Customer Reviews

Any Given Doomsday (The Phoenix Chronicles, Book 1)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

There isn't much at all original about this story, and the heroine isn't even likeable. It starts off okay... Liz Foster finds her foster mother murdered and wakes up in the hospital days later. The cops want to talk to her former lover Jimmy (who also would have been her foster brother); so, of course, Liz wants to find him before the cops do to find out what happened. And once they find each other, Liz goes on and on about how much just Jimmy's touch inflames her passions, and she wants to do nothing more than jump him, even though he betrayed her love with another woman; but how she'll bravely resist the temptation.

So yea, the first time you this happens it's okay, you can buy it - it's the first time she's seen her former lover, and there are some old feelings coming to the surface. But unfortunately it's time after time we're treated to Liz's burning desire. And then a new major character Sawyer is introduced. Liz hates Sawyer, she had to stay with him years ago; and never liked him. But at first sight, and especially at the touch of him, she is so consumed by desire to have sex with him.

Basically, Liz is a meat puppet for a libido. It's like the book was written by a teenage boy who has just discovered that girls are different in wonderful ways, instead of an adult woman. My idea of a modern, strong, female hero isn't one who is almost overcome by her desire to have sex with every man she touches. Every time Liz is dealing with one of the two major male characters in the book, the author is constantly telling us how much Liz wants to jump his bones; and after the first third of the book, she just starts having sex. Oh sure - she's tricked into it the first time; decides she has to 'take one for the team' the second; is raped the third; figures the fourth will turn one person back to the light; has a series of rape sessions, and finally we're treated to victory sex.

This is basically a rehash of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake - and not the Anita from the first half of the series; but slut-goddess, power leech through sex Anita. There is nothing original in Liz Phoenix's character; the bad guy is a boring, laughable caricature who belongs more in an Austin Powers Meets Dracula movie; and the characters are all paper-thin. No real character development is done. The bad guys all have a biblical connection, which we're seeing more and more of lately, so that's not even original.

If you want a good story, but one with far too much graphic sex, read LKH. If you want scene after scene of (poorly) written sex with no story, read Sunny (which I'll never bother with again); but there doesn't seem to be much of a niche here for Handeland and Liz Phoenix.

Any Given Doomsday, for better or worse is best summed up as what the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton would be if all supernatural creatures (almost) were actually the spawn of fallen angels, left on Earth to challenge (aka slaughter) humankind.

The set up demands that readers accept the absolute existence of God and the Christian mythos, whereas most urban fantasies ask a reader to believe in the creature, but leave religion out of the picture. This can potentially bring Christian readers into urban fantasy, if they can get past the sex.

And the sex... is non-consenting. Definitely an aspect that will turn off many readers Elizabeth, the heroine, is drugged, and raped graphically multiple times within the book. This is completely forgivable (in the context of the story) because sex is vital to Elizabeth's powers. While I normally avoid giving such blatant spoilers these I found particularly troubling.

The story itself starts when Elizabeth Phoenix finds her foster mother dying on floor of her home, attacked by something Elizabeth can't explain. With a few cryptic words and a dark vision Ruthie passes something on to Elizabeth that lands Elizabeth in a coma. When she wakes up Elizabeth learns from her ex-coworkers, the Milwaukee PD, that her foster brother and ex-lover Jimmy is their number one suspect. Jimmy himself breaks the news that Ruthie passed her powers to Elizabeth, which makes Elizabeth obligated--for her own safety--to hunt down Ruthie's killers. And Elizabeth isn't just a seer, she's THE prophesied seer, meant to be the most powerful one, a seer and a demon killer and the person who is supposed to lead the side of good in the war against the evil Nephalim.

Elizabeth's complete lack of knowledge about the supernatural world does not set the story up in a good frame. Instead of being introduced to the rules of the magical world slowly it leads to the reader, like Elizabeth, to have no clue what's going on, but being pressured to accept tension, and to see Elizabeth attacked with no real idea of how these things are important. The pacing is slow, the revelations convenient and Elizabeth herself is a much quieter, less dynamic urban fantasy character.

The pace is unsure, more than once a fact is hidden from the reader for effect, though the story is told in first person and Elizabeth herself already knows of it. Readers are never given a solid idea of the "rules" of magic and the paranormal because they seem cherry picked for effect rather than for character building. While all Nephalim are absolutely evil both men presented as love interests have Nephalim blood and Elizabeth herself may have (after all, she has everything else that might make her powerful, other than strength of personality).

Any Given Doomsday has action, but feels slow despite it, reluctant to participate in or commit itself to its own story. The similarities to other series and the Biblical/Apocalyptic set up could bring in a fan base, but many will find this book vapid and unsatisfying.

I received this book as part of Early Reviewers on librarything.com and I was excited to read it. I have enjoyed this author's previous works and was glad to see she had started a new series. But then. Oh, the premise is interesting. For awhile. And Handeland addresses one of my pet peeves about women who suddenly find themselves with power and then do absolutely nothing to educate themselves about it. At least the main character in this book doesn't do that, though she does pull a Luke Skywalker.

