spicy_koala's review against another edition
3.0
I think this is my first true Horror book! Or is it Supernatural? Maybe a mixture.
The story includes all the classical monster-baddies: vampires, werewolves, skeletons & ghouls. It also has some new frights: moss with eyes...fish with legs... It’s filled with gruesome action and emotional descriptions that tug at your heart. No one is spared from the horror in this tale.
In my imagination, all the scenes after the opening unfold in shades of grey and scarlet - no happiness to be found.
If you’ve watched the new-ish Castlevania on Netflix, this will feel pretty familiar.
The story developed at a good pace in the beginning, but I felt it became kind of bogged down during Wolfgang’s travel through the ruins of Egleaseon’s castle.
Overall a gory, gritty vampire-vs-hunter revenge-fest.
I gotta know what Kronklich was up to, so I’ll probably read the next book.
The story includes all the classical monster-baddies: vampires, werewolves, skeletons & ghouls. It also has some new frights: moss with eyes...fish with legs... It’s filled with gruesome action and emotional descriptions that tug at your heart. No one is spared from the horror in this tale.
In my imagination, all the scenes after the opening unfold in shades of grey and scarlet - no happiness to be found.
If you’ve watched the new-ish Castlevania on Netflix, this will feel pretty familiar.
The story developed at a good pace in the beginning, but I felt it became kind of bogged down during Wolfgang’s travel through the ruins of Egleaseon’s castle.
Overall a gory, gritty vampire-vs-hunter revenge-fest.
I gotta know what Kronklich was up to, so I’ll probably read the next book.
powerlibrarian's review against another edition
4.0
Synopsis:
Wolfgang is a nobleman who spends his days and nights purging the countryside of the undead. But when he returns home after killing a nest of vampires, he discovers his wife dead, his town in ruins, and his son is missing. Desperate to find his son alive, he must fight a race against time, all the while killing the hoards of undead that are trying to keep him from his goal.
Plot
The book opens with a little preamble setting the stage for the story. It sort of reminds me of the sliding words on the screen of the beginning of Star Wars movies. I think this will be very useful in follow up books in the series, so that readers can be quickly reminded of what happened in the previous books, so the the author can jump right into the plotline in the first chapters.
This novel reads like a rocket-fast paced version of Dracula (minus the epistolary style). The story itself is quite different from Dracula, but the writing has a similar language and tone. The plot plunges forward from the very first pages, and things are explained just enough so that the reader can follow along for this wild ride. There are quite a few twists and turns in the plot, some which were predictable, and others were not.
Characters
Because of the fast pace of the story, there is not much opportunity for scenes that are crafted solely for the purpose of character development. However, every scene is carefully planned. F. D. Gross does an excellent job of giving us a clear understanding of who Wolfgang is, what his motivations are, and even showing some vulnerabilities. For instance, in the very beginning of the story, he has to kill an undead woman. He does so, because it’s his duty, but he wavers at the thought of killing her child, even though the little boy is no longer technically living. This tells us so much about not only the nature of the undead in this world, what the plot will be like for the story, but it also tells us bucketloads about the main character.
Side characters are a little less developed, and I would have liked to have had some more scenes with simple conversations between the characters, to get a better sense of who they are. Wolfgang’s wife dies very early on in the book, but we didn’t have much opportunity to grow attached to her. However, F. D. Gross does provide some flashbacks later in the book, which allow the reader to better understand how greatly Wolfgang loved his wife.
Worldbuilding
While the plot is fast-paced, every word is carefully selected and F. D. Gross crafts a well-developed and elaborate world. He even describes what the undead smell like - cloves and burnt leaves, in case you were wondering.
Overall, I highly recommend this book if you're a fan of fast-paced plots, effortless worldbuilding, and old-fashioned vampire killing.
*Thank you to the author for the ebook for review!*
This review appeared first on https://powerlibrarian.wordpress.com/
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My 2019 Reading Challenge
Wolfgang is a nobleman who spends his days and nights purging the countryside of the undead. But when he returns home after killing a nest of vampires, he discovers his wife dead, his town in ruins, and his son is missing. Desperate to find his son alive, he must fight a race against time, all the while killing the hoards of undead that are trying to keep him from his goal.
