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Forgotten In Darkness

Book Review of Zoe Forward’s Forgotten in Darkness (Scimitar Magi #2)

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Forgotten in DarknessI grabbed Zoe Forward‘s Forgotten in Darkness (Scimitar Magi #2) from the Amazon free list.  I read and reviewed book one, Dawn of a Dark Knight last year.

Also of note is the giveaway currently running on Goodreads to win your own copy. Can’t really beat that.

Description from Goodreads:
After an unjustified two-century stint in purgatory, Scimitar Magus Dakar returns to the human realm, renewing his eons-old curse. Either he or the woman he loves must murder the other within days of meeting in each new lifetime. To break the vicious cycle, he must kill her before she strikes her deathblow, something he’s never done in the past.

Archaeology grad student Shay McGinnis suffers a near-death attack in pursuit of a piece of Scimitar Magi lore. But did the magnificent warrior who pinned her to the wall injure her or the daemon he fought? In her search for answers, she draws the attention of both an ancient evil sorcerer and the warrior Dakar. The attraction between her and Dakar is instant, and for Shay confusing. She wants to be with him, but intuition equates him with death. Not random death. Hers.

Will this be the lifetime they break the curse before they are murdered by an age-old enemy or worse kill each other yet again?

Review:
This is a fun continuation of the Scimitar Magi series. We meet up with all of our old friends from book one, see some change in a couple of them and then meet a few new ones.

Shay and Dakar make a fun couple. Shay is pretty much fearless and, though Dakar was supposed to smoulder  what I enjoyed most were his lost-little-boy moments as he tried to acclimate to modern times. I also have to say ‘thank you’ to Ms. Forward for the formula-breaking new addition to the team. I can’t wait to see them interact with the crew in future books.

I did feel like everything was a little too easy for everyone though. The addition of Bochnori seemed to provide a boost that could solve any problem, the Gods popped in more than I would expect, and Shay’s final bluff worked a little too well to feel realistic. I can’t really imagine the big bad demon feeling enough affection about ANYTHING to compromise. But that might just be me.

All in all, I enjoyed the book. It was well written. I didn’t notice any editorial issues and the cover is a vast improvement on book one. Again, I’ll be looking forward to the next book.

 

Silent Symmetry

Book Review of J.B. Dutton’s Silent Symmetry (The Embodied Trilogy #1)

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Silent SymmetryAuthor, J.B. Dutton sent me an ecopy of his novel Silent Symmetry.

Long Description from Goodreads:
The Embodied glide through the busy streets of New York, uttering barely a sound.

Their eerie beauty comes from their perfect symmetry. Are they flawless humans, the epitome of evolution? Are they a genetically modified super-race? Are they extra-terrestrials? Once prep school student Kari Marriner becomes aware of their existence, she is driven to find the answer and finds herself ensnared in a web that reaches further than she could possibly have imagined.

Kari’s earliest memory is her father’s death in a car crash back in small-town Wisconsin. Now, 12 years later, her mother has been hired by a pseudo-religious organization in Manhattan called the Temple of Truth (a.k.a. the ToT). At Chelsea Prep, Kari develops a crush on classmate Cruz. But when she realizes that Noon, another attractive guy at school, is involved with the ToT, her curiosity gets the better of her.

Kari stumbles upon a secret tunnel leading from her apartment to another in the building, where an ancient book holds images she can scarcely believe, and a cavernous room contains… something inexplicable. As Kari pieces together the incredible evidence, she discovers that the ToT is run by other-worldly beings called The Embodied who influence human behavior and have established a global long-term human breeding program. But why? And what is her role in all this?

Just as she starts wondering whether the love she feels for Cruz is genuine or if her emotions are being controlled by The Embodied, her mother is kidnapped and Kari has to figure out who is human, who is Embodied, and who she can count on to help rescue her mother.

Somewhat spoilerish Review:
Silent Symmetry has an interesting premise and I enjoyed that about it. I also enjoyed Mr. Dutton’s writing. However, there were also quite a few aspects of the book that left me baffled.

