Book Review: The Raven by Jonathan Janz
Firstly, I'm a big Janz fan. I've read all of his books, and two of his books I consider to be horror masterpieces: Children of the Dark and Exorcist Falls (if you were curious). If you haven't read those, you have some horror homework to do. Before I move on, I've got to say something. I've seen him referred to as a "new" writer many times, and I cringe each time. How many "new" writers have over 15 published works? This is my Jonathan Janz public service announcement: He is NOT a new writer. Moving on...
I attended a Janz reading at the Scares That Care Con, where he read a chapter from a forthcoming novel. His intense and theatrical reading was brilliant and I couldn't wait to read the book. Well, THIS is that book. I was even lucky enough to get it early (thanks Flame Tree!). I would really love to tell you the premise of this one (it's killer) but I pride myself on my non-spoiler reviews, so I won't. Put it this way. If you're a fan of his work, you will see traces of Wolfland and Savage Species here, via some really intense action sequences. This was the strength of the novel.
The weakness of the novel were the internal dialogue/introspection passages. I've never had a problem with this aspect of Janz's work in any of his other books, so I'm not exactly sure why I did for this one. I think either they were longer than usual, or there were simply more of them. In any case, I found them to slow the narrative down. Luckily, the fight scenes crackled with energy, but it gave the book somewhat of an erratic rhythm.
Overall, I did like the book and I'm looking forward to reading further adventures of The Raven. This one drops in September!
Grade: C
Review by Jason Cavallaro
jcavallaro42[at]gmail.com
Twitter: @pinheadspawn
I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review consideration.
