New York Police Detective Sal gets sucked into the world of the Bookburners when her brother opens a magical book and ends up in a coma after a demon possesses him.
Now under the auspices of the Catholic church with Father Menchu, with Presbyterian layman and former demon possessed Liam, super duper fighter secret keeper Grace and Archivist Asanti, Sal is out to capture dangerous magical books that could have a huge negative impact on the human race.
This is the first half, 8 short stories, of the first volume of the Bookburners. It is a collection of short stories that tell an overall bigger story. Things were flying along right up until the last story. Then I had 2 serious issues.
A transgender character is one of the main side characters and everybody in the group is perfectly fine with it, including the Catholic Priest and the layman Presbyter. The one character who does have a problem with the whole transgender issue is literally demonized by the author. Not going to be reading more of that!
Then you have the relationship between Sal and Liam. They end up sleeping together once and then wonder where things are going. By the end of this volume, Liam has decided since he was damned for being demon possessed, what’s a little fornication on the side? It was horrible to read and yet shows the mind set of most 21st century people in this day and age. There is no mention of Jesus Christ, just the Catholic Church’s traditions. There was no power towards Salvation.
So no more of this for me.
This entry was posted in Review and tagged 2018, Bookburners, DNF, Series to Avoid, Short Story Collection, Theology, Urban Fantasy, Worst Book of the Year.
Sadly, layman Presbyter sounds about right (which is why the presbyterian denomination I most closely identify with left in the 1920s). On the whole, that series seems like what I was afraid it would be. Thanks for taking the bullet for me.
I enjoyed this serial, but I do have to say a lot of authors in SFF today attempt to write about religion/religious figures with absolutely no effing clue or experience about faith or the religion. No attempt to research either, but just concerned with virtual signaling.
Fair enough for this one too- really don’t like how often people misrepresent people’s reactions to the trans issue in general, basically making it wish fulfilment and virtue signalling (I agree with Mogsy again). And where I literally just said that I’d read anything, I have to take that back, cos even I have a line and won’t read this.
A sad case of mischaracterization. 😦 Such a strange cast of characters too..