8
Mar262010
The Men of Urban Fantasy Week – BOOK REVIEW: Nekropolis by Tim Waggoner
by Carolyn • Posted in 3 Star Reviews, Authors U-Z, Book Reviews, The Men of Urban Fantasy Week, Tim Waggoner, Urban Fantasy
Title: Nekropolis
Author: Tim Waggoner
Publisher: Angry Robot Books
Publication Date: 6 Aug 2009
Paperback: 401 pages
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Rating: 6/10
Summary:
His mean streets are the city of the dead, the shadowy realm known as Nekropolis. And in this first case, Richter must help a delectable half-vampire named Devona recover a legendary artifact known as the Dawnstone, before it’s used to destroy Nekropolis itself. That is, if he can survive the myriad horrors that infest the city.
Review:
I have wanted to read this book since August last year when I bought it because of the awesome cover. But as we all know, we shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover (although we all do) but we hope that the story is as good as it’s visual counterpart. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case with Nekropolis.
I’m so disappointed to say that Nekropolis didn’t live up to it’s awesome cover or premise. I expected a hard-boiled detective with an intriguing mystery to solve. Instead It was a very light, very long read. Too light for the urban fantasy I enjoy reading and just too long to keep me consistently engaged. It took me fifteen days to finish. The writing is good enough and flows well, and it’s very easy reading, but sadly it just didn’t contain enough edge for me.
The main character, Matt Ritcher, is a self-willed zombie private eye who lives in Nekropolis, a city on a planet far away from Earth, which can only be accessed by an enchanted mirror. I was expecting him to be dark and tortured (he is a zombie after all), instead I got the most nicest zombie ever written.
Ritcher is just too nice! He doesn’t swear, he’s very polite and he never loses his rag – I’m not saying that there has to be lots of profanity or violence in my books because that’s not the case at all, but I do like my protagonists in urban fantasy to have some grit, a back story that I want to delve into to find out more about that character. I want them to have charisma. With Ritcher there was nothing, other than he used to be a cop and used to be married. Maybe I just like my boys bad.
Devona, Ritcher’s half-human, half-vampire sidekick/love interest wasn’t really that much better. She was either cowering behind Ritcher like a weakling or ripping the throat out of a humungous beast. This woman didn’t know whether she was kick-arse or totally pathetic. I didn’t warm to her at all and the relationship between the two wasn’t electric enough. It was all rather bland.
In their quest to find who stole the Dawnstone there was a lot of running from one person to ask a few questions before running on to the next, but there wasn’t really any action. There were too many characters to contend with to get a sense of who they were and I was saturated by too many descriptions of weird and wacky creatures that inhabited Nekropolis.
The creatures were fun to a point but I felt they were just thrown together to create a world different from Earth but without too much effort: ‘Chiranha’, a hybrid of the dog breed chihuahua and piranha fish and ‘Patchwork’, a man made out of cloth with buttons for eyes (??) and although they were certainly wacky combinations they weren’t really out-of-this world in terms of imagination.
Verdict:
I am so disappointed as I only wanted positive reviews for my ‘Men of Urban Fantasy’ week, but unfortunately this book just didn’t work for me. I honestly thought I would love it: urban fantasy, zombies, a mystery to solve, vampires – it sounded just like my kind of read, but I didn’t connect with the characters or their story.
I rated Nekropolis 6/10 as although for me it was more 5/5 (take it or leave it) I probably would recommend to those that prefer their urban fantasy on the lighter side which bumped it to a six.
This book was bought by me.
You can find the author here:
8 Comments
Great review! I haven't read it, but from the cover it doesn't look like a light read, so I understand why you were disappointed!
I have an award for you: http://my-book-obsession.blogs.....award.html
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Great review. Since I saw it on Twitter I have been waiting to see the "negative review" you were just writing, and I enjoyed it because it was informative and told me the points why this book wasn't for you. The rating threw me away at first because I didn't know how a negative review could get 6/10, but then your verdict cleared that up, thank you!
ps: and I agree, the cover looks fantastic!
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Oh, I love the cover! I have been meaning to get his books. I guess I will have to read it and see for myself how is it. But great review! =)
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Bummer! I'm sorry you didn't like this one. I recently received it from Book Depository. I'll definitely let you know what I think of it.
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Aleksandra – thanks so much for the award, have already popped by your blog
Stella – it was a difficult review to write as it's not an awful book, it just wasn't for me. There were too many aspects I just didn't like, but somebody else might – hence the rating
Yummy – the cover is amazing isn't it! And definitely read the book yourself, this is just my view of it, but you may love it
Jenn – I know, so disappointed
I hope you enjoy it – looking forward to your review and hearing your thoughts on it!
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I've been meaning to read this for a while now, as I love the cover. Thanks for reminding me about it!
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It does have a great cover.
It seems like it should be very dark. That's too bad that it wasn't.
I may pass on this one.
Thanks for the review!
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Good review. Sorry you didn't like it. I do like the cover as well.
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