"Angel (Derin Edala)": Angels have feathered wings, needle-like teeth, and an infectious bite that can turn a human into an angel. They carry messages in their head in the form of song and are compelled to pass them on to others.
In Terence Blacker's The Angel Factory, Thomas Wisdom discovers that a number of humans on Earth, including his parents, are actually angels created by an alien race. They don't have wings or supernatural powers, but they're more predisposed than "imperfect" humans to be good and kind, and their creators from above believe they are the key to stopping mankind from destroying itself. In the end, Thomas rejects their offer to run things on Earth, and all the angels living on Earth gradually become human.
L.A Weatherly's Angel Fire trilogy:
Angels appear to be beautiful humanoids with wings and halos, but are in reality parasitic lifeforms that feed from the essence of human beings. Being touched by one results in getting Angel Burn, which manifests as either slowly increasing mental damage or various fatal and debilitating diseases. Angels are aware they do this and do not care, actively feeding on humanity and seeking to control them. They can take human form and cannot be killed in this form, but in turn cannot use their powers to kill. When in angel form they can be killed by the destruction of their halo. They are also not connected with God, they are actually beings from another dimension.
Half-Angels though are exceedingly rare, only two exist and it is unknown just how as angels do not reproduce sexually, but they are different. They do not cause Angel Burn and do not have halos, thus they cannot be killed unless their human side is killed. They manifest as people with two sides to themselves, both sentient and aware but in essence the same person. They are also able to read a person's future by touching them, but cannot see futures where they are more than passingly involved.
In Angelology angels fall into three political categories: the loyal, who it is suggested are all female; the rebellious, who were apparently destroyed; and the Watchers, who also fell by mating with human women and producing the Nephilim. The Watchers were imprisoned on Earth in a deep cave system which is where the story of Hell comes from. Meanwhile, the Nephilim spread and enslaved humanity until they were wiped out in the Flood — except for one who killed Noah's son Japheth and took his place. All Caucasians are descended either from Japheth's human children or from the Nephilim who killed him. The descendants have manipulated and ruled humanity from behind the scenes ever since.
Astral Dawn: The Aash Ra are essentially angels. Many of the Aash Ra even use angelic names from countless worlds, including Earth. In truth, they are highly powerful extradimensional aliens who can exist outside of the multiverse.
In the Brazilian fantasy novel A Batalha do Apocalipse (and in the whole Spohrverse), angels are divided in castes and have no free will, being forced to follow the instincts of their respective caste. They also cannot be killed unless their mystical heart is destroyed. And some of them are quite genocidal with Michael being the responsible for the Great Flood and the destruction of Atlantis. They're also prone to using guns and do Saint Seiyaesque duels in bridges.
The Book of All Hours — the Unkin. humans that experienced an unique event in their life that allowed them to touch the Vellum underneath reality. In the multiverse inscribed on the surface of the Vellum, these meta-humans have long since taken up different roles, presenting themselves to mortal humans in different ways in pursuit of power.
The prophet Ezekiel was visited by four angelic beings in a vision, each of which had four faces — one human, one leonine, one taurine and one aquiline. In addition, they were accompanied by four wheels or rings that were filled with eyes. They are referred to collectively as the Hayoth, although Kabbalistic tradition names them Haniel, Kafziel, Azriel and Aniel, and are said to have been used by God to create the world.
According to Emanuel Swedenborg, angels are the souls of the righteous who have been admitted into Heaven. They can communicate without words, and are minute Heavens in themselves; likewise, Heaven is itself like an angel. They are always face to face with God no matter where they turn, and if two people loved each other in life they become a single angel in Heaven.
Angels apparently exist in Children of the Lamp, and are said to be made of Light (just as Mundanes are made of Earth and Water and Djinn are made of Fire). They do serve God, but almost nothing else is known about them, except that they have powers that even Djinn find incredible, and sometimes disguise themselves as homeless people so they can find kind and generous humans to bless. We only meet one of: Afriel, the Angel of Youth, who is responsible for causing Miracles, Marvels, Omens, Eye-Openers, etc. (Except on Sundays, I never work on Sundays.)
Sylphrena might qualify, since as an honorspren, she's literally made out of the idea of honor. Usually takes the form of a human woman, but has also manifested as a flame, ribbon, or shower of petals. In addition, she can take solid form as a Shardblade/Shardspear/Shardwhatever.
