Shayne Silvers

This is pure juvenile self-insert wish fulfilment fantasy. And it's a bad one.
Everyone adores the mc. All relevant females are gorgeous and throw themselves at him. The good as well as evil.
He is a god-like ultra-powerful magician, looks stunning, oh, and he (mild predictable spoiler) inherited billions and a company more powerful than many countries... yea..., did I mention he has eidetic memory? no? well, you probably guessed that already.
It's full of all the other clicheés that come to show more mind after that as well.

Sometimes I can eat up a story about an mc like that. A pure power trip. But this book isn't just that. It's also the definition of shallow.

It seems like everything is just handed to him. He does nothing but basks in his own awesomeness. He doesn't actually do anything impressive beyond his innate abilities and inheritance.
No razor-sharp mind, no creative application of an ability, no interesting flaw, no intriguing dynamics with other characters, no emotional involvement of the reader, nothing that is appealing to me. Even the entire plot progression basically falls into his lap every step of the way. Which makes all the worshipping of him by literally everyone else that much more baffling to me.
He is the definition of a Gary Stu I guess.

The plot is so contrived I've never asked myself "why" and "why not" so many times in so short a time.
Characters have whole well-articulated conversations in the midst of life or death fights. It's almost like they can just call a timeout, finish their conversation, and then continue fighting.

Usually, in a well-written book, tense and dicey situations require the mc to make use of all her/his abilities or to even surpass him/herself to overcome the danger for it to be truly satisfying.
But even in a total power trip story like this, tension is necessary and to create it the reader needs to have an intentionally crafted expectation of what the mc is capable of. Even if the reader knows based on previous experiences that the mc will have another ace up his sleeve, not knowing about it is just as important as real danger in a conventional story.
That is probably the most important thing this book gets wrong. Well, I guess it has high ratings and a decent number of them... so, it's taste, I guess...

There are many more flaws I can't be bothered to address.
I do not recommend this even tho I would really enjoy a well-done power fantasy at the moment. show less

This post is about my experience of reading “Unchained” and how the part of me that was hungry for a new story gradually lost the will to read because of constant complaints from the part of me that pays attention to how a story is written.

I’m going to tell it as it happened.

Reading progress update: I’ve read 9%.
I’m gonna ignore my cranky old guy.

You know when you open a. graphic novel painted by an artist you like, one with a familiar style and a favourite palette and although show more the novel is about a new character, you immediately feel you’ve read it before? « Unchained » is like that.

The opening is violence in the rain, a young woman haunted by violence in her past, magical weapons, beasts attacking with fangs and claws and an old (at least to the young woman) male mentor playing distant, disciplinarian but loving, father figure. I’ve been here.

Except I’ve not had the old guy work for the Vatican before. Or have a woman, apparently in her twenties, sound so much like a teenager.

It’s formulaic but slick. The images a clear. The pacing is fine. The characterization either hasn’t happened yet or is going to be of the « you could be this young girl » type, which would work better if I wasn’t a man in my sixties.

I’m going to let it entertain me and try to switch off the annoying old guy sitting in my head going, “Ha! You expect ME to believe THAT?”. He sometimes forgets how to have fun.

Reading progress update: I’ve read 13%.
A smile from me and mutterings from the cranky old guy.

So, this is sliding along nicely. Blood has been spilt, secrets sown and backstory partly shared. It’s light but fun.

Meanwhile, the cranky old guy I’m trying not to listen to insists on pointing out inconsistencies in the narrator’s tone (he uses that kind of language). “How,” he askes with a gleam that he will not admit is spiteful pleasure in his eye, “can this twenty-something American narrator use this archaic form of words :

‘Fearing he would harm himself further if he woke to find himself surrounded by strangers, we had decided to keep him here until he woke up.’

and a little later start sounding like a teen when talking about her best friend:

‘Claire had the biggest heart I had ever seen. Simply put, she was the bestest.’

I mean, ‘bestest’? Seriously? It’s not even teen, it’s faux teen.”

