Graeme Rodaughan's Blog: Writing The Metaframe War Series - Posts Tagged "review"

Rise of the Trekken by John Milton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Sign me up for The Blood War Chronicles series

John Milton has delivered a strong narrative with well developed characters that grow on you and will have you on the edge of your seat and worried about their fate.

The warfare reads like a Tom Clancy or Matthew Reilly book, but with magic arrows standing in for rocket propelled grenades and giant birds playing the part of Blackhawk helicopters.

The magic system is a work of art in itself, logically coherent and is worked into the narrative seamlessly.

John builds his characters over time, and is a dab hand at capturing and expressing emotion.

Being the first in a series this book inevitably carries quite a lot of setup, but it is done in ways that entertain and engage the reader.

(Putting on my perfectionist hat) I almost pulled back one star for occassional format issues. The book could benefit from another round of editing to sharpen up the look and feel. However, the story is king - the five stars stand.

All that said - the story is excellent, and I have no hesitation in recommending the book for anyone who loves an action packed, dramatic, swords, blood and magic soaked fantasy roller coaster ride.

Looking forward to the next instalment, which fortunately is due in the US Fall 2016.





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Dracula by Bram Stoker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I'm finding this review difficult to write.

It's been a long time between blood red drinks with this novel. I've read it once before, many years ago, and my response to re-reading it is to drop it from 5 stars to 4.

Stoker's writing style is an uneven mix of brilliance and tedium. His plot development ranges from magnificent to flawed.

His drawing of characters is basically two dimensional and I have to search hard to find examples that provide a greater depth. (I.e. characters are either all good, or all evil, with little in the way of shades of grey. Noting that Renfield, is by his final actions, one of the few characters that shows dimensionality....)

I know some who found the beginning slow. I would disagree. I found the initial journey of Jonathan Harker to Dracula's castle and his subsequent trials and tribulations there to be brilliantly composed narrative. There is a slow and steady progression from hints to warnings to threats to manifest risk of death and worse than death enslavement of the soul to forces beyond darkness.

The visual depictions of Dracula descending the vertical walls of his castle and the spooky manifestation of Dracula's brides is effective and affective writing.

The log of the Demeter is another masterwork of the slow advance of impending doom. The hint of a threat that grows with each night as one by one the crew disappear. Until it is a ghost ship that comes to land in Whitby, Yorkshire. This is manifest brilliance.

To say that Lucy Westenra cops it in the neck would be a bit trite. Her eventual fate left me inspired to write a Haiku.

Bloofer lady prowls.
Moonlight reveals blood stained hearts.
Hammer strikes - I'm Free!

Mina Harker (the primary hero of this story as she is the one who has to confront the greatest risk and persevere beyond it) is the brains (on multiple occasions) behind the operations of the Van Helsing Vampire Hunting Club.

Mina gets left behind while the boys go galavanting about Carfax looking for evidence of Vlad and when the obvious happens - no one notices. It's a raging plot flaw (i.e. Major hero gets in trouble because everyone is suddenly as thick as two short planks) I hadn't noticed in my earlier read. I must be getting pickier about such things as I get older...

I would also like to note that Stoker's use of a psychic connection between Mina and Dracula is strikingly echoed in multiple ways by J.K. Rowling with Harry and Voldemort. I think also for the same purpose, as the psychic link is used to move the narrative forward in both Dracula and the Potter books.

Some things I didn't like which got in the way of the telling.

The use of vernacular by anyone not in the Van Helsing Vampire Hunting Club such as "'ere like tha'..." Was positively grating.

Van Helsing's speech was mostly annoying for the same reason as we are asked to 'appreciate' that this learned dutchman can't speak grammatical English...

On the question of writing the whole novel in epistolary form (letters, diary notes, log books, etc). I think it works very well for this novel. However, something could be missing. What I would like to see is a great big diary written by Vlad Dracula...

The bottom line: I love the story but I don't always love how it was written. Would I recommend it? Yes. Well worth reading for those moments of brilliance that have carried this story for more than a century.



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By Sheila {She's Going Book Crazy}

4 Star Review is here

Sheila is making a go of book reviewing at her website at shesgoingbookcrazy

I would recommend showing her some support by visiting her site.

Salvage: a Ghost Story by Duncan Ralston

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


WOW!

And I don't say that often or lightly.

