September 2024 Indie Book Review

Blackthorne by Clayton Snyder

Bugs, Ghosts & Mercenaries
An Indie Book Review by Joseph Poopinski
4 stars

This book was way above the curve in many ways, especially with wry zingers:  “Good fight… we’ll call it a draw,” said our hero Mattias Temple after being roundly beaten by an opponent’s fists.  Against the backdrop of a dystopian world at war, they’ve rather creatively engineered bug-cars, gigantic bug-buildings, bug-armour, bug-weapons, etc.  With those necromancers & witches came ghosts & magical horrors (featuring obligatory tentacles, claws, poison, etc.).  Then Blackthorne also deserved props for the cyber/Matrix/hacker portions (my favorite parts) of this wild Black Opsy adventure.  Would I suggest fewer F-bombs?  Probably, however, it’s not a children’s story & cursing devotees will appreciate a couple of doozies balancing the equation.  All the action & combat overwhelmed whatever personalization elements cropped up but neither the accelerating pace nor the surprise-after-surprise-after-other-surprises plot ever let up.

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