Hellgate: London Volume 1

By Arvid Nelson & J. M. (TokyoPop)
ISBN: 978-1-4278-0700-7

This trans-Pacific collaboration between Arvid Nelson and J. M. (Korean artist Jeong Mo Yang) is a solid supernatural thriller based on a video game (a prequel to it in fact) and supplements a number of prose novels in fleshing out your “point and shoot” experience.

In 2020AD the Battle of All-Hallow’s Eve resulted in hordes of demons escaping from the Pit and establishing beachheads in many earthly cities. But this was not a completely unexpected or sudden surprise. For many weeks before there had been portents that the wise and the gifted were privy to…

College boy and London Rugby hero John Fowler awakes on October 1st from horrific dreams of rapacious, murdering devils in the streets. Late for his archaeology class, he catches up with his friends just as they’re uncovering a skeleton buried face down. Whilst the professor lectures them on satanic burial rituals John finds a talisman that the others have inexplicably missed, and when he gets home for some reason there’s an incredible sword hidden in his attic…

As the grisly dreams continue, augmented by visions of robed figures and monsters, little do John and his feisty sister Lindsey (a dab hand with the dreaded cricket bat!) discover that they are descendents of demon-fighting Knights Templar, and in the dark days to come their inherited abilities will make them valuable champions of Mankind in The Last Battle…

Full of spooky omens and devious mysteries this is standard monster-hunting fare, albeit carried off with great style and aplomb. Hellgate: London is no classic but does deliver everything a supernatural action fan could want from a book, and has the singular advantage of being totally accessible to even the most vehement Video Game avoider.

This volume also includes an extract from Goetia, book two of a new Hellgate prose trilogy by Mel Odom

 

Hellgate ™: London © 2008 Flagship Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved.