The Shape Stealer

February 1, 2013
Third entry in Carroll's urban fantasy series, following the somnambulistic The Watchtower (2011). This time, the pace picks up to a frantic pitch, with so much going on it's hard to follow, let alone become involved. First-person narrator and Watchtower Garet James, heir to a sort of anti-evil witch coven, succeeded in bringing her love, poet Will Hughes, from 17th-century London to 21st-century Paris. Unfortunately, he's the wrong version--she really wanted the charismatic vampire that young Will, 400 years later, will become. However, we soon learn, through numerous omniscient narrative threads, that elder Will is also around, having become de-vampired, and now is a well-known and highly proficient currency trader. But with both Wills in the world at the same time, elder Will's losing his immunity to the sun, while young Will's in danger of becoming destabilized in time. Throw in some fairies, Johannes Kepler (don't ask), the Institut Chronologique--whose Knights Temporal can travel through time and whose mission is to preserve the current timeline--and bad guys ranging from evil sorcerer John Dee and his boss, the monstrous vampire and Babylonian ex-god Marduk, to the Malefactors, time travelers intent on changing things around to suit themselves. You can imagine the size and shape of the plot necessary to accommodate all this, let alone the effort needed to determine if it adds up. Swaggering, pill-popping Marduk, twanging his fangs and twirling his mustachio (well, figuratively, anyway), would have been a star on the vaudeville stage. Instead of poetry, we're served limp doggerel. More and more scattershot, as memories of the firmly grounded, tightly knit, charming series opener recede into the murk.

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March 15, 2013

Garet Jones, jewelry designer and the last in a line of powerful women destined to protect the mortal world from supernatural evils, has traveled back in time to rescue Will Hughes, her 400-year-old lover, from vampirism. But when she returns to the present it's with the wrong Will Hughes--the 19-year-old youth who loved Garet's ancestor, Marguerite. Worse, the evil Babylonian deity Marduk has returned with them to the 21st century. In her pursuit of a way to defeat Marduk and find "her" Will Hughes, Garet discovers a group of warriors known as the Knights Temporal, whose job is to preserve the time line from those who would change it for their own selfish purposes. VERDICT This third series entry (after Black Swan Rising and The Watchtower) deftly spins an urban fantasy tale of good versus evil, youth versus experience, and the power of true love that spans centuries. The insights of both Garet and the young Will Hughes provide entertaining views of the modern world, and the blend of historical and modern characters should appeal to fans of alternate history as well as of urban fantasy. Carroll is the pseudonym of author Carol Goodman and her husband, Lee Slonimsky.

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