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.

In the tradition of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein, bestselling author James Byron Huggins pens a fascinating novel portraying the conflict between good and evil in a great gray wolf's battle to save his world from the forces of darkness. It is an intense, timeless tale of enduring faith. Long ago, the inhabitants of the deep woods were given a choice. The choice was difficult. They could follow the Silver Wolf and his lord, the Lightmaker, or join the secretive forces of the Dark Council. After a desperate series of battles that rage across a harsh, frozen wilderness, the Dark Council is on the threshold of eternal victory...and the servants of the Lightmaker are devastatingly reduced to their last flicker of hope. In the final encounter, the struggle between good and evil is more than strength against strength. More than wit against wit. It is a path of endurance won through suffering...of peace won through pain. Rerelease with new cover.

They wanted to create a superman who could kill anyone – or anything – at their command. But they created something far more terrible. They tried to use a fantastic combination of technology and science to create an ultimately controllable and yet ultimately unstoppable killing machine. But when the body of the legendary assassin rose from the dead in their laboratory, they realized that the soulless void within it had been seized by an ancient, malevolent evil that would use this titanic strength to destroy them all. Now CAIN must be stopped or at the end of ten days the virus within him will mutate into an airborne plague so deadly that Cain will be able to simply walk through any city on Earth and kill everyone in it. Three desperate people – a soldier, a priest, and the regretful scientist that created Cain have ten days to hunt him down and kill him. But Maggie, his creator, just spent a trillion dollars and the most radical science and technology known to mankind resurrecting Cain from the dead and making him unkillable. How do you kill what can’t be killed? That is the question that Solomon, the soldier and team leader – and a man who has his own score to settle with the devil – keeps asking himself as he loses one bloody battle after another with an unstoppable Cain. For now Cain is, quite simply, a superhuman, indestructible body inhabited by Satan. And yet, to exist, Cain must drink fresh human blood every night. But that is why Maggie equipped him with the fangs of a vampire … The hunt begins. The battle is joined. And this frantic team of broken people has ten days to stop Cain before he makes his ancient kingdom over Death his new kingdom over the Earth.From Library JournalIn this new horror/techno/medical thriller by the author of several Christian fiction best sellers (e.g., Leviathan, LJ 9/1/95), readers are treated to the distinct possibility of evil incarnate taking over the world. The plot is murky at best: a hideous being is running amok, drinking blood and kidnapping an innocent child who holds the key to its survival. The good guys are a tormented priest, a disillusioned soldier, and a beautiful doctor (mother of said innocent child). The baddies are double-dealing government agents who are working for "The Dark Side." The main quibble with Huggins's story is a common one, particularly in Christian fiction. Stephen King can mix and match his monsters, blending characteristics, but most authors simply lack the talent. What is Huggins's evil being? Is it a golem? A vampire? A saber-toothed terminator? Lucifer? Cain, son of Adam and Eve? Or just a big, mean, genetically engineered predator who wasn't too nice in the first place? Whatever he is, the novel is a poor blend of Satanic philosophy, Christian platitudes, and garbled Hebraic mythology. Not recommended.-?Lesley C. Keogh, Bethel P.L., Ct.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. From BooklistBruce Willis has acquired the rights to Cain, a supernatural thriller from Christian crossover writer Huggins, author of the rather turgid Leviathan (1995) and the chilling Wolf Story (1993). Why would Willis be interested? Well, Cain is the first and the eternal killer, and here he is awakened from the chamber in which the Nazarene sealed him away 2,000 years ago. His spirit links with an almost indestructible body, built as part of a hush-hush military project headed by Maggie Milton, who is young, brilliant, and beautiful. Her monster escapes and goes about fulfilling prophecy, killing soldiers right and left, devastating cities. Enter Colonel James Solomon, a retired commando who nearly died killing the terrorists who slaughtered his family. With incredible rigor, he has slowly brought himself back into good enough shape for a Bruce Willis part. Solomon, Maggie, and an old priest battle the bloodthirsty, blood-drinking Cain, and Huggins turns in a suspenseful performance, no question. He also has a freer hand in the mainstream market: his soldiers talk a lot tougher, and the bloody scenes are bloody, indeed. Somewhat reminiscent of Barry Sadler's eternal soldier, Casca, protagonist of a pulp series with huge sales in the early 1980s. John Mort

After they left him dying and alone in the Valley of Meggido, Gage turned his back on war. He turned his back on the world and gave his heart to the force that he felt saved him in that terrible darkness when his only hope lay in a power that he sensed was surely somewhere beyond the stars … Once Gage was the strongest, the most cunning, the most savage of his kind. He was the perfect weapon – a man who killed like lightning and utterly without mercy or hesitation or remorse. But that was the world he left behind in that cursed and demonic graveyard in Megiddo. Now Gage lives for a new purpose – and a new life. Only the murder of the priest who found him dying and mercifully nursed him back to health, but was murdered because of that very act of mercy, can force Gage to once again pick up his weapons. Now Gage faces a secret society protected by a team of six perfect assassins who have never known defeat – a group known as ‘The Sixth Order’ who have joined together to find an ancient book that contains ‘The Name of the Beast.’ To avenge the life of the man who saved him, Gage chooses to find the manuscript and destroy it before The Sixth Order can use it to decimate the Earth. But he must face each deadly killer and defeat them in combat during a haunting quest that takes him from the shadowed streets of New York to the Italian Alps to the coliseum that stands in the very shadow of The Vatican where an even more ancient and terrible secret lies buried … waiting to be discovered. It is a fight that will take Gage to the edge of all he can endure, a fight that will take him to the limit of what he has ever imagined about Destiny or Man or God, a fight that will force him to become far more savage and cunning than he has ever been if he is to defeat what has never been defeated. And if Gage does not defeat them … The Beast will rise from the sea …

