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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic horror fantasy - wow!, March 19, 2010
This review is from: The Second Coming (Words of the Prophecy) (Kindle Edition)
I've read a fair amount of fantasy, adventure & horror over the years - enough that I don't often find something really new that I like. I did this time - it was both unique & thrilling.
An excellent dark fantasy or horror fantasy that sets the background in a post apocalyptic world based on our current one & the Christian myth, adds in some others, & stirs the mix into an intriguing mystery-adventure. It is not for the faint-hearted. All of the characters are flawed, most badly enough that they're not all that likable, but the reasons for this are revealed - slowly. Against my will, in many cases, I was drawn into sympathetic agreement with their plight & their actions. Revelations were logical, redemption plausible & plights were chilling. The action was well described & the scenery was awesome. Wow! What a trip!
Usually, if I don't like or can't identify with one of the main characters, I put a book down. I couldn't this time. The writing was too good & the plot too intriguing.
I was very surprised that a self-published novel (it is, isn't it?) read as if it were professionally edited. One of my biggest turn-offs is poor punctuation, logic flaws, rambling text & 'favorite lines'. (Pieces of text that don't quite fit, but are kept by the writer because they like them.) All of these are typical of self-published novels. I didn't find any here. The writing was tight - sometimes requiring close reading or I would miss an important point - Perfect! That's the way it should be, but often isn't, even in commercial publications.
As I write this, the book is available only in electronic format for a couple of bucks on Amazon (or write the author). I hope to see it in paper format, someday because it is complex enough that I wanted to flip back & forth a few times to double check names, which I find hard to do in electronic format. If it does come out in paper, I will buy it & likely re-read it when the sequel is released & I read that (hurry up & write, David!). Definitely a keeper & a book I'd like to add to my collection.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dark post-apocalyptic adventure, September 7, 2011
This review is from: The Second Coming (Words of the Prophecy) (Kindle Edition)
Set in a post-apocalyptic earth, The Second Coming is the introduction to an `in progress' series named Words of the Prophecy. Centuries after the Earth shifted on its axis nearly wiping out mankind and unleashing all manner of dark and otherworldly creatures, a long-prophesied event has occurred, one that threatens the remainder of humanity.
Burton has provided a suitably dark world for the reader to explore and he paints it innovatively. There is a real play with mythology and religious history and prophecy. Instead of being completely inventive, the author has used existing lore to cleverly fashion new possibilities. Additionally, the author never attempted to create the blinding (and sometimes boring) light of goodness in any of his creation. The best one could hope for was a grey or darker and this is an approach I can really appreciate.
The characters were hopelessly flawed and even the main protagonists could not be easily cast in the hero role. Again, this is an aspect of a story I can enjoy as I like temptation and struggle. In this story, there are probably three main characters which meet as three disparate story lines eventually intertwine. It's a fairly typical story mechanism but it does allow us to explore each of these characters in detail as progress on their own journey. There are also several secondary characters which add interest and sometimes smaller story arcs to compliment the main plot. In fact, the overall web of characters in this novel becomes quite complex with all manner of intersecting relationships being revealed over the course of the plot.
The plot, although derived from familiar elements, has a feel that was quite unfamiliar. The unified church of the new world has ties with all kinds of practices otherwise seen as pagan. The evangelical church of the former U.S.A. is viewed as somehow sinister and similarly contradictory in its practices. Elf-like creatures seem to be biblical in origin and the wild and harsh gods of nature do not necessarily represent evil - although everything demands a price. Sometimes, this alien territory was confusing and I wasn't sure I always understood all the connections being made. Several elements of the tale, I felt, were left incomplete by the end of the book. Given that this was to be a series, I can't hold this against the author. It's likely these are to be played out in future volumes.
The prose flows very well and I often found myself picturing various scenes of despair vividly. The story line starts slowly but completes in a rush of pounding action and several fairly dizzying changes in one of the main characters. I'm still not certain that I completely followed the development of Paine, especially towards the end of the book. What he was, what he became was a little confusing in the end, but the author had chosen to make his origins and his destiny quite complex. It will be quite interesting to see how he plays out in subsequent novels.
I have read David H. Burton before and have thus far enjoyed all his stories. He manages to present a world I want to explore, characters I want to follow and story lines that remain interesting and The Second Coming is no exception. I would recommend this to all who like their fantasies dark and desperate.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dark fantasy - nice debut, August 6, 2010
This review is from: The Second Coming (Words of the Prophecy) (Kindle Edition)
This was a very impressive first book by a small press author. I was pleasantly surprised.
Sure, it was a bit erratic at times. The tenses seemed to switch up and the time flow was confusing. The story didn't always flow smoothly from event to event, as time shifted differently for the different character sets.
There was also a lot of backstory. Repeat: a LOT. Good backstory, I'll give him that. Very intriguing stuff. I just felt overwhelmed with it all at some points. It was hard to keep the characters straight as the narrative bounced around so much, and to keep the proper backstories to the proper characters. Perhaps this could have been solved by extending the work to a longer volume, or series of volumes. Then there would have been more room for character building and gradual backstory development.
That said, I very much like the method of telling the backstory as the present story happens. David did this without heavy use of flashbacks, which can be something of a cheat. I loved the real in depth histories to all the characters, it just seemed that I needed a map to keep up with them all.
I love the premise of the book. 500 years in our post apocalyptic future, where technology is gone and magic is back. The dead have power and demons are back. I enjoyed the way David brought the religions of the world together to cope with the happening that wiped out our civilization, and the way it has developed. The biblical references and interpretations were quite intriguing.
I did have trouble as well with the multitude of strange new races of people. Or more accurately, old races that are now back due to the world shifting on its axis. Between Little Doe's tribe, the Firstborn, the Revenants, the Nymphs, the Lastborn, the Sidhe, and the Obek, I was often having to stop and retrace who was of what race and aligned with which others. There was also the fact that many were of mixed races, so mapping that all out in my head took a bit of effort. Again, this is a lot of great information and worldbuilding, but the book's shortness made it seem a bit jumbled.
Would I recommend stretching this book out a few hundred pages to make the worldbuilding smoother? Not so much. That might help, but I like David's brevity. He's trying to pack a great story in a shorter format, which is a relief to those that are accustomed to huge bricks for fantasy novels. He certainly doesn't drag anything out. But maybe it might have worked better to be a bit more gradual about the histories and backstories, even if it meant giving some of that in future volumes.
All in all, this was a satisfying read with dark concepts that pushed the envelope of moral beliefs of human history. I'm looking forward to future volumes.
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