The Demonists (Demonists #1) by Thomas E. Sniegoski

John and Theodora are television psychics. Who actually find the thing that goes bump to the night – and destroying them, banishing them and removing them.

Until they find a well of darkness that is way way worse than anything they had encountered before. New dark forces are rising with both them personally under attack – and the entire world in the balance.

John and Theodora make an awesome team, backed up with John’s deceased, ghostly, yet still effortlessly awesome nana, these TV paranormal investigators are actually the real thing. Their battle against the darkness – along with the parallel story of a whole new dark force rising are both immensely creepy. The sense of this book – the darkness, the grief, the horror and (I’ll keep saying this over and over again) the overwhelming creepiness are really well done. It’s thematically excellent. So very very excellent – the whole feel of this book is perfect.

I love Theodora’s storyline the most. The way she was almost destroyed by the demons, saved only by her husband’s dedication and devotion – and new allies – and then turned it into an immense strength was excellent. I don’t want to spoil this which makes it so so so hard to adequately describe the awesome here – but she goes from bed ridden and helpless to the one leading the charge, telling the darkness who is boss and embracing a whole new existence of possibilities. She is awesome and her power is book changing.

The plot has lots of excellent action, twists and feel and is excellent to read.

I have that issue that keeps coming up a hundred times in the books I read – a kind of unsupported middle. We kind of waffle for a bit and lose any forward momentum. But as I read the words I’ve just written, I realise that it’s less about the middle of the book and far more about the whole book and the lack of coherent world building

A Deafening Silence in Heaven (Remy Chandler #7) by Thomas E. Sniegoski

The Archangel Remiel, now living as the human PI, Remy is struck low by an assassin’s bullet and apparently dying. Only Francis, Linda, Squire and his faithful dog Marlowe can try and bring him back to life before the assassins finish him off

While Remy’s soul is missing, to a different world, a different Earth – one where the worst has happened and the greatest dream of god and angel has been cruelly destroyed. He must find the truth in this apocalyptic waste land, try to find some way to fix the horrors – and perhaps learn a warning for his own world

I am torn about this book.

A large part of it involves following Remy into an alternate reality. No, let me reassess that – nearly every part of this book, certainly every really relevant part of this book involves Remy in an alternate reality. And… this is book 7 in a series and nearly all of the book was… kind of irrelevant to the overarching series? All the action, the people they met, the foes vanquished, the darkness faced is, at best, a cautionary tale for the main series. All of the action in the book is, at best, a warning for what could happen, a prequel, more than the actual story itself.

It doesn’t help that one of the main twists of the last book and another source of conflict is so… downplayed. The Bone Assassin’s attack on Remy seems to come from a very mundane source. I’m not going to spoil it, and it’s certainly an unexpected twist but, again, it’s another major plot element that doesn’t really seem to fit into the overall scheme of the series.

This gives me the odd feeling that the whole book is a time out, an intermission between the main plot, maybe even a new prologue for the new major plot line. I suspect the latter mainly because of the whole burgeoning storyline of the Unification.

The plot of God forgiving Satan and the Fallen Angels and reunifying the broken lands of Heaven, Hell and Eden is clearly going to be an immense, incredible storyline. Which may be the purpose of this book – while it’s not directly contacted to the main storyline of the series, it is there to tell us what is at stake. This is the worst case scenario. This is exactly what could happen if the following plot lines go wrong. This is just how terribly wrong Unification could go. This shows that, while Unification may be a wonderful, shiny thing, it also takes a whole lot of effort and there is immense risk connected to it.

Walking in the Midst of Fire (Remy Chandler #6) by Thomas E. Sniegoski

Remy Chandler has a new case – an Angelic General has been murdered. Apart from anything else, killing a powerful angel isn’t exactly an easy task. But more worrisome, if he doesn’t find out who did it, Heaven’s not going to look they’re just going to point fingers at the newly released Lucifer.

Which will mean war. And it doesn’t matter who wins a war between Heaven or Hell, Earth will be reduced to cinders in the process.

But in searching for the real murderer, Remy is involved in the convoluted plotting of an ancient figure from his past and has to make some very hard moral decisions. Especially since the angels and the fallen are not all that different from each other

I love how this book is written. In every scene we have some excellent description – but not too much. We havbe action that flows perfectly with blood-fizzing excitement without glossing over what’s actually happening. We have an amazing sense of epic – and this series needs the epic. The protagonist is a seraphim who is frequently fighting to save the world from the indifferent forces of Heaven and Hell – it needs epic. It needs lots and lots of epic. And it delivers – it’s one of those books that can very much be on-the-edge-of-your-seat reading.

