Since I mentioned my next novel yesterday, which will hopefully launch next month (with an extremely valuable shameless bribe bonus to those who buy during the launch, about getting world-class email inbox delivery)… I am showing the intro for the novel below to those who are interested.

It’s the last part of a 9-part series of horror novels.

And usually I ask a fan of one of the books to write the intros for them.

Like, for example, the great Bob Bly who wrote the intro for book 1 (Zombie Cop).

And Daniel Throssell who wrote the intro for book 8 (God Blood).

And so on, and so forth.

But I wrote the intro for this final book myself.

And it occurred to me that, it might help those who are curious about digging into the series to determine if it will be interesting enough to want to invest the time and mental bandwidth in reading.

As you’ll see below, the books ain’t exactly everyone’s cup of tea.

Here goes:

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Through A Glass Darkly —  The Speculative Theology of Enoch Wars

A few years before publishing this novel, I was back-and-forthing with its publisher, Greg Perry, about the books’ dual religious and horror themes. And it occurred to me that these books don’t fit into the “Horror” genre or “Christian” genre or even “Christian Horror” genre.

Instead, they are far more like the Christian metal band Stryper:

“Too Metal for the Christians,  too Christian for the Metal Heads…”

And so it is with Enoch Wars:

Too much gore for the Christians, too much Christianity for the gorehounds.

And, in case it’s not obvious after reading these books, I’m not a Biblical scholar. I never went to a Bible or Christian college. I never formally studied anything related to theology, either (outside of one semester in a community college Comparative Religions class). And I probably wouldn’t know the difference between Hebrew and Klingon if shown a word written in both languages side-by-side. Like many things in life, I know just enough about Biblical exegesis to be dangerous to myself and possibly those around me.

At the same time, I am pretty good at two things:

1. Answering Bible-related trivia questions after I’ve already seen the answers…

2. Indulging in what I once heard author & podcaster Derek Gilbert describes as:

“Speculative Theology”

That’s the kind of theology you see in Enoch Wars.

The original idea for Enoch Wars came to me before I knew it’d have anything to do with the prophet Enoch (much less be called “Enoch Wars”), demons, fallen angels, giants, or the Bible at all. I was driving on Route 101 by Humbug Mountain along the southern Oregon coast, and the image of a zombified cop who pulls people over and then eats them popped into my head.

This was sometime in early 2010.

And I didn’t start writing that novel (Zombie Cop) until a few years later, in August 2013.

But it wasn’t until about halfway through writing that book when my twisted mind connected the ideas of zombies, vampires, werewolves, & other things that go bump in the night with a couple of appendices in one of my favorite study Bibles called:

“The Companion Bible”

A fascinating read edited by the great E.W. Bullinger.

Bullinger (who Enoch Wars character Roper named his truck after) was, in my humble—but accurate—opinion, a brilliant scholar. And while he was also a product of his time (not seeing the most recent archeological findings, the 20th & 21st century’s many military, computer, and other technological breakthroughs, or even the Dead Sea Scrolls), he had an astonishingly keen mind when it came to Biblical exegesis.

All of which brings me to an irony I hate to admit:

Even the guy who had the biggest theological influence on these books probably would have shaken his head at their cartoon-like absurdity and the way they take certain theological “liberties” to fit the story. He may have even condemned me for taking his life’s work and applying it to horror novels at all.

We’ll never know.

But you know what?

I Like To Think He’d Be More Amused Than Angry.

And I make no apology for it, either way.

Because, at the end of the day, these stories are just entertainment. I have zero desire to debate any theology you see in the books. And, as far as I’m concerned, you can do whatever you want with the info. If I have any kind of religious agenda, it would be like C.S. Lewis’ pagan character-filled Narnia books—where they merely “point” to the truth and don’t try to argue what is true or not, what is Biblically correct or not, and what is sound theology or not.

I.e., it’s pure, unadulterated speculative theology.

And this goes quadruple for this volume.

I don’t care if it’s talking about fallen angels siring monsters…how Jesus’ blood would affect evil spirits… to how the Devil strikes deals with mortals…linking the families of the scribes who called for Jesus Christ’s crucifixion to today’s Satan-worshipping, blood-drinking, children-defiling elites…or everything else you read in this book or the other Enoch Wars novels.

It’s all speculative theology I merely find interesting to think about.

More:

Another great Biblical scholar, the late Michael Heiser—former scholar-in-residence at Logos Bible Software (who would also have probably balked at much of the theology in these books…)—often said something that fits perfectly into any theological insights these novels talk about:

“If something in the Bible is weird, it’s probably important.”

For better or worse, it’s always the weird stuff that fascinates me.

And so it’s mostly only the weird stuff that made it into these stories.

All of which has turned into a double-edged sword. On the one hand, this hopefully makes the novels more interesting to sinner or saint, heathen or pagan, atheist or agnostic. But, on the other hand, I suspect it viscerally annoys at least some of the books’ Christian fans.

So to them I will just say this:

Even the apostles disagreed on some issues. Circumcision was a topic with particularly, er…sharp…disagreement. And if you want to read something especially interesting, find the letter to the readers from the scholars who assembled the original 1611 King James Bible. They were blunt about making sure the reader knew it was an imperfect work put together by imperfect men.

And let’s face it—even the great Apostle Paul admitted we see through a glass darkly.

Thus, expecting perfect theology from Enoch Wars is an exercise in futility.

So take any theological and/or doctrinal thoughts, ideas, contentions, theories, or plot points in this book with several huge rocks of Himalayan salt. It’s all fiction that’s heavily “seasoned” with my own fanboy love of 80’s action movies, TV, fantasy, horror, and speculative theology.

In other words:

Relax.

It’s just a book, it ain’t church.

Ben Settle
Gold Beach, OR

P.S. I invented the word “Tommylogue” for this book’s narrative flow—so no need to get hung up on the fact that the word doesn’t exist, either.