The Heralds of the Almighty also qualify. They were normal humans given divine powers by the Almighty (Honor) through a bond call the Oathpact. Vorin kingdoms worship them and believe that upon death they will travel to the Tranquiline Halls to help the Heralds reclaim them from the Voidbringers. The Heralds used to return on a regular basis to help humanity fight back the Desolations, but the last Desolation occurred thousands of years ago at the start of the series.
The Vorin church teaches of the Dawnsingers, kindly spren sent by the Almighty to care for humans after they were forced out of the Tranquiline Halls. In Oathbringer, it is revealed that the Dawnsingers were actually the parsh, the original inhabitants of Roshar, who took the humans in when the humans destroyed their own world. The humans turned on the Dawnsingers, so the Dawnsingers joined with Odium and became the Voidbringers. Because the Voidbringers are resurrected infinitely, the modern Fused are the same people who were first betrayed by the humans thousands of years ago.
Wax and Wayne: There are creatures called Kandra, shapeshifters known as "Faceless Immortals" by the general population. They can take the form of human beings by eating their corpses and using their bones, are incredibly long lived (though not truly immortal), are virtually impossible to kill by conventional means (breaking their bones will force them to find a new set) and they carry out missions given to the by Harmony, the planets God. Notably many people who haven't personally interacted with them don't believe they exist as they can effectively blend in with humans perfectly. They aren't particularly angelic in terms of personality, being mostly like people with a bit of Blue-and-Orange Morality, particularly where corpses are involved.
Cradle Series: The Abidan are ascendant beings from a variety of worlds, protecting Fate and staving off Chaos. On Cradle, they are typically referred to as "Heavenly Messengers," and it is a known fact that the most powerful sacred artists can choose to ascend the world and join them. On other worlds, this isn't always as well-known. The greatest of the Abidan are the Judges, a Court of eight impossibly powerful entities that fulfill the role of archangels. All eight have -el names that are passed down to a successor along with their power. Word of God is that they were originally going to use traditional Abrahamic names, but they shifted away from that to more fantastical names.
Crescent City: As a Fallen angel, the "halo" tattoo on Hunt's forehead shows that he is a slave and is designed to severely limit his power.
The angels of Sarah Douglass' The Crucible trilogy manipulate humanity for their amusement and impregnate women while despising sex. "God" doesn't actually exist but is just the pooled will of the angels.
The Grey Angels of The Dinosaur Lordscould be actually robots. At any rate, there's only seven of them, each is extremely powerful, giant and sapient, each can send dreams and manipulate memories and while they can't fly, it's implied they can walk through the walls and move unseen.
In Dirge for Prester John Qaspiel calls itself an anthropteron. John's complete fascination with it confuses everyone.
In The Divine Comedy, angels take the shape of Winged Humanoids that carry wands, shine burning light, fly faster than any bird, guard Mount Purgatory with Flaming Swords, and live in the "Primum Mobile," the last sphere of the universe beyond which there is only the Deep Mind.
In the web-novel Domina, angels are humans who have used the toy maker to gain the ability to emit bright light, which is a useful weapon against the vampires. Originally, the vampires were bloodthirsty serial killers, and the angels were hailed as heroes for exterminating every one they came across. But over time, normal people began joining the vampires, but the angels continued treating them as pure evil. By the time the series starts, the angels have been forced to move away from their anti-vampire stance a bit, but many of them still hold to the old party line. Ironically, the angels have no problem with the demons.
Dora Wilk Series: Angels look like beautiful humans and only the most powerful (or lucky if God's in good mood) have wings and ability to turn on their evil-punishing Battle Aura. They are not Nigh Invulnerable, although only an archangelic blade can kill them for real and their super-strong muscles make them formidable enemies. They're granted free will, although God can punish them with the Fall if they screw up massively.
While Harry Dresden tends to have to deal with the more demonic side of the supernatural spectrum, he's also encountered Archangel Uriel five times now in the books and short stories (and been given the ability to use heavenly Soulfire). We also know that Archangel Michael personally gave out at least one of the three swords to the Knights of the Cross.
Raphael and Gabriel are the other two archangels Harry knows to exist in-Verse, and he's implied that the Devil used to be a fifth.
Plus all the fallen angels he winds up dealing with. Each time an Angel appears, they usually take a form best for the human mind to comprehend them. In modern times, Guardian Angels in America are white-suited with silver plated guns at their sides. When Harry tries using his Wizard Sight to see the True Form, he gets as far as the gun becoming a silver sword before the angel stops him with a word to prevent him from hurting himself at the sight.
Uriel is specified as "Heaven's spook". He is a pretty pleasant guy to hang around when not on the job... which is pretty rare. Queen Mab of the Winter Court, known to be cruel and heartless bitch even if a honorable one admits to like the guy - which tales volumes. He pretty much serves as Heaven's wetworks guy and assassin, doing the ugly, dirty jobs necessary to advance divine agenda. He's a nice guy (has a good sense of humour)note He admits to enjoying Star Wars because it makes him feel young., but you also have to remember he could wipe out all life on earth with very little effort and your really, really shouldn't shorten his name. In regards to being the guardian of free will, when a Fallen, which is a matter of debate, lied to Harry with seven words and these words led Harry to kill himself, Uriel was able to tell a revived Harry seven words of Absolute Truth to counter this infraction.
Also in the series, Harry has encountered an Angel of Death who Knows Harry's True Name and when he believes her to be the cause of a person's death, she politely but firmly corrects his assumption. She is there simply to guard the soul if it is time for the person to die. She states that not even the Prince of Darkness would be able to claim the soul from her protection.
There are also Guardian Angels stationed around certain places, such as the Carpenter House. However, they are limited to stopping non-mortal assaults. If mortal mooks with no supernatural aide tried tossing Molotov cocktails at the Carpenter house, the angels could do little, if anything, to stop them, because they cannot interfere with human free will.
The graphic novel Ghoul, Goblin features a genie who fulfilled the traditional role of a "guardian angel" for an Egyptian tour guide, at least until it slacked off to indulge in some Interspecies Romance with a mortal woman.
The Empirium Trilogy's angels are winged, humanoid beings that cannot die by conventional means. Every angel has the ability to read, speak through, and control minds.
Cynthia Leitich Smith's Eternal. Guardian angels go on to a new charge when their old one dies, and might just fall in love with them. And they can be temporarily made human, kickstarting the romance. Which can even happen if their beloved is no longer in their charge and has become a vampire — and yes, vampires are satanic. Forbidden lovers anyone? (the girl involved manages to redeem herself and die before her vampire nature destroys her soul completely. It's a bittersweet Tear Jerker.)
In Falcon Quinn, angels are considered one of the types of monsters, although it is noted as being a particularly rare type of monstrosity. Falcon himself is an angel, and it seems to be the result of his hybrid lineage—his monster parent, Crow, is a fearsome crowlike Winged Humanoid (with Humanoid Abomination tendencies), while his mother is a Light Is Not Good-flavored monster-hunting Guardian.
Thomas Sniegoski's The Fallen series deals with a Half-Human HybridChosen One being hunted down by the Powers, helped by a Deadpan Snarker angel and a talking dog, trying to redeem the fallen angels. The angels and the Nephilim have certain powers, such as speaking every language (including animal "languages"), throwing fireballs, and conjuring flaming swords out of thin air. They also have wings that allow them to fly, although fallen angels had those cut off before they were exiled.
The book has the angel Aziraphale whose most noteworthy actions include giving away his Flaming Sword to Adam and Eve, befriending the demon responsible for tempting them, and working to avert the Apocalypse against his superiors' wishes. In short, he's the not-as-holy-as-he-should-be angel who's a Mirror Character to the not-as-evil-as-he-should-be demon Crowley.
Aziraphale is also specifically stated to be a Principality, but doesn't like to tell people because they make jokes. Given how the Guardians of the Gates of Eden were Cherubim, it's likely he got demoted after the whole "Flaming Sword incident."
Good Omens also states that angels are sexless unless they really want to make an effort.
Also worth noting, when angels fall in the Good Omens universe they become demons. Demons look exactly the same as Angels, but their wings tend to be more well-groomed, on account of the whole vanity thing.
Adam glanced up. In one sense there was just clear air overhead. In another, stretching off to infinity, were the hosts of Heaven and Hell, wingtip to wingtip. If you looked really closely, and had been specially trained, you could tell the difference.
In Sheri S. Tepper's Grass the main character has a dream/vision of heaven in which an angel has a conversation with God. Instead of the traditional bird wings it sports dragonfly wings which she notes make more anatomical sense.
