repairman jack
My copy of Infernal arrived yesterday from Gauntlet Press, and of course I *had* to read it last night.
On the whole, not very impressed.
Started with the tried-and-true method of killing a family member, and then went on to the classic "let's put Vicki in danger" trope that he's been doing for awhile. Of course, all of our standard heroes make an appearance, and almost all of the other named characters, do, of course, die. He throws in his standard mysterious woman-with-weird-skin-and-a-dog as well. Yep, all the tropes of a Repairman Jack book.
The otherworldly bit of the book ("The Lilitongue of Gefreda") was more than a bit silly ("hey! look at the floating ball! No, don't put your finger in it!"), and the maguffin used to fix it was so utterly obvious that I spent the entire second half of the book just waiting for the screamingly-obvious conclusion ("see tom. Hi Tom! oh wait, bye Tom.") meh.
*highly* disappointing turnout for the series. In a way, they've been feeling....dragged out for awhile now (since he made the mistake of writing the ending before starting in on the new Repairman Jack books), but none have been this bad for awhile.
The more mundane threat he left unresolved (presumably to be taken up again in the next book.)
I like the RJ books rather a lot, but I hate ...hanging... waiting for a resolution, and substandard books definitely don't help.
meh.
Maybe a rereading will help, but somehow, I doubt it.
In a sense, this one was a divergence from the running theme of the series (prosaic Jack and his handling of "The Otherness"). Yes, it was magical, but they never sourced it from "The Other", and so it felt almost as if it was a tangent story.
There will be another one next year. Perhaps that will be better.
On the whole, not very impressed.
Started with the tried-and-true method of killing a family member, and then went on to the classic "let's put Vicki in danger" trope that he's been doing for awhile. Of course, all of our standard heroes make an appearance, and almost all of the other named characters, do, of course, die. He throws in his standard mysterious woman-with-weird-skin-and-a-dog as well. Yep, all the tropes of a Repairman Jack book.
The otherworldly bit of the book ("The Lilitongue of Gefreda") was more than a bit silly ("hey! look at the floating ball! No, don't put your finger in it!"), and the maguffin used to fix it was so utterly obvious that I spent the entire second half of the book just waiting for the screamingly-obvious conclusion ("see tom. Hi Tom! oh wait, bye Tom.") meh.
*highly* disappointing turnout for the series. In a way, they've been feeling....dragged out for awhile now (since he made the mistake of writing the ending before starting in on the new Repairman Jack books), but none have been this bad for awhile.
The more mundane threat he left unresolved (presumably to be taken up again in the next book.)
I like the RJ books rather a lot, but I hate ...hanging... waiting for a resolution, and substandard books definitely don't help.
meh.
Maybe a rereading will help, but somehow, I doubt it.
In a sense, this one was a divergence from the running theme of the series (prosaic Jack and his handling of "The Otherness"). Yes, it was magical, but they never sourced it from "The Other", and so it felt almost as if it was a tangent story.
There will be another one next year. Perhaps that will be better.