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Ouroboros
In a dystopian future, Thomas the assassin is about to face the job of his career -- and his life. After avenging his alcoholic father's untimely death, Thomas begins his transformation into a cold-blooded killer. The Prakanis, a human race with superhuman abilities -- and superhuman egos -- rules the land of Xuelition with an iron fist, and as Thomas learns, it's much easier to work with than against them. When the government hires him to recover bonds from a disgruntled employee, Thomas has no idea what's in store for him. He's stealthy, clever, and one of the best assassins in the business, but what he learns on this mission will change his life forever.
99 pages, Paperback
First published June 6, 2012
46 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Turkel
4 books3 followersChristopher Turkel was born in Brooklyn, NY, the son of a journalist and a stay at home mom. He has lived in Florida, California and Taiwan. He comes from a family of writers, following in the footsteps of his father, aunt and grandmothers. Christopher was given a typewriter at age thirteen and proceeded to write his first novel, a pastiche of the Narnia books, in one day. Despite being all of three pages long, his father kept encouraging him to write. Christopher works as a technical writer for a nonprofit and enjoys the works of Gene Wolfe, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Steven Burst and Kurt Busiek. When he is not reading, writing or working, he is eating and sleeping. He resides in western Massachusetts with his wife, Joann, two cats and a dog.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 22, 2012
I was very surprised by this story. It had a very science fiction feel to it, with alien/exotic sounding names.
Thomas is approached with a job to assassinate Lord Gelder, who has escaped the city with enough money to bankrupt the empire. He is hired with the understanding he will murder Gelder and return the money that was stolen.
There is a variety of different types of characters. From wizards to superhumans. This story had a particular focus on family as well. Thomas own family is the basis of how he ended up becoming an assassin. His mother (a wizard) left him when he was young, and his father was murdered over a gambling debt. Thomas is a little bitter, upset and wants revenge. He is still pretty young himself and has not had many assassination jobs.
The story was constant movement. Very fast paced and flew by. There were several different layers to the story that unraveled in each new circumstance he ends up in trying to find Lord Gelder, and then trying to get back into the city.
There are several plot twists, and things you'll never see coming. Once I sat down to read it my butt didn't leave the seat. There was always something new happening and engrossing, it sucked me right in.
Great world building, dialogue and action scenes. Very entertaining!
Thomas is approached with a job to assassinate Lord Gelder, who has escaped the city with enough money to bankrupt the empire. He is hired with the understanding he will murder Gelder and return the money that was stolen.
There is a variety of different types of characters. From wizards to superhumans. This story had a particular focus on family as well. Thomas own family is the basis of how he ended up becoming an assassin. His mother (a wizard) left him when he was young, and his father was murdered over a gambling debt. Thomas is a little bitter, upset and wants revenge. He is still pretty young himself and has not had many assassination jobs.
The story was constant movement. Very fast paced and flew by. There were several different layers to the story that unraveled in each new circumstance he ends up in trying to find Lord Gelder, and then trying to get back into the city.
There are several plot twists, and things you'll never see coming. Once I sat down to read it my butt didn't leave the seat. There was always something new happening and engrossing, it sucked me right in.
Great world building, dialogue and action scenes. Very entertaining!
October 12, 2012
Originally posted at Bibliophilia, Please.
Hi there. Welcome to Uncle Will's ranty attic. Before I get on with the review, join me for a rant why don't you.*
Like many good things, this book starts in a bar. "What are these many things?" I hear you ask. (don't look behind you, lemme tuck my feet under the curtains first!) Bar brawls, flirting, drunkenness, a tall tales competition, or in this case - hiring an assassin.
Ouroboros is the story of Thomas of South Xuelition. We follow Thomas as he is hired to take out a Prakani, who happen to be well-rounded, snotty pricks. Turkel did a good job of making me dislike them and have fun mocking them, (it is always a plus to have a good solid group of people you can point to and mock.) and then he completed the job by making me kinda like them. (Some of them, anyway.) Snotty and full of themselves they most certainly are, but there are some nice ones in the bunch.
The story took a bit for me to get into it. I think it mainly had to do with this being my first book read with the main purpose of reviewing it. There's a good flow worked into the telling of the back story. We find out why Thomas became an assassin - while the story moves him along his mission - without really slowing down or hindering either story path. I liked that.
Another good thing is the descriptions. They were enough to flesh out the story and allow me to build the surroundings in my head, without getting into the age of the wood, the direction of the grain, the back story of the carpenter, which wooden floor panels creak, whether there are termites or not... Gah! May the gods save me of such filler! (No filler here.) Things, people and places are described enough so you are not imagining an amorphous blob of ectoplasm, and then we get on with the story. Me likey.
Note: I'm halfway into the book now, and I forced myself to write my thoughts down before my aging brain misplaced the files. I say forced, because I'm getting into it now. We left Xuelition and are now in Crypttown. We found our mark. Thomas and I, plucky witty sidekick that I am, shall go and hunt that snotty Prakani down. I'll report back after the second half of the book is read, and I have a better idea of what it's all about.
*add elevator music* Your call is important to us. *continue elevator music*
Ok. As soon as I finished writing the first half of the review, and I jumped back into the book, a wild plot twist appeared!
Half way in and I didn't see the twist coming. Maybe I should have, but I didn't. Which shows I'm slow, or that I managed to stop overanalyzing and just go with the story. I vote for option two since it's better for my image.
I liked the book. I liked Thomas, liked/disliked the Prakani, liked the story and the twists. I would have liked a bit more action. Not enough assassinations for a story about an assassin. Wizardry (magic only humans are able to use) and abjuration (magic only the Prakani are able to use) are mentioned, but not enough development there. I'm a sucker for actions scenes and magic, so the lack of both disappointed me a bit.
That said, I enjoyed the read. I finished the book both eager to find out how it would end and sad because it was ending. Reading and reviewing was a great experience for me. I hope the next book I review is as enjoyable as this read was. I'm looking forward to meeting up with Thomas in the second book and finding out where Mr. Turkel will take us next. Thomas is moving up in the world, and I want to go along for the ride.
*This is the first book I read with the express purpose of reviewing it. It's been fun, but at the same time, I didn't read it the way I usually read. I was no longer reading something simply for the enjoyment of a good story well told. I started paying attention to story cohesion, flow, grammar, continuity, things that make no sense, etc. It got to be very annoying, as it got in the way of simply reading.
It took me half the book to start to shake it off, and I'll need to look back on it and try to get a different perspective on the experience. This whole "this needs a comma, this would have made it funnier, hey, that seems an awful short time to learn that" is getting tiresome. I was never that kind of reader, and just because I'll start reviewing doesn't mean I want to become that guy. If anything, I want to become a rich guy, not a guy that overanalyzes books. *grumble*
Ok. See how nice I was? I added a rant tag, so you could have skipped all of this. What, you didn't? Pft, you fool! You should have run when you saw me start ranting. Maybe this'll teach ya! (I really wanted to add a "Run, you fools!" in there somewhere... but I guess I just did! Ja!)
Hi there. Welcome to Uncle Will's ranty attic. Before I get on with the review, join me for a rant why don't you.*
Like many good things, this book starts in a bar. "What are these many things?" I hear you ask. (don't look behind you, lemme tuck my feet under the curtains first!) Bar brawls, flirting, drunkenness, a tall tales competition, or in this case - hiring an assassin.
Ouroboros is the story of Thomas of South Xuelition. We follow Thomas as he is hired to take out a Prakani, who happen to be well-rounded, snotty pricks. Turkel did a good job of making me dislike them and have fun mocking them, (it is always a plus to have a good solid group of people you can point to and mock.) and then he completed the job by making me kinda like them. (Some of them, anyway.) Snotty and full of themselves they most certainly are, but there are some nice ones in the bunch.
The story took a bit for me to get into it. I think it mainly had to do with this being my first book read with the main purpose of reviewing it. There's a good flow worked into the telling of the back story. We find out why Thomas became an assassin - while the story moves him along his mission - without really slowing down or hindering either story path. I liked that.
Another good thing is the descriptions. They were enough to flesh out the story and allow me to build the surroundings in my head, without getting into the age of the wood, the direction of the grain, the back story of the carpenter, which wooden floor panels creak, whether there are termites or not... Gah! May the gods save me of such filler! (No filler here.) Things, people and places are described enough so you are not imagining an amorphous blob of ectoplasm, and then we get on with the story. Me likey.
