Brainycat's 5 "B"s: blood: [UNSCORED, DNF AT 10%] boobs: [UNSCORED, DNF AT 10%] bombs: [UNSCORED, DNF AT 10%] bondage: [UNSCORED, DNF AT 10%] blasphemy:Brainycat's 5 "B"s: blood: [UNSCORED, DNF AT 10%] boobs: [UNSCORED, DNF AT 10%] bombs: [UNSCORED, DNF AT 10%] bondage: [UNSCORED, DNF AT 10%] blasphemy: [UNSCORED, DNF AT 10%] Stars: 2 Bechdel Test: [UNSCORED, DNF AT 10%] Deggan's Rule: [UNSCORED, DNF AT 10%] Gay Bechdel Test: [UNSCORED, DNF AT 10%]
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
I DNF'd this book at 10%. I found the protagonist unbelievable - I felt no depth to the character, I felt he was just a collection of attributes and a repository of Things That Happened To Him. It was as if he had no agency in his story, but just existed to move the plot along. Not a good place for the main character to live.
The pacing didn't make sense to me at all. In the first couple of pages, we watch as the protagonist's daughter gets abducted by some sort of dimension hopping demon. Describing this (visually, because other senses and the interior life of the character don't exist in this world) takes only a few more words than driving through the french countryside between plot advancements. I felt a complete lack of economy WRT the wordsmithing. I expect authors of books I'm reading for fun to be able to write better than I can :)
The few pages I read showed me that this book isn't lacking for ideas, but isn't cut of the cloth that I like to read. I didn't see any glaring typos or grammatical errors; this is not from the bottom of the self-published barrel. Unfortunately, I think the author needs to keep working on his craft (characterization, pacing, visualization) before I will feel comfortable investing the time and energy into an entire book. ...more
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
This is an odd little addition to the Laundry Files canon. It clocks in at 74 ereader screens; it's hardly long enough to get a story going, let alone developed and resolved. There's a very long setup and then a super quick resolution which left me just a little puzzled - I won't give anything away but I feel the solution to the problem isn't consistent with the "rules" of the Laundry Files world. We did learn some more arcane trivia about the history of the Laundry, but we didn't learn very much about Bob Howard and the "mystery" aspect of the story leaves some huge gaps that aren't adequately explained. That being said, the writing is crisp and elegant which I appreciate after the clumsiness of The Rhesus Chart.
A weak 3.5; it was enjoyable enough for fans of the Laundry Files but doesn't offer very much for people just coming into the series....more
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
The latest installment of the Laundry Files series is the best plot yet, has some brilliant moments but is tempered by whole chapters that feel phoned in. There's whole chunks of backstory and supporting cast member development that feel like they're just there to pad the wordcount. I was reading these chapters and imagined a dialogue between Mr. Stross and his editor:
"Hey Charles, I went over the latest revision with the publisher, they want to up the word count to justify the premium price." "Well, the story is finished as it is..." "Sure, and it's great, but maybe you could, you know, do that writing thing you do and make up some more stuff?" "Where would I put more story? This is already the most complicated plot in the series." "Maybe you could throw in some long expositions about the supporting cast? And do lots of recaps, a'la 'The story so far' - the publisher thinks kids today with their short attention spans won't be able to follow along with all the doublecrossing doubleagents." "Well, I suppose I could add a few paragraphs here and there. How much bigger is the book supposed to be?" "Charles, we need to ask for another ten thousand words." "ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME?!?" "No, I'm afraid not. Say, how's that advance treating you anyways?"
And thus we see the author playing around with different expositionary styles in a "let's break the fourth wall" kind way. We see the author spend a lot of time developing characters that are going to be dead by the end of the book. We get an inordinate amount of exposition with some ancillary plot twists, to the point where I think this book marks a sea change in Bob Howard's career at the Laundry. Previous books had Bob getting thrown around by bureaucratic forces outside of his comprehension or control, forcing him to battle Lovecraftian horrors on one hand while trying to find his way through Gilliam-esque horrors (see [1] and [2]) on the other hand, and this was part of the charm. This book sees Bob take control of major operations, manipulate the bureaucratic to his needs, play office politics with the best of them and generally act like a middle-management, PDA wielding Indiana Jones.
I'm glad to see Bob's arc progressing so well, and the level of danger and plot complication get amped up to match. This is no Monty Haul campaign: the conflict in this story is something the likes of which the Laundry has never had to deal with before. Mr. Stross has clearly done his homework with regards to contemporary vampire mythology, and has worked very hard to put his own unique spin on it. I shan't spoil it for other readers but I'll say he stays true to the core concepts and ideals of vampirism while adding his specific spin on it and brilliantly lampoons the glut of popular vampire stories that have come out in the last few years. He's read everything from Stoker through Hamilton (at one point Bob is tasked with reading this same canon, and we clearly hear Charles whining about it through Bob's mouth) and he uses this knowledge to drop more than a few shoutouts to some of the better vampire stories. Let The Right One In and Near Dark get major nods, while the rest of the stories get their barbs here and there.
When the story is moving along, this is probably the best Laundry Files book yet. It's brilliantly plotted, the conflict is refreshing and interesting and the cast of characters is the best yet. But it felt like every time I was really into the pace, really absorbed by the story and the plot - oomph! - I ran headlong into pages of exposition that felt like trying to walk through knee deep mud. There's a lot of ancillary info thrown around that didn't directly affect the plot. This was necessary to provide the emotional backdrop of some of the characters to explain their motivations in subsequent chapters, and I have a very strong suspicion a lot of what we learned about these character's interior lives will be relevant in subsequent installments of the series. Which is great in the context of the whole series, but within the scope of this book it felt like clumsy writing. In the scope of this book alone, I would've appreciated some reworking of certain sections to make them more elegant and fit into the overall pace of the book better.
