Entangled

Adeptly balancing a concern for harsh and complicated realities with a boundless talent for the fantastical, Hancock, author of popular history works such as the bestseller Fingerprints of the Gods, has created a fantasy realm where an epic struggle is underway. Two teenaged girls living 24,000 years apart are tasked by a beneficent being with putting a stop to the evil force embodied in Sulpa, a demon who has amassed a terrifying force of Stone Age warriors to carry out his plans. Central to these is the destruction of the Neanderthals, who here are spiritually superior beings with telepathic and healing powers. Hancock's draw on real anthropological and archaeological information is grounding and invigorating, and his supernatural additions are both internally coherent and satisfyingly trippy; one central premise is that out-of-body states such as those induced by certain drugs can actually transport one to other (real) dimensions and times. The march of endless cliffhangers is somewhat tiring, though, and one hopes that the simplistic portrayal of good and evil will be complicated in sequels, as it contributes to a fatiguing effect. Otherwise, Hancock has more than enough mythos, character, and tension to propel two further installments. (Oct.)