Brian Geoffrey Wood
Autor von Dead Roots
Über den Autor
Reihen
Werke von Brian Geoffrey Wood
Getagged
Wissenswertes
- Gebräuchlichste Namensform
- Wood, Brian Geoffrey
- Andere Namen
- Wood, Brian G.
- Geburtstag
- 1987-05-21
- Geschlecht
- male
- Nationalität
- USA
New Zealand - Geburtsort
- Monterey, California, USA
- Wohnorte
- Auckland, New Zealand
Mitglieder
Rezensionen
[Cross-posted to Knite Writes]
Plot
Tom Bell hunts down paranormal entities for a living. Working for a government organization dedicated to exorcising malevolent entities from innocents, Tom finds himself chasing down a demon known as Aki. When his takedown of Aki goes awry, Tom ends up being forced to accompany a medium, Keda, who’s charged to hold Aki at bay inside himself, to Japan. At first, Tom thinks his stay in Japan may be enjoyable — their host, Harold Saldana, offers to take them out on the town. But everything quickly goes downhill — Keda almost loses control of Aki, Tom almost loses his life force to a succubus, and Tom and his friend/colleague Artie nearly get shot to death by the yakuza.
Anyway, Tom finally finds himself free of the Aki business and heads back to the States. But when you have demons possessing people, things never stay mellow for long. Tom ends up on a case in West Virginia, where one missing girl has suddenly blossomed into about 50 disappearances in the course of a few months. Tom, with Artie and Keda in tow, investigate the mysterious small town of Orchard — only to find that the entity taking over is the same one that tormented Tom in his childhood.
A monstrous, tree-like creature known as Akebara.
Tom’s mission quickly begins to fall apart as Akebara’s influence on the town grows stronger. It abducts and absorbs innocent townsfolk into itself, replacing them with monstrous copies who attempt to destroy Tom and crew. When the local police officer helping Tom is taken by the demon, Tom is forced to follow her into Akebara’s lair, where a showdown years in the making takes place. Tom manages to come out on top thanks to some help from Artie and Keda, but the Orchard is decimated, never to recover from the major losses.
Case finished, Tom thinks he’s out of the woods. But then the host to the succubus that tried to kill him in Japan shows up to apologize, unwittingly revealing startling information: after a vicious argument, Keda took Aki back from Harold Saldana. And that is very, very bad.
-cue sequel-
The End.
____
My Take
There were a lot of fresh ideas in this story. The government agency fighting supernatural entities thing wasn’t that original, but I liked that there were different roles assigned to agents and that they all contributed differently. It wasn’t just a team of guys shooting things — although there was plenty of shooting.
I will warn you, there is a certain level of gore in this book that may put some people off. Of course, if you like gore, this is just the thing for you! But, yes, point is, this is a rather gory paranormal horror novel. Lots of death and destruction and creepy things going on. That didn’t bother me. I thought it went well with the demon concepts; I’ve never seen possession depicted in any way similar to the way it’s depicted in this book.
So, conceptually and thematically, I thought the story was great.
That being said, let’s talk about writing.
____
Writing
Here are my issues with the writing.
Pacing. The beginning was very good, but I feel that the pacing stumbled a bit around the start of the second third of the book. There was a lot of activity jam-packed into the first third, and then it suddenly dropped off, gradually picking back up as the second phase of the plot took hold. Once it got back its feet, though, it stayed there, maintaining that great fast-paced terror show that a lot of horror employs.
Description. I thought the description of the actual horror material was very good, but I found it a bit lacking in other departments, especially when it came to transitions. There’s some non-linear stuff that goes on — flashbacks and what not — as well as some time skips, and it’s not always entirely clear what’s going on until you get pretty far into the section. So, pretty strong on the genre line but a bit weaker on the general stuff.
All in all, a bit of a mixed bag.
____
Is It Worth Reading?
If you like gory horror? Sure. Paranormal fiction and don’t mind gory horror? Sure.
____
Rating
3/5… (mehr)
Tom Bell hunts down paranormal entities for a living. Working for a government organization dedicated to exorcising malevolent entities from innocents, Tom finds himself chasing down a demon known as Aki. When his takedown of Aki goes awry, Tom ends up being forced to accompany a medium, Keda, who’s charged to hold Aki at bay inside himself, to Japan. At first, Tom thinks his stay in Japan may be enjoyable — their host, Harold Saldana, offers to take them out on the town. But everything quickly goes downhill — Keda almost loses control of Aki, Tom almost loses his life force to a succubus, and Tom and his friend/colleague Artie nearly get shot to death by the yakuza.
Anyway, Tom finally finds himself free of the Aki business and heads back to the States. But when you have demons possessing people, things never stay mellow for long. Tom ends up on a case in West Virginia, where one missing girl has suddenly blossomed into about 50 disappearances in the course of a few months. Tom, with Artie and Keda in tow, investigate the mysterious small town of Orchard — only to find that the entity taking over is the same one that tormented Tom in his childhood.
A monstrous, tree-like creature known as Akebara.
Tom’s mission quickly begins to fall apart as Akebara’s influence on the town grows stronger. It abducts and absorbs innocent townsfolk into itself, replacing them with monstrous copies who attempt to destroy Tom and crew. When the local police officer helping Tom is taken by the demon, Tom is forced to follow her into Akebara’s lair, where a showdown years in the making takes place. Tom manages to come out on top thanks to some help from Artie and Keda, but the Orchard is decimated, never to recover from the major losses.
Case finished, Tom thinks he’s out of the woods. But then the host to the succubus that tried to kill him in Japan shows up to apologize, unwittingly revealing startling information: after a vicious argument, Keda took Aki back from Harold Saldana. And that is very, very bad.
-cue sequel-
The End.
