Monday 12 October 2015

STEAMPUNK URBAN FANTASY REVIEW: Gareth and Adele 1: The Geomancer - Clay and Susan Griffith

Release Date: 01/10/15
Publisher:  Pyr

SYNOPSIS:

The first Gareth and Adele Novel, The Geomancer is the start of an ongoing, character-based, urban fantasy series set in the same Vampire Empire universe as the authors’ previous trilogy!

The uneasy stalemate between vampires and humans is over. Adele and Gareth are bringing order to a free Britain, but bloody murders in London raise the specter that Adele's geomancy is failing and the vampires might return. A new power could tilt the balance back to the vampire clans. A deranged human called the Witchfinder has surfaced on the Continent, serving new vampire lords. This geomancer has found a way to make vampires immune to geomancy and intends to give his masters the ability to kill humans on a massive scale.

The apocalyptic event in Edinburgh weakened Adele's geomantic abilities. If the Witchfinder can use geomancy against humanity, she may not have the power to stop him. If she can't, there is nowhere beyond his reach and no one he cannot kill.

From a Britain struggling to rebuild to the vampire capital of Paris, from the heart of the Equatorian Empire to a vampire monastery in far-away Tibet, old friends and past enemies return. Unexpected allies and terrible new villains arise. Adele and Gareth fight side-by-side as always, but they can never be the same if they hope to survive.


REVIEW:

Duo-authorship is something that is very hard to do. It can, at times be painfully obvious as to who writes what and one style can over power another without helping the book move at a consistent pace. Characters can also jump with traits so when you get a book from two authors that works wonderfully well, brings good storytelling to the fore alongside weaving dialogue that furthers development, all round means that it’s a writing team that not only stays with you but allows them that honoured place upon your TBR pile.

However, there are times when there are a large number of problems and for me, this series really doesn’t seem to fix the holes in the plot for me. I find that it can go from one extreme to another, in some places it seems great, yet in others, it becomes convoluted and loses a lot of its colour keeping it monochrome in an almost faded way so that its not as well built as it should have been.

Sadly for me, a series that I won’t be sticking with but when they start something else I’ll give it a good go as I do see some things that they do pretty well within.

No comments: