The concept was intriguing, but I really disliked all of the characters (who all smirked often), couldn't get the premise and the grammar really wasn't very good. I love it when semicolons are used; I am very uncomfortable when they are used incorrectly. I gave up a quarter of the way through the book. ( )

I finished this one scratching my head. Let me begin by saying that this is NOT the type of book that I would normally choose. I can not say that it was bad because I really did want to finish it.

I'm struggling to write this review simply because I am really unsure of what happened in the story. Did the good triumph over the evil? Each character was possesed with some sort of demon or special power, so I was never able to determine who was really good and well, the bad seemed to be really bad. Maybe that is the distinction.

I'm presuming if you are into this genre of books then you would enjoy it very much. I did not want to stop reading and believe me, I have stopped reading more books than I care to remember.

I understand that this is the first of a series and I might be tempted to pick up the next book hoping to try to figure out what the heck is going on. ( )

4.5 stars. I've read a fair amount of fantasy, adventure & horror over the years - enough that I don't often find something really new that I like. I did this time - it was both unique & thrilling.

An excellent dark fantasy or horror fantasy that sets the background in a post apocalyptic world based on our current one & the Christian myth, adds in some others, & stirs the mix into an intriguing mystery-adventure. It is not for the faint-hearted. All of the characters are flawed, most badly enough that they're not all that likable, but the reasons for this are revealed - slowly. Against my will, in many cases, I was drawn into sympathetic agreement with their plight & their actions. Revelations were logical, redemption plausible & plights were chilling. The action was well described & the scenery was awesome. Wow! What a trip!

Usually, if I don't like or can't identify with one of the main characters, I put a book down. I couldn't this time. The writing was too good & the plot too intriguing.

I was very surprised that a self-published novel (it is, isn't it?) read as if it were professionally edited. One of my biggest turn-offs is poor punctuation, logic flaws, rambling text & 'favorite lines'. (Pieces of text that don't quite fit, but are kept by the writer because they like them.) All of these are typical of self-published novels. I didn't find any here. The writing was tight - sometimes requiring close reading or I would miss an important point - Perfect! That's the way it should be, but often isn't, even in commercial publications.

As I write this, the book is available only in electronic format for a couple of bucks on Amazon (or write the author). I hope to see it in paper format, someday because it is complex enough that I wanted to flip back & forth a few times to double check names, which I find hard to do in electronic format. If it does come out in paper, I will buy it & likely re-read it when the sequel is released & I read that (hurry up & write, David!). Definitely a keeper & a book I'd like to add to my collection.

( )

Update - 5.17.10: So, after attempting and not being able to finish this once before, the author kindly sent me an updated version, which I will admit was much better. There were still some grammatical and spelling errors, but they were not at all as distracting as they had been in the original edition.

I don't feel like I understood everything that happened in the story, and I think that a lot of that had to do with feeling that I was told rather than shown what happened. The end of the story brought together many different elements of the story, and for them all to come together, there had to be a lot of explanation. This is fine, but I don't feel like I understand all of it.

I personally didn't find this one scary, like others have said, and actually was hoping that it would be, especially a story which has more than a little bit of demonic possession. But, admittedly, I've read a good bit of horror, and might be a little bit desensitized. ;)

I did like the system of magic here, but again I was hoping for a bit more to be fleshed out. This will probably happen in later books, though.

I don't really feel like I understood the characters, but again this is probably something that will be enhanced and developed in later books in the series.

Overall, it was a good story... we'll have to see where it goes.


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Original review 5.14.10:
I have to wonder if the copy of the book (or in this case the ebook) that I read is the same as what the other reviewers read. My reading experience with this one is vastly different from that of the other reviewers, and so I'm sitting here wondering if the edition that I downloaded was maybe a kind of ARC ebook.

The premise of this story was incredibly promising. I love post-apocalyptic stories, and stories that hint at a prophecy or the occult, etc. I also like supernatural stories, and dark, twisted and strange stories. All of these things piqued my interest and made me snag a free copy of this ebook when the author offered it. And it started out promising, but unfortunately, it just fell apart quickly for me and I couldn't actually finish it.

I really dislike giving up on books. I don't do it often, but there was just something (OK, quite a few things) that just didn't work for me. I don't want to seem like I'm ripping this book to shreds, but I do want to communicate the issues that I had truthfully.

The first, and main issue that I had was with the writing. This was what actually made me give up, and is also why I feel like the copy I read was different than what other reviewers read. If not, they are either extremely lenient, or I am extremely picky. I don't think that I'm extremely picky though, because I can overlook typos or grammatical errors if the story is good. But there were just too many errors and awkward sentences for me to overlook, and the story just didn't hold my attention enough for me to look past these.

For example, here are some lines that I cut directly from the ebook text that jumped out at me:

1) "They passed remnants of the old world as they traveled — the occasional stone foundation of what was likely someone’s home; larger stone buildings for which Paine had no idea its use; the occasional rusted pile of metal he knew to be cars; and even old bridges that collapsed into mounds of rubble." This is just awkwardly worded and doesn't make sense grammatically.

2) "He frowned. Her presence was getting more distant and his heart began to ache. He wallowed in it for a moment, trying to bare it, and then followed the others." Wrong word usage here, as it seems that it should have been "bear" as in "withstand", not "bare" as in "exposed".

3) "Animal skins stretched over crooked branches lay prostate in the sun." Again, wrong word usage. This should be "prostrate", not "prostate".

There are many more examples, such as using "wariness" instead of "weariness" when the context implies tiredness not watchfulness, etc, and this is just in the 44 pages I read.

The second issue that I had with the writing is that there was a kind of floatiness to the writing. That isn't a technical term, obviously, but that's the best way I know to describe it. There are italicized thoughts that aren't attributed to anyone, but maybe the reader can interpret and associate them on their own. The narration is 3rd person, and jumps around to different characters, sort of focusing on one while showing all, and maybe the thoughts are attributed to that character - but to me it seemed like they were just out there in the ether, as if it was a kind of collective thought that belonged to everyone and no-one at the same time. And, to add to the floatiness, the story moves around quite a lot, introducing new characters and scenes and situations without explaining anything about them or how they fit in the larger story. Granted, this probably all comes together in the end, but I'm just communicating my perception.

Futhermore, I didn't feel like I really knew or could identify with any of the characters. During the 44 pages I read, which is a quarter of the story, give or take, we followed Paine and his sister Lya a good amount of time, but I don't feel like I really learned anything about them. Rather I was told things that they did or did not do, or were able to do, or were doing, but I wasn't really shown anything.

All in all, I think that this was a promising premise, but I felt like there were a lot of ideas here that didn't really come together, and there were a lot of writing issues that distracted me from the larger story. I wish that I could give this a higher rating, honestly, but based on what I read, I just can't.

If I did read something like an ARC edition, I would be willing to give a cleaned up version another try. The idea was interesting, like I said, but I just couldn't see it through. ( )

Let me preface this review by saying that I rarely (and I mean very rarely) ever read the horror genre. I went through a phase, during my early teen years, where that's all I read. But I decided, quickly, that I preferred reading stories of more depth and complexity, stories that didn't patronize me, the reader, or insult my intelligence. Hence, I moved on to epic fantasy and other fantasy sub-genres and never looked back.

So I had many misgivings when this novel by David Burton won the poll for Book of the Month for June/July 2010 for the GoodReads Fantasy Book Club.

I survived reading The Second Coming with many winces at the cliches, the need for a good copy editor and the hope that the adage 'Show, don't tell' might have triumphed. The irrelevant sexual content and innuendo, so pervasive in this genre, distracted more than enticed. I never once felt the shock of horror or the thrill of suspense. Most of the time, when I wasn't nodding off, I just wanted to reach the end, or at least for the words to stop so I could move on to something more challenging and fulfilling.

Fantasy elements in this story are limited to necromancy, blood rites and other similar tropes of the horror genre. Supernatural entities, like demons, fallen angels and possessed mortals pervade. Towards the 'climactic' ending, the characters swapped souls like some people trade recipes or gossip. Sadly, by that point, I didn't care who ended up in what body. Or bodiless, like the poor loser in the musical chairs soul roulette.

I tried to overcome my prejudices with the horror genre, but I failed miserably with The Second Comaing. ( )