Dead Harvest (The Collector, #1)

Jan 29, 2013 Jeffrey Keeten rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Jeffrey by: Trudi

”What happens when a collector reaches the breaking point?”
“They go mad. They begin to enjoy the work. They delight in their role. They bury their humanity so deep, they can’t even hear its screams. And eventually, their soul just withers and dies. You wanna know what’s worse than being damned? Allowing your soul to be snuffed out, just erased from the record books like it never was. There is no greater punishment in existence and no greater crime, than being party to your own eradication. It’s...more

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Nov 25, 2012 Trudi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: angels-and-demons, angry-robots-in-the-house, series, crime-mystery, noir-is-the-new-black, on-my-kobo, 2012-reads, pulp-is-king, love-the-premise, urban-fantasy

This was a blast -- a seamless mash-up of pulpy noir goodness set in a gritty urban landscape featuring soul Collectors and very bad ass mofo angels and demons. Who would I recommend this book to? Fans of the movie The Prophecy most definitely. And to a lesser extent that movie Fallen starring Denzel Washinton and Elias Koteas (I love Elias Koteas).

And if you've ever been a fan of Supernatural's angel-demon-apocalypse epic story arc then this is most definitely the book for you. Even though Dea...more

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May 03, 2013 Amanda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Amanda by: Trudi and Brandon

You know those kitschy Chinese lucky cats? Yeah, well, next time you're dining at a local Chinese restaurant, you might want to pick up one, or two, or three to have on hand for when shit gets real. This is the most important lesson I learned from Dead Harvest, but you'll have to read the book to find out why.

Sam has been merrily plucking the souls of the living for decades now, with no remorse. As a Death Collector, remorse really isn't an issue. Souls need to be harvested when their hosts are...more You know those kitschy Chinese lucky cats? Yeah, well, next time you're dining at a local Chinese restaurant, you might want to pick up one, or two, or three to have on hand for when shit gets real. This is the most important lesson I learned from Dead Harvest, but you'll have to read the book to find out why.

Sam has been merrily plucking the souls of the living for decades now, with no remorse. As a Death Collector, remorse really isn't an issue. Souls need to be harvested when their hosts are ready to shuffle off this mortal coil. It's all part of the complex system that keeps everything in balance between The Maker and The Adversary, as well as the host of angels and demons that do their bidding. And, all things considered, both the holy and the damned are happy with the arrangement and don't want to do anything to tip the balance in such a way that will usher in the apocalypse.

That's why Sam hesitates on his newest assignment. When he is sent to collect the soul of Kate, a teenager guilty of torturing and murdering her entire family, Sam is shocked to discover that, as he closes his fingers around her soul, it is pure, innocent, blameless--and if there's one thing guaranteed to piss off those up on high, it is the reaping of an innocent soul by the damned. The evidence against Kate is irrefutable, but so is the spanking white condition of her soul. Until Sam can figure out the paradox, he kidnaps Kate, bringing all the forces of Heaven and Hell to bear on him.

Another reviewer compared this to one long chase scene, which is apt. The action begins on page 1 and never lets up. But it's a clever chase scene, full of quirky (if sometimes underdeveloped) characters, a fun mythology, and sharp dialogue. It's Good Omens meets Elmore Leonard. As a Death Collector, the character of Sam is a likable anti-hero, wanting to do the right thing yet managing to make a fuster-cluck out of everything. His inability to live outside of a human body (living or dead) is a twist that creates several unique problems for an essentially immortal (though certainly not all-powerful) being, and it provides interesting narrative possibilities for future books. He prefers the bodies of the recently deceased ("meat suits") because he's not hindered by the internal monologue and pesky thoughts of sharing a body with a living host. Also, if a living host is killed while he's in the body, his soul is jettisoned out and into another body, which could be nearby or on the other side of the world. Because Sam still has a conscious, he doesn't want to destroy any living vessel he's "borrowed," but circumstances don't always make his choices so easy and his aversion to danger possible.

I can't wait to get my hands on the second book (which features Sam on the cover, looking a lot like John Constantine--or is that just my imagination?).

Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder (less)

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Jan 28, 2013 Brandon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Fans of Noir Fiction

Shelves: ebook, fiction, 2012, interviewed-on-blog

Sam is a collector. A collector of souls! You see, Sam's wife had contracted a strain of TB and in a moment of desperation, Sam accepted a sketchy employment opportunity from a gentleman named Dumas. While Dumas promised a complete recovery on the part of Sam's wife, he remained closed mouth on the true nature of his employment. Unfortunately for many, deals of this nature are extremely short sighted and if Sam possessed the foresight to know what his future would entail, he may have taken a lit...more Sam is a collector. A collector of souls! You see, Sam's wife had contracted a strain of TB and in a moment of desperation, Sam accepted a sketchy employment opportunity from a gentleman named Dumas. While Dumas promised a complete recovery on the part of Sam's wife, he remained closed mouth on the true nature of his employment. Unfortunately for many, deals of this nature are extremely short sighted and if Sam possessed the foresight to know what his future would entail, he may have taken a little more time to come to his decision.

Dead Harvest is what you get when you fill a casserole dish with equal parts detective noir, supernatural sci-fi, cover it with some snappy dialogue, pop it in the oven and broil the shit out of it. What you get is a recipe that will not only satisfy your palate but leave you hungry for more.

I feel like Chris Holm had some excellent ideas here and you can tell he was influenced by some similar work that came before him (Hellblazer comics, Supernatural TV series, ). While I enjoyed the first installment in what looks to be a lengthy series, I'm more so excited of what's to potentially come. I'd like to think Holm can take what he's established here and build upon it, giving us a more complete picture of this world he's created. It's not too often that I walk away from a debut novel with such anticipation for future books.

A lot of the supporting players came of a little bland at times, at least in comparison to Sam and Kate. That being said, there were times when Kate seemed like your average girl-in-peril. However, Holm lets her grow along with the story giving her a few chances to shock the reader.

I'm really digging Angry Robot so far. This is the second book I've devoured that they've published and if this is par for the course for what they're releasing, I may have stumbled upon a cornucopia of entertainment. They certainly have some smart people over there - stay golden, pony boy.

*Oh, and there's a nod to Lawrence Block.
A few rooms in, a uniformed cop sat slouched beside an open door, his nose buried in a Scudder novel.
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Feb 11, 2013 Tfitoby rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantastical

Formulaic plot told in a shiny way.

Chris Holm has written an enjoyable book with cover art to die for. It's about this guy who loses his soul to a demon or whatever and has to collect souls for eternity or until they find something worse for him. But he doesn't want to this one time and because he doesn't the apocalypse is on the cards. Cue mad dash to save the world by discovering the real reason behind his hesitant approach to his given task.

“Just because you're thinking about stabbing somebo
...more Formulaic plot told in a shiny way.

Chris Holm has written an enjoyable book with cover art to die for. It's about this guy who loses his soul to a demon or whatever and has to collect souls for eternity or until they find something worse for him. But he doesn't want to this one time and because he doesn't the apocalypse is on the cards. Cue mad dash to save the world by discovering the real reason behind his hesitant approach to his given task.

“Just because you're thinking about stabbing somebody doesn't mean you have to be a dick about it.”

We've read this book before but without demons and collectors. Wise cracking noob who doesn't really know what he's doing but decides to break the rules because of a girl or whatever moral reason he has and has to survive his superiors, his enemies and save the world? Yeah yeah yeah, only last year I read Charles Stross using this exact plot in The Atrocity Archives and I enjoyed that one a little more. Perhaps it was his humour that bested this effort, or perhaps it was that really I'm not a massive fan of Urban Fantasy, or maybe it was just that Dead Harvest exists as one long chase scene that gets more and more obviously cinematic (read absurd) as it goes on.

Oh yeah there's an unnecessary origin story thrown in to the mix at random irritating intervals as well; one tenth of this book is told in flashbacks, it's filler, I ended up skimming, essentially it works to shock you with "the big twist" at the end but if you didn't see it coming you won't care anyway because the twist lasts for a paragraph before it's put to bed. Holm is not a bad writer, he has crafted a fun story, he just gets a little repetitive in his word use and when he isn't he has obviously been hitting the thesaurus. Example, there's a concept that involves the reaction of a human to being possessed and somewhere towards the end when he's written every conceivable variation on "vomit" we are treated to what I consider the worst line in the book "an old lady starts spilling sick." I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that I am removing a star for that line alone.

“You ask me, I'd guess heaven and hell look pretty much the same, only in hell, everything is just a little out of reach.”

Faults out of the way though, this was an entertaining read, it does Urban Fantasy in a way that I can get behind, hardboiled noir style. It moves along at a fair old whack like all good popular fiction for the masses should, there are a lot of interesting ideas and terminology thrown in - meat suits anyone? - plus the added bonus that I'm hooked for a sequel. EDIT: I should mention the secondary characters of Kate, Anders and Pinch, all three of them offer your traditional sidekick material and more; all are interesting in their own way, Anders especially, and whilst I was disappointed with the way Holm used and discarded them I think it was a bold move to avoid that one cliche of the genre for now.

Sometimes a book doesn't need to be excellent to make you want to keep reading, look at the legions of fans James Patterson has, it just needs to be brilliantly entertaining, that this one is despite its numerous flaws is possibly the best thing I can tell you about it. Chris Holm writes almost as well as Ed Gorman. Need I say more?(less)

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May 24, 2012 Lou rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: supernatural, mystery-thriller, noir

He is a collector he collects from those marked for collection. One routine job is about to prove troublesome something goes wrong.
Whats to follow is he finds himself in company of a beautiful young girl with a harrowing and bloody past that she has no recollection of being part of.
Humorous moments, interestingly original and supernatural.
In a world where all is not what it seems and literally in this tale the main protagonist Sam 'the collector' knows and learns even more of this reality.
If the...more

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Mar 02, 2012 Sean Cummings rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have a soft spot for anti-heroes. I think it all started with the movie Dirty Harry – no, scratch that. It started with Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer. If you don’t know who Mike Hammer is, you’ve been living under a rock: think bad-ass private eye. Serious pulp fiction. Chain smoking, whiskey drinking, get the case solved tough guy with a soft spot for dames in distress.

There’s a whole hell of a lot of Mike Hammer in Chris F. Holm’s just released DEAD HARVEST. Right from the pulp fiction styl...more I have a soft spot for anti-heroes. I think it all started with the movie Dirty Harry – no, scratch that. It started with Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer. If you don’t know who Mike Hammer is, you’ve been living under a rock: think bad-ass private eye. Serious pulp fiction. Chain smoking, whiskey drinking, get the case solved tough guy with a soft spot for dames in distress.

There’s a whole hell of a lot of Mike Hammer in Chris F. Holm’s just released DEAD HARVEST. Right from the pulp fiction style cover all the way to the very last page, you’ve got a character in Sam Thornton who is the urban fantasy version of Mike Hammer. No, he’s not a detective, but he’s gotta do detective work. Thornton is a soul collector – he collects the souls of generally very undesirable people and sends them packing. The book starts off with Thornton standing amid a pile of cigarette butts waiting to collect s soul and from the very first page, I knew I liked the guy. A lot. (I should mention that Sam jumps into the bodies of the deceased so he can actually carry out his function.)

In short order, Sam learns that he’s got to collect the soul of Kate – the seemingly guilty party who apparently was caught in the act of whacking her entire family. Sam learns pretty damned quick that Kate didn’t do it, even though all the evidence points to her and BOOM! We’ve got a plot that keeps you turning the page to see what happens next. (I love it when the plot just grabs you and takes you for a ride almost immediately.)

In the background to all of this is the eternal conflict between angels and demons. A lot of inter-office politics of biblical dimensions. A lot of “is Kate really innocent because damn, that evidence is AWFULLY convincing.” Another thing that Holm does really well is that he doesn’t hit you with an immediate info-dump as to how Sam Thornton actually became a soul collector. He weaves a solid back story into the plot with brief glimpses into Sam’s past and what’s more – this doesn’t have any effect on the flow of the book.

I suspect this is because Sam Thornton is point blank, a great, GREAT character. He’s got a unique voice that’s a hell of a lot more different that what we see in many urban fantasy novels with a male protagonist. (And the number of UF novels with a female protagonist outnumbers the ones with men, so it’s really very refreshing to see a guy once in a while.) If we were to draw a scale as to what kind of character Sam is, put Sandman Slim at the far end of the scale with Remy Chandler on the other and Sam Thornton is about two thirds of the way toward Kadrey’s Sandman Slim. He’s as courageous as Harry Dresden and he’s as smart as John Taylor. He’s a whole hell of a lot of fun and DEAD HARVEST is a great start to a new series.

I bought my copy as soon as I’d read Angry Robot Books‘ Tweet announcing it was release day and I couldn’t put it down. I guarantee you won’t be able to put it down either.

So there you have it. DEAD HARVEST by Chris F. Holm is a shit storm of soul-ripping, chain smoking, anti-hero bad-assedness. From the gritty looking pulp fiction style cover right to the very last page, Holm delivers a knuckle-dusting blow to the solar plexus in his protagonist Sam Thornton. He’s a little bit doomed, a little bit damned and 100% shit disturber. You won’t be disappointed because this is a great read!

But wait! There’s more! The second in the series comes out this October and it’s called, get this, “THE WRONG GOODBYE”. Baby, if that ain’t a pulp fiction title, I don’t know what is(less)

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Feb 18, 2012 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sam Thornton is a Collector: one of the Damned, eternally cursed to collect souls, usually by inhabiting recently-dead bodies and then touching the victim in question.

He’s been doing it for a while and has that world-weariness of someone who has been undertaking work they dislike for a long time.

The latest job seems straightforward: teenage Kate MacNeil was found by the police covered in blood and cutting her mother’s throat, after seemingly having repeatedly stabbed and killed her mother, fathe...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Ami rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy-with-male-protagonist

It all started with a task ...
Sam Thornton is a Soul Collector. His task is to collect souls of the damned. On his latest job, he must takes a soul of a 17-year-old girl, Kate, who tortured and killed all of her family members. However, when Sam touches Kate's soul, he realizes that hers is unlike any other souls that he has taken. Kate's soul is the purest white ... Sam realizes that there is no way Kate is one of the damned. So Sam does one thing a Soul Collecter hasn't done. He defies order...more

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Mar 01, 2013 Peyotitlan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the best books I have read in quite some time!

A great premise and great pace and development. Once you understand the first jump, at the end of the first chapter, you're in for a treat.

A very exciting book and very glad to see that there is more to come.

Fantastic book, buy it! Do yourself a favour.

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Mar 16, 2013 Jean rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

A new type of book, with elements of mystery and science fiction and fantasy. It reminded me of the Frank Peretti books, with demons and angels fighting on earth. The story begins with Sam Thornton, who is a Collector, doomed to collect souls-but they are "the damned," people who "deserve to die." Then he meets Kate, who has killed her family, but he decides that she didn't. He kidnaps her and away they go. Everyone is looking for the, including the police, a passel of demons, and more.
I enjoye...more

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Nov 15, 2012 Tom rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, mysteries-thrillers, sci-fi-fantasy, books-kelly-told-me-to-read

His name used to be Sam Thornton. He was by all accounts a good guy. As he put it, "I paid my taxes. I went to church. I didn't litter." Sam was a loving husband, too, and his wife was suffering from tuberculosis. Out of work, Sam runs into a man who can not only offer him work, but also pull strings to get his wife into an experimental program to cure TB. What else could he do? Sam takes the job, running errands for a crime boss. His wife thrives in the new program; indeed, her tuberculosis is...more His name used to be Sam Thornton. He was by all accounts a good guy. As he put it, "I paid my taxes. I went to church. I didn't litter." Sam was a loving husband, too, and his wife was suffering from tuberculosis. Out of work, Sam runs into a man who can not only offer him work, but also pull strings to get his wife into an experimental program to cure TB. What else could he do? Sam takes the job, running errands for a crime boss. His wife thrives in the new program; indeed, her tuberculosis is cured. Then, as Sam puts it, "It all went to shit."

Sam's boss was a demon of sorts, but when Sam killed him, he did so assuming he was human. Thus, according to supernatural law, Sam was damned. He became a Collector. His job is simple. He's assigned a person with a damned soul. He stalks that person, then reaches into his or her chest, removes their soul, and buries it somewhere.