____
My Take
There were a lot of fresh ideas in this story. The government agency fighting supernatural entities thing wasn’t that original, but I liked that there were different roles assigned to agents and that they all contributed differently. It wasn’t just a team of guys shooting things — although there was plenty of shooting.
I will warn you, there is a certain level of gore in this book that may put some people off. Of course, if you like gore, this is just the thing for you! But, yes, point is, this is a rather gory paranormal horror novel. Lots of death and destruction and creepy things going on. That didn’t bother me. I thought it went well with the demon concepts; I’ve never seen possession depicted in any way similar to the way it’s depicted in this book.
So, conceptually and thematically, I thought the story was great.
That being said, let’s talk about writing.
____
Writing
Here are my issues with the writing.
Pacing. The beginning was very good, but I feel that the pacing stumbled a bit around the start of the second third of the book. There was a lot of activity jam-packed into the first third, and then it suddenly dropped off, gradually picking back up as the second phase of the plot took hold. Once it got back its feet, though, it stayed there, maintaining that great fast-paced terror show that a lot of horror employs.
Description. I thought the description of the actual horror material was very good, but I found it a bit lacking in other departments, especially when it came to transitions. There’s some non-linear stuff that goes on — flashbacks and what not — as well as some time skips, and it’s not always entirely clear what’s going on until you get pretty far into the section. So, pretty strong on the genre line but a bit weaker on the general stuff.
All in all, a bit of a mixed bag.
____
Is It Worth Reading?
If you like gory horror? Sure. Paranormal fiction and don’t mind gory horror? Sure.
____
Rating
3/5… (mehr)
[Cross-posted to Knite Writes]
There were a lot of fresh ideas in this story. The government agency fighting supernatural entities thing wasn’t that original, but I liked that there were different roles assigned to agents and that they all contributed differently. It wasn’t just a team of guys shooting things — although there was plenty of shooting.
I will warn you, there is a certain level of gore in this book that may put some people off. Of course, if you like gore, this is just the thing for you! But, yes, point is, this is a rather gory paranormal horror novel. Lots of death and destruction and creepy things going on. That didn’t bother me. I thought it went well with the demon concepts; I’ve never seen possession depicted in any way similar to the way it’s depicted in this book.
So, conceptually and thematically, I thought the story was great.
That being said, let’s talk about writing.
Here are my issues with the writing.
Pacing. The beginning was very good, but I feel that the pacing stumbled a bit around the start of the second third of the book. There was a lot of activity jam-packed into the first third, and then it suddenly dropped off, gradually picking back up as the second phase of the plot took hold. Once it got back its feet, though, it stayed there, maintaining that great fast-paced terror show that a lot of horror employs.
Description. I thought the description of the actual horror material was very good, but I found it a bit lacking in other departments, especially when it came to transitions. There’s some non-linear stuff that goes on — flashbacks and what not — as well as some time skips, and it’s not always entirely clear what’s going on until you get pretty far into the section. So, pretty strong on the genre line but a bit weaker on the general stuff.
All in all, a bit of a mixed bag.… (mehr)
There were a lot of fresh ideas in this story. The government agency fighting supernatural entities thing wasn’t that original, but I liked that there were different roles assigned to agents and that they all contributed differently. It wasn’t just a team of guys shooting things — although there was plenty of shooting.
I will warn you, there is a certain level of gore in this book that may put some people off. Of course, if you like gore, this is just the thing for you! But, yes, point is, this is a rather gory paranormal horror novel. Lots of death and destruction and creepy things going on. That didn’t bother me. I thought it went well with the demon concepts; I’ve never seen possession depicted in any way similar to the way it’s depicted in this book.
So, conceptually and thematically, I thought the story was great.
That being said, let’s talk about writing.
Here are my issues with the writing.
Pacing. The beginning was very good, but I feel that the pacing stumbled a bit around the start of the second third of the book. There was a lot of activity jam-packed into the first third, and then it suddenly dropped off, gradually picking back up as the second phase of the plot took hold. Once it got back its feet, though, it stayed there, maintaining that great fast-paced terror show that a lot of horror employs.
Description. I thought the description of the actual horror material was very good, but I found it a bit lacking in other departments, especially when it came to transitions. There’s some non-linear stuff that goes on — flashbacks and what not — as well as some time skips, and it’s not always entirely clear what’s going on until you get pretty far into the section. So, pretty strong on the genre line but a bit weaker on the general stuff.
All in all, a bit of a mixed bag.… (mehr)
review coming soon. one of the best series read this year
Dir gefällt vielleicht auch
Nahestehende Autoren
Statistikseite
- Werke
- 3
- Mitglieder
- 52
- Beliebtheit
- #307,430
- Bewertung
- 4.1
- Rezensionen
- 7
- ISBNs
- 2
This was a fast paced horror tale that I ripped through in a couple of days.
I found the premise of the story to be interesting but the execution of it only so-so. The author definitely succeeded in giving the reader a fast paced adventure, but I found the character development to be lacking. I'm not sure if I was supposed to like Tom, the main character, but I really didn't. Same with his partner Artie, his boss Maggie and their Medium, Keda. I can't quite put my finger on why I didn't like them, but I didn't. One other thing I didn't like, and this was completely personal, was all the damn smoking going on. I just quit smoking on Tuesday and it was very difficult for me when someone was lighting up on every other page.
Overall, I did enjoy this story. While I do think it could have been better, I also think it could have been a lot worse. It was very well edited, which is nice to see with an independent author, and the writing wasn't bad either. The problems I had with this book were solely my own and another reader might like it a lot more than I did. I will say that this book had the perfect setup for a sequel, which I believe is already available. At this point, I am not sure if I will read it or not.… (mehr)