Inherit the Earth

Rating:
Summary: NOT THE BEST
Review: IM FAMILIAR WITH THE WORLD OF DARKNESS AND THE HUNTER GENRE AND I ENJOY A "well" crafted vampire tale as well as vampire hunters etc,so i picked up this book hoping 4 a interesting read.......i didnt get one. now before i sound too harsh there are a few well written stories in the anthology but overall the stories are predictable and derivitive.the best way to make the fantastic seem plausible is to layer in as much reality and credibility as possible to help authenticate the incredible plus allow 4 an easy suspension of belief.it takes a fairly competent writer 2 pull it off and unfortunatly there doesnt seem 2 be 2 many on this collection.....most of the stories and characters are just 4 lack of a better word ....corny.the three standouts are the treatment of dr. eberhardt,the names of the dead,the frailty of humans and unusual suspects.

Rating:
Summary: NOT THE BEST
Review: IM FAMILIAR WITH THE WORLD OF DARKNESS AND THE HUNTER GENRE AND I ENJOY A "well" crafted vampire tale as well as vampire hunters etc,so i picked up this book hoping 4 a interesting read.......i didnt get one. now before i sound too harsh there are a few well written stories in the anthology but overall the stories are predictable and derivitive.the best way to make the fantastic seem plausible is to layer in as much reality and credibility as possible to help authenticate the incredible plus allow 4 an easy suspension of belief.it takes a fairly competent writer 2 pull it off and unfortunatly there doesnt seem 2 be 2 many on this collection.....most of the stories and characters are just 4 lack of a better word ....corny.the three standouts are the treatment of dr. eberhardt,the names of the dead,the frailty of humans and unusual suspects.

Rating:
Summary: Some Strong Stories and NO Particularly Weak Ones.
Review: Inherit the Earth is an anthology set in the World of Darkness containing short stories featuring Hunters - normal humans granted "powers" that allow them to detect and battle the supernatural. The "supernatural" includes ghosts and werewolves, but in this novel is most often vampires (which will make those tired of the over-used "hunter vs. vampire" plot hook shudder). Still, _Inherit the Earth_ contains a good selection of stories, and I didn't find the usual "page-filler" tales that are so boring I can't force myself to finish them; instead, each tale was at least marginally interesting, with a few really standing out and being enjoyable. I would recommend this trilogy to Hunter fans, and to a lesser extent anyone interested in the World of Darkness (especially Vampire fans); I would not, however, recommend this book to people only interested in Horror stories, as none of the tales are particularly scary.

My one big complaint is that this book does not appear to have been proofread. Sure, the spellings appear accurate, but in a world of spellchecking word-processors, that isn't hard to pull off (unless you're like me and don't use them). There are, however, many words that are out of place ("though" instead of "thought") and whole sentences that don't make sense (as if the author decided to change a line, then inserted the new material incorrectly). This occurs mostly in the earlier stories, but still shouldn't be in a professional work at all (maybe an Amazon.com review, though.. ;).

The following is a brief description of the stories in the anthology. The descriptions contain slight SPOILERS, but none that should give away the endings or decrease the suspense.

"The Treatment of Dr. Eberhardt" by Stefan Petrucha. An excellent Hunter story that not only starts off the anthology, but really sets the mood for the whole book. It is hard to describe this story at all without spoiling a part of it, so I will simply leave it at that.

"Credo" by Eric Griffin. A story involving Witness1 (a character previously seen in the Hunter sourcebooks) and a potential meaning for the oft-used slogan "Inherit the Earth." I didn't find the story particularly exciting, nor the potential meaning of the saying to my liking, but it does give some insight into the existance of Hunters that may not have been available before.

"The Names of the Dead" by James Stewart. I found this story disappointing, and am getting VERY tired of the plot device that is revealed at the end. The character Dictatrix11 is somewhat interesting, though.

"Closure" by Andrew Bates. An excellent tale involving Carpenter from the "Hunter mailing list" presented in other sourcebooks. Wraith fans will probably also like this one, as it references some of the powers and laws from their corner of the WoD.

"Antibody" by Michael Lee. This story should have been called, "When Hunters Go Bad" due to over-zealous actions of the "hero" of this cautionary tale. It introduces a few new concepts that some may find interesting, but I was not particularly impressed.

"Some Faerie Tales are Real" by David Wilson. Bookworm55 takes to the streets and gets into a lot of trouble. This story was at times funny, at others very dramatic, and in a few areas very sad. It is very much worth reading, though some might think the joke about a Hunter named "Blade" a bit too much (but I loved it).