[Spoiler Alert]

But, seriously? We are supposed to buy that the only way Lizabeth can "learn" is by having sex with men and "absorbs" their powers? What a long way we have come where women must use their sexuality and have sex with men to gain men's powers.

Handeland does an excellent job of conveying hopelessness, despair, and demented sexuality. It's impossible to feel that the sex scenes are erotic as most of the sex is coerced except, then, boom! we are supposed to believe Lizabeth is "empowered" and chooses to have sex with the rapists.

And once and for all: "Oriental" refers to things and "Asian" refers to people.

The book lost a star because of a preponderance of religious zealotry and heterosexism that undermine the plot.

Any Given Doomsday
Lori Handeland
St. Martin's Paperbacks
2008
Any Given Doomsday by Lori Handeland is a novel that has a lot going for it. It also has a lot working against it.
The story is well paced and Ms. Handeland exhibits that she understands how to utilize grammar, proper spelling, and all those other aids to good writing that make a well-written book. I will even say that the plot and characters are interesting, at first.
I have two problems with the book: the overabundance of supernatural creatures and the "myths" about them; and the fact that the main character, Elizabeth Phoenix, seems to be the author's all-powerful, sexual fantasy about herself.
Most authors of supernatural fantasy tend to limit what types of creatures are used in any given work. Anne Rice focused on vampires in her Vampire Chronicles, and witches in the Mayfair Chronicles. Werewolf books focus on werewolves. Some fantasy books have fairies and elves, etc. This book has them all: Werewolves, vampires, dhampirs, fairies, angels, demons, berserkers, skin-walkers, seers, empeths, and more. Not only is the work overpopulated with supernatural creatures, but the "origins" behind some of them are not just humorous, but down right bizarre. Fairies are angels that were stuck on earth when God closed the gates to heaven. Berserkers are half fallen angel and half humans that can shape change into wolf or polar bear form.
Spoilers Below
*******************
Elizabeth Phoenix is an ex-cop, ex-high school gymnast, seer who finds out she is now the leader of a band of seers and fighters who are the only beings standing between the forces of evil and their goal of turning earth into a demon pleasure palace. In this first novel (more books in the series to come) Elizabeth learns that she now has the ability to absorb the supernatural powers of others. How does she do this? Through sex. Her secret weapon is sex. It will get her everything. Already the book is a little cheesy. I can just imagine what the next books in the series will be like, Elizabeth meets bad guy, Elizabeth "sleeps" with bad guy in poorly written porn scene, Elizabeth destroys bad guy. Or, Elizabeth sleeps with as many "good" supernatural beings as she can so she can finally take out the head honcho of the dark forces. Either way, Elizabeth Phoenix, super slut, saves the day through spreading her legs.
End Spoilers
***********************
I know that there is an audience for books like this, maybe women who never tire of cheesy romance novels or soft-core vampire porn. I also know that I will not be reading the rest of this series, I prefer to have a little bit of realism mixed with my fantasy novels.
2 ½ stars.

The reviews on this were mixed, with most of the people enjoying it, and others feeling uncomfortable with the amount of sex. I never really got to a part with sex in it. In fact, I didn't get past page 52. My problems with the book?

First: flowery, lyrical metaphors/prose:

* "the air smelled of springtime - budding trees and just-born flowers, fresh grass and hope." I didn't know hope had a smell...
* "watched the just-sprouted tree limbs waver, sending dappled shadows dancing across a sidewalk the shade of storm clouds." I already know sidewalks are gray...I don't require a mental image of the exact hue...
* "The voice came out of the darkness, flowing over me like a warm summer wind." I guess we're now mixing up our sense of hearing with our sense of touch?
* "His eyes were spooky too, seeming to reflect the silver light of the moon when the moon had already risen past the apex and started to descend on the windowless side of my building." I got that his eyes were silver, then it lost me in pointless description...
* "he erupted outward, covering me with a fine layer of ash, the rest floating in the gray tinged darkness like dust motes in the sun, then cascading downward to coat the floor." So ash spewed into the air then settled...
* "The room had gone gold with fading sunlight, illuminating a hundred million dust motes invisible at any other time of the day." Someone likes her dust motes a lot! Are we to assume the character counted the dust motes to make sure there were 100,000,000, as opposed to 99,999,999 motes? Or is one hundred million just some random, impressive number?

Second: I didn't like Liz. She was annoying, wore a fanny pack, and wanted to get back together with a jerk. It's hard for me to respect a woman who wants to be back in a situation that has already proven to be unhappy. Her personality was virtually non-existent. I didn't care about the future of this world or its characters, and was not the least bit intrigued about the remainder of the plot. The only thing I found interesting was when Handeland revealed that when fallen angels mated with humans, the babies were werewolves, vampires, etc.

