Corruption

Corruption Cycle #1

by Adam Vine

There is a city in Eastern Europe where American vagabonds go to live like kings.
There is a beautiful woman there, sitting by a window, laughing.
There is a curse in her kiss, that takes the most broken of souls...

Disgraced martial artist Daniel Harper was champion, until a tragic mistake destroyed his life. With nothing but the clothes on his back and a one-way ticket, he flees to Eastern Europe, where he can start over and be someone else. But in the lantern-lit crevices of a nameless City, Daniel meets two people who will irreversibly change the course of his future: the mysterious illusionist and pickup artist, Ink; and the flower girl, Kashka, who is far more powerful than she appears.

As Daniel plummets into a downward spiral of hedonism and dereliction, he begins having visions of a fallen world every night when he shuts his eyes, a Night Country where an evil tyrant has stolen the sun, where corpses walk the frozen earth with golden lights in their gaze, and humanity's last remnant must eke out a cruel existence deep underground. It is in this nightmarish otherworld that Daniel realizes his newfound ability is anything but an accident...

Will Daniel kill the Crippled King? Or will he give in to the demons inside him and become the villain?

Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary

524 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 13, 2017

About the author

Adam Vine was born in Northern California. He has lived in five countries and visited almost forty. A narrative designer for video games by trade, he is also the author of two novels and many short stories. When he is not writing, he is traveling, reading something icky, or playing his guitar.

Reviews

[Lukasz · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF-ed at 64 %. My will wasn't strong enough to continue.

Corruption contains three nested stories:

1. The story of Daniel Harper, an expat and ex - kendo champion running from his past who flees America to find a new life in Eastern Europe in a Country that name is not told.
2. The story of the Night Country, a fallen, post-apocalyptic world where an evil king has stolen the sun
3. The fictional story of a good knight on a mission to save his kingdom in the epic poem Dan is translating at work.

I'm Polish so using typically polish names (Filip, Marcin, Krzysztof, Iza, Kasia) in fantasy book will grab my attention. Although eastern european country is described only as a Country use of polish names, phrases and one idiom would suggest the country was inspired by Poland. On the other hand characters pay in crowns which are Czech Republic currency. Still - jewish quarter and one idiom are typically polish. This is the one:

“We have a saying here that maybe is deep and wide,” Kashka said.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“In Countryish language, the words for maybe and ocean are the same. It’s… how you call it? Play on words?”

It's almost well translated. Morze equals Sea, not Ocean.

Anyway there's nothing good I can tell about this book. I want to read 30 books from this year's SPFBO. I really tried to finish this one but I wasn't able to. I like reading. But while reading this one I was looking for all kind of pretexts not to continue. Also it's the first SPFBO book I wasn't able to finish.

Why?

There are few problems. First none of the three stories engaged me. I don't care about Daniel, I'm not interested in Ink, I find Zaea uninteresting. I just don't care about the story. Sadly, that's not all.

I realize it's a work of fiction and sex obsessed talk may serve something (picturing characters maybe?) but it's strongly sexist. It may appeal to guys striving to be ultra-macho but for me it was weak. Few examples:

"While I appreciate your enthusiasm, violence only leads to one thing – the pussy leaving, as you saw tonight,”

She’s a pretty girl from a poor country, her best years are behind her. She’s spent the last decade hopping from one foreign penis to another, and now her biological clock is ticking. She doesn’t love me - she sees me as a parachute. - ah, this depth of mind of our protagonist. Of course in a second he admits he loves her as well.

The sense of humor in this book was pathetic.

We’ll be okay. Here. Give me your hand.” I reached and groped for her hand in the darkness, my fingers brushing something soft and warm.
“Hey! That is not my hand!”
“Sorry,” I said.

Now we have characters and their relations. Well - their one dimensional and flat. Sure, they have backstories and tragedies in their life but they're written in a way that shows them as featureless. The way flirting is described or relationship forming lacks any finesse and credibility. Dialogues in this book sound artificial. At 64 % of the book we still don't know what's really happening. Slow world-building may be justified when the world is interesting and characters engaging. Here though none of this things appear.

