Between the Devil and Ian Eversea
356794
I love the Pennyroyal series this was another hit. Found myself falling in love with both Ian and Tanzania. Tho it didn't seem like I would like them as you get into their story you can't help falling in love as Elvis would say !!!
3872813
THE TROUBLE WITH SIN is the second youthful vignette in the Devil DeVere series and picks up shortly after the lion escapade in Devil in the Making.  Simon, Ned, & Devil were quite the trio in their youth.  Individually they're so different yet complement each other perfectly and have a strong deep bond.  They're true friends in every sense.  This short focuses mainly on Simon Singleton, better known as Sin.

Devil ~ the sobriquet is self explanatory though deceptive.
Ned is dutiful, practical and more of a homebody than either Simon or Devil.
Simon Singleton aka Sin is the poet, dreamer, and lover of women in all their variations.  He truly loves women in a way that is fairly rare.

Simon has managed to scamper through life so far.  He's making money penning verse for Harris the pimps' infamous guide book and has so far managed to avoid any serious repercussions from the lion incident.  Unfortunately his "work" combined with his mother's discovery of him in a disadvantageous situation with the twins Brigid and Bronaugh O'Malley brings his carefree life to a screeching halt.  Simon is bought an army commission and sent to the Colonies to serve in one of his Uncle Thomas' units.  This is the worst punishment conceivable for someone like Simon.  Uncle Thomas has recently been appointed commander-in-chief of his Majesty's North American Forces fighting the Revolutionary War.
For the most part THE TROUBLE WITH SIN is a lighthearted romp until we reach the Epilogue which gives a glimpse of the beginning of Simon's hell.
THE TROUBLE WITH SIN serves to highlight the drastic difference between the boy we meet in the youthful vignettes and the broken man who returns to England in THE DEVIL'S TOUCH after being a POW for six years.  It's truly a stroke of genius on Devil's part that he conceives the plan to have Salime and Simon heal each other.  Considering the scars, physical, mental and emotional both carry I expect their journey to be passionately moving.
I'm even more eager now to read JEWEL OF THE EAST.
Reviewed by IvyD for Manic Readers
1246464
Every soul is judged by events throughout his or her life. Some souls have lived many lives, and each soul that is born has a demon within. Usually, one that has lived similar amount of lives to the soul but thats not always the case.

Joe has heard a voice inside his head since he was a child. After a little guidance from a teacher, he finds that he can also converse with this voice within his head. The voice knows things and can help him to defend himself and to help others.

Michael is defending Joes soul in front of the council to decide the soul's fate; Paradise or the Abyss? This soul seems different but Michael has no idea why. It seems like Prophecy is trying to help Michael win his case but Michael is unsure whether thats even possible.

This was a very different read than Ive had in a while. Well written and constructed, if you are looking for something original this is the book for you. There were times that I was a little confused on what was happening but I think that was the point.
1389095
Michael Moorcock absolutely nails this book.  Set in the middle ages, Von Bek finds himself literally making a deal with the devil.
One of the best storylines I've ever had the pleasure of reading.  Filled with action and adventure and every monster you can imagine, this is the story of a warrior seeking the opportunity to save his lost soul.  The imagery is amazing in this story of the eternal battle between good and evil. Read it and ride along with Von Bek through the Mittlemarches!
91591
'Monster & Madman' is a story where Frankenstein's monster comes face to face with Jack the Ripper. That should give you a hint to it's dark nature, but it's the art by Damien Worm that really sells this one for me.

When the monster emerges from the ice, he takes a job on a ship heading back to Europe. Upon arrival, the ship's captain wants him to murder a man, which is against his nature and leads to an interesting twist. Frankenstein's monster is hideous, but he is intelligent and no monster inside.

He finds himself in London, and trying to hide. He is taken in by a doctor who is most intrigued by his construction. He promises that in turn for a thorough examination, this doctor will try to create a new bride for this monster. Will the bride be horrified by her new husband or the circumstances of her construction?

