Review of Preadator & Prey: Executioner

The sixth book in the Predator & Prey series is subtitled “Executioner”. It certainly killed my enthusiasm for any other novel based upon the World of Darkness, and it did nothing to revive my interest in or opinion of game-related fiction in general. This book crosses Hunter: The Reckoning with Vampire: The Masquerade and dashes of Mage: The Ascension, with the results that one would expect: a lack of angst, personal horror or anything but purple prose failing to disguise the dark urban fantasy as the poorly-executed by-the-numbers gamer fiction that it is.

Our protagonist is Douglas Sands. As with Adrian Cross in the previous book, Sands is a middle-aged man with family problems. His son died as a toddler and his marriage to his wife is on the rocks. He’s all broken up about it, and on top of that he’s a Hunter- with all of the complications that brings. Not that you’d know this right away because Sands doesn’t appear in his own story until Chapter Four; the previous three chapters are all cut scenes that go on way too long, do nothing to introduce the plot of the book and make no sense unless you read the other books in the series. In other words, the book proper starts at Chapter Four; the first three chapters should’ve died on the cutting room floor because they do nothing to introduce the hero or the plot. That’s not a Good Thing.

The writing was a great deal better than that of the previous book. It’s a lot like cotton candy; it goes down so fast that soon enough you’ve passed three chapters and you wonder how so little meat can fit into so much text. This is how I got so far as Chapter Seven before I gave up. The characterization was about on par of what I get from either a Tarzan or John Carter novel, or your average summer blockbuster out of Hollywood or Hong Kong; it’s nothing to write home about, artistes will bitch something fierce about how melodramatic it is and there’s room for improvement. It’s also a solid journeyman effort written by a man who’s serious about doing the best that he can with what he’s got, and I appreciate that. That is a Good Thing.

Unfortunately, I put this book down at the beginning of Chapter Seven. The reason is that, by this point, the book jumped around like a young Robin Williams doing stand-up comedy while hopped up on cocaine. Mr. Fleming isn’t a proven quality yet, so he’s not excused from following the basic rules of storytelling: start at the beginning, focus upon the hero and progress in a linear fashion from the beginning to the end; stay away from the funky tricks. This is the gaming equivalent of a Harlequin romance novel, not literary fiction, so do stick with the conventions or you’ll lose the audience. It would also help if the story doesn’t read like the barely-transcribed log of a game session, complete with the clattering of dice in the background. I’ve seen better, and I hope that I see it again soon.

This is better than Predator & Prey: Mage, but it's still not worth your time or money. Read a real book instead. Mr. Fleming is not untalented, however, so I would like to see him try again with an original work.