This book is long. It has more than 500 pages. It's possible it turned brilliant in last chapters but I'll never know. I'm really curious why the author felt that this story was worth telling? After reading close to three hundred pages I feel like nothing happened and what happened was uninspiring. So far I don't see any sense of direction in this book. Also the prose felt heavy to me making it a chore to follow the book.

I'm sorry I didn't like the book more than I did as I try to support and promote self-published authors but there's just nothing I enjoy about this book.

[Hannah Cecylia · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are not many fantasy books that can still claim to be original in world building, characterization, and plot development. Tropes too easily become repetitive, especially for the avid fantasy reader. Corruption does not fall into such a trap, in fact it continuously surprises the reader with its ingenuity and expert prose. Vine has a talent that is rare among new, and even experienced full-length novel authors. He never bores and he is never cliche.

Corruption follows Dan Harper, a man with a jaded heart that is at times both incorrigible and heroic, that proves an extremely well-written protagonist for this dark fantasy. Dan contracts a disease soon after his move to Country, a place heavily reminiscent of Eastern Europe with its veritable charm and mystery, a disease which transports him during sleep to a world known only as the Night Country, a dark and unfriendly place which makes the reader wonder - along with Dan himself - where the line is drawn between fantasy and reality. He is thrust into a narrative based in a brilliantly crafted history of not only a world, but a vast universe, in which Dan is neither a hero or a villain, though he often views himself as both, and his battle with demons real and imaginary enthralls you in this epic which is unlike any you've read before.

I am already anxiously awaiting the sequel!

[Cauca · Rating 5 out of 5]

First things first: The cover art is amazing!
The prologue introduces the forever dark Night Country, a mystical place filled with ghastly creatures and humans struggling to survive under the reign of the Crippled King. Throughout the book you learn more about how the Night Country became what is is today and it is a rather innovative and very interesting story in itself.
As stated in other reviews, this book contains three story threads that intertwine more and more throughout the book. The main character Daniel is introduced trying to do "a fresh start" in Country after a tragic accident that left him broken. While Mr. Vine never explicitly tells what eastern european country "Country" is exactly, I could find a lot of hints pointing towards Poland, which I really enjoyed as I am polish myself. ;)
The one downside to this part of the storyline is that it takes a while to gain pace - after being introduced to the Night Country in a fantastic way I was waiting to return to it - and that took a while.
But if you overcome that little hurdle, the second storyline comes into place: Daniel ends up visiting Night Country and realizes he has some duty to fulfill there and struggles to find himself to be the hero. I enjoyed the Night Country parts the most and especially the second half of the book is very fast paced and full of action and story twists.
The third storyline is found within a poem that Daniel translates while being in Country. This poem tells a story that has lots of parallels to Night Country, which is cool ;)
So yeah, I am definitely hoping that Mr Vine continues his Corruption Cycle. I am eager to learn more about the Night Country, the Crippled King and how the Country storyline connects to the Night Country one - there is something about Ink and Kashka we still don't know... :K

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book in a goodreads drawing.

A fantasy based on Eastern European mythos, but possibly inspired by M. Scott Momaday.

A guilt ridden, alcoholic American kenpo expert moves to former Soviet state to start over. He drunkenly lurches around the city, trying to figure things out and pick up women.

Somewhere else, The Resistance in a fantasy world is trying to avoid The Rat Catcher, and kill the mad king.

Meanwhile, The American is translating a tale of a good knight out to save his kingdom.

The book switches from story to story, and as things progress, the stories begin to meld,and to influence and change one another.

Very ambitious. It's a long book, and can drag a bit. The protagonist is not the most likable, and the supporting characters can be a bit much as well. A good try, but not a classic in the field.

