(pb; 1985: fifth book in The Omen pentalogy)
From the back cover
“Damien Thorn was dead─and the forces that defended good against the most hideous evil ever to threaten the world could relax.
“That was their mistake.
“For coming from the womb of the woman Damien Thorn had possessed was his son─and heir to the horror of Damien’s power and purpose.
“Now nothing could stop the new master of satanic seduction and ungodly destruction from enticing and enslaving all the earth as he used the weaknesses of human flesh and the strength of his hellish hunger to turn the world into the empire of the abomination.”
Review
Caveat: possible spoilers for The Final Conflict and Omen IV: Armageddon 2000 in this review.
“Nearly a year” after the occurrences of Omen IV: Armageddon 2000, the world is in gray grip of nuclear winter. Sickness and death run rampant. In West London, Paul Buher, who worked for Damien Thorn, then his charmless, nihilistic teenage son (now calling himself Damien Thorn II), has repented for decades of evil service. He thinks the seventeen-year-old hell-spawn is dead, but when Damien II appears on television, ready to helm his father’s corporation, a new cycle of desperation, death, and painful redemption begins.
Caught up in this new supranatural, corpse-ridden round is the shy Brother Francis (who appeared in Armageddon), a fellow monk and friend of the peacefully deceased Father DeCarlo (from The Final Conflict and Armageddon). Also ensnared anew is Margaret Brennan, widow of Philip (whom she killed at the behest of Damien II near the end of Armageddon)─she's now a mad, paranoid patient at St. Ignatius hospital in North London, a nun-run institution with its own secrets; and Bill Jeffries, who’s replaced Buher as Damien II’s right-hand man (Jeffries was briefly seen in Armageddon; he has a bigger role in Abomination).
New players in these Thorn-led machinations include: Jack Mason, a popular author who’s decided to write a book about Damien Thorn, his family, and those who’ve died around them; and Anna Brompton, Mason’s flirty research assistant and writer.
This time out, Damien II, in his black chapel at his Pereford estate, means to complete his world “peace”─the total annihilation of humankind, hiccupped by Buher’s betrayal at the end of Armageddon. This time it won’t just be a nuclear missile exchange between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem; it’ll begin with aggression further east, with bigger global players.
McGill refreshes Abomination’s storyline with new elements and minor variations, making Abomination a mostly intriguing and entertaining read. The beyond-the-films-horrifying deaths and all-around ickiness that punctuate its events are vivid, B flick-true and potent (e.g., Margaret Brennan’s bleach-induced abortion). The characters, as in Armageddon, are given more backstories than those in the movie tie-in novels, and its scope, again like Armageddon, are more intense than the film-based books and movies.
I say “mostly intriguing and entertaining” because McGill has a habit of making his characters, particularly those who serve(d) Satan, seek redemption through Christ as they approach death. It worked in previous Omen books (not every character embraced Christ), but in Abomination, it feels like a plot-convenient character inconsistency with at least one character (whose fealty to His infernal majesty might be lifelong). This is a minor blip in the book’s storyline, but it still feels forced.
Another thing that bothered me (as it did in previous books) was the notion of how anal rape lends itself to satanic pregnancies (e.g., Damien II), and how Damien II does not have a belly button because he was not umbilically linked to his host-mother (Kate Reynolds, The Final Conflict and Armageddon). Some reading this will think this is nitpicking, and I get it. That said, suspension of disbelief is highwire-balancing act (even in books like the Omen pentalogy), and all writers are at their best when they provide solid grounding (setting-wise, especially) for their more outlandish ideas. The anal rape/no-umbilical cord thing feels forced, like the religious conversion of one of Abomination’s key characters.
Bottom line: Abomination is mostly well-written, darkly and over-the-top funny, ambitious and B-movie entertaining, a work that satisfactorily wraps up the Omen series.
No comments:
Post a Comment