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The Menagerie #4
Crashing Paradise
Behind the facade of a stately Boston brownstone, humanity's last defenses are being marshaled. Called to action by the enigmatic, brilliant man known only as Mr. Doyle, they hail from all planes of existence and are born from an array of supernatural and otherworldly backgrounds and bloodlines...
THE MENAGERIE
The Legion of Doom is hell-bent on breaking into Eden, hidden in another dimension, and they've got the perfect captive to help them: Eve, mother of all humanity - and all vampires. Only Doyle and the Menagerie can stop them from turning a blessed garden into a cursed wasteland.
But they may already be too late. The gates to Eden have been breached, and the forces of evil are after all the power they can get from the Tree of Knowledge. Can a heartsick Eve and a badly outnumbered band of supernatural beings take back this most sacred place? Or will Eden truly become a paradise lost?
(Description from back of cover of mass market paperback edition)
THE MENAGERIE
The Legion of Doom is hell-bent on breaking into Eden, hidden in another dimension, and they've got the perfect captive to help them: Eve, mother of all humanity - and all vampires. Only Doyle and the Menagerie can stop them from turning a blessed garden into a cursed wasteland.
But they may already be too late. The gates to Eden have been breached, and the forces of evil are after all the power they can get from the Tree of Knowledge. Can a heartsick Eve and a badly outnumbered band of supernatural beings take back this most sacred place? Or will Eden truly become a paradise lost?
(Description from back of cover of mass market paperback edition)
278 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 28, 2007
6 people are currently reading
194 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Golden
804 books2,987 followersCHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of such novels as Road of Bones, Ararat, Snowblind, Of Saints and Shadows, and Red Hands. With Mike Mignola, he is the co-creator of the Outerverse comic book universe, including such series as Baltimore, Joe Golem: Occult Detective, and Lady Baltimore. As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies Seize the Night, Dark Cities, and The New Dead, among others, and he has also written and co-written comic books, video games, screenplays, and a network television pilot. Golden co-hosts the podcast Defenders Dialogue with horror author Brian Keene. In 2015 he founded the popular Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival. He was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His work has been nominated for the British Fantasy Award, the Eisner Award, and multiple Shirley Jackson Awards. For the Bram Stoker Awards, Golden has been nominated ten times in eight different categories. His original novels have been published in more than fifteen languages in countries around the world. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 12, 2018
I found this to be a pretty decent read. Nice cast of diverse characters who are definitely not your general definition of 'hero'. Fast paced story. Plenty of background information woven in without being info dumpy. I got a real sense of who these people were and what drove them. I bought this as a paperback and didn't realize it was a #4 of a series I'd never read. I think my enjoyment of the story might have been greater if I had read the first three books. Much of the story depends upon the reader having some familiarity with the characters and their relationships. Still, even if you haven't read the other books, there's still enough here to enjoy the story as is.
April 4, 2023
The fourth and (unfortunately) final entry of the series was petty good - it was little slow up front when he attacks started, but finished off nicely.
Overall I rally like the concept of an urban fantasy team series, and this one was pretty good - I just think the authors might have written themselves into a corner with so many powerful beings on the team. Might have lasted a little longer with a more grounded team, maybe one power player like Clay or Eve. But both of them with Ceridwen made them pretty formidable.
Overall I rally like the concept of an urban fantasy team series, and this one was pretty good - I just think the authors might have written themselves into a corner with so many powerful beings on the team. Might have lasted a little longer with a more grounded team, maybe one power player like Clay or Eve. But both of them with Ceridwen made them pretty formidable.
August 23, 2014
While this is the first of the Menagerie series that I have read, I enjoyed it immensely nonetheless (this is one series you can pick up at anytime and still get the gist and understand what’s going on). Co-author Tom Sniegoski, known for the highly suspenseful and riveting "Fallen" series (dealing with fallen angels, recently made into a three part miniseries by ABC Family), has let this knowledge of Biblical mythos seep into the pages and help create a whole new world for readers to enjoy, while Christopher Golden displays some of his best supernatural work since the Buffy series. This book is chalked full of vampires, shape shifters, demons, angels and more, yet isn't overwhelming to the reader to keep up with everyone and everything.
The characters are engaging and interesting, some of the best I've come across within this ever-growing genre. From the prologue to the epilogue, I was seriously enthralled in the sheer savagery this novel creates yet still containing hints of splendor. A vividly haunting tale of demons, angels and the Garden of Eden that will surely please all fans of dark fantasy. Expect to stay up all night with this one. Seriously, if you are going to read this, cancel all plans and unplug the phone!
The characters are engaging and interesting, some of the best I've come across within this ever-growing genre. From the prologue to the epilogue, I was seriously enthralled in the sheer savagery this novel creates yet still containing hints of splendor. A vividly haunting tale of demons, angels and the Garden of Eden that will surely please all fans of dark fantasy. Expect to stay up all night with this one. Seriously, if you are going to read this, cancel all plans and unplug the phone!
March 31, 2015
Well heck. This is it? I want to find out what happened with the Demogorgon plotline. I loved this series, but wish it had been allowed to wind up.
This one gave us more background on Clay and Eve, and allowed for some closure on their stories. Eve, with her wry humor, and fashion sense (which led to disgust at any damage done to her wardrobe while dealing with the baddies), was a favorite character of mine. She and Clay (a character that could literally be anything--the Clay of Creation) had been around forever, or so it seemed, and had similar senses of being abandoned by the Creator. It was hard not to like them and feel sympathy for them. When they both found themselves back in Eden things got very interesting indeed. The whole gang was there of course, and there was much demon slaying and resolution of some past conflicts.
As a Boston girl, I loved the final scenes in Quincy Market. I hope that some day the authors will write another episode. I will be first in line to pick it up. :)
This one gave us more background on Clay and Eve, and allowed for some closure on their stories. Eve, with her wry humor, and fashion sense (which led to disgust at any damage done to her wardrobe while dealing with the baddies), was a favorite character of mine. She and Clay (a character that could literally be anything--the Clay of Creation) had been around forever, or so it seemed, and had similar senses of being abandoned by the Creator. It was hard not to like them and feel sympathy for them. When they both found themselves back in Eden things got very interesting indeed. The whole gang was there of course, and there was much demon slaying and resolution of some past conflicts.
As a Boston girl, I loved the final scenes in Quincy Market. I hope that some day the authors will write another episode. I will be first in line to pick it up. :)
June 21, 2015
The Menagerie is a very pleasing series of collaborative urban fantasy novels by Thomas E. Sniegoski and Christopher Golden. They books feature a large and diverse cast of characters such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Eve (yes, -that- Eve!), and influences ranging from Lovecraft and Alan Moore to traditional ghost and Fae folklore and all manner of mythology. It's like The Avengers and a Justice team got together in a cool prose situation, with great McGrath covers. Each volume tells a self-contained story as well as building upon the previous ones; unfortunately a huge threat is slowly revealed to be getting closer and closer... but only four novels appeared, leaving an annoying cliff-hanger. Nonetheless, they're all a lot of well-written fun.
January 21, 2013
I love this book. Urban fantasy at it's best. Unfortunately they ended the series after book four.
September 10, 2014
An entertaining read.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews