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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I'd like to read her second book perhaps, February 19, 2007
This review is from: Night Rising (Vampire Babylon, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
Dawn left Hollywood behind years ago. She didn't like what the business did to people--particularly since her big name star mother's untimely death just after she was born.
She's reluctantly returned to help find her PI father, Frank, who's gone missing. Her father's associates at the Limpet Agency are an interesting lot--the Boss is a disembodied Voice (ala Charlie's Angels), the other two PIs are a dwarf named Kiko with aspirations at being a star and a Hispanic beauty named Briesi, who is also an uber-geek.
The case that caused Dawn's father to disappear was the reappearance of a long dead child star in the reels of a current movie. Just a trip to the star's parents' home and Dawn discovers that vampires are one Hollywood perpetrated myth that's quite real. Dawn also runs into Matt Lonigan, another PI who is working on Frank's case for reasons he will not divulge -- and whose disclosed past sounds an awful lot like Bruce Wayne's.
Meanwhile, a rash of current stars are starting to die mysteriously. The Vampire Underground is investigating Limpet. Dawn is feeling attraction both to her boss and Matt Lonigan.
"Night Rising" had a lot of promise for a first novel. Ms. Green introduced some interesting and quirky elements, but the blend of fantasy-mystery-thriller didn't quite come off.
For starters, there wasn't enough procedural knowledge doing both the PI and crime scene work to actually qualify it as a mystery.
Additionally, I didn't feel that Ms. Green's world was as fully realized as it could be.
While Green's characters were interesting, they were more 'paper tigers' than real people. She needed to work on depth and motivation of the characters instead of just giving them toss-off lines, etc.
Pacing was also slow--for a book with thriller elements, this was a slow read. Action scenes needed to be shortened. Better hooks needed to be planted to keep the reader moving forward.
I did not feel that the world was as complete as it could be. The hierarchy of vampires was interesting as well as the interaction of their human servants. I'd like to see a little more developed world in a published book. I have hopes that Green will do more work on this aspect in future works.
Finally, Ms. Green did not fully sum up any of the plotlines. While I am very willing to buy serial fiction, I prefer at least one major line of the story being resolved with a few teasers added to bring me back to the author's world. The summation felt like just an invite to buy the next book.
It took me a week to plow through this book a few pages at a time in hopes that I hadn't spent my $14 in vain. Near the end, the book got more interesting. Ms. Green's explanation for the disappearances is a fascinating one. I do think Ms. Green has potential. I definitely will be looking at the next book in this series to see if I would like to buy it.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Paranormal Mystery That Loses its Way, November 17, 2009
This review is from: Night Rising (Vampire Babylon, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
Green's Night Rising has a few things to recommend. For one, Green does a good job of creating atmosphere, especially that of the creepy variety. We feel, through the main character, Ms. Madison, that something isn't quite right from the very beginning as she goes to meet her missing father's co-workers in at a private detective agency. The paintings seem to smolder with hidden passion, and when she turns away the figures in them seem to subtly change and even follow her with their gaze. The author also tells the story from not just the heroine's perspective, but also from a vampire's, which provides an interesting contrast.
But overall the book definitely loses steam after the first sixty pages. The dialogue is often tedious. The author cannot resist an explanatory sentence or two between every spoken sentence, which interrupts the flow of the dialogue into a disjointed morass. As a result the dialogue seems to take forever, and the characters' actions are only hastily described.
The main character herself is not very likable. A character who feels the need for a good sex romp to "blow off steam" even as she is supposedly frightened and actively searching for her missing father doesn't come across as believable, not to mention sympathetic. The problem here isn't even the sexual undertones -- it's the clunky, obviously forced way the author inserts them into the book. In the first few chapters the main character is fondled by a being with paranormal, disembodied powers for no apparent reason other than that he simply can. There's nothing wrong with sexuality in a story...but when both good guys and bad guys have raging libidos with little rhyme or reason, the story and characters come across as a little two-dimensional. A potentially interesting paranormal mystery loses its way.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
More emotional depth to this vampire hunting series with good action hampered by a faltering and incomplete plot + worldbuilding, February 13, 2007
This review is from: Night Rising (Vampire Babylon, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
Vampire Bablyon is the start of a new vampire hunting series featuring a female stunt expert, Dawn Madison. The story is fast paced and filled with enough gory fight scenes to please the hard core urban fantasy reader but with a surprisingly emotional layer that may appeal to the female reader. It fails to deliver a complete world building construct and this coupled with the tendency to leave more plot threads open than resolved left this reader dissatisfied.
Dawn is between stunt jobs when she finds out her father, Frank, is missing. She heads to LA and the PI firm of Limpet & Associates to find him. Assisted by a psycho midget,Kiko Daniels, and a gorgeous Hispanic tech guru, Briesi, Dawn begins to the hunt for Frank. Dawn learns that there is a complete otherworld filled with psychics, vampires and the VOICE, who runs the show at the PI firm. Dawn must help to find her father; solve the mystery of a re-appearing child star that disappeared 12 years ago but has suddenly reappeared; resolve personal issues with her dead mother; fight vampires; discover who is behind the hiring of a second PI guy; figure out who the VOICE is; and save the world. Sound like a lot for one book? It is.
There were two major problems that hindered me from really falling into the story. The world building, while interesting, is frustratingly incomplete. Also incomplete were the conclusion of the many plot threads introduce. In fact, only one was brought to a close. This is likely intentional in order to make a reader invest in the entire trilogy.
What kept me reading was that Dawn was an interesting character. She is an acute observer and her descriptions of her world were detailed and rich. She is conflicted with feelings of anger and remorse over a poor relationship with her father; and her identity and self-esteem issues that arise from being the daughter of a dead Hollywood icon. In the end, I was intrigued about the next book because Dawn is an appealing narrator. I do want to find her peace and am willing to read at least one more book to find out more about her journey. C+
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