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Book Review: The Guardian’s Gambit (The Felinity Chronicles Book 1) by JR Konkol

cover art for The Guardian's Gambit (The Felinity Chronicles #1) by JR Konkol

The Guardian’s Gambit (The Felinity Chronicles Book 1) by JR Konkol

Black Rose Publishing, 2024

ISBN: 9781685135058

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:  Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

 

A superbly enthralling fantasy tale of cats, magic, and alternate dimensions, The Guardian’s Gambit is an absolute must-read.  It’s the best animal-centered story I’ve read since Tad Williams’s Tailchaser’s Song came out all those years ago.  Fantasy fans, you do not want to miss this one.

 

The story is told in third person, with the reader getting the thoughts of four cats: Gaius, Ajax, Loki, and Shaman.  It’s clear from the writing the author knows cats very well: he has all their typical mannerisms and actions down perfectly.  Where the story excels is in how he incorporates these into the fantasy elements of the story. For example, we all know cats sleep a great deal.  In the book, when asleep, they enter the Dreaming, an alternate reality loosely based on the mundane world, where most of the story takes place.  It’s a fascinating place of magic and horrible monsters, where the cats fight to the last claw to preserve their own reality.  The enemies in the Dreaming are legion, from amped-up coyotes to giant mutant spiders.  There’s a good deal of world building involved, complete with many cat-centric terms invented for the story.  The author deserves credit for weaving them into the narrative in a way that avoids reader confusion, dropping little reminders when needed.  It’s a sprawling but tightly-written story that’s impossible to avoid getting pulled into.

 

With a great storyline, you need great characters that the readers will be invested in, and Gaius, Ajax, Loki, and Shaman certainly fit the bill.  They have differing personalities, physical abilities and magic powers that complement each other and strengthen the group as a whole.  Gaius is the leader and thinker, Ajax the muscle, and Loki the clever one, while Shaman’s abilities as a magician develop over the course of the tale (tail?), and are one of the central tenets of the story.  There’s also a strong supporting cast of other cats and ghosts, who help, and sometimes hinder, the four companions.  There’s plenty of excitement, but also genuine emotional heft to some scenes.  Loki’s entrapment is enough to cause reader panic, and his pondering on the merits of being a warrior at the expense of a normal life is genuinely touching.  The protagonists pull you in hard, and reader emotions will ride up and down with them as they face myriad dangers.

 

Bottom line: for fantasy readers, this is a “do NOT miss”, and one of the best of 2024.  Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on November 5, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Asylum (Selected Papers from the Consortium for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena #3) by Sarah Hans

Cover art for Asylum by Sarah Hans

Asylum (Selected Papers from the Consortium for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena #3) by Sarah Hans

Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2024

ISBN:: 9781947879683

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com

 

Asylum is a quick, less than 100 page novella that seem to be all the rage nowadays.  It’s fast fun, and good enough for a couple hours of escapism.  This one could have gone on longer, if it had been fleshed out in a few places.

 

When you have four meth junkies (Ashleigh, Connor, Dean, and Kayla) on the run from the cops, what’s the logical place for them to hide out?  Why, an abandoned asylum on a mountain, of course!  Most of the story takes place in the asylum, as the four of them wind up with more than they expected.  For the necessary supernatural element, it’s the legend of Perry the Panther, some sort of cat-man that supposedly resides in the area.  As might be expected, four addicts who soon run out of meth will be at each other’s throats, and they quickly are.  Naturally, a creepy asylum needs something to make it abnormal, and in this case it’s the large number of cats who inhabit the building.  A feral colony, or servants of Perry?  Everything quickly devolves into survival, as the four humans not only have themselves to contend with, but the weird things happening at the asylum as well.

 

The writing is fine, and good enough to keep your attention through the 93 pages.  There aren’t really any unexpected twists, and the plot can be guessed reasonably well as you go along.  But, as long as it’s written well enough, and this is, it really doesn’t matter.  As noted earlier, this is one that actually had the potential to be a longer and better story.   Most of the book focuses on the characters, and there isn’t a ton of attention paid to the cats and Perry.  Developing that angle further would have given a nice boost to the story, as they are the big unknown in the story, and part of what keeps you interested.  Furthering that backstory would have increased the ‘fear of the unknown’ factor, and given the story more lift.  As it is, it’s a good book, but it could have been better..

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If you need a quick horror story to pass an evening or two, this will do it, but let’s hope for further development of Perry and the cats at some point.  They are intriguing enough to warrant revisiting.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

 

Posted on July 27, 2024 by , Reply

Graphic Novel Review: Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites by Evan Dorkin, art by Jill Thomspon

Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites by Evan Dorkin, art by Jill Thompson

Dark Horse, 2018

ISBN-13: 9781506706368

Available: Hardback, paperback, Kindle ebook

Burden Hill is a peaceful suburb like any other, with well-kept yards, families, and their adoring and loyal pets…some of whom happen to be paranormal investigators. Witches, demonic frogs, werewolves, and zombie dogs are a few of the problems these brave investigators face in Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites.

The main characters in this are a group of dogs and one sassy cat. Wise dogs are summoned by the neighborhood dogs when they need guidance, something these brave souls are always ready to give. There is a black cat “familiar” looking to redeem herself in the eyes of the animals she once tried to kill. Humans have very little influence on the story, and when they are interjected into the story, it is heartbreaking and powerful simply because of the choices the animals in the story make willingly or are forced to make at the power of the supernatural.

Dorkin expertly weaves tales about loyalty, courage, acceptance, personal accountability, and a host of other very human emotions all bundled in these animal bodies. Each creature has a distinct personality. They even have their own religion, which the reader gets a glimpse of when the dogs hold a funeral service for dogs who were killed because of careless drivers. Adding Thompson’s beautiful artwork makes Dorkin’s story even stronger. It’s easy to take a few minutes to get lost in some of the fine details she includes in the panels, especially regarding the story of Hazel needing help finding her lost puppies.

Award-winning comics creators Evan Dorkin (Milk & Cheese) and Jill Thompson (Scary Godmother) first introduced the characters of Beasts of Burden in The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings. They both won Eisner awards for Best Short Story (Dorkin) and Best Painter (Thompson). Animal Rites collects the earliest stories and the four-issue comic series Beasts of Burden. This isn’t exactly a kid-friendly read, so if you have young readers of Scary Godmother, be aware that there is content that may be disturbing. This would be a good read for YA and above depending on how well they do with such. I will say that there were a few times I had to take a few minutes between stories because of how much this team is able to call up emotions so effectively using animals as the storytellers. It’s truly beautiful, terrifying, heartbreaking, and hopeful all in one book. Highly recommended.

 

Contains: blood, brief nudity, mention of animal abuse

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on May 28, 2018 by , Reply
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