Reading, Reviewing and the Morpheus Tales Supplement

I know, I’ve been slacking on the bloggage recently. I’ve been having a great time reading a load of excellent books, but not for the blog, for the October issue of the Morpheus Tales Supplement. As the deadline approaches I’m racing to finish Dead Bad Things by Gary McMahon, whose incredible Pretty Little Dead Things I reviewed a couple of weeks ago. (Go buy the book now, you can’t call yourself a true horror fan until you’ve read it!)

Coming up in the October issue of the FREE Morpheus Tales Supplement are the following reviews:

VAMPIRE WARLORDS By Andy Remic
THE OFFICE OF LOST AND FOUND By Vincent Holland-Keen
FINAL DAYS By Gary Gibson
DARK WAR By Tim Waggoner
DEBRIS By Jo Anderton

THE END OF THE LINE Edited By Jonathan Oliver
HELL’S DOCTOR By Lee F. Jordan
DESDAEMONA By Ben Macallan
COWBOYS & ALIENS By Joan D. Vinge
THE CROWN OF THE CONQUEROR By Gav Thorpe
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL By Justin Gustainis
AWAKENING By William Horwood
THE CROWN OF THE CONQUEROR By Gav Thorpe
EVILUTION By Shaun Jeffrey

Those first five are mine, and I’ll hopefully be able to squeeze some more in before it’s finally published in October. We’ll also have some great interviews, including the unstoppable Andy Remic and inexhaustible Paul Kane, and a Scream Queen that I haven’t picked out yet!

We’ll squeeze in as much good stuff as we possibly can!

Get your FREE copy of the current issue here:

http://issuu.com/morpheustales/docs/13supplement

Or visit the Morpheus Tales Website for all the back issues: www.morpheustales.com

DEAD STREETS By Tim Waggoner – Reviewed

You might have thought that our hero and narrator, Matt Richter, Private Investigator, having his head cut off would be the end of the story. But this is Nekropolis, and Matt’s a zombie, so having his head cut off is just the start of his problems. He then finds out that his body has been stolen.

This is, literally, the beginning of a series of events that drive us towards the obvious conclusion, deftly swerved by Waggoner.

To give you any more of the details would be a disservice, and it’s the richness of the exploration of the mystery, as well as the brilliance of Nekropolis, that keeps you coming back for more.

This second book in the Nekropolis series focuses more on plot, whereas the first book with a mystery wrapped inside a guide book to everybody’s favourite strange city of the dead, the strange, the alien.

For anyone who has never read Nekropolis, the first book in the series, the mystery of a stolen artefact offers our zombie detective Richter the opportunity to explore the magically twisted city of Nekropolis, and gives us a back history of this underworld and our hero/narrator. Not the greatest novel ever written, it’s the city of Nekropolis that makes the book. It’s difficult to describe, but a dark adult version of Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas might be the closest you could get. It’s inhabited by wizards, vampires, ghosts, werefolk, zombies and all manner of dark and mysterious creatures.

The second book moves on with the relationships and the world first explored in Nekropolis and moves it all forward. The plotting is better here, but there is still a distinct lack of tension, probably because Matt is already dead and that struggle for life is over. The mystery isn’t so much of a mystery, until the end, but it’s the getting there rather than the result which is the important part.

This is a fun book, it’s enjoyable for the very idea of the city, further explored here to great effect. But with a decent plot and some added tension, this would have been an amazing novel. There’s still the third book to hope for, but I’m not even sure Waggoner of capable of blowing us away.

NEKROPOLIS By Tim Waggoner – Reviewed

On the cover SF Site says this is an “exciting mystery”, well, I’m not sure what book they were reading, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t this one. This isn’t so much a mystery as a travelogue or an adventure.

Mathew Richter is a zombie, he’s a dead detective who followed a serial killer and warlock to the dark world of Nekropolis, the underworld where all manner of creatures live and non-live. Nekropolis is an amazing land, filled with vampires, were-creatures, witches and warlocks, talking insects, and the aforementioned zombies and other creatures of the dead. It’s a riot of Tim Burton-esque touches that will appeal to any horror and fantasy fan. A kind of really dark Harry Potter world, Diagon Alley after Voldemort takes over!

Anyways, back to the story. Mathew is contacted by a hot blond half-vampire who is in charge of her father’s – one of the five dark lords who rules Necropolis – collection of rare magical artefacts. One of the items in the collection is a powerful magical crystal capable of destroying the entire city, and today just happens to be Decension Day, when the five dark lords and Father Dis (the god and creator of Nekropolis), join forces to re-energise Umbriel, the dark moon that lights the city. And the artefact has gone missing.

So the meagre plot involves Mathew and his half-vampire friend searching the city of Nekropolis to find the artefact. But this is not about plot, it’s much more about exploring the amazing world of Nekropolis. Our protagonist is really the city, and whilst Richter and his squeeze are fairly well developed, there’s not really much to any of the other characters, and many of the citizens only make a brief appearance.

The book fails on many levels, the plot not the least as our hero goes round the entire city meeting up with someone to ask a few questions and then moving on to the next clue, and working his way round the city. The trail of clues (if you can call it that, some are tenuous to say the least!) is fairly easy to follow, or the next trip just takes them to another unexplored section of the city, seemingly at random. There isn’t really a mystery, and there’s no overall tension apart from the situational type as Richter finds himself in some sticky situations during his investigation.

But it’s still so much fun to discover the city. It’s like entering the world of nightmare, which since this book was originally written, has been explored by Tim Burton, Harry Potter and Hellboy. But this manages to be just a little darker than all of those and is all the better for it.

With a decent plot and some new material this book could be scarily good! Well, the good news is that the second and third books have been commissioned! Excellent.

Despite its failures this is still a bloody good book, and you’re unlikely to read anything else like it. It will make you grin with delight and make you want to visit the strange world of Nekropolis. It’s the perfect travel-guide, it’s just not the best novel.