One of Hollywood's hottest action-film writers, James Byron Huggins is a master at keeping the action rolling and the pages turning. Here, the author of Cain ("may be the thriller of the year" -- BookPage), unleashes a lightning-quick tale that pits a man born out of his time against the future's deadliest creation. Nathaniel Hunter could track anyone -- or anything -- on earth. Now the military desperately needs him for a mission that his ultrasensitive instincts tell him he should refuse. A beast is loose somewhere north of the Arctic Circle. It has already decimated a secret research facility and annihilated a squad of elite military guards. And the raging creature is headed south toward civilization, ready to wreak bloody devastation. It's a job that Hunter can't turn down, but he soon discovers that his prey is terror incarnate, a half-human abomination created by a renegade agency through a series of outlawed genetic experiments. It has man's cunning, a predator's savageness, and a prehistoric power that has transcended the ages. And even if Hunter survives its unrelenting hunger for human blood, he'll still have to confront the grim reality that it may have grown immortal.Amazon.com ReviewThe first time we meet Nathaniel Hunter, the world's greatest tracker, he and his giant black wolf, Ghost, arrive at the scene of a massive search for a lost boy. "With primordial strength--an almost frightening animal strength brought to life with a single word--the enormous wolf turned, massive muscles bunching and hardening beneath the heavy black coat. The huge head, as broad as an anvil, went to the ground as it padded toward the treeline." No wonder Sylvester Stallone has bought James Byron Huggins's latest thriller for the movies! What a role--and the part of Hunter isn't bad, either...Hunter, a historic-looking mountain man who dresses in stylish leather garments designed by himself, finds the boy quickly and is ready to set off for Manchuria in search of a rare Siberian tiger when an even more dangerous target surfaces in the wilds of Alaska. An illicit medical experiment has gone wrong, and the attempt to combine the recovered DNA of one of our more violent and predatory predecessors with that of modern man has resulted in a creature whose amazing powers of brain and muscle are matched only by its survival instincts.As readers of his previous thrillers (Cain and Leviathan) already know, Huggins can make the most outlandish material instantly credible by creating scenes of great power and imagination. He also knows more about weapons and ways of killing people and animals than anyone. There's nothing cozy or literary about his work, but the action is nonstop and fully absorbing. --Dick AdlerFrom Publishers WeeklyHuggins's latest thriller (after the biblical Cain), about the clinical combination of modern man with the recovered DNA of a super-predatory but mercifully extinct proto-human, avoids falling into mere mindless action fiction by its unusually deft characterization. In the near future, illegal medical experiments in Alaska have created this nearly indestructible creature of incredible cunning and savagery, who goes on a rampage through the ranks of the research stations. To cover their blunder, the government sends out an elite team of special-operations warriors, led by the title character, Nathaniel Hunter, a mountain man born out of time and the best tracker in the world. Meanwhile, U.S. marshals are on the trail of the secret and the cover-up, intervening in the action in an unexpected way. Huggins's pacing is nonstop; his visual imagination is so compelling that the book will work splendidly as a movie; and the action scenes are fine if the reader has the stomach for a high body count. The author's expertise on weapons and wilderness survival keeps the narrative interest high, as do the well-fleshed characters such as Hunter; Bobbi Jo, the female sniper; and Takakura, a Japanese equally at home with modern weapons as with his ancestral katana. Huggins also chillingly gets inside the head of the savage, highly intelligent beast. This is a feast for gun nuts and pure entertainment for the more dedicated thriller reader. (Jan.) FYI: Hunter has been optioned for film by Sylvester Stallone.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

With the inspiring spirit of Braveheart and Gladiator, James Byron Huggins tells the astonishing story of one man’s fight to save his village – the tiny hamlet of RORA – from annihilation at the hands of the Inquisition and the combined armies of France, Italy, and the Roman Catholic Church. Surrounded by 20,000 soldiers but defended by a town marshal named Joshua Gianavel, the 130 men and women of Rora made their last stand in an epic act of defiance that inspired both horror and admiration across Europe. Set in 1655, the historical War of Piedmont remains a battle that has baffled historians and military experts since the people of RORA defeated the three armies, won their right to religious freedom, and destroyed the tyranny of the Inquisition in a conflict that still stuns those who read it. Huggins masterfully brings the real life characters of Oliver Cromwell, the poet John Milton, and other famous historical figures into the story, re-creating their profound wisdom and dialogue as each fought their part in the war.Yet Huggins’ greatest achievement is in capturing the spirit, mind, and life of Joshua Gianavel, a mesmerizing mountain man of unexplainable military genius and profound faith who led RORA to its incredible victory when all the world, watching in horror, said that victory was utterly impossible.Review"Astonishing" -- Newt GingrichAbout the AuthorJames Byron Huggins is a former journalist with over twenty awards for excellence in editing and writing. he is the author of five best-selling novels: A Wolf Story, The Reckoning, Leviathan, Cain, and Hunter.