Underland

Rating:
Summary: Toss this book into the sunlight.........
Review: Farren took on a bit too much with Underland. This most recent attempt to mix the fantasy world of his nosferatu with history and myth falls flat when compared to past successes in the series. Explaining Merlin in More Than Mortal was one thing, but taking on Lovecraft, Nazis, and UFOs in one book was a bit too ambitious. After investing so much time and effort in introducing supposedly integral nosferatu, Farren chooses to focus on several humans in Underland. Darklost in this book are thrown about like so much vampiric flotsam that the importance of being nosferatu is diminished. While Rehnquist is a fascinating character, Farren spends far too much time with him as opposed to other characters such as Julia and the intimidating Lupo, who does nothing but hold Victor's coat in this book. Past characters barely appear on Farren's radar with only a mention of Marieko, Destry, Sagal, Brandon Wales, and Elaine Dance. Other colony members barely warrant but a few lines of dialogue from Farren. The Merlin is cast off as if he never represented the major threat to Rehnquist and instead, we get subterranean Nazis, psychic lizards, and yet another darklost. Underland is a major disappointment that hopefully does not represent the final word on the characters Farren has introduced and readers have appreciated, characters that deserve much better.

Rating:
Summary: A Conservative Gun Expert's Review
Review: It becomes obvious within the first few pages of Underworld, a vampire novel, that the author is a capital "l" Liberal. In Mick Farren's world, President George W. Bush, Jr. allows the existence of a "dirty tricks" government agency infamous for torture, murder and illegal mind control experiments. In one of their conference rooms, a painting of Bush has pride of place and a character stares thoughtfully at it while doing his dirty deeds. Herbert Walker Grael [the agency's elderly director] is said to have "actually controlled the unraveling mind of President Ronald Reagan in his latter days in the White House." Grael refers to Reagan's advisors as "Reagan's retards." I wonder if Farren, described on the book's flyleaf as "English, living in Los Angeles," understands or cares just how offensive all that will be to many Americans.

Of course Bill Clinton, paragon of scrupulous morality, "had done his Arkansas best to uproot Grael and banish him to a long overdue retirement. [We pause to reflect that Clinton's "best" apparently didn't encompass simply spilling the beans at one of his many live press conferences.] "Seemingly Grael had swung his blackmail and disinformation machine into play and, using Clinton's taste for women....poisoned the air around the president. Clinton had been impeached and all but convicted, and then his statutory term had run out. Grael, on the other hand, remained...." Yes, now the truth can be told: it was all a conspiracy.

There's a not-so-subtle anti-gun slant to Farren's writing. When a woman suggests to the main character he use guns to defend himself we're treated to this exchange:

"Renquist's lip curled with contempt. 'Firearms? A nosferatu doesn't fight his battles with firearms.'

'Never?'

'Never.'

'Isn't that a little shortsighted?'

'We have powers far beyond those of humans, and little need to copy their weak reliance on...devices.'

'They'll be coming at you with guns.'

'That still isn't reason enough to reach for one myself. If nothing else, the reliance on firearms makes one lazy. The brain itself should be the weapon, not merely the control behind it.'"

Strangely, through all the thousands of hours' practice leading to my becoming a Washington state combat pistol champion in 2002, I never once realized I was being lazy.

Then there's the scene with a naked woman holding a gun in each hand, threatening three men through a sheet of bulletproof glass, and the line: "The NSA-FEMA issue Glock 9mm autos came with the now-illegal seventeen-round clip, and twenty-eight impacts surely should be enough to blow out the transparent wall." I've made my living testing firearms and writing articles for gun magazines since 1992 - and there are so many technical errors in that one sentence it's appalling.

In September 1994 in the US, a law was passed banning future importation or domestic manufacture of detachable box magazines holding over 10 rounds. (The law incorporated a 10-year sunset period, and after September 2004 it'll be nothing but a fading memory. But I digress.) Over-10 round magazines previously existent in-country were grandfathered. They're totally legal to own, use and carry. 17-round Glock magazines have never been illegal.

The detachable box containing ammo that's inserted into an auto pistol's hollow butt is not a "clip," it's a magazine. A clip is a non-mechanical device, no moving parts, just a piece of metal, designed to hold cartridges for storage, or insertion into a magazine. A magazine is a mechanical device, it has moving parts, designed to hold cartridges so they can go into a firing chamber. Imagine how jarring it would be if you were a computer programmer, and a writer referred to a ROM as a RAM. I mean, who cares, they're almost the same thing - right?

Finally: "twenty-eight rounds." A full capacity Glock Model 17 magazine holds 17 rounds. A fully loaded G17 also has a round in the chamber, that's 18 rounds total per gun. 18 times two is 36. Even if Farren doesn't know a fully loaded auto pistol has an "extra" round in the firing chamber, he's simply going by magazine capacity, I still don't see how he gets "17 times two equals 28." Not only does Farren know little about guns, and is apparently unwilling to do the research to get his facts straight, he can't even do simple math.

