God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlepig: A Bobby Dollar Novella (The Bobby Dollar Books Book 4) by Tad Williams

I love it when a mainstream author goes rogue and goes indie, even if it's for just a few minutes. Tad Williams has done just that with his new e-book, God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlepig: A Bobby Dollar Novella (The Bobby Dollar Books Book 4). YAY! My boy Bobby is home for Christmas even if it is only for 49 pages!

But first, THE BLURB:

"Oh, ho, ho!" the demon Chickenleg said, sounding like your drunk uncle trying to get you to laugh at a dirty joke. "Oh, ho! You'll love this one, Dollar!"

Bobby Dollar, Advocate Angel and perpetual thorn in the side of Heaven, is about to save the holidays for a very special someone. Or somewolf. Or maybe even some pig… Bobby is summoned on Christmas Eve to do his part in the heavenly judgement of a man who is not prepared to go lightly. You see, the family of the gentleman in question are victims of Nazi war crimes, and the crimes are still occurring — in fact, the worst is yet to come. With special dispensation from an Angelic Judge named Ambriel, Bobby Dollar has until Christmas Morning to right some serious wrongs and bring some justice (and a little seasonal cheer) into a rotten world…

MY REVIEW:

I must say--Williams never ceases to entertain me with his descriptions of his characters, both major and minor. His demons are creepy and his angels are not much better. Bobby himself is sort of a rundown, hard-boiled detective type, with unsavory habits, but he has good intentions. (Key word: intentions.) 

My favorite line in this little tale is Bobby opening his defense of his recently deceased client by telling the heavenly judge, "Everyone makes mistakes, and some of us accidentally eat a few people." The hilarity just keeps going from there. Bobby gets the trial continued for an extra day so he can do a bit more investigating, and goes up against a Nazi war-criminal. The bad guys are bad and the snarky one-liners are awesome.

Aw heck. Just read the book. It's $2.99 for the Kindle download and it's only a novella. It's a great little indulgence for one evening of intense, Christmas fun.

Sleeping Late on Judgement Day, by Tad Williams

Okay--I've been waiting for months, but the wait was SO worth it! Tad Williams is back with my boy Bobby Dollar, in the third installment of this crazy, dark, sometimes painfully hilarious series: Sleeping Late on Judgement Day. Who doesn't love a really bad angel?

THE BLURB:
Where does an angel go when he's been to Hell and back?

Renegade angel Bobby Dollar does not have an easy afterlife. After surviving the myriad gruesome dangers Hell oh-so-kindly offered him, Bobby has returned empty-handed – his demon girlfriend Casmira, the Countess of Cold Hands, is still in the clutches of Eligor, Grand Duke of Hell. Some hell of a rescue.

Forced to admit his failure, Bobby ends up back at his job as an angel advocate. That is, until Walter, an old angel friend whom Bobby never thought he’d see again, shows up at the local bar. The last time he saw Walter was in Hell, when Walter had tried to warn him about one of Bobby’s angel superiors. But now Walter can’t remember anything, and Bobby doesn't know whom to trust.

Turns out that there's corruption hidden within the higher ranks of Heaven and Hell, but the only proof Bobby has is a single feather. Before he knows it, he’s in the High Hall of Heavenly Judgement – no longer a bastion for the moral high ground, if it ever was, but instead just another rigged system – on trial for his immortal soul...

MY REVIEW:

Holy crap!  Bobby's in trouble, but when is he not?  This angel is always looking for grief, and he always finds it. Nothing is what he thinks it is, and even Bobby's jaded eyes are opened as the reality of his unreality unfolds. 

Bobby's inquisitive nature has rattled the cage of  someone important in the Heavenly scheme of things, and that someone wants Bobby destroyed. They have already gone to great lengths to do so, and now he's going to find out just who it is, and what it has to do with this mysterious Third Way between Heaven and Hell. All his friends and most of his enemies are back in this tale, and some of his enemies prove to be more likable than his friends. 

He knows who is behind his troubles, and he is up against overwhelming odds. As Bobby says in one of my favorite lines from this book, "You know your life is pretty screwed up when even the winos turn their backs on you."  That comment pretty much sums up the magnitude of his trouble.

There is an innocence and kind of naivety about Bobby Dollar, despite his unsavory occupation. He makes mistakes, and draws attention to himself, and yet he continues to ferret out the truth behind the traitors in Heaven's midst.  The bad guys and the dangerous beasts are really bad, and the good guys are just swimming as fast as they can in shark-infested waters.  There's always something lurking around every corner, just waiting to trip Bobby up.

 As I read this series I find myself hoping that the afterlife is somehow a better, less corrupt place than the three options offered in Bobby Dollar's Heaven and Hell. Some of the angels who hold his afterlife in their hands have no compassion or mercy left in them, and some of the demons are kinder gentler souls than their angelic counterparts. 

I love the twists and turns of William's prose, as his hard-boiled angel gets down to the dirty business of cleaning up the mean streets of Heaven. He uses ordinary words in an extraordinary way, but never commits the sin of dropping the reader out of the story.  THIS is why I read his work.

I highly recommend Sleeping Late on Judgement Day. It is a smart, well-crafted journey into the human condition, set in an environment guaranteed to keep things interesting, and peopled with unforgettable characters. I give it 5 full stars.

Happy Hour In Hell (Bobby Dollar 2), by Tad Williams

Okay, now we are talking deep. Happy Hour In Hell (Bobby Dollar 2), by Tad Williams takes us from the bowels of Heaven to the heart of Hell, and its a rough ride, and a heck of a good story.

But first, may I just say how refreshing it is to find a book by a big publisher (DAW) with such a great Blurb? This is a great innovation—they should keep up the good work!


