Adam Burch

You know how sometimes you read a book and from the very first few pages you fall in love and can't really say why? And every time you pick it up something magical happens? That was this book for me.

It took me almost 300 pages to realise there are parallels to The Count of Monte Cristo and only then did it hit me that Edmon Leontes, the main characters name, is pretty damn close to Edmond Dantès. And you know what? That discovery made me giddy, because damn do I love The Count of Monte Cristo. (And no you don't need to have read Monte Cristo to enjoy this book... it was just a nice tidbit.)

It's a dark book and I know as a writer you're supposed to torture your main character and make things worse for them, but for Edmon it just does not get any better EVER. Throughout the book until the very end I thought, oh my... MORE? Leave the poor boy alone. It does not help that Edmon just can't keep his mouth shut when necessary... he keeps pushing.

The book is told in first person present tense which I often dislike, but I highly enjoyed Burch's prose and writing.

The world is exciting and I loved the idea of a planet that no longer spins and thus has a side on which it's eternally night while on the other side it's always day.

Edmon is a well developed character who loves music, and I really liked that he was so much into art and so opposed to fighting.

I can't really talk about the female characters in this novel without spoiling the plot. Let's just say that's the one bit that bothered me somewhat.

I highly recommend Song of Edmon to Science Fantasy fans.

P.S. Can I just hijack my own review to say: if you're into anime and love The Count of Monte Cristo as much as me and are not opposed to have it set in space and the Count be some sort of space vampire, please please please check out the absolutely underrated Gankutsuou.… (mehr)

You will not believe how much I hated this book. I got to the 40% point (this was hours of reading, the book is huge) and decided I either had to stop reading or hang myself (which would also stop my reading).

Mr. Burch appears to have assembled clichéd referents to every single SF or fantasy book he knows and then has written little vignettes incorporating them and then assembled the vignettes into a loosely plotted mishmash. Without stretching my imagination or memory I recognize "Guardians of the Galaxy" (of course), a gagocious Tolkien, Yeskov, Matrix mix in which "The One" is a genetically engineered messiah called, by her worshippers, the "Orc". Hitchhiker's Guide, Firefly, Prometheus. One character, instead of having a sack or a pocket (or a TARDIS) that opens into a big storage space, has little multidimensional storage drawers built into his body like a Chinese apothecary cabinet (yuck, and reminiscent of Banks). Daleks, Lord of Light, Stranger in a Strange Land, Death Star, Southern Reach. The list goes on.

Is there any good new SF these days? Maybe all the good ideas have been used up like the human souls in "The Vitanuls". Maybe I should stop reading.

I received a review copy of "Roar of the Storm: The Fracture Worlds, Book 2" by Adam Burch (47North) through NetGalley.com.… (mehr)

I really thought I was going to like the book a LOT and I tried, I really did, but I got tired of the violence and was, in the end, glad to put it down. It's perfectly well written, but the protagonist does not seem to learn from experience, his experience is horrific and there is no lighter side. At first there is an interesting contrast between the dayside islanders and the violent nightriders, the author had worked out a complex back story for the planet and I settled in to enjoy what I hoped would be an entertaining series, but as the violence and horrible events went on and on, I found the whole story so soul suckingly depressing I won't be reading any more.… (mehr)