Well done Duncan Ralston. My goodness - what a great work of story art you have created here.

The first two thirds of the story had me wondering with some uneven pacing, but the story continued to develop and matured into something I could easily see penned by Stephen King.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who has any desire to read a decent ghost story, murder mystery and profound personal redemption story rolled into one.

Blown away.

Headline: The sins of the father.



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Demon Dei by L.J. Hayward

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A supernatural murder mystery thriller, laced with assassins, vampires, ghouls, and the most seductively dangerous demons in this dimension or any other.

Matt Hawkins has to expand his repertoire beyond bad-ass monster kicker when he is asked to assist in the investigation of the murder of a talented physicist. Before he knows it, he's embroiled in the power plays of the political machinations of Hell and the immediate target of very powerful adversaries.

Even with the help of PI Erin McRae, and the lethal vampire Mercy, his survival and the future of the world are very much in doubt.

L.J. Hayward excels at finely drawn, nuanced characters, and tightly plotted stories. Always very entertaining. This book kept me up past midnight more than once, and for me (a slow reader), I raced through it.

I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone with a desire to read quality fantasy written by a talented author.

5 stars well earned.



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Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


After reading this book, I am left frustrated and oddly underwhelmed.

The smartest character in the story is the antagonist (who is not that smart), who proceeds to charm and bamboozle an array of protagonists who are all very nice, and not the least given to suspicion of others.

There are multiple events where the fact that Carmilla is a vampire is hinted at with growing strength, upto and including the discovery of a perfect portrait painted in the dim past. Le Fanu doesn't quite get to the point of hanging a sign, written in fresh blood around Carmilla's neck proclaiming, "I am a vampire, and I am here to kill you." But he gets close.

With the characters stumbling about in their ignorance as the Vampire runs rings around them - I was left imagining shooting fish in a barrel. I found myself thinking what if a terrible blizzard arrived that shut up the Schloss for 3 days (and especially 3 nights). Leaving Carmilla alone with only the hero, Laura (our narrator), her father, the governess, and the other staff without any hope of escape. As the death toll mounted, the presence of a vampire would quickly become obvious. Laura would then be confronted with a need to make a decision of consequence and take irrevocable action. Something she really doesn't get much of a chance to do.

Passive characters, especially if the narrator are frustrating.

On the plus side, the author has made an excellent stab at establishing the vampire genre. He has also provided a clever subplot of lesbian love. Neither would have been easy to do in his day and age.

Also the description of the actual vampire attacks is genuinely spooky and admirable writing.

While this book failed to excite me with it's general lack of pace and suspense, I'm sure that it has qualites that many would appreciate. Especially those with a taste for "Creeping Horror."

On a weird personal note. I had a dream while reading this novel where I was visited by a dark haired female vampire and I willing offered my arm to her. Something that I have never done before in a dream. What was also noteworthy was the experience of personal intimacy that accompanied the act of freely giving blood to sustain another.

The sultry summer evening had barely given way to the night. I had left the bedroom doors open to the balcony to allow a light breeze to circulate. I lay back on the bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. The house belonged to me, I was its sole occupant, but the loneliness of this house weighed heavily - it was not a home.

Moonlight cut through the room, then it vanished for an instant. A momentary shadow flitting through the doorway, entering my bedroom and filling it with a pervasive sense of possession - the room was no longer mine.

My heart thudded in my chest. I suddenly sat up, pressing backward against the headboard. There was someone in the room, the feeling of her presence was overwhelming, but I couldn't see anyone - there was no one there.

The shadows thickened at the end of my bed. I stared, frozen where I sat, as the shadows coalesced into the ethereal shape of a young woman. She wore a light diaphanous gown. Her hair was lustrous black, her skin pale like marble, her eyes were large and dark, her lips red, full and slightly curved in a coy smile.

Her form solidified. A faint perfume filled the air. She seemed deeply familiar, and yet, I had never seen her before - at least I had no memory of ever meeting her and I'm sure I would not have forgotten.

She moved to her right, floating, lithe, serene. She was majestic and mesmerizing - power beyond words was bound up in her gaze. I couldn't tear my eyes away from her even if I tried.

She sat down beside me, gently picking up my left arm with her cool hands. She turned it over, palm up. I didn't resist - I didn't want to. I lifted my arm up and she lent forward.

