RealmShift [Paperback]

Alan Baxter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 21, 2006

A force exists beyond all belief and knowledge. That force is the Balance. When the supernatural and the magical shape and shift the mundane all around us and fewer people every day are concerned with matters beyond the material, the actions of individuals can drastically upset that Balance. Deep within this world a powerful immortal must lead a powerful coward in a quest against the odds to prevent a descent into chaos. From the deepest planes of Hell to the sweltering Guatemalan jungle, the actions of a few people will shape the future in this contemporary fantasy and action packed adventure thriller, set in the here and now against the overlapping backdrop of the world we know and the myriad realms beyond. (Please note - this novel contains strong language and adult themes).

Editorial Reviews

Review

RealmShift by Alan Baxter is a gripping, thought-provoking tale that evokes a strong response within the reader, both on an emotional and an intellectual level. It is a dark fantasy that takes the reader on both an adventure-filled ride, but also a spiritual exploration... Action abounds in this thriller... Baxter's prose is better than many in the genre... the narrative is consistently solid and well-crafted... It is dark fantasy blended with action, adventure and spiritual exploration that in no way falls into the typical Judeo-Christian mold. Some will find the story too graphic, while others might be uncomfortable with the avenues in which spirituality is explored. Personally I found it a gritty, entertaining read that made me think. If you like your speculative fiction a little on the dark side, RealmShift is for you. --David Wood, Gryphonwood SF/F Publisher and webzine --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

The title draws intrigue. Impressionable cover art, glossed, and a staccato opening - almost literary - clinches it... Twice, ensconced in a tram, reading this 452 page tale, I missed my stop. Isiah, the protagonist is an immortal who detects demon sulphur on Earth. Missions all over the world but now one in his own backyard. Isiah is having one ass of a day... Alan Baxter introduces us to a mystical world, a shadowed realm with forces beyond comprehension or principle... Mr. Baxter writes with conviction; he writes differently rather well... the overall effect, more so for a first time author, is notably fine. Physical and dimensional conflict is one of the best features of the tale. Effortless script makes gullible the reader, carrying him to a destination, any destination, manic laughter fading... Prose flows smoothly, almost poetic. RealmShift is a novel I am loath to put down. A most surprising read. Quite a ride. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 460 pages
• Publisher: Lulu.com (January 21, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1411668626
• ISBN-13: 978-1411668621
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,921,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alan Baxter is an author living on the south coast of NSW, Australia. A self-confessed optimistic cynic, he writes dark fantasy, sci fi and horror, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. You can learn all about his writing and read his blog at his website -- http://www.alanbaxteronline.com -- where you'll also find a lot more of his work, including a free novella. Feel free to tell him what you think. About anything.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A compelling debut of the world at the edge of your field of vision., April 9, 2006

By 

Inkwell "Ax" (Sydney) - See all my reviews

This review is from: RealmShift (Paperback)

RealmShift by Alan Baxter
RealmShift is the debut work of the English born Sydney resident Alan Baxter who creates a present day (or as near to it to make a difference unnoticeable) and rather gritty reality, which is underpinned by the somewhat less tangible balance and interplay of the gods. By saying gods one has to include those of powerful stature, the aspiring wannabe gods, the higher and lesser deities and the individual's "personal god" of less than no significance as well as those seen as the creators and the undoers.

Isiah (not to be mistaken for the prophet by the name of Isaiah), our protagonist, is a more or less reluctant tool intent on upholding a semblance of balance in the world, that gods and demons in their play are intent on disrupting. The slightly aged (around 400 years) and disillusioned Isiah is continuously guided, pushed and prodded by the entity "The Balance" to use his not so insubstantial powers to prevent acts by those selfsame forces of good and evil that might shift the balance in favour of one or the other.

In this particular case Isiah merely has to retrieve the soon to be and not so nice sidekick Samuel, to make sure he knocks off an Assassin in Central America. If he doesn't, the assassin will in turn do what he does best and quite a lot brown stuff will hit the proverbial fan in the not so distant future. This takes the reader from your everyday city streets to hell and back and then proceeds to throw you into yet another hell of heat and mosquitoes in the Guatemalan jungle.
Oh, has it been mentioned that Samuel is quite evil, not exactly readily recruitable and literally frying in the Hell of his own making? (Well, he certainly is a worthy contribution to your local "Satanic Cultists Anonymous" help group.)

Alan freely admits that good and evil exist and makes sure the reader gets his or her fill of the clich?s that have been flaunted in many a book. You are good, I am evil, I have a grand scheme and you come by to club me on the head until I yet again come up with a brainy scheme to rule the world.
What differentiates this work from many another is that RealmShift sleekly avoids what is grandly called the "eternal battle between good and evil" and adroitly sits in between by being outright blasphemous for some readers. If you held the belief that God create the world and everything therein, you are sadly mistaken. The world was here when we found it and the gods were created by us and manifested through our beliefs. We just chose to make some of them a bit more powerful by joining in one belief system and a force of "Balance" tries to clean up our mess with the help of our main character.
One might imagine a helping of the Vertigo character John Constantine's charm, or lack thereof, a healthy pinch of cynicism, a cup of resignation, topped up with a generous amount of mental or magical powers, and Isiah is what you should come up with as a result.
He does his job, quick and nasty and with no frills and while not being too happy about his limitation in choice.
Alan Baxter's RealmShift manages to grab a hold of you and make you feel the drizzle, the cold, the nastiness that permeates the world, as well as the mix of humidity and heat that leaves you one sticky, smelly mess. Battles, fights, minor scuffles and chases have an engrossing and harried feel and Alan's unique style of using metaphors, "tongue in cheek" comments and background dialogue, pushes you through to the thoroughly enticing, not so "clean" world we peer at when we try to look past the edge of the dirty public bathroom mirror.

