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"Jason Dark - Ghost Hunter: Volume 4: Heavens on Fire" Book Review
Written by James Ferguson
Published by Thunder Peak Publishing
Written by Guido Henkel
2010, 60 Pages, Fiction
Released on March 24th, 2010
Review:
After dealing with demons, vampires, and ghosts the next logical obstacle that supernatural detective Jason Dark should tackle is a battle between Heaven and Hell. Returning from their previous adventure, Dark and his plucky sidekick Siu Lin find that the magical cross they received serves as a passage into a dimension where angels and demons are in an all-out war. They take it upon themselves to help the winged warriors send these creatures back to the netherworld.
As I've come to expect from the Jason Dark books, our hero manages to save the day without any real trouble or risk. This is getting boring. Sure, it was fun the first time, and the second time it was still okay, but we're four books in and there's really nothing that can stand in this guy's way. At first I thought this series would translate well to an hour long TV show akin to Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural, but there's just not enough meat here to make a decent program. Seriously, in this book, Dark sets up a portal to lure demons through and then chops their heads off when they show up. That's his big plan that saves mankind; hiding and then jumping out for a sneak attack. Repeat a hundred times.
I understand what author Guido Henkel is going for here in that this is a series of short pulp novels that anyone can pick up on the cheap and read through for a fun little adventure. Anyone that's reading this as an ongoing story, as you're urged to do by all the references to the previous books, would feel let down as there's no real character development as the series continues.
The one plus in Heavens on Fire is it has a big callback to the first book, Demon's Night. The main villain there returns as the orchestrator behind the holy war.
I'm disappointed to see what can be a really great idea squandered volume after volume. It's becoming clear that Henkel is just rushing these out in an effort to get something on the stands (or in the Kindles). As a result the quality of the work is diminished, with numerous spelling or grammatical errors and what amounts to a lazy story without any conflict.
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