Beyond the epic, this book also has some really impactful emotional scenes. It has some utterly tragic scenes, some really painful scenes and a whole lot of enraging scenes as well. I think it’s a mark of excellent writing and character development if you can well and truly loathe one of the characters (that is, if the character is written to be loathesome, anyway. I’ve read a few books where I’ve loathed the protagonist and I’m pretty sure that was unintended) because it means you’re so emotionally invested in the characters and the story that you can feel rage for the wrongs perpetuated.

This has that in spades – Remy is such a real character, such a human character (ironic, because he’s an angel) that he’s easy to connect to. His compassion, his honour, his emotion and his goodness are really powerful forces throughout the book which, along with the heavy amount of epicness in the story, makes me really want to get behind him. At the same time he’s very practical, he knows what compromises to make and what people to tolerate – even while, at the same time, having firm lines he will not cross under any circumstances. It’s an excellent balance of practicality with hard moral limits.

He also has some excellent interactions with other characters to really flesh them out and humanise them even if they don’t have much time on the page. His still apparent grief over his ex-wife, his fun relationship with Linda with both his doubts and the excellent bond and banter between them. His friendship with Mulvehill, his contact with Francis – it’s all very real

And they’re developed in their own right – seeing Mulvehill come to terms with the supernatural world is a powerful storyline of self-growth, discovery and determination. Seeing Francis, Mentagin, Squire and Heath together made for some awesome comic relief while still developing these relatively unpleasant characters – while still have the strength of Francis’s journey and underlying development – the fallen angel who isn’t sure what is right or what he should do.

There’s some wonderful development of the already incredible world building but – again – it’s so well written that we get all this new information without infodumping or it being awkward or convoluted – it works. If anything I will say it’s a little sparse in explaining the whole concept of the guardian of light magic and the guardian of dark magic – we needed more explanation as to what they actually were and how they came about. I did like that the white magic guardian was the actual aggressor. We also got some excellent development of the demons – both their origin and their actual legitimate grievance even if it doesn’t make them any less evil. It makes them evil for a reason – an understandable reason – rather than just “rawr, demons.”

Review: In The House of the Wicked by Thomas E Sniegoski, Book 5 of the Remy Chandler Series

 

An ancient cabal of sorcerers once performed an incredibly powerful, but incredibly dark ritual that empowered them all – or would have had they not then turned their great powers against one another.

Decades have passed since that moment and these sorcerers have been changed, driven by unnatural hunger – and preying on each other. The oldest and most powerful of them is plotting to repeat his ritual – but on a much grander scale, with the help of a fallen choir of angels, he can bring death on an apocalyptic scale.

But another member of the cabal, one betrayed, how has his own quest for revenge against his former associate. Driven by revenge he is willing to use any tool in his arsenal – even kidnapping the friend of an Archangel to use Remy as a tool for vengeance.

Remy needs to save his friend and to prevent untold death – but both the Sorcerers hunger, and a Seraphim may be the tastiest treat of all.

I think very few books have even close to the level of epic that this series can bring. The world is constantly in peril in grand, dramatic fashion. The tension is perfectly maintained, the plot is powerful and keeps moving and the previous books’ habit of bogging down in Remy’s personal angst is largely absent from this one. From beginning to end, from vague portents and consequences after the world came close to the apocalypse, to a steady build of power as more details become clear. It’s brilliantly paced, it’s thematically maintained, it’s excellently developed – in all, the epic sense and excellent pacing are spot on. It really reached a point where I couldn’t put it down and would have to have my hands broken to make me let go of the kindle -  this book held me. Most of the time.

I love the characters as well-  Remy is a complex conflict between his angelic side and his human side and we finally have him embracing that to some degree rather than constantly denying it that has so characterised the last few books. We also don’t have Remy’s angst – not that it was ever wrong, but it was rather all-consuming. Even Remy’s habit towards internal monologue is… well, not gone, but certainly reduced. And he’s building new relationships with Linda and Ashely adding a greater depth to both him and them and moving away from his moping.

