The Barrow #1: The Barrow

He rose up with the twilight to take revange for all the sins. He came from the shadow to mollify his suffering. Moved by the rage, didn’t forget the sorrow. The endless pain created the ghost from the barrow. Let’s rob The Barrow, by Mark Smylie.

Synopsis:

To find the Sword, unearth the Barrow. To unearth the Barrow, follow the Map.

When a small crew of scoundrels, would-be heroes, deviants, and ruffians discover a map that they believe will lead them to a fabled sword buried in the barrow of a long-dead wizard, they think they’ve struck it rich. But their hopes are dashed when the map turns out to be cursed and then is destroyed in a magical ritual. The loss of the map leaves them dreaming of what might have been, until they rediscover the map in a most unusual and unexpected place.

Stjepan Black-Heart, suspected murderer and renegade royal cartographer; Erim, a young woman masquerading as a man; Gilgwyr, brothel owner extraordinaire; Leigh, an exiled magus under an ignominious cloud; Godewyn Red-Hand, mercenary and troublemaker; Arduin Orwain, scion of a noble family brought low by scandal; and Arduin’s sister Annwyn, the beautiful cause of that scandal: together they form a cross-section of the Middle Kingdoms of the Known World, brought together by accident and dark design, on a quest that will either get them all in the history books, or get them all killed.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

The Barrow is apparently set in the same world as Artesia, a comic book series following the exploits of this book’s protagonist’s sister. I wasn’t aware of this extended universe when I picked it up; I just thought it looked like a good candidate for a dark, gritty fantasy story. I’m not sure when this story fits into Artesia’s timeline – whether it’s a sequel, prequel, interquel, or what – so I’ll forgo the “secretly a sequel” tag. In any case, I’m not here to talk about Artesia; I’ll be taking The Barrow on its own merits.

The plot concerns a group of grave-robbers, led by the notorious Stjepan Black-Heart, who discover a magical map pointing to the hiding place of a long-lost legendary sword of immense value. In order to reach it, though, they’ll have to evade the Inquisition, recruit a party of potentially treacherous mercenaries, cross miles of cursed and bandit-infested land, and finally raid the profane tomb of the sorcerous leader of a band of demon-cultists. All in a day’s work?

I ended up greatly enjoying The Barrow. It painted a rich and detailed fantasy world filled with interesting characters, and told a suspenseful story with plenty of twists and turns to keep things fresh. And, in the end, it all ties together into a satisfying conclusion.

…Well, mostly satisfying. I was a bit puzzled by the first epilogue revealing that Godewyn was somehow still alive. Didn’t Erim shoot him? And how did he get past all those ghouls in the barrow? Am I missing something?

Well, apparently there’s a sequel called Black Heart in the works, so maybe I’ll find some answers there. (Though it looks like it’s been delayed?). In any case, The Barrow made for a highly enjoyable read.

Final Rating: 5/5

Dungeons & Dragons: Greyhawk: Quag Keep #1: Quag Keep

Tomorrow will takes us away, far from home. No one will ever know our names, but the bard’s songs will remain. Let’s quest to Quag Keep, by Andre Norton.

Synopsis:

Quag Keep was the first novel based on the world of Dungeons & Dragons by the legendary grand mistress of SF/Fantasy, Andre Norton.

Once, they were role-playing gamers in our world.
They came from different places and different backgrounds.
Now they’re summoned together by some magical force…to a land that mirrors the games they used to play.
Quag Keep
Can they band together to unlock the secret of their summoning–and rescue from the legendary Quag Keep the person who may be able to return them home?

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

Some time ago, I reviewed a number of novels based on the Pathfinder roleplaying game. In the interest of balance, I think it only fair that I now review some Dungeons & Dragons books in turn. There are a number of good stories I’ve read that would be excellent candidates for review, such as Starlight & Shadows or The Year of Rogue Dragons… But then, you know how much I love starting series from the beginning. So, I decided to go all the way back to the very beginning, and read the first book based on Dungeons & Dragons ever published: Quag Keep. (Well, that’s what Alternative Worlds and Dragon Magazine claim, anyways. I suppose it’s possible someone else might’ve published a novel based on a D&D game but with the serial numbers filed off).

