2013; 330 pages. Book One
(out of 6) in the Chronicles of M
series New Author? : Yes. Genre : Paranormal; Zombies; Dark Fantasy. Overall Rating : 7*/10.
For
Sam Horn, this is a long-awaited day: it’s his first day of retirement, he’s here at the bank to make a deposit, and he’s feeling good. For thirty-three years he’s been an agent for
various spoiled movie celebrities, catering to their every whim and convincing
studios they should put up with his clients’ insane demands. But that’s all behind him now, and nothing’s
going to ruin his day.
Well,
maybe not. When a gang of bank robbers
takes the whole place hostage, things could turn ugly. But fortunately, Sam’s mastered the art of
persuasion during his long career in Tinsel-town. When his clients won’t be in the latest movie
unless they get a gallon jug filled with red M&Ms, a bottle of whiskey made
in Scotland between the years 1950 and 1960, and a dressing room with excellent
Wifi reception, it’s up to her agent to sweet-talk the studio to feel good
about acquiescing.
It
helps, of course, that our would-be robbers are rather dim-witted. So it’s just another day at the job for Sam. He just needs to convince
them to set the hostages free, give themselves up, all in the belief that the
courts will give them a lighter sentence for cooperating so freely. No big deal.
It
works like a charm, Sam gets a small mention in the news reports, and he once
again settles down to begin enjoying his retirement.
So imagine his surprise when he gets a message that someone saw his
negotiating skills and wants to Sam to come to work for his company. The details, however, are hush-hush until he
commits.
Now why would they do that?
What’s To Like...
The Chronicles of M is the first installment in a
6-book series with the same name. The
series is complete, which is always nice to know. There's action immediately, although
thereafter it becomes somewhat sporadic.
This is a paranormal book, with the primary focus on zombies.
I liked Nicholas Forristal’s approach to
this. Zombies are generally portrayed as
slow-moving, brainless hero-fodder, and that gets old after a while. Here you’ll learn about the 5-stages of zombie-ism, and maybe even develop a bit of empathy for them.
I
also liked the relationship between the two main protagonists – our hero Sam
and our superhero “M”. Instead of being
buddy-buddies from the get-go, things are rather “frosty”. M’s kind of a butthead, and Sam has few
skills to complement his superhero pal. The
story is told in the first-person POV, mostly Sam’s, but a couple chapters are
from M’s perspective. There’s quite a
bit of cussing, almost all by M, but hey, he’s just a hot-headed kid, isn’t he?
There aren’t a lot of characters to keep track
of – just focus on Sam, M, Thomas, and Marcus and you’ll be okay. Don’t be fooled by a cameo appearance by
someone named Ned; I’m pretty sure that was a pair of typos that should’ve been
Todd. The settings are similarly sparse
– once you get beyond the NYC intro, you’re pretty much limited to the United Hero Defense ("UHD") headquarters and an out-in-the-sticks town called Dead Man’s Bluff.
The
ending is okay, but not spectacular. Sam
decides to sign up with the UHD (well, you knew that was gonna happen, elsewise there’d
be no series, right?), and the causes of M’s mood issues are
revealed, if not resolved. There are
lots more unanswered questions; presumably these are addressed as the series
progresses. Indeed, the ending felt more
like a pause than a climax, albeit at a logical point. But Nicholas
Forristal’s writing skills were sufficient to
keep things from bogging down.
Excerpts...
I sit up in my
chair, “Okay, so M is a crime fighter, like a superhero? And you are his sidekick? Do you two wear costumes? Can you fly?”
I let the sarcasm flow out of me.
M is maybe nineteen, at most.
Thomas actually thinks I’ll believe M is as old as I am?
“Costume? Have you ever tried to do anything in
spandex, or even a suit? I assure you,
it’s no fun.” (loc.
414)
An explosion
knocks me on my backside. The door on
the left side shoots across the hall and slams into the opposing wall with a
thunderous boom. Fire peeks out of the
doorway as black clouds of smoke roll across the ceiling. A man screams, “I told you not to do that!”
Another voice
responds, “Sorry, forgot the catalyst.”
“Catalyst? Are you kidding me? If you had used the catalyst we’d be dead
right now, you idiot!”
“Don’t call me an
idiot, jerk.”
“Don’t call me a
jerk, idiot.” (loc.
1883)
Kindle Details...
Chronicles
of M sells for $0.99 at Amazon. The other five books in the series go for $2.99
each. You can buy the whole series
bundled together for $15.94, but that saves you
absolutely nothing. And finally, you can
buy books 1-3 bundled together for $6.99, but if you do that, you need
to take a remedial math course.
To steal a line from Vonnegut, M is “unstuck in time.” (loc. 2062)
There
are some quibbles. While I wouldn’t call
the pacing slow, it certainly isn’t brisk either. We don’t meet our first zombie until
50%-Kindle. Everything before that is
world-building. This is necessary, I
suppose, for the 6-book series, but it’s going to be disappointing to anyone expecting
the usual zombie-must-find-brains
mayhem.
The main snag for me was the lack of a main storyline. The blurb makes it sound like it’s a tale about investigating some zombie killings, and it’s true that there's a plotline involving that. But it’s almost a story tangent, and from
start to finish, it lasts about 10%-Kindle.
Resolving it is neither difficult nor tense.
All
this isn’t helped by a number of side-stories that became a bit tedious. I counted four of them – the tour of the HQ,
the “mad baker”, Marcus’s backstory, and then M’s backstory as well. Do they add to the world-building? Yes, definitely. Do they keep you on the edge of your
seat? No.
In general, Chronicles of M reminded me of the first Men in Black movie, where
Will Smith spends a lot of time trying to figure out what the heck is going
on. But there, a galaxy needed
saving. Here, you have to be content
with just figuring things out.
7 Stars. I’m unsure how much significance to put on
these quibbles. It could be that
Nicholas Forristal intends this first book to simply be an introduction to the rest of
the series: get the characters onstage; get the world-building out of the way,
and set the tone. If the next five books
are action-packed with compelling storylines, this is a small price (literally and
figuratively) to pay. But if
the next five books have more backstories than thrills and spills, then things
could drag.
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