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A review by mackle13
The Warlock's Curse by M.K. Hobson
3.0
2.5
My overall view of this book is: "Ok, this is interesting. The prologue was kinda weird, but, other than that, this is pretty decent so far. Not quite the same charm as the first, but I'm digging the whole steampunkish Tesla thing. Will and Jenny are both a bit spoiled, but I understand where they're coming from. Ok, this is interesting... I wonder what's going to happen with that contract thing. Hmm...
*reads some more*
What? WTF? What just happened? Oh my holy god, what did I just read?"
So, yeah... it went a bit darker than I was remotely expecting or prepared for, and I don't really know how I feel about it. I'm definitely anxious for the conclusion of this duology, so there's that, but...
Unfortunatley I can't really get into everything without getting deep into spoiler territory, so consider the above my non-spoiler review. Here's the rest:
But, anyway, once we get to Will and Jenny, things are pretty normal. I enjoyed the first part of this book a lot. In a way it was weird for me because I had a hard time really connecting with the characters, but I was connected enough and interested enough to see what would happen and not really be bored.
Also, I was curious about the whole Tesla connection. Tesla is something of a Steampunk icon, so he gets tossed into a lot of these books, but I was glad to see his obsessive fastidiousness and his dislike of women and everything really put into play - which doesn't seem to happen that often. (Most books seem to focus on the mad genius thing, and gloss over his more OCD tendencies.)
They even did an interesting nod to the rivalry with Edison, and gave a plausible enough reason why in this reality Tesla became such a big thing when, in our reality, he was often foiled by Edison's greater power and influence.
Anyway -
One of the things about the Tesla part of the book is Will has to sign a contract in blood - a contract which he never actually reads. I figured that this would play a role in the second part of the book, especially since Will kept sort of casually breaking aspects of the contract.
At this point I wasn't entirely sure about what the prologue was about, or how that would factor into the story to come. I mean, you know the curse is coming, because every chapter has a sort of countdown thing going on... but once the curse sort of comes into play the story does a sort of quick 180.
All of a sudden all the Tesla industries and weird contracts and everything else sort of means bubkiss, and instead it takes a dark and twisted turn as he gets possessed and does horrible things to the few friends he has - including his friend, Jenny, who he married for the sake of getting away from their families and then finds himself falling in love with.
But instead of something normal like him breaking the contract and having to deal with the fallout of that and family shit, we get a possession by the evil warlock who proceeds to rape and torture Jenny through Will.
Yeah...
And then there's some crazy shit with a religious dude trying to get Will's blood to open a demonic box allegedly to destroy it but more to control it, and shit goes down, and then, after Will is 'rescued', he ends up finding out the truth about his parents and then the spirit of the Earth decides Will has to die in the ensuing battle he burns down the building, thinking he killed both his parents... and he's still possessed by hatters warlock guy.
And that's how it fucking ends.
***
Ultimately, looking back, I should've been prepared. The prologue sends up the profound fucktitude which comes at the end... but, like, 3/4 of the book sort of lulls you into forgetting that and dropping your guard, and instead of a gradual build up, it slams into you full force and goes, "Ha! Tricked you!" and then punches you in the face a few times all while laughing demonically at your pain.
My overall view of this book is: "Ok, this is interesting. The prologue was kinda weird, but, other than that, this is pretty decent so far. Not quite the same charm as the first, but I'm digging the whole steampunkish Tesla thing. Will and Jenny are both a bit spoiled, but I understand where they're coming from. Ok, this is interesting... I wonder what's going to happen with that contract thing. Hmm...
*reads some more*
What? WTF? What just happened? Oh my holy god, what did I just read?"
So, yeah... it went a bit darker than I was remotely expecting or prepared for, and I don't really know how I feel about it. I'm definitely anxious for the conclusion of this duology, so there's that, but...
Unfortunatley I can't really get into everything without getting deep into spoiler territory, so consider the above my non-spoiler review. Here's the rest:
Spoiler
So, we start with a bit of a protracted prologue which is kinda dark and sets the tone for how the story ends. But once you start the actual story, it's kind of easy to not think all that much about it, except to give the reader some insight as to the hows and whys of certain things that the characters don't have.But, anyway, once we get to Will and Jenny, things are pretty normal. I enjoyed the first part of this book a lot. In a way it was weird for me because I had a hard time really connecting with the characters, but I was connected enough and interested enough to see what would happen and not really be bored.
Also, I was curious about the whole Tesla connection. Tesla is something of a Steampunk icon, so he gets tossed into a lot of these books, but I was glad to see his obsessive fastidiousness and his dislike of women and everything really put into play - which doesn't seem to happen that often. (Most books seem to focus on the mad genius thing, and gloss over his more OCD tendencies.)
They even did an interesting nod to the rivalry with Edison, and gave a plausible enough reason why in this reality Tesla became such a big thing when, in our reality, he was often foiled by Edison's greater power and influence.
Anyway -
One of the things about the Tesla part of the book is Will has to sign a contract in blood - a contract which he never actually reads. I figured that this would play a role in the second part of the book, especially since Will kept sort of casually breaking aspects of the contract.
At this point I wasn't entirely sure about what the prologue was about, or how that would factor into the story to come. I mean, you know the curse is coming, because every chapter has a sort of countdown thing going on... but once the curse sort of comes into play the story does a sort of quick 180.
All of a sudden all the Tesla industries and weird contracts and everything else sort of means bubkiss, and instead it takes a dark and twisted turn as he gets possessed and does horrible things to the few friends he has - including his friend, Jenny, who he married for the sake of getting away from their families and then finds himself falling in love with.
But instead of something normal like him breaking the contract and having to deal with the fallout of that and family shit, we get a possession by the evil warlock who proceeds to rape and torture Jenny through Will.
Yeah...
And then there's some crazy shit with a religious dude trying to get Will's blood to open a demonic box allegedly to destroy it but more to control it, and shit goes down, and then, after Will is 'rescued', he ends up finding out the truth about his parents and then the spirit of the Earth decides Will has to die in the ensuing battle he burns down the building, thinking he killed both his parents... and he's still possessed by hatters warlock guy.
And that's how it fucking ends.
***
Ultimately, looking back, I should've been prepared. The prologue sends up the profound fucktitude which comes at the end... but, like, 3/4 of the book sort of lulls you into forgetting that and dropping your guard, and instead of a gradual build up, it slams into you full force and goes, "Ha! Tricked you!" and then punches you in the face a few times all while laughing demonically at your pain.