Matthew Sprange

This sampler (which I acquired at a convention) has four extracts from then upcoming books from Abaddon.

Simon Spurrier - The Afterblight Chronicles: The Culled
Post-apocalyptic urban horror. Stuff happens for no reason (as far as I can see on the strength of this extract). Foul-mouthed.

Andy Boot - Dreams of Inan: A Kind of Peace
Engaging fantasy extract with probably the best and most interesting setting of the four extracts. Badly let down by the writing, which is pedestrian.

Matthew Sprange - Tomes of the Dead: Death Hulk
Hornblower, with zombies. French zombies.

Jaspre Bark - Sniper Elite: Spear of Destiny
An American agent is under deep cover in 1945 Berlin as an SS sniper. He wages war against the NKVD amongst the advancing Red Army. Utter rubbish. The first two words were a Berlin street name, which given that German street names are normally compounded into one word, is not a good start. Later, the name of a German weapon is misspelt. The blurb claims that this is an alternate history, but alternate histories have to be based on something that could have happened. This couldn't.

On the strength of this sampler, I'm unlikely to be searching high and low for other examples from this imprint.… (mer)

Like I said, this is a page turner from beginning to end. The main character whom is named Kaelyn, starts out in this book as a little girl who is very young and who's parents have died. So she is brought up by a priest, and then is transfered to live with sisters to become one of them and learn the ways of battle and deepen her devotion to God. Battle wise, then train very hard. She has something special but she doesn't know it yet. Until one day when she is around 18 years old, she is brought to the secret order of the Catholic Church. She will learn with others like her to defend the rest of the world against supernatural and evil forces that want to rule the world and fight against God. They are soldiers of God. So Kaelyn and her tutor Tranter and Ember who has joined them because she was traveling near their route, will fight together and destroy evil forces together. Kaelyn will discover her inner forces that drive her to do her work. The work that these 3 have got to do is not always easy, but it has to be done. They are after much worse then witches, you'll see.
I must warn you there are a bit of explicit and descriptive scenes in this book, if you are a bit sensitive, you might want to refrain. But otherwise it's a fantastic book. I thought it was very well researched also. Because there was some scenes of tortures that was described, that I was wondering where did he get all that? Did they do all these things? And there are all those fight scenes, you almost feel like you are there with them.
And he described what they wore, the places they went, I really felt like I was with them, but yet it did not take me out of the book.
You know those authors that describe on and on and on, that you just put the book down?
Not this book, just enough description to motivate you through.
Naturally I loved the end.
I give this book a 5 stars… (mer)