hopeevey's review against another edition
3.0
This book was given to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I hope they don't regret that decision.
This is a murder mystery with very vivid descriptions of violence and torture. The gore is never gratuitous; it always serves the, very brutal, story. If you don't care for or can't read such things, don't even start this one.
Am I the only one who didn't know this is a book one? I can't find reference to this being part of a series anywhere, but the book doesn't so much end, as stops with an implicit "to be continued." I HATE when that happens. I have been known to say some very, very bad words when I run into a non-ending like this. I can almost forgive Coil for its lack of proper ending, because, otherwise, I really enjoyed this book. The complex worldbuilding has social commentary so smoothly integrated you may not realize it's there. The writing style has a rich intensity I quite enjoyed.
If you can stomach the violence and accept that this doesn't have a tidy ending, the characters and plot are well worth the effort.
This is a murder mystery with very vivid descriptions of violence and torture. The gore is never gratuitous; it always serves the, very brutal, story. If you don't care for or can't read such things, don't even start this one.
Am I the only one who didn't know this is a book one? I can't find reference to this being part of a series anywhere, but the book doesn't so much end, as stops with an implicit "to be continued." I HATE when that happens. I have been known to say some very, very bad words when I run into a non-ending like this. I can almost forgive Coil for its lack of proper ending, because, otherwise, I really enjoyed this book. The complex worldbuilding has social commentary so smoothly integrated you may not realize it's there. The writing style has a rich intensity I quite enjoyed.
If you can stomach the violence and accept that this doesn't have a tidy ending, the characters and plot are well worth the effort.
el_stevie's review against another edition
5.0
Surprised myself at the rating for this. When I first started reading, it felt a bit too sci-fi for my tastes but that all vanished as I read on. The combination noir, sci-fi and post-apocalyptic feel created an extraordinary world and the characters, though hard-boiled, show their vulnerable side enough to make you care. As to what Warom has put one of its main characters, Bone Adams through, is completely absorbing. Very gruesome, amazing imagery, body horror in heaps, it puts you through the wringer as you race to the end to discover who, or what, Bone really is. But you don't get an answer, that appears to be for another book which I hope will not be long forthcoming. Absolutely loved this.
avoraciousreader68's review
3.0
Book source ~ ARC. My review is voluntary and honest.
There’s a twisted serial killer on the loose in the Spires. City Officer Stark needs the best mortician he can get and that’s Bone Adams. Except Bone is not part of his jurisdiction, so Stark has to find a way to get Bone in on the case before more bodies pile up. Once he accomplishes that, they are off and running, but it seems like the serial killer they’ve named Rope, is always steps ahead of them. In the course of trying to find Rope, Stark finds out more than he could possible believe, about his city, his old friend Burneo, and about Bone. What is seen and known, cannot be unseen or unknown.
Set in the distant future, this is one twisted and dark Sci-Fi story. I wish I could say that I came away from it with that deep euphoria one gets after finishing a really good book, but I can’t. I was confused for most of it and the writing just isn’t my style. It seems like everything is a simile or metaphor. I have nothing against these things when used judiciously, but when I can’t read more than a page or two before the entire thing becomes entire passages of symbolism…well, it just gets tiresome. For me anyway. And that ending? Totally didn’t get it and I feel like I missed something huge. There is a lot that I did like: the descriptions of the city and the people are fascinating. Stark and several other characters are pretty good, but I couldn't get a handle on Bone. I thought I'd love him, but I didn't. Rope is terrifying. What I brought away from this is the future is pretty damn bleak. I hope we can avoid that particular path.
There’s a twisted serial killer on the loose in the Spires. City Officer Stark needs the best mortician he can get and that’s Bone Adams. Except Bone is not part of his jurisdiction, so Stark has to find a way to get Bone in on the case before more bodies pile up. Once he accomplishes that, they are off and running, but it seems like the serial killer they’ve named Rope, is always steps ahead of them. In the course of trying to find Rope, Stark finds out more than he could possible believe, about his city, his old friend Burneo, and about Bone. What is seen and known, cannot be unseen or unknown.
Set in the distant future, this is one twisted and dark Sci-Fi story. I wish I could say that I came away from it with that deep euphoria one gets after finishing a really good book, but I can’t. I was confused for most of it and the writing just isn’t my style. It seems like everything is a simile or metaphor. I have nothing against these things when used judiciously, but when I can’t read more than a page or two before the entire thing becomes entire passages of symbolism…well, it just gets tiresome. For me anyway. And that ending? Totally didn’t get it and I feel like I missed something huge. There is a lot that I did like: the descriptions of the city and the people are fascinating. Stark and several other characters are pretty good, but I couldn't get a handle on Bone. I thought I'd love him, but I didn't. Rope is terrifying. What I brought away from this is the future is pretty damn bleak. I hope we can avoid that particular path.
alexanderp's review
4.0
Posted originally here.
