Review: Daemon World - Ben Counter

Title Daemon World

Author Ben Counter

Year 2003

Stand Alone or Series Stand Alone

Pages 288

Reading Time 20 days (August to September of 2012)

Review

This review contains massive spoilers. You have been warned :)

This was a refreshing reading and one of the most interesting novels I read this year. This book contains no goodie character at all. Which is always good.

Characters 

Golgoth - The main character. A barbarian of the Emerald Sword. With the help of Kron becomes a ferocious warrior that unites each tribe surrounding "the city/Capital" or "Charybdia Keep" to fight for him against Lady Charybdia.

Kron/Karmulon and later Argulon Veq - Helps Golgoth receiving a few gifts just enough to become a champion and led the armies against the Pleasure City of Charybida.

Tarn - Mercenary and one of few survivors of the invasion force. Quite interesting character. Even if he was tottaly evil (even more than Golgoth because Tarn fought for killing men and not for some misguided thing like revenge like Golgoth).

Lady Charybdia ruler of Torvendis for the Pleasure God Slaanesh

Ss'll Sh'Karr Daemon Prince of Khorne. Defeated long time ago and now released by Kron

Torvendis The World (why is it a character? You will understand later)

This tale is about Chaos. What it's Chaos and how does it work. In some ways this book resembles "Pawn of Chaos by Brian Craig. 

The plot is not that simple making a couple of switchs that makes you want to read more and more. That's what happenend to me. This book is about Arguleon Veq, there's no doubt about it but the main character is Golgoth as we follow him in his quest to fight Lady Charybdia. Kron who is Arguleon Veq helps him discover hidden magic within or understanding the way of the world. As I said the tribes unite to attack the keep (tribes before at war with themselves) but failed miserable because the Keep has milions of legionaries and even 400 violators chaos space marines. The Tribes are 150.000 and don't have any kind of weapons besides bows, swords and the such. As the daemon prince is free again by Kron the tide of the battle begins to change and the Keep falls. Lady Charybdia is killed by Ss'll Sh'Karr. After the battle with the lust not yet sated or something else (it's a daemon and we must not understand their reasons) he begins to kill his previously allies. Such is the way of Khorne and Chaos for that matter. Golgoth and Tarn are the only survivors (as far as they Know) and the go to ancient citadel led by a message of Kron. Kron is trying to escape a coven of Word Bearers just to find that Kron is indeed Veq. Of course, being Veq he soon dispatchs all the Word Bearers even if tries to "free" them from Chaos claws. As Golgoth arrives at the keep he discovers a sword. A sword that was used by Veq to imprisoned The Last. The Last being... Torvandis. Here some sentences of the book that will give us some insight.

Torvendis, last of the eldar maiden worlds, wanted revenge as much as Arguleon Veq. Revenge against Chaos, wich was such a vast and all-consuming power that only the grandest of gestures could hurt it's gods. Only the loss of a symbol like Torvendis would be enough for them to notice.

It is a story of how a once-beautiful eldar maiden world was defeated by a Champion of Chaos, who then turned against the dark powers. It tells of how he woke the maiden world 's spirit, now insane, and let it destroy itself so the daemon world would be lost to chaos forever.

And thus end this story. Quite excelent. And Ben Counter stated that he probably won't return to this book because..."Sadly a sequel is unlikely since everyone in the entire plot is dead including the daemon world itself, so Torvendisʹs story has conclusively finished. But Daemon World lives on every time I have a daemon turn into something unfathomably horrible, every time the warp wreaks madness in realspace or the rules or reality break down. Veq lives on, too, as a lesson about what Chaos truly is and what it can do the the most stalwart soul"

So what was about this book that made him so great?

The writing style is fast paced and with lot of information about the world and each character. Even minor characters have their own story and Counter could give them life. As a daemon world there is no peace or forgiveness or even honour. That was interesting. Another thing that made me want to read more chaos novels was the war between the Dark Gods. Khorne is an enemy of the Imperium as he enemy of other major chaos god. But particular against Slaanesh. I found the characters that worship to Slaanesh quite good as we read about their pleasures and how they tried to work for their god. Even Death to them is a bless to Slaanesh. The ultimate pleasure. I found out the city created by Counter as belieable (in this set of course). There are also hints all about the book about Veq, Torvendis and their part on the story.

Memorable passages from the book

Unfortunally I only start writing them down later in the book...

"The gods are laughing at you. They own your body and soul, and what can you do? You can never live a normal life. You are filled with hate."-"Think about it, Word Bearer. What is Chaos? Chaos is a lie."

"They (Chaos) know how you will react in every situation.Nothing you do is your own."-"The power you have isn't power at all.You could run a milion klm and the gods would still own you.You could fight until everything in the galaxy was dead, and they would still find a war to chew you up."-"Is that power? No. That is addiction.Power is something you can use to win your own victories.But nothing you have ever done is your own."

"Daemons are afraid? "No mortal could ever understand what thoughts run through the mind of a daemon. But if Ss'll Sh'Karr could ever be capable of feeling fear, perhaps it was then, when the Blood God's chose was confronted with a foe that even he could not best." (The beast is called The Last)"...huge circular maw a thousand kilometers across."

"Arguleon Veq is probably the most badass/hero/anti-hero of the galaxy no? "Veq swatted away a score of bullets from the obliterator and caught three more with his free hand, throwing them back down to the floor of the bridge with a curse." - " The star-sword cut through the air as Veq met every bullet, sending a sparkling fan of deflected fire in every direction."

