Customer Reviews

Waking Brigid

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

 

 

I really wanted to like this. It's exactly the kind of thing I really enjoy (horror, paranormal, some pagan elements), and I think the premise is actually really good. I was looking forward to getting into the promised setting and characters. However, the way the author writes just grates on my last nerve. The style is choppy and repetitive, and it shows no feeling whatsoever for the characters, the setting, or the act of storytelling. It's like trying to listen to someone sing an aria with a stutter.

To be fair, I only slogged through about the first quarter of the book. I can't stand to read any more of it if I have to read how this author tells it.

I think this book put the last nail in the coffin of my faith in Tor, the (ostensible) SF/F publisher. They've been getting progressively more literary and high-falutin' over the past decade, which was pretentious but acceptable as long as the stories were still good. This book is neither exciting nor well-written nor well-edited, nor is it strictly SF or Fantasy or Horror, so I'm not really sure what it has to recommend it.

_Waking Brigid_ isn't horrible, it's just paint-by-numbers dull, the kind of thing I see over and over again in writer's workshops. It's earnest, meticulously plotted, and completely devoid of innovation or spontaneity. It's like a primer for beginning genre writers of what NOT to do. Ungraceful infodumps. Characters delivering, "As you Know, Bob...." speeches. Walk-on characters who are introduced only to be killed off. Repetitive narration--and I mean, Homer-epic repetition. Rimaldi is arrogant. Angela is beautiful. Brigid is a hereditary Talent. Yeah, I got it the first 40 times. I could've reduced the word count of the first 5 chapters by 20% and not lost anything significant to the story.

_Waking Brigid_ contains about a thimbleful of plot in a barrel of historical and theological brine. We learn the history of Catholicism in Toledo, Spain, in Sicily, in Ireland, and in Florida. We get the entire history of Savannah, Georgia, religious and otherwise. We get a scholarly dissertation on the social, political, and ecclesiastical ramifications of the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840's (which is actually kind of interesting).

What we never do get is into the character's heads or hearts. The narration is trying to be a true omniscient, which modern readers are not used to reading and the author clearly did not have a handle on. Instead of observing all the characters from an outside source, he attempts to jump from one restricted POV to another, often within the same scene. It's confusing at times and undermines any mood he is trying to create. You never see anyone *act* angry or worried or terrified in this book; instead the narrator tells you, "Benito was terrified. He was really, really scared. He'd never been so scared in his life."

As a result, all the characters come off as two-dimensional. The bad guys have only the barest and most stock of motivations--money, power, carnality. They make some stock threats and kill a few people in mundane ways that are supposed to be shocking (but are really pretty uninventive for a demon, in my humble opinion), but I never got a real sense of menace from any of them. The head of the evil coven spends most of his time thinking about his cotton and investments, which may be a realistic thing for a bad guy to think about, but it doesn't make for an exciting villain.

The good guys go through some ho-hum crises of faith, which are either ignored, in Benito's case, or solved, in Brigid's case, by another of the good guys being fabulously wealthy. And of course Brigid comes to terms with her newfound power, of course at the crucial moment, in a way that was both entirely predictable and seemed to have been designed with Industrial Light and Magic in mind.

The two things the book has going for it are the author's love of Savannah, and the story's eccumenical outlook. Christianity, Paganism, and Voodoun are all painted with affection and equanimity. One character after another makes a speech about how there are good people and bad people in the world, regardless of what religion they follow. While it makes sense for these particular characters to feel this way, by the end of the book it feels like a manipulation of the reader.

Bottom line, there's nothing new or original here, and the characters aren't engaging enough to make you care. Only read this one if it's free.

I cannot tell you enough how delightful Francis Clark's book was. I read it for three straight days and was looking for a sequel once it was over. The characters were fascinating, and the book took turns that were not predictable. In the end I loved how he wove the doctrine of the Church with the traditional pagan beliefs.

As a practicing witch, I was fascinated with this book. Granted, the endless bad press Satanists get upsets me, as 99% of the world has no clue what Satanism is really all about, however, I still enjoyed this book front to back. I have suggested it to all my fellow witches, although I'm not sure sure how some of the Satanists I talk with might feel about it.

This was a solid, entertaining read--a great book for that long plane flight or beach vacation, for sure.

While it's not a hugely literary read, I still found the characters compelling and the story interesting as well as creative. Magicians in the Catholic church...who would have thought it? There's nothing so satisfying as a Good vs. Evil story set in an atmospheric city and peopled by characters the reader can root for or revile.

If Mr. Clark should write another tale, I will be happy to read it.

Although not particularly well written, this book is nonetheless a really fun read! It's spooky and gothic and suspenseful. I really enjoyed it!

The Civil War has been over for almost a decade, but Savannah remains under siege as it has been for about a century. A cabal of evil magicians opened a portal that enabled the demon Belial to enter the city. He grants his followers power, wealth and prestige as long and performs their evil demands. When one of the coven members wants out he is driven crazy and locked away in an insane asylum. During those rare lucid moments, he explains what is happening to him as he waits for Belial to kill him.

Sister Brigid has the Sight and untapped powers that go back generations to her ancestors, but have remained dormant in her as the Church has frowned on their use for centuries. Now they are active in Sister Brigid. The Church summons a group of dedicated mages to fight the coven and destroy the demon, but they prove too weak. They need the awakening powers that Brigid possesses if they have any chance at dispatching Belial to hell. Beliel easily defeats the insurgents leading to a mano a mano albeit demon vs. Sister in a battle of magic.

WAKING BRIGID is a chilling horror story that will scare readers with its sense of reality caused by mixing real events that occurred in Savannah in 1874 into the horror storyline. Brigid was given to the Church when she was seven although her family were pagans who followed the ancient ways so that she received some witch training before she was sent to Georgia to live. She comes into her own when she is forced to confront the force of hate emitted by the demon, but she does not know what she is or how much strength she possesses or if she has enough until the final confrontation with the loser most likely spending eternity in hell.

Harriet Klausner