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A review by scotoma
City of the Lost by Stephen Blackmoore
4.0
Blackmoore wrote a (so far) three-part urban fantasy series about a necromancer in L.A. that’s pretty good, to which this book is kind of a prequel. I say kind of, since the main character Eric Carter doesn’t make an appearance and the book somehow subverts the typical approach of those novels.
Our main “hero” Joe Sunday is basically one of the henchmen of a local crime boss, who gets roped into supernatural events due to his boss’ involvement with same events. He is transformed into a zombie who occasionally has to eat the heart of a living person or he falls apart while trying to figure out what happened to him, how to undo it and become if not less dead, at least less ravening zombie.
The main Eric Carter books were already a notch more violent and brutal than normal urban fantasy, this book ratches up the violence factor even more. Sunday isn’t really a hero though, he’s like the very definition of an anti-hero, even before his transformation he was a thug and murderer and did despicable things, but his change makes even him flinch initially at what he has to do to survive.
It’s grimy and brutal and thus really enjoyable in a way few of these novels really manage when they try to represent the main character as one of the good guys even when they ostensibly are not. For all that Sunday is a terrible person, he feels more like a force of nature, beyond judgment and inconsiderate of morals, and yet its fun to see him having to deal with being more considerate and smart to actually find his way when he rather would like to rip people apart. Which comes in handy at the end when he has to deal with an enemy who can come back from even death.
Our main “hero” Joe Sunday is basically one of the henchmen of a local crime boss, who gets roped into supernatural events due to his boss’ involvement with same events. He is transformed into a zombie who occasionally has to eat the heart of a living person or he falls apart while trying to figure out what happened to him, how to undo it and become if not less dead, at least less ravening zombie.
The main Eric Carter books were already a notch more violent and brutal than normal urban fantasy, this book ratches up the violence factor even more. Sunday isn’t really a hero though, he’s like the very definition of an anti-hero, even before his transformation he was a thug and murderer and did despicable things, but his change makes even him flinch initially at what he has to do to survive.
It’s grimy and brutal and thus really enjoyable in a way few of these novels really manage when they try to represent the main character as one of the good guys even when they ostensibly are not. For all that Sunday is a terrible person, he feels more like a force of nature, beyond judgment and inconsiderate of morals, and yet its fun to see him having to deal with being more considerate and smart to actually find his way when he rather would like to rip people apart. Which comes in handy at the end when he has to deal with an enemy who can come back from even death.