Customer Reviews

Digital Knight

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Synopsis
Digital Knight is a series of stories narrated by the book's hero, Jason Wood, a private detective/computer geek/accidental paranormal expert. The stories chronicle his adventures as he, along with his close lady friend and psychic Sylvie, stumble into the world of the not so normal, and find that it's even more not so normal than they'd ever expected. Strange things abound, from real-live werewolves, to a vampire who is older than anyone expects to an ancient myth that turns out to be true... sort of.

About the Book:
A first work for its author, Digital Knight is an interesting book in that it represents a body of work that shows how an idea can evolve over time. Clearly, Mr. Spoor didn't originally intend the characters to take the course they did, based on the first couple stories alone. What appears to be a simple series of stories involving vampires and werewolves and paranormal such things, turns into a strange albeit entertaining alternate mythology with a lot more in it than simple vamps.

The evolution of the idea turns out not to be that bad of a thing. Spoor manages to take the clichés' of these old wives' tale bad guys and creates something entirely different and unique, albeit far fetched at times. The effect is such that the reader makes discoveries at the same pace as the author and characters do. It makes for a fun read. Ultimately, the stories easily keep your interest throughout, and a number of the characters are interesting enough to make you care about what happens to them.

Be warned though, if you're looking at this book for traditional vampire/werewolf series of stories, these are not them. Digital Knight is more sci-fi related than traditional folk-lore. Likewise, if you're looking for hard, deep sci-fi stories, you won't find them here, though this certainly qualifies as both sci-fi and Fantasy. Spoor's Digital Knight stories read more like detective short stories, while being light on the detective part.

Overall, this is a fun read, and a pretty good entry for a first time author. I'm looking forward to a follow-up to Digital Knight or other books from Spoor.

"So why didn't you give your book 5 stars?" is probably the first or second question to come to mind if anyone's reading this one. And the answer is "I don't want to bias results too much one way or the other". Also, if I'm taking the star rating as an objective scale, I can't honestly say I think my writing (yet) stacks up next to my favorite authors' works.

Digital Knight, which I describe these days in a nutshell as "MacGyver meets the X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer", has a long history prior to publication, having had parts of it posted on the Net as early as 1992, and parts written quite some time before that. A shorter version, made up of three of the six sections found in the paperback, was available for purchase online a few years ago. The story of how it came to be published is very long, though pretty amusing, and can be summed up as following the perilous course of having insulted the right person in the right way at the right time, followed with appropriate behavior afterwards.

After reading Digital Knight, it's likely the reader will have questions; all of my projected solo works take place in the same general universe, but anywhere from half a million years in the past to several thousand years in our future. As such, there are going to be things that are seen in the book which, as they are not central to the plot of Digital Knight, are only sketchily described; they will be more clearly explicated in other works. None of my immediately projected works are "series" in the sense that you have to read one to enjoy the next; while you may recognize certain elements, it won't require that you have read the other books.

I welcome comments on my work, good and bad. Keep in mind: I write to entertain. I have no illusions or ambitions about writing Great Literature; all I want to do is write stories that the reader can say "hey, that was fun!" about once they're done. Thanks for reading!
Ryk E. Spoor

This has become one of my favorite books to reread.

What I like -- the voice of Jason Wood, the narrator, is an engaging one, with a sense of humor. And he acts intelligently. When faced with evidence of the weird, he doesn't say "impossible", he says, "um, if that's the case, how do I deal with it" and comes up with a way to handle it. In a clever and original manner. :)

Jason knows his limitations -- he doesn't try to be an action hero, he uses his brains, saving the action for when absolutely necessary. And he isn't afraid to let others help him. Including his girlfriend.

Which is good, because there are things he can't beat without the help of his friends...

While the world of _Digital Knight_ starts out looking like our own, the differences begin to accumulate. While only those relevant to the story are explained, there are enough hints dropped that I eagerly await more books from Ryk Spoor to elaborate on them.

I've read this book at least twenty times in the last year and a half, and my favorite bits even more often.

If you are looking for an angsty dark vampire book, this isn't it. This is a book that ignores genre pigeon holes, cheerfully mixing mystery, horror, fantasy and science fiction tropes with wit and charm.

I just finished the digital version of this book, downloaded from Baen's WebScriptions site. It is pretty much a short story collection, with continuting characters to form a story arc, I guess. Set in what looks like the near future (gadgets seem just 5 years or so ahead of what's here now), it follows the adventures of Jason Wood, digital image enhancer and overall finder-of-information. It's written private-dick murder-mystery investigation style, complete with our work-at-home hero who has a not-quite-girlfriend. It evolves from there as Jason discovers that the murderer is really, truly a vampire -- and so is the falsely accused!

There are a lot of original premises and ideas in this book (which I will not spoil) which give it interesting plot twists and turns. However, the author has a lot to learn about the craft of writing. We have professionally paranoid people in this story who become friends with our heroes much too easily. Things are much too straight-up good-guys and bad-guys. (Even the "dirty angels" aren't very morally ambiguous.)

I didn't see any indication of whether these stores were previously published. The story arc leaves off before many complications are resolved; we see a lot of character progress and story, but it's bluntly clear that there's more story to tell.

I recommend this book if you want an interesting read, but aren't expecting too much. If the author picks up more storytelling skills, I will be interested to see more in the future.

