REVIEW: Chimera

PLOT: Afghanistan veteran Jim Chapel has been enlisted in a new war. This time it's in his own backyard... and even more deadly. A small band of fugitives escapes from a secret upstate New York military facility, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake. Each fugitive has a target—an innocent civilian—and will not stop until that target has been eliminated. Wounded Special Forces veteran Jim Chapel has been stuck behind a desk rather than out in the field, but medical technology has finally caught up with his ambitions. Coupled with his unstoppable determination, it will take him back to where he thrives: the thick of the action. Drafted into a new war, this time in our homeland, Chapel is tasked with hunting a group of escapees from a top secret military compound—all extremely deadly, genetically modified killers—and unraveling the mystery behind their existence. Aided by an enigmatic woman named Angel and a courageous, beautiful veterinarian, Chapel begins a cross-country hunt to stop the murders. But are the killers really rogues, or are they part of a sinister conspiracy that reaches into the highest levels?

REVIEW: I've wanted to read a lot of David Wellington's books for awhile, because he writes about awesome things. He has a series of werewolf books, zombie books, and a larger series of vampire books. Some of his books are actually available online to read as serials, which is really cool of an author to do. It gives someone who is interested in his work, a chance to preview his earlier writing and then go for the big stuff if they like his style. I for one, never got around to reading any of the serials, but rather just hopped into this book. This was recommended to me because of my serious love for Jonathan Maberry's Joe Ledger series, of which I still have one more book left to read. In Wellington's Chimera we're introduced to a war hero that has a lot of the same mental constructs as a Ledger-like character, but not quite the same physical makeup.

What mostly makes Chimera interesting is the fact that our protagonist, Jim Chapel, is a tough as nails combat veteran that is recruited for a top secret mission, but he's at a disadvantage to most. Though, Mr. Chapel would be first to correct me in saying that he's not a disadvantage, he just has a different way of doing things. Chapel is missing an arm that he lost in Afghanistan, but he's been fitted for a high tech artificial limb that has enabled him to get by in the world. It works just like a regular arm, but it's mechanical and relies on his brain to be controlled. This part of Jim Chapel is what draws the desire for the reader to read Chapel's story, because you want this guy to come out on top and win. I thought this was a really cool addition to the story and provided me a reason to really root for Jim. However, his position marks him as the underdog in the story, but he never quite feels like he reaches complete despair in this book like other leading protagonists in similar books.

What I wasn't much of a fan of in this book was the fact that it never seemed like the suspense of the story fully caught on. The Joe Ledger books were a breeze for me, so much so that I was able to finish each of the first four in a week. This book took me a little longer to read, because it just was never able to fully suck me in. There was never any true, all hope is lost, desperation laid upon Jim Chapel even though his mission was top secret and extremely difficult. It just all seemed too easy, and clear cut, and it never quite sucks the reader fully into the book vortex that us readers often find ourselves in. I think shorter stories would benefit Jim Chapel, and David Wellington's writing. I'm looking forward to reading the two that are already out apparently, called Minotaur and Myrmidon.

The suspense was there, but it never fully takes hold in the story which causes a few of the scenes to drag out and take away from the building of tension. The chimeras are a legitimate threat, but they never take shape or become more than a pawn played in a larger game. I think I would have been much happier had there been more of a clear cut villain that actually had some say on the pages. The other thing I didn't much care for was Jim and Julia's extra-curricular activities on more than one occasion throughout the book. I'm not big for scenes of romance in my books, but I could have forgiven these after all was said and done. The scenes sort of felt forced, and it was a good example of how parts of the story took away from the building of suspense. Save it for the end of the book Wellington, because Chapel sure as hell deserved a good night in bed by the end of his mission. I would recommend this to fans of Joe Ledger or any other paranormal hunting military hero. While it doesn't quite present the crispest science fiction thriller, there is plenty of action and a damn fine hero in the making waiting for readers in these pages.

