Review: writer has some goods
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 4, 2012
The writer has a great premise here.  The writing flows and pacing is good.  Edited fairly well.  Characters fairly well fleshed out.A story about a guy who is a bouncer  and the people he encounters at his job.  And a drug called Fantos that has magic as one of the ingredients.  This drug's magical properties give the taker a "works one time" benefit of regaining something lost.  The "works once" was a bit contridicted when Saul took it.  He had a few events related to his "regained" item.  Sorry, I don't mean to be cryptic - but I try really hard NOT to give spoilers.  If I tell what he lost and hoped to regain it will give too much of a head start to tale as Saul does not take it until 50% or so through the book.  I don't want anyone to learn (from me) what is that far ahead before they start reading. Will cause the tale to become somewhat obvious to readers. The author did a job of building suspense and keeping things from being predictible. I won't ruin his hard work.We learn Saul's background with quite a bit of detail.  Except the one thing dropped in when he takes his dose of Fantos.  Then we learn more.  And really, without any back detail, that bit seemed contrived convenience.  Since Fantos was a "works only once" (per the dealer) - how did Saul know exactly when to take or IF any given day /time would be right for his purposes?  That could have been better presented.  Especially in light of fact that he could not know what "once" meant - one day, one second, one event...one hour (you get the idea).  There were several "onces" for Saul (convenience store, husband and wife, girl in woods, and mirror one).  So that was a conflict within story arc.The other substantial contrived convenience was the Fantos dealer showing up to deliver more at just the right moment to progress the story line.  A smaller bit that was contrived was the guy who had the tragedy in his past.  He just shows up one day, after many happy visits, complaining about he lost his special bit.  But, his special bit (which is a twist at end) makes no sense.  Nor is it believable as (once you find out in end) what his "lost and want to regain" bit is - you know there were plenty of people around for him to continue to utilize that particular "lost bit" on.  This also provided that other conflict in story arc that I noticed. Is difficult to directly explain, as again, it would be a spoiler to state exactly what he lost and wanted to regain.Still, in all, this was a fast paced read with some very interesting potential.  It would have merited another star if the conflicits and conveniences were not so pronounced.Christine