Författarbild

K. M. Alexander

Författare till The Stars Were Right

3 verk 63 medlemmar 1 recension

Verk av K. M. Alexander

The Stars Were Right (2013) 45 exemplar
Old Broken Road (2014) 10 exemplar

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The Stars Were Right by K. M. Alexander
Reviewed of a TBRindr copy from the author.

This is a noirish murder mystery in a post-Lovecraftian apocalypse city, when "the stars aligned" and various nefarious beasties arose to send the world into chaos. Now, however, things are overall OK, and the world seems at peace. It just happens to be populated by various non-human sentient races in addition to traditional humanity.

The story follows a caravan master named Mal Bell who returns from a voyage only to end up accused of an increasing number of murders--all the victims being people connected to his life. He goes on the run from police as well as the murderers he tries to clear his name and survive to the next day.

This was a fun little noir in the classic "fugitive" tradition. The characters were well built and natural, and the dialog was very smooth. I was eager to follow Mal's story to the end, and I was satisfied when I got there. This book kept the tension up and paced it right, and stuck a solid ending.

The Lovecraftian trappings, though, often struck me as just that: trappings. There are references galore to the mythos, and to other elements of classic weird literature, but in many cases they don't really impact the story. The fundamental conflict centers around a reference to Arthur Machen's work, but in many ways this same story could have been told about a cult in New York. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think a lot of fans of the Mythos works will feel slightly unfulfilled.

Apart from that, there are certain structural elements of the story that don't work for me. The opening flashback strikes me as mildly confusing, because it's actually a flashforward to something that happens in the first quarter of the book. However the book had no typos that I noticed, and the overall structure was pretty tight.

I enjoyed the book, and I was satisfied in the end.
That's all you can ask for, in the end!

I'd like to thank the author for the opportunity to read and review!
… (mer)
 
Flaggad
JimDR | Dec 7, 2022 |

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Statistik

Verk
3
Medlemmar
63
Popularitet
#268,028
Betyg
½ 3.4
Recensioner
1
ISBN
6

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