Magic Time: Angelfire (Magic Time)

Rating:
Summary: reminiscent of Stephen King?s THE STAND
Review: A group of scientists were working on a top secret project known to them as the Source but what they let loose changed the face of America. Technology has ground to a halt and is about the level that existed during the Middle Ages in Europe. It also changed the DNA of some of the population, turning some humans into creatures like Flairs, elf like beings that the Source uses as a power supplement.

New York Lawyer Cal Griffin raised his little sister Trina, but when she changed and disappeared, he vowed to find her and stop the Source from using and harming her. He gathers together a small group of traveling companions including the mystical homeless man Herman Golding, Russian Doctor Lysenko who used to run a hot dog stand, and Colleen, an ordinary woman. During their travels, they meet another group of people who can help them in their quest if they risk helping them out on a very dangerous situation.

Some of the questions left hanging in the prequel are answered yet there remains many questions that should be answered in the next book in this series. Readers observe more of the revisions and modifications brought about by THE SOURCE to include geographical alterations executed by this perverted energy and more enlightening to the reader the changes happening to Cal and his friends. The authors have written a work that is reminiscent of Stephen King's THE STAND.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Follow That Bluesman
Review: Angelfire is the second novel in the Magic Time trilogy. In the previous volume, Secret Service Agent Shango had discovered the remains of Agent Bilmer and returned to a changed Washington to find nobody to whom he could report his findings. Moreover, he had discovered evidence that the President had been killed. In Boone's Gap, Cal and his friends had discovered a spectral Fred Wishart protecting his brother, Bob, from the failure of his life support systems. While Cal and Tina were trying to negotiate with Fred, an attack by the local grunters had distracted Fred and the Source had broken through to take Tina as well as Fred.

In this novel, Goldie is feeling a tug from the west and north and the group is following his erratic directions as they search for Tina. Outside of the town of Grave Creek, the group encountered a new type of creature, shadowed as by dark veils, who are attacking other travelers. After driving off the attackers, Goldie learns that some of the travelers have heard some sort of music as they went through the woods.

The next day, Goldie, followed by Colleen, goes out to the woods to discover the source of the music. Although Colleen can't hear it, Goldie tracks it down the Bluesman, Enid Blindman, half Lakota on his father's side, and a flare, Magritte. When Colleen tries to attack Enid, the Flare throws her up into a pine tree and she is stuck upside down above head high. Nevetheless, Colleen insists that she had not seen a Flare near the Bluesman and suggests that maybe Goldie is having hallucinations; Collen is having a hard time accepting the unthinkable. Later, Goldie finds Enid and Magritte again, but they spook when Cal and company show up. When the group have almost caught up to them again, Enid and Magritte disappear into the "porch" of a burial mound and Goldie walks into the solid rock to follow them.

Goldie comes out in the Preserve, a fold in space protected from the Source; Goldie explains the nature of their quest and points out that Enid and Magritte can protect the group from the Source. However, the leaders of the community are not convinced that Enid should be released to help them; after all, he is already helping them to avoid the Source and only he can let people through the entranceways to the Preserve. Nevertheless, events allow Enid and Magritte to join them, with the first stop in Chicago, where Enid needs to talk to his manager.

In some respects, this story resembles Brook's Knight of the Word series without the visions. However, the towns and terrain in this series have suffered much more drastic damage and rearrangements. Also, the series is intrinsically a group effort, with each contributing a necessary skill or talent to the whole.

In this novel, the choppy flow of the previous novel has been smoothed out, with the point-of-view moving between the four main characters. Sometimes I forget who I am in a chapter, but I am usually able to recover by the process of elimination, so maybe there is still a little chop in the flow.

I also had a little trouble with the geography -- I know, why did I bother? -- so I had to check the web to discover that Grave Creek is in West Virginia and that Put-in-Bay is in Ohio. However, the story did state that the Preserve is near Delaware, Ohio.

Recommended for Brooks fans and anyone who enjoys magical quests.

Rating:
Summary: A well developed set of characters never fails
Review: Beginning this book I was unsure as to where the author was going with the story. It seemed that we had a motley crew of people that had not only fallen through the cracks of society but through the fingers of the "Source". It was in this that I realized the brilliance of the book. It gave me an impossibly intimate feeling of each character and a look into each of their minds as they wandered together through the story. Un-like every other book I read where the thoughts and reasoning of the secondary characters is truly secondary if not altogether left out. I was privy to the brilliance of the authors being able to spin the tale and give me so many different, yet deeply developed, points of view. I feel in a way I understand society better now after reading this book. Again hats for such amazingly rich characters.