RATED : ( R )

WRITING : ( 7 / 10 )

STORY : ( 8 / 10 )

COVER : ( 6 / 10 )

AWESOME : ( 7 / 10 )

FINAL RATING : ( 7 / 10 )

REVIEW: Assassin's Code

PLOT: When Joe Ledger and Echo Team rescue a group of American college kids held hostage in Iran,the Iranian government then asks them to help find six nuclear bombs planted in the Mideast oil fields. These stolen WMDs will lead Joe and Echo Team into hidden vaults of forbidden knowledge, mass-murder, betrayal, and a brotherhood of genetically-engineered killers with a thirst for blood. Accompanied by the beautiful assassin called Violin, Joe follows a series of clues to find the Book of Shadows, which contains a horrifying truth that threatens to shatter his entire worldview. They say the truth will set you free… Not this time. The secrets of the Assassin’s Code will set the world ablaze.

REVIEW: This series continues to amaze me. After dealing with Nazi scientists, zombies, and weaponized plague I figured all of the conventional science fiction plots turned non-fiction were all used up. Maberry takes what is a seemingly unrealistic story line and puts the realistic twist on it, as he has done with the rest of the series prior to Assassin's Code. I have to say I was blown away by this fourth entry in the Joe Ledger series, because not only did I not expect vampires when I first picked this book up, but I expected certain villains to play a crucial role in this novel. I haven't read vampires done this well since I read Guilermo del Toro's The Strain and two follow-up novels, and I was highly impressed with the mythos that Maberry weaves for his own vampires in the Joe Ledger series. I don't know if this is the first time he's tackled vampires, but he went about it really well and created them in a realistic world. The most important thing about this book is that it could have gone either way depending on how the vampires were viewed by the reader, and I saw some of the most inventive vampires that aren't particularly scary but you can almost relate to their story, you can understand them. That can be scary all on its own I suppose, and to see a vampire story written with some creativity and uniqueness to it is great in these trying vampire literature times.

Joe Ledger is his usual self, but it's really his disbelief in everything that is going on throughout the book that really sells it in the end. He has the reaction that most of us probably would, to the statement that vampires are not imaginary. When Ledger discovers that vampires may be a threat, even then he doesn't believe it, until he's pretty well convinced by his team members that what he's seeing is true. He even encounters a vampire early on in the book, and comes up with about every excuse possible to believe that he didn't just fight a supernatural being. I love Joe's mindset throughout Assassin's Code and it really fits and helps the reader relate and believe that this is plausible because Joe has so much trouble accepting his mission this time around. Of course, Joe's trusty sidekick Ghost is back and better than ever. Ghost has a rough go of it this time around and gets plenty beat up and it's kind of hard to read in certain moments, but he does get his ultimate revenge on the bad guys so don't worry about that.

This book sees the loss of a few characters, but addition of a couple others that may be future side characters from here on out. Joe meets the deadly, but beautiful assassin who calls herself Violin and almost falls in love with her before they ever even meet. I liked Violin because she is kind of like Joe, in terms of personality, but she belongs to a different secret task force that is directed by the Mother, Lilith. I liked the addition of all these different groups this time around, that show that the DMS is not the only one out there fighting evil in the world. Also a lot of historical mythology is added to the Joe Ledger series, that pertains to The Red Order and the vampires and how it all came to be with the Inquisition and holy wars of the past. I really liked Maberry's use of interludes to go back and show the past of these groups of both people, and vampire, and also go more in depth for Nicodemus. I have to say that Nicodemus literally gives me the creeps, and I love that he's still pretty well present and scheming in the background of the books. This book again, is probably the best one since The Dragon Factory, and that's not to say The King of Plagues sucked. My favorite is probably now this one, because the blend of realism that Maberry brings to the Joe Ledger stories, combined with something completely supernatural had me turning pages faster than ever before with Joe Ledger. Thank you Mr. Maberry, oh thank you and now to read Extinction Machine next, the most current Joe Ledger novel!