A bell rang in the distance, a muffled warning - ignored and discarded in the face of her needs. Needs I was a willing servant to.

Moonlight gleamed on her ivory fangs. She leaned further in, first kissing, then licking - finally biting. A single drop of blood fell off my wrist, dark against the white bed sheet. She murmured in delight, my heart beat hard in my chest, but I stayed still - unwilling to disturb her feast.

Everything was for her...

(inspired by my dream while reading this book...)

I am left wondering just how deep this story can creep into you when you read it?



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Rock Paper Sorcery by L.J. Hayward

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Another brilliant instalment in L.J. Hayward's Night Call series.

Bad ass, monster head kicker, and psychic warrior, Matt Hawkins normally works with his sole partner - Mercy the vampire. But lately his been getting a few jobs with P.I. Erin McRae and the latest is a stakeout on a suspect in a monkey heist.

Well the stakeout goes sideways - massively. Who knew there could be so much trouble to find a few missing monkeys.

Matt gets a new partner. A texan sorceror with oodles of charm covering a dreadful wound. Randy Devantier has an agenda of his own and a rogue sorceror in Matt's home town is his personal target.

With sorcerous battles occuring left and right, a cranky under-fed vampire giving him the cold shoulder, and a rogue sorceror dabbling in the most dangerous magic Matt's ever seen. It's enough to drive a man berserk - permanently.

Matt faces his toughest challenges yet in this precisely plotted delight of a novel.

L.J. Hayward writes with a deceptively easy to read prose that laces humour over drama, and reveals a deeply felt and beautifully nuanced presentation of friendship and love triumphing over darkness (both internal and external).

I'm quite blown away - please L.J. give me more of this.

Absolutely recommend this for anyone who loves a good story (just read the first and second books first).






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The Day Guard by Graeme Rodaughan




I was about to write a review for The Day Guard, then I realized, I’m just too close to this project to rid myself of authorial bias. So, I figured it would be interesting to send out a little memo to the unsung crew who have assisted with the writing of this sausage filler, narrative glue, rip-roaring adventure story…

This is what I got back.

"Your memo requesting feedback on your ‘project,’ was prepared on A4 white paper. We demand all communications be prepared on vellum, sourced from human skin, and hand written in your own blood. Your lack of compliance with this rule has resulted in the issuing of a formal notice of warning. I remind you, this is your second warning, and there will not be a third. Kind regards." - Ludmilla, first advocate of the Guild of Vampire Characters.

"Thanks for your memo, it generated a good laugh in the staff room. We’ll get back to you next year … if we feel like it. Bwahahahahahaha…" - The staff at Narratives “R” Us.

"Your memo requesting feedback on your project had three misplaced commas, four misspellings, a sentence without a verb, a confusion over the different use of to and too, was written in the passive voice, and was possibly plagiarized. We have made a number of red-line markups. Please correct and reissue your memo." - The Grammar Police.

"A memo, really?" - The Muse.

"Thanks, your memo came in handy when I ran out of paper in the toilet." - A. Badguy, Society of Villainous Characters.

"We discovered your memo dated May the 17th, 2016, regarding a request for feedback on your debut novel, “A Subtle Agency.” It had unfortunately become trapped behind the “paranormal romance,” filing cabinet. We note that you have another three memos in our backlog. I assure you, they have all have been ticketed, and will be addressed within the next five years in accordance with our service level agreement. Yours cordially." - Mr Bartholomew Peabody, Dept. Misplaced Genres.

What can I say, no more memos.



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On Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HM6NN9G

UNFORTUNATELY Spoiler tags are not working - Open Spoilers ahead.

First off - I haven't read The Haunting of Hill House so my experience of the Netflix production is untainted by expectations drawn from reading the book.

I'm referring to this production from Netflix (reported at IMDB) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6763664/

What I experienced can be summed up as follows.

I loved (past tense) the series, I thought it was really well done, spooky, scary, effective story telling - right up until the ending...

The ending was terrible - it absolutely sucked big time - stronger than the La Brea tar pits consuming a herd of Mammoths.

What a horrible disaster the ending was. It showed up like an infectious disease that swept through everything preceding the ending, and turned the whole lot into an appalling, stinking pile of garbage.

The ending was a complete failure of courage on the part of the writers/directors/producers - whatever - I'm still shaking my head at the visceral experience of watching something that could have been epic turned into vomit.

