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book_lizard42's review
4.0
I wish that Goodreads had a better star system. 4 stars looks like 80%. This book is better than that. A solid A.
trudilibrarian's review
4.0
4.5 stars
This series is flipping fantastic! I feel like it's been written just for me. It has everything in it that I love right now and want to be reading to escape from life and have a helluva good time. I blew right through this one in a day and a half, not realizing there won't be another Sam Thornton adventure until Summer(?) 2013. Boo. But these are well-crafted, crazy mash-up fantastical noir crime novels that need time to grow. I get it. You take all the time you need Mr. Holm, just keep them coming!
This time around we learn a lot more about Sam's life as a Collector of doomed souls, the rules involved and the wicked dangers. The world-building here is so fine. I could eat it up with a spoon. Lilith (yes, that Lilith) is becoming more of a character and I love her. Femme-fatale indeed. One of the addicting things about this series is that the stakes are always so astronomically, apocalyptically high. I can't get enough of the scenarios. I am totally buying what Holm is peddling. Listen to me, I'm raving like a fangirl. Is what I'm writing even making sense?
No matter. Look, this series isn't going to be for everyone. But it just might be for you. If you like crime stories with a noir bent, if you like road movies and buddy pictures, if you enjoy a well-meaning sarcastic narrator with a past who is as funny and clumsy as he is smart and tough then you just might love this. If the fantastical elements of angels, demons, heaven, hell and the Inter-World intrigue you, then I know you will love this. Give it a chance, you really have nothing to lose. But start with Book 1, Dead Harvest.
This series is flipping fantastic! I feel like it's been written just for me. It has everything in it that I love right now and want to be reading to escape from life and have a helluva good time. I blew right through this one in a day and a half, not realizing there won't be another Sam Thornton adventure until Summer(?) 2013. Boo. But these are well-crafted, crazy mash-up fantastical noir crime novels that need time to grow. I get it. You take all the time you need Mr. Holm, just keep them coming!
This time around we learn a lot more about Sam's life as a Collector of doomed souls, the rules involved and the wicked dangers. The world-building here is so fine. I could eat it up with a spoon. Lilith (yes, that Lilith) is becoming more of a character and I love her. Femme-fatale indeed. One of the addicting things about this series is that the stakes are always so astronomically, apocalyptically high. I can't get enough of the scenarios. I am totally buying what Holm is peddling. Listen to me, I'm raving like a fangirl. Is what I'm writing even making sense?
No matter. Look, this series isn't going to be for everyone. But it just might be for you. If you like crime stories with a noir bent, if you like road movies and buddy pictures, if you enjoy a well-meaning sarcastic narrator with a past who is as funny and clumsy as he is smart and tough then you just might love this. If the fantastical elements of angels, demons, heaven, hell and the Inter-World intrigue you, then I know you will love this. Give it a chance, you really have nothing to lose. But start with Book 1, Dead Harvest.
Spoiler
I have to add a few spoilers here that will help refresh my memory when Book 3 comes out. First of all, LOVE the concept of soul skimming. Demons jonesing to get just a small taste of human memories and experience life in God's grace. LOVE the concept that splitting a soul apart is the equivalent of splitting the atom -- bad, cataclysmic shit will happen. Earthquakes, floods, the end of times. Depends on how completely a soul is damaged. LOVE the concept of Collectors being 'shelved' - put into a vegetative body that is a long ways from death, where they will likely go mad before the person actually dies and releases them. LOVE the Inter-World and the Deliverants (who come to collect the collected souls). Can't wait to find out more about these beings who are neither demon nor angel and operate under their own set of rules. I want more!pauldaly's review against another edition
4.0
Fantastical Noir? Paranormal Horror? Satanic Thriller? Who the hell knows. (See what I did there?) Whatever you call it, it’s a fun read, if you can get down with devils and demons and a world-weary collector of souls. I mean you’d be world weary if you were still working sixty years after you’ve died. Me, I haven’t tired of this series and will most likely finish off the trilogy, if only just to see how you end it even when you’ve already been ended.
kateofmind's review
5.0
Stop me if you've heard this one. Boy meets corpse. Boy tries to harvest soul from corpse. Boy finds out that someone else already took it. Boy is in big, big trouble. There is no girl. Nor is there a spoon.
It's not even been two months since I read and enjoyed the first book in Chris F. Holm's Collector series, Dead Harvest, so the fact that I was eager to return to it says something, either about what else I've been reading (*cough* too much Dark Tower) or about how much I liked that first book, or both.
Let's say "both."
The Wrong Goodbye is not merely another adventure for our beleaguered soul-collector, Sam, though it would seem like such at first as he slogs through rain-washed jungles of Columbia to gather up the mean, mean soul of one Varela, drug kingpin, power broker and all around bad guy. But then the problem kicks in, and it's a doozy: someone else got there first. Someone who left behind the nastiest crime scene, maybe ever (especially if you don't like insects*). Someone who absconded with Varela's soul and carved a "hey buddy, we have to talk" message to Sam into Varela's corpse.
