Cover art by Fotis Papadopoulos. Translated by Maria Mountokalaki and Elizabeth Georgiades.
In the darkness of the 10th century A.D., Theodorus Philetas, a university professor, is forced to flee from Constantinople to Damascus with his friends, the Arab Bashar ibn Fathi and the young Leon Peleuses, following an unsuccessful conspiracy against the emperor. Leon stumbles upon a forbidden book kept hidden by a Jewish merchant, Joel, and his beautiful daughter, Rebecca. Theodorus comes upon the book, which proves to be nothing less than the notorious Al Azif by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. Forced again to flee, Theodorus goes to Cyprus, taking the book with him. Reading it, he begins producing a translation, calling it Necronomicon.
This thrilling novel by Antonis Antoniades vividly recreates the historical circumstances that led Theodorus Philetas to translate Alhazred’s Arabic text into Greek. Along the way, the reader is captivated by horrors both real and supernatural. We are shown the ravages of “shadowmorphs” — supernatural entities who have been summoned by a star-stone that can open the gateway to creatures from other planets. In a spectacular climax, Philetas and his cohorts must prevent the entry into our world of the cosmic entity Dagon, as predicted in Alhazred’s tome.
Is it any wonder that the Patriarch Michael banned the Necronomicon and forbade devout Christians from reading its unholy pages?