[Notes From 'Round the Bend · Rating 4 out of 5]

**I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Adam Vine. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it. **

I enjoyed the connections and parallels between the three stories in “Corruption”. It was quite a while before I realized how they were connected and the first time we transition from Kat (sp?) in the NIght Country to Daniel in Country was jarring (it's a big change on every level). The initial disconnect didn’t make things any less enjoyable for me, though, because each section is complex and creative in its own right.

The premise of this story was unique and the way Mr. Vine laid out the plot and details was quite intriguing. The world here, despite the lack of ‘actual’ names for places in our part of it, was very well developed. For the first half or so of the book, we’re left to wonder if the three stories are in fact related, but as things progress, it becomes clear that everything is headed to the same place; the Night World. For me, this was a new (and fun) way of preparing characters, settings, and conflicts. Dan and Kashka were a complex couple and with them, Mr. Vine struck a good balance of strange and funny. I liked them both, which has been happening less and less with book couples of late.

The real disappointment in this was the narrator. I usually enjoy Mr. Meyer’s work, but in this case, I wasn’t feeling it. He did almost nothing to distinguish one character from another in any given scene (with the exception of Big Ben and Kashka, who had accents that were usually present). I felt like the characters, while interesting at times, were flat overall and so this lack of distinction between them by the narrator didn’t help. The audio quality, however, was professional and I will say that Mr. Meyer’s pace was good for this kind of story.

Bottom line: A great story, though I would choose the print version the next time around as I don’t think Mr. Meyer contributed much to the overall experience. I’m looking forward to book 2 and I recommend this for lovers of the strange and different in Sci-fi and fantasy.

[Lilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great book by Adam Vine and to be honest, I was not expecting anything less. Actually, the story exceeded my expectations on so many levels.

Let’s start bay talking a little about the blurb. I believe it does not express the full complexity of the story very well. We have so many interesting facts and so many things that aliment our intellect and so many situations that require our attention. The author has created a story narrated on three dimensions: the real world, where our main character has a job and tries to figure out his life, a fantastic dimension where heroes fight for survival, where life is anything but boring and a story that develops in verse. These three plans will come together beautifully and will form this adventure that will keep you wrapped up for quite a while.

Daniel Harper is apparently your average young man, trying to make a living, get over a traumatic past and hoping for a better future, nothing out of the ordinary at all. He goes out, he drinks, he fails on picking up girls in bars. But he has so much potential when surrounded by the right kind of people. Daniel, as well as the other characters, is one developed personality.

Let’s not forget the mystery surrounding the worlds and how Adam Vine decided to base his story in County, in the City. Country is a county (didn’t expect that, did you? 😀 ) in Europe, we do not have its name explicitly, but there are some hints here and there that can offer an idea. This is such an interesting concept and this just adds to the uniqueness of “Corruption”.

The narration was ok as well, even though Kevin Meyer does not do a great job when voice acting. Most of the characters sounded the same, but the emotions were well transmitted. He would laugh if a character laughed, or sound desperate if the case. So for that he has my deep appreciation.

I feel my review does little to show how exceptional this book is. I feel I have not done justice to the characters, but I do hope you will give “Corruption” a try. Moreover, I encourage you to give Adam Vine as an author a try. He is… a revelation. A breath of fresh air!

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Adam Vine. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story was a bit different from what I normally read. First, you have Daniel Harper, an ex-Kendo champion, who has moved to an ex-Soviet country to work for a publishing company translating local works into English. Then you have the Night Country, a post-apocalyptic world that is dark, grim, cold, and cluttered with scary creatures where the Vermin (the last true humans) do their best to survive underground. Then we have a few bits about a very talented masked swordsman called the Rat Catcher, a nemesis of the Vermin.

This story is full of opposites and it caused opposite feelings in me. I was totally engaged all the way through and yet I don’t really like Daniel. Still, I found myself rooting for him; I want him to pull it together and become that hero this story is crying out for. The ladies at first are all sex objects and silly, one-dimensional things. This does change about 4 hours into the book with the Vermin. Those ladies can take care of themselves and then some! So, at first I was a little turned off the story but once we get some gender balance going on, I really started to love this story.

