Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

The Devil in Green

“"What's going to happen?” Miller was whimpering again.

"Many things," the old man said, pretending it was a question for him, purely for the sake of malice. With another chuckle, he added, "The wormfood will come up for air, and the quick will go down for a way out, but find none. There'll be a man with three hands, and one with one eye. Some will be bereft in more profound areas. Friends will be found in unlikely places, but where friends should really be, there will at times be none. And consider this: a religion isn't as good as its god. Only as good as its followers."

(The Devil in Green, CH. 1)

The Blurb: Humanity has emerged, blinking, from the Age of Misrule into a world substantially changed: cities lie devasted, communications are limited, anarchy rages across the land. Society has been thrown into a new Dark Age where superstition holds sway. The Tuatha De Danaan roam the land once more, their terrible powers dwarfing anything mortals have to offer. And in their wake come all the creatures of myth and legend, no longer confined to the shadows. Fighting to find their place in this new world, the last remnants of the Christian Church call for a group of heroes: a new Knights Templar to guard the priesthood as they set out on their quest for souls. But as everything begin to fall apart, the Knights begin to realise their only hope is to call on the pagan gods of Celtic myth for help...

The Reality: When doing a fantasy novel, many authors op for keeping the magic out of the mainline public eye – such as Harry Potter – or making the whole world magical, such as the Hawk and Fisher books or the ‘Darkness’ books. Mark Chadbourn takes a different path.

The devil in Green follows on from Chadbourn’s ‘Age of Misrule’ trilogy. Without giving too much away, the Age of Misrule features the return to our world of the supernatural; mythical creatures, Celtic gods, demons and magic, the events of which are known as 'The Fall', 'The Devil In Green' starts approximately a year after. Humanity is slowly pulling itself back together after the fall and has discovered that technology now works again, but so does the magic. With the collapse of the government (mainly in Age of Misrule 2: Darkest Hour), different groups have started to take control and one of them is the new Knights Templar.

The plot revolves around knights called Mallory - a sceptic - and Miller - a devout Christian. Both men are on the way to Salisbury Cathedral, the last stronghold of the Christian church in England, to join the new Knights Templar. Mallory rescues Miller in a Porsche on Salisbury Plain while being chased by various dark creatures. Both men end up spending the night together in an ancient fort. They form a friendship and head off to Salisbury Cathedral together.

Mallory is in it for free food and shelter and will fight for God as long as the pay is right but life gets difficult after a mission to rescue a lost priest goes wrong. He comes back to find the cathedral under siege by supernatural forces and the church buildings magically transformed into an ever-changing Gothic fortress with the living conditions for the Knights getting progressively worse as time goes on. In their fanaticism, the Knights have damaged the new natural order and they have to pay the price to repair their actions.

Chadbourn’s world is a dark, disturbing, place. Humanity is no longer the top of the food chain and is preyed upon by creatures humanity no longer understands. In the wreckage of our civilisation, Mallory has to confront the ‘devil’ who is tormenting them and face his own dark past. This could lead to an overtly heavy read but Mark Chadbourn keeps his writing very fresh and lively, creating a very believable world. The thought of Macdonald's surrounded by demonic mythical creatures or a dragon flying over Salisbury Cathedral brings a smile to your face.

Chadbourn also explores what small groups of people do under siege. His Knights fall into factions – something inevitable and obvious to both Mallory and the reader from the start – and start heavy repression. There are graphic scenes of torture and pressure; one of the knights exposes his friend’s homosexuality out of the fear for his soul that the new leaders create.

Some points I’m not so keen on is the links to the Age of Misrule trilogy. The heroes of that book were chosen for their role, but it seems that Mallory and his friends were chosen the same way. The Tuatha De Danaan clearly needed to be involved, but why not some of the ones we know already? The only one who appeared in AOM was not well detailed.

On the whole, an excellent read.

Read an extract at: http://www.markchadbourn.com/extracts/devil_in_green.htm

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