Review: Utterly captivating
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 26, 2013
Council of Peacocks Book One by Joseph MurphyWisdom landed at Niagara Falls after being gone for four months. He thought he had defeated the Council of Peacocks.Propates said the Council has a way to forcibly evolve humans. Thirteen of his people tore Athens apart. He had Edimmu, his created "angels," in the tens of thousands and urged people to surrender because the war had been won.As Wisdom watched events unfold on television, his enemy, Propates, transported himself to Wisdom's room. Wisdom attempted to hide his multiple wounds from Propates. Propates bragged about having won the war; even having defeated Wisdom's friend Echo and Wisdom's beloved Anomalies. Propates approached Wisdom; Wisdom discussed their past work together, stating he hadn't taught Propates everything - at that point he propelled Propates through the reinforced windows to crash on the street many stories down. Wisdom opened a portal in time, stepped through and went back through the years.Josh, Jen, and four other friends were going camping when their tires were speared by long, black shards of metal with pictures of peacocks on the sides. Within minutes, one member of the group was killed. The others began to lay blame.The Council of Peacocks is interesting and moves along at a crisp pace. However, in the beginning, most of the characters are shallow and poorly developed. The details are sparse or spread out over several chapters. It begins to feel like a scavenger hunt to find anything out at all about the characters one is supposed to care about.It also jumps between casts of characters rather quickly. Since there isn't a lot of character development, it becomes difficult to keep everyone straight. The information about all the characters does come out later, and the reasons behind the late introductions make sense in the context of the story line, it's just a bit frustrating for the reader in the beginning. If the reader isn't willing to invest time and pay close attention to details, this probably isn't the tale for you. It is definitely your loss if you don't want to invest that initial bit of patience, because the book is definitely a winner once the pieces start to fall into place.Joseph Murphy is an author worth watching. Council of Peacocks is an original story in a genre begging for a taste of originality. Murphy writes in a vein similar to the older works of Stephen King. His writing is intense, creative, and imaginative. It has themes of fantasy, horror, mystery, and romance all commingled in a delightful smorgasbord of literary genius.I received an ARC through Goodreads' program Read for Review in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.