Fantasy Quote of the Week

Carol stood on Glaeken's rooftop in the bright morning sunlight and wished she had the nerve to remove her blouse. Jack and Bill had pulled off their shirts as soon as they'd stepped out the door. Carol envied the males their casual ability to expose so much surface area to the warm light poking through the cloudless sky.

Why not me? she thought, reaching for the top buttons on her blouse. After all we've been through together, what difference would it make?

But she stopped after two buttons. If it was just Bill, maybe. But not with Jack here.

I know I've been changed by all this -- but not that much. An uptight Catholic girl was still alive and well somewhere within her.
--F. Paul Wilson, Nightworld

Well, I Suppose It Was Only a Matter of Time Before They Published a Novel with This Title

However, I still expected F. Paul Wilson to have a bit more class.

It's been two years since this novel was published and I still can't believe it.

Harry Dresden Is the New Repairman Jack

Okay, that's a callous way to put it since I'm sure that Harry Dresden creator Jim Butcher did not intentionally mean to imitate Repairman Jack creator F. Paul Wilson. But he did.

Moreover, Butcher's last two books in the Harry Dresden series, Dead Beat (2005) and Proven Guilty (2006) have a certain vibe and energy that used to exist in the earliest books of the Repairman Jack series but exist no longer.

Reading the latest Repairman Jack books has become tiresome. Jack is no longer that interesting a character and the troubles he faces have a tedious predictability. Even the plot twists in which yet another of Jack's loved ones ended up facing harm have become predictable -- and shameless. (Indeed, one would think that a good writer like Wilson would able to come up with a better plotline than "Jack's so-and-so faces mortal peril -- yet again.")

However, reading the latest Harry Dresden books is exciting. Harry Dresden is interesting in a way that Jack used to be but is no longer and his stories tend to blend genuine moral conflicts with good old-fashioned derring-do. Not all his storylines involve Harry's nearest and dearest facing mortal peril (which makes the few instances in which that plot device arises all the more powerful). Moreover, the latest books build on each other so that each can be read separately but are more effective when read as a series.

Of course, part of the problem with the Repairman Jack books is that Wilson has written himself into a corner. He can't really do anything all that new with the Repairman Jack character that would negate the events in an earlier novel (Nightworld) but he can't move on to a new character either. Anyone who has ever read The Tomb (the book that first introduced Repairman Jack) can understand Wilson's reluctance to drop the character, but unfortunately, it's difficult to love the characters Wilson introduced in that book and still applaud the events in the latest books. Even the big twist in the last Repairman Jack book I read (Harbingers) which essentially pits Jack against God isn't as intriguing as one would think.

Harry Dresden's still not as popular as that other Harry fellow who fights evil wizards and stuff but he is definitely worth reading.

The Harry Dresden TV series, alas, is something worth skipping. Oh, well, even Harry can't win 'em all...

Repairman Jack Redux

I used to like F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack character. In fact, back in 1987, when I first came across the character in Wilson's novel The Tomb in a Michigan library, I used to visit the local library every day just to read another few chapters of that book. (I didn't have a library card for that library so just checking out the book like a normal library patron wasn't an option.)

And yet Wilson's new Repairman Jack novel Infernal makes me wonder why I bothered.

Repairman Jack has gone from being a genuinely interesting character to a fairly predictable one. Nor is the plot any help. Yet another mysterious relative of Jack's -- this time his brother -- is introduced, yet another mysterious entity shows up and yet more time is marked between the events of The Tomb and its sequel (of sorts) Nightworld.

I realize Wilson doesn't exactly have a lot of room for flexibility in this storyline, but geez, he used to be better.

Perhaps the adventures of Repairman Jack were better ended with Nightworld. After all, it's a little hard to care too much about Repairman Jack's latest adventure with the Adversary when we readers of Nightworld already know what happens to Repairman Jack in the long run.

Besides, I for one would like to see F. Paul Wilson move on to a new character. Preferably before readers like myself start moving on to another author...