The Book of David (The One Book)

In Heaven above, God wept for his children, while his Angels burnt and fell to earth.The Spheres of the Apostles: an artificial world consisting of massive concentric spheres. A millennium has passed since the Spheres were first seeded by the Catholic Church and few remember the persecution from which they fled; even fewer are aware of the systems quietly functioning and malfunctioning around them. The world is simply the world as God has made it and so beyond their ken. Angels, a genetically modified elite, have trapped themselves in Lower Heaven and can only observe as the world slowly comes undone, while men scratch out a meagre existence in Spheres below, afflicted with the violence that accompanies the disintegration of religious authority. In an attempt to wrest scarce resources from the Angels, the Papacy has declared war on Lower Heaven, while below, an army of the poor and dispossessed gathers, readying to march on Rome. . . .At the behest of the Archangel Zeracheil, Thomas descends into this chaos, his only solace a book that contains all the stories ever written. Accompanied by his unborn son, who speaks to him through drug-induced visions, and a Catharsist, an artificial man with a soul, Thomas begins his journey to Hell, in the hope that he might staunch the flow of God’s blood, and, in doing so, redeem the human Spheres.

Laird Barron

“The Book of David is an odyssey through realms of science fiction, fantasy, and sheer mind-bending madness. Robert Boyczuk has crafted an epic. Creation mythology and dystopian fiction might not ever be the same after this collision.”

Cory Doctorow

“Robert Boyczuk is a supremely talented writer.”

Alex Good, Quill & Quire

“Boyczuk has a real knack for creepy, Twilight Zone-style atmospherics. The scary stuff is often made more threatening by being kept just out of sight, concealed in shadows or half hidden behind a window. [His] stories all have a twist―a turn of the screw―that breathes new life into some of the old forms and results in fiction as clever as it is entertaining.”

Publishers Weekly

“Page-turning thrills aplenty. . . . Boyczuk’s [Nexus] borrows from sources as diverse as Tolkien, Star Wars, and Alan Moore, and integrates the miscellany admirably into a fast-paced plot. The dystopian human dynamics, on the other hand, are the stuff of an epic nihilistic hangover.”

Rue Morgue Magazine

“Boyczuk builds up his hauntings and often gruesome metaphors and imagery from the base of his stories’ human relationships, which imbues his fiction with an uncanniness that mimics the feeling of being trapped in a maze-like dream. Readers need not worry, however. The horror here is very real. Boyczuk just wants you to have a little fun finding it.”

The New York Review of Science Fiction

“In [Nexus: Ascension], the writing is vivid, the characters . . . interact in a believable and thrilling way, and there is enough tension to make us suddenly start turning the pages hurriedly. . . . [Boyczuk is] a writer to watch.”

Library Journal

“As Thomas makes his way through the world [in The Book of Thomas], his backstory is gradually revealed, adding richness and somberness to a dark novel that is reminiscent of Walter M. Miller Jr.’s classic A Canticle for Leibowitz.”

About the Author

Robert Boyczuk is the author of Horror Story and Other Horror Stories, a critically acclaimed short story collection about love, grief, and loss, as well as the space opera Nexus: Ascension, and The Book of Thomas, all of which are available from ChiZine Publications.

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