Review: The Devil's Rose

I finished Brom's book the other night. "Always leave them wanting more" is the saying that comes to mind, which is both good and bad.

On the down side, The Devil's Rose is just too short. Calling it a novel is even a bit of a stretch. Much of the book feels like a sketch of a much longer story, and one that should have been told. Reading it I came away with the feeling that the story had been written for the art, and not the other way around. This may not have been the case, but the impression bothered me. All of the characters could have been fleshed out more, only the main character, Cole the undead Texas Ranger, had any real motivation. The others were there to give him something to do. The "bad guy" a quasi-villian named Rath came across as a fascinating idea -- a lesser god once worshipped and now forgotten -- but an idea that the story just wasn't long enough, or deep enough to explore in any real detail.

Also, the story ends without any real conclusion. That may be in order to leave it open for future installments, which would be fine. I'd pay $25 for another one of these, despite the prior paragraph. Nonetheless, the story seems to end just as it should be picking up, so that was frustrating.

As I said, I wanted more.

Which brings me to the "up" side of that saying.

Everything in this book (as much of it as there is) is fantastic. The art is creepy and slightly surreal, and perfectly in keeping with the story. And there's a lot of it. This isn't a novel with the occasional picture here and there. This is more like a story told in pictures with some text to fill in the gaps.

The writing is crisp and concise, but effective. None of the self-indulgent descriptions and florid prose that you find in a lot of fantasy literature. I just wish there was more of all of it. More art, more writing, more everything.

All in all though, I recommend "The Devil's Rose". It's a tad pricey for a 110-something page book, but the art makes up for it.