Siege of Eden

Rating:
Summary: Great story and cover art
Review: First of all I'd have to classify this as a top read of mine... Refreshing work for a first novel... It's always a great feeling to see the genre growing with new names to watch for in the future, and Hartsock has made my list.

Eden, Maine population 47,000. Reich's Storage has opened after years of inactivity. The building was built on accidents and misfortunes, both human and monetary. Death is an integral part of its history much like evil that is inevitable in the earth itself.

Eden - a name that conjures gardens, beginnings and a place of lurking evil, all notions that run true in the aptly titled story. Decades of disappearances that no one remembers: does a secret evil reside in Eden?

Dell and Steve, manager and assistant manager at Reich's, sense an evil seeping out of Reich's corridors as they do their rounds. They both notice that this place felt ancient and cold and just wrong, but it's a job and they don't talk to each other about what they feel. At least not until Anton Kurtz drives up and walks into their office. Gates Barton, a former FBI agent who specialized in tracking serial killers, follows a suspicion to Eden where he throws in with Dell. They are joined by a rich and interesting cast of characters, some seeking glory, some revenge, some power and some just victims of the evil that is deep in the heart of Eden. Each character travels his or her own path into Eden. Some won't return from the depths of Reich's Storage facility. Those that do will have their lives forever changed.

J. Dak Hartsock's ability to draw these and other characters to the town of Eden is a masterful work of storytelling. Past and present are drawn together in not only lives but also place. Rich character development, along with the ability to make the reader care about their fate is a true gift that Hartsock draws upon in Siege of Eden.

Fear, horror, & repulsion are all words that describe the roller-coaster of feelings that rocked thru my mind as I was reading. But the love for the story and a remarkable and deeply engaging prose style dragged me along to the heart-stopping end; the stage set for a final battle between good and evil that may shake the world to its foundations.

I do feel inclined to mention the only drawback is in the editing. But I want to stress that those errors have nothing to do with the story or the author's ability to write. Read past the typos and you're in for one hell of a ride.

Rare among books with great artwork, Siege of Eden more than lives up to the promise of the cover, which is exceptionally well done and among the best I've seen in a long, long time. If I rated covers, this too would get 4/4 Fangs. Together, the story and the cover make Siege of Eden a book to treasure and to tell friends about.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent young writer
Review: I was very impressed with this first-time writer's use of prose. The depth of his characters is unmatched amongst first-time writers. The story flows better than any science fiction work I have ever read. He is the next Stephen King.

Rating:
Summary: 'Siege of Eden' hits mark for lovers of dark horror
Review: jane stebbins ([e-mail]), staff writer Summit Daily News, January 18, 2002,
'Siege of Eden' hits mark for lovers of dark horror
If J. Dak Hartsock's 'Siege of Eden' is any indication [we] may well have a blossoming Stephen King in [our] midst. Or better. Hartsock has penned a novel for lovers of dark horror and mystery, for those who love suspense and evil. The horror unfolds in Eden, a small town in Maine, where a dark evil begins to awaken under an abandoned storage facility. It's been here before, it is only by the grace of God that people were able to keep it from surfacing then. Now it attracts the attention of a wide array of people--Gates Batton, an FBI agent that fought the evil before; Bishop Erwin Hester from the Vatican; and Dell Trainer, a writer who moonlights as a manager of the facility, and his assistant Steve Seasons--who, despite the realization of what they might be dealing with, continue to pursue the monster that threatens to take over all that is good in the world. [the monsters] slowly make their meticulous appearance by nabbing unsuspecting citizens of Eden, and ruthlessly killing them, or worse, transforming them into servants. In the darker-than-dark mazes beneath the surface of the earth, the forces of good and evil battle it out. What sets Hartsock's book apart from [the rest] of the horror genre is that he doesn't let the reader merely imagine what's going on as the characters feel their way down the stone passageways, or when a monster feeds on its prey: he tells you in blood-chilling detail that makes your skin goosebump. Not only can you envision a character running through the dark forest, you can feel the burn of every breath he draws to do so, you can feel the sharp rock onto which he falls; you can feel the fear. It's a great book for those who enjoy the extreme battle of good and evil. The writing is crisp and flows particulary well. -----jane stebbins, summit daily news

Rating:
Summary: 'Siege of Eden' hits mark for lovers of dark horror
Review: jane stebbins ([e-mail]), staff writer Summit Daily News, January 18, 2002,
'Siege of Eden' hits mark for lovers of dark horror
If J. Dak Hartsock's 'Siege of Eden' is any indication [we] may well have a blossoming Stephen King in [our] midst. Or better. Hartsock has penned a novel for lovers of dark horror and mystery, for those who love suspense and evil. The horror unfolds in Eden, a small town in Maine, where a dark evil begins to awaken under an abandoned storage facility. It's been here before, it is only by the grace of God that people were able to keep it from surfacing then. Now it attracts the attention of a wide array of people--Gates Batton, an FBI agent that fought the evil before; Bishop Erwin Hester from the Vatican; and Dell Trainer, a writer who moonlights as a manager of the facility, and his assistant Steve Seasons--who, despite the realization of what they might be dealing with, continue to pursue the monster that threatens to take over all that is good in the world. [the monsters] slowly make their meticulous appearance by nabbing unsuspecting citizens of Eden, and ruthlessly killing them, or worse, transforming them into servants. In the darker-than-dark mazes beneath the surface of the earth, the forces of good and evil battle it out. What sets Hartsock's book apart from [the rest] of the horror genre is that he doesn't let the reader merely imagine what's going on as the characters feel their way down the stone passageways, or when a monster feeds on its prey: he tells you in blood-chilling detail that makes your skin goosebump. Not only can you envision a character running through the dark forest, you can feel the burn of every breath he draws to do so, you can feel the sharp rock onto which he falls; you can feel the fear. It's a great book for those who enjoy the extreme battle of good and evil. The writing is crisp and flows particulary well. -----jane stebbins, summit daily news

Rating:
Summary: SIEGE OF EDEN
Review: Something has come to the small town of Eden, Maine. Something dark,
something evil. Something with a mission the will unleash terrifying
consequences.
The tale begins at a labyrinthine storage facility called Reich's when a
strange bald man named Kurtz rents a number of compartments for some
mysterious purpose. Before long, Dell Trainer, a writer wannabe
moonlighting
at Reich's, finds himself plunged into a nightmarish world of sentient
tapestries, grotesque creatures and unspeakable evil.
Aided by a retired FBI agents named Gates Batton, Trainer learns a
startling
revelation as old as man. When the angels warred in Heaven and Lucifer and
his minions were cast out, it seems not all the Fallen fell as far as
Hell.
Some got caught in-between and Gates has been tracking them down,
destroying
them. The ashes of his first conquest reside in an urn in the Vatican, but
this angel, Uris, is even more powerful, and if Gates fails all Hell will
literally break loose.
SIEGE OF EDEN is a literary tale of horror weaved from a tapestry of Good
and
Evil, Angels and Demons. Not for the faint of heart, the author examines
the
violence of man and the wrath of gods in explicit detail. Complex
characters
mirror the book's themes and EDEN presents an intricate examination of
religious values and dogma. The plot builds to a lethal and explosive
climax
that portends even greater events.
--Howard Hopkins
Author of Night Demons
...