The plot concerns a number of people from Earth being transported into the world of their D&D game, becoming their characters. Now, normally that would be the lead-in to your typical isekai power-fantasy story: the characters use their modern world knowledge and awareness of game mechanics to conquer Oerth (that’s what the world of Greyhawk is actually called, though this book doesn’t mention it). To my surprise, however, the book ended up going in a completely different direction: the players’ identities were nearly totally subsumed by their characters’ identities, with them barely able to remember anything about their former existence on Earth. In fact, hardly anything ends up being revealed about the players. For instance, one of the characters is a lizardman, and this causes our lead protagonist Milo to wonder what inspired Gulth’s player to make such a non-conventional choice of character. A good question, and one which I expected to eventually be answered – for the characters to rediscover their identities as players, and to see how their personalities and preferences influenced the type of characters they created. But no, nothing of the sort ever happened. In fact, for all the impact it has on the plot, I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to drop the isekai element entirely and just tell a wholly in-universe story of people from Greyhawk.

…Well, there is one way that the isekai element influences the plot: the requisite shoehorning of a narrative element that awkwardly represents some physical mechanic of playing the game. Remember Magic the Gathering: Arena, where the author decided to reflect the game’s ante rules in-story by having each mage haul around a sack full of physical totems tied to spells which they had to hand over upon defeat? In this case, each of the characters has a bracelet of dice of the sort used in D&D games. By concentrating on the dice when they spin, the characters can gain vague and very poorly defined advantages when facing the subsequent obstacles. As far as I could tell, these rolls usually occurred right at the beginning of combat encounters… so I guess they were rolling for initiative? I was more interested in the fact that Milo’s bracelet is said to include a d3. I checked online, and apparently it is possible to make physical three-sided dice; but they’re not one of the types you’d expect to see commonly used in D&D.

Honestly, my main problem reading this book was struggling to take it seriously and judge it on its own merits. D&D has been around for so long, has accumulated so many memes and in-jokes and pop-culture references, and has given rise to an entire genre of webcomics based on parodying it (just off the top of my head, a few that I’ve read include The Order of the Stick, Goblins, The DM of the Rings, and Rusty & Co.)… it can be hard not to let all that baggage color my judgement, particularly when the story has the whole meta element of acknowledging that the characters have been transported into the world of a game. In the first chapter, when Naile is revealed to be a were-boar, I thought of Oinkbane the Deadly, and that nearly finished me off. Thank goodness none of the characters fired Magic Missiles at the darkness or encountered the dread Gazebo, or I never would have made it all the way through. As it was, some of the other things that threw me were Lawful and Chaotic being used as synonyms for Good and Evil (original Dungeons & Dragons only had one axis of morality, instead of today’s two-axis, nine-alignment system) and the declaration that dragons worship no gods (this was written before Bahamut and Tiamat were given their now-iconic position of dragon gods).

In the end, I did find myself enjoying Quag Keep. The ending did leave a lot of stuff unresolved; but that’s not necessarily a problem, because there’s a sequel to tackle those loose ends. And it only took… let me check… 28 years to come out. Will it prove to have been worth the wait? I guess I’ll just have to read it and find out.

Final Rating: 3/5

Jennifer Scales #4: Seraph of Sorrow

Sorrow has a human heart, from my god it will depart. I’d sail before a thousand moons, never finding where to go. Let’s weep for Seraph of Sorrow, by MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi.

Synopsis:

Some wars are best unfought…

Like most young women, Jennifer Scales is slowly coming into her own. But for her, this means reconciling two sides of herself. She’s half-weredragon – and able to shift into that form at will. But she’s also half beaststalker – the deadly nemesis of all dragonkind. So she’s an odd girl out on both sides of her family.