Note: I'm halfway into the book now, and I forced myself to write my thoughts down before my aging brain misplaced the files. I say forced, because I'm getting into it now. We left Xuelition and are now in Crypttown. We found our mark. Thomas and I, plucky witty sidekick that I am, shall go and hunt that snotty Prakani down. I'll report back after the second half of the book is read, and I have a better idea of what it's all about.
*add elevator music* Your call is important to us. *continue elevator music*
Ok. As soon as I finished writing the first half of the review, and I jumped back into the book, a wild plot twist appeared!
Half way in and I didn't see the twist coming. Maybe I should have, but I didn't. Which shows I'm slow, or that I managed to stop overanalyzing and just go with the story. I vote for option two since it's better for my image.
I liked the book. I liked Thomas, liked/disliked the Prakani, liked the story and the twists. I would have liked a bit more action. Not enough assassinations for a story about an assassin. Wizardry (magic only humans are able to use) and abjuration (magic only the Prakani are able to use) are mentioned, but not enough development there. I'm a sucker for actions scenes and magic, so the lack of both disappointed me a bit.
That said, I enjoyed the read. I finished the book both eager to find out how it would end and sad because it was ending. Reading and reviewing was a great experience for me. I hope the next book I review is as enjoyable as this read was. I'm looking forward to meeting up with Thomas in the second book and finding out where Mr. Turkel will take us next. Thomas is moving up in the world, and I want to go along for the ride.
*This is the first book I read with the express purpose of reviewing it. It's been fun, but at the same time, I didn't read it the way I usually read. I was no longer reading something simply for the enjoyment of a good story well told. I started paying attention to story cohesion, flow, grammar, continuity, things that make no sense, etc. It got to be very annoying, as it got in the way of simply reading.
It took me half the book to start to shake it off, and I'll need to look back on it and try to get a different perspective on the experience. This whole "this needs a comma, this would have made it funnier, hey, that seems an awful short time to learn that" is getting tiresome. I was never that kind of reader, and just because I'll start reviewing doesn't mean I want to become that guy. If anything, I want to become a rich guy, not a guy that overanalyzes books. *grumble*
Ok. See how nice I was? I added a rant tag, so you could have skipped all of this. What, you didn't? Pft, you fool! You should have run when you saw me start ranting. Maybe this'll teach ya! (I really wanted to add a "Run, you fools!" in there somewhere... but I guess I just did! Ja!)
November 12, 2012
This book was offered to me for review and I accepted after seeing the word "assassin" in the description. Having read a few YA books with assassins this year, I have realized that I adore those kinds of plots. I am also not yet tired of dystopias although I know many of my blogging buddies are but then I haven't read as many.
Overall, I did enjoy this book which is very fast-paced, keeping me on the edge of my seat following the path of Thomas. I'm not entirely certain I understand this new world in which Thomas lives but I could follow the basic rules. It seems that this is the first book in the series, I think there will be time for more to be revealed. As hinted in the summary, Thomas uncovers some big secrets. The plot is twisty and I had no hope of unraveling it so I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.
Then we come to the characters. At this time, I don't feel like I know Thomas super well; due to his training, he keeps his cards close to his vest and I believe it will take more books to really explore his personality. We are introduced to several other characters who will probably play bigger roles in future books but as it stands, we received tantalizing tastes of them.
The worst part for me was actually the formatting on my nook-what should have been the bottom of the page was in the middle and it disrupted the flow of my reading. I was able to train my eyes to skip over it eventually though.
Overall, I did enjoy this book which is very fast-paced, keeping me on the edge of my seat following the path of Thomas. I'm not entirely certain I understand this new world in which Thomas lives but I could follow the basic rules. It seems that this is the first book in the series, I think there will be time for more to be revealed. As hinted in the summary, Thomas uncovers some big secrets. The plot is twisty and I had no hope of unraveling it so I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.
Then we come to the characters. At this time, I don't feel like I know Thomas super well; due to his training, he keeps his cards close to his vest and I believe it will take more books to really explore his personality. We are introduced to several other characters who will probably play bigger roles in future books but as it stands, we received tantalizing tastes of them.
The worst part for me was actually the formatting on my nook-what should have been the bottom of the page was in the middle and it disrupted the flow of my reading. I was able to train my eyes to skip over it eventually though.
August 8, 2012
On the cover are two words that meant a lot to me. "Book One" This means that Turkel has plans to continue this fine outing. I found the pace and plot to be first rate. An assassin that has problems in the future makes for an enjoyable read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews