Night Child

I'm on a Paranormal CSI kick lately--this is the second of 3 in my library stack. I'm going to rate this slightly below the Hannah Jayne one, but still quality. There's a lot of mini-infodumps in the story, which isn't a bad thing--they're all about forensics, largely, so it's interesting and relevant, even while being a bit of an aside, but they're not all in the right places. A comment about looking at someone through an SEM is more useful *after* it's mentioned that SEM is scanning electron microscope, as is explained on the next page. Still, it was decent overall.

Well, it's not very often I feel like an intellectual midget but this book managed to do just that. I'm actually disappointed cause the premise really grabbed my attention - I thought it would be something like a cross between CSI and Moonlight. Instead, I got lost in the "geekspeak".

Tess is a mage. She investigates paranormal crimes with her partner, a telepath. They become caught up in a confusing case involving vampires, demons, and necromancers. Tess also has flashbacks to the death of a childhood friend who died in a fire. Since one of Tess' skills is spark, I think this was supposed to be significant, but I never really got it...other than guilt that a 12 yr old kid couldn't save another 12 yr old kid.

Here are some of the reasons show more I got lost: arachnoid, Calabi-Yau space, string theory, SIM, spectrograph, beautiful single helix, ekphrasis, thrombocytes, leukocytes, erythrocytes, papillae, Jim Stark, macrophages, hemolysis, autolysis, penumbra, and ouroboros. Some of these words are also used while describing an aborted love scene that occurs after two characters exchange blows. I don't mind scientific terms, but just not quite so many of them! They were impossible to ignore and kept breaking my concentration on the story. Oh well, if you're a CSI, science major, doctor, etc. you will likely not find this as much an issue. Unfortunately, I don't think your average reader can claim intimate knowledge of most of the science speak in this book.

The rest of the story was interesting and complex. The setting in Canada was gritty and well-drawn. My suggestion to the author/editor would be to lose or 'dumb down' much of the science-speak and I'd possibly be willing to try this author again. show less

*This review was originally posted on my review blog Falling Off The Shelf 2.0*

Tess Corday doesn't have your run of the mill job. She's an Occult Special Investigator for Vancouver's Mystical Crime Lab. Every day she sees things that someone like you or me would say is impossible, but to her it's just another day on the job. She's used to seeing dead vampires, but this particular case has her feeling like it's special, especially when all the pieces start fitting together.

You first meet Tess and she seems like a strong character, although she does have her own flaws. She's constantly battling with her past, and it sometimes interferes with her every day life. She doesn't like to get close to people because of her past, and as you read show more this book you see her fighting to come to terms with her past so she can move on and be a better person for it.

This book kind of started out slow for me, not that it wasn't full of interesting facts and action, because it really was. I just personally didn't really start getting into this one until about half-way through, when the story started to unfold and I just had to find out what was going to happen to Tess and the other characters in this book. I read it rather fast though, only taking two short nights to finish it after my children went to bed. After finishing it I felt much better, and more enthused to set out and find the second book in the series so that I could read that one as well.

I was sad to find out that the author Jes Battis doesn't have an author website, just a few pages on assorted sites but nothing to call his own. I was curious about him and wanted to see what else he was working on but can't seem to find any information on his upcoming works or if there will be any. I guess in the meantime I'll have to read the few books that are remaining in this series.

Overall I really enjoyed this book, and I can't wait to read the others in the series. Don't be put off by me feeling like it went slow for me in the beginning, because it may not be the case for you, as it really was an interesting start it just didn't click for me until later into the book. show less

I was hoping for more. I was very happy to find a character driven by loyalty, friendship and a sense of duty, rather than an irrational desire to sleep with the most destructive individual in the region. I was willing to forgive the protagonist her unreasoning, self destructive impulsiveness - because if the hero doesn't have a flaw, there's precious little room for a plot.

I think that if the world and the plot had been as good as the character I'd be happy; but I never really got a feel for the constraints of the world. I was never emotionally convinced that the parts fit together in any way. And the revelation of the antagonist was just contrived.