But now the seemingly endless mutual hatred may finally be overcome. There is hope that diplomacy – not fire and sword – might enable the longtime enemies to coexist. But in both camps, suspicion runs rampant and bad blood boils. Now, to secure the peace, Jennifer will be called upon to learn the most ancient skills of dragonkind – if she lives long enough to finish the lessons…

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

Seraph of Sorrow is split into sections, each focusing on a different character. The first is centered on Jennifer’s father, Jonathan Scales, who continues to be just a terrible, terrible person. First he dumped his first child in a hell-dimension, then he killed two dragons and framed his wife for it… at some point, you’d expect him to hit rock bottom, but Jonathan just keeps digging. This book, we see Jonathan be a terrible boyfriend, cause his mother’s death, and nearly cause the ultimate secret magic technique of Creeper dragons to be lost forever. Are we sure Jonathan isn’t secretly a villain? Because this series just seems obsessed with painting him in the worst light possible.

The second section is focused on Glorianna Seabright, the town’s mayor and the leader of the beaststalkers. She is also an awful, awful person – but she’s an antagonist, so she’s kind of supposed to be. In any event, this section gives her some much-needed characterization, exploring her background and motivations. I liked it a lot.

The third section is focused on Francis “Skip” Wilson, asshole extraordinaire. Back at the beginning of the series, he seemed like a plausible love interest for Jennifer – the standard bad boy from a race that is normally mortal enemies with her kind – but by this point he just disgusts me. In the first book, he betrayed Jennifer to Otto; in the second book, he acted like a jerk during Jennifer’s fight against Evangelina (or maybe Eddie? I can’t remember quite how it went down, but something he did resulted in Jennifer breaking up with him at that point); and in the third book, he betrayed the location of Crescent Valley to the Quadrivium. Three strikes, you’re out.

More interesting is the next section, about Winona Brandfire. Since this series has been following the POV of weredragons for the first three books, it has kind of been presenting a sugar-coated account of their history: they’ve always been depicted as good and innocent beings unfairly persecuted by the sinister werearachnids and genocidal beaststalkers. This book is the first to show them from other points of view, demonstrating that they are capable of being just as monstrous as the werearachnids. Winona’s section details how she was originally frightened and ashamed of her draconic nature, and tried to press for peaceful coexistence with humanity; only to gradually become radicalized into one of the very anti-human extremists she originally despised. Powerful stuff.

Well, with its intricate storyline, deep character development, nuanced exploration of the setting’s past, and dramatic advancement of the overall plot, I think it’s safe to say that this is the best Jennifer Scales book yet, a fact which will be reflected in its rating…

Wait, hold up just a second, we’ve got a late-breaking development here. Wendy Williamson has just been revealed to be a lesbian. Aaaaaand she’s dead. Chalk up one more Dead Lesbian Penalty, and knock a point off the final score, and it looks like it comes out as just average. Sigh.

Final Rating: 3/5

Jennifer Scales #3: The Silver Moon Elm

Moonlight, please stay unchanged. Moonlight, I’m coming to meet you. Moonlight, run up and, definitely, moonlight, we will meet once more. Let’s sit beneath The Silver Moon Elm, by MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi.

Synopsis:

Scaly skin, family fights…it’s tough being a teenage dragon.

Jennifer was just starting to get comfortable in her own skin, scaly as it is. She should have known that, as half-weredragon, half-beaststalker, things don’t stay normal for too long…

Following through on a promise made to her mother, Jennifer agrees to go to Crescent Valley, where Jennifer and her father find refuge with other weredragons, and where they meet Xavier Longtail. Xavier, a powerful elder dragon, doesn’t believe in peaceful co-existence, and after he stirs up trouble in her family, Jennifer wonders if he isn’t right. She’s about to go nuts with all the fighting, when her ex, Skip, comes to her rescue and whisks her off to the movies, where she falls asleep…

Waking up, Jennifer finds her hometown overrun by weachnids, dangerous half-werewolves, half-spiders. Weredragons are long extinct…except for Jennifer, of course, and the ominous Xavier Longtail, and it’s up to them to return the universe to normal. Can they trust each other enough to pull it off-or are they the last of a dying breed?