"Torvendis can never be fully mapped. The deserts change to forest, the glaciers to rivers of lava... Trying to chart it seems to make the landscape change even faster as if Torvendis takes exception to any attempt to unravel it's secrets with compass and map."

"Many sages and prophets had tried to divide the planet's history into neat slices of time, and all died insane."

10/10

Review - Temple - Matthew Reilly

Title Temple

Author - Matthew Reilly

Year 1999

Stand Alone or Series Stand Alone

Pages 763

Reading Time - 10 days August 2012

Synospsis

Deep in the jungles of Peru the contest of the century is underway. It's a race to locate a legendary Incan idol - one carved out of a strange kind of stone. But a stone which in the present century could be used for a terrifying new purpose.

Now rival groups are assembling their teams to hunt the idol down, at any cost.

The only clue to the idol's final resting place is to be found in a 400-year-old manuscript. Which introduces Professor William Race, a mild-mannered but brilliant young linguist who is unwillingly recruited to interpret the document that could lead to the idol itself.

So begins the mission that will lead Race and his companions to a mysterious temple hidden in the foothills of the Andes. There they find a carefully contrived sanctuary seething with menace and unexpected dangers. But it is not until the silence of the temple is breached that Race and his team discover they have broken a golden rule . . .

Some doors are meant to remain unopened.

Review

This was probably the longest book I've read and I read in a week or so. For me it's an achievement.

This is a thriller as it should be with a fast paced narrative with an interesting plot, albeit in the end being kind of funny. My number one question is: Who the heck is the bad guy? First were the Germans, then the Nazis (also germans eheh), then the rapas, then the other branches of USA and in the end the fundamentalists from America/Japanese... This book was written before 9/11 or else the writer should had the space to put the arabs there too. Strangely he didn't put any chinese or jews...

Pro et Contra 

Pros...

-The aforementioned diversity of adversaries.

-The story within the story. The story about the priest and the mayans is interesting abeith unrealistic because of the writing style (Of course I understand if it was written as a priest would had written would be boring to noawdays standard.

-The plot. Interesting even if the science was wrong.

-USA's Army against USAF. Interesting to see the rivarly that exists between the armed forces of USA.

Cons

-The Main character. Totally unbelievable character. He is like... Indiana Jones... BUT EVEN BETTER! 

-His companions. A couple of green berets exploded boats, helicopters and took care of 40 or more Nazis (previously being said that they were the best of the best with uber-machines guns).

There are other couple of things that were a little strenched but this is fiction and a thriller so I let it slide. Those two were pretty annoying.

Would I advice this book to anyone? Yes. Of course. The story it's fast paced and that's what you can expect from a thriller/adventure novel. The characters are a little 2sided but what a heck. It's about fun  6/10

Review: The Menstruating Mall - Carlton Mellick III

Title The Menstruating Mall

Author Carlton Mellick III 

Year 2005

Stand Alone or Series Stand Alone

Pages 212

Reading Time 27 August 0212

Synopsis

Ten ridiculously stereotypical consumer victims (a yuppie, a housewife, a retiree, a jock, a bible thumper, a cowboy, a preppy, a gamer, a goth, and a white suburban gangsta) find themselves unable to leave the mall one day. There is nothing stopping them. The doors are unlocked. Other shoppers are able to come and go as they please. But for some inexplicable reason, these ten people cannot pry themselves away from their shopping miasma. The mall closes, and they won't leave. Days pass, and they're still there, eating meals in the food court and sleeping in department store bedroom displays. Then they begin to die off, one by one, murdered by a mysterious killer, and they still won't allow themselves to escape. Carlton Mellick III's "The Menstruating Mall" is both a modernized take on Luis Bunuel's "The Exterminating Angel," and a parody of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None." Featuring mock mall advertisements by retard punk hero Food Fortunata and cover art by Skin242.

Review

This was an interesting read. Bizarro is not my favourite genre and it will never be. But it's a genre I enjoy reading about from time to time. Carlton Mellick III is one of those writers I read and enjoyed it. Never to the point of being a fan but nevertheless I have three books by him. I tried other two books in the Bizarro genre and I didn't enjoy them thinking they were too odd for me. 

This novel reminds me of Agatha Christie "And then there were none" (or the original title "Ten Little Niggers"). A group of persons are locked together in a place and they are dying one by one. Who is the killer? 

Each character is a parody of a person Carlton Mellick met. There's a white boy who thinks he is black. There's a girl self-absorbed, a gothic who isn't really a gothic, a jockey who turns out to be gay or our main character who is an addicted to shopping and working. There is also a couple of other characters that get almost none cameo like the soccer mom, the cowboy or the fundamentalist. Interesting or not a black punk is also present and it's one of the main characters.

We get to know each character and it's story and they are almost all funny even if some are too 2dimensional. Of course I want to believe that it's done on purpose or Carlton is just a bad writer.

The book as almost 200 pages but each chapter has only one or two pages. There are also some drawings of publicity but I found them ridicolous and without any link to the story.

As the story progress I started reading faster and faster and I hope my train to Sintra had a delay (which usually has) so I could read a little more before arriving at home.

I really enjoy the first two parts. I don't know but I think Bentley Little could grab this book and make one heck of novel. The last part of the novel it's dry as a desert and I didn't enjoy at all. This is the second book by Carlton Mellick that I found the ending uninteresting.

Would I advice it to someone? To the Bizarro funs. Or to anyone who want's to try something new 6.5/10