My mind however keeps going back to the things I liked about the protagonist - her show more loyalty, her friendship, her very real desire to find a place in the world. It may be that the first book in a series is handicapped by the need to accomplish too many things. I think I'd like to see how Battis handles the challenge later, with a slightly different character. show less

I really enjoyed this book, and hope Battis returns to this world. His prose is lyrical, engaging—a major departure from most of the urban fantasy genre. There were a few little consistency blips that made me think that the book had been edited with less care than it deserved, but they didn't detract seriously from the plot.

Night Child

by Jes Battis
****

Night Child was a pretty interesting book. This was actually released in 2008, but I just read it on the spur of the moment last night and today. I happen to have the second book (Flash of Hex) and will probably start that one soon.

Night Child is set in a reality with Demons and Vampires. Although in this reality, vampires are a type of demons. In fact, necromancers, psychics and magic users are all half demons. I found this interesting.

This is Jes Battis' first novel, although not his first book. He has written two previous non-fiction books; Blood Relations and Investigating Farscape. He is a professor. Despite his professorship, I found the dialog between his characters believable. They did not speak show more like they were writing an essay. Refreshing. I also enjoyed the dialog between characters. Except....there was one point (and this is probably an editing issue) where Tess (main character) was speaking to someone about a murder. This person mentions the method of the murder, without being told how the victim was murdered. That, though, was the only thing that jumped out at me. The rest of the book was well written and a satisfying read. Satisfying enough that I want to read the second book. I've noticed this type of mistake on a NYT bestselling author, (repeatedly) so in comparison this isn't a big deal.

Jes Battis also has many descriptive passages about different areas of town. This at times pulled me a little out of the story, but was still entertaining. The plot was good, the ending a nice twist; in fact the ending reminded me of some of those old-time detective novels where the captured detective/or p.i. talks to the culprit about how the culprit masterminded the whole thing. Nostalgic.

Night Child also read like a episode of CSI. Throughout the book, when a method, or instrument was used for forensics, this method or instrument was expained. I read in another review that this was info-dumping, and in yet another that it was similar to how the CSI cast would explain things to each other. I didn't mind most of the "info-dumping" in this book, because it was different, regarding magical/supernatural instruments and procedures. I do not enjoy CSI episodes or Law and Order, because I feel like I'm in class, with the teachers expounding on whatever knowledge or morality they want to impart. Just my opinion. It's a little ironic that this bothers me in a show, but not in the book. Of course I didn't feel like Jes Battis or his characters were shoving their morality down my throat either, so that makes a difference.

Gist of the book: Tess and psychic friend/coworker become involved in the case of a murdered vampire, which leads them to a teenager (Mia) that they end up trying to protect, while dealing with Demon Assassins, a by the book boss, and a necromancer that Tess is repulsed by/attracted to.

My favorite characters were Derek the psychic friend/co-worker and Mia the teenager in danger. I love that Mia actually sounded like a teenager, and I loved the snarky dialogue between Derek and Tess, Derek and Mia and Mia and Tess. I also liked the fact that Tess wasn't a completely perfect employee, or someone with uber-powers yet, though she seems to keep some of her power under wraps.

This is a good read, and I'm looking forward to more from Jes Battis. show less

Tess Corday is an OSI. She investigates mystical crimes in Vancouver. When a vampire ends up dead under mysterious circumstances Tess is called in along with her coworker and friend, Derrick. But soon Tess realizes that this is no ordinary crime and that there is more going on than it seems at first. When the trail leads to an odd human teenager, Tess is drawn in even deeper as she tries to discover what links all of these things together. Oh, and why does it seem that everyone is trying to kill her all of a sudden?

I liked this book. I will read the next. I liked Tess and Derrick and I was not put off by all the technical stuff because I think she explained it pretty well. But the story dragged for me a bit at the beginning and then show more there was almost too much going on. But the mystery was good and I expect the next book to flow for me better now that I understand the world she has created. show less