Plot
The book opens with a little preamble setting the stage for the story. It sort of reminds me of the sliding words on the screen of the beginning of Star Wars movies. I think this will be very useful in follow up books in the series, so that readers can be quickly reminded of what happened in the previous books, so the the author can jump right into the plotline in the first chapters.
This novel reads like a rocket-fast paced version of Dracula (minus the epistolary style). The story itself is quite different from Dracula, but the writing has a similar language and tone. The plot plunges forward from the very first pages, and things are explained just enough so that the reader can follow along for this wild ride. There are quite a few twists and turns in the plot, some which were predictable, and others were not.
Characters
Because of the fast pace of the story, there is not much opportunity for scenes that are crafted solely for the purpose of character development. However, every scene is carefully planned. F. D. Gross does an excellent job of giving us a clear understanding of who Wolfgang is, what his motivations are, and even showing some vulnerabilities. For instance, in the very beginning of the story, he has to kill an undead woman. He does so, because it’s his duty, but he wavers at the thought of killing her child, even though the little boy is no longer technically living. This tells us so much about not only the nature of the undead in this world, what the plot will be like for the story, but it also tells us bucketloads about the main character.
Side characters are a little less developed, and I would have liked to have had some more scenes with simple conversations between the characters, to get a better sense of who they are. Wolfgang’s wife dies very early on in the book, but we didn’t have much opportunity to grow attached to her. However, F. D. Gross does provide some flashbacks later in the book, which allow the reader to better understand how greatly Wolfgang loved his wife.
Worldbuilding
While the plot is fast-paced, every word is carefully selected and F. D. Gross crafts a well-developed and elaborate world. He even describes what the undead smell like - cloves and burnt leaves, in case you were wondering.
Overall, I highly recommend this book if you're a fan of fast-paced plots, effortless worldbuilding, and old-fashioned vampire killing.
*Thank you to the author for the ebook for review!*
This review appeared first on https://powerlibrarian.wordpress.com/
Instagram | Blog | Website | Twitter
My 2019 Reading Challenge
elysareadsitall's review against another edition
4.0
I greatly enjoyed this book. It was adventurous and full of action. The characters could have been more fully-developed, but it is the first in a series. I think the other books will add more in that regard. The world is interesting. I don't fully understand how everything works in the world yet, but I'm enthusiastic about figuring it all out in the future books!
readbyashleyd's review against another edition
4.0
I want to start this review by stating that I received a free copy of this novel from the author in exchange for an honest review. This in no way changes or affects my review.
I’m always hesitant about vampire stories because they’re either done really well or really terribly, there doesn’t seem to be an in between. I was quite pleased to find this is one of the stories that does vampires really well! They’re actually quite scary and I loved it. I also really loved all the other creatures the characters had to deal with, each time a new one was introduced I was delighted. This book was dark and creepy and pure horror and I haven’t read anything quite like it! My only minor complaint that I had to remove a star for is that the writing is a bit awkward and choppy at times, a couple times I had to reread sentences or paragraphs multiple times because they were slightly confusing. But don’t let that deter you from reading this fantastic horror novel!
I’m always hesitant about vampire stories because they’re either done really well or really terribly, there doesn’t seem to be an in between. I was quite pleased to find this is one of the stories that does vampires really well! They’re actually quite scary and I loved it. I also really loved all the other creatures the characters had to deal with, each time a new one was introduced I was delighted. This book was dark and creepy and pure horror and I haven’t read anything quite like it! My only minor complaint that I had to remove a star for is that the writing is a bit awkward and choppy at times, a couple times I had to reread sentences or paragraphs multiple times because they were slightly confusing. But don’t let that deter you from reading this fantastic horror novel!
trish204's review against another edition
2.0
You know those (mostly old) computer games full of quests against beasts in dark dungeons with beautiful damsels in distress either waiting for you as a prize or being sacrificed at the very beginning to spur the hero on? This is such a story.
An impossibly powerful evil is vanquished in the prologue or, to be more precise, wants and allows to be vanquished. Sixteen years later (no idea what took so long) the hero’s family and nearby village get attacked, he loses everything but his son, and therefore goes on a quest to get him back.
Sadly, this was not for me. It has too much religiously tinged pathos, the writing often felt chunky, the story as well as the characters felt like cardboard cutouts. And what, in the name of all vested and enjoyable sexual interventions, were those dreams?!
