Review: A fun and easy read
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 9, 2013
For the record, I only given 5 stars for books that change(d) my life. 4 stars are for really great books. 3 stars are for really good books and or really good "reads" but that are not going to (and are not intended to) change the world.So, 3 stars because I really like this book and the others in the series. Conroe's prose is clean and easy to read. Each page flows into the next. I blew through each of the books in no time at all because they are fun to read. They are also easy to digest because nothing genuinely bad ever really happens to anyone. The good guys always win. The good guys never really get permanently hurt. This doesn't bother me, by the way. Sometimes it's nice to have a superhero fantasy in which you can feel safe and protected from any hard emotional consequences. The only criticism I have in the conceptual foundation of the books are that the "theology" (for want of a better term) gets a little muddy. On the one had, Conroe is (to my way of thinking anyway) admirably non-denominational in his dealings with the spiritual structure of the Universe (or Earth, anyway), granting legitimate "spiritual" powers (like exorcism) to believers in several faiths, and including spirit entities from the Native American traditions (this entity is one of my favorite characters, I must admit), but then...well...then he trips himself up and brings a very Catholic-configured angel into the picture. Admittedly, the angel is willing to meet with him on any kind of holy site, no matter the belief system, but, nonetheless, the angel repeatedly suggests that our hero is doing work for a VERY Judeo-(but MUCH MORE)-Christian seeming God and his army of angels. Which is entirely Conroe's prerogative.  It's not the theology I object to, it's the incongruity, as all the rest of the "Magical Laws of Physics" he lays out suggests a non-sectarian structure (or at least hierarchy) to the Spiritual World. The good news is that it doesn't get in the way of enjoyable stories. I bring it up mostly because, while I kind of love the whole demon-fighting on earth genre, I don't love (and feel disenfranchised by, to be honest) the whole reliance on the essential "Truth" of the Catholic Church's theology plus-minus the Book of Revelations template. I guess I am a little (maybe unfairly) disappointed becasue Conroe got 90% of the way there, but then capitulated...or at least seems to have thus far...There is still time, I guess, as he has not yet offered a full disclosure of "How Things Really Work." For what it;s worth, I'm going to keep reading and find out. The books are fun enough that I'll even forgive him if he sticks with the whole angels and demons thing...though I really, really hope he does not.