The Countenance Divine - Michael Hughes
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It might look as if western society is heading towards meltdown and that global catastrophe is imminent, but in his highly imaginative first novel, The Countenance Divine , Michael Hughes draws together some figures and events in history that suggest that we've only narrowly avoided a far greater threat at several significant points over the last 300 years - A Second Coming heralding the Final Days. That has all the potential to be a great subject if you can pull it off successfully, and Hughes just about manages to find a good balance between the overwrought gothic horror and the shocking danger of the apparently ordinary and mundane. The central idea has a compelling symmetry to it, one that feels authentic and not at all arbitrary. The Countenance Divine interweaves four different historical periods, the first starting in 1666 (now there's a year with an interesting number to start the apocalypse) and the last in 1999. In 1666 John Milton is writing his epic poem, Paradise