"Dreamlike" is an adjective all to readily used to describe fiction in every medium. However, in the case of Graham P Clarke’s first novel, The Destroyer, the term could not be more apt. This science fiction fantasy swirls around ideas, episodes and images, with seemingly little to hold them together other than the free association characteristic of REM sleep. But, like dreams, beneath the meandering chronicle of fantastic events lurk a number of serious concerns and issues that reflect and inform waking life.

The novel begins with a straightforward, if somewhat bizarre, premise. Three well-intentioned college kids from Newcastle - Greg (who is half alien) and his friends, Steven and Amy - discover that they have superpowers. On the other side of Europe, mad Romanian scientist, Adrian Domescu has just had his girlfriend and family gunned down by gangsters. In order to bring them back to life he has to somehow appropriate the powers of the Geordie superheroes; but, in doing so, he would destroy the world. The scene is set for a familiar struggle between good and evil.

Already the novel has thrown up one important new twist on things. While it includes the usual suspension of belief that are found in the superhero tales of Marvel and DC comics, for example the questions of practicality (where do they get their money from? Why is no-one worried where they are ... etc?) and the unflappable wisecracking in the face of danger, we are not used to this coming from Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

But as The Destroyer progresses, more important differences become apparent. There is an undercurrent of theological justification and questioning in Geordie superheroism, which contrasts with the self-assured vigilantism of its American counterpart. This culminates with a magnificent encounter with a football and ice-hockey-playing Jesus Christ during his adolescent years. But it is foreshadowed by the onslaughts of Old Testament proportions that have to be overcome before evil is defeated: the group have to see off a revived Ku Klux Klan, Samurai warriors, Henry VIII and the Nazis. And this is even before Greg is hi-jacked by the evil scientist to help him send a cast of animal demons to destroy his friends.

While a number of abstract moral questions are addressed in these struggles, The Destroyer also broaches the more practical concerns of self-esteem and the nature of bullying in general. So, like a dream, this novel often defies any sense of logic, but is, nonetheless, the result of deep-seated questioning and a quest for what is right.