The
Part That Doesn’t Burn
Goetia, #1
by Sam Poling
Date of
Publication: March 23rd 2016
Publisher:
Tirgearr Publishing
Cover
Artist: Cora Graphics
Genre:
Dark Fantasy
From
The Book Junkie Reads . . . The Part That Doesn’t Burn (Goetia, #1) . . .
Do you like Dark Fantasy? Do you like that world on the cusp of distruction? Do you like knowing there is one that could make a difference and save it all? Then you may have just found a read that will keep you captivated and checked in to the world that has been created for your dark pleasures. I call this dark urban fantasy with a blooming romance mixed in there.
We have reached a time where tech and magic have been deemed forbidden. All this not by the government but the church. A church that has taken on the role of corrupt government in this world. We have Mirabel and Felix there to make a difference. Follow there ins and outs of making what they feel will be a solution to some of what is going on in their world.
There was action, a chase or two, spell casting, potion (proverbial) making, an ah-ha moment or two. This no tech and magic world give me fond memories of books from the past but this with more of a darker fantasy rich edge. To judge what is or is not dark is up to the reader but this has that edge of darkness that takes this fantasy to that line.
Sam Poling what else do you have for me?
**This
ARC was provided via Bewitching Book Tours in exchange for an
honest review.**
BLURB
In an overpopulated city-state where
technology and magic are forbidden by the corrupt church, young witch, Mirabel
Fairfax, plots the creation of a deadly plague to cull the burdensome rabble.
That is, until she falls in love with
the very alchemist she has been deceiving.
Now, with soul-hungry geists flooding
the city, the church scrambling for their prey, and her own mind at war with
itself, Mirabel must decide what she's fighting for before she loses everything
to the evils of Autumnfall.
Buy Links: Amazon Tirgearr
Publishing
Mirabel waited in the
darkness. Each passing second made it
exponentially less likely the power would return.
“Mirabel? Did we lose
power?” Felix’s voice quivered in the darkness.
“It should return
momentarily.”
They waited. Mirabel
could practically feel Felix’s demeanor evaporating.
“M-Mirabel?”
“Unbelievable, the
singular time I am protecting company on the geistlines, a train dies. We are
not coal powered. We are coming to a stop. Perhaps your pessimism rang true.
Sour fortune must have followed you from Haugen. We need to leave.”
“L-leave? As in,
leave the train, and go out there?”
“Felix, without power
the only thing stopping a geist from swooping in here and taking your face off
is nothing. One hundred percent nothing. Essentially, we already have the cons
of being outside, along with the narrow space of being inside. Not a survivable
combination.”
Without hesitation
Felix took to gathering his tools, and corralling them into his bags.
“No time for that.”
She tugged him out of
their room and through the train car. One side of the car featured the cabins.
Asleep and unaware, no one else left their rooms. Windows with their blinds
drawn and a faint cyan shimmering through adorned the other side.
“They’re lining both
sides of the tracks. How long do we have?” said Felix.
“Geist behavior is a
constant mystery, even to me, but eventually some will strike. Even those with
eternity run out of patience.”
They reached the door
to the next car and Mirabel mashed on the panel. Nothing. No power, no doors.
She tried the manual handle, but it wouldn’t budge. If only Miss
Perfect-Priestess were here, then the door wouldn’t be able to fly open fast
enough.
“Oh bother,” she
said.
“Door haunted too?”
“Handle denies me.
Seems rusted, and I wonder if they automatically power lock.”
She could barely make
out Felix’s nervous wince. “I wouldn’t expect that, Mirabel. Emergency
situations would turn fatalities.”
“That is not
happening with us.” She put her weight on the lever. It didn’t amount to much,
and the lever knew it.
“Let me try.”
Felix consisted of
average build and height, if not a tad lanky. Certainly not the strong type.
Petite Mirabel stood quite small, a whole head shorter, also not the strong
type, but she expected she could generate more strength. The alchemist didn’t
have the mind for it.
“Felix, darling, put
your hands here.” She directed his hands next to hers. “Press down on three,
yes?”
Violet light washed
over the handle they gripped before she got to “one.” She didn’t have to turn
around to know its source. It traveled up her arms and across the door. If
another passenger had opened a blind, the light source wouldn’t be nearing
them.
“Three-three-three,”
she shouted.
Felix threw down on
the handle alongside her. Perhaps he did have the mind for it when terrified.
With a shriek the lever punched into the open position, and the partners threw
their hands into the crevice at the door’s left.
“Get the blasted
thing open. Pull, Felix, do not look back.”
She made a mistake.
Everyone looks back when instructed not to. He turned his neck and got an
eyeful of something that forced a spate foul language. Such words didn’t suit
him. Pulling with whatever force her slender arms could muster, she joined his
blunder and looked over her shoulder.
