Birds of Paradise
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4.6 • 7 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
American Gods meets The Chronicles of Narnia in this adult fantasy about the Biblical Adam recovering the lost pieces of the Garden of Eden.
Many millennia after the fall of Eden, Adam, the first man in creation, still walks the Earth – exhausted by the endless death and destruction, he is a shadow of his former hope and glory. And he is not the only one. The Garden was deconstructed, its pieces scattered across the world and its inhabitants condemned to live out immortal lives, hiding in plain sight from generations of mankind.
But now pieces of the Garden are turning up on the Earth. After centuries of loneliness, Adam, haunted by the golden time at the beginning of Creation, is determined to save the pieces of his long lost home. With the help of Eden's undying exiles, he must stop Eden becoming the plaything of mankind.
Adam journeys across America and the British Isles with Magpie, Owl, and other animals, gathering the scattered pieces of Paradise. As the country floods once more, Adam must risk it all to rescue his friends and his home – because rebuilding the Garden might be the key to rebuilding his life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Meditative and elegant, this speculative novel from Langmead (Dark Star) combines a high-flying adventure plot with the pacing and poetic flourishes of magical realism. Langmead introduces Adam, the biblical first man, while he is working as security for a high-profile actor in contemporary L.A.—a job that soon turns sour, forcing Adam to take on a new identity. It's a familiar pattern for Adam who, because he was created before death, has lived countless lives, aided by Eden's other creatures, the platonic first animals who are able to transform into humans at will. Now Rook, a successful lawyer in his human form, asks for Adam's help finding his brother Magpie. Adam's search soon spirals into a quest to recover scattered flora from the Garden of Eden and save paradise from his descendants' greed. It's a fascinating premise and stylishly told, but occasionally the novel undercuts its own ambitions by tightly orienting the story around the U.K., introducing only half a dozen Edenic animals, and pitting the hero against an unfortunately obvious villain. Still, at its best, the sparse styling lends the novel a fairy tale quality. Readers of Neil Gaiman and China Miéville will enjoy this lyrical, ecologically minded adventure.