This was yet another "The biblical apocalypse is coming and only she can save the world!" type of book. I'm just not interested in a storyline that has been done (better) so many times before. If Liz had been more likable and full of personality, I might have stuck this out. However she wasn't, so I didn't.

"Any Given Doomsday" is a travesty, with bad writing, characterization and plot being the least of its issues- instead, the author seems to find rape or semi-consensual sex hot and exciting. I, on the other hand, had to fight an urge not to puke.

The book starts out when Phoenix, the female protagonist, finds her foster mother dying, passes out, and upon waking discovers that she's the prophesied seer for the supernatural community. While she's supposed to be a tough woman, Phoenix seems to need protection by men at most times. And the only way for Phoenix to gain power is by having sex with other supernatual beings. Not only is that abhorrent, it's also completely sexist- Phoenix only gains power by submitting to men sexually. Wow, way to travel back to the 1950's. And the plotting and characterization were weak and fractured, as if the author had trouble putting her ideas onto paper. All this in total made this book a complete waste of money.

Hopefully the series improves, but as for me,I will not be reselling my copy; I'm burning it. That way I can ensure that at least one less copy of this book will be read by others, sparing some from this tripe.

Cool idea? Check.
Some interesting characters? Check.
Supernatural creatures and cool powers? Check.
What could go wrong?
How much time have you got?

This book had the makings of something pretty darned cool and it just failed in an epic way. I know that supernatural romances combined with urban fantasy and action are all the rage today, but this is everything that can go wrong executed flawlessly.

Apparently, love equals sex but with some sort of feeling behind it. If the feeling isn't there, it's just rape....twice, as a matter of fact. For those readers who are triggered by rape scenes, please just look elsewhere. Combine this with some pretty cool spin on creatures and biblical lore written in a pornographic and sophomoric manner and imagine the disappointment you'll feel. If you can imagine that feeling, then you'll save yourself the time of reading this first in a series novel. Put simply, some of the creatures and their powers were cool, but by the time I had gotten around to the third or fourth sex scene, the luster was completely gone only to be replaced with a lot of eye rolling and the urge to just skim so that I could honestly say that I read the entire piece of crap that culminated in an ending that was so transparent, I couldn't understand how this insipid main character, Elizabeth Phoenix, couldn't figure out how to overcome the big bad.

Any Given Doomsday, by Lori Handeland, is her first in what she hopes will become The Phoenix Chronicles Series. This book surprised me; I expected to be reading an urban paranormal suspense/horror book and what I got was a paranormal Harlequin one-dimensional romance novel. The descriptive sex was not needed in such detail. And what there was of it was repetitive and disturbing. Without these scenes the book would have been one star better especially since the author seems to have a fixation on rape as good sex.

The twist in this book is that most the supernatural creatures are explained as being the spawn of fallen angels that are left on Earth in order challenge mankind. And doomsday is literal and it is our heroines, Elizabeth Phoenix, job to stop it. If you like playing first person shooting games you may enjoy this book more than most. It seems to follow the standard video game plot line. I would place a warning on the book that this book is for adults and is not a book Christians would want in their home because of the gratuitous sex scenes that are all rape scenes.

This review will be short, but not-so-sweet: Any Given Doomsday was a very disappointing book. I kept hoping the story would get better if given a chance, but that didn't happen. Surprised to see the book has a sequel, Doomsday Can Wait. Think I'll wait till Doomsday to read it.

I had much higher hopes for this book than what were met. I enjoy the odd paranormal thriller, mystery, etc., but this book simply did not deliver. The premise of this book is that Elizabeth Phoenix discovers upon the death of her foster mother that she is now responsible for leading the worldwide fight against evils of all sorts. Vampires, demons, berserkers, they're all here. Theoretically, these might be the elements of a good story, but those elements are never actually drawn together into a good story. There's very little plot, and almost no character development. We know little about Elizabeth except that she was abused and abandoned in her past, and there's no discussion of how this has shaped her thoughts and her life. All we really hear from Elizabeth is her distaste for the new responsibilities that have suddenly landed on her shoulders. The lack of character development is magnified by the fact that the book is narrated in the first person, but there's absolutely nothing to the character who is the narrator. And then we have the content issues. This book is replete with gratuitous sex scenes that read more like a bodice-ripping romance novel than anything else. The descriptions of the sex scenes go on for pages. I'm just not interested in all that pulsing and throbbing. If I was, I'd read a romance novel. It's not just the fact that the book is full of sex, though. If that was the only problem, a reader could easily skim the sex scenes. The problem for me is that the book is full of sexual violence. I'm not really sure what gratuitous sexual violence is meant to accomplish. And the violence really is gratuitous. Sexual violence can have its place in writing if it works to tell a story or contribute to a larger theme. But when its just there, for no reason, it really serves only to be disturbing. Ultimately, I see little value in this heroine. She's described as kick-butt and no-nonsense, but she's presented as a victim who is only capable of giving in to her sexual urges, and can only accomplish her goals if she sleeps with a variety of men she'd rather avoid.