Rating:
Summary: A well developed set of characters never fails
Review: Beginning this book I was unsure as to where the author was going with the story. It seemed that we had a motley crew of people that had not only fallen through the cracks of society but through the fingers of the "Source". It was in this that I realized the brilliance of the book. It gave me an impossibly intimate feeling of each character and a look into each of their minds as they wandered together through the story. Un-like every other book I read where the thoughts and reasoning of the secondary characters is truly secondary if not altogether left out. I was privy to the brilliance of the authors being able to spin the tale and give me so many different, yet deeply developed, points of view. I feel in a way I understand society better now after reading this book. Again hats for such amazingly rich characters.

Rating:
Summary: Magic Time shapes up to be a well-told, inconsistent series.
Review: It's always interesting to see one author write in another's world. That's what's happening here; despite his top billing on the cover, Marc Zicree's only contribution to Angelfire was the world and overall story it takes place in - all the writing is Bohnhoff's.

Bohnhoff fits her story well into the continutity set up in Magic Time, adding new layers to this twisted version of the US. Her locations are imaginative, and the new characters sympathetic - as in the first book, none so much as the ones who aren't quite human anymore. She also does an admirable job of adding depth to the main characters - particularly Colleen, who I was glad to see shake off the tough, masculine stereotype she embodied in the first book. There are some genuine relationships, friendly and un-, cropping up between the questers, too.

Much of this development comes from Bonhoff's use of a first-person viewpoint that rotates between the four main characters. This technique, a significant change from Magic Time, is at best a mixed blessing. While first-person storytelling allows for useful insight into the protagonists' characters, it abandons two of the elements of the first book that I enjoyed.

First, there is very little insight into the minds of the "tweaked" humans, since Bonhoff, unlike Zicree and Hambly, chose not to use them as viewpoints. In Magic Time, those viewpoints provided not only the most interesting characters in the book, but a perspective on "the Change" that was refreshingly -not- that of a normal person in a world gone mad (which, let's face it, aren't that hard to come by). Cal and co. are deeper this time around, but they're not nearly as interesting as what we were shown in the first installment, and the cast feels generic without the inclusion of the series' most inventive aspect.

Second, relegating the storytelling to a tight-knit group means that there's no hint of events outside of their personal experiences. Magic Time left a few threads dangling with regards to the country as a whole, and Angelfire doesn't even acknowledge them. Most supporting characters from the first book have ceased to exist, and the remainder have only references in the dialogue, not actual appearances.

You'll notice that I haven't said much about the actual plot. That's because there's not much to say. It starts well enough, and development for the protagonists is well-done, but there's not much happening other than character growth and introduction up through the middle of the book. And once the climax comes, it's stocked with cliches and almost aggressively predictable. To top it off, there's next to nothing in the way of new information about the series' presumed villain, the power called "Source". Fortunately, Bonhoff's pacing and characterization keep the writing interesting, but the plot is disappointingly generic all around.

If you liked the beginning of Zicree's series, Angelfire is worth the read. Just don't expect the expansiveness of the first book - Magic Time was about the world as much as its characters, but Angelfire is first and foremost a quest story.

Rating:
Summary: Awkward at times
Review: the flow of the book is a bit troubling, as they, the characters seem to be bumbling along, they also seem to overcome impossible odds, i love fantasy, but the odds of them defeating some of the things they overcome isnt very likely.
the plot does seem to redeem itself with a few twists on character roles, but somehow i feel as though these were due to the authors styles, and ideas on the plot going back and forth, and makes this a ad-lib transcript they worked out for enjoyment.

Rating:
Summary: Anfelgire - a worthwhile read.
Review: The second book in a series based on an idea by Marc Scott-Zicree, Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff has crafted an absorbing post-apocolypse tale about a group of friends on a quest in a magically changing landscape. I read the first book by Scott-Zicree and thought it was ... OK; an interesting idea in which technology is replaced by magic. Bohnhoff has taken the intrepid group of characters created by Marc, and imbued them with depth and interest. I liked the fact that the flaws of the characters turn out to be strengths essential to the survival of the group. I also liked the fact that she has imbued the romantic aspect of the novel with some surprises - the hero who gets the girl is not the obvious candidate. Definitely a worthwhile read