Watcher of the Dark

Well here we are: Watcher of the Dark, the final Jeremiah Hunt book by Joseph Nassise.

This is going to have a lot of spoilers, so be warned.

Watcher of the Dark takes place a few weeks after King of the Dead.  Hunt is on the run, not only from the Boston Police Department and FBI, but also from Simon Gallagher's forces (in order to save Denise's life in King of the Dead, he had to stab her in the heart with an ancient dagger.  Gallagher walked in right at that moment and Hunt was automatically on the run with no chance to explain himself).  Hunt's made his way to Las Angeles and is lying low in an old motel, only to find himself kidnapped by unknown assailants.  They bring him to LA's marshall, Carlos Fuentes, who threatens Denise and Dmitri's lives unless Hunt agrees to work for him.  And so Hunt finds himself working with Fuentes lieutenants: Rivera, a very powerful mage, Ilyana, a half demon, Perkins, a man able to magically find anything, and Grady, a Mundane thief.  The five of them are tasked with tracking down a mysterious magical key that has been split into three pieces.  A key that the mysterious Preacher has just decided will be the perfect payment from Hunt for his help in saving Denise back in New Orleans.  All the while Hunt is trying to find a way to get out of his indentured servitude to Fuentes without his friends getting hurt.

A lot of the plot gets driven along by Hunt (and therefore the reader) not knowing what the heck is going on.  Fuentes' lieutenants won't tell Hunt anything about the missions he's on with them, leaving him to kind of figure it out as they go along (which seemed really stupid - shouldn't you at least tell him vaguely what everyone is looking for so he has some way to actually be helpful?  Or, I don't know, what to watch out for so he can actually be on the lookout and not trigger anything/warn people if he sees stuff?)  They're also not particularly likeable as a bunch, especially through the first half of the book, making me miss Denise and Dmitri.  Sure, some of them kind of grew on me as the book went along. I think Perkins would have been endearing had he lived longer.  While I never cared for Fuentes or Rivera (they kind of made me think of mustache-twirling villains), Ilyana was also starting to become a more interesting character when she started opening up to Hunt (although I don't know how much of that was truthful).  But when Denise and Dmitri finally do show up, I still felt relieved that we're back to the people I actually care about.

What made this even worse was that at the end of the book, when Hunt, Denise, and Dmitri come up with some sort of plan to get themselves out of this mess, they also don't actually say what it is (the exact line when Hunt comes up with the plan was: "And I told them how we were all going to get out of this mess."  That was it.  Then the plan slowly gets parceled out over the next fifty pages).  I feel like this has happened in the other books, too, but it was particularly infuriating since the entirety of Watcher of the Dark was built off of withholding information.

Another thing that I really didn't get was Ilyana.  I'm not entirely sure what her entire powers were.  And a lot of what she could do seemed to make Hunt's addition to the team completely irrelevant.  She could see ghosts.  She could eat ghosts.  She presumably could see other people working magic (like Hunt could with his ghostsight).  Oh yeah, plus she was super strong and super fast. So why was he here again?

But to make it all weirder, she (and no one else for that matter) didn't seem to notice that Hunt was possessed later in the book.  Like possessed Hunt had passionate sex with her one night.  Then normal Hunt woke up confused as to why he was naked in her bed and where his clothes were.  Shouldn't she have noticed something weird with his aura or something?  Or did she notice and just not care?  I have no idea.

I'm also not entirely sure what happened with her at the end either.  She betrayed Hunt to Rivera and Fuentes.  But then Fuentes and Rivera betrayed her for some reason.  It seemed like she was going along with them, so I don't know why they needed to betray her (especially since after they did, they only took a bit of her blood but didn't kill her or anything).  Maybe they needed her as a sacrifice for a later part in their ritual that got interrupted?  But it seemed like the Gate to Hell was open already, so wasn't the ritual completed?  I honestly don't know.

But the book ends and Hunt has once again stopped the world from ending with the help of his friends.  Unfortunately the story doesn't actually end here, even though it is the last published book in the series.  The way it ended, with the FBI still searching for them, the Preacher being mad at Hunt, Gallagher's men still presumably after Hunt, and Ilyana and Rivera still out there, it makes me think there were supposed to be more books following this one.  But it came out in 2013 and there seems to be no further books in the series seven years later...

Actually, that brings me to one more question about Watcher of the Dark: where WAS the FBI?  Hunt was driving around LA, both with Fuentes' lieutenants and by himself, often in broad daylight and not at all trying to hide.  And Fuentes even calls Agent Doherty, who was Agent Robertson's protoge in King of the Dead.  Since they all believe Hunt is the serial killer known as the Reaper, shouldn't they have been all over LA looking for him, like they were all over New Orleans in King of the Dead???

Needless to say, Watcher of the Dark wasn't my favourite book in the Jeremiah Hunt Chronicles.  It kind of felt like a stepping stone to help the larger Jeremiah Hunt story along.  Unfortunately there just hasn't been any more of that larger story released to give this book more meaning. :(

King of the Dead

Well, I did it!  I actually read the second book in Joseph Nassise's Jeremiah Hunt trilogy, King of the Dead!

