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British fantasy novels have captured the imagination of readers in the United States for decades. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis made their indelible mark on us. J.K. Rowling also impressed Americans, though some Christians wondered if they should read the Harry Potter novels.

The newest English fantasy import, Shadowmancer, was so popular that Putnam paid $500,000 for the U.S. rights—three times what J.K. Rowling received for U.S. rights to her first Potter fantasy. But, though Shadowmancer is a Christian response to Harry Potter, Christians may still hesitate to read it to their younger children.

Shadowmancer Shadowmancer by G.P. Taylor Putnam Pub Group Juv 304 pages, $16.99

The world of Shadowmancer is upside down—those you expect to be good are evil, and the title refers not to heroes, as in Potter or The Fellowship of the Ring, but to a wicked vicar. G.P. Taylor's vicar is a shadowmancer, one who conjures darkness. Taylor, a former punk rocker-turned-policeman-turned-vicar who does exorcisms, knows the forces of evil firsthand.

The book, however, is not just about vicars behaving badly. It follows the course of the redemptive novel, where good characters stand against seemingly insurmountable evil, fight to the finish, and are thus transformed.

The book is set in the 18th-century Yorkshire coastline villages of Whitby and Thorpe, where a vicar named Obadiah Demurral wants not to serve the village but to rule it, craving "power over people, power over the elements, and ultimately the power to be God."

With the aid of an ancient and powerful relic called the Keruvim, the vicar believes his days of "begging for a favor, clucking like a chicken at his altar" are over. Calling on dark spiritual powers, smugglers, sinister civic leaders, and his faithful Quasimodo-like assistant Beadle, Demurral gains control of one half of the Keruvim.

He begins his quest for the second half, control of which he believes will bring about the death of God. Then Pyratheon, a Satan figure who represents all the gods humanity has worshipped, will come, ushering in a new age of darkness. All the evil powers would then be Demurral's.

But young Thomas Barrick, very much alone due to his father's death and his mother's failing health, has been watching the vicar. He sees through his evil plan, and gathers three friends—Kate Coglan, Raphah the Cushite, and Jacob Crane—to stop the vicar-sorcerer. Like Potter's young friends and Tolkien's fellowship, a band of good stands firm against evil.

Thomas is pulled down, though, by his own suicidal wish—a voice from the grave or a dark power's force—that leads him to try to drown himself in the sea. There Thomas is rescued by Raphah, who has come from Africa to retrieve the Keruvim and return it to its rightful place, where his family had kept it for centuries.

Thomas and his friends soon find out that Raphah himself is the other half of the Keruvim's power, and that Demurral wants him for a sacrifice.

The four heroes draw inspiration from Raphah, who has written the words of God on his heart and quotes Psalms and other Scripture. "By the power of the most high you have been set free," Raphah says. "Remember, when he sets you free you are free indeed."

Shadowmancer is like Moby Dick with Scripture. Raphah is the book's conscience and walking Bible reference, and the quotes sound too didactic for a novel.

Still, the sheer creative force of the work helps it to overcome these bumps. The invention of new language for evil spirits and spirits of the dead—Glashans, Azimuth—evokes Tolkien. And the reversal of African and European stereotypes is refreshing; Raphah harangues the Europeans for being "too superstitious."

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June 2004, Vol. 48, No. 6