that.  At the big picture level, there are 3 other aspects of this story that grabbed my attention:1. clever and unique concepts – clever depictions of the Christian idea of Heaven; clever explanations of the Christian ideas of angels and fallen angels and heaven and hell; uniquely envisioned world where humanoids live with non-humanoid and partial humanoids2. hints of things that make us want to know more (do I smell a prequel series???) – for example, who are The Forefathers? what is God's true nature? what is the story behind the soul garden and Lucifer's involvement in its machinations?3. concept of hidden designs and purposes – can God “weaken”?  can God “die”?  is there a grand design that is maintained by actions and outcomes that at first seem wrong?On top of the bigger things I liked about this book, there are also many “small” moments and concepts that were refreshing, including things such as:-human faith is actually a form of fuel of incomparable strength-the forces of evil using television and news reports to sway the masses-unexplained entities created some of the architecture and celestial beings of Heaven presumably before God was in control-hints at some quintessential questions about the nature of “good” and “evil” and, likewise, presents cautionary examples of how greed for power can corrupt in terrifying, cruel, and hideous waysBlood, guts, sex, violence.This book will be a good read for people who like fantasy, who are open to interesting descriptions of Christian God and Christian Heaven, and who like the suspense and the “what will happen?” feeling that can be created with serial stories.An impressive debut of fantasy.