Let’s talk about the two main story lines. First Daniel is laden down by guilt over the death of his past girlfriend and this colors all this relationships. He seems to have given up on steering his own life and he’s willing to take guidance from anyone, including these two questionable guys he meets at the bar. Ugh! I just wanted to slap Daniel so many times. It’s like he’s ghosting through his own life, not really attached to it. I wonder if this is what Adam Vine wanted the reader to feel about Daniel.

So Daniel starts drinking too much on a regular basis and he asks any woman who gives him the chance if she’s French, because that’s the pick up line he was told to use by his new buddies at the bar. Yep, Daniel is not your typical hero, is he? Anyway, eventually he meets Kashka (who has her own issues) and he spends the rest of the book breaking up with her and getting back together. There’s also the Blot! Hahahaha! I’m surprised that’s the only thing he picked up.

Now to the Night Country. Daniel wakes up in clothes not his own in the freezing cold and right away he has to do a fight to the death with this eyeless hulk of a beastman. Then he comes across Zaea, a woman who also wonders how she got here to this frozen world. I loved the Night Country! Though Daniel takes his sweet time becoming an active participant in his own fate even in this messed up world.

The biologist in me reveled in the beasties of the Night Country. There’s giant mites! Not cat sized, not pig sized, no, they are house sized! Aaacchhhh! Run away! And the Vermin do, taking Daniel and Zaea prisoners as they flee. Now Zaea at first isn’t much more than a pretty face and someone for Daniel to ponder on how to flirt with. Later on she also comes into her own, demonstrating her skills.

The Rat Catcher and his overlord kind of tie everything together with this mystical spiral and some weird traveling and what not. I don’t understand it all yet, but I don’t think I’m supposed to. It does give a magical way for Daniel’s soul to travel between his humdrum translator job and his hopeful hero role in Night Country.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this book. It’s a bit of a mystery as to where it’s going but I like that’s it’s not your typical quest fantasy story.

The Narration: Kevin Meyer was a decent choice for this book. The volume was steady all the way through and I think there was only one repeated sentence in the whole performance. He makes a really great Daniel. However, his female voices were lacking femininity. Also, he doesn’t have a wide range of voices and didn’t use accents, so sometimes the characterizations weren’t distinct and I had to listen closely to keep track of who was saying what. I don’t know why he didn’t use accents for Daniel’s friends and colleagues in the ex-Soviet country, but perhaps the author asked him not to. He was really great at portraying Daniel’s emotions throughout the story. His narration definitely added to the suspense and the gravity of the tale as needed.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Adam Vine. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

[Elena Alvarez Dosil · Rating 4 out of 5]

After accidentally killing his girlfriend on an accident and spending two years in limbo, Daniel finally decides to break from everything and have a fresh start on the other side of the world. Accepting a job as a translator, he moves to an Eastern European country, where he will catch a mysterious disease which will transport him to another world.

It took me a while to get into this book and follow the three different story lines: first, we have Daniel's story in Country; second is the story line happening in the Night Country; and last, the story in the poem Daniel has to translate. We get excerpts from the poem at the beginning of chapters, and there is a duality shared with the story in the Night Country. As soon as I got a grasp about the structure of the book I couldn't stop listening.

The story is set in an European Eastern country, called Country in the book, and the city is simply the City. The city is referred to as the City of Churches, which made me think of Vilnius (Lithuania), Krakow, or Przemysl (Poland). But other references and the use of crowns made me think of the Czech Republic. The fact that everybody drinks vodka made me think of Lithuania and Poland. I know Vine took the liberty of just using Country as a name to avoid being tied to a specific geography, but I enjoyed guessing where this could be set.

I was completely absorbed by the story. I think Vine did a good job in building up the intrigue about the Night Country, and I found the characters there interesting. I had issues trying to like Kashka, and I am still puzzled about Ink. I wondered why Daniel insisted on meeting with them both since they didn't offer much to him. I guess their role is more about the Night Country, and there will be more about them in the next book. The story about the Night Country amazed me, and the details we learned just had me wanting to know more. I hope my questions will be answered in the next book.

