Having read John Shirley's first novel in the Constantine universe (the film adaptation novel) recently, I am struck by how much better a writer he is when not confined to the tropes of the cheesy (but still wonderfully amusing) Keanu Reeves film. John Constantine is back with full acerbic force, along with a new crew of magically inclined individuals (gone are the oddly gangster and desperate Chas and the damsel-in-distress psychic Angela in lieu of more interesting characters), trying to save the world again - but this time from a group of magicians trying to resurrect the father of all war gods, N'Hept, and bring about a new world order. The story is far from unique (Constantine has gone up against the anti-Christ for god's sake, and N'Hept is really just a primitive/original version of his oldest foe, the demon Nergal), but it's sufficiently entertaining and adds some interesting twists to the Constantine canon. We get a confirmation of the Laughing Magician's reincarnated nature with his flashbacks to a Stone Age character ("Konz") as well as some additional magicians from his past and another failed love affair. The oddest (and most frightening) twist that Shirley used to give the story some true terror (the world won't end kids, Constantine always saves the day) was the inclusion of the bottled but conscious remains of Josef Mengele, Nazi doctor of horrors at Auschwitz. I'm sure that anyone who has any knowledge of the Holocaust has heard of Mengele and the horrific experiments that he performed during his tenure, and will be equally horrified with the idea that his evil persona lived on within the dark magic community. ( )

In this amazing first John Constantine novel by writer John Shirley we are shown the true nature of our favorite trench-coat clad magus as well as come face to face with an old war god. At the beginning of War Lord, John Constantine is unknowingly having and out of body experience but is traveling too far from his mortal shell. During Constantine's "spiritual" time at a London pub he is approached and recruited by the ghost of a soldier into helping him and other spirits of war to prevent an upcoming World War III in the making. Meanwhile in Afghanistan the war in the Middle East is somehow strangely changing and evolving into something much more sinister. Once Constantine's spirit is returned to his body which has been laying at a Tibetan monastery overseen by a powerful mage known as the Blue Sheikh, the Sheikh informs Constantine that he must indeed help these spirits of war in their quest to prevent the march of the War Lord and an approaching World War III. The Blue Sheikh ends by predicting to Constantine that he (The Sheikh) is soon to be assassinated and that Constantine must also watch for his own sign of death to come later in his adventure. Constantine attempts and fails to prevent this final revelation of the Blue Sheikh's death from coming true and after the assassination decides to begin his journey that will ultimately lead him to many more ghost, a terrorist big shot who's body is possessed by the spirit of a stoner Californian named "Spoink", and eventually face to face with the demonic entity that is the War Lord. This great adaptation of the comic book character is truly amazing to the John Constantine characterization and the essence of him, it is followed up by John Constantine: Subterranean. ( )