The Devil's Apocrypha: There Are Two Sides to Every Story [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I ended up getting this because it seemed rather intriguing. I really enjoyed "To Reign in Hell" by Steven Brust and I thought maybe this would be on similar lines. I was sort of confused at first when I was reading through this book, mainly in terms of if this was fantasy or if the author actually thought all of this was real? Personally, I think its fantasy, but I don't know about it because he goes through lengths to actually include pictures of these ancient and lost manuscripts. So maybe he is trying to tell the world something?

Basically this book deals with the finding of a lost manuscript in Italy, supposedly found in an old house that was in the author's family. It recounts the meeting of a man and Lucifer. Basically Lucifer tells the man the true story of what happened and basically says that everything that was passed down in the Bible was a lie or twisted in some fashion. Lucifer isn't the real enemy of our souls, but it is in fact the deity a lot of people worship in Christ/God. The story is actually pretty interesting, but sorely suffers from the lack of having an editor go over the material. This book mostly had me until it started delving into the alien theory, where God has left this planet and is now mounting an army on another, it reminded me quite a bit of some story line concepts from Area 51 by Robert Doherty. However, I found the inter-dimensional beings saying they are Gods/Angels a far more plausible concept to stomach. Overall it's a very ambitious story and I really did enjoy reading it, because its concepts are very close to my own. I do like how the author took Biblical passages and then told the story from another point of view; it's something we certainly don't get from the Bible. Whether this is told from the point of view of someone who thinks it's real, or from fantasy, I still found the tales enjoyable and I liked their twist on things.

On a philosophical note, I have to completely agree with this books core concept. Now I'm no devil worshipper by any means, but the demonizing of the Bible did make sense. This book certainly didn't convince, nor was this a revelation to me; I concluded these things a long time ago. I know there will be many that might say my soul requires saving after reading this, but this books premise is true and I cannot deny the possibility. After all the premise of their "devil" seems to be based on a being coming in the guise of something wonderful and beautiful, but instead wreaks complete havoc on the Earth and ruins people's lives. Has this not happened because of worshippers of these religions that profess love for thy neighbor? I simply cannot deny the reality of the situation and if you are a like minded individual and enjoy fantasy/science fiction this book might be quite a breath of fresh air for us that oppose. I have to give this an extra star simply for its bold move in this light for I quite enjoyed how it painted a reality so close to our own.

First of all, what disappointed me most in this book, is the quality of writing. The entire book is written in the language of an average high school student. In addition to that, it is based on generally known stories from the bible, "popular science", and some history that you would learn in 10th grade. For a book that is getting such high reviews I really expected the authour to have done some genuine research and brought forth some insight that you don't find in online forums.
Also, references to "science" that appear throughout the book really annoyed me. I just expected that a book that claims to have been written by Satan himself, would incorporate more than just "Discovery Channel" level of science.
Finally, there is really nothing in that book that an educated person would not already know. Hence, short of pouring a lot of dirt on Christianity, this book accomplishes very little.

I almost didn't make it past the third chapter. Certain conventions - "lost" manuscript, quest for mysterious prophetic chroniclers blah blah blah - and the forced Elizabethan writing style were almost too hackneyed to get past.

But, I paid for the darned thing, so I decided to stick with it.

And it got better, in later chapters. I liked the Chapter of Philosophies for its rationalistic take on the Beatitudes. I would really have liked an expanded treatment of the relationship between Pharoah and Moses, and more on the relationship between Jesus and the-rest-of-God (it was a bit like Kazantzakis-light, here and showed real promise; alas, abandoned too quickly). When De Vito writes characters with conflicts and emotions, and allows them a bit of actual character development, he does well. It just seems like he hadn't decided what kind of book to write here, before he actually started typing.

In the end, literally, it disappointed. I suppose a book purporting to be prophecy of the end-times can't get too specific, but the conclusion was really unsatisfying.

So, 3 stars for some nice speculation on the motivations and struggles of some well-known characters. No more than three stars because of the trite packaging and tonal inconsistencies.