 The Worms Of Heaven |
Three flying saucers |
The Worms of Heaven is the third book in Misha Burnett‘s “Book of Lost Doors” series. I’ve previously reviewed the first two books, Catskinner’s Book and Cannibal Hearts. The stories focus on James, a young man who shares his head with Catskinner, who I tend to think of as a demon. Catskinner is actually something else which is a bit difficult to define, and his type are incorrectly assumed to be demons, aliens, angels, or whatever by normal humans.
This third book is more of the same. I don’t mean that in a negative way; if you liked the first two books you’ll probably like this one as well, but if you didn’t like them, you shouldn’t read The Worms of Heaven expecting a radical change in style.
MINOR SPOILERS BELOW – ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK
The tension begins fairly early with a kidnapping. James’ response to the kidnappers is hilarious; he tells them they should just kill themselves, because it would be their best possible outcome. A series of additional attacks follow, which James is forced to take more seriously.
Some new paranormal elements appear, including a creepy villainess and a woman with something pre-programmed in her brain. There is also a passing reference which I found incredibly eerie: the suggestion that Earth’s moon once had an atmosphere and was full of life, until some unspecified paranormal disaster took place. Was there also a hint that Earth could suffer the same fate?
I didn’t get to see the “lost city” which was hinted at in the second book, but I’ve seen an excerpt of the fourth book in the series, Gingerbread Wolves
Planetary Defense Command 
Reblogged this on mishaburnett and commented:
A new review of The Worms Of Heaven on Planetary Defense Command.
Worms of Heaven sounds like fantasy, not SCIENCE FICTION.
You may be right. I like the term paranormal for this type of book, although urban fantasy is used more commonly. (I personally don’t like “urban fantasy” as much, because what if the story takes place in a modern era, but is set on a farm? Not exactly urban.) There are some people who place urban fantasy as a sub-genre of science fiction rather than fantasy, because they basically tie fantasy to a medieval tech level.
I see the author has commented below, saying he considers the book New Wave Science Fiction. Now that I think about it, placing it more on the fantasy side probably has to do with my own interpretation of Catskinner as a “demon”. If I had described him as a trans-dimensional alien life form instead, then my review would have sounded more like sci-fi.
I haven’t read the book, but I must say I greatly admire the antique German wine glass on the cover. I have a set of those myself and they’re extremely rare. I’ve never seen one on a book cover before.
I consider my work to be New Wave Science Fiction, but I accept the Urban Fantasy label as well.
[…] Defense Command reviews The Worms of Heaven, by Misha Burnett, narrated by Brandon […]
[…] interviewed Misha, and reviewed several of his books: Catskinner’s Book, Cannibal Hearts, and The Worms of Heaven. I think he hit a home run with this HP Lovecraft-inspired story. It begins with the hero as the […]