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pjonsson's review against another edition
5.0
This is a review of Quincy Harker Demon Hunter year 2 to 4, four books (The Cambion Cycle, Damnation and Salvation) which is turn is a collection of shorter novellas, books 5 to 16, in the Quincy Harker Demon Hunter series.
In short, these are great books somewhat ruined by a absolutely shitty ending of the fourth book.
Quincy Harker is the same foul mouthed, kick-ass, authority hating hero as ever. I really like this guy. He is surrounded by a bunch of equally likable friends (well, friends and friends, everything is relative) that are almost as foul mouthed and snarky as well as kick-ass as himself. The bantering between them is in a class of its own not to mention when he gets started talking smack to the bad guys.
Speaking of bad guys, most of them are quite good, or at least well done, characters as well and the half bad ones who occasionally sides with Quincy and his band are often quite cool.
The menagerie is quite extensive starting with Quincy’s uncle who is actually Count Dracula himself, relatives of Van Helsing, Frankenstein’s monster (who is actually a quite cool guy), Angels, Archangels, Demons all the way to the horned guy himself. It is all well done without going way too far out which is something that many authors do when they try to achieve more and more outrageous (cheap) shock effects.
Of course there’s plenty of action. Really cool action I might add and of course the action is accompanied by a healthy dose of foul language either as internal monologue or smack talk to the various persons or creatures that are about to have a very bad day.
As the books are actually made up of four individual small novellas they are kind of divided into four distinct chapters. Sometimes a chapter is told from the viewpoint of Harker himself and sometimes from the viewpoint of one of Harker’s friends. Normally I’m not too keen on switching viewpoints like that but it works quite well and the chapters tie nicely together and advances the story in a coherent way. One part was actually a prequel and in some others Harker was on the run. Both things I generally do not like but in these books it actually worked for me.
The books for year two and three easily gets 5 out of 5 stars from me but then we get to the 4th year.
Now this is perhaps a bit unfair but then reading as well as making reviews is hobby for me and I do not pretend to do professional reviews so I could not make myself give anything more than 2 stars for the fourth year book.
The book is as good as the other (almost) up until the end where the author decides to destroy the happy ending with an absolutely atrocious ending. There’s absolutely no justification for the crap he pulled. It was just a really cheap way of trying to make people want to read the next book in the series. In one of the books the author writes “This isn’t some M. Night Shamalamadingdong movie, just going for the cheap plot twist.” which I thought was quite funny but then he goes of and produces this ending which, to me, is just a cheap plot twist.
That ending really ruined the books for me and in addition, after having more or less behaved in the previous two books, the author decided to start to sprinkle woke rubbish all over the place again. I do not need bullshit phrases like “white boy” and “…brown skin have some representation inside the government.” in my books. Skin colour is not a qualification of a persons value or capabilities. At least not outside of the small and loudmouthed group of far left woke oxygen wasters.
So overall, great books but instead of getting a total 5 out of 5 they get a 4 out of 5 stars average from me.
In short, these are great books somewhat ruined by a absolutely shitty ending of the fourth book.
Quincy Harker is the same foul mouthed, kick-ass, authority hating hero as ever. I really like this guy. He is surrounded by a bunch of equally likable friends (well, friends and friends, everything is relative) that are almost as foul mouthed and snarky as well as kick-ass as himself. The bantering between them is in a class of its own not to mention when he gets started talking smack to the bad guys.
Speaking of bad guys, most of them are quite good, or at least well done, characters as well and the half bad ones who occasionally sides with Quincy and his band are often quite cool.
The menagerie is quite extensive starting with Quincy’s uncle who is actually Count Dracula himself, relatives of Van Helsing, Frankenstein’s monster (who is actually a quite cool guy), Angels, Archangels, Demons all the way to the horned guy himself. It is all well done without going way too far out which is something that many authors do when they try to achieve more and more outrageous (cheap) shock effects.
Of course there’s plenty of action. Really cool action I might add and of course the action is accompanied by a healthy dose of foul language either as internal monologue or smack talk to the various persons or creatures that are about to have a very bad day.
As the books are actually made up of four individual small novellas they are kind of divided into four distinct chapters. Sometimes a chapter is told from the viewpoint of Harker himself and sometimes from the viewpoint of one of Harker’s friends. Normally I’m not too keen on switching viewpoints like that but it works quite well and the chapters tie nicely together and advances the story in a coherent way. One part was actually a prequel and in some others Harker was on the run. Both things I generally do not like but in these books it actually worked for me.
The books for year two and three easily gets 5 out of 5 stars from me but then we get to the 4th year.
Now this is perhaps a bit unfair but then reading as well as making reviews is hobby for me and I do not pretend to do professional reviews so I could not make myself give anything more than 2 stars for the fourth year book.
The book is as good as the other (almost) up until the end where the author decides to destroy the happy ending with an absolutely atrocious ending. There’s absolutely no justification for the crap he pulled. It was just a really cheap way of trying to make people want to read the next book in the series. In one of the books the author writes “This isn’t some M. Night Shamalamadingdong movie, just going for the cheap plot twist.” which I thought was quite funny but then he goes of and produces this ending which, to me, is just a cheap plot twist.
That ending really ruined the books for me and in addition, after having more or less behaved in the previous two books, the author decided to start to sprinkle woke rubbish all over the place again. I do not need bullshit phrases like “white boy” and “…brown skin have some representation inside the government.” in my books. Skin colour is not a qualification of a persons value or capabilities. At least not outside of the small and loudmouthed group of far left woke oxygen wasters.
So overall, great books but instead of getting a total 5 out of 5 they get a 4 out of 5 stars average from me.
mackle13's review against another edition
3.0
A pretty good continuation of the series, but I didn't like it as much as the first book.
The thing I liked most about the first book was that it was made out of short stories/vignettes, and none of the cases felt like they overstayed their welcome.
Not so with this "cycle", which is really just one, overly long story broken into parts.
The new characters were interesting - the grandson of John Watson and the great-granddaughter of John Henry - and the case itself wasn't bad, but it felt too familiar and, really, it just needed to be edited and be tighter with less repetition in both plot line and dialogue.
(Also, I forgot to mention this in my review for the first book, but there are definite typos in both books so far. I know it's a self-pubbed, and it's good for a self-pub - one of the better ones I've encountered - but the typos and wrong word usages still kind bug me.)
Anyway -
I'll probably be continuing the series, but not straight away. I could see myself burning out real fast on these if I tried to binge them.
***
Collects:
Heaven Sent - the origin of Harker's guardian angel Glory
Heaven's Door - there's a murderer on the streets of Charlotte, but he's killing angels!
Heaven Help Us - Harker is on the run, and nothing is as it seems in this small town.
Heaven Can Wait - Can Harker and the Shadow Council save the world from a demon invasion?
The thing I liked most about the first book was that it was made out of short stories/vignettes, and none of the cases felt like they overstayed their welcome.
Not so with this "cycle", which is really just one, overly long story broken into parts.
The new characters were interesting - the grandson of John Watson and the great-granddaughter of John Henry - and the case itself wasn't bad, but it felt too familiar and, really, it just needed to be edited and be tighter with less repetition in both plot line and dialogue.
(Also, I forgot to mention this in my review for the first book, but there are definite typos in both books so far. I know it's a self-pubbed, and it's good for a self-pub - one of the better ones I've encountered - but the typos and wrong word usages still kind bug me.)
Anyway -
I'll probably be continuing the series, but not straight away. I could see myself burning out real fast on these if I tried to binge them.
***
Collects:
Heaven Sent - the origin of Harker's guardian angel Glory
Heaven's Door - there's a murderer on the streets of Charlotte, but he's killing angels!
Heaven Help Us - Harker is on the run, and nothing is as it seems in this small town.
Heaven Can Wait - Can Harker and the Shadow Council save the world from a demon invasion?
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