Horror Book Reviews
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Title: Working for the Devil (Dante Valentine | Book 1) |
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Review of Working for the Devil (Dante Valentine, Book 1)
- When the Devil needs a rogue demon killed, who does he call?
The Player: Necromance-for-hire Dante Valentine is choosy about her jobs. Hot tempered and with nerves of steel, she can raise the dead like nobody's business. But one rainy Monday morning, everything goes straight to hell.
The Score: The Devil hires Dante to eliminate a rogue demon: Vardimal Santino. In return, he will let her live. It's an offer she can't refuse.
The Catch: How do you kill something that can't die?
Product Description
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Comments for Working for the Devil (Dante Valentine | Book 1)
- Posted on 2008-10-08
A great gamble
It's strange how you come across good books. I took a gamble on this book after reading someone give it a bad review. The same person wrote a bad review on a book that I thought was fantastic. My gut feeling was very good on this one. I loved this book!
For years my favorite author was Laurell K. Hamilton. This has been slipping lately due to her main characters becoming such dim witted nymphos.
If you love strong characters that aren't afraid to stand up to creatures stronger than them, then you will love Dante Valentine.
Score: 4
- Posted on 2008-09-09
Entertaining, but Exasperating
With its pathologically misanthropic protagonist and radically transformed world of influential magic-users , this novel effectively straddles the edge of the cyberpunk and occult/supernatural subgenres of fantasy. It is a good, entertaining read within its own limitations. Foremost among these is the pushing of a leftist worldview, which comes across as self-indulgent. In the history of this world, Christianity is dead after having endured a civil war between Catholics and Protestants (with the former having sponsored terrorists); other religions' fate (Hinduism, Islam, Judaism) is not expressed. Shamanism, Ceremonial Magic, Wicca, and other New Age revivals have assumed the place of these religions, though they are more practical applications of existing phenomenae than systems of belief. Saintcrow does well in hinting at the interplay between these traditions and the humans and mythological creatures that inhabit and practice them. She is also adept at believable and pregnant dialogue and in drawing her characters: there is really nothing to complain about with the writing itself. I did have trouble believing that multiple characters fell so madly in love with the protagonist, given what an unpleasant personality she owns. It's a fairly common event in popular fiction by or for women, to be sure (one good example: Bridget Jones' Diary), just as there is analogous wish-fulfillment in more male-centric subgenres.
Saintcrow's world's believability is compromised, for me at least, with what I suspect is the author's settling of accounts with those things which she finds distasteful, whether it is Christianity, or simply people who do not like tattoos. Her strident feminism is evident not simply with the combative heroine cheerfully taking on men of far greater size and strength, but in casual references to females being customers of 'sex workers', not to mention acceptance of bisexuality. Clearly the author has channeled much of her anger at the world into not only her protagonist's worldview and language, but into the creation of the world and cosmos of the novel itself. I have scant sympathy with the author's evident worldview, and as a Christian grow weary of the constant gratuitous insults hurled towards my religion in popular culture. But I won't deny that this book still held a certain appeal, and it is a considerable feat to make such an unlikely world even approach believability.
Overall, an entertaining example of its subgenre that is unlikely to test its boundaries or challenge its readers.
Score: 4 - Posted on 2008-08-08
three cheers for dante
this is my absolute favorite series of books on the planet. i have read them over and over and i still can't help but become entirely immersed in them. from cover to cover, the entire series is amazing. i just wish there were more.
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-07-29
Dire excuse for a heroine!
I've read all 5 of the books in the Dante Valentine series - but not because of a liking for the heroine! I found her annoying and with no redeeming qualities. So what made me read all five books?
Tierce Japhrimel. Lucifer's Eldest, his assassin and Right Hand.
He was by far the most engaging and intriguing character as well as having a consistent personality.
I found myself reading avidly, waiting for Japhrimel to find some way to make this silly little girl Dante to grow up. (I skimmed Book 2 because he is not in it much and so the story was poor.)
For a character that was supposed to be the best and toughest Necromance in the world, Dante was pretty shallow and pathetic.
The author would have done better to have based her stories around the enigmatic demon Japh and consigned "Danny" to the dustbin.
Some of the themes were repetitve....e.g., if I had to read about the scar on her shoulder getting hot again, or her rings sparkling one more time, or her "tat" crawling (yawn) I would have screamed.
I did however, read to the last gasp of the last book because outside of the silly heroine and the repeated themes, I really cared about how Japh's story ended and so the author got something right - just a shame she did not expand on it and leave Dante behind.
I was rather hoping along the way, he would "fall" for someone else and dump the ungrateful whiner Danny.
Guess he had to have one major flaw in his character and that was it....he loved not wisely, but too well.
Score: 3
- Posted on 2008-07-06
A superior dark fantasy
Good one--a superior example of "urban fantasy." Although I suppose it would be more accurate to say "sometime in the near future" dark fantasy.
You could also say this is a combination of J. D. Robb (near future but still recognizable society plus mysterious murders) and early Laurell K. Hamilton (Necromance/bounty hunter), but that would be a cruel disservice to Ms. Saintcrow. For one thing, she's a much better writer than LKH and the early Robbs. For another, there is so much originality here that the book is not quite like anything else I've read in this subgenre. Any comparisons would be superficial at best.
Dante Valentine is a Necromance who can bring back the dead for questioning by lawyers and suchlike, but also does bounty hunting work to pay the mortgage. She's a tough adrenaline junkie with a close relationship to Anubis, the Death God. When Lucifer's right hand man, Japhrimel, shows up at Dante's door to haul her off to Hell for a consult with the Devil himself, things in her life begin to rapidly decay. Lucifer has a job for Dante--catch an escaped demon turned serial killer which "no man or demon can kill"--and offers her no chance for refusal. The wild card in all this is Japhrimel, who's loyalty to the Devil begins to strain...
Ms. Saintcrow's voice is fast and immersive without being superficial (she even makes the flashbacks breathless), and she does an good job of trusting the reader to keep up without over-explaining things. There were a couple of instances of minor plotting by stupidity--but then, that's almost become a subgenre trope. I ignored it and went along for the ride because the story was so engaging.
I am getting a little tired of "kickass" heroines who make stupid choices out of anger. If they were really that kickass and working in a dangerous profession like bounty hunting, they would not survive such recklessness and bad decisions. But why be a party pooper, huh? Many a Hollywood writer/director has made a good living out of reckless, bad decisionmakin' heroes who wouldn't survive ten minutes in the real world. That's why they call it "fantasy." Overall, this is a kickass opening to what promises to be a kickass series.
Score: 4