Charles's scathing treatment of the curses of modern life - particularly agile project management - should be studied by anyone who ever works with technology engineers. While parts of the plot drag, the insightful snarkiness of Bob's observations are hardly tempered at all. Technology plays less of a role in this book however; there's not as much here for the programming nerds to sink their teeth into. Overall, this book felt less like "Joe Programmer vs. The Eldritch Horrors, hilarity ensues" and more like "Bob the Middle Manager plays Van Helsing, hilarity ensues". At this rate of progression, however, there can't be many books left in the series.
Unless CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN comes about, and the publisher tries to pad the word count into a second series...
Two memorable quotes from this book: "It suddenly dawns on me that I know about as much about looking after a pet cat as I know about flying a jet fighter: it’s all MEOW DAKKA-DAKKA ZOOM to me."
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
"I could not put this book down" is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot in book reviews. I try to avoid hyperbole and just stick to the details of my experience with a book in my own reviews. That being said, I did put this book down - when I was too tired to keep my eyes open. As soon as I woke up, I grabbed my reader and started again before I even got out of bed. I read it while I was fixing my tea, I read it while I was eating breakfast, I read it while I should've been tending to grownup responsibilities during the morning. And then I ran out of book.
Which is not to say the story ends too suddenly. It ends in exactly the right place in exactly the right way. The entire story has a sense of harmony and balance; not a single word is out of place, every detail is important and what happens to our protagonists happens for reasons that are both obvious and laden with layers of symbolism. The world is sketched in broad charcoal strokes, the visible parts filled in with garish shades of watercolor and then important details are lined in with a fine point pen. The scope of the story slowly escalates from the minutiae of a daily ritual that runs like clockwork until we are casually tossing the fate of humanity around like a rock during a game of hopscotch.
For a proper discussion of the important symbolic themes, please see Bookaneer's reviews "I Need Another Star" and "You can't save people from the world. There's nowhere else to take them." - she's done a much better job of collecting and discussing details than I ever could. Remember, dear reader, this book is not the intensely allegorical jizz from some self-important author's mental masturbation. This is a post-zombie-apocalyptic adventure/thriller in a world that's genuinely frightening and populated by characters who feel like real people doing what they need to do to try and survive.
M.R. Carey has always been good at developing rounded characters; this time he's absolutely blown me away with the depth and breadth of the cast he's put together. This is a story that's driven by women and the Jungian Anima - the male characters are (complicated) guns on legs, providing enough Animus to highlight the feminine energy and move the plot along. Which is entirely appropriate for a story set at the end - and rebirth - of humanity.
Pandora is a theme that is mentioned specifically a number of times, which counterpointed the strong Eve subtext. And what's the difference between the two symbols, besides the attitude of the author? "History is written by the winners", and while Ms. Justineau sees Melanie as Pandora untold later generations will remember her as Eve. Melanie and her cohorts are like the fruiting bodies of Ophiocordyceps - tough, resilient, and waiting for a catastrophe to set them free.
This is the best book I've read in a few years. It's worth every scrap of praise it's gotten, and them some.
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
A serviceable but not especially engaging story that takes full advantage of the most popular cryptozoological tropes. Red shining eyes in the night, strange teeth, domestic animals acting strangely - they're all packed in here. The featured domestic animals are cats, and since I'm a certified crazy cat guy, this endeared me to the story even though the character building of both the cats and humans vacillated between inadequate and forced. The plot developed steadily enough, but is left entirely unresolved and the human protagonist is left in an untenable position. This is the first installment of loosely related stories in his Wicked Neighborhood series, of which I also picked up #2 and #3. I doubt I'm going to read them. I'm probably being generous with 3.5 stars, but I really like cats so that's worth a star and a half to me. ...more
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
This is a very, very short addition to the Laundry Files series. It pokes a bit of fun at the English traditions, a lot of fun at corporate bureaucratic culture, and then wraps itself up in a tidy conclusion. As I was reading this, I thought my file was corrupted - I was 20 pages into a 38 page story and I still wasn't sure where the conflict was and had only one clumsily inserted clue about the nature of the antagonist.
To be honest, I don't think this is a very good example of Mr. Stross's abilities as a writer. If it were longer he could have added more subtlety and mystery, but the very short length meant he had to pare the story down to it's absolute bare essentials. For me, the long setup and short conclusion threw the balance and cadence way off. A crucial read for fans of the Laundry Files series, but not recommended for people who aren't already familiar with the series....more
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
I'm going to share an uncomfortable truth with you here. This is not the best book in the series, and in fact it's not even a very good final episode. One of the things I've always liked about this series is the frenetic pace; "no rest for the wicked" and all that. This book, however, doesn't really start to take off until around the 50% mark. Once it picks up a lot of long lingering plot lines are resurrected and thrown into the mix, the tension builds until the last 20% of the book, and then SPLAT! The apocalypse blows it's load into a climax that's - we're friends, I'll be honest - is disappointing.
The casual cynicism, saucy word play and nonstop pop culture references are still in abundance, and once the violence gets started it's a good as any of the other books. All the things we love about Sandman Slim aka Jim Stark are here, and the weird little circle of friends he's accumulated are just as weird and fun as ever. Reading this book felt a lot like getting in touch with some old friends.
This book shows a deeper interior life for Stark, and I think Kadrey worked very hard to develop the character and round him out. Unfortunately, this happens at the expense of a lot of action and intrigue. I don't believe in an either/or dichotomy between actioning and adventuring OR feeling and relating. I think what happened was the author tried too hard to grow the character and lost track of his cadence, and let the interior development drive too much of the plot.
We're told many times that the apocalypse is upon creation, and several details are repeated to this effect: nonstop rain and flooding in LA and Hell for example. But I never felt any impending doom. Maybe because Stark and Candy are too busy lovingly quipping at each other? Maybe because there's not enough time spent with the supporting cast to get a feel of how the world is falling apart, because are protagonists are too wrapped up in themselves and their relationship with each other? All I know for sure is that any sense of impending doom was told rather than shown and this really didn't help me to get to the final conflict.
The final conflict was... I've already used the word "disappointing" once in this review, so let's say it was "unsatisfying". Unlike the final conflicts in the other books, I knew what he was working on ahead of time. I love to see a plan come together in unexpected ways. But I wasn't surprised. In fact, the whole battle felt like it was phoned in. The oldest of the old gods is invading creation to take it back from god, and the best we can do is tear up a few blocks of LA across a couple of pages? It just felt like it was too little too late and didn't engage me. I didn't feel afraid, I didn't feel cosmic forces wreaking havoc on all the physics I've ever known, I didn't feel like these characters that I've known for 5 or more books were ever in any real danger. It just felt like I needed to consume the words to get through the pages to reach the conclusion.
A whole host of lingering plot lines were brought up in this book, but most of them did not end satisfactorily - see "phoning it in", above. I suppose the ends are loose enough to squeeze a few more novels out of some of them, but at some point I think epic characters in long series' need to find a new set of Major Antagonists to up the stakes and move the whole arc of the world into new territories. I feel an opportunity to do just that was lost here.
If this had been the first book in the series, I don't think I would have read any of the others. I feel really bad writing such damning words. Maybe this book is just mediocre, but the rest of the series is so much fun and so well written that it feels like The Getaway God is worse than it really is. I do know that I hope this review doesn't put anyone off of starting the series; up until this installment, they've been top notch rollicking good times and a total hoot to read. It's entirely possible I brought too much expectation into this book, and my disappointment has nothing to do with Kadrey and everything to do with what I wish I had read.
Is this the last Sandman Slim novel? My halfhearted attempts at googlefu don't turn up any interviews saying so, but the book ends on a note that's suitable to end the series. On the other hand, it also ends on a note that leaves room for a nearly infinite stream of sequels. I guess it's a matter of what Kadrey wants to do with the series. Personally, I'd like to see him baby the thing into a Netflix miniseries a'la GRRM and GoT....more
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
I finished this book a few weeks ago, and to be completely honest I'm having a hard time recalling any details of it. I remember the first book in the series, and I remember reading this book and thinking, "Where did the awesome go?" My recollection of this book is of some ridiculous plot twists and a Mary Sue revenant coming to save the day too often. Where the first book was gloriously dark and dystopic and our intrepid hero was properly cynical and jaded, this book just felt like it was full of whiny characters who were being shuffled from one plot twist to another. I just didn't like it nearly as much as the first.
I hope this is just the "second book slump", and the series continues to a third edition to wrap up the Big Boss Fight that's been lurking on the horizon. I'll definitely buy the next book in the series, but I'll be reading it with a healthy dose of trepidation rather than the unbridled optimism I had when I started this book....more
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
If you like the Laundry series, you'll like this short. It's a very quick read and treads well worn ground, but all the things I like about the Laundry are in abundance: sly digs at English culture, comically overdrawn computer science and good ol' fashioned whatdunnit in the vein of classic Dr. Who.The references to the eldritch gods and Crowley are like a fractal tesseract and provide the real meat of the story.
For people not familiar with The Laundry, this would work as a standalone. There's enough context provided to explain who the players and are and what they're doing, and the voicing, cadence etc are all exemplary of the series. For people familiar with the series, reading this out of order (like I have) didn't detract my enjoyment....more
Another fantastic collection from Vanessa De Sade. This is not your ordinary smut. The writing stands on it's own with interesting, well developed characters, a strong command of the language and interesting plots and settings. On top of all that, the action is hot - explicit without getting bogged down in porny details, and thankfully missing any unbelievable gymnastics. Vanessa's stories feature real people, too. Her stories include things virtually unheard of in smut (or porn) like "body hair", "curves", "meaningful dialogue" and "thoughtfulness".
There are two stories in this collection, both of them "period pieces" in the sense they take part on grand estates in the UK back when bluebloods ran the world and the working class knew their place. They're both excellent, but I liked "First Blood" a little better. It wanders gently and ever so slightly into the horror genre with a twist at the end that involves supernatural elements, but the story is purely erotic without being gory. It's so well written I didn't squick on the deflowering scene, like I usually do. "The Hush" is more straightforward erotica, involving some class disparity, some m/m action and a sense of nostalgia. Both of the stories contain elements considered "taboo", so if you're more familiar with vanilla erotica there might be some surprises in here for you.
I'm not a connoisseur of erotica as much as someone with a distinct taste for the kinky and taboo who's experienced and well read enough to be unimpressed by Penthouse Forum style fap fantasies. Vanessa De Sade's stories are a godsend in a genre noted for it's mediocrity and glut of unoriginality.
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
This book kept showing up in results from the Goodreads autorecommendation tool. I put it on my TBR, and then I found an excerpt at the back of another book I finished. Initially, I wasn't excited about the book because the writing was very staccato and didn't use a very expansive vocabulary - it looked like a candidate for my small words and short sentences shelf, which is a euphemism for "young adult or otherwise poorly written". But then Carly specifically said I should read it since I think there can never be too much gore or noir in a book.