There was also no flow to the events (not in the dialogues either) and I spotted several errors (mares wouldn’t be called "lads“; fire only gets worse when raging through a house so the smoke wouldn’t suddenly clear off in a windowless corridor just so the MC can see better; if saliva is how one becomes a monster, then a claw is not infectious, the MC would have been infected/turned himself long ago otherwise - to name but a few).
I wasn't even enjoying the fight scenes with all the monsters this dark world spit forth ... ok, maybe because I wanted Wolfgang to die and not succeed so I was disappointed every time he slew something *lol* but also, I think, because of the way the fight scenes were written. Can't quite put my finger on it.
What I did very much like was the creatures spat forth by the darkness here: ghosts, zombies, werewolves, will-o’-the-wisps, vampires, bogarts and others, not to mention animals doing the evil’s bidding.
The castle itself was cool, too, with the mechanical walls that could be moved and all the creepy critters waiting … but no matter how much one enjoys roaming through such a structure and encountering a host of beasts, at some point you just want and need the story to get to the point.
There were also constant convenient appearances and disappearances and reappearances of characters with vital information or of people thought dead. The fact that the reveal wasn’t surprising at all isn't helping either.
B-movie stories are what they are. Popcorn fiction, some call them. However, even within this sub-genre there are good ones. I like a number of B-movie stories despite them having rather generic plots (they usually make up for it with some characters being cool in some way or with some special monsters making me enjoy blood and gore spraying everywhere). Sadly, this story did not deliver, no matter how many wonderfully creepy creatures and castle corridors the author threw at me.
At this point I should mention that most of what I call generic here seems to have been done on purpose as this story is part of a narrow sub-genre and these are all elements of said sub-genre. It’s evidently not for me but others might very well delight in it.
I was provided a free copy by the author in exchange for an honest review. Sorry it didn’t work out. :(
An impossibly powerful evil is vanquished in the prologue or, to be more precise, wants and allows to be vanquished. Sixteen years later (no idea what took so long) the hero’s family and nearby village get attacked, he loses everything but his son, and therefore goes on a quest to get him back.
Sadly, this was not for me. It has too much religiously tinged pathos, the writing often felt chunky, the story as well as the characters felt like cardboard cutouts. And what, in the name of all vested and enjoyable sexual interventions, were those dreams?!
There was also no flow to the events (not in the dialogues either) and I spotted several errors (mares wouldn’t be called "lads“; fire only gets worse when raging through a house so the smoke wouldn’t suddenly clear off in a windowless corridor just so the MC can see better; if saliva is how one becomes a monster, then a claw is not infectious, the MC would have been infected/turned himself long ago otherwise - to name but a few).
I wasn't even enjoying the fight scenes with all the monsters this dark world spit forth ... ok, maybe because I wanted Wolfgang to die and not succeed so I was disappointed every time he slew something *lol* but also, I think, because of the way the fight scenes were written. Can't quite put my finger on it.
What I did very much like was the creatures spat forth by the darkness here: ghosts, zombies, werewolves, will-o’-the-wisps, vampires, bogarts and others, not to mention animals doing the evil’s bidding.
The castle itself was cool, too, with the mechanical walls that could be moved and all the creepy critters waiting … but no matter how much one enjoys roaming through such a structure and encountering a host of beasts, at some point you just want and need the story to get to the point.
There were also constant convenient appearances and disappearances and reappearances of characters with vital information or of people thought dead. The fact that the reveal
Spoiler
that Bronin was a bad guyB-movie stories are what they are. Popcorn fiction, some call them. However, even within this sub-genre there are good ones. I like a number of B-movie stories despite them having rather generic plots (they usually make up for it with some characters being cool in some way or with some special monsters making me enjoy blood and gore spraying everywhere). Sadly, this story did not deliver, no matter how many wonderfully creepy creatures and castle corridors the author threw at me.
At this point I should mention that most of what I call generic here seems to have been done on purpose as this story is part of a narrow sub-genre and these are all elements of said sub-genre. It’s evidently not for me but others might very well delight in it.
I was provided a free copy by the author in exchange for an honest review. Sorry it didn’t work out. :(
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