Customer Reviews

Wormwood

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

 

 

G.P. Taylor struck out with his much-hyped debut, the tepid religious fantasy "Shadowmancer." And the follow-up, "Wormwood," is even less engaging than "Shadowmancer" was -- while it's fairly well written, it's loosely strung together with dull characters and a plodding plot.

In the mid 1700s, London is gripped by panic -- somehow the earth is overspinning, and suddenly stops so that London is plunged into permanent night. A young servant girl, Agetta, is terrified of what is going to happen, especially because her master, Kabbalah master and scientist Dr Sabian Blake, is predicting that a comet called Wormwood will strike the earth.

This information comes from the mysterious book, Nemorensis, that Blake was given by a stranger. The Nemorensis supposedly contains all the secrets of the universe. Unfortunately, the book also exerts a sinister influence over Agetta. But in an attic is Tegatus, an angelic being who might just be the savior London needs...

Religious fantasy, or fantasy with religious undertones, is not a bad thing -- J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and others allowed their religions to influence their life's work. But G.P. Taylor not only has the subtlety of a battering ram -- he's also quite boring. The story plods along in a string of little plot-related scenes, without building up much momentum.

One of the biggest problems is the way Taylor handles the fantastical elements of his book. Okay, there are weird creatures. Most fantasy books have those. But his seem to just be thrown into the mix for no apparent reason. His handling of superstition and science in the 1700s is sketchy at best, no matter how brilliant a scientist Blake is meant to be.

Taylor has a decent enough writing style, and he has a certain flair for description and atmosphere. But his style is also very repetitive and over-the-top -- where are the editors when you need them? What's worse, his idea of creating a fantasy world seems to be to just toss in a few weird elements that have nothing to do with the plot. The actual fantasy plot is just more of Taylor's lukewarm, generic Christian sentiments.

The characters are as thin as the pages. There are a lot of characters for a relatively slim fantasy book, and many of them are left underdeveloped. Blake and Agetta are the only ones who receive any character development, and that isn't saying much. Agetta in particular seems almost manic, considering how fast her moods swing. Tegatus is just freakin' boring.

G.P. Taylor strikes out again with "Wormwood," another dull religious fantasy that leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Boring, messy, and not worth the effort it takes to wade through.

Ok so I see this book in a bargain bin for 3 or 4 dollars and had actually seen it recommended to me because of some other titles I've read. So I bite and one day I say, what the heck, it's a short book, should be done with it in four days time. 3 weeks later I finally finish the book. A previous reviewer was spot on with their review, the book feels forced, the pacing is weird, the characters aren't compelling, and the plot has twists that make no point. To make matters worse, you get the promise of a following book, which you would need to be a little mental to read. As also mentioned in the one star review, fantastic characters are put into the book for no apparent reason and no one really gets any development. My main gripe with the story is that even though I'd never read some of the things GP Taylor wrote about, nothing seemed new or fresh or even original. Nothing blew me away and true, that's a personal opinion but when you finish a book because, well you already started it, that's not saying much.

To me Wormwood just really drags on horridly and the villanously villanous villains get slaughtered way before their particular passings, well those who didn't make it. And come on, what's a book without at least one villain dead.

As for character development, Agetta is all over the place and to be quite honest, the names annoyed me to a certain degree because it's almost as if many authors need to put ludicrously obscure names to their characters. Again, personal take on things but it just gets to a point where it doesn't feel as if names really mean anything at least to GP Taylor and I may be totally out of line because you can see he was trying his damndest to make a compelling read and to describe things as well as he could envision but though some phrases were actually quite good, many descriptions feel forced.

In a nuthsell, unlike the Nemorensis, Wormwood does not possess its readers to finish it. It has no spell binding intrigue, I doubt it will have a cult following and at the very best, the only magical thing about this book is the ability to cast a Sleep Charm on you before you finish a chapter.

I especially liked the story because it showed an alternative fictional version of the events the Bible perdicts. Mind you, the story could have been better because a lot of the book takes place in isolated event that do not come together until at the latest possible moment.

Wormwood is the comet the Bible speaks of that will dry out most of the oceans when it hits the Earth. But you have would have to know Biblical prophecy to understand some of what Taylor relates.

Yet, when I started reading the book, I was confused by some of the thing that were happening and it wasn't until halfway through that the book picked up. The characters were kind of watery and not really defined.

However, it is a very descriptive book and it did a good job of capturing some of the panic happening. Yet, there was still some mystery left that culd have been solved. And it does not end satisfactorily. It's not a page turner but it is an interesting read though that could have been put together more effectively.

I will not say don't read it but it is a book that you can read during your lunch hour.

I picked up the book Wormwood by G. P. Taylor (and the previous book in the series, Shadowmancer) at the local Family Christian Stores in their clearance section. I was in the mood for some fiction and the price was right.

The story revolves around Agetta Lamain, a teenager working in the home of a Mr Blake in 19th century London. It seems Mr Blake has discovered a comet heading straight for London and it's arrival was predicted by a mysterious old book. From this point the story weaves a tale including angels, demons, and other worldly creatures of all kinds. The story is designed to be a Christian allegory like its predecessor. However Shadowmancer handled this goal more aptly than the sequel. This is not to say it failed completely. Only I found the attempt a bit wanting.

One of the issues I had was that while Shadowmancer had demons, monsters, and magic they can be written off as deceptions of the devil. This book included things like characters practicing astral projection, bringing a statue to life and fallen angels able to reanimate the dead. All things I would not find very Christian. The other major issue I had with the book was how quickly it wrapped up the story. It felt as though Mr. Taylor had 273 pages in which to craft his story and at page 250 realized he hadn't moved toward the conclusion.

Other than that I found the book entertaining and the characters engaging.

Well, I think this could have been a decent story. It was hard to get into at first for me, took me like a month before I just cranked it out. It was a semi-interesting story. It had slightly dull characters, no lasting characteristics or remerable characters. It also had some plot twists, but that had no real point, so they were basically stupid. . . The only good thing about this book was the writing was descent. It was easily understandable and flowed well together, very mellifluous, but other than that twas incredibly short and boring. The main problem was it was really just to predictable. After a few dozen pages you could pretty much figure out exactly how it would end. At least I did successfully.

If any of you have read Shadowmancer (written by same author), this book is way better (in my opinion).

Sorry Taylor, don't mean to discourage you or put you down on every book I've read of yours, you just can't create unique enough stories to make it big. . .

This is the best fantasy book I've read in a long time. Having read hundreds of books in this genre, and been disappointed by a lot of recent authors, I was overjoyed to find this book. There has been a complaint that it is wordy. That is only true if you think Lord of the Rings is wordy. This book is not on a first grade reading level, like so many modern books. It is definitely in my top ten, along with Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Redwall, A Wrinkle in Time, and The Hero and the Crown.

I enjoyed the novel very much. I do not think the reader has to be aware of the bible's comet to enjoy the story (compared to the other reviewers). I enjoyed the variety of characters and how they were slowly woven into the story to bring the plot together. The story has greed (those who wanted to rule the world), a dangerous book called the Nemorensis, love, friendship, thieves, science, history (London 1756), regret of a fallen angel named Tegatus, and fantasy (a creature called Sekaris that likes to kill) to create a flavorful story. I enjoyed how the variety of characters met out of need or accident and how the fantasy was woven in to make everything plausible. I found "Wormwood" to be suspenseful and I could hardly put the book down.