cover image Heaven: 
The Book of Thomas, Vol. 1

Heaven: The Book of Thomas, Vol. 1

Robert Boyczuk. ChiZine (Diamond, dist.), $15.95 trade paper (300p) ISBN 978-1-927469-27-9

Earth has been divided into 14 Spheres, physical planes that act as separate worlds, all theoretically ruled by the Church. Something is starting to go wrong with the system, however, and a boy named Thomas becomes an unwitting keystone to a conspiracy that crosses all the Spheres and takes him from his orphanage to the Holy See of Rome and beyond. This postapocalyptic passion play is a lushly written but ultimately unsatisfactory quest plot with underrealized characters. Boyczuk (Nexus: Ascension) leaves vital revelations far too late; the conspiracy is a tenuous thread to tie together the laborious first-person travelogue of Thomas’s journey, and it leaves the reader with more questions than answers. Much of this could be forgiven were it not for the use of sexual violence to provide cheap characterization and flat motivations for most of the story’s action. (Nov.)