What a captivating read. I couldn't put it down, even though the end is completely overblown and the main guy just can't lose because he's too powerful. ( )

At first I was all "I wonder if it's a good thing or a bad thing when novels written for thirteen-year-olds come out like they were written BY thirteen-year-olds," but on closer investigation this is apparently not a YA book! It's intended for adults, which knocks me back a bit bemused on my heels. Luckily, the other reviewers have done a flawless job summarizing the dispiriting and occasionally troubling hackery on display here, so just a few supplementary points:

-in the first chapter the one guy confines his friend at gunpoint, Russian roulette style with the squeezing the trigger and the stale tension, and the friend's response isn't along the lines of "Are you insane"? but (actual quote) "You suck, man." Could anything be more teenagery?
-The rules of blackjack are explained at length (two pages), as are those of stud poker. Only for Forbeck it's Blackjack, Poker, Craps, and Sundrie Other Capitalls like it's 1723 in Lady Montagu's salon.
-Forbeck likes to lie to us by showing us cool guys (his idea of what a cool guy is has a lot to do with fist bumps, bad sideburns, mall clothes, and calling each other "brother") being into the same shit he's into (Fatboy Slim, Magic: The Gathering) in order to (illegitimately; one also assumes unsuccesfully) raise his own cultural capital
-(on Magic, the part where he tries to make it cool by namedropping a bunch of competitive Magic players who made the jump to the so-sexy world of tournament poker is a true low point in the culture)
-The love interest is called "Powaqa Strega" or "Powi"; she is half-Italian and half-"Hopi Indian"; she is a "medicine man," which Forbeck thinks means she sexily heals her golden-boy boyfriend. So masturbatory and pathetic.
-everyone's favourite expletive is "damned," which to my mind is one step above "curses"
-everything everyone else says below about how shitty this book is is true, but let me leave you with a taste: "He looked like he should have a Mexican accent, but when he spoke he sounded like he came from New York a long time ago instead." That's an actual quote too. ( )

This book was just too much for me. I see where the plot could have been appealing, but too many chase sequences, zombies, witches, gangsters, and love stories to keep me focused on any particular plot point. I wanted to see a little more of the 'Ocean's 11' Vegas caper that I was promised on the cover, and I just didnt get it. Maybe I was distracted by all the zombies... ( )

Unfortunately, the tagline on the cover of Vegas Knights hobbles it right out of the gate. As other reviewers have said, this is definitely not comparable to Harry Potter (which -- publishers, take note -- is not the be-all-and-end-all magic book out there), but further, it is definitely no Ocean's Eleven. What it is is a card-counting story made even less interesting by the mechanics behind card-counting being replaced by handwaving and magic. There is no complex caper at work here; instead, it is a long series of chase scenes piled ontop chase scenes when one or two would suffice.

As much as I enjoy a good fictional con, a lot of the strength of those stories comes with good characters: ones with some sort of life and experience that expands their backgrounds and makes them quirky, smart, and lived-in. Vegas Knights, on the other hand, gives us the standard, overplayed young college guys who have made all the standard bad choices and seemingly don't respect the sacrifices that have been made in the name of their own educations. Further, it's the same old, same old conclusion, that if you find the right game, the right angle, even the bad guys will respect you and you can toss away your (pointless) education and work the tables from here until forever. I simply didn't care about or even particularly like the main characters, and as a result, the story itself fell quite flat. The reveal of the bad guy added fuel to the fire, as I neither believed nor liked who Forbeck decided to pin everything on. It felt... disingenuous, and a bit disrespectful to the Vegas setting and the magic angle itself.

Forbeck isn't a strong enough writer to bring his characters to life. His magicians are heroic and intelligent, but there's no depth to the portrayals. The plot moves briskly, and I can see this making a very enjoyable feature film, but Forbeck's style is too mundane to create much excitement. His prose is plodding, and despite a vivid imagination, he can't summon up the breathless excitement his non-stop narrative requires (for a better example, see Gord Zajac's Major Karnage, a non-stop sci-fi chase that brings enough wit and oomph to the pursuit that you don't even mind some gaping logic holes).

Read the rest of the review here. ( )