Unseen Shadows - Fallen Heroes by Barry Nugent
A quick reminder as I resume this section of the blog now that Subjective Chaos part 1 is over. I have a bad habit of not finishing a series – I’m reluctant to go that extra mile and finish the journey and say goodbye to characters. Here I get to try and rectify that with the shelves of TBR. In this case a book I read many years ago I only found out recently a sequel I wanted to read had come out…three years ago. So first a rare re-read!
Published – 2007
Price - £9.99 print £0.00 Kindle
The Book of Cademus have existed in shadow, weaving their influence down through the centuries. Now they are poised to write humanity's final chapter.
Standing against them are murderers, thieves and mercenaries – soldiers of fate and fierce honour, bound together in mystery, darkness and blood.
Now both sides are locked in a deadly race to find a university student whose visions of death and destruction will decide the fate of all.
Where will you stand when the Fallen rise?
Thrillers in SF can be tricky to pull off. A big cast, action sequences and a great plot are elements that work well visually to screen and actor performances. In book form it is tricky that backstory, giving plot threads coherence and explaining action. It’s a tough genre to get right and I would note a lot of urban fantasy has stuck to perhaps a central wise-cracking detective with a good supporting cast. In Barry Nugent’s Fallen Heroes, I was very pleasantly surprised (and this held up on my reread) to find a wonderful visual spectacle of a story with an intriguing set of characters ending up trying to save the world.
The story centres around Jason Chen adopted son of a wealthy lawyer. Now starting university, he begins to be plagued by bad dreams involving knights. Meanwhile in Hong Kong Ben Ashodi the world’s best thief a.k.a. The Hand is about to steal from the UN and instead finds himself framed for terrorism. Luther Washington is a key member of a global security agency known as TORCH and finds himself called into investigate a brutal murder and realises someone is trying to kill him. In the shadows lurks Napoleon Stone who wages a brutal secret war again powers who want to destroy the world. Very quickly these characters will all end up known to one another; secret ties to each other will be revealed and they’ll also find a very powerful, well-organised and well planned opposition are prepared to stop at nothing to ensure this group can’t stop them.
One of the key pulls to this story is the storytelling. Nugent gives you a key focus on a character you get to know them and then puts them in danger before moving onto the next character. We start to see pieces of a jigsaw and realise each character is holding a key piece. Rather than one lead we see in the cast some delicious backstory in particular I loved Ben Ashodi a framed innocent man who decided to then turn to crime – a really intriguing mix of swagger, anger, and morality. In the background Napoleon Stone the one-eyed sometime lecturer and sometime destroyer of dark magics. He’s gruff, ruthless and believes in the mission. His scenes always give us crucial backstory to the main plot and also when he is on the page you feel a little nervous who is going to get hurt this time.
The story has some key characters in its central cast; but I really was impressed how as the plot lines developed, we got to meet a whole cast of interesting characters. In particular is Ben’s accomplice Steph the deadly ex-SEAL who has decided its time to make a profit and I also enjoyed meeting the haunted assassin known as the Reverend who has decided to clear the world of crime and believes death is the only suitable punishment. Each of these characters feels solid but Nugent can give even smaller characters a key scene or chance for you to get to known them and in many cases they will then meet a grisly fate which means as the story progresses we realise everyone could meet their end in this story which heightens the tension a lot. My only quibble is that I’d loved to have seen a few more female leads involved in the story
Action scenes are hard to get right in fiction I find but here we get gunfights, fistfights, explosions, and chases from or into danger. Nugent has a neat way of explaining the action so the reader can see it unfurl in their head and propel the story. Its often wonderfully violent and yet you appreciate the set pieces of the key characters facing up to often more powerful opposition and relying on their own skills. It has a great sense of giving us people who put themselves fully on the line for the causes they believe in. This is also where the character work at the start of the novel helps – you quickly understand who and why the characters are who they are and what their skills bring to a fight – magic, agility, or pure firepower.
Overall, this is a very satisfying adventure whereby the end of story you’re really invested in the remaining character’s survival and I really liked how al the plot-points pulled together and supported one another. Nugent isn’t afraid to make some shocking reveals to further pull you into the story and upon re-reading it those still resonated with me. Imagine a John Carpenter thriller in book form – tight, well defined characters and great actions with some lovely touches along the way. I’m very interested where the story goes next.