Apex sent me this book in return for a review, and I was incredibly excited. Cyberpunk noir? Hell yes! And what Ren Warom gives us in Coil, is not only these but sci fi crime-noir at its best. Without even going farther into the book right now, if you like any of those genres I just listed, you will love this book.
When Officer Stark realizes that a particularly brutal crime seems to have a calling card for Bone Adams, one call puts both men on a ride for their lives. As more and more bodies turn up, stripped of their implants and other modifications, there appears to be pattern and one of which that Stark becomes more and more obsessed with. Yet, if Bone cannot figure out what is a foot, then both men are most certainly going to wind up dead, and the Spires will be left with more unrest than ever before.
There have been few and far between cyberpunk, let alone gritty future science fiction stories that have been this imaginative. This is one reason why I personally love Apex, so much, because they find and foster this incredible ingenuity in genre and imagination that few other publishers attempt in the first place. Warom jolts new life into cyberpunk and rather than relying on Blade Runner or Necromancer to provide the blue print, they strive out on their own with something brutal, gorey, and bleakly new.
While in most senses, Coil has a true crime noir premise, there are certainly portions of it that retain cyberpunk heritage, while keeping the story as fresh and new as the plot allows. The mixture of post humanism, humanity’s frailty, and outright bodily perversion makes for a compelling read all together. I believe most readers who enjoy gritty science fiction, pulpy hard-boiled noir, and dark future cyberpunk will enjoy this book quite a lot.
I can only hope that there’s more, because this setting is rich and I would want to learn more about the “Spires” that Bone and Stark inhabit. I want to know even more about why the gangs are such an established feature of this region. There is so much more that lurks under the surface that even after the first read of Coil most reader may want to dive back in. I know I do!
Apex sent me this book in return for a review, and I was incredibly excited. Cyberpunk noir? Hell yes! And what Ren Warom gives us in Coil, is not only these but sci fi crime-noir at its best. Without even going farther into the book right now, if you like any of those genres I just listed, you will love this book.
When Officer Stark realizes that a particularly brutal crime seems to have a calling card for Bone Adams, one call puts both men on a ride for their lives. As more and more bodies turn up, stripped of their implants and other modifications, there appears to be pattern and one of which that Stark becomes more and more obsessed with. Yet, if Bone cannot figure out what is a foot, then both men are most certainly going to wind up dead, and the Spires will be left with more unrest than ever before.
There have been few and far between cyberpunk, let alone gritty future science fiction stories that have been this imaginative. This is one reason why I personally love Apex, so much, because they find and foster this incredible ingenuity in genre and imagination that few other publishers attempt in the first place. Warom jolts new life into cyberpunk and rather than relying on Blade Runner or Necromancer to provide the blue print, they strive out on their own with something brutal, gorey, and bleakly new.
While in most senses, Coil has a true crime noir premise, there are certainly portions of it that retain cyberpunk heritage, while keeping the story as fresh and new as the plot allows. The mixture of post humanism, humanity’s frailty, and outright bodily perversion makes for a compelling read all together. I believe most readers who enjoy gritty science fiction, pulpy hard-boiled noir, and dark future cyberpunk will enjoy this book quite a lot.
I can only hope that there’s more, because this setting is rich and I would want to learn more about the “Spires” that Bone and Stark inhabit. I want to know even more about why the gangs are such an established feature of this region. There is so much more that lurks under the surface that even after the first read of Coil most reader may want to dive back in. I know I do!
jonbob's review
4.0
One of my reading goals this year is to read more noir. Another is to read more small press releases. And COIL by Ren Warom is a science fiction detective thriller that satisfies both these needs. A gritty, futuristic murder mystery spattered with copious amounts of biopunk body horror, Coil isn’t a book for the squeamish, but if you like stories with gritty characters and settings featuring criminal gangs warring with corrupt and bureaucratic law enforcement agencies then BOY do I have a recommendation for you!
What I loved about Coil was Warom’s ability to take a simple, yet solid, foundation of noir tropes and build a rich and complex world on top of it. The whole story takes place in The Spires, a mega-city that has emerged from the ruins of Detroit following some kind of cataclysmic event in the history of the book’s world. In the Spires, numerous criminal gangs have taken control of sectors of the city and largely operate with the tacit approval of a police force which is powerless to confront them. With drastic technological change and the inevitable culture shift that accompanied it, this is a world where humans have merged with machines and body modification is ubiquitous, to the extent that to be a human without body mods is considered altogether weird – abnormal.
