Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Sixty-One Nails "You'll Never be safe again."


As promised I will post my review on Sixty One Nails today (PST) and if you are at all interested in getting a free look check out the Angry Robot site hereLink to free preview chapters and get a hint of what is the good start to a series....
As you can see the publisher avoided the clichés with the cover - no trench coats, no wide brimmed hats and no tranp stamp floozies are up for view and that is a good thing. The tone set by the cover tells much about the story - its moody and different for a genre that some authors are glutting the market with and others are calling dead or dying.
" You'll never be safe again"
The protagonist, Niall, is told this towards the end of the free preview above and like in reality safety is an illusion we work under; Niall just had that illusion shattered. His near death experience followed by his first meeting with Blackbird is just the beginning to his introduction to the world that was once hidden from him. During the course of the story Mark Shevdon skillfully takes his main character from a moderately content middle-aged divorced indulgent father of one to a potent and potential hero in a new and invigorating urban fantasy.
I had OD'ed on the Dresden stories a little over a year ago and had all but stopped reading urban fantasy not for lack of fun but from overdose. I had picked up the Castor novels by Carey but had not touched them and now have to happily thank the fine people at angry robot for sending Sixty One Nails for me to review. Mr. Shevdon in this first novel gave me just what I need; main characters that I feel for, care about and could get invested in. Rabbit and Blackbird revealed enough about themselves in get my attention but have held back secrets to keep my interest. In addition the background characters, the glimpses that I got of them in their screen time, gives me just enough to wet my appetite and make me want more... lots more in fact.
I feel that I don't want to give away too much but I will give you this, the story involves Courts of "Feyre", one which is in exile. The feyre are a mostly infertile race and had to breed with the fertile humans to survive and there are fey that he very differing views on these half breeds. There is magic in the book but its not what you may expect, there are battles that Niall fights and quests that he has to complete but they are not what you might expect. The people that populate this book deserve your attention if you have an interest in modern fantasy and you may be like me and have much to thank Mr. Shevdon for - thanks for something new sir that has renewed my faith in Modern Fantasy. Oh and he adds in some real London history here and there and that is a great thing too.
I have to say I cant wait for the next book "The Road to Bedlem" and with the end of Sixty-one nails, the changes that occured - I know it will be a different kind of book and that too is something nice to hope for even if it may be a bit unsafe. Here here to being Unsafe.

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