Despite the fact that some of the characters were not very likable, I think the characters were very developed in general, especially Daniel. I really cared for him, and suffered seeing how he took wrong decision after wrong decision. The way Dan spiraled down was very well described, and it was easy to connect to him . The torture he felt due to the 'disease' felt very real, and in a way I could almost understand why he did what he did.

I really enjoyed this book and I want to know what happens next, but there are a couple of things that got me puzzled. When does Dan work? In the book we follow him around while he visits the Night Country, and when he goes to bars and drinks himself to death. But when does he really work and translate the book? Also, how does someone get a job as a translator when they do not speak the language? There is a mention in the book about Daniel reading a Google translation of the book while on the plane, and his job is delivering a professional translation. How did Dan get this job when at the beginning he didn't even know a word in Country? It is not that he learned much with time, either, apart from cheers, yes, no, and thanks. Maybe I am missing something here but things just don't add up.

Kevin Meyer delivered an excellent narration, transmitting the characters emotions and interpreting them very well. I already liked his work on Lurk, and I was happy to realize he was narrating this one too. There is just one setback for me, and it is the voices for female characters. They sounded exactly the same as males, and at times I had troubles to follow the dialogs between Dan and the women he interacted with.

Despite the minor setbacks I found in the book I think this is very original fantasy, and I would like to see how it plays out in the next book.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Adam Vine. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

[Lia's Haunted Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has quite an interesting premise and it does not disappoint. Love the world building, the specific/unique names used for places and characters/species. The first half of the book is preparing us for Dan's travel to the Night World and it might seem slow at first, however it is pretty crucial to the story, so bear with it and keep an eye out for details. My only complaint is that this is a duology, so we have to wait for the next book to see what happens!!!!!! This first book is a very good buildup and by the end it had me asking dozens of questions whilst answering the questions I already had, which is an amazing thing to me, just leaves you wanting more. I love how weird, interesting and funny at times, Kashka and Daniel's relationship was. Definitely outside the norm.

SPOILER CONTAINING MY FAVORITE PART ABOUT THE BOOK: I seriously loved the blob! I loved how this ability to travel between Night and Regular Country is a disease and his time is limited, it certainly is unique.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kevin Meyer, as narrator, did a terrific job as a voice actor. There was enough distinction between actors to make it clear which character was speaking (and there were a lot of characters) and his tone varied appropriately so that I listened intently for every plot point. There were times throughout the audiobook that I felt as though I was listening to a radio drama rather than being read a story. This kept the story engaging and entertaining, although the plot on its own was already pulling, the voice acting added an extra dimension to it and made it easier to digest as I said before, there are a lot of characters and complexities in the plot. I felt as though if I read a physical copy of this book instead, I’d have a less clear perception of the whole story.

The production overall was of good quality; the sound was clear, which of course, is the most important quality of an audiobook for me. The audio progressed nicely, so that pauses were of the appropriate length.

Like I said, I enjoyed listening to this book and I think I got more out of the story by listening to it rather than reading it. I would definitely recommend it for those audiobook aficionados out there.

Not to mention, the plot of this book and the overall skill displayed by the author Adam Vine were phenomenal. The world building that Vine engaged in and the imagery that so often accompanies fantasy books were exceptionally well thought out. One of the best things I liked about this book is that it was ambiguous- the villains were given humanity, the so-called good rebels succumbed to the uglier parts of humanity, and our protagonist struggles between defining himself as a good person or a bad person. I also appreciated reading from the perspective of an insecure, average, middle-aged man who deals with issues of masculinity, love, and career. I think that is a perspective that is often hard to come by in literature and I really appreciated seeing that it got its voice in Corruption.

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[Melissa Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a hard time getting into this story at first, the purposeful leaving out of place they were in when they were in the real world and using City or Country kept throwing me off. It felt jarring to me, and if it had been something I just picked up to listen to I may have stopped. Which would have been sad because it is a fantastic book and once I got past that I got into it very fast and missed a few bedtimes.


