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A review by nachtfalke
The Blaze by Chad Dundas
5.0
Full disclosure: I am a fan of Dundas' podcasts. Whenever I can't help it, I love to hear from him and his brother-in-arms, Ben Fowlkes, about last weekend's happenings in MMA.
...But because even gifted podcasters rarely make for good novelists, I went into this one expecting nothing: You know, this was a "sympathy purchase", nothing else.
And, boy, was I wrong. EXCELLENT little thriller, this one! Atmospheric, gripping, and of the exact length that leaves you wanting for more. Not gonna lie, a bit too affected by the current conventions of the genre: Just about everything is about trauma and grief, and, ugh, grief and trauma - like any 80s vampire novel was always about "mist and fog" and "fog and mist". (If you wanna catch my drift here.)
But - boy! - I enjoyed this one for what it was: Not very plausible, a bit overloaded with the usual genre leitmotifs, and perhaps even indeed written as a one-upper to the kind of mystery podcasts ("Borrasca", "Dark Woods", "Knight Falls") that have been crowding the genre, lately.
...Because a one-upper it ended up becoming: Of its kind of story, "The Blaze" is one of the considerably best pieces of genre fiction I've read in a while. Writers way more famous than Mr Dundas have lately delivered considerably less motivated and engaging product.
I'm rarely this glowing in my reviews, but this one deserved every word of praise. I'm not sure if Dundas has already found his genre, or whether he will perhaps end up switching to a less crowded field than the vaguely Twin-Peaks-esque. But I'm going to buy his next book when it comes out.
...But because even gifted podcasters rarely make for good novelists, I went into this one expecting nothing: You know, this was a "sympathy purchase", nothing else.
And, boy, was I wrong. EXCELLENT little thriller, this one! Atmospheric, gripping, and of the exact length that leaves you wanting for more. Not gonna lie, a bit too affected by the current conventions of the genre: Just about everything is about trauma and grief, and, ugh, grief and trauma - like any 80s vampire novel was always about "mist and fog" and "fog and mist". (If you wanna catch my drift here.)
But - boy! - I enjoyed this one for what it was: Not very plausible, a bit overloaded with the usual genre leitmotifs, and perhaps even indeed written as a one-upper to the kind of mystery podcasts ("Borrasca", "Dark Woods", "Knight Falls") that have been crowding the genre, lately.
...Because a one-upper it ended up becoming: Of its kind of story, "The Blaze" is one of the considerably best pieces of genre fiction I've read in a while. Writers way more famous than Mr Dundas have lately delivered considerably less motivated and engaging product.
I'm rarely this glowing in my reviews, but this one deserved every word of praise. I'm not sure if Dundas has already found his genre, or whether he will perhaps end up switching to a less crowded field than the vaguely Twin-Peaks-esque. But I'm going to buy his next book when it comes out.