Wilbert Stanton
Autor von The Artful: Shadows of the City, Book One
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Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, thank you!
I really wanted to like this book, as it features a lot of things I like to read about, post-apocalyptic setting, New York, viruses. I had to admit I didn't know who Artful Dodger was, because I've never read or properly watched Oliver Twist (my bad, I know). Dodger is in this novel indeed the head-thief and little Twist is his partner in crime.
Together they form the Gutter Punks, Robin Hood-like stealing medicine from the rich for the rest of the world. The world as we knew it has gone to the dogs, that's for sure. New York is in terrible shape (and this in only ten years and without any real war). The boroughs are everything but friendly to each other, and Dodger and Twist are 'just trying to survive' in these harsh conditions.
Only, the true horror is the book. The world building doesn't make any sense. The world is supposedly destroyed by a virus that killed half the population, leaving the rest as carriers, having only one symptom: a minor form of light allergy. Which isn't nice, but enough to destroy civilization? There are medicines against this terrible disease (I kept thinking: is this medicine Vitamin D perhaps?) however they are so expensive only the rich (for some reason called Tower Babies) can afford them. The rich, with there medicine, have taken refuge in large building like the Empire State Building and never leave the place.
The New York inhabitants believe there is a quarantine to keep them save from the rest of the world. The rest of the world however supplies them the Towers (and thus the rich) with supplies in big Zeppelins. Which makes me wonder? Why do they believe there's nothing out there, if they have better supplies than the people in the city? It just doesn't make sense.
To keep you from these questions, there are a lot of different gangs in Manhattan, like the no-rules one, one that features children who've gone Lord Of The Flies-like berserk in the Jungle (that was once Central Park), the religious sect gang, and one that seems to consist mainly out of hippies. There are also cannibals and you sometimes wonder if you're in Imperial Rome or perhaps Meereen as fights to the death in arenas are considered a civilized form of entertainment.
And in this setting we find our characters. From the first person POV of Twist, a seventeen-year-old boy who's suffering from sidekick-syndrome and is ruled by his hormones. Seriously, there isn't a single female character over the age of ten, he doesn't want to have sex with. Now that I think about it, there are only three female characters in the book. They are all bitchy and manipulative, crazy, or we get to know so little about them we can't decide in which category to put her. None of them has any depth.
What also bothered me is the following, Twist was seven when the virus struck and the world turned into this state. He however knows The Walking Dead enough to reference to it (some bad parenting?). I'm also to believe that a seven-year-old boy is interested in Titanic? (But has no memories whatsoever to news about the virus when it struck). The same with the other characters, they should remember things, but they don't. It's only been ten years! Ten heavy years, I will not deny it, but they sometimes act as if this situations been going on for centuries, which is just not right...
I was already fairly disappointed with this book, my expectations were so high, but what really did it in the end for me: the confused the flu and the common cold, which in my biomedical eyes, really is an unforgivable crime... Would not recommend.… (mehr)
Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, thank you!
I really wanted to like this book, as it features a lot of things I like to read about, post-apocalyptic setting, New York, viruses. I had to admit I didn't know who Artful Dodger was, because I've never read or properly watched Oliver Twist (my bad, I know). Dodger is in this novel indeed the head-thief and little Twist is his partner in crime.
Together they form the Gutter Punks, Robin Hood-like stealing medicine from the rich for the rest of the world. The world as we knew it has gone to the dogs, that's for sure. New York is in terrible shape (and this in only ten years and without any real war). The boroughs are everything but friendly to each other, and Dodger and Twist are 'just trying to survive' in these harsh conditions.
Only, the true horror is the book. The world building doesn't make any sense. The world is supposedly destroyed by a virus that killed half the population, leaving the rest as carriers, having only one symptom: a minor form of light allergy. Which isn't nice, but enough to destroy civilization? There are medicines against this terrible disease (I kept thinking: is this medicine Vitamin D perhaps?) however they are so expensive only the rich (for some reason called Tower Babies) can afford them. The rich, with there medicine, have taken refuge in large building like the Empire State Building and never leave the place.
The New York inhabitants believe there is a quarantine to keep them save from the rest of the world. The rest of the world however supplies them the Towers (and thus the rich) with supplies in big Zeppelins. Which makes me wonder? Why do they believe there's nothing out there, if they have better supplies than the people in the city? It just doesn't make sense.