We join him on an easy case. His mark is a famous poet. Sam grabs his soul, buries it, and he's done. His next case is far more problematic.

Kate MacNeil is a teen in New York City. One day, she killed her little brother and father, then tortured her mother until her screams caused the neighbors to call the cops. The NYPD burst into the luxurious apartment, and Kate slit her mother's throat.

She ended up in a New York hospital. When Sam went to collect her soul, he found it was full of light and goodness--there's no possible way, he reasons, that she killed her family on her own. She must have been possessed.

And off we go into a wild chase through New York City. Sam and Kate are running for their lives. The cops, plus angels and demons are all in pursuit, and if something goes wrong, the armies of Heaven and Hell will be at war. Then it will go to shit for everybody.

This was a fun book. Sam is an entertaining narrator, and he and Kate befriend some unlikely folks during their travels. I couldn't help but smile, too, that Kate--who was possessed when she killed her family--has the same surname as the possessed girl in "The Exorcist." (Regan MacNeil, i.e.).

"Dead Harvest" is one long chase scene, and I liked the way Chris Holm melded the horrors of NYC with the hierarchy of angels and demons.

This is listed as "The Collector #1." I'd be curious to see what happens in future installments. "Dead Harvest" wouldn't make my top ten favorite books list, but it was a fun read, fast-paced and interesting. Just perfect for us "meatsacks" to enjoy over a weekend. (less)

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Oct 07, 2012 OpenBookSociety.com rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Angie

This book is everything I would want in the first of a series. It had action, romance, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, and most importantly an awesome plot! I loved this book from the moment I read the synopsis to the moment I finished the last paragraph.

Sam is a soul collector whose job it is to remove the souls of the damned before their death. But unlike what we sometimes think about Angels being the soul collectors, Sam is a demon. To walk the earth, he must inh...more

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Jun 15, 2012 Nigel Bird rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There’s a lot of class in the writing of Chris F. Holm. Read his short works in ‘Eight Pounds’ or his entry in ‘Pulp Ink’ and that will become immediately obvious to you.

Stepping up to writing a novel that’s going to engage and maintain the interest of the reader is a different matter entirely. I was confident Chris was going to pull it off, but one can never be sure.

Apart from loving the author, I must say that it was the cover on this book that clinched my purchase. It’s retro-chic with
scratc...more

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May 06, 2012 Rob Kitchin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dead Harvest is a dark urban fantasy. The book is interesting because it manages to be thoroughly supernatural and yet keep the fantastical elements to a minimum by casting heaven and hell, angels and demons, into everyday landscapes and people. By that I mean, the world is portrayed as we know it, with the souls of the fallen and blessed dwelling in individuals. Thornton ‘borrows’ bodies to undertake his collections. Holm writes in an assured style with engaging prose. The contextual material i...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Steve Weddle rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In this fantastic debut, Chris F. Holm brings his solid crime-writing pedigree from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine to an amazing supernatural story that is sure to thrill readers.

I can see this appealing to fans of the TV show Fringe, to lifelong Dashiell Hammett devotees, and to scholars of the occult.

While many people will talk about how deftly Holm marries the supernatural with his crime fiction, what will keep readers coming to this "Collector" series...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Sean rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Angry Robot Books is a publisher that has sort of come out of nowhere, but has grown to be a publisher that's worth taking notice of. Angry Robot is sort of a modern pulp publisher, putting out a wide array of titles mostly in various sci-fi and fantasy niches.

With that in mind, Dead Harvest by debut novelist Chris F. Holm feels like something right in Angry Robot's wheelhouse, featuring a protagonist, Sam Thornton, whose sole goal in life is to capture the souls of the guilty and deliver them...more Angry Robot Books is a publisher that has sort of come out of nowhere, but has grown to be a publisher that's worth taking notice of. Angry Robot is sort of a modern pulp publisher, putting out a wide array of titles mostly in various sci-fi and fantasy niches.

With that in mind, Dead Harvest by debut novelist Chris F. Holm feels like something right in Angry Robot's wheelhouse, featuring a protagonist, Sam Thornton, whose sole goal in life is to capture the souls of the guilty and deliver them to their final resting place (where exactly the souls go after collection is a bit murky, but it's not that important.). Looking at the title of the book, it's obvious where Dead Harvest's influences come from, with Sam narrating the book in a clenched-jawed tough guy voice that lies somewhere between the poetic cynicism of Chandler and the stark pragmatism of Hammett.

The main problem of the book is, though, that very little of the charm, the twisty plots, or the raw emotions of the aforementioned authors come out in Holm's writing. Despite wanting to wear the fedora and smoke the Dunhills of his mystery forebears, there is very little mystery to Dead Harvest. The book takes up a lot of time with action sequences and chases (seriously, most of the last third of the book is one long and slogging chase that doesn't really do much storywise other than adding to the heft of the book), but it doesn't spend a whole lot of time on the urban fantasy premise it tries to set up for itself.

Holm's prose is decent, if a little workmanlike, and he doesn't do a lot to draw much depth out of his characters other than Sam, whose motivations are explained via a fairly well done flashback story that weaves throughout the narrative. The other characters, though, are thin and indistinct, and I felt that he missed a huge opportunity to give the female lead in the book, Kate, the 17 year old who murdered her family under mysterious circumstances, a little more personality beyond being an object for Sam to protect.

Of course there's a twist at the end of the book, but it was so unimpressive that I barely noticed it was a twist as I read through it. Compared to some of the more jaw-dropping, have to go back through the book again to see all the clues twists I've seen in similar books, the twist here is weak, and registers very little shock.