"The Frailty of Humans" by Gherbod Fleming. This is a 12 page story that seems to spend 9 pages refreshing us with the characters Kaitlin, Black Rindle, and Barks-at-Shadows from Fleming's Hunter novel _Predator & Prey: Werewolf_. While that approach works in full-length novels, it just wastes space in the limited medium of a short story. Though the tale isn't horrible, it certainly isn't particularly interesting (yes, we know werewolves are racists; yes, they aren't always nice to others), and doesn't answer the question as to what happened at the end of the P&P novel.

"Lucimal's Heart" by Dominic von Riedemann. A predictable story involving everyone's favorite Hunter couple, Leaf and Oaken (though mostly Leaf).

"Unusual Suspects" by Richard Lee Byers. The last story in the anthology and most certainly one of the best. The question, "What happens when a vampire needs a detective?" is finally answered! There were one or two plot points that Vampire fans may have a problem with, but Hunter fanatics should love it.

Rating:
Summary: Some Strong Stories and NO Particularly Weak Ones.
Review: Inherit the Earth is an anthology set in the World of Darkness containing short stories featuring Hunters - normal humans granted "powers" that allow them to detect and battle the supernatural. The "supernatural" includes ghosts and werewolves, but in this novel is most often vampires (which will make those tired of the over-used "hunter vs. vampire" plot hook shudder). Still, _Inherit the Earth_ contains a good selection of stories, and I didn't find the usual "page-filler" tales that are so boring I can't force myself to finish them; instead, each tale was at least marginally interesting, with a few really standing out and being enjoyable. I would recommend this trilogy to Hunter fans, and to a lesser extent anyone interested in the World of Darkness (especially Vampire fans); I would not, however, recommend this book to people only interested in Horror stories, as none of the tales are particularly scary.

My one big complaint is that this book does not appear to have been proofread. Sure, the spellings appear accurate, but in a world of spellchecking word-processors, that isn't hard to pull off (unless you're like me and don't use them). There are, however, many words that are out of place ("though" instead of "thought") and whole sentences that don't make sense (as if the author decided to change a line, then inserted the new material incorrectly). This occurs mostly in the earlier stories, but still shouldn't be in a professional work at all (maybe an Amazon.com review, though.. ;).

The following is a brief description of the stories in the anthology. The descriptions contain slight SPOILERS, but none that should give away the endings or decrease the suspense.

"The Treatment of Dr. Eberhardt" by Stefan Petrucha. An excellent Hunter story that not only starts off the anthology, but really sets the mood for the whole book. It is hard to describe this story at all without spoiling a part of it, so I will simply leave it at that.

"Credo" by Eric Griffin. A story involving Witness1 (a character previously seen in the Hunter sourcebooks) and a potential meaning for the oft-used slogan "Inherit the Earth." I didn't find the story particularly exciting, nor the potential meaning of the saying to my liking, but it does give some insight into the existance of Hunters that may not have been available before.

"The Names of the Dead" by James Stewart. I found this story disappointing, and am getting VERY tired of the plot device that is revealed at the end. The character Dictatrix11 is somewhat interesting, though.

"Closure" by Andrew Bates. An excellent tale involving Carpenter from the "Hunter mailing list" presented in other sourcebooks. Wraith fans will probably also like this one, as it references some of the powers and laws from their corner of the WoD.

"Antibody" by Michael Lee. This story should have been called, "When Hunters Go Bad" due to over-zealous actions of the "hero" of this cautionary tale. It introduces a few new concepts that some may find interesting, but I was not particularly impressed.

"Some Faerie Tales are Real" by David Wilson. Bookworm55 takes to the streets and gets into a lot of trouble. This story was at times funny, at others very dramatic, and in a few areas very sad. It is very much worth reading, though some might think the joke about a Hunter named "Blade" a bit too much (but I loved it).

"The Frailty of Humans" by Gherbod Fleming. This is a 12 page story that seems to spend 9 pages refreshing us with the characters Kaitlin, Black Rindle, and Barks-at-Shadows from Fleming's Hunter novel _Predator & Prey: Werewolf_. While that approach works in full-length novels, it just wastes space in the limited medium of a short story. Though the tale isn't horrible, it certainly isn't particularly interesting (yes, we know werewolves are racists; yes, they aren't always nice to others), and doesn't answer the question as to what happened at the end of the P&P novel.

"Lucimal's Heart" by Dominic von Riedemann. A predictable story involving everyone's favorite Hunter couple, Leaf and Oaken (though mostly Leaf).

"Unusual Suspects" by Richard Lee Byers. The last story in the anthology and most certainly one of the best. The question, "What happens when a vampire needs a detective?" is finally answered! There were one or two plot points that Vampire fans may have a problem with, but Hunter fanatics should love it.