At this point I quit reading. I could tolerate Farren's condescending, outsider, elitist attitude toward American presidents I admire; I could tolerate factual errors in my area of professional expertise - but not both.

It's too bad, really. With a lot less Liberal snottiness, more willingness to do research, and the addition (pun intended) of basic arithmetical skills, Mick Farren could be a pretty good writer.

Rating:
Summary: Genre Confusion
Review: It used to be that vampire stores were, first and foremost, horror stories. In the dark ages, long before Buffy, audiences read stories of evil creatures that lived forever, shunned sunlight, and looked at humans as self-delivering meals. Now years later, the Buffy vampire is truest to form, and every new author has to find a new variation on an old theme. Mick Farren's vampires, in his fourth novel in the Victor Renquist series, as of the 'there is a barely believable explanation for all this' school.

Of course, this depends on whether the average vampire junkie will swallow the idea that countless millennia ago aliens landed creating several biological species to keep our forbearers in check. Naturally, one such species were the Nosferatu, who outlasted their masters, and haunt the night to this day.

For most of the first three volumes of this series, vampire history wasn't all that important. Farren's habit being to play nest politics against an action plot. But, gradually, his vampires have become more enmeshed in the modern, occult world around them. In 'Underland,' with its strange mélange of vampire, alien, Nazi, and prehistoric themes, the vampires are completely believable, but the plot stretches ones ability to willingly suspend disbelief.

If you don't mind a stirring story of a master vampire forcibly recruited by a top secret government agency to descend into an underworld culture run by the Nazi fugitives of World War II you will discover that Farren's writing talent is considerable. Indeed, this is far from the 250 page pot-boiler that vampire lovers have come to expect. The writer takes the time to build character and indulge in scene building. I thing those readers who are ready to spend some time with the characters and their somewhat outlandish story will find much to enjoy

Rating:
Summary: Genre Confusion
Review: It used to be that vampire stores were, first and foremost, horror stories. In the dark ages, long before Buffy, audiences read stories of evil creatures that lived forever, shunned sunlight, and looked at humans as self-delivering meals. Now years later, the Buffy vampire is truest to form, and every new author has to find a new variation on an old theme. Mick Farren's vampires, in his fourth novel in the Victor Renquist series, as of the 'there is a barely believable explanation for all this' school.

Of course, this depends on whether the average vampire junkie will swallow the idea that countless millennia ago aliens landed creating several biological species to keep our forbearers in check. Naturally, one such species were the Nosferatu, who outlasted their masters, and haunt the night to this day.

For most of the first three volumes of this series, vampire history wasn't all that important. Farren's habit being to play nest politics against an action plot. But, gradually, his vampires have become more enmeshed in the modern, occult world around them. In 'Underland,' with its strange mélange of vampire, alien, Nazi, and prehistoric themes, the vampires are completely believable, but the plot stretches ones ability to willingly suspend disbelief.

If you don't mind a stirring story of a master vampire forcibly recruited by a top secret government agency to descend into an underworld culture run by the Nazi fugitives of World War II you will discover that Farren's writing talent is considerable. Indeed, this is far from the 250 page pot-boiler that vampire lovers have come to expect. The writer takes the time to build character and indulge in scene building. I thing those readers who are ready to spend some time with the characters and their somewhat outlandish story will find much to enjoy

Rating:
Summary: wild blending of SF, fantasy, horror, and historical
Review: The Paranormal Operations and Research Branch of the National Security Agency needs inhuman help so agents abduct Nosferatu Victor Renquist. They take their guest to a special locale buried deep in the Paranormal Warfare Facility to insure no outside interference as they coerce Victor into cooperating via a laser beam ready to turn his eyeball and brain into a fried egg. The century old director Herbert "Old Man" Grael demands Victor assist the agency with infiltrating the Nazi UNDERLAND facility.

Though he would prefer to tell the American undercover government agency to stick it where the sun does not shine, Victor puts together a team consisting of his most loyal friend, an NSA operative, and a darklost in betweener originally intended as a snack. However, greeting the small squad is a lot more than just the Nazi survivors. For beneath the surface mantle resides a thriving planet-wide civilization that worships the Dhrakuh Central Mind tied to visitors from outer space.