It's a good story that is elevated by the artwork. The art is murky and difficult to discern, but that fits this story completely. My only concern was with the lettering in some of the panels, but I really enjoyed this one.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Diamond Book Distributors, IDW Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this great, gothic graphic novel.
1635413
This is a great story of how the human race has an inherent desire to overcome evil and help the innocent. Dan Lord's writing is the medium between Ted Dekker and C.S. Lewis (though more like Dekker). The writing & most themes in Lord's work is more mature like Dekker's but some themes are akin to Lewis' understanding of Christianity. And in comparing Lord to the other authors, I'm mainly thinking of Dekker's Circle series and Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.

I looked up the names of some of the boys and it seems like most of them are older surnames, though I'm sure some like Benjamus were given names. Even if they weren't, they seem legitimate enough! I love that!

Zechariah is a Protector, who has been around since the Garden of Eden. He was transferred to an island where 800 years ago (during the time of the Crusades), boys came to him who dropped out of nowhere.

And on the island, no one ages.

They were outsmarted by a demon named Kak, who was also in Eden. The "serpent," really. A servant of The Corpse, or as th demons refer to him the World King, who I assume is simply the Devil.

A man named Leo Von Koppersmith learns that his ancestor (who actually led the children) made a deal with Kak. And thus begins a story of a familial curse/spiritual attack based on a deal with essentially the devil. All the guilt and pain just trickled down, particularly through the famiy's wealth, though likely fueled by evil.
The ghost of that ancestor is creepy and yet sad.

The Protector and Leo are thrown together in our world, are brought back to the island of boys, and have to determine a way to defeat Kak (if that is even possible).

We see that there are very real and eternal consequences when dealing with demons that change our being if not our core. And when the innocence of childhood leaves us, we become more susceptible to the devil's ministrations.
2051179
I discovered Wayne Barlow through his artwork, in particular the imagery of Hell he created for this book. When I discovered that he wrote a book involving those characters I immediately bought it. The book draws a great deal of inspiration from Paradise Lost and the Divine Comedy. As anyone familiar with me knows that I'm a huge fan of Paradise Lost. I also enjoy people's different interpretations of it and this is a good one.

The author's realisation of Hell is outstanding with a great attention to detail. As can be expected it is a brutal domain, but it's a cold and unfeeling Hell. Hell existed with its own denizens before the Fall and the arrival of the cast out angels and condemned human souls transforms the landscape.

Beyond the well crafted setting there's the core story of the search for redemption with one of the Demon Lords wanting to return to Heaven. It's a grand quest and one that involves the first true war in Hell. The campaign follows a familiar path, however there are some twists and turns and imaginative use of the demons and souls abilities to keep things interesting.

The tale is told from a few different perspectives, each carrying a different theme. Lilith's is a fascinating story, mainly because it differs from the others considerably. She's also the only female character of any significance in the story.

While I enjoyed the story a lot it does have some issues. The first is that the author doesn't wield words quite as well as paintbrush and the writing has a ponderous feel to it. It captures the scale of the events, but provides a bit of barrier for the first few chapters.

Considering the subject matter I expected more on the philosophical side and in particular more about the war in Heaven. It's mentioned as background and Lucifer is portrayed as the bad guy - he takes no part in the story directly though. He has mysteriously disappeared and I hope there is a future book revealing more about that.

Overall I liked it a lot. There are some flaws with the book, but it's a fine and imaginative read.
790568
This part can be a little cheesy at times but it is probably my fav after the original. (Best scene) When police agents raid a house thinking the people inside are selling drugs, and what they find is astounding. The culprits are actually Devil worshippers selling human heads to other satanic cults for sacrificial purposes. The agents find a video tape and it shows some of the cland horrendous murders that they have committed. There are some other good parts to. I don't know why but I really like this part of the quadrilogy.
1361218
The Gentleman Devil.

The Earl of Brass caught my attention and opened me up to something new, but The Gentleman Devil just shows how much an author can grow, improve and shine in their prospective literary prowess.

Immanuel Winter is a man choses to save the life of another. A simple act of kindness and he plunges into the Thames in attempt to rescue Emmeline Jardine.