Even the antagonists have depth to them, Stearns and Deacon have backstory, reasoning beyond mere greed and power lust with the underlying fear of mortality to give basis to their actions. And there were a number of grey characters – Francis with his newly divided and questionable loyalties, Squire with his dark depression and hopelessness and Angus who definitely has a dark path but now seems to be in Francis’s remit.

I think talking animals have become much more common in the genre – and a lot of them are fun. I do like the way Marlowe is presented, child like and fun loving – he’s not a unique presentation of talking dogs but he’s still a fun one. What I like far more is the depiction of the cats – aloof, arrogant, impatient and barely tolerant of humans at the best of times – it’s perfect.

The world here doesn’t have such vast exposition as we’ve seen previously – which is probably a good thing, time to digest all the ancient Biblical figures, the different choirs of angels etc. And still it brought an insight into the magic of the world – and a hint of more with Squire’s introduction. But the world building is at a minimum in this book – and probably better for it.

Unfortunately, towards the end of the book the whole story suddenly bloats. Everyone seems to gather together – we have Francis and Angus, Ashley and Squire, Remy, Mulvehill, Deacon, Stearns, Teddy, Scrimshaw, the angels… all it needed was the milkman and the UPS delivery man dropping by. Switching between the huge number of characters all involved – and so many of them not really adding anything – was not so much confusing as just made the whole conclusion of the story so much longer and more dragged out. This, combined with the rather over-dramatic, over-descriptive way that Remy and his powers and actions are described makes the ending drag out to an almost ridiculous degree. Figures feel like they wrestle for hours on end while other people go and have their adventures in different parts of the building. What should have been a grand crescendo became almost comic with the sheer number of bit characters who all decided to descend in force.

Review: A Hundred Words for Hate, by Thomas E. Sniegoski, Book 4 of the Remy Chandler Series

Adam, the first man, is breathing his last, even his extremely long life is coming to an end and he has one dying wish – to be buried in the garden of Eden, a wish that his descendants, the Sons of Adam, wish to make real, even if they have to consume the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge itself to bring Eden back to Earth

Unfortunately he’s not the only one who has designs on the garden. Before Eden was sealed, Lucifer sought to use the garden as a beachhead from which he could invade Heaven – prevented only by Remiel – Remy Chandler – sealing the garden. Worse, someone else is abusing the garden – possibly even killing Eden in the process, to use its divine power to their own dark ends.

Remy Chandler has a mission with the remaining Sons of Adam to try and find the Daughters of Eve who have the second key to opening the gates to Eden. But they do so under constant attack from the garden’s raging and insane Cherubim guardian – and all of their actions may be being directed by a far older, far greater puppet master.

In this time of conflict, a new dark force may be rising, the Shaitan, a creation that may be far worse than all the legions of Hell.

This story continues to bring the epic. The world in the balance, fate of humanity , good vs evil, the whole nine yards of epic storytelling with everything riding on the outcome. This is one thing this series has always done well – and this is no exception. The sheer amount resting on the actions of the characters was never lost or distracted from and always forefront in all of the action since then.

Part of this means not having any side plots – that can make stories linear but this managed to tell the story from several points of view with different aspects all moving together. So, by following Remy and his investigations, Francis in Hell and Mulvehill with Fernita it prevented the story being linear while making sure it didn’t deviate off the importance of the main plot line.

The action scenes were well written, exciting and truly got a sense of the forces involved, including the awesomeness that the angel’s represent and the power and fear that goes with them. This is difficult to carry so consistently and especially difficult to keep fresh with so many different action scenes throughout the books. It keeps being exciting, keeps being fresh, keeps being fun to read. The pacing was excellent, without the down times for angst or distractions that bothered me in previous books – everything was relevant to the story and the plot of all 3 storylines moved forward together, intertwined and naturally flowing from one to the other.

I really liked the insights into Francis and Fernita’s past, again, without derailing the main story or detracting from the epicness of it. It added a much more human element to Francis as we saw what he was pushed to do to seek redemptions. It’s nice to see him as more than a repentant angel who kicks arse.

Review: Where Angels Fear to Tread by Thomas Sniegoski, Book 3 of the Remy Chandler Series

Remy Chandler, private investigator and seraphim, is still in a rut from the death of his wife, fighting both depression and his angelic nature that flares more strongly with his loneliness. Even his friend is beginning to worry about him – and not much worries the veteran cop.