RATED : ( R )

WRITING : ( 10 / 10 )

STORY : ( 10 / 10 )

COVER : ( 7 / 10 )

AWESOME : ( 10 / 10 )

FINAL RATING : ( 10 / 10 )

REVIEW: The Dragon Factory

PLOT: Joe Ledger and the DMS (Department of Military Sciences) go up against two competing groups of geneticists. One side is creating exotic transgenic monsters and genetically enhanced mercenary armies; the other is using 21st century technology to continue the Nazi Master Race program begun by Josef Mengele. Both sides want to see the DMS destroyed, and they've drawn first blood. Neither side is prepared for Joe Ledger as he leads Echo Team to war under a black flag.

REVIEW: Well here we are a little over a month past since I last read Joe Ledger, that being the first book in the series titled Patient Zero. I picked up the first book because it was highly rated on a lot of zombie fiction lists and I thought I would give it a shot, and I was so surprised at how awesome it was that I hadn't had enough yet. Thus, The Dragon Factory was picked up and read and now I need even more Ledger. This book was to prove that I didn't just like the first one because of the zombies, and seemingly that wasn't the case. Jonathan Maberry has created one hell of an action-packed and suspenseful series with Joe Ledger and continues to impress me with his writing.

It's just another day on the block with Joe Ledger in The Dragon Factory, dragged into a world and life-threatening situation when old Nazi science finds a home in the hands of modern terrorists. The best thing about these books are the plausible and scientific explanation to the terrorist plots dreamed up to take out the world. It's not as simple as "there was a virus, and then everyone's corpse re-animated" and "they put some gorilla in the guy, now he's strong". There are legitimate, but still fictional, explanations of the terrors that the villains committ in these books. Joe Ledger, Mr. Church, and the DMS never back down from a fight though, and even going against aspiring Nazi scientists they find a way to do their jobs.

This book is, to me, much more terrifying than the first book. The concept of resurrected Nazi science has always intrigued me, especially after reading and seeing the movie Hellboy (directed by Guillermo del Toro, who has Pacific Rim opening this weekend by the way). Nazis and Nazi theories have pretty much become extinct in our day and age, but the thought that there are probably people out there that desire to bring those ideals back to our modern world is definitely disturbing. Whether this is fiction or not, one can imagine a world threatened by Nazi idealists and truly capable terrorists. Science is such a scary thing to most because it's hard to understand if you don't know the science behind the science, but with it almost anything can be possible and I think that's what this book tries to show. Stuff that happens in this book, could not be so far off in the real world (not talking my lifetime, but possibly my children or children's children). I think that's what makes The Dragon Factory so unsettling at times, because you know crazy genetically enhanced people with a white supremacist agenda could commit such a violent and evil act against the human race. There are real people in the world today that kill others for their beliefs and for the people they are, and Maberry does an excellent job of putting that fear that we keep in the back of our minds, into the front.


The villains in the book are great, Hecate and Paris Jakoby along with their father Cyrus are a group of radical terrorists hellbent on causing destruction and mayhem with their newfound technologies and sciences. The threats that Maberry is constantly writing into these Joe Ledger books so far are so plausible and realistic, and even though it has to do with new, inventive and sometimes improbable science, it scares the crap out of you because it seems minimally possible in our wacky world. It's so crazy to see the things they come up with in the book, and the first genetically created creature from the villains in the book is a unicorn. Yes, The Dragon Factory utilizes unicorns and that's only a small taste of what else it has to offer. I highly recommend the Joe Ledger series to anyone who's a fan of badassery ranging from Jack Bauer to Jack Reacher, and you would have to read Patient Zero at all to understand the goings on in The Dragon Factory. Next up is The King of Plagues, book 3 in the series, as I continue to work my way up to the latest entry in the series Extinction Machine! Which I know wonder if it has anything to do with the Extinction Wave, in The Dragon Factory! Jonathan Maberry, continue to write and amaze me, wow.

RATED : ( R )

WRITING : ( 10 / 10 )

STORY : ( 10 / 10 )

COVER : ( 9 / 10 )

AWESOME : ( 10 / 10 )

FINAL RATING : ( 10 / 10 )

REVIEW: Patient Zero

PLOT: When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there's either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills... and there's nothing wrong with Joe Ledger's skills. And that's both a good, and a bad thing. It's good because he's a Baltimore detective that has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new taskforce created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can't handle. This rapid response group is called the Department of Military Sciences or the DMS for short. It's bad because his first mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bio-weapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance...

