THREE DAYS TO DARKNESS

A recently deceased man is sent back to Earth to stop a demonic war.

Darius McPherson was an honest, law-abiding, loving man when he was alive, so he doesn’t quite understand why “The Chief” chose him to die in a drive-by shooting, abandoning a promising life and a beautiful fiancée. To make matters worse, Darius’s time in heaven is cut short–without any of the standard orientation or telepathy training–when he’s chosen to assume human form and return to Earth as a warrior in an epic, apocalyptic war that could end humanity. Engineering this war is a race of evil Demons, emerging from their underground lairs in human form and wreaking havoc across the country. Complicating this is the introduction of a revolutionary pill, an anti-depressant that is so effective at instilling happiness that it erases all human striving and growth. That striving is what propels the evolution of human consciousness forward and what will end the species if halted. Such is the nebulous information that the Archangel gives Darius before his hypertrip back to Earth. But that’s just the beginning of many challenges for Darius–his first contact on Earth is with troubled inner-city youth Javon, who’s more interested in making a quick buck than saving the universe. Luckily, Darius is skilled at handling these situations, and soon the pair is off on an adventure to save mankind. The story is a multilayered, if at times trite conceit–struggle equals growth and losing that will result in the end of humanity–but the book is redeemed by its enjoyable writing and pace. Gittlin’s menacing descriptions of demons are almost as much fun as the scenes in heaven, which are an amusing and modern take on the old gold-paved road clichés. Yet some of the bigger philosophical questions that Darius has about life are not successfully answered, and the book could have survived without having introduced them.

Slightly too ambitious but fun.