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Servants of Chaos

Servants of Chaos

List Price: $5.99
Your Price: $5.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Buy a Laymon novel instead
Review: 150 pages into this I realized I had started skimming and looking at page numbers. Along the way, I snuck a peek at the author's bio on the last page and was surprised to find that this wasn't his first novel. The writing is elementary ("see Jane run"), the plot is one we've seen a million times on cable at 2am, and I knew the editor was asleep at the wheel when I read the word "trifle" three times in three pages. If you're looking for good horror fiction, save yourself the time and money on this one and invest in a Richard Laymon book instead.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Awful, nail through the eye ball bad
Review: As a huge fan of lovecraft i figured that no matter how bad this was it would be midly entertaining. i was so horribly wrong. It reminded of a book that should be on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. The plot is obvious, and awkward. The characters are dreadful and under developed, the villians should have had snidley whiplash mustaches. this book was so bad i called my sister and read her lines like "the Lettuce had not aged like fine wine". I can imagine this book being written by a computer, or someone who owed a bookie. however if you want to read a Hilariously bad book this is the closest ive found to recreating the "Plan 9 from Outer Space" effect. i would have stopped reading it but i was 200mi away from another book store and i kept thinking that something this bad couldnt have actually gotten printed. It did. the best way to read this book would be to cut out your eyes and stuff the pages in the gaping wounds. awful

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: It's no Innsmouth
Review: I had hoped for a novel length "Shadow Over Innsmouth", but this isn't it. The writing is below the worst of the pulps, it totally lacks the atmosphere Lovecraft excelled at, and the characters were closer to tissue paper than cardboard. The idea itself, though not overly original, was pretty good, it's just that the author failed to develop it at all. There are also a few "politically correst" speeches by the main character that have absolutely nothing to do with anything in the book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must read -- if you like horror, you won't be disappointed
Review: I love this book because it's written in the first person, so you constantly are at the focus of the action and everything has an immediate feel to it. The setting is so creepy it's comfortable and fun to visit, if you know what I mean. You can curl up with the book and enjoy every page, the story is that riveting. Now I'm a big H.P. Lovecraft fan, but few writers can match him for spookiness, and reading Lovecraft today, you have to admit that his writing has a kind of dated feel to it (not that it's not great--it is--but it just feels a bit dated language-wise, like Poe, you could say). Well along comes Don D'Ammassa and he goes Lovecraft one step better: first of all the story is topnotch, and second he is a master of creating an entire new fictional weird world for your imagination to play around in, yet he does it with modern syntax and vocabulary. This book is a winner. Plus it is scary. What more could you ask for in a horror story?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: ancient horrors!!!
Review: Part mistry, part advanture and full horror, this is the book I recommand if you like first person naration in the great tradition of master Lovecraft himself. The atmosphere is great, language is simple,and the feeling of 'something is really wrong', all combined gives good book. So, if you like 'ancient horror', as it says on book itself, then go for it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: avoides cliches
Review: pulp novels are hard to come by. that in itself is of course no reason to read them. a guy wants to buy property in a secluded town full of strange inhabitants, happenings and rumors. he ends up having to fight a cult and some unspeakable creatures with a plan. sounds very cliche and B, huh? reading this i was all the time thinking: now D will destroy the story, become B or turning to cliches. but he never did. a lot of standard stuff here. the chase. the cult. etc. one has to admire D for writing seemingly hundreds of scenes that could soooo easily turn into cliches. truly amazing. it is a good book, but don't expect any more.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: ancient horrors!!!
Review: Reads like a Lovecraftian role-playing game plays - fast, action-packed, clever and often rather funny.

But one of the author's own paragraphs should pretty well enable you to determine whether this book will be your cup of tea:

"Well, doctor, you see this bizarre cult was worshipping some superhuman creature from another dimension, and when I destroyed their temple two giant squids from another world destroyed the town. I managed to escape, but naturally I had to kill a man in the process, and now I need to rescue my friend from a man who is preparing to destroy the entire world...Sure. Not only would they believe me and let me go, they'd award me the Congressional Medal of Honor."

If that little speech entertains you as much as it does me, this is the book for you.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Levity With Lovecraft
Review: Reads like a Lovecraftian role-playing game plays - fast, action-packed, clever and often rather funny.

But one of the author's own paragraphs should pretty well enable you to determine whether this book will be your cup of tea:

"Well, doctor, you see this bizarre cult was worshipping some superhuman creature from another dimension, and when I destroyed their temple two giant squids from another world destroyed the town. I managed to escape, but naturally I had to kill a man in the process, and now I need to rescue my friend from a man who is preparing to destroy the entire world...Sure. Not only would they believe me and let me go, they'd award me the Congressional Medal of Honor."

If that little speech entertains you as much as it does me, this is the book for you.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Worth a read
Review: The first third of this book was amazing. Great atmosphere with a very clever scenario. However, once the action gets started, the villians are just your basic cardboard cutouts. Yeah, you still get the creatures and thrill of entering the enemy lair, but the story definitely did not hold up the entire way. The last third was your basic chase-the-bad-guy-and-save-the-girl routine. I also had a problem with the protagonist always getting caught, seemingly at random, by the bad guys. But don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed this quick read, and if you're into Lovecraft, you will want to give yourself a treat and buy this book. I look forward to another outing by Don D'Ammassa.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Worth a read
Review: The first third of this book was amazing. Great atmosphere with a very clever scenario. However, once the action gets started, the villians are just your basic cardboard cutouts. Yeah, you still get the creatures and thrill of entering the enemy lair, but the story definitely did not hold up the entire way. The last third was your basic chase-the-bad-guy-and-save-the-girl routine. I also had a problem with the protagonist always getting caught, seemingly at random, by the bad guys. But don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed this quick read, and if you're into Lovecraft, you will want to give yourself a treat and buy this book. I look forward to another outing by Don D'Ammassa.


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