Oh, those poor, uncivilized Africans and their violent superstitions and their helpless childish minds and cultures, but at least they have given the nice, white, USAmerican nun a greater understanding of her own life. Enough of the Italian stallions, the (ever unsympathetic, mind) gangster stereotypes, the brutish non-white others, and oh my God, that second chapter, what was that even.

150,000 first printing major ad/promo film rights sold to Warner Bros.I'm not sure what the etiquette is for dropping f bombs in a review, so I'm just going to phrase it as gently as I know how: fuck this book.ġ: Holy racism, Batman.

Though its devils prove disappointingly to be made in the image of humans, Long's novel brims with energy, ideas and excitement. Inventive scenes of underground wonders alternate with talky stretches of scientific discourse and mawkish moments of romance between Ike and Ali. Like the subterranean trail blazed by its adventurers, the narrative twists, turns, dead-ends and backtracks. Meanwhile, topside, Beowulf's theologians and metaphysicians surmise that the elusive ''Satan'' has evolved a human form to pass secretly among mankind. Once beneath the Mariana Trench, Beowulf discovers that Helios intends to forcefully annex the world inside the earth's crust to further its business ambitions.

With the help of Ike Crockett, an escapee from 10 years of ''hadal'' captivity, Beowulf infiltrates the Helios Corporation's mission to explore caverns honeycombing Earth's interior. From the experiences of a varied cast of characters-including Sister Ali, a Catholic nun serving in South Africa, and Elias Branch, a major with NATO forces in Bosnia-a 21st-century think tank calling itself the Beowulf Circle distills a startling theory: The biblical Satan and his devils in Hell are mythic renderings of Homo hadalis, grotesquely malformed offshoots of Homo sapiens who for centuries have surfaced from underground hideouts to prey on human beings. The premise of this millennial thriller is as audacious as it is problematic: ''if there can be a historical Christ,'' one character hypothesizes, ''why not a historic Satan?'' Demystification of the ultimate Bad Guy is no easy feat, but Long (Angels of Light) brings it off, if just barely, in a dizzying synthesis of supernatural horror, lost-race fantasy and military SF.

The descent by jeff long