King of the Dead picks up a few months after Eyes to See.  Jeremiah, Denise Clearwater, and Dmitri have been lying low now that Jeremiah is on the FBI's most wanted list, being framed as the serial killer known as the Reaper, plus blamed for the death of Detective Stanton (even though he is innocent of that, too).  But as time goes on, Denise starts getting visions about the apocalypse happening in New Orleans that she has to be there for according to Gaia.  So despite Hunt's trepidation, the three of them make the journey.  The arrive to find the city's magical community in shambles.  Denise's old friend and ex-coven mate, Simon Gallagher, is the new Lord Marshall because everyone else is either dead or in a coma.  Some sort of plague is targeting the magical community, and as much as Hunt would rather be ANYWHERE else, because Denise refuses to leave, he remains to help her figure it out.

King of the Dead was an interesting read.  I liked how the FBI agent tracking Hunt got his own chapters (I actually found myself wishing there were more!) It was also neat to see how the magical community worked (or at least functioned since many of its leaders were out of the picture).  I also really liked the mystery of the disease and how Hunt's ghostvision ended up key to helping everyone figure it out.

But I didn't really like the end of the book.  There was what I'm going to call a "final showdown" in New Orleans where the book felt like it was going to wrap up.  But then the story kept going for another fifty pages.  And those last fifty pages felt rushed.  This may have been on purpose, as Hunt himself then had a tight time frame, but it just didn't feel very satisfying at all (especially since there was only one chapter from Denise's perspective, where maybe a second one could have taken the time to flesh out what was happening a bit more - although again, this was probably deliberate that there wasn't a second Denise chapter so the reader could be more shocked by what happened when Hunt found her).  The very end is also rather abrupt so, I suspect, the story can continue in book 3 right where this leaves off.  This is all really unfortunate, as up until this rushed and kind of unsatisfying ending, I was really enjoying the book.

With that being said though, I'm still interested to see where Watcher of the Dark takes us....

Eyes to See (Reread)

This is a bit embarrassing (yet also somewhat par for the course for me, unfortunately) - years ago, I read (and loved) Eyes to See by Joseph Nassise.  At that time I couldn't wait to get my hands on book 2 in the trilogy.  But then for whatever reason, I just never actually read it.  I've taken the trilogy out periodically from the local library, but never read more than book 1.  I think as the years passed it was harder and harder to go back because I didn't really remember Eyes to See anymore. 

So a few days ago, I decided I was going to remedy that.  I once again took the trilogy out from the library (super glad they're all still available!) and actually started rereading Eyes to See.  A large part of this decision came from me feeling like reading something I actually want to read, not something I feel like I HAVE to read (which just seems to keep happening in life).

It was very interesting going back to it, six years later.  I only remembered some of the vague story beats.  I remembered Jeremiah Hunt, and how he had given up his eyesight to find his daughter, which ushered him into a supernatural world.  I remembered the ghostsm Scream and Whisper (but not necessarily their names).  And I vaguely remembered that Hunt found her by the end, and was on the run from something by the end of the book; that was about it.

What I didn't remember was the actual goings-on.  Hunt gets called in by Detective Stanton to investigate a murder scene.  Stanton thinks Hunt is a psychic, and Hunt has no intention of telling Stanton otherwise.  The murder is a gruesome one, and the murderer left writing in several dead languages on the walls.  As an ex-professor who specialized in dead languages, the writing in particular intrigues Hunt, but so does a familiar-seeming charm he finds at the crime scene.  When a second body is found with the same writing (and yet another charm, which Hunt realizes came from a charm bracelet that his daughter had), he realizes this may be the lead he has been searching for over these five long years to finally find her!

The world that Nassise built, especially around the ghosts, is still so interesting.  I liked the first encounter where Hunt is hired to exorcise a ghost from an apartment building, and Hunt goes through all the levels of ghosts that he's encountered (and how this particular ghost hid its true nature).  I actually would have liked to see a bit more of that sort of thing, but oh well, the story is still good without it.

This time around, I admit that I had a harder time getting into it though.  I'm not entirely sure why....but I suspect that it had to do with Hunt being on his own.  I know that the first time I read Eyes to See, I didn't really like some of the interactions between Hunt and the other characters; this time, I actually preferred those moments over Hunt being on his own.  I really liked Dimitri, and loved Stanton - he was the perfect foil to Hunt (and I loved how once he saw real evidence of the supernatural in terms of the fetch, he was all on board with stopping it because he knew it was dangerous).  I think I liked Denise more this time around too - the hedge witch was a very capable woman on her own.

I'm once again excited to read book 2; this time I'm actually going to read it, too! ;)

Exit Strategy

So yeah....after finishing Rogue Protocol, I just kept reading, and managed to finish Exit Strategy, the fourth book in the series, thst same night, too (I'm just slow to post about it).  Exit Strategy picks up where Rogue Protocol left off: Murderbot is heading back to Mensah to deliver the files.  There's just one problem: Mensah seems to have disappeared.  And when Murderbot starts heading towards where she was last seen, they find themself dogged by a company who is trying to apprehend them, too.  A company hired by GrayCris who is hellbent on stopping Murderbot from revealing any secrets they may have uncovered while on Milu (everything that happened during Rogue Protocol).