I'm going to give the book three stars, but I felt like it could have done better. If Holm had taken more time focusing on the dark, twisty ways of the world of the Collectors, this could have been something magical, but as it is, I felt let down.

(repost from http://www.seanmay.net)(less)

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Nov 14, 2012 Kelly Hager rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sam is a soul collector. Basically when people are marked for hell, it's his job to snag their soul and deliver it to the higher-ups. His latest assignment is Kate, who's accused of murdering her parents and younger brother. Except here's the thing: she may not have actually done it. And if he essentially damns an innocent person, all hell will break loose. (By which I mean that it could literally bring about the apocalypse.) So, you know, no pressure there.

This book is one of the most fun novel...more

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Feb 15, 2013 Ade Couper rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Now, this was fun.....!

Chris F Holm has come up with a brilliant idea- urban fantasy/hard-boiled detective thriller crossover- & it works. Sam Thornton is a collector- he collects the souls of those who are going to hell. However, his latest assignment (Kate) is, when he tries to harvest her, absolutely pure.....

Who has set Sam up? & why do they want to provoke a war between heaven & hell?

If you've ever wondered what Elmore Leonard's version of "Paradise Lost" would be like, then thi...more

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Aug 25, 2012 Patrick Sprunger rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, read-in-2012

This is going to be a hit.

It's a phenomenal idea and a great, beachy read - but, honestly, it doesn't quite live up to its potential. I don't have pulp, crime-noir credentials and I understand the author does. So if this is based on a tradition, it's probably truer than I think it is. But the little noir exposure I've had set me up with higher expectations. Calvin's (as in Calvin and Hobbes) alter ego Tracer Bullet is edgier, more graphic. The dialog and first-person narrative are wittier and p...more This is going to be a hit.

It's a phenomenal idea and a great, beachy read - but, honestly, it doesn't quite live up to its potential. I don't have pulp, crime-noir credentials and I understand the author does. So if this is based on a tradition, it's probably truer than I think it is. But the little noir exposure I've had set me up with higher expectations. Calvin's (as in Calvin and Hobbes) alter ego Tracer Bullet is edgier, more graphic. The dialog and first-person narrative are wittier and play more with words. What does that say?

I think it says the impression may no longer be parallel to the original and general audiences have based their expectations about noir on other, non-pulp sources. If a person only knows crime fiction and has never seen Blade Runner, (s)he might enjoy Dead Harvest more than someone who doesn't know crime fiction and has only seen Blade Runner. (Maybe the ideal reader is someone who's never done either and can't spot a twist a mile off.)

But just because I only score the book three stars and offer some diffident remarks to display my reluctance to associate too closely with "urban-fantasy" or "magical-realism" or - God forbid - "paranormal-romance," doesn't mean I didn't thunder through Dead Harvest. I liked it. A lot. I recommended it to three people in two days. It's a lot of fun. A lot of fun. I have a personal idea about what a three, four, and five star book are* and this feels like a three star to me, based on the things I felt worked and didn't work within my understanding of the genre. I could talk about them and give specifics, but that might entail spoilers. Since I smell a hit brewing here, I wouldn't want to spoil anything for the next wave of readers.**

.............

*Admittedly, I'm not real consistent here (see: five stars for Water For Elephants and three stars for Lolita). I've found the longer I've been on goodreads, the more miserly and capricious I am (in other words: I become less consistent even as I refine my parameters). But my general approach is to rate a book the way I'd describe a meal. A plate of Gulf snapper that was a live animal 24 hours ago cannot be compared to a pulled pork sandwich in a foil wrapper. But a $40 a plate restaurant can be compared to other $40 a plate restaurants (not that I do a lot of that kind of dining on my salary and in my zip code, but please indulge the metaphor) and drive through barbeques can be compared to each other.

**At the time of this writing, there are less than 200 ratings for Dead Harvest. I see this thing going up, fast, in the next couple of years.

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Feb 26, 2012 Kristin (MyBookishWays Reviews) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy

You may also read my review here: http://www.mybookishways.com/2012/02/...

When we first meet Sam Thornton, he’s in the midst of being assigned his next job, one that will prove a little more than the status quo. Sam is a soul collector, which means he collects the souls of the wicked and sends them off to whatever hell they’ve been assigned to. This new job sounds pretty cut and dry. A young girl, Kate, was caught in the midst of slaughtering her entire family. I mean, she was caught red-handed,...more You may also read my review here: http://www.mybookishways.com/2012/02/...

When we first meet Sam Thornton, he’s in the midst of being assigned his next job, one that will prove a little more than the status quo. Sam is a soul collector, which means he collects the souls of the wicked and sends them off to whatever hell they’ve been assigned to. This new job sounds pretty cut and dry. A young girl, Kate, was caught in the midst of slaughtering her entire family. I mean, she was caught red-handed, so there really can’t be any question of her guilt, right? However, after Sam makes the jump into a newly deceased body, and attempts the collection, he knows right away that Kate can’t be guilty. When Sam decides to spare Kate, he irritates some pretty powerful folk. We’re talking angels and demons here, but Sam is determined to protect her, at all costs, even if, for him, it means eternal torment…

