Review: Bound, by Alan Baxter
Alex Caine is a martial artist fighting in illegal cage matches. His powerful secret weapon is an unnatural vision that allows him to see his opponents’ moves before they know their intentions themselves.
An enigmatic Englishman, Patrick Welby, approaches Alex after a fight and reveals, ‘I know your secret.’ Welby shows Alex how to unleash a breathtaking realm of magic and power, drawing him into a mind-bending adventure beyond his control. And control is something Alex values above all else…
A cursed grimoire binds Alex to Uthentia, a chaotic Fey godling, who leads him towards chaos and murder, an urge Alex finds harder and harder to resist. Befriended by Silhouette, a monstrous Kin beauty, Alex sets out to recover the only things that will free him - the shards of the Darak. But that powerful stone also has the potential to unleash a catastrophe which could mean the end of the world as we know it.
Alan Baxter begins a new urban fantasy series with Bound, the first of the Alex Caine books.
Alex Caine is a professional fighter who has some odd talents - a kind of magical intuition is one of them, which he uses at the opening of this book to win a fight. This win, and the use of his talents, bring him to the attention of Webley, and Englishman who shows Alex that his talents are part of a bigger magical world.
Cue a fast-paced trip around the world, with Alex discovering more and more about the world that is hidden beneath the mundane world. This is no pleasure cruise for Alex - tough as he is, even he finds it difficult to deal with some of the darkness that he finds.
It’s really quite refreshing to see urban fantasy/dark horror written very much in the style of a thriller - this works especially well with Baxter’s writing, which often evokes a very cinematic feel (and I am so with reviewer Sean the Bookonaut in that I could so see Jason Statham playing Alex). It’s also very clear that Baxter has spent a lot of time building up this world - of which we only skim the surface (and of which I hope we delve deeper in the two subsequent books in the trilogy).
Some readers should be warned that there is a decent amount of sex (consensual) in this book, as well as lashings of violence. Especial note needs to be made of how damn good Baxter’s fight scenes are - quite frequently fight scenes are something that I’ll skip over as a reader, but I found myself sunk into each one in Bound (see the cinematic comment above).
Alex is always a very human character - he really struggles with the powers that he acquires, even as he takes a fighter’s joy in them (which is a really refreshing change to a lot of urban fantasy). Even the minor characters live and breathe on the page, and always seem to act in a fashion that makes sense (even if it is sometimes a warped kind of sense!).
Hat tip to the naming of the characters Hood and Sparks (references to friends of the author and prominent people in the Aussie SF field), which I think just reflects the absolute joy that Baxter takes in his writing and his community.
An extremely promising start to a new urban fantasy series, which is highly recommended. I’m looking forward to the next two books. And dammit, someone make a movie out of this, please, because it is begging for it.
Cross-posted to Goodreads and Amazon. eARC provided by Netgalley in return for a fair review, but I also nabbed my own copy (as should you, because the ebook is free throughout the month of July!)
Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.