ASMSG Scifi Fantasy Paranormal Emagazine May 2014 | Page 33

SFP Indie Issue 2

Review of “iRRadiance
By david BRuns”

of control towards the end. I loved the
gradual awakening of Maribel and Resse
to the power of their emotions, that they
now had words to legitimise their feelings
for each other. Each had their own gifts
and I enjoyed the science explored
through both characters.
Irradiance is the start of a much bigger
story where the children will no doubt
come into their own. I am very much
looking forward to the next in this series.
(Disclosure: I was gifted a copy of this
book in the hope of a review. I’m
delighted to say I enjoyed it!)
Add Irradiance to Your "To Read" Pile on
Goodreads
Click here for more reviews by Ceri
London

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A wonderful start to a promising series.
I love stories that gradually unravel a hard
core warning at its centre. I often wonder
if an author wrote a story to a theme, or
whether the themes evolved out of the
writing.

REVIEW of THE SECRET
LIFE OF LASZLO, COUNT
DRACULA by RODERICK
ANSCOMBE

For me, Irradiance tells the story of one
family discovering utopia is based on a lie.
It captures the tipping point where society
is no longer compatible with individual
freedom, and where the illusion of
happiness is found by unquestioning
adherence to dogma. A paradigm where
political leaders are so chained to their
ideology, their quest for perfection, they
would rather drag everyone over the cliff
than allow a few brave souls to forge a
different path.
David Bruns has created a world where
purity has no room for compassion or
love, and where life can be “recycled” the
moment it ceases to have value for the
greater good. This society is shocking.
Brutal. Callous. Right to the end, its
citizens, even the protagonists, seemed
switched off to the true horror of their
culture, the urgency of their situation
struggling to break through their learned
adherence to society’s diktats.
The pace moves steadily forward with
vivid and detailed world building at the
beginning, picking up as events spiral out

This was a difficult book to review. I was
obviously drawn to the title of this book,
but confess it has spent quite a few years
on my book shelf gathering dust. There
are many pluses and minuses to this piece
of work, so I’ll work through them the
best I can.
Firstly, at face value this was an excitinglooking Gothic horror novel, and I’m sure
it was meant to look as such. Gothic it
certainly is, which is a plus for me, but a
horror it is not. That was an immediate

disappointment that became apparent
after only an hour or two of reading.
In spite of that, and this book not being
what I anticipated it to be, I read on. I
loved the 19th Century setting of this
book and especially the archaic writing
style of Mr Anscombe. That was the real
highlight of this work and he has a skill
that cannot be disputed.
As for the story itself, though I hate to
give anything away in a review, I will say
this. I did not feel anything positive for
the lead character at all. He was dark, and
certainly evil, but impossible to like in any
way. All I could feel was sympathy for
those he came into contact with and by
that, I mean all of them. He self-loathed
himself throughout and claimed in his
journal he wanted to be caught, yet he still
allowed one hapless soul after another to
take the fall for him. This culminated with
the very nasty, but very clever finish to the
book where he remained true to form.
The biggest disappointment is that he
never got what he deserved, but perhaps
that is a credit to the author in making me
feel that way.
There was one fatal error in the story. An
entry in his journal for April, 1888 gave
mention to a conversation at the dinner
table where it was suggested the killer
might be another Jack the Ripper. The
Whitechapel murders attributed to Jack
the Ripper began around four months
later.
Another real drawback for me was the
amount of errors in grammar and spelling.
If this were a self-published book, I could
accept that, but for a book published by
Bloomsbury, to have over twenty such
errors, some of them repeated, is very
poor indeed. I give this 3 out 5, mainly for
the quality of Mr Anscombe’s excellent
writing style.

REVIEW FOR THE BLOOD
GOSPEL BY JAMES
ROLLINS AND REBECCA
CANTRELL
My Review.
This is a book I had wanted to read for so
long. Every ingredient in the synopsis
whetted my taste buds – it is so my kind
of book. Unfortunately, I spend the
majority of my time in Norway and
ordered it at my UK address. Okay, I
accept I do stupid things on occasion. My
embarrassment was compounded when

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