It was the title that attracted me to this serial by Greg Bulmash. The description included fantasy, angels, vampires and modern supernatural. Not usually my cup of tea, but I was interested enough to read on.
The story starts with a bang, detailing the death of Ananias, the son of the angel Azazel, masterfully told in a fable-style. I was engrossed in the tale from the first few paragraphs. Mr Bulmash writes well, with a lot of focus on character and interaction rather than description, and I appreciated that as a reader.
The prologue then shifts to a tale of the destruction of Atlantis, and we are introduced to more angels, including Shemhazai, and we get an understanding of Azazel’s state of mind. This was a very well-written scene and again I was engrossed by the tale.
Then we shift again to a retelling of the story of Genesis 19; the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah. Like the previous scenes, this is well told and engaging. Unfortunately, I’m starting to feel that the story is a little disconnected. This section of the prologue went on a little too long for me, and I found myself skipping passages, looking for the meat of the story.
Finally we come to chapter 1, and I’m excited to see where the story is going. The angels have disappeared and instead we meet Alain. The chapter opens with Alain hunting a group of Nazi’s pretending to be US soldiers in a frozen forest in Belgium. We know nothing of Alain, save for what he’s telling us, but Mr Bulmash masterfully draws the reader in with hints that all is not as it seems with the opening paragraph:
International borders are easy to miss when you’re chasing two vampires through a forest over the course of many nights. For a couple of weeks after Alain decapitated and burned Reese, he thought he’d done it in France. Turned out it was a Belgian barn that burned down around Reese’s corpse and reduced it to ash.
With a beginning like that, how could I not be drawn in?
Unfortunately the chapter does get confusing from this point, and I had to read over a few times to work out exactly what Alain was doing. There was nothing wrong with the writing, simply I felt that it lacked focus. The story might have made more sense if I had read the previous novel, but any sequel needs to stand on its own. But the chapter pulled itself together about halfway through and kept me reading and interested until the end.
I went to read on, and to my disappointment, saw that the story is on hiatus. The author states that he isn’t happy with the raw quality of the text and wants time to polish it more before posting. I think that is an excellent decision. This story, even in the unpolished stages, is captivating and encouraged me to read on. I will be watching for future episodes.
A solid B- for this story. Great writing, great story, but needs polish and focus to really excel.
2 Comments
July 11, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Nice review. Your recommendation of Bicycles of NY was fantastic, so I think I’ll trust your reviews from now on.
July 11, 2009 at 8:08 pm
The Bikes of NY was without a doubt one of the best things I have read this year. It’s the next review coming up, so hopefully I can inveigle a few more people into reading it :)