Customer Reviews

Sorcerer

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

 

 

An ancient sorcerer rises again. A retired law officer finds his family in danger. A secretive arm of the Catholic Church comes to his aid in a battle against this formidable evil.

Sure, this may sound like familiar ground to Huggins' fans. Since his early days, Huggins' has written stories of the battle between good and evil. From "Wolf Story" to "Cain" to "Nightbringer," he has marked this struggle with his unique brand of action, larger-than-life characters, and allegorical shadings. Even in "Rora," his historical masterpiece, he used such a conflict as his setting.

"Sorcerer" is no different. And yet, it may be his best yet. Some felt that "Cain" blurred the lines, and others thought that "Nightbringer" was a re-tread of sorts, but "Sorcerer" feels fresh. Not only does it add a clear spiritual element to a titanic clash, it adds depth with its historical insights. The characters are heroic, while still seeming approachable. The premise bends genres and stretches credulity, but Huggins' narrative pulls us in and straps us to our seats.

If you've been waiting for a fantastic thriller, with spiritual insights and non-stop action, Huggins has delivered. This is one book you don't want to miss.

Ben Johnson was a New England townsman who had served his time in the Korean War and faced down woodchucks and insect pests and thus, wasn't about to let a stranger to town push him around. But his determination turned to shivering fear when he encountered the "Sorceror" during a right rear tire blowout of his on a country road. Its huge angular jaws draped in black rags, smelling of ancient Egyptian sewage, dragged itself like a golem towards the six-foot hardcase Ben, its cold finger bones pinning down the strong human's wrists. Within a minute or two another death had stained the lovely countryside around Dead Man's Curve. Yes, Ben had died (spoilers). Huggins cleverly writes, "Ben realized it wasn't true; you don't see your life flash before your eyes. All he could sense were clouds of darkness, weeds brushing past him, and the tremendous pressure enclosing his arm."

It's up to ex-op Michael Thorn, the toughest guy when roused in the whole state, to track down the sorceror and kill him with the powers he developed in combat. If you enjoyed THE DA VINCI CODE, this is the book for you, and when I bought this book in the bookstore of a local cathedral, the purple-haired elderly woman who sold me the volume told me that Huggins was a noted Christian author, but after reading the book, I have to say, where's the Christianity? This book is fantasy land! Magic staffs, talismans, potions, charms, mummies, monsters, is not the stuff of Christianity. However, who cares, the book has its thrills that I can compare only to the work of Lovecraft or Stephen King.

The other reviewers who are tearing apart Huggins for his lack of characterization and the endlessly egotistical dialogue are barking up the wrong tree.

I'm a big fan of James Byron Huggins and have read all his books. This one is better than Nightbringer, but not as good as Hunter or Cain. Fans of Huggins should give James Rollins, Matthew Reiley and Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston a chance. Those who like the authors just mentioned should like Huggins. Huggins is not as good an author as Rollins, but his action scenes are more believable than Reiley's. Huggins is a Christian and his books are spiritual, but he doesn't bash the reader over the head with a Bible.

I'm sorry to write a review like this. I positively LOVE James Byron Huggins, but it's agonizing just trying to read through this book. Every time the book shifts to the sorcerer's point of view, Huggins bogs down the reader with "flashbacks" to Moses, coupled with the inevitable "he knew the Hebrew God was undefeatable, but..." We get it - and I believe it - God is undefeatable. But for those of us who believe, we only need to hear it once (the point is already ingrained in our consciousness). Those who don't believe won't be impressed by the same sentence over and over and over and over and over and over... you get it.

He picks a very bad method for exposition, in my opinion. I know, most of the time it's best to use a character's thoughts or speeches instead of outright "three thousand years ago, a bad dude fought with a good dude and lost." Honestly, though, I would rather have had plain-jane "There was a sorcerer who fought against Moses and couldn't beat him" than what I have to put up with in this book. If he needed a vehicle for exposition, he should have just put in a chapter before the sorcerer goes on his rampage (that was actually set back when Jannes challenged Moses) instead of ad nauseam repetitive thoughts told from an omniscient narrator's perspective.