I will not forget the garbage that was served up at the end of this series for a long time, and I'm amazed at the ending's toxic power to destroy the value of what preceded it.

I'm struggling to think of anything that was this bad.

What was it, 10 episodes. 9 and 3/4 hours of good story telling utterly destroyed in 15 minutes.

The last 10-15 minutes were a major missed opportunity.

I'm flabbergasted and feel sick to my stomach.

I'm insulted by the producers of this appalling garbage.

Why I had that experience is hidden within the spoilers below - this will spoil the ending for you.

<spoiler>Well, for some reason spoiler tags not working...</spoiler>

Reasons

[1] Violation of Promises of Resolution: Early in the story, several things are established that define specific questions, and provide implicit promises to the viewer that demand resolution. (A question, with an implied promise of resolution.)

(a) The Hill House is haunted by one or more evil spirits - the implied question of the presence of evil is will it be confronted? The implied promise is that Hill House will be confronted, and the presence of evil will be resolved (one way or another.)

(b) The Crain family are good people who have been horribly traumatized by events within Hill House - the question is - Will the family reconcile and heal? There is an implied promise that this important question will be resolved (one way or another.)

Neither promise is properly honored, and while 'resolved,' the methods of resolution dissipate the energy of the conflict between Hill House and the Crain family, rather than transforming that energy into powerful emotional effect.

I don't know how anyone can imagine that an insipid ending is a good thing.

In the final episode; The surviving members of the Crain family converge on Hill House. A convergence that would normally precede an effective final resolution of the main questions. Will the evil in Hill House be confronted, and will the Crain family reconcile? - It appears that both will occur together....

The setup to the climax was excellent, everything was pointing in the right direction for a powerful climax and comprehensive, meaningful resolution - it's at the climax of the story and its immediate aftermath that it all turns into the proverbial... and gold is turned into lead.

[1.a] Anticlimax: By violating the implicit promises established early in the story, the producers have provided a stunning anti-climax that robbed the story of its meaning and spoiled the emotional payoff of an effective ending.

[1.b] Zero Resolution: The character of Poppy Hill (one of the Hill House ghosts) becomes the visible voice of Hill House. An attractive socialite she is the alluring vehicle for lies that trap the Crain family, and especially Olivia Crain (the mother) and Nell (the youngest daughter).

In the final episode, after vigorously defending the house - she just fades away... nothing happens to her, she's just taken off scene - Hill House remains UNCONFRONTED - First Question/Promise violated as the evil in Hill House is not confronted. Instead, the evil is accepted... (see below).

[1.c] Events without Context:

(a) Luke attempts to burn down Hill House, his attempt to light gallons of gasoline fails, then Poppy Hill attacks, and his POV is lost.

(b) Hugh Crain (Dad) appears to catch a rotting, mold disease from the Hill House wall, falls to the floor, and then later is better again.

[1.d] Deus Ex Machinas:

(a) Later Luke is discovered by his brothers and sisters. He has mainlined rat poison and is unconscious and frothing blood at the mouth... he dies, is rescued by his ghost sister Nell, is later transported to hospital and lives a happy healthy life.

(b) Hugh's recovery from the rot/mold attack just happens.

[2] Flipping the Meaning: The meaning of the story gets flipped including the essential nature of Hill House.

From being a confrontation between abject, supernatural evil, and a good family on the brink of destruction to valorisation of evil and the reveal that all you had to do to save the family was tell the truth... (as defined by Hill House - and we will get to that later...).

OMG: The character of Nell (the youngest daughter) as a ghost acting to 'save,' her family at the end, has this long monologue at the very end which provides the essential message of the story.

Nell's speech is the essence of the meaning of the story. In it she explains that time is fragmentary, we are all just atomized nothings, without any power to affect anything, immersed in a sea of 'confetti,' events without justification or meaning. We have one thing to hold onto - and that's love.

This is "The Art of Psychopathic Attack 101." When a psychopath attacks the mind of a victim, a key outcome is the disempowerment of the victim, destroy their confidence that they can have any impact on the world, make them dependent on the psychopath's definitions of the world. For the psychopath - shape your victims perception of reality and establish control.

The meaning of love is shifted from a life affirming power to a crutch you can lean on as you limp through your own disempowered existence in a meaningless life.

