Living Dangerously: Thank You Sarah Pinborough

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Weston Ochse is a former intelligence officer and special operations soldier who has engaged enemy combatants, terrorists, narco smugglers, and human traffickers. His personal war stories include performing humanitarian operations over Bangladesh, being deployed to Afghanistan, and a near miss being cannibalized in Papua New Guinea. His fiction and non-fiction has been praised by USA Today, The Atlantic, The New York Post, The Financial Times of London, and Publishers Weekly. The American Library Association labeled him one of the Major Horror Authors of the 21st Century. His work has also won the Bram Stoker Award, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and won multiple New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. A writer of more than 26 books in multiple genres, his military supernatural series SEAL Team 666 has been optioned to be a movie starring Dwayne Johnson. His military sci fi series, which starts with Grunt Life, has been praised for its PTSD-positive depiction of soldiers at peace and at war. Weston likes to be called a chaotic good paladin and challenges anyone to disagree. After all, no one can really stand a goody two-shoes lawful good character. They can be so annoying. It's so much more fun to be chaotic, even when you're striving to save the world. You can argue with him about this and other things online at Living Dangerously or on Facebook at Badasswriter. All content of this blog is copywrited by Weston Ochse.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Thank You Sarah Pinborough - Dog-Faced Gods

Let me introduce a concept to my fellow Americans.

Dog-Faced Gods.

Yep. You read it right. Dog-Faced Gods. This is the trilogy (Gollanz) from London author, Sarah Pinborough and it's unbelievably incredible. I picked up the first book, Matter of Blood, at our local bookstore that someone had remaindered. It was the British edition, so I don't know how it got to this dark and sandy corner of the American desert. Short version is that I read it and just loved it. The writing reminds me of Peter Straub, but with the certain grace that Sarah continually pulls off. My guess is that she doesn't even realize she's doing it. It's just something natural she does. I even find it hard to describe what it is, but once you read it, you know.

So I went online and bought the second book in the series - The Shadow of the Soul. I read that in just a few sittings and was like, "Damn. This is so good." I emailed Sarah and told her so. Then she offered me the third book to read, since it wasn't out yet in America. I took her up on it. About halfway through The Chosen Seed, this third book, I began to get depressed. I was realizing that I would soon be finished and there would be no more story.

And the story?

Cass Jones is a London detective who can see the glow. What the glow is and why its there is at the heart of the story. Why Cass is special and how it all fits together is a brilliant piece of architectural plotting. I really can't get more into it without giving it away. Let me just say that this is a story that really began a long, long, time ago and Sarah begins in media res.

If you've never heard of this, or if you've been putting of reading them, then I'm excited for you. You're in for something special. Go find this trilogy and buy them.