Let me just say, I've read plenty of Huggins, and I give Leviathan, Rora and The Reckoning VERY high marks. A Wolf Story was OK, Nightbringer I liked, but in retrospect, I should have realized the author was diving into the pool in which Sorcerer finds itself submerged.

I want to finish this book, but I'm over halfway through with NO action whatsoever (except for a few slamming knives). He could have done so much better with this idea.

And what's with the grammar? An editor would probably be a help in this case, but some of these grammatical errors are just flagrant, and should never have ended up on the editor's desk. Perhaps, though, as a journalist, I put too much pressure on the writer to get it write (er, right). Sorry - I took after Mr. Huggins there (ouch, low blow).

I have read every one on Huggins books and normally enjoy them. If I had read this book first, I would have never read another one of his. I normally do not read modern Christian fiction because it is of low quality and/or gives a very dumbed down version of Christanity. The writing and the premise was not bad, but how it was carried out was very annoying and I had echoes of Frank Peretti's cheap version of Christanity dancing through my head. I would recomend that you skip this book, but if you're like me, you'll probably read it anyway then regret it.

I thoroughly enjoyed JBH's earlier work, especially "The Reckoning." However, this book was of decidedly less quality. The action scenes were pretty well written, but when it came to character development, there was far too much "tell" and not enough "show."

There were numerous clunky phrases, and many descriptions (especially of Jannes' history) were repeated over and over again.

I was disappointed. The story could have been excellent, but instead I thought it was merely mediocre. JBH needs a far better editor to firm up his writing.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, can write action scenes like James Byron Huggins. The plot to this one follows the his highly successful formula of man against the unbeatable foe (seen in "Leviathan", "Cain", "Hunter" and "Nightbringer"), but this time there's a twist: sheer force and power can't defeat this foe.

Jannes, one of the sorcerers who faced down Moses himself, has survived thousands of years and is back (and more than a little upset). Michael Thorn, a retired police officer, has just purchased the house hiding Jannes's tomb. See where this is going? As the sorcerer is released, he gains power. Soon he will be unstoppable. Thorn must find a way to take him down or his family will die. But this time, brute strength and bullets won't take this enemy down. Thorn must find a way to believe in a God he's never known.

Huggins has the unique ability to create some amazing secondary characters. In this case, it's an Assassini named Artemis, who could take down Rambo, the Terminator, and Riddick without breaking a sweat. Huggins's knowledge of combat and weapons comes into play here frequently adding a realism not seen in a lot of novels.

If you've enjoyed Huggins before, this will only add to the delight. His writing matures with each novel, and I can't wait to see what's coming next. There are no slow spots in this book--from the creepy beginnings to the showdown worthy of any Hollywood action flick--and you'll find yourself flying through the pages.

Well, this effort is a little bit better than NIGHTBRINGER if only because of its interesting perspective on spiritual warfare. The two books are VERY similar, and both read like they've been scripted for the movies. Both are about ordinary folks thrown into life and death struggles with evil supernatural forces while trapped in isolated, out of the way settings.
And from what I understand, someone IS trying to get NIGHTBRINGER to film. That might be interesting.

Random thoughts about SORCERER:
1. SORCERER is pure evangelical christian yogurt. It reads smoothly but is probably not for everyone. Readers not familiar with christianspeak terminology will either be fascinated by it or turned off. The christian worldview is assumed to be true and the bad guys are Satan and his demonic servants. Personally I kind of liked it. But do not look for any unusual or creative christian perspectives here. The background is strictly traditional pap with with only a slightly different slant on the nature of sorcery and its practitioners.

2. I did not agree with everything Huggins did here. Can sorcerers and demons really influence and control the weak minded to that degree? And the whole 'draining the life-force' thing seemed far out. I also had questions as to why the Catholic church is always involved on a covert level in plots like these (the Assassini). Aren't there any other secret christian covert groups around? :-) Anyway, for this reason I strongly suspect that this book was designed to come out while the Da Vinci Code was still hot.

3. There were some very cool ideas in SORCERER--particularly as it portrays the confusion an ancient sorcerer might have waking up in the 21st century. And Huggins is not fooling around here. This is not Harry Potter or 'Rings' fantasy. He is plainly asserting that the art of sorcery is real and dangerous and possible even in this day and age.