Information researcher Jason Wood has used digital image enhancement to hone the photograph and the result is obvious. A bribe is being paid. The only problem is, only one person is shown. So, what happened to the other. Wood is a modern guy and doesn't want to believe in magic, but someone is on the other side of that bribe--and there are even footprints showing where he should be. So, exactly what can pay bribes, press footprints down on the earth, yet not be seen in photographs. A vampire jumps to mind, and there aren't a lot of good alternatives.

When Wood threatens vampire Verne Domingo, he doesn't begin to understand how much trouble he's in. Domingo is as old and powerful as vampires get--and that's saying a lot. Strangely, though, he seems amused by Wood and the two become friends. Being friends with a powerful vampire has its upside, but it also puts Wood in harm's way when some of Domingo's enemies become Wood's enemies as well. Wood finds himself experimenting with wood and silver bullets, garlic, crystals, and all other manner of devices against the undead and other paranormal forces.

Author Ryk E. Spoor brings a light touch to the urban fantasy genre. With Wood's help, Domingo becomes an benefactor of the arts, and turns priceless antiques he's hoarded for thousands of years over to museums. As the story progresses, we learn more about Domingo's past and the vampire continues to grow as a character. Spoor's writing is interesting and inobtrusive, making DIGITAL KNIGHT an involving read.

Sometimes I'm just in the mood for fun, and this book suited that mood perfectly. It had just enough meat in its ideas to keep my brain in gear, and it romped through ideas from vampire and werewolf mythos to the Gaea hypothesis with bravery bordering on foolhardiness.

Jason is an engaging character, and Verne is by far the most promising vampire character in years.

This is NOT a typical "modern vampire" book. It is a detective novel and a comedy and punnalicious.

This was a disappointing book in many ways. First it's not exactly a novel. Instead it's a series of episodes involving the same set of characters. You get the impression this started out as a sequence of short stories. Second the transitions between the episodes is repetitious and awkward. One of the major characters does a badly handled flip flop between the first and second episodes for instance. There are the bones of an interesting story here if the author had just taken the step of rewriting the episodes especially the first two to make the storyline consistant and remove the glitches.

It is obvious that this author has some talent, because he manages to be inventive and original in a field where the authors as well as the readers are often jaded and bored of the cliche characters and plots. His characters are refreshing and the main problem with them is the lack of in-depth interaction that the reader has with them. This novel is not really a novel at all, in my opinion. It is a collection of short stories that involve the same group of characters throughout, but it is cunningly disguised as a novel by using "filler" transitions between the stories. The problem with this is that while there are many interesting characters, like hackers with huge attitudes, millenia old vampires, genetically engineered humans, werewolves, and secret government agents that somehow all manage to avoid the boring over-used cliches, for the most part each of them are only present in small parts of the book. As a result, the reader only gets a small sliver of them. I think these six sections could easily have been made into 6 novels, but the way they are, I felt cheated and have little attachment to these interesting and new characters, I find my self always asking "And then what happened?" I see so much promise in these short sections, they could have easily become something along the lines of Jim Butchers Dresden Files and Simon Greens Nightside, but they way they are now, it seems like they are summaries of novels, or the first draft, with the major character and plot sketched in roughly, but none of the minor quirks and idiosyncracies and details worked out that make or break the story.

I would recommend borrowing this from the local library, but not buying it.

Hopefully, this author will improve over time, or perhaps stand up better to his editors and publishers.

I tend to be stingy with those 5th stars, so pretend Digital Knight has a 4.5 rating.

The story centers around Jason Wood and his work as an information and technology specialist (a modern gumshoe of sorts). He quickly finds his work, and himself, heading for the supernatural, and the story gets fun FAST.

Digital Knight is told in the first person (single first person, just Jason Wood), so it reads a bit like an older mystery novel. This may be a bit of an upset for Sci-Fi/Fantasy fans, but Ryk pulls it off just fine.

I found Ryk's dialogue a bit underdeveloped. Characters tended to have the same speaking styles (say, 20 characters with only 6 different speaking styles...it wasn't as bad as, say, 20 characters with ONE speaking style). Some of the dialogue read a little "As you know, Bob..."-ish. While a little akward, the dialogue didn't throw me out of the story.

That's really it for cons.

The pros of this story are in its fast pace and intelligent plot turns. The reader is following an intelligent character through a series of imaginative twists and turns. Ryk really helps the reader develop respect and interest in Jason Wood and his close associates. This isn't a story full of idiot high school kids getting munched on by demons that don't even _have_ to try hard. This is good stuff!

Like any good mystery story, Ryk reveals enough that you can sometimes see what is coming (and, therefore, makes the reader feel smart), but definitely keeps the surprises coming (and, therefore, keeps the reader interested).

Folks, if the words 'vampire, werewolf, detective story' don't chase you off, you'll like Digital Knight (read Eric Flint's comments on the cover about this...lol). You may not love it, but you'll like it. I picked up Digital Knight for my usual 'bus ride to work' fodder, but I should have put it on the coffee table for more dedicated reading.

This was a fun romp, well thought out for a first novel! Maybe because it's set up as a series of vignettes, I never got the feeling that he was desperately scrambling to fill pages like I do with so many first novels. The main character isn't supernatural at all, which I liked, and the secondary characters are interesting. The Verne character is a little overpowering, but overall, Mr Spoor does a pretty good job of reining him back.