Visitants: Stories of Fallen Angels and Heavenly Hosts » (Original)

Swooping in from both heaven and hell, the new generation of angels portrayed in Visitants is youthful, immortal, and powerful. The book offers a wide-ranging collection of stories about the new angels, including romantic entanglements with winged bad boys, devilish interventions with evil messengers, and bloody battles against ravaging demons. Far from the sappy TV melodramas where angels touch people’s lives, these stories challenge readers to reimagine the very idea of how cast-out heavenly spirits would interact with the humans they are now forced to live among.

Publishers Weekly

Jones lines up heavy hitters for this anthology of reprints dating back to 1914 as well as original tales about decidedly non-Hallmark angels. In Neil Gaiman's "Murder Mysteries," an angel is charged with solving a murder in Heaven before the Word creates our universe. Peter Crowther's "Things I Didn't Know My Father Knew" has a Twilight Zone feel, while Chelsea Quinn Yarbro places avenging human-angels on Earth in "Thy Spinning Wheel Compleat." Robert Silverberg's angels enter the digital age in "Basileus." All blend modern takes with traditional elements, though not always where one might expect. This wide-ranging anthology has something for every taste, from the light to the horrific, and is nicely completed by Jones's introduction, which traces the history of angels in religious lore and modern fantasy. (Dec.)