4. The book's characters are well drawn and interesting (with the exception of Thorn's wife). I just wish Huggins could have gone a step further and developed certain ideas, like WHY prayer and faith work against the forces of darkness. It also seems as though the enemy sorcerer obsesses over his ancient enemy (Moses), but is hardly aware of the work of the Son of God (Jesus). That one really stuck in my craw.

Overall, SORCERER is a good effort. The first third of the book is pretty creepy, as the author sets the stage for the conflict to come. The tension and action mounts steadily from there and really explodes at the end. Yes, Huggins does action sequences very well. And he tells a story very well. But do not look for great literature and top shelf writing here. SORCERER is just NOT a classic. Actually, I still like his LEVIATHAN much better (from 10 years ago). ps...For quality christian fantasy writing, see Steven Lawhead.

But this IS a pretty good summer read if you're looking for something light, fast-moving and wholy engaging.

I read Leviathan many years ago when I found it in the public library. I was blown away and James Byron Huggins zoomed to the top of my must read list. Cain and Hunter followed and I was similarly thrilled. JBH was a writer who took you on a non-stop thrill ride and wrote action scenes that blew your mind. I loved the guy.

There's something wrong now though and I can't understand it. His writing is just awful, his characterization abilities are nil, the stories trip over themselves with contradictions, and there are horrible gaps in the story from one paragraph to the next. Where is this guy's editor? Based upon my fond memories, I'd give the three aforementioned stories five stars, not for being literature, but for being five-star examples of rip-snorting, rollicking action adventure.

I just don't know what to say. It feels awful to watch an author implode but no one else seems to have the guts to say it. His writing his gone terribly downhill with every successive novel (although, honestly, this one was better than the excrable Night-Bringer, but that doesn't take much). Sure, JBH may be a "Christian" writer, but that doesn't mean you can ignore the fundamentals of good writing and publish dreck like this. C.S. Lewis was also a "Christian" writer, but at least his writing was consistently good.

Sorcerer tries to tell the tale of an ancient Egyptian sorcerer locked in combat in Andover, Mass with a retired detective, the local sheriff, and the representatives of the Roman Cathoic Church. I really felt like JBH hamstrung his own characters...they were trying to be interesting, but having to listen to descriptions of the protagonist's preternatural combat instincts for what seemed at least 50 of the books' 300 pages was just awful. Don't talk me to death about it!! I got it after one page, I didn't need fifty. What I needed was to be shown those abilities by seeing the character in action, not simply hearing those described to me ad naseum. Sadly, the action itself in this book was far below par, or maybe it was just so blanketed in redundant droning I lost interest and didn't care. In fact, I hate to say it, but honestly, the evil villain was far more interesting and rational than anyone else in the book and that's just sad. JBH needs to go back to basics, practice writing like he used to, remeber that it is a craft, concentrate on his strengths at writing action scenes, remember that flaws and weaknesses make characters interesting, particularly as they struggle to overcome them, stop alienating readers who have been loyal, and, most importantly, get himself a good editor. He has gone from my must read, five star list to an author I do not intend to buy books from any more. This book was just painful it was so bad.

Michael Thorn, former special forces operative and recently retired LA detective, looks forward to a quiet life in New England with his wife and young children. He has purchased an old Victorian mansion in Cedar Ridge, a village not far from Salem, Massachusetts.

But as he arrives at his new home, his old warrior instincts begin to awaken. A fear he never knew while deployed on his missions seeps into his bones as he traverses his new home.

In the basement, behind a centuries old wall, he discovers a bullet-riddled skeleton. When he returns with the local law enforcement, the skeleton is gone and the only clue is skeletal footprints that lead away from the cave-like tomb.

An old evil, one thought imprisoned forever, walks the earth once again. As the ancient Egyptian sorcerer that once battled Moses seeks to regain his former power, others race to stop him. But will Thorn, a country sheriff, an elderly professor, experienced priest and a shadowy group known as the Assinini be able to stop him?

This book moves, for the most part, at a fast clip toward an uncertain ending. At times slowed by backstory, the author still manages to draw the reader into this chilling story.