Pure Unadulterated Garbage.

[Side Note] Having a character make an exposition statement to explain everything is poor writing - and the reason the producers needed Nell's speech in the first place is because they destroyed the natural power of the available endings (see below) and substituted their toxic garbage in place of good story telling.

[3] Valorising Evil: (The worst aspect of this mess): The modus operandi of the House is to use lies to seduce people into murder and suicide. The House delights in murder, and the especially the murder of the innocent (children). The House is about as evil as anything can be. There is a brief image of the front of the House where the word "Hill," has been overwritten by "Hell." The meaning is clear, Hill House is an extension of Hell into the mortal world.

Nell's speech reveals all...

The essential meaning and subtext of this story is that you are a disempowered nothing surrounded my meaningless, disconnected events over which you have no control. Your best response is to focus on the crutch of 'love,' to allow you to limp through your disempowered life while others (Hill House) shape your perception of reality.

Furthermore, the resolution of the conflict between Hill House and the Crain family is resolved by acceptance of Evil. I.e. Evil is just misunderstood. Hill House is simply a rest home for lost souls to be re-united with loved ones. This is exemplified in the last ten minutes when an aged Mr. Dudley (the caretakers) brings his near death wife into the house where she expires, and is immediately re-united with her dead children.

Hill House is a kinda Hotel California, - once you visit, you can never leave. The illusion is only present inside the house. The house consumes souls like a spiritual denizen of the oceanic depths that lures its prey with a phosphorescent light dangling a foot in front of its gaping jaws.

("Love is the crutch - and don't you forget it." - whispers this story, as it dangles the lure/love in front of you)

Hell is really Heaven - don't cha know?

That sucks! That's an evil message, and it's a horrible lie designed to rob you of authentic participation as an active agent shaping your own life.

Believe Nell's message at your own risk.

I could go on and on about how bad this is - but let's have a look at other viable endings that would have been AUTHENTIC with the implied promises. (Lack of authenticity is a big tell about how bad this story is...)

[4] Powerful, memorable endings were available - and not used:

The Crain family unites in a convergence confronting the evil of Hill House. This satisfies all the promises. Once the family is united in a confrontation with the evil of Hill House, the energy of that intrinsic conflict could have been dialed up to 11 and then transformed into a powerful, and memorable ending.

Instead the energy of the conflict is dissipated by flipping the evil of Hill House to the 'good,' of Hill House. Let's all forget the lies inducing suicide and child murder, that's right, fade Poppy Hill off scene as she needs to be forgotten, and replaced by the sympathetic ghost Nell who comes to the fore to explain the 'true,' meaning of Hill House.

It could have ended in one of three ways.

[+ve] After a desperate confrontation against the evil of Hill House, the Crain family burn it to the ground. (kinda nuke it from orbit scenario - as it's the only way to be sure). The energy of the conflict is released as a triumphant validation of good and family over evil.

[balanced/pyrric] After a desperate confrontation against the evil of Hill House, the surviving member of the Crain family burns it to the ground. Then laments the short lived unity of the family as everyone else has died confronting a terrifying evil. The energy of the conflict is released as a poignant tragedy amidst the validation of familial love.

This would be my favorite possible ending.

A pyrric victory would include the self-sacrifice of family members to save the lone survivor, so they could complete the destruction of Hill House. Self sacrifice provides a potent validation of the healing of the family at the climax of the story, with that healing then providing the specific context for the resolution of the confrontation of good vs evil (to the +ve), but flavored with the heroic loss of loved ones.

[-ve] The Crain family bravely goes into the mouth of hell (aka Hill House) and none emerge. The house remains, the porch light flickering on and off, a red glow leaking from the many windows. The energy of the conflict is released as shivers of unremitting horror. Family love is not necessarily strong enough to overcome abject evil - beware.

As you can see, powerful endings were available to the writers, directors and producers, and instead of honoring the implied promises made in the first 9 hours and 45 minutes of story-telling they turn around and valorise lying to induce suicide and child murder as a misunderstood good, and then attempt to sell you the idea that you are a disempowered nothing surrounded by events over which you have no control, and that really - you deserve to be lied to and have your perception of reality shaped by others.

[Defending Psychopathy?]

I shake my head - the people who devised this ending are either consciously valorising psychopathy or they are clueless.