To keep you from these questions, there are a lot of different gangs in Manhattan, like the no-rules one, one that features children who've gone Lord Of The Flies-like berserk in the Jungle (that was once Central Park), the religious sect gang, and one that seems to consist mainly out of hippies. There are also cannibals and you sometimes wonder if you're in Imperial Rome or perhaps Meereen as fights to the death in arenas are considered a civilized form of entertainment.
And in this setting we find our characters. From the first person POV of Twist, a seventeen-year-old boy who's suffering from sidekick-syndrome and is ruled by his hormones. Seriously, there isn't a single female character over the age of ten, he doesn't want to have sex with. Now that I think about it, there are only three female characters in the book. They are all bitchy and manipulative, crazy, or we get to know so little about them we can't decide in which category to put her. None of them has any depth.
What also bothered me is the following, Twist was seven when the virus struck and the world turned into this state. He however knows The Walking Dead enough to reference to it (some bad parenting?). I'm also to believe that a seven-year-old boy is interested in Titanic? (But has no memories whatsoever to news about the virus when it struck). The same with the other characters, they should remember things, but they don't. It's only been ten years! Ten heavy years, I will not deny it, but they sometimes act as if this situations been going on for centuries, which is just not right...
I was already fairly disappointed with this book, my expectations were so high, but what really did it in the end for me: the confused the flu and the common cold, which in my biomedical eyes, really is an unforgivable crime... Would not recommend.… (mehr)
Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com
My previous experience with Wilbert Stanton's work, The Artful, was not a good match, but how could I resist a book that mixes steampunk, Greek gods and Fey.
What I liked was that it tried to deliver something different, mixing a lot of things together and trying to be fresh in a genre where that is not easy. However, while some concepts where nicely worked out, the different Pantheons for example, the pacing felt off. There is a rather slow start with a lot of explaining and then, at the end, a lot happens in the final few chapters.
A nice concept, but the execution could have been better.
Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!… (mehr)
My previous experience with Wilbert Stanton's work, The Artful, was not a good match, but how could I resist a book that mixes steampunk, Greek gods and Fey.
What I liked was that it tried to deliver something different, mixing a lot of things together and trying to be fresh in a genre where that is not easy. However, while some concepts where nicely worked out, the different Pantheons for example, the pacing felt off. There is a rather slow start with a lot of explaining and then, at the end, a lot happens in the final few chapters.
A nice concept, but the execution could have been better.
Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!… (mehr)
A dickens of a time
Artful: A Novel by Peter David (47North, $14.95)
The Artful by Wilbert Stanton (Curiosity Quills, $14.99).
One of the most intriguing characters—and one of the most poorly underserved by the wonderful Charles Dickens in his novel, Oliver Twist—is Jack Dawkins, otherwise known as The Artful Dodger. This happy rapscallion, when last seen in Dickens’ tale, was about to be transported to Australia as a result of his pick-pocketing ways.
Two new novels, aimed at the young adult audience but more than interesting for adult readers, take The Artful Dodger as the point of departure for something altogether new. Both succeed, to differing degrees.
In Artful: A Novel, Peter David starts by telling us how he came to write the book. While author introductions and prefaces aren’t usually worth the time to read, this one does point out the inordinate amount of time that Oliver Twist spent crying his way through his own life story—a behavior in which The Dodger would never engage.
What follows is a very creative tale of how The Dodger managed to escape being shipped off to the penal colony and instead found himself back on London’s streets, engaged in a fight for his life and the future of Empire against—wait for it—vampires.
Don’t throw up your hands in disgust quite yet, though, because this isn’t just a cheap “Artful Dodger, Vampire Hunter” ripoff book. It’s a fair-to-middling imitation of Dickens’ style, with an original take on the events of the novel and one that actually made this reader want to dip into Oliver Twist once again.
Hey, if it takes some fangs and wooden stakes to send young readers to the classics, then so be it. The truly good news is that this novel stands on its own, as does young Master Dawkins.
Meanwhile, Wilbert Stanton’s debut novel has gone all the dickens past the original to set us down in near-future New York City, where the aftermath of the Ice Virus has left inhabitants unable to handle sunlight and under quarantine. The rich live in towers, shielded from the sun and constantly “dosing” themselves with drugs to forget their troubles.
Meanwhile, the street- and underground-level citizens are suffering and in need of medicine.
Enter The Artful and Twist, a pair of steampunkish, goggle-wearing thieves who act the part of Robin Hood, stealing needed medicine from the wealthy and sharing it with the suffering. They’re in constant conflict with the Suits—the hired muscle of the upper crust—anyway, but when a botched job reunites them with their friend Smith, who has something the Suits want badly, the pair join with their gang, the Gutter Punks, to stay one step ahead of the thugs and get to the bottom of the mystery.
The Artful has a very slow start—it definitely takes awhile to start caring about the characters—but about a third of the way in, begins to make up for that. The first of a projected trilogy, Stanton offers some seriously intriguing world-building, as well as the sort of working class, post-apocalyptic heroes that young adults are all craving these days.
Reviewed on Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com… (mehr)
Artful: A Novel by Peter David (47North, $14.95)
The Artful by Wilbert Stanton (Curiosity Quills, $14.99).
One of the most intriguing characters—and one of the most poorly underserved by the wonderful Charles Dickens in his novel, Oliver Twist—is Jack Dawkins, otherwise known as The Artful Dodger. This happy rapscallion, when last seen in Dickens’ tale, was about to be transported to Australia as a result of his pick-pocketing ways.
Two new novels, aimed at the young adult audience but more than interesting for adult readers, take The Artful Dodger as the point of departure for something altogether new. Both succeed, to differing degrees.
In Artful: A Novel, Peter David starts by telling us how he came to write the book. While author introductions and prefaces aren’t usually worth the time to read, this one does point out the inordinate amount of time that Oliver Twist spent crying his way through his own life story—a behavior in which The Dodger would never engage.
What follows is a very creative tale of how The Dodger managed to escape being shipped off to the penal colony and instead found himself back on London’s streets, engaged in a fight for his life and the future of Empire against—wait for it—vampires.
Don’t throw up your hands in disgust quite yet, though, because this isn’t just a cheap “Artful Dodger, Vampire Hunter” ripoff book. It’s a fair-to-middling imitation of Dickens’ style, with an original take on the events of the novel and one that actually made this reader want to dip into Oliver Twist once again.
Hey, if it takes some fangs and wooden stakes to send young readers to the classics, then so be it. The truly good news is that this novel stands on its own, as does young Master Dawkins.
Meanwhile, Wilbert Stanton’s debut novel has gone all the dickens past the original to set us down in near-future New York City, where the aftermath of the Ice Virus has left inhabitants unable to handle sunlight and under quarantine. The rich live in towers, shielded from the sun and constantly “dosing” themselves with drugs to forget their troubles.
Meanwhile, the street- and underground-level citizens are suffering and in need of medicine.
Enter The Artful and Twist, a pair of steampunkish, goggle-wearing thieves who act the part of Robin Hood, stealing needed medicine from the wealthy and sharing it with the suffering. They’re in constant conflict with the Suits—the hired muscle of the upper crust—anyway, but when a botched job reunites them with their friend Smith, who has something the Suits want badly, the pair join with their gang, the Gutter Punks, to stay one step ahead of the thugs and get to the bottom of the mystery.
The Artful has a very slow start—it definitely takes awhile to start caring about the characters—but about a third of the way in, begins to make up for that. The first of a projected trilogy, Stanton offers some seriously intriguing world-building, as well as the sort of working class, post-apocalyptic heroes that young adults are all craving these days.
Reviewed on Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com… (mehr)
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Dodger and Twist end up in a bit more trouble than they expected in the latest acquisition medicine from the Empire State Building. Their latest attempt is botched and then is saved with the help of a former colleague Smith. Smith was on his own mission which draws the story together and turns the Gutter Rats into a threat rather than their usual annoyance. Running from security forces they save Gia from an attacker in a BMW. Security forces track down Dodger and Twist and demand what Smith has stolen. The boys have no idea where Smith is; their lives may depend on finding him.
Dodger is a smart ass, arrogant, but quite capable on the streets. Quick thinking, and never shy with his sly comments and wit. Twist, is a boy trying to prove itself. Younger than Dodger, he is the responsible one and a check on Dodger acting out his thoughts. He still is willing to take chances to prove himself as being something more than Dodger’s shadow. Gia is stubborn and has an attitude of her own. She is the strong, vocal, loner, but for her own reasons needs to be a member of the group.
A few thoughts I had while reading was that the story reminded of Escape From New York, The Warriors, and a bit of The Outsiders. There are some definite influences in the writing. The story is faced paced with interesting supporting characters. The different clans in the city were very well done and represented a variety of possible groupings, which brought my thoughts to back to The Warriors. It has been many years since Young Adult literature has appealed to me. The Artful reminded of those less hectic days and the reason I read in my younger days. A very well down story for all ages.… (mehr)