THE SUICIDE EXHIBITION By Justin Richards – Reviewed

Hmmmm…. Where do I start with this? Should I start with the title, which is good and what drew me to buy the book but is barely mentioned? Do I start with the fact that this is the first part of a series and barely has enough of a story for one episode? Do I start with the potential this series has, but that it fails at the first instalment?

This book makes me angry. The first half of the book is pretty slow and boring as the various characters are introduced. If these were great characters, if we were given some insight into them, if the background of the second world war was convincingly portrayed, you might forgive a slow start.

The second half does ramp up the action a bit. We have a secret government organisation usurping Foreign Office officials, army personnel, Bletchley Park code-crackers, and American female pilots, attempting to infiltrate a secret Nazi conspiracy to use ancient burial grounds and UFOs against the British. The first half merely hints at this and introduces the characters, the second half of the four hundred page novel (it seems like so much more!) sees our intrepid team venturing into enemy territory and making some headway in their investigation into the Nazis’ obsessions.

Just as everything starts getting exciting, there a reasonably entertaining climax, left open-ended obviously, and we’re expected to stump up the cash for the second instalment.

I’m afraid I won’t be there. I’m assuming this will be a trilogy, but there’s not enough of a story in the first book to fill the whole of it. Pretty much the first two hundred pages of this book could have been covered in a quite interesting prologue.

Barely memorable characters, a half-baked plot, and loads of potential do not make for a good read. This took me a month to finish because I was just so bored of it. Towards the end I was reading loads just to get it out of the way.

Another failed attempt at a world war two alternative world series. I wish someone would just write a damn one-off novel for once. I don’t want to have to read three books to get a single story.

Unimpressed and disappointed.

BITTER SEEDS By Ian Tregillis – Reviewed

Such promise: English Warlocks and Nazi Psychics battle it out during World War Two. Such potential. A shame it hardly lives up to it.

The English side of the battle is the real damp squib, it’s much more about the terrible mental and physical struggle of the English team and their warlocks. The best they can manage is to create some bad weather.

The Nazi psychics are also tortured by their leader to imbue them with their mysterious powers, and treated like weapons. But they manage to get fully into the action, what little there is of it. A couple of episodes of action are all that we are party to, the rest of the book is set-up and background.

This feels like the vague first part of a trilogy, and as such Tregillis doesn’t want to blow his load too fast by giving us an epic battle between the warlords and the psychics. Which is exactly what we want.

I’m assuming the second book in the series will lead into an amazing third book, but I’m afraid I won’t be sticking around to find out.

Authors need to realise we want to be massively entertained throughout the series and every page and chapter should have something to keep us gripped.

Tregillis has produced an interesting book, which shows potential, but which ultimately fails. I’m sure the third book in the series will finally live up to the promise, but it’s too little too late.