The Night Country seems to be such an interesting place, I found I enjoyed that story a lot more when they were there than I did when they were in the real world. Which makes sense because I am quite fond of fantasy worlds. Plus the characters just seemed a lot more relateable in the Night Country than they did in the real world.


When Daniel and Kashka took the tour of the concentration camp I found the descriptions to be particularly vivid and disturbing. It was excellently written, as was the rest of the book, but that particular scene will stay with me for a long time.


I look forward to the second installment of Corruption.

[Tobyann Aparisi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this book on Goodreads (kindle version) and Amazon, for an honest review.

I had a hard time with this book. I thought it sounded so good. Kind of like a fairy tale with some characters that add a different twist to it. However, it just never seemed to unfold that way. Much of it was just hard for me to follow. The characters didn't seem to be all that well developed and there seemed to be sex inserted in the strangest of places. I wanted to like this book, but I just could not get over the fact that I could not follow the trail it was on.

[Lauren Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Living in a world that you don’t know much about is hard, but going to an alternate world in your dreams where nothing is as it should be, that is even harder. Daniel Harper, from California, has traveled to a place called Country for work. He meets a flower girl, named Kashka, who befriends him. He knew that she would change his life since he hadn’t dated anyone after his ex-girlfriend passed away two years ago, but with the existence of another world at the edge of his dreams? Vine has an interesting, yet very twisted storyline which makes the title of this book quite accurate.

Dan meets a magician named Ink and becomes obsessed with some nonsense that he seems to spew out during a drunken conversation about something called “the blot”. Not being told too much information, Dan comes to the realization that this conversation that he had with that fellow may not have been an idiocrasy after all. After sleeping with Kashka, his dreams become very vivid and he is able to travel to a foreign world called the Night Country where he has to stand with others against the one they call “the Crippled King”. The only thing is that when Dan awakes, he is feverish and becomes sick. Physical exhaustion takes hold of his body and starts to eat away at his mentality. Can Dan figure out why the sudden dreams are invading his sleep and how to stop his descent into madness before something bad happens, like imminent death?

Vine has an interesting and original story with Corruption. The book lacks character development, but other aspects like scenic detail are vivid and highly creative. Throughout the entirety of this audiobook, “he said this” but the character was actually a woman. This could have been common once upon a time, but really confusing in this setup of the story. The pace was absolutely terrific; it was fast-paced but the narrator did not provide that excitement or call to action with this audiobook. He didn’t change his pitch and vocalization very much for the characters which made it a little difficult to distinguish when someone else was speaking in a conversation. Meyer’s representation of each character seemed to be lacking a little bit of muster and his pronunciations did not quite fit either! This review is complimenting the audiobook. If you are a reader of dark fantasy and post-apocalyptic science fiction, you may want to pick this one up. Since this is the first installment in the Corruption Cycle series, the reader can jump right in.

A copy of this audiobook was provided to Turning Another Page by Audiobookworm Promotions, but this in no way affects our honest opinion of the book or the review that has been written. We provide a three-star rating for Corruption by Adam Vine, narrated by Kevin Meyer.

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

Corruption boasts an interesting story concept and well fleshed out, flawed main character.

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

The book leans heavily on this concept, as suggested by the title. It occurs multiple times, starting with the very beginning. This is also familiar from the only other Vine work I've read, The Lich.

Despite this solid foundation, the book runs aground in execution. From tremendous plot-holes (why does Dan get a job translating a poem from a language he doesn't speak?) to character interactions that feel sketchy and badly justified. Considering how much time we spend on Dan's navel gazing, being left in the dark about the justification for his actions particularly stands out. This illogic affects other characters as well, leading to a lot of decisions and changes in attitude that make no sense from the outside.

While I found the world building intriguing, I'm not sure I enjoyed this enough to read the sequel when it comes out.

[Alan Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard time getting into the story.


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