I'm glad she did. I really liked this book. I like Joe. He's a survivor and an iconoclast; he's not entirely happy about his situation (Anne Rice romanticists need not apply here) but he's making the best of a less than ideal situation and unliving his unlife on his own terms. I respect the hell out of that. While Joe would never be confused with a pacifist, he constantly grapples with the idea of "appropriate force" and the proper application thereof. This is the real antagonism in the story. Joe was never humanity's biggest fan while he was alive, and it's taken a few decades of undeath for him to come to appreciate the things that most people appreciate so easily they're taken for granted. Things like trust, loyalty, intimacy and all the other trappings of friendship and love. I felt a resonance between Joe's feelings about what he needs to do to survive with my own relationship to alcohol, actually, and this endeared me to Joe from about the second chapter onwards.
New York City is much more than a setting, it's a character in it's own right. I've been to NYC once, years ago, and I didn't like it very much. I felt it was full of dirt, litter and old buildings[1]. I feel like a lot of the backstory on NYC was skipped, and this took away from my enjoyment of the story - I feel I was expected to know the socioeconomic background between the different neighborhoods, but I don't, so I was struggling for clues to get an idea of what Joe could expect as he wandered around different parts of the city. This was really the most difficult part of the book for me, because I wanted to be as immersed in the world as Joe is.
As a mystery goes, the plot was good enough but not great. I don't really have anything to add to that that hasn't been mentioned in other reviews. I really liked the way the supernatural is handled in this world, and while Joe has some attributes that make him a little bit special, these are only alluded to and definitely don't make him into a superhero (cue sequels here...). I like the story, it was an easy read and all but one or two of the characters were fleshed out believably. The pace was excellent, it kept moving and provided lots of plot detail without bogging down on itself. The cadence was, in fact, staccato throughout the book but that's more of a function of Joe - he's not a genius and he has a touch of the OCD, so his thoughts and observations tend to be direct and to the point. There's some pretty good witticisms, not of the Felix Castor caliber, but I LOL'd more than once. The author treated the goth/rivethead and BDSM cultures well, poking at the same points I do while not treating them as some kind of freakish "other". Major points earned, right there. The kindle edition converted to epub without any issues, and had no typos or noticeable grammatical errors, and the TOC works.
I really liked this book, even if it isn't as complicated as other PI mysteries or as gory as other horror books. I think Joe is a fascinating character and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.
[1] Ironically, I've since moved to the UK where everything is older and dirtier.
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
An interesting book from Ed Lee, wherein he departs from the style I've become accustomed to in the dozen or so other books I've read from him. Coincidentally, since I've moved from the Seattle area to the UK I've found myself reading at least three books set in Puget Sound, including this one. Mr. Lee's familiarity with the area is apparent, as I knew exactly which streets, restaurants and shops our protagonist was walking on, in and out of throughout the book. Also, Mr. Lee nailed the drizzly grey atmosphere and the way civilization suddenly disappears at the foothills of the Cascade mountains.
The structure of this book is classic Ed Lee: a gory vignette at the beginning that sets up the supernatural mystery, followed by two sets of plot lines that careen towards each other before their inevitable clash that shapes the conclusion. However, unlike the other books I've read from him, this book in particular feels like it's written by an author for authors. I don't know if it was supposed to be some kind of allegorical autobiography; I don't know Ed personally and I'm not the sort of fan who needs to pry into the personal details of artists. The protagonist is a struggling poet, and the story actually has a muse/succubus character that saves his life, artistically and physically. Poetry figures large in the book, but I'm not very good at reading it - so I felt excluded from the protagonist's inner life from very early in the book, and I couldn't relate to him as well as I think Ed wanted me to.
I believe the two plot lines were supposed to mirror each other in the hermetic sense, but it felt thin and forced. I feel like a greater commitment from the author to write a gorefest with elements of the writer's life or write about the writer's life within the context of a horror mystery would have helped this book. What happened was a watered down, mismatched and incongruent attempt to meld the two which fell apart because the two "layers" of the book operate on wildly different time frames, but the story tries to force them together into a single, human-sized scale. The plot was rushed at the expense of backstory and rounding out the supporting cast, both of which were vital to making this story work more than any other Ed Lee book I've read.
As I've come to expect from Mr. Lee, the command of the language, pace and cadence were excellent within each scene. It's an easy book to read, but I feel like Ed was trying very hard to paint an allegory with this story and though each chapter works very well, the total amalgam falls a bit short of it's goals. This isn't Mr. Lee's best effort, IMHO, but the price is right at smashwords and I think anyone who is a fan of Lee should try this book sooner rather than later during their efforts to complete his canon.
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
In all honesty, I didn't like this as much as I liked Thicker than Water. I believe I would've liked it a lot better if the two novellas were combined into one novel, with a few less flashbacks in the first book and couple more flashbacks in the second book to make the two novellas maintain the same pacing. That's not going to happen, so I recommend reading this one right after the first one, as this book picks up right after the cliffhanger at the end of the first book.
This book felt very mopey and it kept rehashing the same conflict over and over. The only thing missing was an actual horse, getting flogged long after it had shuffled off this mortal coil. This book didn't need to be nearly as long, or it should've tried harder and gone bigger. Without giving away plot spoilers, I'll say that it would've have been more rewarding for me as a reader for the conflict between the brothers to spill out of Las Vegas and continue on through a couple of months of hunt and chase.
