Customer Reviews

Strange Magic

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I was looking forward to Gord Rollo's follow-up to the excellent Jigsaw Man and hoping it wouldn't be as bad as Crimson. Unfortunately, it was worse.

In Strange Magic, one magician, the Heatseeker, seeks revenge on another former magician, the Iceman. Besides having a sympathetic and lovable loser as a protagonist, this story has nothing to offer.

The book reads like a 100-page idea padded to novel length. It jumps POVs unnecessarily, including to that of a character that has no important role in the plot. The Heatseeker warns the Iceman that he has arrived, thus ruining the element of surprise and allowing the Iceman to prepare. This comes across as a contrivance, another ploy to lengthen the story. And the plot plods along predictably to a tired climax. Despite years of preparation, the Heatseeker's revenge simply consists of taking a hostage and holding a blade to said hostage's throat, complete with eye-rollingly bad dialogue on the level of "Drop the gun or else." Even worse, several pages later, the scene is repeated!

I don't understand why this book has rated so highly on the US Amazon site. I find it discouraging that people are encouraging authors to write such unimaginative drivel. Read anything by Gary Braunbeck instead.