Abandon All Hope

Rating:
Summary: This Book Is Superb!
Review: As someone who as actually purchased this book and read it, I have to COMPLETELY disagree with the above review. There is nothing wrong with this book's ending, as no one who has even a passing knowledge of Dante's Inferno will attest.

The ending is a set-up to the coming sequel, just like Dante did, where the journey progresses from Hell to Heaven.

I can't wait!

Rating:
Summary: Don't do it...but watch this writer!
Review: The story of Calendar Meigui, who travels to Hell in search of her dead family members after a vivid dream tells her they're there. Guided by the giant Goliath, the two-some travels throughout the bowels of Hell in a descriptive tale that combines fact, fiction, myth, history, and legend. Hailed by Nephilim Books as an 'extreme gore-fest of a horror novel' ... not so much.

Enticing and maybe even brutal at times, but no gore-fest was found between these pages. The idea of the story was much better than the story itself, as the execution simply failed. The plot, while preposterous, was interesting enough to carry you through the book - but the ending was a disappointment.

The characters themselves are likable enough and nicely 3 dimensional. However, along the way they do things that are so out of character it removes the reader from the fantasy of the tale and completely destroys the work that was put into them. For example, Goliath is a denizen of Hell - obviously belonging there - and in the beginning he rapes the protagonist to show his power over her, as well as his level of 'evil'. Yet by the end of the book he has 'feelings' and 'remorse' - extremely out of place in Hell.

The atmosphere and pace work hand in hand throughout the story. The vivid imagination and descriptions of Hell's planes creates the perfect atmosphere, and the exact drive necessary to carry the plot forward... until you get to the end.

And that is where I had issues. Along the way the style of writing is smooth and apropos, tossing in historical information and mythology refresher courses with ease. Near the end however, we get a lengthly lesson in history and lore that drowns out all the interesting tidbits that came before. Poorly told, this story stalls the book, and does so just in time for a climax that is so anti-climatic I re-read the last few chapters thinking I had missed something. After everything she's suffered, after all that she's gone through, 'this' is it? That's all? The end was so disappointing that it felt somewhere between rushed and a cop out.

As a first novel it holds a lot of promise - promise that Ford will hone his craft and clean up his climaxes and denouements. Rating? Sadly, a 2 - I'm not overly impressed with the ending and it left a bad taste in my mouth that effected the rest of the book - but other than that, the idea was interesting and the imagination behind it outstanding... get it from the library if you're a myth, legend, lore, or historical horror buff and watch for improvements in his future novels.