Unknowingly both are in over their heads when compassion leads them on a journey deep into the dark psyche of one Alastair Rose. This is a man ruled of ambitious desires who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals including leaving poor Immanuel brutellaly crushed and broken beyond his physical shell.

Will compassion and love bring him from the brink of the dark abyss?

Moved to tears by the disaster that befell Immanuel and in turn Emmeline's entwined fate. Immanuel's character is by far my favorite in this book. His trauma and triumph, his strength to confront the dark devil that plagues him with fear, and his hope to conquer it all with the help of blossoming love.

This journey is one I strongly recommend delving into more so than a stack of your favorite penny dreadfuls.
2303180
Clive Barker's Hell Priest, the demon or angel from the higher planes of pain and pleasure, the Cenobite known vulgarly as Pinhead has an ambitious vision.  As he pursues that vision, he attempts to recruit a detective gifted with a sensitivity for evil, and covered with tattoos that help him find his way when he opposes demons and ghosts, Harry D'Amour.  Pinhead wants D'Amour to be his chronicler, the observer who records Pinheads ascent to greater power in Hell and beyond.  Needless to say, D'Amour gives the demon an unequivocal 'no', but still gets drawn into battles and journeys on earth and in hell.

I enjoyed the story immensely.  The characters were well developed, the plot moved quickly, and the elements of the story connected well.  By any standard, this was an excellent horror/fantasy story.  But the style wasn't quite what I had expected.

The language and story were a departure from Barker's earlier style.  Compared to the book that introduced the Cenobites, Hellbound Heart, or the story that introduced D'Amour, The Last Illusion, Scarlet Gospels seemed less vibrant and less developed.  The descriptions were good, but lacked the intensity and visceral character of the earlier books.  The plot seemed more linear.  At one point, Barker was listing descriptors and ended with 'et cetera', which seemed very out of character. It read like a Barker story transcribed by a mentally and emotionally healthier person.  The book was good, and I enjoyed it, but the feel of it was unexpected, having read many books by Barker.

A great horror novel, despite being a departure from Barker's usual style.

Edward M. Van Court
147653
Plot

A down and out man named Jack, for whom nothing goes right, is about to start an amazing adventure. First he meets and beats the Devil not once, but twice. Then he sets out on a journey to find himself and ends up creating a legend.

This is a version of Halloween or Samhain and of the origin of the Jack O'Lantern. Interesting take on an ancient theme.

Characters

Jack O'Lantern: blacksmith, gambler

The Devil

Other than some minor characters Jack and the Devil are the major two. There's a fair amount of information on Jack. No physical details for him.

Dialogue

Some of the dialogue is with quotes and some delineated by dashes. I'm not sure why the author did this but in one case he mixed the two. Probably should have chosen one for all dialogue.

Writing

Titled chapters. Long and complex sentences. Relatively short story.

The writing is lofty and prosaic yet-and despite the complexity-simple. That's not to say childishly simple, just plain, to the point. With the writing style and the 'age' of the story, I found the use of the word 'pinball' out of place.

This story is all the narrator telling the story. There are a few instances of Jack's thoughts, but from the narrator's POV. Because of this I didn't really get into the character of Jack, to really feel him or for him. This is an overview of Jack's life with little detail on his youth and scant details about his adult life. Maybe some more specific instances of adventures as we saw with his meetings with the Devil? More showing?

My Rank:

Green Belt
1728874
War is hell in Graham Masterton`s The Devils of D-Day (1979), a wonderfully succint novel about demons taking part in the invasion of Normandy. Coming a year after James Herbert`s The Spear, a novel which similarly mixed the war with the occult, The Devils of D-Day turns the old adage of nazi black magic on its head by putting the devils into US Army tanks.

30 years after the event an American cartographer stumbles on one of the notorious black tanks on a roadside in a picturesque French village. And apparently the driver is still inside the sealed tank. For years the demon has caused occasional mischief, such as spoiling the milk and causing eggs to rot, not to mention killing some people. Can't have such things in our pastoral village, now can we? After receiving some nudging from the demon, the American decides to release the village from its pestering scourge.