Dead Harvest was just a pleasure to read, through and through. Yes, our hero collects souls, but you’ll see, through interludes that detail how Sam came to be a collector, just how he got where he’s at, and trust me, you probably would have done the same thing. He’s a very sympathetic character, and just plain likable. Told in Sam’s voice, Dead Harvest reads like a smooth shot of bourbon, and you’ll find yourself happy to go along with the ride as he and Kate battle demons and angels alike. Is Kate really innocent (you’ll want her to be, for sure)? Could there be a war brewing between the angels and the demons? All of these questions get answered, but I also liked how nothing was really black and white, which kept me on my toes. In fact, Sam finds allies where he least expects it, and the addition of a fellow collector, Bishop, out to complete the job that Sam wouldn’t, makes for some truly creepy moments. Bishop is damaged, any humanity he once had completely gone, and the ability they have to jump from one body to another makes him all the more terrifying. Dead Harvest is a relatively uncomplicated story (not too many extraneous storylines to worry about, which is kind of refreshing), and that’s certainly not a bad thing. Chris Holm’s smooth writing style and rather charming characters (yes, Sam is charming, so there), made Dead Harvest a pleasure for me. I’m anxious to see what comes next for Sam, and I think Urban Fantasy fans will enjoy this start to what looks to be a wonderfully entertaining series!
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Mar 28, 2013 Tonchi rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, fantasía, ossom-reading-challenge-2013, zombies-vampiros-y-demás

Resulta ser que el protagonista tiene un trabajo bastante interesante, imaginense a un cobrador, o mejor aun, a alguien que va a recoger cosas debido a embargos, solo que en este caso se trata de almas, Sam es un recolector de almas para el infierno, su trabajo es ir por las almas de aquellos que por una u otra razón merecen pasar la eternidad en la agonía constante debido a lo que hicieron en esta vida.

Y resulta ser que a Sam (el protagonista) lo mandan a recolectar el alma de una adolescente l...more Resulta ser que el protagonista tiene un trabajo bastante interesante, imaginense a un cobrador, o mejor aun, a alguien que va a recoger cosas debido a embargos, solo que en este caso se trata de almas, Sam es un recolector de almas para el infierno, su trabajo es ir por las almas de aquellos que por una u otra razón merecen pasar la eternidad en la agonía constante debido a lo que hicieron en esta vida.

Y resulta ser que a Sam (el protagonista) lo mandan a recolectar el alma de una adolescente llamada Kate quien asesinó brutalmente a su familia, pero, Sam es (aun cuando su trabajo es pues, para las oficinas del infierno) una buena persona, así que decide que no va a recolectar el alma de Kate puesto que cree que es inocente.

Obviamente el libro se trata de ver si es que si o no es inocente, y en dado caso, quienes estan en la conspiración para condenar el alma de Kate, y de pasada, evitar que se desate el apocalípsis (que sucederá si es que alguien si se lleva el alma de Kate).

Ahora, la idea está bien, pero lo que nomás no logra cuajar en el libro son a los personajes, por un lado está Sam quien es insufrible por su actitud de "yo soy bueno" y intentando hacer todo bien, y explicandote porque es que tiene que hacer las cosas bien, una y otra y otra vez, por otro lado está Kate, quien de repente parece inocente, y de repente parece culpable, y luego inocente de nuevo, y así como si fuera totalmente bipolar, y el problema no es que sea bipolar (que no lo es), sino que más bien actua de ese modo solo por meter sorpresas en la trama que al final de cuentas terminan sintiendose totalmente forzadas.

Por último, y hablando de cosas forzadas, en serio, si vas a meter un "arma" milagrosa que puede matar a cualquier cosa con un golpe, al menos hay que tener la decencia de explicar de donde salió, o poner una razón por la cual es así, o ya de menos darle un nombre.

Ah, y hablando de cosas que no funcionan, el colmo es que las reglas que establece el autor sobre como trabajan los recolectores no funcionan, esto debido a que ellos pasan por las almas, si, pero no necesariamente de quienes se las ofrecieron al diablo (o a algún demonio), sino que también de las de las personas malas, por ejemplo: si mataste brutalmente a tu familia significa que un día llegará un recolector, agarrará tu alma, y tu, simplemente, caerás muerto como si te hubiera dado un paro cardiaco, es decir, en el mundo en el que se desarrolla el libro todos los asesinos seriales, violadores, pedófilos, la escoria de la sociedad, pues, muere espontáneamente al poco tiempo de cometer sus delitos, es decir, el infierno se encarga de mantener una sociedad perfecta.

Y pues ya, mejor no le sigo que luego le quito otra estella mas.(less)

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Oct 03, 2012 Mel B. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Was expecting something a little less adventure and maybe slightly more thoughtful / philosophical. It's about a flawed man who became a collector of souls. But not just souls -- bad souls.

Hell for Sam is his existence as a collector.

I'd have preferred something closer to the show Dead Like Me. (My problem). Something quirkier, less violent. But it is what it is. I got suckered into the story, and then got suckered into the second book as well.

Sam, despite his existence as a servant of not-qui...more Was expecting something a little less adventure and maybe slightly more thoughtful / philosophical. It's about a flawed man who became a collector of souls. But not just souls -- bad souls.

Hell for Sam is his existence as a collector.

I'd have preferred something closer to the show Dead Like Me. (My problem). Something quirkier, less violent. But it is what it is. I got suckered into the story, and then got suckered into the second book as well.

Sam, despite his existence as a servant of not-quite-hell, tries to retain his humanity and decency by only occupying the bodies of the newly dead when he can, so as not to disturb the living. His backstory is that he ended up doing shady business and unwittingly made a deal with a demon to save his wife from tuberculosis. Only the moral is, if you deal with the devil, you become tarnished yourself. It affects his relationship with his wife to the point where she no longer wants him, and 70 years later, he still isn't over the loss.