A geist, two-thirds
down the corridor, drifted closer. Its face partially lifted from its head,
hanging a few inches from where it belonged. The glowing wisp mimicked the body
it used to have, but poorly. The translucent skin melted and slid ever
downward. She knew the face would contort any moment: the precursor to assault.
And it had the gut-wrenching violet hue. Of all the geists to enter first, it
had to be a damned giftgeist. She had no hope of generating enough magic to
destroy it before it reached them.
The broken door
started to grind open. She fit her thin body part way into the opening. Her
heels dug into the carpet and her back braced against the door’s narrow edge,
with her hands pressing against the wall. “Felix, pull.”
The geist twisted
into a monster far fiercer than before; its face warped into elongated grief
and its jaw stretched to the side to give a dry, raspy howl. Passengers
meandering into the hall heard it. They slung their own screams and ran the
opposite way. The worst decision during a geistline incident: running toward
the rear of the train. They wouldn’t live long.
She reached above her
head and flicked her fingers. “You want electricity, you fromping door? H-have
some.” More white flashes fluttered between her fingers with each flick. “Come
on, I had this spell mastered yesterday.”
“Mirabel? Mirabel,”
yelped Felix. “It’s-it’s coming.”
“Simmer. I am
focusing.”
“Focus faster!”
With a final flick,
current rushed from the witch’s fingertips up into the door mechanisms. She had
no idea what it accomplished, but the lights around the immediate vicinity
flashed, including the door panel. Her left hand dropped and swatted it. The
door grinded opened halfway before its lights died again. Halfway gave them
more than enough space. The partners darted through into the next car. Glancing
back, Mirabel saw the geist stop and turn to its side. Another passenger had
peeked out of their cabin an arm’s length from the specter. It shot from
Mirabel’s view before the rattled cries of a man and woman reached her ears.
Felix stopped as
abruptly as the geist had. “It’s attacking someone.”
“Keep moving.”
“Mirabel, you’ve got
to do something, there are three cars full of people back there.”
“And we are the only
valuable ones.”
Author Info
Sam Poling has been writing fantasy and science fiction for the thrill of it his entire life, from short stories to screenplays. His love for each of the subgenres led to dedication to writing genre-skirting fiction with all the elements that make up the human condition. He holds a strong enthusiasm for medical studies and currently works as a medical assistant in a large clinic while taking classing for nursing. He also serves on a health and safety committee, including disaster preparedness and infection control. His interest in epidemiology and medical science tends to spill over into his writing endeavors.
Author Links:
It has
often been said that non-fiction may be more accurate, but fiction is more
truthful. Indeed, fiction liberates the writer, granting them infinite paint
and canvas through which to illustrate a truth, whether subtle or extreme. Creative
writers, myself included, are motivated by this need to express the human
condition.
When
writing my novel, THE PART THAT DOESN’T BURN, I was desperate not only to
convey what I knew about the human heart, but to discover more. I knew, deep
down, that eventually my characters would take over and show something that I
couldn’t. But in order for that to happen, I had to set the stage for it. In
the end, only a dark stage allowed me
to explore true desperation, and that infamous gray line between good and evil.
Dark Fantasy
is difficult to define, even amongst professionals who swim in the genre. But
simply put, it takes the wondrous elements of Fantasy and twists them into
nightmares. I choose the word nightmare
carefully. It entails the physical, monstrous horrors along with the horrors of
the mind. It includes man’s worst fears, and possibly even his or her own
descent into the demon they never wanted to become. Only here, hanging on the
ledge of the cliff to oblivion, are all the little things that make us human mortally challenged.
Monsters
are fun in fiction, but they shouldn’t merely lurk in swamps and around
corners; they should lurk within minds and hearts as well. They should become
the characters, and the characters become them: a disease impacting the heroes
and the villains alike until you don’t know which is which anymore. Then the
physical, literal monsters come at us again.
In
this, Dark Fantasy becomes the most extreme genre when it comes to testing the
human condition. It makes you wonder: why is it so fun to read? Why do I care
about characters who struggle with right and wrong? And why do I want to see
these characters fighting through so much pain? At what point do we all just
give up? Those questions answer themselves. Writers and readers alike are
attracted to the genre to see how far humans are willing to go to not give up.
Even our fiction counterparts must carry on when confused, dejected, tortured,
and betrayed. And if they can find
some sort of purpose, it gives us all some sort of purpose.
But a
great Dark Fantasy doesn’t completely dissolve into heartless, mindless chaos
only to leave its readers with a meaningless mess at the end. In a well-told story
there remains a constant: a part of the human condition that even the fires of
hell cannot burn. Whether the novel ends in tragedy or salvation, or somewhere
in between, that constant must be there. It must tether the reader (and the
writer, for that matter) to the souls of the characters, and bring meaning to
the pain and darkness. In the end, for better or worse, we are humans, not
aberrant fantasy monsters. And the genre is about us, not them.
Author Links:
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