Underland
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Price: $4.50
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In his X-Files-flavored novel Underland, ex-rock-musician Mick Farren boldly combines such pulp and tabloid favorites as vampires, the Hollow Earth, Cthulhu, UFOs, conspiracy theories, a modern-day Nazi colony, a serpent cult, and a prehuman race. Unfortunately, the novel turns out to be less than the sum of its parts, perhaps because it's the concluding volume of a series (the Renquist Quartet). Though Underland opens with a tense situation, the imminent torture of captured vampire leader Victor Renquist, the narrative turns immediately to backstory. Numerous bland stretches of flashback and description slow the pace so much that the Hollow Earth implied in the title goes unmentioned until nearly page 140. Series newcomers should be sure to start with the first volume, The Time of Feasting. --Cynthia Ward
List Price:
Price: $4.50
You Save: $3.49 (44%)
Description
Victor Renquist, centuries-old master of a small colony of Nosferatu, has been "recruited"-forcibly-by an undercover branch of the National Security Agency, Paranormal Operations and Research. They need his help. It seems that certain members of Hitler's Third Reich escaped to a secret world below Antarctica, taking with them some very advanced technology. Human teams have failed to infiltrate the base, and Renquist is the NSA's last chance.
The team is small: Renquist; his right-hand man, Lupo; an extremely unorthodox hardline NSA operative named Jack Coulson; and Thyme Bridewell, a failed NSA brain-control experiment originally intended as Renquist's lunch. What they find in Underland taxes even Renquist's supernormal powers. The quondam Nazis have some very powerful allies -- the Dhrakuh, a race of sentient reptiles from the dawn of time. Their goal is nothing less than the conquest of the entire world.
To make matters worse, Renquist is hampered by some throwbacks from his own race and by the unexpected arrival of one of his own colony members, Julia, together with Philipa, a darklost whom Julia has led through the Change into Nosferatu.
The future of civilization hangs in the balance.
The team is small: Renquist; his right-hand man, Lupo; an extremely unorthodox hardline NSA operative named Jack Coulson; and Thyme Bridewell, a failed NSA brain-control experiment originally intended as Renquist's lunch. What they find in Underland taxes even Renquist's supernormal powers. The quondam Nazis have some very powerful allies -- the Dhrakuh, a race of sentient reptiles from the dawn of time. Their goal is nothing less than the conquest of the entire world.
To make matters worse, Renquist is hampered by some throwbacks from his own race and by the unexpected arrival of one of his own colony members, Julia, together with Philipa, a darklost whom Julia has led through the Change into Nosferatu.
The future of civilization hangs in the balance.
In his X-Files-flavored novel Underland, ex-rock-musician Mick Farren boldly combines such pulp and tabloid favorites as vampires, the Hollow Earth, Cthulhu, UFOs, conspiracy theories, a modern-day Nazi colony, a serpent cult, and a prehuman race. Unfortunately, the novel turns out to be less than the sum of its parts, perhaps because it's the concluding volume of a series (the Renquist Quartet). Though Underland opens with a tense situation, the imminent torture of captured vampire leader Victor Renquist, the narrative turns immediately to backstory. Numerous bland stretches of flashback and description slow the pace so much that the Hollow Earth implied in the title goes unmentioned until nearly page 140. Series newcomers should be sure to start with the first volume, The Time of Feasting. --Cynthia Ward
