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A review by ojtheviking
The Eyes Have No Soul by Matthew W. Harrill
0.25
The Eyes Have No Soul ... nor does this novel. I try never to be nasty with my reviews, but frankly, this time I was disappointed.
Simply put, this hasn't been my favorite read so far this year. The premise in and of itself sounded interesting enough, but the author's approach felt rushed and clumsy. There's a feeling of nothing but action, action, action, and plot, plot, plot, but not much else in terms of substance, style, or heart, making the whole story a bit two-dimensional and feeling not fleshed out enough.
As for the main plot, it feels like there was a lot of inspiration taken from The X-Files; corruption, conspiracies, and cover-ups mixed with the supernatural. Think episodes like "Squeeze", "Tombs", "Leonard Betts", and maybe a dash of "Patience." However, this lacked the soul and charisma of those stories, and failed to captivate in a similar way. Simply utilizing a lot of technical, legal, and medical jargon doesn't necessarily lay the foundation for realism, but The X-Files usually managed to do that while still creating a compelling and suspenseful experience.
Characters are like every 1980s action movie you've ever seen, with police officers talking about how it's their ass on the line, and doctors insisting that come hell or high water, their patient will be under their care and protection no matter what, and so forth. In other words, I feel like this book has a lot of clichéd, action-movie-by-the-numbers, as well as horror-by-the-numbers dialogue. (Example: One character is basically an even more melodramatic Renfield: "I am Legion. I am many. You cannot stop the moon. You cannot stop the darkness. It is inevitable.")
Speaking of the way it tried to tie together real life and the supernatural in an X-Files kind of way... weirdly enough the overall vibe of this book comes across as trying to be a poetic story about overcoming the challenges of living with diabetes. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself; I am diabetic myself. However, the execution of this is just like the rest of the novel; just a bit too cheesy.
In short: It's an interesting idea in some ways, but it could have been done in a different, better way.
Simply put, this hasn't been my favorite read so far this year. The premise in and of itself sounded interesting enough, but the author's approach felt rushed and clumsy. There's a feeling of nothing but action, action, action, and plot, plot, plot, but not much else in terms of substance, style, or heart, making the whole story a bit two-dimensional and feeling not fleshed out enough.
As for the main plot, it feels like there was a lot of inspiration taken from The X-Files; corruption, conspiracies, and cover-ups mixed with the supernatural. Think episodes like "Squeeze", "Tombs", "Leonard Betts", and maybe a dash of "Patience." However, this lacked the soul and charisma of those stories, and failed to captivate in a similar way. Simply utilizing a lot of technical, legal, and medical jargon doesn't necessarily lay the foundation for realism, but The X-Files usually managed to do that while still creating a compelling and suspenseful experience.
Characters are like every 1980s action movie you've ever seen, with police officers talking about how it's their ass on the line, and doctors insisting that come hell or high water, their patient will be under their care and protection no matter what, and so forth. In other words, I feel like this book has a lot of clichéd, action-movie-by-the-numbers, as well as horror-by-the-numbers dialogue. (Example: One character is basically an even more melodramatic Renfield: "I am Legion. I am many. You cannot stop the moon. You cannot stop the darkness. It is inevitable.")
Speaking of the way it tried to tie together real life and the supernatural in an X-Files kind of way... weirdly enough the overall vibe of this book comes across as trying to be a poetic story about overcoming the challenges of living with diabetes. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself; I am diabetic myself. However, the execution of this is just like the rest of the novel; just a bit too cheesy.
In short: It's an interesting idea in some ways, but it could have been done in a different, better way.