Customer Reviews

Necropolis

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Unlike the previous reviewer, I have never read Cook's works, so I can make no comparisons. Free of the need to make comparisons, I can give this five stars with pleasure.

Necropolis was one of those impulse buys bookworms (like myself) tend to make when they see something that will appeal to a friend as much as themselves (so, y'know, if we don't like it as much as we'd hoped, we could probably send it to a friend saying, "You might enjoy this"). Well, all I could do was recommend this book to my friend because I want to keep my copy!

This piece of escapism has a nice mixture of parody/humor, detective/mystery, horror, adventure, and fantasy. The characters are all interesting and many of them extremely likeable. This is a book Hollywood would probably like to get their hot little hands on, because I think it'd make a killer-fun movie.

If you like your zombies, vampires, weres/lycanthropes and demons with a touch of humor, you can't go wrong with this book.

Necropolis is not your average city, and Matthew Adrion, once Earth Police officer, now zombie private investigator, is not your average protagonist. Tim Waggoner has created a city of night, populated it with werewolves, vampires, witches, and every other imaginable denizen of the night. He has also populated it with character.

Centuries ago, when Earth became too difficult a place to inhabit, the denizens of the night found the encroachment of humankind too much of a threat, the journey was made through dimensional portals to a land of perpetual shadows and night, and there the city of Necropolis was founded. Since that time, a thriving civilization has sprung up with culture and problems all its own. Solving those problems is Matt Adrion's job, and it isn`t an easy one.

What begins as a pretty wild premise develops into a page-turning adventure with ease and grace. The world of Necropolis is filled with intrigue, scheming villains, and heroes. Every city needs a hero, even if he is paid for his services.

Someone has stolen the Dawn Stone, and intends to put an end to the eternal night that is key to the very world that makes Necropolis possible. With this stone, sunlight can be unleashed, and it's up to Adrion, along with the attractive half vampire, half human woman, Devon, who has hired him, to fight their way through the murky underworld and save the city.

This is a very entertaining romp of a novel with slight leanings toward cyberpunk, and a nod to the universes of role playing games, while maintaining an integrity and mystery all it's own. The humor is spot-on, and the antics and banter of the characters draw the reader from adventure to adventure at breakneck speed. Waggoner's prose is smooth and infallibly entertaining. Highly recommended.

I'm not a super big fan of noir-ish detective stories, but I am a sucker for genre mashes. I enjoyed the heck of of 'Sword-Edged Blonde' - which was a mash of detective and sword-n-sorcery styles - and having enjoyed a Waggoner story from elsewhere figured that 'Necropolis' might be a good time.

The story does move along at a pretty brisk pace, but unfortunately that is at the expense of some of the supporting character development (and even description, to some extent). Some of the glibness of the main character's seemed forced at times, and the way that things wrapped up at the end seemed a little too much like, "Well, he did save the city and all but the powers that be wouldn't POSSIBLY cut him a little slack and permanently fix some of his issues; how else will he get in future messes?"

I believe that this story has been rewritten and morphed into the 'Nekropolis' series of books (probably along the train of thought that it can somewhat coast on the tail of the Dresden Files books) but as a standalone work it's fairly entertaining; just don't expect too much from the story and you won't be disappointed.

Darklord Lady Talaith is killing people and stealing bits of their brains and Dt. Adrion and his partner are on the case. Going through Talaith's portal to her castle, they stop her and are killed in the process. Fortunately, Adrion is revived as a sentient zombie, but he has to stay in the artificially created Necropolis, which was created by Father Dis, and which exists in an alternate universe/dark void, and is where all of the demons and monsters of Earth now reside and is ruled by five Darklords.

Adrion now a P. I., is contacted by the Dhampir Devona, child of Darklord Galm. After his previous encounter with a Darklord, Adrion is understandably reluctant to get involved, but, hoodooian Papa Chatha informs Adrion that Chatha's renewal spells won't work any more and Adrion's end is immanent. Thinking that maybe Galm could help him, Adrion reconsiders helping Devona.

Somebody has snuck into Galm's trophy room and stole the Dawnstone, something only Galm or Devona could do. The trouble is that if Devona told Galm about the theft, she's history. The Dawnstone is something that could destroy Father Dis, and/or the upcoming ceremony of Renewal, which if not completed by Dis, would mean the end of Necropolis.

Along the way we are introduced to a barrage of interesting characters, including cyber-vampire punks; the creepy hive insect creature Gregor, who lives under a graveyard; the snarky Darklord Arvada; indestructible golems called Sentinels, and other assorted demons and freaks. Fun stuff was seeing Adrion and Devona getting trapped into being the prey of a werewolf hunt, a drug called Veinburn that can even get vampires hooked, and the fact that "Necropolis'" mystery is a pretty good fair-play one.

The negative stuff almost outweighed the good stuff. Waggoner just can't resist unclever cleverness. The wisecracks of this hardboiled pastiche often ain't funny; that Waggoner can't resist condescendingly reminding us constantly that Adrian's time is short, and that he's dead. He's a ZOMBIE, we get that, we don't need to be reminded of this every other paragraph. The same is true of Devona, we don't need to be told constantly of her beauty and vampire nature. And did we have to constantly hear of Adrian's inability to zombify his little Adrian in Devona's presence? And despite populating "Necropolis" with a lot characters, little is done with them. A good example of this is the vampires, for instance, have all of the clichés that are equated with them, and then there is the werewolf hunt, which WAS fun, but was almost undermined by a constant sense of cuteness (c'mon, a wererabbit?), which also beset with a series of bad CGI morphing scenes.

Necropolis is a solidly built world, and Waggoner gives Adrion enough backstory to make it possible for more sequels and prequels; it's just that while Waggoner gets the music right, he's tone deaf to the melody, if Waggoner could play it a little more straight, cut down on the cuteness and condescension factors, this could be the start of a great light urban detective-fantasy series. But, as is, it's pretty disposable. I would give it a three and a half stars, but what can you do? You gotta round up or down.

A slightly different version of this review appeared in "Cemetery Dance" #59, and was edited by Bob. Thanx Bob.

AS in any fiction, we read it to escape and enjoy the ride. This was a fun ride, a bit aimed at teens, or tht age group, but it was fun.

any of Glen Cook's 'Garrett Files'? Tim Waggoner has. And it shows. From the medieval Sam Spade style main character to the full and half breed 'monsters' to the despised half-rodent half-human servant class this book copies heavily from the detective stories of Cook. And it's too bad because it's rather well written, humorous in places, eerie in others. But I can only give it two stars since someone else got there first.