He also has a new case – a man has run off with his daughter without the mother’s consent, and she is desperately worried for her child. More, this child, Zoe, seems capable of seeing the impossible including both the future and Remy’s true nature.

She has a power inside of her, a power that isn’t meant for humanity but is highly desired. Remy is faced with the challenged of finding the child with what erstwhile allies he can gather, while both the soul-consuming seductress Delilah  (yes, of Samson and Delilah) and the long weakened god Dagon both seek the same prize for their own reasons – and that doesn’t include the welfare of the child.

I’ve said before that there’s a lot of research that goes into this series and it really does show. It has a very rich, wide and broad world with a lot of weight to it. Everything is solid, non-contradictory and holds up well and still brings in a vast amount of information and different legends. The introduction of Samson and Delilah was nicely done with their lives after the Biblical legend. It was another level of richness and depth to this world.

It’s also interesting to see the depiction of deity – because it does seem to be the ultimate personification of a righteous – but incredibly harsh and unforgiving god. After all, the plot here revolves so much around Delilah trying to escape her excessively cruel punishment. I am curious where this is going to go – because it does fit very well with what we’ve seen of Remy’s Seraphim side and the other angels. Just, right, powerful, determined to fight evil – and utterly lacking in any kind of mercy, compassion or empathy. Yet, at the same time, the scene with the reclaimers suggests the powers that be have at least some level of compassion. I’m curious and I definitely want to see more and how it fits.

Review: Dancing on the Head of a Pin by Thomas E. Sniegoski, Book 2 of the Remy Chandler Series

Remy Chandler is recovering from the death of his wife and wondering at his place in the world – if he even has a place in the world. Especially since the Thrones have offered him a place back in heaven.

But the world doesn’t stop for a grieving angel. Several weapons have gone missing – weapons from every stage in history, each the very epitome of their kind and craftsmanship. They are the pitiless and they have power far beyond being devastating tools of destruction.

And other people certainly want them - not least of which the Denizens, fallen angels who have returned to Earth from Hell to live out the rest of their penance and seek redemption. They’ve absorbed the forces of Hell and aren’t seeking a path back to Heaven – but revel in the corruption of mortals around them.

But the Pitiless contain power even they don’t know – and are part of a scheme that can rock Heaven itself to its core.

I do have an issue with the pacing of the book. It takes a long time for the book to get going and a long time to set the actual plot and premise up. We spend a lot of time with Remy’s emotions and dealing with his wife’s death and considering his place in the world – and whether he truly wants to remain with humanity or re-ascend to heaven. There follows a series of side-characters he deals with to find the pitiless who serve no real purpose at all. I’m not sure why the Denizens were there or what purpose they served or the semi-human purveyors of stolen goods. They seemed almost place holders that could have been equally filled by anyone else. They felt like fillers, interactions with them felt unnecessary and all it really did was mean Remy didn’t have to do any real investigating.

The contrast is that once he does get his hands on the actual Pitiless, it’s run and keep up, no sprint and keep up with action left right and centre, passing into hell, fighting through Tartarus against hellions, against the fallen and we’re up to our eyeballs in gore, scary feelings and big rebellious falling angels.

It was a little disjointing to say the least. I vaguely felt like I’d plodded to the top of a hill then fell down the other side.

But other than pacing the story was pretty good. It was an adventure – I wouldn’t say much of an investigation since the action came to find Remy rather than him tracking down the clues. But the way the nature of the Pitiless unfolded and the epic way the whole confrontation was set up was extremely well done – form Francis battling in the portal to Remy fighting to get and keep the pitiless there was a full sense of epic that was established. But then it was just battle after battle. Buuut some of the fights were unnecessary. Some of the hellion attacks, battling the denizens, Uriel – it just felt like another fight scene without any real purpose. Just throwing in random stuff to fight time and again, even when the scenes are well written, gets a little dull after a while. Books aren’t action movies, you can’t get by with cool fight scenes to keep things going. It also got me lost, after fight scene after fight scene after fight scene I was a little “so what we fighting now? Why? What were we actually doing again? Aw, screw it, stab something already”.

Yet, despite the epic set up, the ending wasn’t predictable, it had a couple of twists I never imagined and caught me by surprise and I definitely didn’t see the big show down at the end – I thought we’d have an entirely different conclusion.