Novelist/Irish Catholic priest Andrew M. Greeley wrote a trilogy of novels, Angel Fire, Angel Light, and Contract With an Angel, in which he depicts angels as benevolent Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, immense Energy Beings who can assume (or project a simulation of) human form, are capable of love and reproduction among themselves, and enjoy playing matchmaker among humans. Although they are aliens, they claim to be in direct communication with, and employment by, God. Notably, Angel Light is a modern retelling of the book of Tobit, one of the books of the Apocrypha, the non-canonical stories of the Bible.
The Great Divorce: Unsurprisingly, considering the setting, we meet two angels: one is a sentient waterfall, and another is a giant humanoid Wreathed in Flames (which makes you wonder if they all have some kind of elemental affinity). Both are given to Brutal Honesty, and it's somewhat dangerous for the ghosts to get too near them, giving them a Holy Is Not Safe vibe. That said, they're both definitely on the side of good, and both tell the ghosts how they can get more solid.
In Drinking Midnight Wine, angels are impossibly different and indescribable unless they are fallen, in which case they are distinguishable from humans only by their Nigh-Invulnerability. Memorably described as God's Storm Troopers.
In the Nightside series (which uses the same cosmology, like all his books) the second book Agents of Light and Darkness has the angels of heaven and hell duking it out in the streets. Casualties among the innocent bystanders are high, and there's no obvious way to tell which side a given angel is on. Also, some who see the angels too close up turn to salt, like Lot's wife in Genesis.
Meljean Brook's The Guardians series features human beings who were saved and given some angelic powers, wings, etc. and hang around in a heaven-like area. They can elect to move on to the beyond or Fall back to being a human again. Actual angels exist but do not interact with humans, as their holiness leads humans to mistake them for gods. The Guardians are human-angel hybrids working on their behalf.
In Nalini Singh's Guild Hunter series, there's something for everyone—angels exist and they're impossible to get away from. The world is divided up into territories, one for each Archangel, which they rule over as they see fit. In this universe, angels produce a toxin that must be discharged regularly or they are driven insane so vampires are created from willing human populations. Guild Hunters exist to bring rogue vampires back to the angel that Made them, or destroy them if necessary.
Cynthia Hand's Hallowed series:
There are three types of angels. Angels serve God and are typical angels. Blackwings are Fallen Angels, the Nephilim to be precise, who chose to mate with human women and caused the third kind of angel to exist, Angel-Bloods. Angel-bloods come in two types; Dimidius, a child of an angel and a human and Quartarius, a child of a Dimidius and a human. Angel-Bloods are born with a Purpose, the reason they were born, and will at some point receive dreams about it. They must fulfill their Purpose or they will become a Blackwing, an angel who has forsaken God. Blackwings are in constant misery due to their separation from heaven, are incapable of flight due to said misery but can shapeshift into different forms, and are at war with the Angels.
It is revealed that a third kind of Angel-Blood exists. Triplare, the child of a Dimidius and an Angel. They are exceedingly powerful, as close to an Angel as possible but they have free will. Only seven exist at a time. Three have been revealed in the series, the protagonist Clara, her brother Jeffrey and her romantic interest Christian.
In Ted Chiang's novella Hell is the Absence of God angels look like writhing knots of white fire and operate on a Blue-and-Orange Morality, their presence causing miracles both good and bad without any discernible rhyme or reason. Fallen angels, on the other hand, are mysterious and close-mouthed about their reasons for rejecting God but do neither harm nor good.
The Heralds of Valdemar setting only uses the word 'angel' a few times, and usually only in the early works, but it's used for beings who appear quite often. The Good King of Valdemar, knowing that his heir would also be a good king but those who followed might not be, called on every god he knew to find a solution. The gods responded by sending him primal benevolent spirits in the form of intelligent, telepathicwhite horses to Choose good people, who are known as Heralds. Valdemar institutionalized these angels, these Companions - the Heir, and the Monarch, must be Heralds, but hundreds of others are Chosen at any time and work as Circuit Judges among other things, guided by their Companions.