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

We’re in uncharted territory, folks! Having passed the point where I stopped reading this series on my first attempt, I’m now experiencing the following books for the first time. And how does this one start off? With more of the terrible past mistakes of Jonathan Scales.

You remember how, last book, it turned out that Jennifer’s father once had the brilliant idea of throwing his illegitimate abomination-baby through a portal into a hell dimension? You probably thought that was only a one-time lapse of good judgement on his part. It’s a mistake anybody could make once, right? But no: turns out it was only one of a streak of very bad decisions on Jonathan Scales’s part. How did he follow it up? Well, this book reveals that his next no-so-bright idea was two murder two fellow were-dragons (the parents of one of Jessica’s present-day friends, for maximum angst), then tell his wife that he’d been cleared of wrongdoing by the dragon Blaze when in fact he’d avoided punishment by framing her for the crime. Way to go, Johnny-boy, keeping the streak alive.

Starting out this way did not make me super-enthused about the book. But, as it turned out, these opening chapters were not representative of the plot as a whole. Things soon took a hard left turn, with all that stuff about Jonathan’s stupid childhood decisions coming back to haunt the family being dropped in favor of a quartet of powerful werearachnid sorcerers casting a spell to alter reality so that beaststalkers and weredragons are nearly extinct and werearachnids rule the world. It then becomes your typical dark-alternate-timeline, set-right-what-once-went-wrong story where Jennifer has to team up with Evangelina to restore the world to its proper state. Which was overall much more entertaining.

So, this one had a weak lead-in, but ended up being decent. We’ll have to see where the series goes next.

Final Rating: 3/5

The Sacred Throne #2: The Queen of Crows

No matter how long, I’ll exist here within all the people who pass through. On this stage enclosed in the darkness, I sing my poem of hope right now. Even you must also be tired. I want to send this to that back of yours – from within the pitch darkness, the song of light that gleams with hope. Let’s caw for The Queen of Crows, by Myke Cole.

Synopsis:

In this epic fantasy sequel, Heloise stands tall against overwhelming odds–crippling injuries, religious tyrants–and continues her journey from obscurity to greateness with the help of alchemically-empowered armor and an unbreakable spirit.

No longer just a shell-shocked girl, she is now a figure of revolution whose cause grows ever stronger. But the time for hiding underground is over. Heloise must face the tyrannical Order and lay siege to the Imperial Palace itself.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

When we last left the world of not!WH40K, our protagonist Heloise Factor had managed the nigh-impossible task of slaying a devil, causing the rest of her village to begin revering her as a sainted palatine. Of course, in the eyes of the Order, the mere rumor of some mud-grubbing peasant girl achieving such a thing can be naught but HERESY; thus, warriors are dispatched to exterminate the village.

What follows is an engaging and fast-paced string of events, as Heloise’s followers are driven from their village, join a band of the Traveling People, assault a walled town, and then hold it against siege by Imperial forces. It was deeply thrilling, and had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. And the book didn’t skimp on the characterization, either: detailing the psychological effects on Heloise of bearing the burden of all the villagers’ lives, and the internal conflict between the villagers who fanatically worship Heloise as a living saint and those who are just desperate to survive another day.

Tonally, the novel hit the perfect mark. It had a grimdark aspect, where anyone could die or be horribly maimed; but it also had enough rays of hope to inspire me to remain invested, as Heloise’s insistence that the villagers hold themselves to a higher moral standard than the Order ended up being karmically repaid.

All in all, I am greatly enjoying this series, and look forwards to its next volume.

Final Rating: 5/5

Worldshapers #1: Worldshaper

I can show you the world. Shining, shimmering splendid. Tell me, princess, now when did you last let your heart decide? Let’s craft Worldshaper, by Edward Willett.

Synopsis:

For Shawna Keys, the world is almost perfect. She’s just opened a pottery studio in a beautiful city. She’s in love with a wonderful man. She has good friends.