The world setting here is excellent. The different orders of angels, Tartarus, the nomads, the guardians, the whole extremely well researched lay out has a lot of depth and there’s been a whole lot of work gone into it. From the Thrones to the vividly described Tartarus there’s a whole lot there.

Review: A Kiss before the Apocalypse by Thomas E Sniegoski, Book 1 of the Remy Chandler Series

Remy is a private detective, making his bread and butter following cheating spouses and similar petty investigations. One such investigation leads him to a pair who commit suicide, driven to the edge by the apocalyptic dreams the man is plagued by. They commit suicide but, miraculously, they don’t die.

Except it’s not miracle – and Remy should know, because he is an Archangel. Disillusioned with heaven, he hasn’t so much Fallen as withdrawn from Heaven, turning his back on a paradise he no longer wishes anything to do with.

He has little choice when the pattern continues and people stop dying. Their souls screaming for release, they’re trapped in their bodies. Israfil, the Angel of Death, has gone missing and his job is undone. And if that weren’t bad enough, Israfil is the guardian of 5 scrolls that begin the apocalypse – should their seals be broken.

Remy has to find Israfil and his scrolls in an investigation that takes him through the dregs that
Heaven and Hell both don’t touch; Fallen Angels, Shunned Angels, Banished Angels and disgruntled immortals.

On a personal note, Remy’s own family is falling apart. His wife of several decades is old and dying slowly from cancer. Of course, she can’t die until Israfil is found – but is Remy really ready to let her go?

The author has clearly done a lot of research. There is an enormous amount of angelic lore here, from angel names to the different choirs – there’s a vast amount of work gone into this and it’s really wonderful to see. It shows in the story – the world building is truly excellent and you can feel the mythology behind it. I really can’t stress enough how well done this world is and how real it feels.

Similarly, Remy is a very good character. He has strong connections to his family with really well represented emotional bonds – even with Marlowe (a talking dog that is really well done as well – you can believe this is a dog. It’s not funny or witty but exactly how you’d expect a dog to think and talk). His reasons for Falling are reasonable, his friendships true and his actions make sense and really fit with who and what he is. Like the world, he feels very real and very well put together.

The story itself is an interesting ione – I’ve read other stories with the disappearance of the Angel of Death before and they tend to follow the same pattern, but the amount of lore that’s included, the enemies that are behind it (which I was completely surprised by and didn’t expect even slightly) and the bringing in of several other elements from the deeply research world – the Grigori, the Black Choir, Lazarus, Francis mean it’s anything but clichéd. I love when someone takes a story and adds so many twists and different aspects to it making it a completely original story even if the basic concepts are ones you’ve read before.

My main criticism of the story is one of pacing. I think there is a lot of work to try and get the full emotional impact and to truly emphasise Remy’s emotional bonds, especially with his wife and, to a lesser extent, Marlowe.  The problem is that the world is ending – literally ending. We have the horsemen of the apocalypse lurking over the planet, seas are receding, people are dying but being trapped in their bodies – everything is ending. And Remy is walking the dog and visiting his very ill, elderly wife. Yes, it’s understandable that he loves them and we do need to see the full impact and power of that love. The problem is that the world is ending – and this is utterly destroying the sense of urgency that you’d expect from a stopping-the-apocalypse story.

Despite this complaint, these powerful scenes do carry a lot of impact. They’re really well written and extremely touching – the bond he shares with his wife is poignant and painful and is a nice take on the idea of an immortal and mortal relationship. In most books we see when they’re both very young or some supernatural means makes the mortal partner immortal – but here we have the end of the relationship. His love continues right until the end of her life, but there are clear and painful consequences of an unaging angel falling in love with an aging human – it’s really well done.

Inclusion-wise the story falls very flat, this Boston is entirely straight and the only POC we see are bit characters. There’s also a huge white default issue with descriptions – when Remy sees 2 children playing, for example, he’ll say there was one girl and one Asian boy. The only women we see are, again bit characters who have few lines and his wife who is extremely ill with cancer in a care home. Now this isn’t a story that focuses on other people than Remy, it’s very much a one character book – but I think even his dog gets more attention than any minorities.

All in all I liked the story and absolutely loved the world. Now we have this vast world building and huge amount of research revealed I really want to see what more is coming, what more we can expect. It’s a great stand alone book, but as the first book in a series it’s truly excellent – laying down a good character, an amazing world and some really good plot hooks. All in all, it’s one of the best Angel urban Fantasies I’ve read.