The story was gory, but there wasn't as much sex as the first book. The situations felt more preposterous, too - as the bodycount builds up and they start getting attention from the cops the vampires are still able to kill with impunity which felt unrealistic. I'd call this effort a "sophomore slump", but as I don't know enough about the author's publishing history I don't know if that's appropriate. I do know that there's no point reading this book unless you've read the first book, you should read the two of them back to back, and this is the weaker of the two.
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
I liked this novella a lot. The story could have been a moderately exciting thrill ride full of carnage and lust, but by breaking up the narrative between contemporary events and the history between the three vampires going back over a hundred years, the story elevates itself a notch above a mere gorefest.
The story features vampires the way I like them: undead humans with supernatural abilities that turn them into amazing predators. Not unlike The Lost Boys, actually. These guys lack most of the weaknessses of the vampire genre, and are only held in check by the fear of an oft named but never seen arch vampire cabal that will supposedly kill anyone who violates the ages old codex governing vampire behavior. (Cue the sequel here...)
It's a very short and visceral read. This is not a complicated book; there are no metaphors to decipher nor is the author trying to Say Something About The Human Condition. The characters are all straightforward (they're named Tyr, Loki and Thor - get it?) and one dimensional. This isn't a book to make you think about things, this is a book designed soley to entertain for a few minutes. The pace is excellent, the voicing good enough and the cadence and vocabulary are as good as books that have gone through the hands of a professional publishing house. Unfortunately, there were a number of grammatical errors and typos that should have been caught before going to publication. That being said, the price is right and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
A unique approach to the urban paranormal detective noir genre. Usually I don't put any effort into providing any synopsis in my reviews, but this story is different enough to require me to provide some of the backstory. Our protagonist Ray Lilly (a bright piece of sunshine as innocent as the morning dew...) just got out of jail, this time at the behest of a secret order of magicians called The Twenty Palaces. He was in jail for some incident which resulted in a number of people dead, and a number of undead things made really-really dead. In return, he's been attached to an experienced magician to suss out some strange goings-on in a fictional logging town somewhere on the Olympic peninsula in Washington state.
His boss hates him, apparently one of the people he killed was a friend of hers. His job, as she often tells him, is to be bait for whatever baddies they may encounter and likely get himself killed while she does the real work. I liked this approach, it put the (first person) protagonist on the back foot starting at page one and kept him in a position where he had to think on his feet and didn't have a pool of resources to draw from. Perhaps most thankfully, it killed the romance angle before it even had a hope of germinating. The world does not need another story about Van Helsings falling into each others arms in the heat of battle. But I digress...
After spending most of his life intimately familiar with various correctional facilities, Ray has accumulated some skills around intimidation, brawling and the liberal criminal arts. He uses these skills to work through the mystery, working his way through the smalltown sized web of hidden alliances and influences while alternatively getting his ass kicked and beating people up. The mystery part of the story really dragged. It was not especially well done (obvious, predictable, slow) and Ray meets too many named characters who aren't provided any distinguishing characterstics. Throughout the book, I found myself thinking, "Who is this person? Where did Ray meet them? How do they fit into the story?". Making characters at least memorable if not entirely fleshed out is a prerequisite for writing a whatdunnit[1] and this book falls short in this regard. Ray is voiced well, and his personality is well rounded and he finds himself in some believable moral quandries. His boss and the major supporting cast are all voiced well too so I wasn't ever tempted to give up on the book.
There are a lot of action scenes in this book. They're not done especially well; the pacing felt slow because often too many words were used to describe what was happening. Actually, the action scenes suffer for the same reason my reviews do HA! But they did their job and, again, I never questioned if I was going to finish the book.
As harshly as I've trashed this book so far, I'm going to read the rest of the series. I believe Mr. Connolly was let down by his editor. Del Rey has been around a while, they should be able to provide staff adequate for imaginative authors to take their pile of notes and wild tangents and redundancies and cliches and hammer the whole mess into a tight, well rounded, exciting story. There is nothing wrong with Mr. Connolly's imagination, or the scope of the book, or the plot that couldn't be fixed by some quality editing. I really like the premise he's set up for the series, I think Ray is an interesting character and my curiosity is piqued with regards to this mysterious all powerful organization that's wholly subsidizing Ray's life at this point.
[1] "whatdunnit" is my new phrase for "paranormal whodunnit"
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
A very short collection of even shorter stories. Most of them were really good; the weakest pieces in the collection I'd still consider to be decent writing. I'm not too familiar with this "microshort" format, this was essentially my first introduction. I liked it a lot. While the collection is only 53 pages in my reader, it was the right length. Too many of these shorts and it would feel like a chore to plow through them all. I didn't count how many stories are in here, but I'd wager there's 50-60 stories total in the collection.
The problem with the format, however, is that it's so short there's only so many ways to create the 'A-Ha! Gotcha!" moment. Usually with the last sentence that reframes the earlier paragraphs in a new light. Given that I'm pretty sick and twisted anyway, I'm usually reframing everything I read and watch all day long so there weren't a lot of shocks or suprises for me in the stories. Also, IIRC all the stories are set in contemporary western society. It would be an interesting excercise for the authors to use some of their scant words to try to evoke some different settings.
I still enjoyed reading this though. It's like popcorn and jelly beans for the horror fan - tiny little nuggets of demented goodness in easy to digest chunks. The collection is divided into four groups, roughly analagous to major subgenres in horror: "Encounters in the Dark", "Sinister Shadows on a Sunny Day", "Madmen Amongst Us" and "The Beast Inside". I felt the first section had the most interesting stories, as the microshort format lends itself to leaving much to the readers imagination while the other three genres covered such familiar ground it was hard to feel any surprises or insights.