REVIEW: Let me just start by saying that I only picked up Patient Zero because of, well, zombies. On my quest to read everything and anything zombie I was constantly told to pick this book up. For months I'd had the sequel The Dragon Factory sitting on my shelf but not until I finally went to read it did I realize that it had a predecessor. My, oh my, am I glad that I read its predecessor first because now I cannot freaking wait to jump into the second Joe Ledger novel The Dragon Factory.

Joe Ledger is a badass beyond measure. If you put literary character Jack Reacher together with the likes of TV hero Jack Bauer, you still only have about half of what Ledger is. Joe is an absolute machine, and if there is one thing Maberry did without flaw it was create this unbelievably badass character. When Joe is fighting the baddies, you can tell that Maberry is at his strongest. Often times when action is written, it's really hard to follow fluidly so that it comes out looking as awesome in the reader's imagination as it did the writer's. Jonathan Maberry is the master of writing awesome Joe Ledger fight scenes, because he writes them so well you just read it non-stop and it flows together so well it's as if you're watching some kung fu master before your very eyes on the page. The first time that Joe's fighting style is analyzed by Mr. Church, who I'll get to in a second, it's very obvious that Maberry knew what he was doing with Joe from the start. I can't recall a literary character as downright heroic and unstoppable as Joe Ledger, he simply makes this book all on his own.

The thing about Patient Zero though is that there isn't just one character that is written very well. Every single character is written with perfection, and I could not get over how many quirks each individual character had, and how much personality everyone had. Typically I'm not a fan of multi-character storylines, and there aren't here either, though Joe has a terrific supporting cast. Joe's buddy Rudy is a perfect balance for it to be believable that they are best friends, despite incredibly different careers and thought processes. Mr. Church who hires Joe for the DMS is just incredibly chilling on every page, even though he's technically on the good side. His fascination with cheap cookies is such a simple trait to add, but it works so well with his character. Also, Joe's team that he ends up leading around from place to place to stop the terrorist threats all have a bit of character to them.

Even the baddies all have unbelievably fleshed out traits, and El Mujahid who is the main villain is so cold, and so evil it's just so easy to believe. Though he's not in the book for maybe more than 20% of the time, his storyline is flowing along with Joe's all the same. It's just such a well-written book the way all of the villains including El Mujahid, his wife Amirah, Sebastian Gault, his buddy Toys, and others are all perfectly placed within the story and only deal with certain characters in the book. To not reveal much to ruin the story, but not all of the bad guys ever get the chance to meet Joe and I think that's what makes this battle of good vs. evil so special.

Back to why I picked this book up, zombies. Yes, there are zombies in your typical sense but they come about from an unusual threat not seen in zombie fiction, at least to me so far in my new interest of the subject. The terrorists have found a way to manufacture a virus that they plan to attack America with and just set us back to 0. The possibility of this actually happening, while it is science fiction, is actually somewhat high. I would not put it past our technology and intelligence today to come up with something so hanus and actually have the capability and determination to use it for a cause. Just imagine a season of TV's 24, but instead of a day it's a week long, and instead of terrorists using bombs they're using bio-weapons, and instead of Jack Bauer, there is... Joe Ledger.

Do yourself a favor, fan of zombies or not folks. Go pick up this book and give it a read, I promise you won't be disappointed. This is definitely in my new top 3 for all-time favorite fiction, and I have a feeling it's going to remain there for quite awhile. It's a superbly written thriller, a cleverly written tale of horror, and a suspenseful story. Well worth the time and money spent, and now my sights are set on the latest entry in the Joe Ledger series Extinction Machine, which came out March 2013! Bravo, Jonathan Maberry, bravo!

RATED : ( R )

WRITING : ( 9 / 10 )

STORY : ( 10 / 10 )

COVER : ( 8 / 10 )

AWESOME : ( 10 / 10 )

FINAL RATING : ( 10 / 10 )