I’ve been reading Keith R.A. DeCandido’s reviews on Tor dot com for years and I’ve loved them. His Trek rewatches and superhero reviews are excellent, and I have been enjoying his Babylon 5 rewatch immensely. I’ve not been too enamored of his prose fiction in the past, but I thought i should give it another go.
So when I saw one of his novels on NetGalley I was curious to see if I would like it, and I thank NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for this honest review. This book, unlike the dragon precinct books, which are fantasy police procedurals in a generic D&D style fantasy world, is a fantasy police procedural in what is supposed to be modern New York City.
I was very disappointed by this book. If I didn’t know the writer from his excellent reviews and web articles, I would’ve thought it was from a two-bit hack who knew nothing about fantasy, New York, police procedurals, or writing in general.
The characters were interchangeable, unlikable, and boring, and the plot by the numbers. After seeing the author complain in his superhero movie reviews about how many superhero movies devolve into the heroes having to close a glowing circle in the sky, imagine my surprise when the climax of this book involved the heroes having to close a glowing circle in the sky. It was so trite! And although I am not a police officer, I know a little bit about how the NYPD and law enforcement in New York operates, and if the author had done any actual research beyond watching law &order reruns, it doesn’t show here. I cannot recommend a book that irritated me so much.
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