This is a great little book that I recommend to anyone interested in horror. Because it's so short and the stories even shorter, this would probably be a good introduction to the genre for someone looking for a survey of the typical tropes and techniques - a Horror Types and Tropes Primer, if you will. I am looking forward to more collections from this group....more
I only made it through 32% of this book before I gave up on it. The pace of the writing seemed like it plodded along unchanged, no matter if the protagonist was unleashing demons from ancient tombs or eating dinner with his parents. The story is written in multiple third persons, I suppose to try and show the enormity of the unfolding zombiepocalypse, but none of the characters felt fully developed. Reading it felt like listening to one of those shows on public radio where the host interviews a number of people in depth around some vaguely related inane topic - a lot of words about straight white people on the east coast of the US I don't know and can't be arsed to care about.
The plot relied on a number of flashback scenes. In my reader, these showed up as page after page of bold, italic paragraphs expositing some scenario that lacked context, probably attempting to make the scene spooky and magnificient, but actually only heightening the sense that I'm just here to Watch A Writer Write instead of experiencing the end of the world as we know it firsthand. It was during one of these episodes that I closed the file and opened another book.
I soldiered on long after I wanted to give up. I was looking for the gratuitous sex and violence mentioned by Jennifer but it didn't happen fast enough for me. Maybe I missed it? Maybe Jennifer has different ideas about gratuitousness, harsh language, sex and violence than I do. Either way, while some interesting things happened to uninteresting characters, it was too little too late and I have too much on my TBR list to suffer through a story I'm not enjoying.
Rather than one-starring this like the rest of my DNFs, I'm going to give this one two stars. As harshly as I trashed it in preceeding paragraphs, it's still not as bad as the swill that I usually DNF. It's ambitious, utilizes a decent vocabulary and someone bothered to run it through a spellchecker. I think this could be an OK book for someone with different tastes and expectations. However, if you like the same books I do, you'll want to avoid The Fall.
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
This was a decently written, very quick read. I haven't read a lot of police procedurals, so I don't know how it rates in that respect. I usually read stories about PIs and their ilk; it felt to me like being able to call upon the resources of a major metropolitan police force was like having Mary Sue on speed dial. This is probably normal for the genre, however.
The book got off to a slow start. I picked this up hoping for a lycanthropic gore fest devoid of any of the trappings of the romance genre. I did eventually get what I was looking for, but I had to get about a third of way through the book before it got interesting. I think the author spent too much time trying to make generic (and ultimately forgettable) characters unique. Some tighter editing and more creative characterization would help elevate this book. The fact that I was willing to go a third of the way through book looking for the payoff says a lot for the skillful foreshadowing and overall quality of the writing.
The perspective on the UF elements was well done. I like the idea of the contemporary world as we know it getting a sudden interjection of lycanthropy, and how normal people tried to deal with it and explain the evidence in front of them. The whole issue was handled well and I appreciate the lack of HEA. Also, the tiny of sliver of romance was there to drive the plot, was totally believable, and played out with a grace and maturity not shown by too many authors.
I liked this book well enough to finish it, but not because of the characters. I was more interested in how the plot points around lycanthropy would play out against the criminal justice system, and I feel a little disappointed . If I find the rest of the series on sale for £1 I'll pick them up, but I don't find the "whole package" exciting enough to pay more than that.
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
It's been about a week since I finished this book, and I've read a couple of other books in the meantime. I think the reason I've hesitated to write this review is because that would actually mean the series is over for me, not unlike a funeral ritual cements the end of a life. Felix Castor maintained a consistent arc throughout the books and it's concluded where it needs to end. As much as I adore Felix and enjoy reading about him, I'm glad Mr. Carey isn't trying to milk the character long after there isn't anywhere new or interesting to take him (Dresden Files and Wild Cards come to mind as bad examples of such).
The final installment of the Felix Castor series was beautiful, though for reasons different than I liked the earlier books. The whodunnit was basically a no-show in this book; the elements of mystery were clearly just there to frame the inevitable Final Boss Fight and as such there were numerous holes and a handful of inconsistencies, and the plot as a whole was predictable. We don't meet a lot of new characters, but the cast of allies and enemies that Felix has accumulated in the last four books are all there in all their gloriousness.
This book wraps up all the arcs. The supporting cast - at least the characters that have survived Felix's aquaintence so far - all come to places different than where they started. It's almost an HEA for Felix's friends. Even his zombie buddy finds the means and motivation to come out of his self imposed isolation and find ways to interact with the living world. The people on Felix's shitlist each get theirs too. With one exception that leaves room open for a second series... he wrote, in a hopeful tone.
Felix also leaves us a changed man. In book one, we were introduced to a burned out, borderline alcoholic, lonely, temperamental middle aged man racked by guilt who only knew how to relate to people by driving them away and trying to get by on his past glories. By the end of the book, Felix has atoned (suffered) for his transgressions, learned to trust, built a new life that allows him to support himself, and is even beginning to open himself up for romantic entanglements.
And this is why this is one of my most favorite stories ever. I see an illustration of a character, who's flaws and fears and mistakes remind me so much of my own, find the means to come to peace with his guilt and anger and transcend the past to create a new future for him and his friends based on hope, caring and mutual appreciation. What more can you ask for from a book? I started this series enthralled by the sarcastic smartass with one good skill surrounded by interesting characters and finished it deeply invested in this guy and those close to him.