And in this world we meet Bone Adams. Bone is a legend, the best mortician in the Spires, and a man without modification in a world where body mods define humanity. When a new killer begins leaving bodies stripped of mods but twisted and bent into grotesque pieces of art, City Officer Stark tasks Bone to unravel the clues, few though they may be. In Warom’s world, morticians have become much more than simple undertakers. In a world littered with the bodies of gangland murders, where large sections of the population seek out illegal body modifications and technological implants from surgeons who owe allegiance to criminal gangs, often the only way to identify a corpse is through tracing the modification trail. Morticians are detectives and diplomats required to have one foot in the shady criminal underworld without falling foul of either the gangs or the police.
We get to follow Bone as he navigates the seedy underbelly of the Spires, as he and City Officer Stark attempt to unravel the clues they uncover about the mysterious killer. These are our two main viewpoint characters and Warom does a great job of taking the grizzled, alcoholic rogues of pulp noir and fleshing them out into characters you can really root for, even if they are difficult, frustrating SOB’s sometimes. And what is pulp noir without a femme fatale? Coil has such a good femme fatale. I can’t expand much without getting into spoiler territory but holy shit I need you to read this book, if not for the sole reason I need someone to talk about this with!
I’m not very practised at reading mysteries and thrillers where you can follow the clues and work out what’s going on yourself if you’re clever, so I never saw the ending coming, but in retrospect there’s some really top notch foreshadowing. Coil is one of those books where I kind of want to read it again just so I can pick up on all the hints and clues Warom drops throughout the story. I recently saw the film Knives Out, and so much of the joy of that film (and there was much joy to be had about it) was trying to pick up on the clues as the story progressed. Coil is much the same and I’m absolutely hankering for more mystery fiction right now.
All told, Coil is a great book and has me interested in reading Ren Warom’s back catalogue, which features some very interesting-sounding stories, including some good ol’ cyberpunk in ESCAPOLOGY about a data thief hired to hack into a corporate databank – absolutely my jam all over.
Go read Coil. Definite recommend from me.
Originally reviewed at Parsecs & Parchment
What I loved about Coil was Warom’s ability to take a simple, yet solid, foundation of noir tropes and build a rich and complex world on top of it. The whole story takes place in The Spires, a mega-city that has emerged from the ruins of Detroit following some kind of cataclysmic event in the history of the book’s world. In the Spires, numerous criminal gangs have taken control of sectors of the city and largely operate with the tacit approval of a police force which is powerless to confront them. With drastic technological change and the inevitable culture shift that accompanied it, this is a world where humans have merged with machines and body modification is ubiquitous, to the extent that to be a human without body mods is considered altogether weird – abnormal.
And in this world we meet Bone Adams. Bone is a legend, the best mortician in the Spires, and a man without modification in a world where body mods define humanity. When a new killer begins leaving bodies stripped of mods but twisted and bent into grotesque pieces of art, City Officer Stark tasks Bone to unravel the clues, few though they may be. In Warom’s world, morticians have become much more than simple undertakers. In a world littered with the bodies of gangland murders, where large sections of the population seek out illegal body modifications and technological implants from surgeons who owe allegiance to criminal gangs, often the only way to identify a corpse is through tracing the modification trail. Morticians are detectives and diplomats required to have one foot in the shady criminal underworld without falling foul of either the gangs or the police.
We get to follow Bone as he navigates the seedy underbelly of the Spires, as he and City Officer Stark attempt to unravel the clues they uncover about the mysterious killer. These are our two main viewpoint characters and Warom does a great job of taking the grizzled, alcoholic rogues of pulp noir and fleshing them out into characters you can really root for, even if they are difficult, frustrating SOB’s sometimes. And what is pulp noir without a femme fatale? Coil has such a good femme fatale. I can’t expand much without getting into spoiler territory but holy shit I need you to read this book, if not for the sole reason I need someone to talk about this with!
I’m not very practised at reading mysteries and thrillers where you can follow the clues and work out what’s going on yourself if you’re clever, so I never saw the ending coming, but in retrospect there’s some really top notch foreshadowing. Coil is one of those books where I kind of want to read it again just so I can pick up on all the hints and clues Warom drops throughout the story. I recently saw the film Knives Out, and so much of the joy of that film (and there was much joy to be had about it) was trying to pick up on the clues as the story progressed. Coil is much the same and I’m absolutely hankering for more mystery fiction right now.
All told, Coil is a great book and has me interested in reading Ren Warom’s back catalogue, which features some very interesting-sounding stories, including some good ol’ cyberpunk in ESCAPOLOGY about a data thief hired to hack into a corporate databank – absolutely my jam all over.
Go read Coil. Definite recommend from me.
Originally reviewed at Parsecs & Parchment
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