Shadowmancer by G.P. Taylor
I didn't finish Shadowmancer, finally giving up about three-quarters of the way through after oh-so-painfully forcing my way through to that point.
The reasons for not finishing are pretty basic. The characters are mere shadows (no pun intended) of real people, offered up in mostly two-dimensional form with the occasional attempt at depth through clumsy and often lengthy interior exposition. Motivations are either never explored or shift with blinding speed. The plot is a pretty helpless muddle, filled with inconsistencies, gaps, abrupt shifts, relatively unimportant scenes, and improbable actions all layered through with a hodgepodge of myths and magic. The Christian agenda, while not a problem in its own right, is so unsubtle, so pasted on, that one wonders why the author even bothered to change the names of the major figures. After a while the direct quotations from the Bibl... Read More
More fantasy novels by G.P. Taylor
Mariah Mundi — (2007-2011) Publisher: The Prince Regent is no ordinary hotel — powered entirely by steam, run by an eccentric inventor who doesn’t believe in sleep, it’s a place full of shadowy characters and dangerous secrets. Mariah has just started working there as a magician’s assistant, and when he and his coworker Sacha unwittingly learn more than they were meant to know, they suddenly find themselves pawns in an evil plot so full of twists and turns that even the labyrinth of hidden tunnels and caverns beneath the hotel can’t contain it. As they struggle to unravel the mystery and stay alive in the process, encountering secret rooms, enchanted objects and vicious mythical creatures, they question whom to trust. All the adults — even the ones offering help — seem to be hiding something. After all, Mariah only got his job because his predecessor vanished one night — and, as Mariah is fast realizing, not all magic tricks are illusions.
The DoppleGanger Chronicles — (2008-2011) Publisher: From the best-selling author of Shadowmancer comes an enthralling new series of illustra-novellas. The First Escape is the first book in the Dopple Ganger Chronicles, a six-book series following three children — Sadie and Saskia Dopple and Erik Morrissey Ganger. Sadie and Saskia are mischievous identical twins living at an orphanage, where Erik is their only friend. They are separated when Saskia is adopted by Muzz Elliott, a wealthy woman searching for her long-lost family treasure. While Saskia stumbles into the center of a crime only she can stop, Sadie and Erik embark on a quest to find her. This book is in an exciting new format called an “illustra-novella,” in which the story is told alternately in graphic novel format and plain text with occasional illustrations.
Vampyre Labyrinth — (2009-2011) Publisher: You will come to know hell better than most, Jago. I have waited all these years for you to come back to this town. England, 1940: Britain is entrenched in war with the Germans when young Jago is evacuated from the Blitz bombings in London to the Yorkshire coast. With just the memory of his dead mother for comfort, Jago is desperate only to survive the war in some peace. But arriving at the hostile Streonshalgh Manor in the town of Whitby, he is confronted with cruel and frenzied locals, seemingly possessed by ancient stories of clannish retribution and sadistic horrors. The RedEye comet hovers fatefully over the town; people are being viciously killed; and Jago’s nights are spent as waking nightmares, darting through bloodstained and murderous streets. As shades of his past come rushing back to haunt him, Jago must confront the truth of this town — the perilous and violent truth of the ancient Vampyres.
Stand-alone novels:
Wormwood — (2004) Publisher: When a meteor strikes London, its inhabitants are devastated. It’s not long before corrupt individuals start taking advantage of the disaster and, with the city lying in ruins, nothing seems certain to those who dwell there. In only they knew that, held captive and tucked away in an attic in the city, there is an angel. An angel who fell to earth with the meteor, whose only hope lies in the friendship of a servant girl named Agetta. For in this dark time of treachery and deceit, escape is not likely to come easily.
Tersias — (2005) Publisher: London is living through one of its darkest times — a comet has just missed the Earth, leaving the city in chaos and the people fearing an apocalypse. Tersias, a blind boy oracle, has predicted the comet and sees visions of the future through the darkness. As Tersias’s powers strengthen, people who seek to use them are drawn from the shadows; Malachi, a charlatan magician, Jonah, a desperate highwayman and Lord Malpas, a keeper of mysterious powers. But none of them are aware of a much darker force that torments Tersias’s soul… A gripping tale of intrigue and sorcery set in a richly atmospheric London.
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