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Book Review of Day of the Dragonking (The Last American Wizard #1), by Terry Irving

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The Last American WizardDespite the off-putting cover, I picked up a copy of Terry Irving’s The Last American Wizard from Amazon.

Description from Goodreads:
Mystically powered terrorists unleash volatile magic on the world, turning Washington, D.C., into a politically charged fantasyland ripe for human sacrifice.

A trio of suicide attackers with magical abilities bring down a 747 by summoning a dragon to rip it from the sky, using the hundreds of lives lost as a sacrifice to initiate the Change. The country morphs into a new landscape of swords and sorcery. Now computers and other machines are coming to life, and regular people have started to turn into mythical creatures and forgotten deities, creating a chaotic world easily seized by whoever—or whatever—set this shift into motion. Hope appears in the nation’s capital where, along with transforming Democrats into potbellied elves, Republicans into cantankerous dwarves, and Tea Party members into trolls, the Change has granted struggling freelance journalist Steve Rowan the abilities of the Tarot Arcana’s Fool card, making him a powerful, yet unreliable, wizard. Realizing his potential, he is “hired” by the trivia-obsessed sentient computer Barnaby and coupled with the attractive, no-nonsense female Navy SEAL Ace Morningstar to uncover the puppet masters behind the plane crash. –Kirkus Reviews

Review:
Hmm, what to say about The Last American Wizard.  “Ho-hum” comes to mind. On the plus side, the book is funny and it is a page turner. I liked the characters and the writing was quite readable.

On the negative side, it wasn’t well fleshed out. There were a lot of arcana/tarot related info drops and some repetition (sometimes of the info drop information). But that information wasn’t fully utilized. And it didn’t always seem to obey its own rules. For example, all the divine or mythical creatures were supposed to have come into existence after the events at the beginning of the book, but characters who shouldn’t have existed before that have histories together and sometimes greet each-other as old friends. How does that work?

The comedy was over-played at times, especially around Ace. It approached eye-rolling territory more than once. But I had a serious problem with the fact that within hours of the inciting events, when people started turning into trolls and fairies and cards of the arcana everyone calmly went about their business, even incorporating their new abilities into their jobs, as if this was perfectly normal. There was no panic or anger or evidence of fear. There was NO BELIEVABLE EMOTION around this huge change at all actually.

My biggest critique however is the lack of ending. The major baddie isn’t stopped (or even identified). The minor baddie is only temporarily dispatched. No mystery is solved. No final solution is even discussed. The character just ran around for 300+ pages putting out whatever fire popped up and then basically said, “Let’s go for a beer and save the world tomorrow.” There was no peak to the plot, let alone a tapering off to an end. An event in the beginning sparked off a change and then the whole book coasted at one speed and elevation until it just stopped. This never ever makes me happy.

The Chorus Effect

Book Review of The Chorus Effect, by Russell Boyd

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So, it’s Novemeber and I’ve been doing NaNoWriMo. I’m at just over 41,000 words right now. As you can imagine, that means I haven’t done a lot of reading lately. But I did manage one book, The Chorus Effect, by Russell Boyd. It was sent to me for review.

The Chorus Effect

Description from Goodreads:
Until recently, Chintz had been a relatively normal guy with a relatively normal cat. For example, neither he, nor his cat, had ever journeyed to a synthetic parallel universe. He had never encountered a teleporting baby or an emotionally mature computer. He could count on one hand the number of philosophical discussions he’d had with people holding multiple degrees in advanced physics. And thus far, his relationship with the voices in his head had been purely platonic.

Suddenly, Chintz finds himself working alongside a dysfunctional team of scientists and their astonishing creations, seeking answers to age-old questions — answers that could change our concept of humanity. Of course, that’s only if they can survive federal law enforcement, starvation, psychopathic figments of imagination, the hostile old man who lives across the street, and the end of the “known universe.”

Well, actually it’s the end of “a” universe, that “only some people know about.” But for Chintz, that may not be any better at all.

Review:
I suppose there will be an audience out there for this book. It’s trying very hard to be Douglas Adams-like and plenty of people (myself included) love Douglas Adams’ quirky humor. IMHO, this doesn’t quite make it though, as a Douglas Adam’s clone or on it’s own.

On a positive note, it’s well written and surprisingly well edited for a self-published book. There are some interesting, odd-ball characters and had the whole thing been a set up for Katie and Chintz’s last moment’s, I’d have called it a success. But it’s about 1/3 too long (if not more) for that to be the case.

If I had to condense this review to a few carefully chosen words, they would be presumptuous and self-indulgent. The author’s constant breaking of the fourth wall especially. As if the book wasn’t quite quirky enough the author/narrator had to stick his two cents in too. It was annoying and broke up the story.

It was this over the top quirkiness that eventually ruined the book for me. You have characters who speak in mixed up, nonsense for no apparent reason at all. You have POVs from the perspective of a cat. You have a narrative style dedicated to pointing out the absurd over the expected, which could have been great if not quite so over played. You have philosophy passed off as science and science of the hard-core hand waving variety. It was all too much for me.

And that is a shame; because Boyd’s descriptive ability is wonderful. I appreciated the distinct lack of alpha hero and the success of the socially anxious, nerd heroes. I liked that there was a strong female character (though I’m borderline on the fact that her sexuality caused such ruptions. I think the book skirted the cliché, but JUST BARELY). But there was just too much else crowding these good things out. In the end, I bored and just hoping to finish.

Irons in the Fire

Book Review of Irons in the Fire (Chronicles of Talis, #1), by Antonio Urias

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Irons in the FireAuthor, Antonio Urias sent me a copy of his novel Irons in the Fire for review.

Description from Goodreads:
The City of Talis is a fragile beacon of civilization on the edge of the Faërie Lands. Beyond lies a wilder world of dark enchantments and terrible wonders, but behind the city walls humans and faëries live together in uneasy peace—until an explosion rocks the city and long smoldering tensions threaten to ignite. 

As the Commandant of Police, Baron Hessing has maintained stability for decades. But with a murderer on the loose, an anarchist bombing the city, and rumors of a faërie uprising, he is starting to loose control. Hessing finds himself caught in a web of interlocking conspiracies and he may need to choose between saving his city or his family. 

Into this maelstrom appears the Countess. Trained from birth for a single purpose—vengeance—suddenly she’s everywhere from secret catacombs to the halls of power. Beset by enemies on all sides, it will take all her training to succeed in a city on the brink of revolution. Plans are in motion centuries in the making that will change the fate of Talis forever. 

Review:
This was almost a winner for me. It had an interesting world, interesting characters, a convoluted plot, and people/fairies doing things for deeply personal reasons. And for the most part, outside of some repetition, the writing was very readable. It could have been really really good. Instead, it was ok.

There were several reasons for this. One, there were about 4 billion characters, each with a plot thread of their own. It was too much and became confusing. Two, the narratives, from all these characters’ perspectives were often provided to the reader in very brief snippets. At one point we got about a page of one character getting sea sick and then jumped away again. It was jarring and not a particularly engaging way to read a story. (It made the book feel very long.) Lastly, the book, with all its many many plot points doesn’t wrap up. So, you’ve been presented with multiple mysteries, none of which are solved. This is a BIG no-no for me.

All in all, it has some fun fantasy characters and the beginning of what will probably be an intriguing storyline 1,000 pages from now. If you’re willing to commit to the long haul it’s worth picking up. I don’t know that I am.