The Companions themselves have living, physical bodies and material needs. Some are Grove-Born like the first few, essentially archangels Born as an Adult. Most were born to other Companions and are Reincarnations of virtuous humans selected to Choose and guide appropriate Heralds, and live for as long as their Chosen does. A few people, like Vanyel, sometimes get half-second glimpses of the humans that Companions used to be. The Companions tend to suspend Mind over Manners and rely on their Omniscient Morality License, so they're pretty free about reading the minds of their Chosen, sometimes refusing to let them and others think about certain topics or using Laser-Guided Amnesia, but feel that by and large they shouldn't interfere too often. They have speed, stamina, and toughness beyond normal horses as well.
The closest equivalent to Companions are the rare Karsite Firecats, reincarnations of religious leaders who appear to bond with and guide important priests. Firecats look like flame-point Siamese the side of large dogs but can make themselves appear to be normal-sized cats. The most prominent one is a bit more removed and aloof than a Companion at first and claims he doesn't share their requirements for food or sleep, but he's lying. Firecats can teleport themselves and one or two people at will, requiring less preparation than other forms of teleportation in the setting.
Other entities in the setting blur the line between being something to regard as an 'angel' or just a 'benevolent formerly human spirit'. The Star-Eyed Goddess has devotees who upon their deaths become spirits that can talk to the faithful in the spirit plane, spar with and train and advise living devotees, and sometimes manifest briefly in physical bodies to fight when She wills it. Need, who first appears in the Vows and Honor books, was once a Weak, but Skilled older mage who infused her spirit into a sword so she could guide and protect others; being evaluated by her is explicitly compared to the moment of being Chosen by a Companion.
The Star-Eyed also selects Dawnfire and Tre'valen to be Her Avatars. While Companions and Firecats can appear in the spirit world but are primarily physical entities, and her devotees and Need are primarily spirit entities with a small hold on the physical world, her Avatars are both and are marked by having eyes like Hers - all black without pupils or irises, showing a starfield.
His Dark Materials — Angels aren't really divine higher powers (though they like to tell you they are)! They're actually self-aware incarnations of the Applied Phlebotinum that feed off sentience and powers the universe. They can either just spring into existence or, a ghost, with the help of another angel, can rise to angelic status. They die, have immeasurably long lifespans, and envy humans for our bodies — angels have no real bodies, so they cannot experience real sensations. They appear in the books as translucent, winged humans but this is simply for the convenience of humans, and because human minds are too tiny to comprehend their true appearance; their real forms are described as being somewhat like architecture. And sometimes they're very, very gay. Undebatably gay, since they do really have psychosocially formed genders and the lack of sex in Balthamos and Baruch's relationship doesn't make them less gay.
I, Lucifer features angels who are not winged humanoids but rather celestial beings of metaphysical energy. Angels suffer from pain if they commit evil acts (Angelic Pain), as well as corrupt their essence. This means demons are technically still Angels but are consumed with unimaginable pain constantly and their visage is a horrific reflection of their nature. They are also immortal and their numbers are unchanged since God brought them into existence.
In Elizabeth Bear's Jacob's Ladder Trilogy, angels are AIs who run various aspects of the worldship the books take place on and manifest bodies made of electromagnetic force.
In The Jeremiah School, the angels of that school are said to be humanlike creatures that are made of light.
In contrast in Matthew Stover's Jericho Moon it's the angels who are just basically mindless facets of Yahweh.
Angels in the Jessica Christ series are born as and initially believe themselves to be normal humans. They can recognise other angels by their auras and sometimes have psychic insights that tells them how they can save people or otherwise do good. Morally, they are always basically good people in a general sense, but they can lose their tempers or make mistakes in the same way as anyone else. Oh, and if a messiah goes to sleep and has an Erotic Dream nearby, they tend to get pulled into it.
Jury Macntier: The Angels in Cloudia all have certain powers, and some are not what you'd expect an angel to have. For example, Goldalocks is a Wealth Angel, and is incredibly greedy, cruel, and cold-hearted. When revealed that Jury doesn't have magical powers or abilities, she laughs at her and throws money at her. Another example is Maybella's friend, Saffron. Saffron is a Lust Angel, and since those are not permitted in Cloudia, Queen Lilac took away her magic, so Saffron is stuck on Cloudia without any lust or sex, what she wants the most. She normally hates on Jury and wears almost nothing but ribbons. Granted, the Angels aren't as bad as the Demons from Fireda. The Demons eat flesh, drink blood, steal, murder, etc. Compared to them, these Angels seem holy.
In Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy books, the people of Terre d'Ange are all descendants of angels and accordingly beautiful. The angels themselves are mostly absent, aside from paintings and statues, but near the end of Kushiel's Avatar, the angel Rahab makes an appearance, and is described as some sort of incomprehensible beauty, going with the Winged Humanoid image, albeit towering.
The only angel we really see in the Christopher Mooreverse is Raziel, who appears to be a traditional, beautiful Winged Humanoid, but whose defining characteristic is being dumb as a bag of hammers. The narrator in Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff says Raziel's stupidity is so staggering that he's the reason the world has blonde jokes. What other angels are mentioned don't seem half so incompetent, but they do sound like snarky bastards.
Though not an "angel" per se (actually "a singular cherubim," and no, that's not an error), Proginoskes from A Wind in the Door matches Ezekiel's idea of an angel: a composite of wind and flame at his heart, extending into dozens of immense wings and myriad, blinking eyes. (He finds it easier to not be corporeal at all, and scorns the human idea of "little pigs with wings.") Proginoskes' great skill is to Name people, and the key to naming is love. After all, Cherubim are supposed to be the embodiments of God's love.
By contrast, the seraphim and nephilim in the later book Many Waters are more like what a contemporary audience would think of as angels, being winged humanoids, but correspond to "the sons of God" as described in Genesis 6:4 rather than current stereotypes. The seraphim are basically servants of God on earth and usually have eyes and wings coloured in some variant of gold, silver or blue. The nephilim, which are implied to be fallen angels, have eyes and wings of more vivid colours like red and violet. They are all immortal, and not outright antagonistic with each other, but the nephilim are trapped on earth where the seraphim can return to heaven. Nephilim are male and enjoy sleeping with human women and fathering children on them; seraphim are androgynous and celibate (although they sometimes fall in love). Also, each one, seraphim and nephilim, has an animal form into which he can change — though the nephilim take the shapes of worms, snakes, dragons, and other ugly things.
Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which in A Wrinkle in Time, the first in the series, might be angels as well. It's the closest to identifying them the characters get. They don't like to materialize very much and one of them used to be a star!
Angels, or eldila (singular eldil) are beings whose bodies are purportedly made out of light, and occupy a different state of matter, moving with respect to the universe (rather than with respect to a planet's surface). Human eyes can barely detect them as shimmers of light, only allowing themselves to be seen for what they are when the purpose serves them.
The Oyeresu (singular Oyarsa) are more powerful beings that control the nature of each planet in the solar system. Although most are benevolent and love their subjects, the Oyarsa of Thulcandra (earth) is clearly Satan and, unlike the others, is actually trapped within the moon's orbit to prevent further harm. The Oyeresu, like the eldila, have no genders but some have masculine and feminine identities. Furthermore, they have the ability to manifest themselves as they choose; at the close of the second book, the Oyeresu of Mars and Venus manifest as white, fiery giants.
Further complicating the picture, the Oyeresu, as described in That Hideous Strength, have a sort of shadow presence on each planet, which seems to act more or less independently. These are the "gods" that some Tellurians have reportedly met.
The first volume of the encyclopedia series "Man, Myth, and Magic" describes angels and how peoples' perceptions of them changed over time. One part of the entry described a female angel who's 96 miles tall (that's 506,880 feet for those who are curious).
In Kate Griffin's Matthew Swift series, the blue electric angels are actually the remnants of electricity, life force, stories and voices left behind in the telephone wires. With multiple personalities. When they start sharing a body with the titular Matthew Swift, things get complicated — not least, pronouns.
Mogworld's plot largely revolves around mysterious, angelic creatures that herd the undead back to their bodies and can delete things from existence. These actually turn out to be anthropomorphized programs that drive the game's AI and act as game master tools for the developers.
Only two kinds of angels are described in Andrei Belyanin's Mozart. The titular angel was actually created to sing in the heavenly choir, but his complete lack of a musical sense forced him to be reassigned to the Ninth Legion made up of warrior angels. Mozart has a surfer's build, but even he fails in comparison to a true warrior angel. None of them have wings, though, as it's kinda hard to blend in among the humans with wings. Their task is to fight any evil creatures, with vampires being the greatest enemy. It's noted that all angels lack nipples and bellybuttons. Despite this, no one notices Mozart's lack of those, even when he's walking around shirtless. Another strange thing about them is that angels do not dream, although Mozart has a dream near the end of the novel.
