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A review by rhodered
In Midnight's Silence by T. Frohock
2.0
Meh. Given the reviews and the setting, I had expected something rich and complex. It wasn't.
The writing isn't terrible. The settings are fairly well visualized. However for me it lacked depth in two areas:
1. Relationships
As the story opens, the relationship between the two leads is already long established and to some degree unnuanced (in part because we only see them interact together toward the very end of the story.) so, it's hard to have emotional buy in.
We are mostly told, not truly shown, of a past affair one of the leads had with someone else. Since we aren't invested in the main relationship and this affair occurred in the past, it was hard for me to care much about it.
Later, when one of the leads meets his young son for the first time, he experiences a sort of coupe de foundre of the heart. He is nearly instantly a passionate father. He is all in. The son is also trustingly all in. Boom. So, no nuance there, and aside from my natural empathy, it wasn't emotionally or intellectually engaging.
2. Supernatural stuff
Ok so there are angels and demons (basically) and an underworld involving dark tunnels, trains and blatantly ugly/scary/mean beings. None, and I mean none, of this was remotely new. Take a little Jewish folklore, that train from the Lost Girl TV show, and toss in a Hellmouth or two and you've pretty much got it.
The evil was overt and too easily foiled. No nuance, no mystery, no richness of plot or characterization.
Maybe the other readers just don't have a deep background in folklore or fantasy? I don't know.
I do know that I was really hoping to read something with depth (yes even a short story can have depth, it's not necessarily a function of length) as well as novelty and felt disappointed. Don't get me wrong, this is a pleasant enough, competently written story. But, I won't continue the series.
The writing isn't terrible. The settings are fairly well visualized. However for me it lacked depth in two areas:
1. Relationships
As the story opens, the relationship between the two leads is already long established and to some degree unnuanced (in part because we only see them interact together toward the very end of the story.) so, it's hard to have emotional buy in.
We are mostly told, not truly shown, of a past affair one of the leads had with someone else. Since we aren't invested in the main relationship and this affair occurred in the past, it was hard for me to care much about it.
Later, when one of the leads meets his young son for the first time, he experiences a sort of coupe de foundre of the heart. He is nearly instantly a passionate father. He is all in. The son is also trustingly all in. Boom. So, no nuance there, and aside from my natural empathy, it wasn't emotionally or intellectually engaging.
2. Supernatural stuff
Ok so there are angels and demons (basically) and an underworld involving dark tunnels, trains and blatantly ugly/scary/mean beings. None, and I mean none, of this was remotely new. Take a little Jewish folklore, that train from the Lost Girl TV show, and toss in a Hellmouth or two and you've pretty much got it.
The evil was overt and too easily foiled. No nuance, no mystery, no richness of plot or characterization.
Maybe the other readers just don't have a deep background in folklore or fantasy? I don't know.
I do know that I was really hoping to read something with depth (yes even a short story can have depth, it's not necessarily a function of length) as well as novelty and felt disappointed. Don't get me wrong, this is a pleasant enough, competently written story. But, I won't continue the series.