Review: This was built for the filler in the series. A waypoint preceding the End. Still, the writing is good but lacks a certain inventiveness that the original had in spades.
Max finally makes an appearance and since he is central to the theme, he makes the story line what it is. This exclusion paints a dreary picture as you get mired in McCloud’s procedurals.
The Grand finale’ is obvious. What is not, is whether they kill off Max. I swear if you do, I will never read another of your novels. And leave Ming alone too.
I had a hard time casting back to the previous novels in order to gain my bearings for this installment as it came late in comparison. Rounded up, it was about 3 years between “The Blackest Heart” and “The Lonesome Crown“. Add in my ability to gain access after the established publish date and you get closer to 4 years.
I know, “Wah!”, right? Even if you had a good handle on all of the myriad factions and players, you would still get a little lost when groups join then suddenly dissolve for no apparent reason. “I feel connected to the weapons….No I do…..Ok I take. bye”. I mean we know the stones and the weapons are wending their way to the rightful descendants of Xena Warr……..er, Warrior Angels, right? A little more brevity and directness would aid in defining these myriad quests.
There were some continuity errors that were intentional as regards to expediting or substantiating a remnant story line. Cromm the Oghul sits in a boat sharpening, what, 15 or so knives secreted on his person. Blah, blah Cromm falls into the sea with all of his armor on after telling Nail he wants to burn his face to match the prophecy. They can’t pull him up so Nail dives in, swims down and cuts the armor away from Cromm and saves the day. Cromm pledges loyalty for a life owed, yadda yadda. So my question is: why couldn’t Cromm cut away his own armor with the plethora of knives secreted about him? I mean he could obviously swim as his hands were free enough to do so while breaking the spine of a mermaid. I assume the leather straps that connected the armor and held it in place were easy enough to access with a knife.
The ease in which Talalalala escapes the castle is deus ex machina at its finest hour. I mean whom can’t find a secret passage from the Queens room to her own in order to grab a sword pivotal to the story line.? And then easy as you please she spends one minute talking to a barmaid and discerns the whereabouts of a dangerous assassin and BAM!, is in their secret lair. This kinda shjt is what happens when there are too many players. Let’s not forget the YA’s ability to repeatedly beat seasoned warriors with no inherent skills and Beer Mugs undying loyalty and nick o’time presence. All said, the scene rendering had to be simplistic to push the narrative. What we get is poor construction and a lack of believability.
The characters are a minor fail what with the YA’s depicted as broken, reluctant heros. They all must have went to the Kevin Costner school of storytelling. Lawri is just plain awful. Denying your present set of circumstances when obivious truths have dictated your actions, is pure idiocy. Was there any reason for this character other than needing an armless shjtwit to weild the gauntlet? So now the fumbling timid idiot can hulk smash shjt with glowing green eyes. There is a constant repitition of facts, sayings and general information that points a finger at your stupid head for not getting it the first time. Perhaps you were in one of Lawri’s special classes.
This was a sad departure from the first two installments. I could continue the rant but what’s the point? The whole process seemed rushed. I think what happened is that it became too unmanageable and events became hyphenated so as to move the story forward. This novel could have used a massive dose of editing from the start of the series. Begin with a truncated cast or have three warrior princ….er, angels rather than five. Too late now.
Review: Lesbos in Spaaaaaace!!!! Well kinda. Never really get to the implied action that may or may not occur.
Wow, what a complete departure from the brilliance of the first novel. What a turd. Intentionally confusing in order to expedite a sense of superiority. Seventy five percent through the novel and you have a not so good “aha” moment where clarity is gifted with a heaping spoon of deus ex. This whole novel was a continuity error but who will admit being a dummay under that shadow of brilliance? Not me, no siree, I knew what was going on from the get-go……..
Review: This novel was trippin’ balls. Gideon is a riveting character drawn from the annals desperation. The writing lends to stuttering in places and you have to be patient to realize the culmination of events. But the magic is great and the instances within this world, while morbid, are presented with form.
Review: Krayon, the conflicted demonologist with a heart of gold. Wenka, super sexy necro with just a tinge of rot. Shlaequa, token ginger with broken teeth and a taste for adventure. Bren Wren, plodding lovable scamp with burns that attract rather than repulse. And a host of other forgettable characters the seek to add depth to life-less characters.
The hot and sexy necro whom wuvs Krayon got, and has gotten olde. Really, really, olde. The idea that Krayon has fragmented memories throughout the story line was too convenient a plot vehicle. So the intricacies within were rendered without real substantive value.
The characters I liked that could have driven this series in a better direction, were sadly rendered to the appendix. Conniving, dead, predator women without a soul that love in endless fashion are not believable not matter how fantastical the story.