In Mysterious Ways: A Divine Comedy, angels are a type of bird that evolved a human-like form and a serious case of Holier Than Thou. They are legally required to either train to serve the Judeo-Christian God or have their wings cut off and their magic stripped away. Naturally, most of them decide to go through training.
Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere has the angel Islington who pretty much fits the angel stereotype: divinely beautiful, unfailingly kind and caring, and frequently associated with light. On first impression, that is. Let's just say that there's a reason why Islington's in a secluded room in London Below and not in Heaven with the other angels: he's Ax-Crazy.
In Pact and Pale angels are directly opposed to demons, arranged in choirs that oppose them directly, and their abilities revolve around creation and order. However, they're only vaguely related to any sort of creator god. And they are notably not all-benevolent; there's nothing saying that the things they create have to be good. For example, the angel Faisal creates paths from once place to another... but there's nothing stopping him from opening a path from earth to, say, some sort of hell-dimension. One angel Lampshades this, saying that most of the things humans think are true about angels is purely stuff they made up.
In Paradise Lost Lucifer (who is quite distinctly an angel, albeit one who waged a very ill-conceived war on God) is described as being "in bulk as huge" as an island, winged, and armed with a spear as tall as a mighty ship's mast. Beyond this, he looks like a physically inspiring leader. Other angels are imposing, but less so.
In Penryn and the End of Days, the angels are winged humanoids who brought doom among the humans. They have very light bodies, heightened senses of smell, hearing, and sight, are superhumanly strong, heal very fast, and are extremely beautiful. However, they think of humans as mere monkeys.
A Practical Guide to Evil: Angels apparently come in choirs — we know of Fortitude, Mercy, Compassion, Judgement and Contrition — that affect not only their mindset and powers but that of their chosen Heroes. We've only (yet) seen an Angel of Contrition on screen when the process of summoning it was interrupted. They also have a Brainwashing for the Greater Good effect on those exposed to them. Good Is Not Nice is in effect.
In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero Lost and Prospero in Hell, Miranda is accustomed to her father's summoning angels. Once, an angel even appeared to her without being summoned. (The traditional nine-fold hierarchy is in effect.)
In Thomas E. Sniegoski's Remy Chandler series, the title character is the Archangel Remiel, who has opted to give up being an angel and live as human. The angels of the series have a collection of special spiritual abilities that Remy can call on, at the cost of losing his sense of humanity.
In Laura Anne Gilman's ''Retriever" series angels are just one of many nonhuman races known as the Fatae although they're among the oldest and most powerful. They are also (by reputation, the only one actually met is dead at the time) a race of jerkasses.
The world of the Rose of the Prophet trilogy is home to a large pantheon of gods. Each god has several Immortals under his command, which they may assign to different tasks as they see fit. The Christianity-based god Promenthas turned his Immortals into angels, ranked from the lesser ones who deal with humans the most, to the archangels, important enough to deal with Promenthas himself.
Angels in Sharon Shinn's Samaria series are genetically engineered from human stock, have wings and can fly and are the only ones who can call upon their god to grant such things as weather control, healing medicine, or holy lightning which are actually particle beam weapons since "god" is actually a spaceship orbiting the planet.
In Sandman Slim angels are pretty much your traditional type. They are also arrogant schmucks.
The Shadowhunter Chronicles: Angels are giganticWinged Humanoids. Compared to demons, they are very distant and rarely encountered by humans, to the point that even many Shadowhunters consider them as just a myth. They are also considered extremely powerful beings, although one angel, Ithuriel, was entrapped by a Shadowhunter, Valentine Morgenstern, for decades. Another angel, Raziel, gifted the progenitor of the Shadowhunters, Jonathan Shadowhunter, with the Mortal Instruments, including the Mortal Cup, with which he could multiply his kind.
Skellig: If Skellig really is an angel, than he's quite different from the usual depictions of them. Instead of looking youthful and graceful, he's an elderly man that Michael initially mistakes to be homeless. Skellig also has an unpleasant disposition instead of being outwardly kind and thoughtful.
In the short story The World without Sleep, from Somewhere Beneath Those Waves, demi-angels are essentially winged, beautiful and, for reasons unknown, blind priests in another plane of existence. They perceive themselves as protecting the underclass of "shadows" from exploitative vampire factory owners, and harbor prejudices against both vampires and goblins.
