Books Of The Cataclysm

A compelling re-telling of stories of heaven, hell, the afterlife and beyond. I don’t think there is any other story out there quit e like this one. Plenty of authors have played around with the concept of death and the afterlife, but few have created a universe quite like Williams as found in The Crooked Letter.The Crooked Letter, the first segue into the world of the Cataclysm series, is the deeply spooky end-of-the-world tale of twins who find out that death and life are full of surprises. The concept of an afterlife not based entirely on the Jewish heaven and hell constructs is one that the novel devotes a significant portion to exploring.For one, dying brings you to an afterlife – one or two afterlives that is – a magical world where the laws of physics are replaced by the power of will. Things in “heaven” are not well, however. There’s a war going on between the residents of the second realm and an entity that’s seeking to destroy both the second realm and leap to the first realm. Heaven now looks like hell and the first realm (earth) has been taken along for the ride when the two realms “collide.”It’s an entertaining book that aggregates a number of different folklore myths with elements of Germanic, Greek, Celtic, and Jewish folklore imbued into the story.Beyond the mere story of two brothers caught in the middle of a struggle between different realms and basically trying to understand what the hell is going on, all the while surviving, there’s a lot of other stuff going on too.The book explores themes such as one’s concept of a freely determined self, the difference between body and spirit, God, heaven, and hell.It takes a while to figure out just what the hell is going on in the story, but once you do, it’s a darkly gripping adventure with elements of fantasy and horror. You won’t read anything quite like this.