The ending leaves room for more of the Poopy Path, so unless there is a serious change in character placement, I will not be visiting this series again.
Review: “OH THE HUMANITY!!! WHY, WHY, WHY DO I HAVE TO SLAY ALL THESE POOR SOULS??”. Yes indeed you may ask why our anti-hero, Krayon, while being wholly aware of his actions/failings, continues to harvest souls so he can portal around the realms with ease? Becwaz himz wuvs Wenka and he will paint the city in blood if any harm…yada, yada, yada.
See our hero-ish is conflicted. How do we know this? Well, because every page beats you over the fucking head with it. And while overtly conflicted, Krayon will ignore his own awareness of pending events and choose the dumbest route so we can all be mired in his shjt choices.
Krayon sux in so many ways that it has become a fascinating slow motion train wreck. Wenka gets a new hot bod every page or so, so there is that and Krayon will always default to her over common sense even while KNOWING HE IS DOING IT. Really, this guy is a total dumbfuk.
World building and the magic saves the day for this series while the characters are dumber than a unarmed pygmy posse chasing a pride of lions. The story line, while cogent, suffers from character stupidity.
Review: I had forgot about this series after having read Snake Agent a long time ago. Glad I re-entered the fray as this installment was entertaining.
The downside in comparison to the first novel, is that this is more about Chen’s sidekick and there are shifting narratives that are too loose to be of consequence. I was more amused than emotionally tied to the outcomes of various characters.
There was definitely a lot of bouncing in between worlds with hardly the resolution expected. The story line moves in fits and starts and then you have a rampaging goddess. Hmm. Still, this was fun and I will keep reading on.
Review: This review includes all of the current Dead Jack volumes (Soul Catcher, Old Gods, Creepy Cryptid).
This series is a lot of fun and follows in the same vein as Jim Butcher’s “Dresden Files”. Jack tends to grow in characterization with a revolving story line as do the other characters. An inventive take on a Mickey Spillane genre. The downside is that it is no where near long enough to really capture any depth of character/story line/world building.
Review: This was a fun ride through some of the darkest fantasy I have read in awhile. Giant spiders, like WTF! The creepy just keeps on getting creepier while our heroes fight and fumble amongst themselves. The ending is kind of a story line letdown and really does not pave the way for successive novels in the same vein.
Review: There were far more errors (grammatical and such) in this installment that sadly, detracted from the story line flow. I usually give bad editing a pass but when you make the mistake of transposing characters (Bleda/Drem), that is not so goody.
There were a plethora of phrases that were overused and diminished the narrative to the pedantic. These phrases were descriptive and usually graphic in nature. . “Blood sheeting down foreheads”, “pulped lips/broken teeth” etc. This technique is an easy way to render the finite without expanding the story line. The story line is expedited without a deeper framework to support it. The author uses “deel” to describe clothing worn by the Horse people. A deel is “A part or portion”. So what portion or part of the clothing is the author seeking to describe? The use is constant and consistent with no regard for explanation.
The YA characters are much the same as in the previous novels, Very Stupid. The only change in the Very Stupid is a smiling Riv, as she is getting boned by Bleda every time the wind blows. Anthropomorphism is at an all time high where Battle bears are now presumed sentient and wolven hounds show trusting human-like behaviors. Just add in a questing whine and there you go.
This series was a bit of a letdown. What started as a visceral and aching scratch for survival turned into a playground for love addled stupidity. It just grinds me that good authors with big talent sell their souls to publishers that demand twisting a specific genre into YA (I presume). While I am all for young people doing their thing, they lack the experience to make long-range cogent decisions, especially where warfare strategy is concerned. There has to be a level of believability to draw you into the narrative and this rose and fell beneath a susurration of hard edged reality and the whimsical.
I liked that the the protagonists were either mindlessly evil or mostly evil. You get glimpses of the Very Stupid YA contingent in the Mostly Evil camp with hints of emotion beyond revenge. Jin is a fine example of the Very Stupid driven by revenge and blind rage yet tempered by continued experience. The Kinda Good camp had well grounded leadership yet defer to a whiney, petulant, vengeful 19 YO Riv. There was not enough built into Riv’s character to allow for a Joan of Arc persona.
I am on the fence with this author. He has the capacity to construct an amazing world with a depth of characterization not seen in awhile. What we have now is a rushed story line that failed to build characters even with the intense movement. While most readers are drawn to the constant “CRASH, BOOM, BANG!” Batman style of scene development, greater impact can be found when the build takes longer to culminate thereby enhancing the cast to a greater depth.
Viking Jam 