The Ainur in Tolkien's Legendarium are Arda's equivalent of angels, with the highest tier called Valar and the rank-and-file angels called Maiar. They are incorporeal spirits, but are able to take on any physical form they choose to. None of them follow the usual feathered-wings-and-halo motif: Gandalf and the other wizards, the Balrog, and Sauron (and possibly the dragons and giant eagles) are all Maiar. Of course, the Balrog is a pretty traditional demon. They marry, usually each other; Melian is a Maia who married an elf-king named Thingol and became the mother of Lúthien, the ancestor of the lineage of Elrond, Arwen and Aragorn.
Unsong: Angels live in Fluffy Cloud Heaven and are Always Lawful Good on a deep and fundamental psychological level — they're almost completely incapable of understanding concepts like "deception". Angels who are exposed to the harsh realities of the world eventually lose the ability to fly. On the other hand, they're really good at killing demons with flaming swords. Angels falling after being exposed to humanity eventually became such a problem that the United States government had to establish a "Strategic Angel Reserve". Some of them develop substance abuse issues with holy water, which temporarily restores their powers but also gets them well and truly drunk.
Late Japanese children's book author Takashi Yanase has a unique take on angles in his children's books. In his picture books, they are depicted wearing fancy clothing (notably tuxedos), wearing top hats that obscure their faces, and their genders being ambiguous. His depiction of angels don't interact with the main characters, instead are more involved with controlling the weather and changing of seasons. Their most notable appearances is The Rose Flower and Joe, Shiroi uma (White Horse), and Su Ginoki To No Giku.
The short story "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel García Márquez features Exactly What It Says on the Tin. The "angel," as he is referred to by the villagers who find him, is an old, flea-infested, wrinkled man with no teeth and crippled, barren wings. He could be injured, ate food (albeit mashed up as he couldn't chew), did not recognize men of the cloth, and spoke in a strange tongue. Note that the whole point of the story is the question of whether the man was really an angel or not.
The Vorrh trilogy by Brian Catling has the Erstwhile, who are the broken and malformed remnants of the angels who failed to guard the Garden of Eden, cursed to remain in the eponymous forest for the rest of time. They can't normally be perceived by humans due to existing on a different level of time, but when they appear their appearances are pure Body Horror, with some being described as resembling exceptionally stretched out, mummified humans with additional animal features such as claws and feathers. They are by and large shadows of their former selves, with most attempting to bury themselves underground as atonement for their failures, but they also retain some angelic powers such as the ability to heal diseases and reverse old age.
Angels (and demons) in Wars of the Realm are surprisingly normal for supernatural beings - they just look like very tall and large humans with retractable wings, lightning-fast reaction times, and Super-Speed. They are even conditionally immortal (they will never die from natural causes, but they can be killed). Their main distinguishing factor is that they live in the Upper Realm and are invisible and intangible to humans. They also have the ability to translate themselves into and out of the physical world, as well as to borrow physical objects to use in the Upper Realm.
In Weaveworld, the nigh-omnipotent entity Uriel claims to be an angel. It's probably wrong.
Similarly, it is implied that the titular character of What Happened To Lani Garver might be a "floating angel," which is sort of an ambiguously gendered asexual teen guardian angel. This issue is never really resolved in the book.
The Powers That Be of the Young Wizards series can be considered angels, given that: 1) they're immortal spiritual entities, 2) they work for God, 3) they were created by God before time began, 4) the Big Bad is a fallen Power, and 5) it's heavily implied that they're the inspiration for Abrahamic angels (though it's also heavily implied that they're the inspiration for the gods in all of the non-Abrahamic religions). A fully manifested Power will look different to each person looking at it, unless the Power consciously chooses an appearance for that particular manifestation, or if the currently surrounding events are all related to a particular mythology, in which case its appearance will be drawn from that mythology. The most powerful of the Powers suffer from Time Dissonance since they mainly exist outside of time, with whatever the mortals are interacting with being mere fragments of the whole.
" by Gabriel García Márquez features Exactly What It Says on the Tin. The "angel," as he is referred to by the villagers who find him, is an old, flea-infested, wrinkled man with no teeth and crippled, barren wings. He could be injured, ate food (albeit mashed up as he couldn't chew), did not recognize men of the cloth, and spoke in a strange tongue. Note that the whole point of the story is the question of whether the man was really an angel or not.