But one shattering moment of violence changes everything. Mysterious attackers kill her best friend. They’re about to kill Shawna. She can’t believe it’s happening–and just like that, it isn’t. It hasn’t. No one else remembers the attack, or her friend. To everyone else, Shawna’s friend never existed…

Everyone, that is, except the mysterious stranger who shows up in Shawna’s shop. He claims her world has been perfect because she Shaped it to be perfect; that it is only one of uncounted Shaped worlds in a great Labyrinth; and that all those worlds are under threat from the Adversary who has now invaded hers. She cannot save her world, he says, but she might be able to save others–if she will follow him from world to world, learning their secrets and carrying them to Ygrair, the mysterious Lady at the Labyrinth’s heart.

Frightened and hounded, Shawna sets off on a desperate journey, uncertain whom she can trust, how to use her newfound power, and what awaits her in the myriad worlds beyond her own.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

Time to take a look at the first book in a new series. Our main protagonist, Shawna, learns that she is a Worldshaper, with the power to alter her world by will alone; that her world is but one of many pocket dimensions in the Labyrinth; and that she must help Karl save the Labyrinth from an implacable foe called the Adversary, an alien who is conquering and re-Shaping one world after another.

The basic premise strikes me as interesting, and I’d like to see where the series with it; and there were a number of scenes in the book which I did quite enjoy. However, I also felt that it had some problems which gave me reservations about the series. For instance, the book itself takes some time to point out how “seemingly ordinary woman meets tall, dark, handsome stranger on the run from trouble who reveals that she is actually one of the super special awesome chosen ones” is kind of a cliche. I mean, cliches aren’t inherently bad, there’s usually a reason they get popular enough to become cliche – but if you think it’s a lazy hackneyed plot device suitable only for bad self-insert fanfiction, don’t tell us that and then go on to use it anyway. Also, while Labyrinth is a wonderfully evocative term, it is in this case a misleading one: this series’s multiverse is more like a chain, with each world connecting only to two others. Which strikes me as a little less intricate and grandiose of a cosmology than the synopsis led me to expect.

Finally, there’s the issue of how the book awkwardly straddles the line between science fiction and fantasy. Not that such a thing can’t be done, mind; there are probably a lot of books I like that include both fantasy and sci-fi elements – but in this case, I felt like it didn’t gel. Each time the magic-like ability of Worldshapers to alter the fabric of reality at will was contrasted with talk of aliens and nanomachines, it felt like a jarring tonal clash. Which is not to say that later cosmological exposition might not make the underlying metaphysics of this universe make more sense… but it’s not quite there yet.

So, while I’m interested in this series, I also have reservations. Only time will tell whether the series rises above my expectations, or falls below them.

Final Rating: 3/5

Alice Isn’t Dead

Blood on my hands but not on my soul. Someday, God willing, I will be whole. And up above, I feel the love from every star in the sky. I’ll never be alone, I will never cry. I’ll never be alone, I will never die. Let’s dig in deeper and proclaim that Alice Isn’t Dead, by Joseph Fink.

Synopsis:

“This is not a story. It’s a road trip.”

Keisha Lewis lived a quiet life with her wife, Alice, until the day that Alice disappeared. After months of searching, presuming she was dead, Keisha held a funeral, mourned, and gradually tried to get on with her life. But that was before Keisha started to see her wife, again and again, in the background of news reports from all over America. Alice isn’t dead, and she is showing up at every major tragedy and accident in the country.

Following a line of clues, Keisha takes a job as a long-haul truck driver and begins searching for Alice. She eventually stumbles on an otherworldly conflict being waged in the quiet corners of our nation’s highway system—uncovering a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

From the creators of the podcast Welcome to Night Vale came the podcast Alice Isn’t Dead. And just as Welcome to Night Vale eventually got its own novel spinoff, now so too has Alice Isn’t Dead. I loved the Welcome to Night Vale novel (well, the first one, at any rate); so shouldn’t I love Alice Isn’t Dead as well?

Well, about that…

See, the thing is, despite their superficial similarities, Alice Isn’t Dead is actually a very different kind of story from Welcome to Night Vale. Welcome to Night Vale is a big, open-ended setting full of lots of recurring minor characters, so it’s easy to pick a couple of them and give them their own little adventure in the limelight. Alice Isn’t Dead, on the other hand, is a serial story focusing on the adventures of just one main character, Keisha, which are told on the podcast. And when it comes to making a spin-off novelization, that’s a problem.

The approach this book decides to take is to start off as a direct adaptation of the podcast episodes before eventually going its own way and telling its own story. Now, I don’t want to say that’s an inherently bad idea by default. It’s what the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime did, for instance, and I still absolutely love that no matter how many people insist that the later, more faithful Brotherhood adaptation is better. But in this case… it just didn’t end up working that well for me. The early parts, which adapted material already covered by the podcast, just emphasized how superior the original presentation of that material in podcast form was. It was also boring, because I already knew what would happen – but I couldn’t jump ahead, because I didn’t know at what point the story might start to diverge.

In the end, I have to call the overall story told by Alice Isn’t Dead decent… but due to weaknesses in the structure and presentation, I can’t call it great. The first Welcome to Night Vale novel was an in-continuity tie-in which complemented and expanded the rich and detailed world of the podcast, while this Alice Isn’t Dead novel is an alternate-continuity dead-end of an adaptation which redundantly covers material from the podcast. There’s really no comparison.

Final Rating: 3/5

Obama Biden Mysteries #1: Hope Never Dies

Through our pain, through all the lies; we will walk, walk reborn: hope never dies. Let’s gun the engines of our Pontiac Firebird TransAms and ride off into Hope Never Dies, by Andrew Shaffer.

Synopsis:

This mystery thriller reunites Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama for a political mashup full of suspense, intrigue, and laugh out loud bromance.

Vice President Joe Biden is fresh out of the Obama White House and feeling adrift when his favorite railroad conductor dies in a suspicious accident, leaving behind an ailing wife and a trail of clues. To unravel the mystery, “Amtrak Joe” re-teams with the only man he’s ever fully trusted—the 44th president of the United States. Together they’ll plumb the darkest corners of Delaware, traveling from cheap motels to biker bars and beyond, as they uncover the sinister forces advancing America’s opioid epidemic.

Part noir thriller and part bromance novel, Hope Never Dies is essentially the first published work of Obama/Biden fanfiction—and a cathartic read for anyone distressed by the current state of affairs.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

When I first saw Hope Never Dies on Goodreads, I thought it looked pretty stupid, to be honest. Like a trend-chaser trying to jump onto an old meme and squeeze a little bit of value from it before it’s completely driven into the ground. In this case, the meme the book’s trying to capitalize on is the depiction of Joe Biden on sites like The Onion and Know Your Meme.

But just because an idea works for one short satirical article or a poorly photoshopped picture that makes you chuckle for a moment doesn’t mean that it can sustain a whole novel, and to me it seemed like the book’s premise was a weak joke that would wear real thing, real fast. Even so, I decided to give it a chance. You never know, right?

I was disappointed but not surprised to discover that my reservations were correct: I didn’t find the premise very funny for very long. Oh, it got a few chuckles from me in places, and there were even a couple of moments that actually managed to be genuinely poignant, on the whole it came off as a one-joke premise that just couldn’t sustain my interest.

Final Rating: 2/5

Monstrous Devices #1: Monstrous Devices

What’s that coming over the hill, is it a monster, is it a monster? Let’s engrave Monstrous Devices, by Damien Love.

Synopsis:

On a winter’s day in a British town, twelve-year-old Alex receives a package in the mail: an old tin robot from his grandfather. “This one is special,” says the enclosed note, and when strange events start occurring around him, Alex suspects this small toy is more than special; it might be deadly.

Right as things get out of hand, Alex’s grandfather arrives, pulling him away from an attack–and his otherwise humdrum world of friends, bullies, and homework–and into the macabre magic of an ancient family feud. Together, the duo flees across snowy Europe, unravelling the riddle of the little robot while trying to outwit relentless assassins of the human and mechanical kind.