UNDERLAND is simply mixing Jules Verne, H.G. and Orson Wells, and Bram Stoker into the world of Lovecraft, something only the insane or the superconfident would dream let alone dare doing. Yet Mick Farren accomplishes this seemingly impossible feat with a wild blending of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and historical into an exhilarating modern day thriller. Though the story line contains a bit too many sidebars for us mortals to fully follow, fans of each genre will appreciate this strong third vampire entry that features the extraordinary imagination and talent of Mr. Farren.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: wild blending of SF, fantasy, horror, and historical
Review: The Paranormal Operations and Research Branch of the National Security Agency needs inhuman help so agents abduct Nosferatu Victor Renquist. They take their guest to a special locale buried deep in the Paranormal Warfare Facility to insure no outside interference as they coerce Victor into cooperating via a laser beam ready to turn his eyeball and brain into a fried egg. The century old director Herbert "Old Man" Grael demands Victor assist the agency with infiltrating the Nazi UNDERLAND facility.

Though he would prefer to tell the American undercover government agency to stick it where the sun does not shine, Victor puts together a team consisting of his most loyal friend, an NSA operative, and a darklost in betweener originally intended as a snack. However, greeting the small squad is a lot more than just the Nazi survivors. For beneath the surface mantle resides a thriving planet-wide civilization that worships the Dhrakuh Central Mind tied to visitors from outer space.

UNDERLAND is simply mixing Jules Verne, H.G. and Orson Wells, and Bram Stoker into the world of Lovecraft, something only the insane or the superconfident would dream let alone dare doing. Yet Mick Farren accomplishes this seemingly impossible feat with a wild blending of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and historical into an exhilarating modern day thriller. Though the story line contains a bit too many sidebars for us mortals to fully follow, fans of each genre will appreciate this strong third vampire entry that features the extraordinary imagination and talent of Mr. Farren.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Underland
Review: There's nowhere near enough plot to sustain this many pages.

Farren's main vampire, Victor Renquist, gets snatched from the Watergate Hotel by a secret government organization that specializes in the Paranormal, so they can send him under the earth to root out subterranean Nazis who worship a serpent god below Antarctica. It sounds like a weirdly satisfying idea--but in the first 250 pages very little happens. Farren gets caught up in the minutae of his story...vampires and humans interacting in tense situations, struggles for psychological dominance between bloodsuckers and hard-hearted government or mercenary types...but there's maybe one hundred pages of actual plot here. If I were to judge by Underland, I would say that the author doesn't understand how to write a story. But I don't just judge by Underland; I recall that Farren wrote to the same slow-grinding, uneventful effect in The Long Orbit, one of his forgotten SF novels.

The characters remain interesting throughout--Renquist, the various humans who have him on a leash, his new obssessive admirer, Thyme, who only wants to be Changed (into a vampire) after being feasted on by Renquist, even the members of the underground colony of Nazis--but they are stuck in a non-story, where maybe something happens after two hundred pages.

If I were to give even a few more sentences about what happens in the plot, you'd be up to speed on the whole book. So I'll just stop and advise you to enter Underland with caution. Remember that old saying: "If we were going any slower, we'd be going backwards."? Well, if things were moving any slower in this novel by the midpoint, you'd get to the end and realize that somehow you got mixed up were back at Chapter One. And I'm not sure it would make much difference.

Rating:
Summary: So where are we going?
Review: Three things that should never be mixed in any form of writing what so ever are Nazis, Vampires and the hallow earth theory.

Let me just say that this book reminded me of those guys that used to wear black in High School they would drone on and on about how depressed they were and how all of their dreams were going to come true when they got out.

In that regard at least the similalarites are unmistakable(that and all the Goths bad in High School had a pasty white vampirish complexion). Rehnquist while trying to act the part of the tough guy seems to come in contact with a bunch of people that fight/deduce/debate/negotiate their way out the nearest wet paper bag. His romantic relationship with Thyme Bridewell was particularly unbearable.

In the end I was confused the mostly two dimensional characters do not go anywhere or achieve much of anything. The characters in the went down into the earth and I was still on the surface scratching my head still trying to figure out where I lost track of the plot.

Overall-This guy makes the likes of William W. Johnstone and James Axler seem like John Steinbeck. The characters needed to be fleshed out and so did the plot.

Rating:
Summary: So where are we going?
Review: Three things that should never be mixed in any form of writing what so ever are Nazis, Vampires and the hallow earth theory.

Let me just say that this book reminded me of those guys that used to wear black in High School they would drone on and on about how depressed they were and how all of their dreams were going to come true when they got out.

In that regard at least the similalarites are unmistakable(that and all the Goths bad in High School had a pasty white vampirish complexion). Rehnquist while trying to act the part of the tough guy seems to come in contact with a bunch of people that fight/deduce/debate/negotiate their way out the nearest wet paper bag. His romantic relationship with Thyme Bridewell was particularly unbearable.

In the end I was confused the mostly two dimensional characters do not go anywhere or achieve much of anything. The characters in the went down into the earth and I was still on the surface scratching my head still trying to figure out where I lost track of the plot.

Overall-This guy makes the likes of William W. Johnstone and James Axler seem like John Steinbeck. The characters needed to be fleshed out and so did the plot.