Review: Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead by Greig Beck
My rating: [rating=2]
Blurb:
Massive sinkholes are opening across the country – each larger and deeper than the previous one. First the family pets go missing, and anyone living near one of the pits, is reporting strange phenomena – the vibrations, sulphurous odours and strange sounds rising up from the stygian depths. Then come the reports of horrifying ‘things’ rising from the darkness.
When the people start disappearing the government is forced to act. A team is sent in to explore one of the holes – and all hell breaks loose – the Old Ones are rising up again.
From the war zones of the Syrian Desert, to the fabled Library of Alexandria, and then to Hades itself, join Professor Matt Kearns, as he searches for the fabled Al Azif, known as the Book of the Dead. He must unravel an age-old prophecy, and stop Beings from a time even before the primordial ooze, which seek once again to claim the planet as their own. Time is running out, for Matt, and all life on Earth.
Review:
(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)
Enjoyable as a fast-paced read, with appropriate enough doses of action and gory descriptions—and I would definitely expect such descriptions to make their way into a story inspired from the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. It’s never easy to picture what’s supposed to be “unspeakable horrors”, and here I thought the enemies, the creatures, were scary, both because of where they came from and of the way they got rid of humans.
Although not everything was absolutely 100% on mark (I’m thinking of some names, unless my copy had a few typos, that is), it fit into the “mythos” well enough for the purpose of this novel. I liked that the author pointed out at the end what his inspirations were, as well as the reference to the Bloop, which is definitely one mind-blowing thing as far as I’m concerned.
This also seems to be the second novel featuring Matt Kearns as a main character, and… it wasn’t a problem. The author made it so that whatever needed to be known about him was known gradually, and I don’t think one needs to have read the first book to enjoy this one.
The plot may be seen as stereotypical, in an Indiana Jones-like/mythologically-based thriller way, but most of the time, it didn’t bother me. Unfortunately, what I definitely didn’t like were the cliché, one-dimensional characters. I found myself rolling my eyes more than once, and it’s too bad, since there were interesting profiles in there, including the badass Mossad agent who could clearly hold her own without a blink. I may have grown to like those characters if there had been more meat to them, so to speak, yet there comes a point where you can just see everything coming: who’s going to sleep with who, who’s thinking with his dick, how the women instantly disliked each other, who’s going to die due to making a stupid decision, etc. I’d have rated the novel higher if not for those clichés.
Not a bad story, and an interesting take on how Lovecraftian horrors may be tackled in the 21st century; but the stereotypes can definitely become a problem here.