The God Conspiracy by Derek P. Gilbert - A Review

The funniest line I've read in long time: "...pulled from the flames of hell by the four nerdsmen of the apocalypse..."




I recently finished reading The God Conspiracy, a Christian Thriller novel by Derek P. Gilbert of Peering Into Darkness. Overall, it was a great read - action, adventure, suspense out the wazoo, humor, and a great Christian message.

This book was scary; not in the horror movie scary way - but content-scary if you think about the events in the book and how easily they could happen in real life. What happens is that a secret cabal within the U.S. Government stages a series of "homegrown terrorist attacks" and blames them on so-called ultra-conservative fundamentalist Christians. But in reality, it's just a ruse to round up every day Christians into confinement camps for nefarious purposes. The novel follows not only victims of this round-up, and the perpetrators, but an FBI agent investigating one of the terror attacks, four computer nerds that inadvertently get involved, and a National Guardsman that gets stuck in the middle.

Overall, an excellent novel. I only had a couple of minor problems with the story that other readers might not mind at all. I felt there were too many characters to follow: the FBI agent, the pastor (and his family), the Sheriff (and his family), the store owner (and his family), the four nerdsmen of the apocalypse, the main bad guy, the assistant to the main bad guy, the leader of the bad guy's military team, the Weekend Warrior. All were enjoyable characters with interesting stories that added to the suspense and overall story as they all weaved in and out of each other's lives; but it seemed to me like there were too many.

The other issue I had was the addition near the end of character that seemed to have all the answers and a possible solution. If he had appeared briefly a couple of times earlier in the book - maybe monitoring the situation through his contacts or something - it wouldn't have made his appearance at the end so abrupt. I did like that he was in the book though - he's a character from an excellent book written by the author's wife, Sharon K. Gilbert. I think there were other cameos as well, but I didn't catch them. I like that the author and his wife share this world and characters. So far, all the novels I've read by them both have been excellent.

The God Conspiracy is available in traditional format at Lulu.com or for Kindle at Amazon.

Read it!

Book Review: Iron Dragons

Wow. That pretty much sums up my reaction to reading this book.

Derek P. Gilbert's first published novel is nothing short of excellent. To be honest, I wasn't expecting it to be this good... and I'm tempted to say it's even better than the two novels I've read by his wife.

Iron Dragons is a "fantasy" novel in that it's set in a medieval-type world with dragons, inns along the road, and plenty of ale to knock out the itinerant dragon-slayer. Throw a crazy ragamuffin dog, a priest that's either incredibly brave or incredibly thoughtless, a stable-hand that is quite the man of the world, and another interesting* character or two, and you've got an excellent read. There's action, humor, character development, excellent world-building. And the writing-style is excellent.

Go buy this book. Now.

*I can't explain additional interesting characters or plot twists, as it would so spoil the fun!


Note: This review was originally published on my family blog.