Before we know it, Sam, victim of a bait-and-switch, is traipsing all over the U.S. in the company of a dead low-level mobster who has been shoehorned into the fat old body of "the sausage king of Chicago" (wink wink) hunting down the guy who stole the soul and left the message. Along the way, we learn a bit more of Sam's incredible backstory, but where in Dead Harvest it was all about how he got to be a Collector, in The Wrong Goodbye the backstory focus is on his early Collecting days, during which he broke a lot of really important rules. Which is to say that even before the near-apocalyptic events of the first book, Sam has been on a lot of supernatural radars, none of them friendly.
Sam and his mobster-cum-sausage king** encounter quite a lot of genuine horror in this book, all of it dealt with extremely effectively. An extended scene exploring a decrepit sanitarium in the New Mexico desert evokes shades of every nightmare you've ever had, and every horror game you've ever had to play with the lights on (Fatal Frame, I'm looking at you) -- while, get this, simultaneously making the reader feel sorry for the demons hanging out there. It's all very complicated and I don't want to spoil it but man, it's a bravura performance Holm has done, there, and worth the price of the book alone.
But wait, there's more! Like two dead guys who are animating two other dead guys' bodies having an argument over whether one is to be allowed to smoke indoors. Giant evil mega-demons quoting The Big Lebowski. A weird carjacking of a vehicle so beautiful even a non gearhead like me can appreciate it. An action-packed final third that riffs on and builds from the action-packed final third of Dead Harvest and turns it all up to eleven -- until comes a twist ending that, even if you did see it coming, is a pretty satisfying payoff.
And through it all, we have Sam, still trying, despite his damned and undead status, to be a decent guy, to do the right thing, to keep the world from being completely destroyed. Again. Because he's Sam, a guy who went into perdition out of pure and selfless love, and who, yes, is bitter about it, but has not given up the struggle to stay good even so. I heart Sam, I really do.
All of this makes for very good, page-turning fiction. One might think she knows where all of this is heading, but one might be wrong. Or not. Either way, very enjoyable.
And yes, there is obviously going to be at least one more Collector book, to which part of me says, jeeze, how many times can one guy save the world, but to which the rest of me says, hey, Sam's a lot more likeable than Buffy...
*And speaking of insects, if you have a phobia about them, this book is going to scare you silly. There are swarms of giant, angry insects -- The Deliverants, who accept and pass collected souls along to Hell -- dogging Sam's every step through this one. They want their two dollars, you guys. A lot.
**Coo, that sounds a bit naughty, doesn't it?
It's not even been two months since I read and enjoyed the first book in Chris F. Holm's Collector series, Dead Harvest, so the fact that I was eager to return to it says something, either about what else I've been reading (*cough* too much Dark Tower) or about how much I liked that first book, or both.
Let's say "both."
The Wrong Goodbye is not merely another adventure for our beleaguered soul-collector, Sam, though it would seem like such at first as he slogs through rain-washed jungles of Columbia to gather up the mean, mean soul of one Varela, drug kingpin, power broker and all around bad guy. But then the problem kicks in, and it's a doozy: someone else got there first. Someone who left behind the nastiest crime scene, maybe ever (especially if you don't like insects*). Someone who absconded with Varela's soul and carved a "hey buddy, we have to talk" message to Sam into Varela's corpse.
Before we know it, Sam, victim of a bait-and-switch, is traipsing all over the U.S. in the company of a dead low-level mobster who has been shoehorned into the fat old body of "the sausage king of Chicago" (wink wink) hunting down the guy who stole the soul and left the message. Along the way, we learn a bit more of Sam's incredible backstory, but where in Dead Harvest it was all about how he got to be a Collector, in The Wrong Goodbye the backstory focus is on his early Collecting days, during which he broke a lot of really important rules. Which is to say that even before the near-apocalyptic events of the first book, Sam has been on a lot of supernatural radars, none of them friendly.
Sam and his mobster-cum-sausage king** encounter quite a lot of genuine horror in this book, all of it dealt with extremely effectively. An extended scene exploring a decrepit sanitarium in the New Mexico desert evokes shades of every nightmare you've ever had, and every horror game you've ever had to play with the lights on (Fatal Frame, I'm looking at you) -- while, get this, simultaneously making the reader feel sorry for the demons hanging out there. It's all very complicated and I don't want to spoil it but man, it's a bravura performance Holm has done, there, and worth the price of the book alone.
But wait, there's more! Like two dead guys who are animating two other dead guys' bodies having an argument over whether one is to be allowed to smoke indoors. Giant evil mega-demons quoting The Big Lebowski. A weird carjacking of a vehicle so beautiful even a non gearhead like me can appreciate it. An action-packed final third that riffs on and builds from the action-packed final third of Dead Harvest and turns it all up to eleven -- until comes a twist ending that, even if you did see it coming, is a pretty satisfying payoff.