With the help of a local priest a bag of dusty demon bones is recovered from the tank. But before the bones can be properly exorcised, the demon gains its true form and guts the priest and forces the American and a local farmgirl to take it to its twelve brothers, so they can call up their master, a properly demonic devil, Adramelech. And off they go, in search of the other devils of D-Day.

The search proceeds without a hitch, quickly resulting in a traditional good vs. evil smackdown in a secret government facility in central London where warmongers are trying to come up with ways to use the demons as a relatively low-cost weapon. After all the demons don't demand a payment in money, just blood.

The short novel clocks in at a nice 180 pages; there are no subplots, no flashbacks or jumps in time. The novel begins with the main character and doggedly follows him until the finale in London several days later. The writing is effective and to the point, there's no unnecessary rambling. None of the characters are fleshed out in any way, but then again, this isn't that kind of a novel. It's supposed to be cheesy fun and cheesy fun it is, literary quality be damned.

An early work by the profilic Masterton, The Devils of D-Day also bears all the hallmarks of late 70s, early 80s horror. It's unabashedly, traditionally Satanic; Slayer`s early eighties albums would provide a great soundtrack if a movie version was ever made. The names of angels and demons are batted about with great abandon, and while in France you can and should of course have a priest called Father Anton, living near a town called Le Vey (sic). Satanic spells are also cast frequently, sometimes through a recording device (similar to Evil Dead movies many years later). In a note at the beginning, the author even warns not to mess around with this stuff because it's all real. As said previously, the cheese is strong in this one. The demons themselves are cartoonish, mocking, perverse little creatures that are more childish than truly frightening.

However, the novel is serious about the war, and even shows sympathy for the common German soldiers butchered by the American demons. According to the novel, the powers-that-be have utilised the demons in wars throughout history, with the demons only too happy to oblige. It's not too far-fetched to see the demons as weapons of mass destruction similar to chemical weapons or the nuclear bomb, the latter being something that was especially prevalent in the late 70s and early 80s culture. Somebody human is always behind the button, whether that button releases demons - or something worse.
3819442
Oxford, UK present day. Detective Arthur Wallace is on the trail of a serial killer known to brutally slash victims in a peculiar way. A hunch leads to a construction site where Wallace witnesses the killer take another victim at blinding speed with a katana (samurai sword to you amateurs) with a familiar result but the victim does not just die. Something ghastly inhuman is released that freezes Wallace in his tracks. Then the killer, a young wild looking girl, leaps over the side of the five story building and disappears. Wallace is recruited by MI37, a shadowy branch of British intelligence and is thrust into a desperate battle against the multi-dimensional Progeny who infect and control humans attempting to build enough power to summon the Feeders to consume our reality. The writing is from the first person view of Wallace in a combination of Harry Potter and Mike Hammer or Sam Spade. It has the feeling of film-noir overlaid with images from Lovecraft and the Simpsons. The book is great fun to read and never lets up the tension and the feeling that nothing makes sense. Or does it? I guess you will just have to read it to find out.
364337
Just spent time over the holiday weekend reading over Steve Nedelton's occult novel called The Last Omen. This novel will appeal to readers of horror and paranormal thrillers. It's a classic blend of both that you won't want to overlook. The main character happens to be a successful writer who has also inherited a home from his uncle. Trouble begins when he makes a visit to his bank and meets the manager. That's when strange hallucinations start to haunt him. There are also some issues with the home he inhabits (i.e., satanic rituals from the past). The story gave me goosebumps and that alone, in my opinion, is the mark of a compelling writer. The novel takes on a level of complexity that most occult genres ignore by introducing us to a series of well developed characters who help unravel the horror. The conclusion is not one that you'd expect!
2496775
"The White Devil" is a story about an American teenager, Andrew Taylor, who is sent to Harrow School in England to finish his high school year.  Harrow School is famed for its historically famous students like Lord Byron.  Andrew's uncanny resemblance to the itinerant genius poet starts a strange string of events beginning with the death of one of his housemates.  Andrew witnessed his friend being choked to death by some phantasm and unable to explain how this happened drives Andrew to investigate the rumors that have surrounded the 400-year old school.  His efforts are constantly thwarted by the school's effort to cover up the deaths that follow, explaining them away as some epidemic of a deadly sort.  Yet as Andrew digs deeper into Byron's past, he uncovers that the past is intermingling with the present with fatal consequences.  I'm glad I've seen a fictional movie of Byron starring Johnny Lee Miller sometime back and it made me understand the background of this story. This is a fantastic read, fast-paced and exciting.  I highly recommend it for a good chill down your spine.
1347416
I picked up Melinda Snodgrasss The Edge of Reason (2009) because she wrote one of my favorite Uhura classic Trek pro novels, and I like her writing. The Edge is a little uncomfortable in places but riveting throughout. It has a clever concept. Religions today use magic and Lucifer is using science to help save the world. For that, he needs a broom-up-his-butt cop in New Mexico who accidentally witnesses a battle between the two factions and rescues a young witch. The poor cop, a pretty rich kid from Connecticut has a walk-in closet of skeletons, but is obsessed with doing the right thing. The reason Lucifer is interested in him is that Kit is completely magic-free. To the magical bad guys, Kit is invisible.