First and foremost, the clues that Kari followed in order to recognise that there was a mystery to the Emboldened seemed nonexistent. I get that a lot of it was supposed to be gut instinct, the lizard brain so to speak, on Kari’s part. Though that left very little for the reader to follow and go, ‘oh yea, that is weird, I wonder…’ I had the exact same response to her feelings for both Cruz and Noon. They glanced at each other and BAM! Suddenly there were emotions flying all over the place, abrupt kisses, and even the occasional he “cares about me.” Um…how does she know? Again, that lizard brain is whispering to her, but it left me lost. 

The character descriptions seemed a bit on the light side too. I honestly don’t know what a single one of them was supposed to look like, except that Cruz was of Puerto Rican decent and therefore dark complected. As a result, I had a hard time visualising any of them. 

Next, some of the language made me want to scratch my eyes out. Things like Oh. Em. Gee—Not OMG or Oh My God, but Oh. Em. Gee. Yes, it’s teenager speak, but it’s wrong teenager speak (in my opinion, at least). Then there was the whole Eff thing. Eff or Effing was used instead of Fuck or Fuckin’. Every time this came up I found it jarring. Not just because it seemed out of place, or because it was so frequently used, or even because that’s kind of a linguistic habit one person might have, but not multiple characters, but because other curse words were used without alteration. I counted crazy-ass, ass, shit and shitting. So why not Fuck?

Lastly, since this is the first in a series the book ended without me feeling like I had any real resolution. I kind of followed who the Emboldened were, but not really what they wanted with Kari. Is it the same thing that the Rebels wanted with her? If so, what was all the fighting about? And what of poor Cruz? Is his position secure? What of Emily? The book ended on a cliffhanger, not a seriously precipitous one, but still too early for the reader to feel any real sense of conclusion. This never makes me happy. 

Again, the book is well written. I don’t remember any real editorial issues. The plot seems interesting and the cover is eye catching. So even though I have some complaints I’m not really disparaging the book. It’s worth picking up.

Review of Michael Wharton’s Electric Pigs

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Electric PigsAuthor, Michael Wharton sent me an ecopy of his new novel Electric Pigs.

Description from Goodreads:
Stan Wragg is sublimely happy in his life as a slaughter man’s mate, stunning section, second rate. He was born to zap pigs, and fate has kindly arranged for him to be employed in that exact capacity at Hopes abattoir in Drearly, just north of Birmingham. Everything is as it should be and all is well with the world, until one day, malign and cruel forces outside of Stan’s control or comprehension decide that things must change.

Review:
Oh, this is a hard book to review. It’s strange. I mean, like, WTF weird. It also mercilessly refuses to allow anyone to avoid, ignore, or sweep away human ugliness. It’s there, and Electric Pigs doesn’t let you forget it for an instant. And while there were moments in which I considered declaring it a pretentious piece of pseudo-intellectualism disguised as ironic absurdism, that wouldn’t be fair to it. It simply isn’t, and not just because a meaningful conclusion is eventually reached.

I would hazard a guess that forcing the reader to face the generally and socially ignored grotesque that surrounds us is part of the author’s goal. I’m not going to pretend to know this for certain, but it’s certainly how I read it.

While I could have done without Stan’s inventive solution to constipation, or half the descriptions of human bloatedness, or the somnolent bestialitism fantasy play, the book wouldn’t have been the same without them. And Stan’s innocent, child-like splendour wouldn’t have had the grimy backdrop on which to shine. Stan makes all of the horridness of his environment worth suffering through. He and his admittedly dysfunctional and cognitively deficient family are marvellous.

This book won’t be for everyone. Heck, having read it I’m not even sure it’s for me. It’s not an easy read, and I suspect the audience will be limited by its focus on the repugnant as well as the number of people who are able to look past the seemingly juvenile obsession with sex and fecal matter. There will undoubtedly be those who do deem it a ‘pretentious piece of pseudo-intellectualism.’ I’m just not one of them. I’m fairly certain I found meaning in the apparent randomness.

For those who can look past its ugliness, Electric Pigs presents a well-written, snuggly plotted piece of literary fiction. I sincerely hope that it can find the appropriate audience in front of which to stand tall and garner the praise it deserves.