I tell him to let it go, relax and enjoy the show.

He mutters something about standards being important and that the show he’s enjoying is just not the same as the ojne I’m enjoying.

Then we both settle down and read some more.


OK – my cranky old guy won – abandoned at 25% because I can’t take any more of this writing.

I suspect there’s a good story here but I’m only going to find out what it is if someone makes a TV series.

I can’t cope with the text. It doesn’t work and every time it fails. I’m pulled away from the story.

What finally made me give in was a chapter in which our heroine goes to a fancy auction to make a bid on an important artefact. The words used to describe the people in the crowd and our heroine’s reaction to them left me baffled.

It started with describing a man in the crowd by saying:

“He looked deceptively strong.”

What does that mean? If he looks strong then where’s the deception? If he’s stronger than he looks how can you tell you’re being deceived only by looking at him?

Then I got the reaction of the crowd to a dominant male described as:

“Those around him gave him a discreet, but wide berth. Several paces around him remained empty.”

What part of giving someone a wide berth is discrete? How do you do that?

Then I got this description of the route down into the auction hall:

“The stairs were half that of the ones we had entered,”

I think the author means to say there were half as many stairs but WHY NOT SAY THAT.

A paragraph later, as the crowd starts to move to the auction hall, I got:

“I made no move as I turned back to the man who had mistaken me.”

How do you do that? How do you simultaneously make no move and turn back?

What finally broke my will to read were two encounters within a few pages, with the word “belaying”:

“Faint creases marred the corners of his eyes, belying that he was no stranger to laughter.”

and

“No one stood near the book now, belying that they had recorded the video prior to auction.”

This made me want to give the author my impersonation of Mandy Patinkin in “The Princess Bride” and say:

"You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."

I want to read a book to enjoy it, not to have it keep summoning my inner-snark, so I’m going to let "Unchained" remain unfinished. show less

Just finished this box set - now I need CPR!

A unique take on the world of urban magic/supernaturals/wizardry. Powerfully written, it drags you, breathless, in the wake of Nate Temple as he battles the ever growing ranks of enemies who hate or fear him, whilst struggling to protect his friends and all the “regulars” who live in his city. The characters are very well drawn and there are constant surprises - friends turning out to be traitors and attackers developing into allies, temporary show more resolutions but underlying dangers persisting. Take nothing at face value and you will still be astonished.

I have to thank Orlando A Sanchez for the Easter egg references in his books that led me to look up this series. If you enjoy one of these authors, you will doubtless enjoy the other, even though they are so very different. Thanks guys! show less

I can say very little about the actual story in this review that wouldn’t be a spoiler, given this is the debut of a brand-new series. But I can rave about it!
I already love Shayne Silvers’ writing, and have read every word he’s put out. In Devil’s Dream, he just gets even better. I’m madly in love with Sorin Ambrogio, my new favorite vampire. This guy is all man, and quite comfortable with his monstrous nature.
Goodness, what isn’t in this book? There is definitely blood, buckets show more of the stuff, like – Rodriguez/Tarantino gore. There’s humor. Sorin is a 16th-century vamp in modern NYC, after all. It’s ripe with humorous possibilities, but they aren’t overdone. There’s sex, sort-of (wink). There’s pathos, danger, magic, action… Heck, there’s even a bit of a Castlevania vibe. Devil’s Dream is also grounded, to an extent, in the Native American lore of the Northeastern US, researched, and well done.
Sorin is an engaging character, surrounded by an equally wonderful supporting cast of Medicine Men, werewolves, vampires and vampire hunters. And one really obstreperous doctor. The primary setting is Manhattan and its underground, and it’s well-established just how weird New York can be.
Wait.
Reading what I’ve written, it seems I’ve outlined an impossible mélange that might make you doubtful it could all work. But it does. It works. In fact, it’s wildly successful. I haven’t been this excited by a new fantasy entry since, well, at least since discovering Silvers’ Nate Temple books. I’m in love with the whole thing. I’m betting (even odds) that you will be, too. show less