And through it all, we have Sam, still trying, despite his damned and undead status, to be a decent guy, to do the right thing, to keep the world from being completely destroyed. Again. Because he's Sam, a guy who went into perdition out of pure and selfless love, and who, yes, is bitter about it, but has not given up the struggle to stay good even so. I heart Sam, I really do.
All of this makes for very good, page-turning fiction. One might think she knows where all of this is heading, but one might be wrong. Or not. Either way, very enjoyable.
And yes, there is obviously going to be at least one more Collector book, to which part of me says, jeeze, how many times can one guy save the world, but to which the rest of me says, hey, Sam's a lot more likeable than Buffy...
*And speaking of insects, if you have a phobia about them, this book is going to scare you silly. There are swarms of giant, angry insects -- The Deliverants, who accept and pass collected souls along to Hell -- dogging Sam's every step through this one. They want their two dollars, you guys. A lot.
**Coo, that sounds a bit naughty, doesn't it?
drewsof's review
5.0
Chris Holm's "The Collector" series lives up to the promise of the first novel and then some with this book. It's tighter, more assured, and builds upon the mysteries of that first book without adding so much new stuff you get lost. It's funny, smart, and punches well: if you're into urban fantasy and want something to add to the shelf that holds Dresden & the Nightside books... this is absolutely your best bet. Only start with the first book - you won't regret it.
More about the book (with loose spoilers for [b:Dead Harvest|11806282|Dead Harvest|Chris F. Holm|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1318274661s/11806282.jpg|16759662] but not this one) at Raging Biblioholism! http://wp.me/pGVzJ-qF
More about the book (with loose spoilers for [b:Dead Harvest|11806282|Dead Harvest|Chris F. Holm|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1318274661s/11806282.jpg|16759662] but not this one) at Raging Biblioholism! http://wp.me/pGVzJ-qF
smcleish's review
3.0
The first novel in this sequence, [b:Dead Harvest|11806282|Dead Harvest (The Collector, #1)|Chris F. Holm|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1318274661s/11806282.jpg|16759662], must have seemed to sag at the end, as I now can't remember what happened; this book does the same, but at the beginning, enough that I considered not finishing it. Here, though, the ending is a tense, thriller set piece, well worth persevering with the book to enjoy.
tregina's review
3.0
I came pretty close to giving this one a four, but something about the style, the occasional narrative infodumps and the too-easy problem solving held me back. What I did love were the secondary characters. Can I read The Adventures of Gio and Theresa now please?
kellyhager's review
5.0
I loved Dead Harvest (the first book) but I ended up loving this one even more. It certainly helps that there are a lot of references throughout the novel (pop culture, I mean---some are very easy to catch and some are harder. I don't want to be more specific because every time I caught one, I was literally joyful).
This series is also just ridiculously fun. Yes, the stakes are high (if you fail, the world may literally end---so no pressure, right?) but Sam is awesome and clever and sarcastic. In short, my favorite kind of narrator. ;) It makes me sad that this series isn't more widely read. I guess I understand it, because this isn't for everyone (would YOU want to cheer for someone who basically sends the deserving to hell?) but it's for everyone worth knowing. (So says my completely unbiased opinion, anyway.)
I found out about the series because a Facebook friend mentioned the author---he was one of over 100 Maine authors to be part of an ad advocating for gay marriage in that state. I'm so glad I did, because this series is basically perfect for me. The two days I spent reading about Sam's adventures were the best days. :)
The worst thing, though, is that the third book won't be out until next year---probably next SEPTEMBER. :( This feels like forever! But don't let that stop you; this book and its predecessor, Dead Harvest, are amazing and I can't imagine that you won't love them. Highly, highly recommended.
This series is also just ridiculously fun. Yes, the stakes are high (if you fail, the world may literally end---so no pressure, right?) but Sam is awesome and clever and sarcastic. In short, my favorite kind of narrator. ;) It makes me sad that this series isn't more widely read. I guess I understand it, because this isn't for everyone (would YOU want to cheer for someone who basically sends the deserving to hell?) but it's for everyone worth knowing. (So says my completely unbiased opinion, anyway.)
I found out about the series because a Facebook friend mentioned the author---he was one of over 100 Maine authors to be part of an ad advocating for gay marriage in that state. I'm so glad I did, because this series is basically perfect for me. The two days I spent reading about Sam's adventures were the best days. :)
The worst thing, though, is that the third book won't be out until next year---probably next SEPTEMBER. :( This feels like forever! But don't let that stop you; this book and its predecessor, Dead Harvest, are amazing and I can't imagine that you won't love them. Highly, highly recommended.
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