While I didn't like Exit Strategy quite as much as the other three books in this series, I still thought it was super good!  I really liked how much Murderbot has grown.  And it was really fun to have them reacting with some of the characters we've met before in previous books (namely the humans from All Systems Red).  There were some absolutely hilarious lines in this book too (there are great lines in all of the books, but a few of them really stood out for me in Exit Strategy).

I'm also quite interested to see where the story will go from here in book 5.  As far as I could tell, the story is pretty much over by the end of Exit Strategy.  So we'll see in a few months I guess!

Rogue Protocol

Whoa.

When I started reading Rogue Protocol, I was a bit bummed out because ART wasn't in it.  Murderbot and ART went their separate ways at the end of Artificial Condition.  Murderbot decided to travel further out, looking for evidence to give Mensah against GrayCris (the company who almost killed them in All Systems Red).  That brings Murderbot to a derelict terraforming platform GrayCris has abandoned; Murderbot believes the platform may not have been intended for terraforming as reported.

Unfortunately, as a derelict station, not many people go there.  Luckily though, another company, GoodNightLander Independent, is interested in purchasing the derelict platform and has sent a team to investigate it.  Murderbot decides to secretly accompany the team in order to conduct their own investigation as to the platform's true purpose.  Which is easier said than done when the team's "pet robot" (Murderbot's words) discovers their presence...

When I first started reading Rogue Protocol, I was a bit bummed out that ART wasn't there (which I knew going in, but still, bummed out).  I was even more bummed out by Miki, the robot member of the exploration team.  Miki is super naive, which was a bit grating at first.  But as the book wore on, I really warmed to them (and their relationship with Don Abene, the woman in charge of the team).

I also really liked how, despite not wanting to care, Murderbot continually finds themself drawn into protecting humans (and actually liking and respecting the humans, even if they're still super uncomfortable interacting with humans up close and personal).  And as Rogue Protocol's story unfolded, I seriously didn't want to put it down; I was totally blown away by the ending.  I've never read a series that continuously got better as it went; I hope this continues in Exit Strategy, the fourth (and at this point final book that's out).

Artificial Condition

I was very excited to find book two of Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries, Artificial Condition, was in at the library.  I started reading it last night and just finished it now.

This time, Murderbot is on the run.  After deciding to go their own way, rather than follow Mensah, Murderbot decides to travel to the planet where they killed humans.  Murderbot doesn't know exactly what happened there because their memory was wiped of the event (but their organic tissue still remembers).

To get to the planet and investigate, Murderbot gets a ride from ART (Asshole Research Transport). ART is a ridiculously smart transport who is bored having to do a cargo run, so decided to help Murderbot for fun.  ART even uses its medical facilities to alter how Murderbot looks (so they will be less noticeably not human).

To get down onto the planet, Murderbot needs to get the proper paperwork.  The easiest way is to get a job as a security consultant.  And so they end up hired by a group who had their research stolen.  Knowing this is a ridiculously bad idea, Murderbot accompanies the clients down to the planet into multiple traps; they all get away thanks to Murderbot (with ART's help in the feeds).

I didn't think it was possible to love this series any more than I did from All Systems Red, but here we are.  ART was the perfect compliment to Murderbot.  They functioned so well together as a team, I was honestly super sad to see ART and Murderbot part ways at the end of the book. :(

I really, really enjoyed reading this book, and can't wait for #3 (which should be waiting for me at the library today!)

All Systems Red

A friend of mine bought me Martha Wells' All Systems Red: the Murderbot Diaries last year for Christmas.  And as seems to be typical for me, it took me a long time to decide to actually read it.  It's a short book, so I sat down last night to read it and ended up finishing it in one go.

All Systems Red sees Murderbot, our hero, contracted to protect a group of humans who are investigating a planet.  Murderbot is a SecUnit who hacked their governor chip some time ago and has been doing everything in their power to remain under the radar.  They could have gone on a murderous rampage, but they discovered the entertainment feeds and so just wants to spend their day watching soaps. They continue doing their job as expected so no one becomes suspicious.  (They also only refer to themself as Murderbot privately).

But the humans' mission gets off to an odd start; a creature attacks them in a place where their data said there should be no threats.  And not long after that, they discover that their map is missing pieces.  And when a neighbouring exploration team goes dark, it's up to the humans and Murderbot to figure out what exactly is going on!

All Systems Red was a lot of fun to read.  I loved Murderbot.  They were a hilarious narrator.  I also loved how they were super uncomfortable around humans (even though they loved TV humans) - it made them such an interesting character.  I also really liked the human characters they were protecting, and how Murderbot formed a real bond with them; by the end they weren't interested in doing a half-assed job, their humans brought out the best in them. 

After finishing the book, I messaged my friend who got it for me.  He told me there are more Murderbot Diaries!  So I ran to the library to get the next one. :)