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

The final book I read based on Barnes & Noble’s “Best of 2018″ promotion was Monstrous Devices, and I think it’s the one most deserving of that accolade. The main character receives a strange toy robot in the mail which shows hints of supernatural power, and soon gets caught up in a race against mysterious foes using meat-powered robots to hunt for the legendary Golem of Prague.

The book hooked me quick, with a fast pace, intense action scenes, and strong characters – particularly Alex’s grandfather, who quickly became my favorite. That’s quite a compliment, considering he also does that annoying thing where a mentor needlessly withholds vital information and leaves the main character to bumble around cluelessly for far too long; normally I hate that! But this guy, he’s got such humor and charm that I can’t really hold it against him.

If I have any complaint, it’s that the ending felt rather weak. Nothing actually got accomplished, since the golem’s tablet didn’t end up getting destroyed; and the villains never actually got any proper character development. Like, what was up with Zia? I would’ve liked to learn more about her.

The problems with the ending could be ameliorated, of course, if a sequel ends up coming out which further expands upon it. However, while a certain lack of closure is to be expected from the first part of a serial story – can’t go defeating Darth Vader in the first episode, after all – the book itself didn’t prepare me for that: there were no proclamations that it was the first book in a new series, part one of a trilogy, the beginning of the Monstrous Devices Saga… it felt like a complete story that stood on its own up until the inconclusive ending. And unlike The Train to Impossible Places and The Darkdeep, Goodreads doesn’t number it as first in a potential series or list an untitled sequel.

Well, even if there doesn’t end up being a follow-up the ending wasn’t so terrible as to ruin all that came before it; it just prevents me from giving the book a perfect score. I still enjoyed it plenty while I read it, and it deserves credit for that.

Final Rating: 4/5

The Darkdeep #1: The Darkdeep

He will go down he will drown drown, deeper down. The river wild will take your only child. He will go down he will drown drown deeper down. The mills grind slow in a riverbed ghost town. Let’s dive into The Darkdeep, by Ally Condie and Brendan Reichs.

Synopsis:

When a bullying incident sends twelve-year-old Nico Holland over the edge of a cliff into the icy waters of Still Cove, where no one ever goes, friends Tyler and Ella – and even ‘cool kid’ Opal -rush to his rescue… only to discover an island hidden in the swirling mists below.

Shrouded by dense trees and murky tides, the island appears uninhabited, although the kids can’t quite shake the feeling that something about it is off. Their suspicions grow when they stumble upon an abandoned houseboat with an array of curiosities inside: odd-looking weapons, unnerving portraits, maps to places they’ve never heard of, and a glass jar containing something completely unidentifiable.

As the group delves deeper into the unknown, their discoveries – and their lives -begin to intertwine in weird and creepy ways. Something ancient has awakened… and it knows their wishes and dreams – and their darkest, most terrible secrets. Do they have what it takes to face the shadowy things that lurk within their own hearts?

Source: Goodreads

SPOILERS BELOW

The Darkdeep is another book I saw in Barnes & Noble being heralded as one of the best of 2018. Unlike The Train to Impossible Places, however, this one did not overly impress me. The plot concerns a group of idiot teenagers who wander into the swamp and discover an eldritch whirling vortex of pure concentrated evil. Being idiot teenagers in a horror story, they proceed to mess about with it until their hometown is placed in dire peril by monsters generated from their subconscious fears. Monsters… from the id! (Look, my username is Prof Morbius; I couldn’t pass up a chance to make a reference like that).

To expand on my problems with the book, the characters feel shallow and poorly developed. From the beginning, they’re making the kind of stupid decisions which only characters in a horror story would ever make. And while the story tries to give them development by having each of them confront a figment created by the Darkdeep in the form of their greatest fear, it fails because there’s no real explanation of why each character fears what they do and what it might say about them. Plus, the Darkdeep itself is never explained beyond being a plot device. Where does it come from? What does it want? Sorry, looks like those pages were eaten by slugs. (Seriously, that’s the excuse the book uses for withholding exposition). Maybe we’ll find out in the next book, or maybe not – who can say? Sigh…

I recommend dropping The Darkdeep somewhere dark, deep, and out of sight.

Final Rating: 2/5