Falling Light

Michael, a warrior who has fought the renegade Deceiver over time and space, and Mary, a healer who has suffered much from the Deceiver's onslaughts, were once "creatures of power and fire." Now the reincarnated soulmates continue the Good vs. Evil battle Harrison launched in Rising Darkness. Harrison trivializes Lucifer's rebellion and his subsequent campaign to corrupt mankind, recasting it as a series of grisly firefights and smarmy healings punctuated by genre-requisite erotic encounters. The cosmic fireworks fizzle among unconvincing dialogue and superficial characterizations. Petulant Mary fails to hit it off with Michael's aged extraterrestrial mentor, Astra, who decides to kill the noncompliant young woman. Michael both defends righteousness and yields to his raging lust with "grim, dogged endurance." Astra endlessly mulls her own past failure to destroy Lucifer. And an ignoble Lucifer himself, stuck in a "monkey suit" body he detests, is a cardboard caricature of evil. Even the Devil deserves better than this. (Feb.)