Wormwood

Angels, ghosts, magic, evil spell book, monsters and demonic possession - all the ingredients for a terrific story. Wrong. Even a comet on a path of terror and destruction fails to inject any drama or excitement. The atmosphere is good, the imagination of the author is immense, but the characterisation, plotting and general writing are poor. Characters come and go in bewildering profusion. Most of these characters are wooden and nasty and not one has any redeeming qualities. The dialogue was cringeworthy and got worse towards the end. So, while my interest was piqued on a number of occasions, each time I was let down by the narrative not following the thread that had caught my eye. Oh, and this tale desperately needs a good editor – show more one who understands the use of the possessive apostrophe! show less

Great fun in an unusual setting of mid eighteen century London. Great plotting, some weak characters but the moral ambiguity is a welcome change. Good twists and turns and fun throughout. Flabby in some sections, some editing would be helpful but overall recommended

I had this book on my shelf for quite a while before reading it. Once it was started though, I remember being firmly stuck in it until it was finished. While it is aimed at a young adults, the story is darker, the plot better, and the writing finer than in the other books popular with this audience, that I have read. I found the locales and characters, and events all quite immersing and more believable and convincing that those in Harry Potter or His Dark Materials. The atmosphere of the time is created with such flair that you get great mental images of the scenes as you go through the book. If I were to pick something that would improve the book, I would say that it should be twice as long, so that all the characters could be show more developed. But this would perhaps have made it more laborious to read for some, and taken away the pace from the great storyline. While I have been through thousands of pages since I read this book, I am actually really looking forward to getting into the sequel, Tersias, which I have on my shelf at the moment. show less

I've had Wormwood sitting on my bookshelf for years. I'm not entirely sure when or why I originally grabbed it, except that it implied magic. There was magic, as well as comets and demons and angels. The book had some potential. The writing wasn't bad and there were some interesting idea, but it ultimately fell flat for me.

The details to the world building seemed a little off. It didn't quite seem like 1756 London. Parts of it felt too modern, like some of the dialog. Other parts made it feel like and alternate version of London, rather than historical.

I also couldn't get a handle on the characters, on why they did what they did. Their motivations weren't clear and I didn't really like any of them. Agetta was the only one I could show more almost sympathize with, but even with her, I was confused to the point of not knowing how old she really was. Sometimes I though she was around 18, other times she seemed around 12. And her personality seemed to flip flop quite a bit, so her growth seems convenient to the story rather than natural.

Ultimately, not for me. show less

I'd recently finished Shadowmancer which was my book to take to work and as this is by the same author I thought I would read this one too. I'd only read this once, when I first got it, and like Shadowmancer before it, it was similar to reading it for the first time. I had a vague remembrance of the plot, but that was no more knowledge than I would have had from reading the blurb anyway.

The general outline is that there's a comet which is going to crash into Earth, possibly killing everyone. It's set in Victorian London but it's hard to tell if it's our Victorian London or if there's a twist to it, such as a parallel universe or something of that nature. It's kind of our history but not as we would recognise it; it seems to be different show more somehow.

It's well written but could be possibly more engaging than it actually is. The writing style is not simple but seems to be quite hard work and for some reason any dramatic moments that happen seem to be told in a kind of monotone which makes them less dramatic and exciting than they could be. It's as if the author is detached from the story and has no interest in the telling of it. There seems to be a nod to Dickens with one of the characters going on some kind of mystical journey and awakening in an empty grave in a cemetery early one wintery morning. I'm not sure if the reference was intended or if any of the intended audience of young adults would have noticed it. It took me nearly a month to finish the book because as well as the dull writing style, once the angels and religion started to appear in it, I didn't want to read it any more. It was an effort to continue and I only did so because I don't like leaving books unfinished unless they are absolutely dreadful.

There are quite a few characters to keep track of and some of them have different names which makes it a little confusing. The air of detachment makes it hard to really care about any of them which is another reason why I found it so hard to maintain any interest in it. The ending is quite disappointing. It's totally undramatic, there's very little emotion in it and a lot of it seems to be completely contrived. It's almost as if the author either lost interest in it himself and just wanted to get it over with, or that he'd only got a certain amount of pages and so jumped to the ending because he was running out of space. It finishes with a hook that would seem to indicate a sequel but there was nothing in it that would make me feel the need to know more.

All in all, not a great book in my opinion. I don't think this is an author that I could really get to grips with. I don't like how he seems to bring religion to be the main point in all of his works that I have read, whether or not it would seem to be relevant. show less

An interesting fantasy set in London of 1756 and a near earth collision with a comet. Featuring magic and several groups of people with a variety of motives.

A better read for me than Shadowmancer.

this book kind of dragged on for me, but it was interesting to some extent...It helps to know the symbolism of such things such as where wormwood comes from.