While Alan is still in need of experience to remove bits that feel repetitive and disjointed, this debut piece is certainly showing the heavy potential of upcoming works. The reader is left largely to use imagination to fill in some blanks and character straits but one invariably ends up doing so with great depth and texture.
Some readers might need to close the odd eye to disregard the obvious pushing of religous boundaries and the definition of "The Balance", which still lacks depth to provide a compelling argument for it to be readily acceptable in the world of RealmShift.

However, Alan doesn't hold punches, he does certainly not endeavour to be politically or correct or stick to common approaches of Theology and he infuses RealmShift with just the right mix of action, mystique and yes, good and evil, to leave a reader wanting more.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Rating scale is really inadequate, April 4, 2006

By 

Julie A. Dawson "Bards and Sages Publishing" (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RealmShift (Paperback)

Sometimes, I hate the 1-5 star rating system at Amazon. This is one of those times where I wish I could split stars, because I would have rather given this book a 3 1/2 instead of just a three, but I can't honestly rate it a 4. So ignore the star rating altogether.
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The premise is a familiar one in speculative literature. Beneath and beyond the mundane world, supernatural forces poise themselves to break the balance and bring chaos and destruction to the earth. Most people cannot see the truth, nor do they really want to. Devoid of connection to the mystical, most people are content struggling through the grey world of corporal materialism. But some people are connected to the mystical, and the actions of these few can impact the fate of the world. This familiar, yet still profound story concept, is told anew in Realmshift, by Alan Baxter.

Specifically, the story revolves around a man who makes a deal with Satan in exchange for immortality, then figures out how to use ancient blood magics and ritual murder to prevent Satan from collecting. But this is by no means a traditional Faustian morality tale, because the apparent good guys aren't interested in saving his soul, but insuring he keeps his end of the bargain to protect the Balance. The central protagonist, Isiah, is charged with insuring that Samuel fulfills his end of the bargain by destroying a creature in Central America that would in fact grant him his immortality before an angry Satan tracks down the magician and destroys him on principle.

The entire narrative reads like a tale told by some omniscient yet bored being, indifferent to the incredible tale it is telling. This is both the blessing and the curse of this book. While this state helps originally set the mood, it creates a plodding feeling as the story progresses, preventing the action from really taking shape. Description often comes across as the private muses of an emotionally detached person trying to remember emotions. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. It also appears as if the author wanted to tell the story from the first person narrative, but decided not to, creating occasional awkward point of view situations.

Some readers may get lost or turned off with one of the other central notions in the book, that multiple gods and multiple worlds exist simultaneously, and that these gods require the faith of their followers to exist. Enter the idea of the Balance, which apparently, among other things, makes sure that the followers of various entities are able to keep their faith. Though the idea has been used countless times (one of the most notable being the Amber series by Roger Zelazny), it is rarely employed with such a strong inclusion of Judeo-Christian mythology. But get pass the idea of angels and devils working with and against entities from other religions, and there is a lot of interest in this book.

I found the book both entertaining and thought-provoking, however the complete concept behind the Balance never quite feels valid. The Balance, it seems, moves in mysterious ways, ways that are often convoluted, illogical, and forced in order to make the story work. On the first read, I enjoyed it immensely, but while rereading to write the review, inconsistencies in thought became obvious. Enjoy RealmShift the first time around as an interesting blend of speculative fiction and thriller, but don't think too much on it afterwards as it might spoil the final experience for you as a reader.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read, June 5, 2011

By 

Biodagar - See all my reviews

This review is from: RealmShift (Paperback)

Realm Shift is the first of Alan Baxter's novel-length works that I have read. Having previously published his short fiction, I knew first-hand how talented he is. Realm Shift confirmed to me that his abilities in long fiction are equally tight.

Not generally a big fan of dark fantasy, I put all my prejudices aside and dived in. It was a gripping and interesting tale right from the beginning; and the construct was nicely delivered. I'm not going to write about the story itself because you have to read the book for that. In the beginning, it reminded me a *lot* of Night Watch, by Lukyanenko - but that was fleeting.

Baxter handled the multiple storylines with aplomb, and brought them together in the 'home run' of the story admirably. Like many other great writers before him - like Le Carre and Iain Banks - the final portion of the book was the best part of it.

For me personally, I found, despite how good this book was, that Baxter's grip on his characters was with a light touch. Except for the character of Samuel Harrigan, it felt to me that Baxter really worked to portray them. Harrigan, in contrast, completely leapt off the page, and I suggest that Baxter enjoyed writing his character far more. Harrigan had a density and dimensionality that the other characters lacked.

As an editor, some superficial glitches (which there were a lot of) annoyed me: missing apostrophes, misused apostrophes, verb-noun sequences that didn't agree. These could have been fixed with a solid copy edit. I *really* struggle with books that contain unnecessary errors, but with Realm Shift I was able to overlook them and just enjoy the story. Kudos indeed!

This is a fabulous book, I'm sad it took me so long to find the time to read it (took me a year to finish it, thanks to other things - though I never had to go back and re-read passages, which is a feat in itself on the author's behalf!!), and I'm sad it's over.

Now. Where's the next one, Mage Sign... I think I need another fix.