Sam makes questionable choices in this adventure as he tries to preserve the life of someone he believes to be innocent, even though there's pretty solid proof she killed her father, brother and stepbrother. But Sam believes it, because the soul he tried to pull out of her was blinding white, and he knows if he takes it, it will break a 1,000-year-long truce between the forces of Heaven and Hell.

The thing that keeps you guessing, as other reviewers have noted, is that you don't really know whether Sam is right, and that Kate, the saved girl, is innocent.

What's slightly bothersome is the collateral damage, from his living or dead meat suits to the friends he picks up.

If Sam's a good guy, I'd like him to be less ambiguously good. But I guess that's the point. He's still sort of a servant of hell.

Another sticking point for me: If he uses just dead bodies, how are they not decaying yet or smelling? How does he get them working again. One can argue that without a soul, there is no life. But there's also conditions of the body that are incompatible with life -- an overdose of drugs, an aneurysm, etc. Are we to expect that the infusion of a collector's soul somehow makes them work again? (less)

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Mar 11, 2012 Ramsey Hootman rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Urban fantasy is not usually my genre of choice, but I'm a pretty wide reader so when I saw this brilliant cover, I decided to give it a try. Yes, that's right, I just admitted to buying a book entirely on the basis of the cover art. I still think it's a brilliant piece of marketing, and it does pretty accurately reflect the content of the book: straight up pulp fiction.

Given the premise that I was expecting pulp, I'm not really going to complain about the writing style, which was often clunky...more

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Aug 14, 2012 Robert Nunnally rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Chris Holm's "Dead Harvest" uses a cosmology filled with angels and demons who walk among us to tell a noir-influenced mystery tale. The book avoids the twin dangers of this type of material--on the one hand, the plot never gets overwhelmed by the details of the mythology; on the other hand, this action-filled page-turner does not succumb to the temptation to turn into a gorefest.

The plot centers around a damned soul who fulfills the role of a soul collector, and what happens when a particular...more

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May 30, 2012 Daniel rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sam is a Collector. Long ago damned for committing a heinous sin, Sam is doomed to walk the Earth as a disembodied spirit that can collect the souls of men and women. Essentially immortal, Sam can slip in and out of human bodies (dead or alive) almost entirely at will (although he prefers to inhabit corpses, since the living tend to cause a mental racket when you take over their flesh). When Sam is ordered to collect the soul of a girl that Sam is convinced is pure, he disobeys orders and takes...more Sam is a Collector. Long ago damned for committing a heinous sin, Sam is doomed to walk the Earth as a disembodied spirit that can collect the souls of men and women. Essentially immortal, Sam can slip in and out of human bodies (dead or alive) almost entirely at will (although he prefers to inhabit corpses, since the living tend to cause a mental racket when you take over their flesh). When Sam is ordered to collect the soul of a girl that Sam is convinced is pure, he disobeys orders and takes her on the run. Now Sam must find out who would frame an innocent girl for damnation, an act that could very well expose Earth to a final battle between the forces of Heaven and Hell.

The story is actually pretty standard for books of this ilk. It is essentially a detective novel combined with elements of the supernatural (or spiritual), and never does the author really try anything new or creative in this regard. Having a very religious upbringing, I've read more than my share of books about angels and demons, and although the concept of a Collector is new (and not even really explained very well), the rest of the book is not.

Furthermore, the author does not seem to have found his voice yet. Most of the novel sounds like it was cobbled together from phrases and passages that I have read in other books, with every cliched phrase present and accounted for, some of them more than once (eyes are black as night, demons barrel like freight trains, hearts are constantly pounding in chests, at least a dozen times muscles, woods, and metals "scream in protest" as they are bent). These old, worn-out descriptions are interspersed with only a few, fleeting moments where the author manages to write or describe something with a simple, poetic beauty.

The rest of the book is either over- or underwritten. At any rate, it's all inconsistent. "I remembered the eyes of the false WaiSun, their blackness so absolute it reduced all thought of light to the fleeing recollection of a half-remembered dream," announces the same character who will later describe a Jacuzzi as "ginormous." All of the characters, in fact, from the powerful warrior angels to random motorists, talk with the same irregular syntax and characterization, and no one seems to have an interesting or unique personality.

The book tries to make Sam a sympathetic figure; he is constantly whining about putting innocent souls at risk, or coming up with ridiculous reasons why he shouldn't jump into a body that isn't in the process of bleeding out (he spends most of the book horribly injured, but that never seems to slow him down). The book is peppered with ill-placed flashbacks that show the (mundane) reason why Sam became a Collector in the first place, but it doesn't change the fact that he is an unremarkable leading man.

The story has helicopter crashes, giant explosions, and more than a handful of chases and close calls, and yet the pacing of the book is utterly without tension. The characters spend far more time bickering about what they're going to do than they actually spend time doing it. Every single choice turns into a debate, with characters very thoroughly explaining their motivations and thought-processes to each other. In one scene, seconds away from being flattened by a speeding subway car, two characters on the tracks make a critical and (obviously) time-sensitive decision. Then they actually spend time explaining to each other why they made those decisions. "Why aren't they now diving out of the way of the train?" I wondered. "Oh, yes. Because the author wants to make sure all of this makes sense, at the expense of making the reader feel like anything here is even at risk."

This isn't even done consistently. Without giving away too much, I will just say that, at one point, Sam (very very very) conveniently discovers a magical ceramic cat that pretty much saves his skin. This cat's origins, power, and effects are never explained at all, but it plays a central role in the entire story. This is what I'm talking about. The periphery of the world is gone over ad nauseum, while key elements are given the deus ex machina treatment.