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
When I finished the previous book in this series, I was disappointed that Felix didn't grow very much. Having now read the third installment, I forgive Mr. Carey for his earlier transgressions and applaud the way he rescued the series. Felix is becoming a proper heavy-hitter in the corner of this alternate London concerned with animated post-mortem kerfuffles, and as such he's attracting more attention from some bigger heavies. Not to say Felix has gotten over himself and he's come to appreciate the people around him who save him from himself regularly, but he certainly does come to realize how often his sanity and survival are made possible by his friends and allies. He even starts to show real twinges of conscience, but even by the end of this book he isn't too ready to listen to that tiny voice of goodwill he's worked so hard to bury.
I wouldn't recommend this book as a place to start the series. Interested readers should definitely start with the first book and work through them sequentially. While we're on the subject, there's not a whole lot that's new regarding setting, characterization, voicing and all the other technical elements of a novel. If you liked the mood, tone, style and pace of the first two books you'll like this one too. It's another finely crafted whodunnit. Unlike the previous books, Felix finds himself embroiled in a number of disaparate situations that turn out to be related via root cause, though thankfully it's not nearly as predictable as the second book's scenario. The mystery progresses along in typical Felix fashion - by alternately threatening violence, guiling his friends and allies and getting beat up regularly he starts to piece together a conspiracy so large he and Juliet had to travel to the US to get some of the clues. All the while, as Felix follows his obsessions and twisted moral compass, he uses up nearly all his remaining cachet and is increasingly forced to come to grips with the selfish way he's lived his life.
This installment of the series feels like it puts Felix's internal life first and foremost, reflected in the way his relationships are changing. While the whodunnit was better than most in the genre, it's not as good as the first story and ultimately concludes with a monologue with the antagonist driving the whole conspiracy. Fortunately, it didn't sink to the depths of "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die..." but it felt like Mr. Carey was truncating the denoument. A minor quibble, again, because it provided more opportunity for Felix to have to come to grips with his own feelings and his responsibility to those around him.
I'm very happy to see Felix changing, and the world around him changing, but I realize that I'm starting on the last half of the series. I'm not one of those readers who draws out the end of a series trying to make it last. I'm eagerly devouring them as fast as I can, knowing the end is coming:
So what I’m getting at is this. Okay, maybe it’s cold in the grave. Maybe you come out of the light and you think, Fuck your mother, this is bad. This is worse than anything I would have guessed. But the trick is to clench your teeth, get a running start and dive.
- Felix Castor
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
Another fantastic book from Mike Carey. I didn'Brainycat's 5 "B"s: blood: 3 boobs: 1 bombs: 1 bondage: 1 blasphemy: 4 Bechdel Test: fail Deggan's Rule: fail
Another fantastic book from Mike Carey. I didn't react to this one as strongly as I did to The Devil You Know, but that's because I was prepared to read a noir whodunnit rather than a ghostbusters. It's not necessary to read the first book to enjoy this one, and for reasons I'll get to in a few paragraphs it may even help.
Again, the character of Felix resonates strongly with me and I'm beginning to feel that Felix and Takeshi Kovacs are cut from the same cloth. If you like your protagonists troubled, confused, selfish, arrogant, quick witted and too obstinate for their own good then Felix is your guy. Felix, however, is no superhero and unlike Takeshi, still has a (dinged and chipped) heart of gold underneath his cold demeanor.
I was hoping this book would have more development for the supporting cast we met in the first book, especially the succubus that Felix befriended in the first book. Unfortunately, while there are a number of strong female supporting characters who are each vividly unique and interesting, this book more than the first uses other characters to prop up Felix's story. It's narrated in the first person, so mechanically the story really is all about Felix, but I was hoping that we'd see Felix grow a little more and learn to reach out to other people easier rather than throw himself in harm's way in yet another vain attempt to absolve himself of his guilt.
The plot moves along at a good clip, but the mystery wasn't very mysterious. The plot involves a number of seemingly unrelated incidents that ultimately have the same root cause. I believe myself and every reviewer on GR saw the connection immediately, but we had to watch Felix grope around the seedy underside of undead London for another three hundred pages to put it all together. Frankly, I just don't understand how Felix wasn't able to put all the pieces together sooner. Doing so would have left more room to explore the race against deadlines and develop some of the new factions that are introduced.
The writing continues to be top-notch. As I'm sure my fellow readers know, there's nothing like reading a poorly written book to make you appreciate a well written book. The writing is solid without calling attention to itself and lets the characters speak in their own voice without sounding shrill or caricaturish. I appreciate Mr. Carey's dry sardonic humor, it reminds me of myself and I've made it a point to add some turns of phrase from Felix into my lexicon. London itself is a vital character in the story, and though I'm still not very familiar with the city I can feel the vibe and the tone of the different neighborhoods through the writing.
If you liked the first book, I definitely recommend this one with the caveat that I hope the series picks up in subsequent volumes and allows the characters to grow more. I'm really torn about how many stars to give; I want to give it four on it's own merits but I think it only deserves three in the context of the series because of the missed opportunity to develop the characters more.
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
I saw the reviews for this and bought it; I didn't pay much attention to the descriptBrainycat's 5 "B"s: blood: 3 boobs: 3 bombs: 0 bondage: 3 blasphemy: 3
I saw the reviews for this and bought it; I didn't pay much attention to the description so I didn't realize it was a short story until I was about 20% into and realized that this story was going to wrap up very quickly.
In retrospect, I'm not sure I read the same story as all the great reviews here. YMMV, I guess.
