World's End

I wanted to like this book. I really did.

A story about how the modem day world had to deal with the return of magic, and all the creatures of myth and legend?

That should make for a great story.

Unfortunately there's not a single likable character in the book. Not one. Everyone is constantly at eachothers throats. Hardly a civil word between the 5 main characters.

It took everything I had hoping for good character development, buy nope.

It's rare that I say this about a book I finished, but I'll never read this again.

I will give the author this though. He does a damned good job at storytelling. Is a great story. The magic system is superb, the villains are terrifying, and I loved how he drew the changes out instead of making it happen all show more at once. show less

Nicely done Celtic-themed apocalypse. Chadbourn mixes in Arthurian and Christian symbolism, highlighting the whole 'every mythology is but a series of regional symbols' concept, and binds it all together into a suspenseful read. While the characters will occasionally do very stupid things in order to move the plot along, at the end I was very ready to dive right into the next book.

I LOVED this book!! It's so different than anything else I have read lately. I'm not usually a big sci-fi book fan, but this was brilliant. Mythical creatures from British Celtic folklore slipping through into modern day Britain and causing chaos. What I loved most was the fact that the author had taken the time to learn about the areas mentioned in the book. I'm from the SW and the references to the Jamaica Inn, the Moors and Buckfastleigh were spot on. I will now always imagine the huntsman when driving along that stretch of the A38!!

This review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes.blogspot.wordpress.leafmarks.tumblr.com by express permission of this reviewer. Title: World's End Series: Age of Misrule Author: Mark Chadbourn Rating: 1 of 5 Stars Genre: SFF Pages: Abandoned Synopsis: The Age of Reason and Science is Over. The Pact between the Forces of Light and Dark has fallen and both return to our world to renew their war. The Age of Inimical Forces is upon humanity. A time of Heroes and Villains. My Thoughts: I really wanted to like this. The idea was just awesome. I show more love a good Apocalypse! However, 2 things really kept me from it. First, Chadbourn's singling out Christianity as the "bad" religion. I'm not denying his examples, but the way it is used is just wrong. Also, Chadbourn makes a very pointed mention of 4 other religions and that they are simply "all connected". It really bordered on the hypocritical and I have no interest in reading an author who is out to bash Christianity. Second, negating the rules of the Universe because "of Magic" is just ridiculous. It also goes against my underlying belief in an ordered universe because God is a God of order. So this was another philosophical difference and a major one to be honest. Magic can work under another set of rules, but negating the rules of science, well, the sun would go out and the earth would shatter. The Rules that govern electricity govern a whole lot more! So a swing and a double miss. If anyone has read further and Chadbourn stops singling Christianity out for his low blows, I'd be interested in continuing but definitely not on my own. " show less

I enjoyed the book enough to get the second in the series, but the characters don't seem able to EVER learn from their mistakes and act like they've never heard of magic before. I'm having a hard time relating to them

Marvelous book I highly recommend for anyone with an interest in Celtic mythology, urban fantasy, or anything in between. If I had to pitch this at Hollywood, I'd say it's The Dresden Files on a Lord of the Rings scale.

So what would Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings look like had it been written by Stephen King instead? World's End (Age of Misrule) could be somewhat of an idea. This New Age fictional book tells the story of what happens when society starts to come undone--the Age of Reason starts coming to an end, and the story of the five Brothers and Sisters of the Dragon must find each other as well as mythical artifacts in order to try to stop the end of the age of reason and the beginning of a new dark age where technology is unreliable and failing, where the military might of the United Kingdom is no match for the gods and demons and dragons of yesteryear, and where you don't want to be caught outside after dark.

This book feels like it was show more written to be a movie, and it would be a very intense, fast-paced movie, with both action and horror aspects to it. And it has much for almost anyone--action, horror, mythology and new age elements, arthurian elements, demons, ghosts, crime, romance, and betrayal. It was written well in parts, where I could clearly imagine what was going on in the pages of this book, and I even had chills run down my spine as Mr. Chadbourn described some of the evilness of his villians, but other parts of the book lost me.

Where this book really lost me, though, was in its heavy reliance on celtic mythology, and going on about many names of celtic myth and new age names that I didn't really understand, causing me to skim over sections of it where it made no sense to me. While I feel that Mr. Chadbourn had really done his homework (I'm assuming that these names are really celtic myths that he references), he didn't need to cram so much of that down our throats to tell a good story.

He does a very good job of setting up his universe at the end of the book though. While the story of the first book is over, and you can tell that nothing is the same as it had been, you can either end the story there (which I likely will) or move on to the next book in the series. I'm very content to end where this book ends, though, and don't feel the need to continue on in the fear that the next story may diminish from what I feel was a great ending. show less