The author wants to round out his world -- including its murky rules on angel and demon behavior -- but for some reason he chooses to do this almost completely with dialogue instead of narration. Characters who have just seconds ago escaped a horrible death sit calmly down and chit-chat about some of the rules of demonic possession, or what angels look like, or any number of other things that end up not affecting the plot at all. Adding to this, on at least half a dozen occasions, characters remind each other of basic plot points like they are actors from first season CSI ("We should check for GSR." "You mean gunshot residue?" "Yes, thank you for defining out loud an abbreviation that we both already know."). I stopped counting the number of times Sam reminded himself, someone else, or the reader that everything he was doing was to "stop a war of literally Biblical proportions." It, again, neuters the story of any tension or intrigue it would otherwise have.

I really wanted to like the story. The last book I read was good, but ponderous and cerebral, and I was in the mood for something high-speed, high-stakes, and maybe even low-brow. This book, however, is slow, predictable, and not particularly engaging. Sam is immortal, so his death is never really a concern. Kate makes no sense as a character, so neither is hers. If she is collected, it could start a war between angels and demons, but since all of these beings seem slow, easily defeated, and not particularly bright, that also doesn't fill the story with much tension. The whole thing reads like a loud, incomprehensible action sequence, punctuated by forced ennui. The book lacks heart, muscle, brains, and guts, and for a novel about people collecting souls, that's the final death knell.(less)

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Sep 24, 2012 Colin Eastaugh rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dead Harvest contains a very interesting premise but the execution manages to spoil it a little. The concept of the main character possessing other bodies, taking over the dead and the living alike as he does not have his own body is one I have not encountered before for a main character. Although this idea is expolored a couple of times the consequences of this are only hinted at but will hopefully be explored in future stories.

What starts as an interesting detective story with angels and demon...more

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Jun 19, 2012 sj rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: end-of-the-world-challenge

Guys, look at that cover. I love pretty much everything about it. If I were ONLY judging this book by its cover, it would totally get ALL THE STARS. Listen, though. I don't generally judge books by their covers (okay, that's a lie, but you know what I mean), I like to actually read them before I get all "ZOMG THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVAR!!!"

Before I go any further, click this and just let it play while you read the rest. This was part of my reading soundtrack during this book, because I thought Bo...more Guys, look at that cover. I love pretty much everything about it. If I were ONLY judging this book by its cover, it would totally get ALL THE STARS. Listen, though. I don't generally judge books by their covers (okay, that's a lie, but you know what I mean), I like to actually read them before I get all "ZOMG THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVAR!!!"

Before I go any further, click this and just let it play while you read the rest. This was part of my reading soundtrack during this book, because I thought Book of Angels was entirely appropriate for a book about, well - angels (and demons and collectors and the FATE OF THE WORLD).

Sam Thornton is a Collector. Not of rare books or beanie babies, a soul collector. He made some bad choices during his life and as a result, he gets to spend eternity taking the souls of those that are irredeemable.

Sorry, it's nothing personal.

Within the first few pages, we see Sam collect the soul of "Britain's Greatest Living Author" and receive his next assignment from his handler, Lilith ("I told you not to call me Lily"). I know, it seems like Lilith has become more and more popular in literature and television lately, but her character here is done really well. From this short interaction, we learn a few more things about the world Holm has created. Sam can be sent on "contract or freelance" jobs, meaning he collects not only those whose actions have damned them, but also those who've struck the proverbial Deal with the Devil. DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNN. We also find out that Sam has no physical presence, he gets around by inhabiting the bodies of the living or recently deceased. He prefers to take over the newly dead because he gets headaches from the living. An empty vessel won't fight or be constantly yelling in the background. Oh, and he smokes a lot.

Sam's newest job is to collect the soul of a young girl that has just been caught murdering her family. No big, he's been doing this for the last 60+ years so it should be a piece of cake. Unfortunately, Sam runs into a complication he couldn't anticipate. His current job's soul is pure. Collecting the soul of an innocent would bring on a full scale war between Heaven and Hell, so Sam chooses an unthinkable option - he takes the girl and runs.

"You ask me, I'd guess heaven and hell look pretty much the same," I replied. "Only in hell, everything is just a little out of reach."

The story that follows was what can only be referred to as Hardboiled Urban Fantasy. Holm has obviously taken his inspiration from Hammett and Chandler, but put his own inventive twist to bring it forward into the 21st century.

"What kept this from being a five star book," you may be asking. Well, let me tell you.

(the rest of the review can be read by clicking the link to visit my blog, where this was originally posted)(less)

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Mar 08, 2012 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: demons, series, vampires, arc, noir

Sam sold his soul to the devil in the 1940s and ever since then he’s been hopping from body to body, possessing and utilizing them to perform his task–collect the souls of the dammed. Although he can possess anyone, he prefers the recently dead. His new assignment stops him dead in his tracks though when he touches the 17 year old girl’s soul, a girl who supposedly killed her mother, father, and brother in cold blood, and finds it untainted. His refusal to collect her sends both angels and demon...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Bane of Kings rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy, angry-robot, 2012-releases-read, notable-2012-releases

Original Post: http://thefoundingfields.com/2012/03/...

Dead Harvest, outside of The Dresden Files, is one of the few Urban Fantasy novels that I’ve read. And, whilst I don’t normally read novels in this particular sub-genre, (it usually takes something special, or a favourite author – to put out novels in this genre that I will read), I figured that I’d give Chris F. Holm’s very first novel a shot. Yes, you heard me, the spectacular Dead Harvest is a début. Which begs the question – why did it n...more

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Dead Harvest (The Collector #1)

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