Leviathan

In a subterranean cavern on a deserted Icelandic island ends in terror for the imprisoned scientific team that creates a fantastic beast from the biblical book of Job: “And behold, Leviathan, on Earth it has no equal …”

Using a komodo dragon, scientists use an electromagnetic field to unleash its ancient DNA and create Leviathan – an armored dragon that can withstand the heavy weapons fire of tanks and missiles – a beast that can shred a steel vault like paper – a creature that can breathe fire that burns like napalm.

And although Dr. Frank, its creator, had initially designed a super-strong containment center knowing full well that Leviathan’s immeasurable physical strength and titanic rage would be their instant doom if it escaped, Frank did not calculate on what destruction Leviathan could wreak with the combined might of its nova-like fire and strength combined.Leviathan soon escapes.

The entire facility shuts down to prevent Leviathan from also escaping into the world, so now the beast cannot flee the installation. But neither can anyone else flee from the vast, underground labyrinth. And that includes Jackson Connor, a resourceful electrician who must somehow find a way to destroy Leviathan in order to save his wife and son.

Also upon the island is a mystical, modernage Viking who is himself of titanic size and titanic strength, and Thor senses what might have been unleashed in the cavern far below. So, sadly, and knowing that this might well be both his destiny and his doom, Thor lifts a gigantic battle ax from the wall of his lighthouse and descends into the cavern to fight with them … or die with them.In 24 hours a nuclear holocaust – a final failsafe – will detonate to destroy Leviathan, the island, and everyone inside the facility. So the wounded and desperate survivors have no choice but to kill Leviathan or perish.Three thousand years ago Job wrote in the bible that no force on Earth possessed the strength to destroy Leviathan.

But now Leviathan has come …

And they must find a way to destroy it.

From Publishers WeeklyCast from the mold of Michael Crichton's cautionary tales about scientific excess but given a Christian glaze, this novel pits one Jackson Connor?whose initials aren't incidental?against a monster created through genetic manipulation. "Electromagnetic chromosomal" means have allowed Dr. Peter Frank to turn a Komodo dragon's DNA into that of a "Leviathan," grown by Stygian Enterprises to sell to the U.S. government as a weapon of war. Things get out of control, allowing Huggins (The Reckoning) to express a virulent disdain for the feds and an only slightly more tempered lack of regard for scientific research. Salvation comes at the hands of Connor, an electrician employed by Stygian on the arctic island where Leviathan is based; he is aided in the good fight by Thor Magnusson, a scholarly giant of a priest hiding from the forces of evil. Huggins is a far from subtle writer, given to preaching and melodrama ("what we have accomplished in this cavern may very well have altered the nature of life as we know it," intones one character), but once the action gets up to steam, he takes readers on a merry, entertaining ride. Whether the book, drenched in apocalyptic Christian theology, will cross over to a secular readership remains to be seen, however. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.