Go Not Gently [Paperback]

Parke Godwin (Author), Patrick Thomas (Author), C. J. Henderson (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: Padwolf Publishing, (September 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1890096326
• ISBN-13: 978-1890096328
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,536,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

With over a million words in print, PATRICK THOMAS keeps busy writing the popular fantasy humor series Murphy's Lore (which includes 8 books- Tales From Bulfinche's Pub, Fools' Day, Through The Drinking Glass, Shadow Of The Wolf, Redemption Road, Bartender Of The Gods, Nightcaps and Empty Graves) as well as the After Hours spin offs Fairy With A Gun, Dead To Rites and Lore & Dysorder. His Mystic Investigators series has grown to include the books Bullets & Brimstone and From The Shadows both with John L. French and Once More Upon A Time and the upcoming Partners In Crime both with Diane Raetz. He has co-edited two anthologies - Hear Them Roar and the vampire themed New Blood. Patrick's syndicated humorous advice column Dear Cthulhu has been collected in Have A Dark Day and Good Advice For Bad People. A number of his books are part of the set and props department at the CSI television show. He was voted Preditors & Editors favorite author of 2010. Laurence Fishburne's production company Cinema Gypsy Productions has taken a film and television option on Patrick Thomas' urban fantasy Fairy With A Gun. As an artist his work has graced covers for Dark Quest, Padwolf and Marietta, interiors and a cover for Space & Time magazine and comic covers for Ghostman. A mockumentary about him has recently surfaced on Youtube. To learn more, drop by his website at www.patthomas.net.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not So Hot (Spoilers), September 14, 2008

By 

J. Whelan (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Go Not Gently (Paperback)

This volume contains 3 novellas, or longish short stories, all dealing in some way with the supernatural. Of the three, I'd say the best is the cover painting by Rowena (which is not directly connected to anything depicted within), and I'm not wild about that one either.

First comes "The Fire When It Comes" by Parke Godwin, which is supposed to have won some kind of award. It is the best-written of the three, but still seems ultimately pointless. It is about a ghost with amnesia who hangs around haunting a young couple until she finally remembers the rather banal circumstances of her death (she got drunk and fell off a balcony). The End. I never figured out the significance of the title.

Next comes "Dysenfranchised", by Patrick Thomas. It is sort of a noir-style hard-boiled detective story, except that it takes place in what must be the ultimate noir setting -- Hell itself. The protagonist is "Negral", a former Bablylonian God who serves as Satan's head Secret Policeman (this is evidently meant to refer to "Nergal", but is consistently mis-spelled). Negral is about as hard-boiled as they can get, and spends most of the story showing how tough he is by inflicting horrible brutalities on whoever he encounters. But this is Hell, so, naturally, they all deserve it. But, it turns out, he is not entirely without redeeming qualities - when a "complete innocent" shows up in Hell, he smuggles her out again. Then he goes back to torturing people -- The end. This is easily the most colorful of the three, but the wallowing in sadism gets old pretty fast.

Finally comes "Hurry and Leisure" by C.J. Henderson. The title refers to a quote from Chesterton("Evil comes at leisure like a disease; Good comes in a hurry like the doctor"). It is about a team of ghost-busters who are summoned to an ultra-exclusive community of billionaires, to investigate a mysterious disappearance. They may be in a hurry, but they don't seem much Good. Upon arrival, this unpleasant bunch to try to impress their hosts, and the reader, with a hellish bout of chest-beating and posturing, resulting in pages and pages of dialogue which is boring, confusing, and mean-spirited. Meanwhile, without much actual detective work taking place, the mystery seems to resolve itself by author's fiat -- mainly because the heroes can just mystically know things whenever convenient. Eventually, some creatures from Lovecraft's mythos show up, and the hero takes them out with a Molotov cocktail and a few bullets. The end.