Lucifer enlists him in the celestial army between good and evil (on the side of goodness and science), and as a powerful gazillionaire with connections, he orders the new beat cop promoted. Kit the cop has no problem accepting the spells and magic, but he has a little more trouble being seen as the pampered golden boy detective. Ignoring the sneers, he enlists the help of his partner and the coroner, telling them the real secret of secret societies. Since humans crawled out of the cave, their irrational fears have opened dimensional doorways and let monsters (and gods) through. With the arrival of creationism and intelligent design, some big holes are opening up and some hairy monsters are planning to come through.

Poor Kit the cop and his intrepid ensemble (the nuclear scientist witch, the bum who keeps blowing up and shattering into some dangerous copies, his streetwise partner, and the coroner eager to jump Kits bones) try to track down mysterious murders while refusing a deal with a human devil (a televangelist). When dark, sexual secrets about Kit come out and his mother is coerced into suicide, monsters run amok and Kit has to relive his brutal past to prevent the end of the world.

If you can get past the grisly bits (poor Kit was too pretty for his own good as a youngster), the rest of the story is a roller coaster ride. Kit hops across the US tracking down evil-doers and monsters. Someone from his own team has been seduced by the other side. His father hates him. Lucifer is incapacitated, and Kit has no choice but to call in the cavalry.

It ends rather abruptly with the team members promising the keep up the good fight and is obviously a set up for further adventures of Kit and his Scoobies against dimensional demons. I may need to take a shower and read something a little less disturbing before I tackle the sequel.
2370611
Angel of the Abyss is an enjoyable, well-witten thriller whose story takes place in two different eras, one the era of silent movies and the second, our era . What makes the book so goo is that the author moves between the two in alternating chapters and that he does it so well, without confusing the story line's flow and without irritating thiis reader , as often happens when a writer loses control of his material.  Everything flows, everything comes together as the two story lines make for a thrilling climax.

The plot, briefly: graham Woodard, a film restorer technician, is hired by a silent film buff who has found  a reel of a lost silent Classic, Angel of the Abyss. This movie had been thought lost forever, it's highly volatile nitrate film stock probably degraded  into bits. But here was one reel, with most of the rest of the reels waiting back in Hollywood for Graham to restore. One reason the movie is considered to be a classic was that the ingenue star, Grace Baron, mysteriously disappeared before the film was ever released; another was that the silent film was rarely exhibited inthe USA, and the director left the country.
When Graham Woodard arrives at the California office of the Silent Film Society director who hired him, he finds her dead, murdered. Back and forth, between chapters describing the making of A ot A, and chapters of the danger and death stalking Woodard and his search for why this simple film project has become so dangerous the tension grows.

An entertaining, interesting, different crime novel. As one who loves classic movies, classic black and white " noir"  mysteries and thrillers in general. This book really appealed to me, and I recommend it  highly.