This is a story summed up with "some asshole gets what he deserves". Unfortunately, the asshole in question is just a shallow caricature of a narcissistic and racist old white guy, and those who inflict their revenge on him are an amalgamated, faceless caricature of african descendants from around the Caribbean. If it weren't for stereotypes, there wouldn't be any characterization at all.
I like the short story format, but only when the story is written like haiku or sumi-e: I expect shorts to judiciously use decisive strokes of feelings and moods with an economy of words that creates volume from what isn't said. This story, however, does not show any of that sort of subtlety or willingness to engage with anything larger than itself.
I don't expect I'll be excited to read anything else by Mr. D'Enfer; there's too many authors I like writing too many books to read already.
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
This was a fantastic no-brainer action/thriller contemporary paranormal bullet and bBrainycat's 5 "B"s: blood: 5 boobs: 1 bombs: 5 bondage: 2 blasphemy: 2
This was a fantastic no-brainer action/thriller contemporary paranormal bullet and bomb extravaganza. This is not a book for navel-gazers. At no point are Big Important Questions asked, there are no moral quandries to wade through, nor are there any complex metaphors to be extrapolated from the characters or the plot. The plot is straightforward and the characters are just complex enough to mouth their words and move through their blocking. This is not a book that is concerned with exploring the human condition. The good guys are good, the bad guys are evil and the guns are always blazing.
This is an action/thriller, and it's excellent at that. The author is clearly very familiar with firearms and combat, and it shows in each of the (too many to count) action scenes. This is a long book, one of the longest fiction books I've read in the last three years, and the pages fly by because a considerable part of the pagecount are action scenes. Oh so beautifully exquisite actions scenes. Mr. Corriea has an amazing ability to make "bullet time" work in the printed form; he knows exactly how to stretch adrenaline soaked seconds into paragraphs without getting bogged down in unnecessary or repetitive detail. The action scenes are absolutely what makes this book such a joy to read.
The world Mr. Corriea is solidly contemporary and avoids being too specifically dated for the most part. Clearly it's post 9/11 and all the action takes place in the southern region of the United States. I believe readers not familiar with the area shouldn't have any trouble placing the action or understanding what's going on. He also brings a refreshing perspective to the paranormal elements; all the usual suspects (vampires, werewolves, fairies, wights, zombies, orcs etc) are well represented, as well as solid grounding in Cthulhuism. The author does a good job of avoiding Tolkienisms and putting his own spin on the typical tropes for each of the monster types, and the whole system he's developed hangs together quite well. Why these creatures exist and where they come from isn't examined and I'm ok with that. There's enough cannon fodder thrown in front of our intrepid band of merry heroes that backstory isn't important.
Mr. Corriea is knows his way around the canon horror, fantasy and action tropes and subtly interjected throughout the exposition are some clever easter eggs. At no point do they detract from the flow of the story and I'm sure there are a number of homages that I missed. In the hands of a less audacious author the protagonsist Owen, as presented to us, would have started out as a god mode sue and then found himself in a monty haul. The interwebs are littered with ebooks that fall down that oft tread and boring path. Not. This. Book. Every time I feel like Owen is levelling up too fast, he faces new foes and challenges that leave him nearly dead and utterly confused. This is a book that takes the heroe's journey arc, cranks it up to eleven and then breaks the knob off. Most impressively, it's fun to follow along.
Characterization is the weak point but I don't read gun porn to make new best friends. The supporting characters are all built from a predictable formula (skill + old psychological wound) x (socieconomic background + cultural niche) and they don't feel like they exist anywhere outside of the main characters' line of sight. There is a romance that is crucial to driving some key plot elements but because the characters are so unidimensional and shallow it's not very believable. The book lost a star for this. I nearly took another star off because there is no explicit sex, but I don't want to affect the average rating just because the book wasn't written just for me.
Please note: I don't review to provide synopses, I review to share a purely visceral reaction to books and perhaps answer some of the questions I ask when I'm contemplating investing time and money into a book.
See also Lady Danielle's excellent review, I'm not going to repeat her synopsis but IBrainycat's 5 "B"s: boobs: 3 blood: 2 bombs: 0 bondage: 1 blasphemy: 5
See also Lady Danielle's excellent review, I'm not going to repeat her synopsis but I do want to share my own thoughts.
I F'ing LOVED this book. It started off as a modern paranormal thriller (blessedly devoid of any of the typical trappings of the PNR genre), and then oh so subtly became a really well done whodunnit. Felix is another one of the antiheroes I admire so much, the kind who obstinately follows his own moral compass even as the needle twirls around like a pennant in a hurricane. He's far from perfect, but even his foibles were so well written they endeared me to him. The characterization was so good, in fact, that I actually cringed and found myself talking to Felix out loud a couple of times as he naively got himself trapped - I rarely have a visceral reaction to non-smut books, so that says a lot for Mr. Carey's talent.
As a whodunnit, the story has a fantastic element missing from the classics of the noir genre because there's no body but there is a spirit that tries to communicate with Felix (and others). The way Felix is drawn into the conspiracy around the troubled spirit is sublime, again the fantastic characterization didn't drive the story as much as gently guided it where it needed to go.
The writing was fantastic, at no point did I feel like I was being talked down to, nor did the writing draw attention to itself. It's longer than most of the books in the genre, but it didn't take as long to read - from the first page, this was a nonstop joyride of a barely emotionally equipped, burned out middle ager with a talent and a stack of bills to pay who finds himself precariously perched on his character arc, and arrives at the end only mostly intact.
I have bought the rest of the series and I'm looking forward to reading them ASAP.
[EDIT] Also, being set in contemporary London endeared me to the story, as I've just moved here. Felix's innate sense of alienation resonates deeply with me right now.
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