I’m a huge Harry Dresden fan and that’s what drew me to this book. In the early goings it nearly put me off on it as well. Laz is a Necromancer, but normally in the early parts of the book calls himself a wizard and, since his world seems similar to that of Dresden, he seems like a very poor one. Also, while the narrator was excellent (more on that later), I didn’t like the main character’s voice at all. I came to realize that my issue with it was that it wasn’t Marsters reading Dresden, and really that was a good thing, since they aren’t the same character at all. In the second half of the book the story really began to display the differences in the two characters and worlds, and I really got into it. There’s a nice smattering of Gaiman’s American Gods in there and it looks like more to come if this series continues.
I subtracted a star under “Story” because there were a few times when characters did something a bit stupid for no good reason and because at one time Laz was going to track someone and then it never gets mentioned again. Since I’m in his head, I expected to at least hear why he dropped the idea. Travis Baldree does all the voices and they are all distinct and consistent throughout. I’ll look for more read by him. Basically, once the story really kicks off, I found I liked Laz and his world for themselves, not as shadows of the Dresdenverse. I gave the book a 5 stars overall and I’m really looking forward to the next installment.
I received this book for free for an honest review, with no agreement to give it a good score. I just got lucky and it was a great new author for me to keep track of 🙂