Impakto by Richard Calder

Impakto is well-written but very dark. It is strange, meandering and confusing. Essentially a horror story, it starts out with the hero Raul Riviera discovering that he is not human during a plane crash. He is in fact an Impakto, an aborted child who refused to die, and during the plane crash he becomes a container for demons which give him superhuman powers. After this he is rebuilt like the Six Million Dollar Man, and taken on a journey to hell where he is tasked with destroying not only his own parent demons, but also the King of Heaven who created them. Towards the end of the book we slip into science fiction with the appearance of a very old space ship in perfect working order, which is needed to travel between different universes, and reach 'Heaven'. I may have found the book confusing because of lack of familiarity with a lot of the words used to describe the creatures in the story. But the story-line also felt confused because its logic seemed unsound in places, but I am prepared to admit that I may have missed the point. A lot of the book is spent describing the journey between the Philippines on Earth, Hell and Heaven. It may have been better to cut down on this and spend longer describing Raul's nature, and his love affair with his artificer - the female creature Maximilia who rebuilds him. I found the story unsatisfying, and it left me bewildered. However, for lovers of the genre who have a daily intake of this fare, it may be worth a look.

Publisher: Earthlight (Simon & Schuster) Date: 2001 Pages: 442 Price: £6.99 Format: Paperback ISBN: 0743408950 Reviewed by: Rod Cameron Review Date: January 2002