The Blurb:

I’ve been told to go to Hell more times than I can count. But this time I’m actually going.

My name’s Bobby Dollar, sometimes known as Doloriel, and of course, Hell isn’t a great place for someone like me—I’m an angel. They don’t like my kind down there, not even the slightly fallen variety. But they have my girlfriend, who happens to be a beautiful demon named Casimira, Countess of Cold Hands. Why does an angel have a demon girlfriend? Well, certainly not because it helps my career.

She’s being held hostage by one of the nastiest, most powerful demons in all of the netherworld—Eligor, Grand Duke of Hell. He already hates me, and he’d like nothing better than to get his hands on me and rip my immortal soul right out of my borrowed but oh-so-mortal body.

But wait, it gets better! Not only do I have to sneak into Hell, make my way across thousands of miles of terror and suffering to reach Pan- demonium, capital of the fiery depths, but then I have to steal Caz right out from under Eligor’s burning eyes and smuggle her out again, past demon soldiers, hellhounds, and all the murderous creatures imprisoned there for eternity. And even if I somehow manage to escape Hell, I’m also being stalked by an undead psychopath named Smyler who’s been following me for weeks. Oh, and did I mention that he can’t be killed?

So if I somehow survive Hell, elude the Grand Duke and all his hideous minions and make it back to the real world, I’ll still be the most hunted soul in Creation. But at least I’ll have Caz. Gotta have something to look forward to, right?

So just pour me that damn drink, will you? I’ve got somewhere to go.


My Review:

First off, I'm not going to give you the play-by-play of the book. Instead, I am going to give you my impressions. 

If you like your angels as painted by Michelangelo, you are in the wrong place. Bobby isn't that sort of an angel. Bobby gets in and does Heaven’s dirty work with his bare hands. He’s a hard-boiled detective, a bad-boy, and he’s the sort of angel my mother warned me about. But he’s also just the sort of angel you want on your side when you suddenly find yourself dead, and your soul is being judged.

The action starts on page one and it just keep on going all the way through the book. Even the places where a less-skilled author would be giving you an info dump are well-plotted and the momentum of Bobby's adventures keeps you moving while you absorb the atmosphere.

And let’s talk atmosphere: if I die today, I don’t wanna go to this version of Hell. It is everything Hell should be—lurid, sadistic, brutal, horrifying, disgusting and evil. It’s no place for an angel, and the things that happen to Bobby are violent and beyond horrible. In every situation, and all the way through the never-ending string of torments Bobby is put through, he is still focused on his one obsession, that of getting Caz back.

It's hard to say which place is more malevolent, Heaven or Hell. Hell is more obviously evil, but Heaven is not a fun place either. Bobby's superiors are not a nice bunch. Of course, you have to realize that Demons are just Fallen Angels, so the capacity for cold, hard justice was always there. The Smyler is one of the creepiest villains I've ever seen. Not the sort of villain to read about before bed! And he’s just the tip of the iceberg.

But even in Hell there is the occasional flash of kindness, things that get Bobby asking questions. While in Hell, Bobby’s eyes are opened to the possibility that the gray area between good and evil may be wider than he thought, and he begins to wonder about his former partner, a renegade angel, and the mysterious third way. If that sub-plot will take Bobby anywhere, I don't know, but I am intrigued.

It is a stand-alone book, in that you don’t have to have read book 1 to understand exactly what is going on, and there is a satisfying conclusion, even if it’s not the one you expect. That makes it even better! I am now eagerly waiting for the next installment in this madcap mountain of mayhem! 

The Dirty Streets of Heaven: Volume One of Bobby Dollar, Tad Williams

Today I am taking you into the world of the paranormal once again, with The Dirty Streets of Heaven: Volume One of Bobby Dollar, by well-known author, Tad Williams. The underlying concept of Bobby Dollar is a real departure as far as paranormal fantasy goes, and Williams does it well.

The Blurb:

Bobby Dollar is an angel—a real one. He knows a lot about sin, and not just in his professional capacity as an advocate for souls caught between Heaven and Hell. Bobby’s wrestling with a few deadly sins of his own—pride, anger, even lust.

But his problems aren't all his fault. Bobby can’t entirely trust his heavenly superiors, and he’s not too sure about any of his fellow earthbound angels either, especially the new kid that Heaven has dropped into their midst, a trainee angel who asks too many questions. And he sure as hell doesn't trust the achingly gorgeous Countess of Cold Hands, a mysterious she-demon who seems to be the only one willing to tell him the truth. When the souls of the recently departed start disappearing, catching both Heaven and Hell by surprise, things get bad very quickly for Bobby D. End-of-the-world bad. Beast of Revelations bad.

Caught between the angry forces of Hell, the dangerous strategies of his own side, and a monstrous undead avenger that wants to rip his head off and suck out his soul, Bobby’s going to need all the friends he can get—in Heaven, on Earth, or anywhere else he can find them. You've never met an angel like Bobby Dollar. And you've never read anything like The Dirty Streets of Heaven.

Brace yourself—the afterlife is weirder than you ever believed. 

My Review:

I bought this as something light to read on my vacation, wondering in what direction Tad Williams would go with a paranormal fantasy. I knew the man who wrote works as diverse as Tailchaser's Song, the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn Trilogy,  and the Otherland series would never take the tame path if he decided to dip into the paranormal. I was not disappointed! Williams never takes the easy road.

The blurb is absolutely correct--this is most definitely NOT your little sister's paranormal fantasy about angels and demons. It's a hard-boiled murder mystery that just happens to be set in the realm of the paranormal.  Bobby Dollar is a genuine bad-boy (my favorite sort of a character) but he's on the good guy's team. His cynical attitude is both aggravating and hilarious, making him one of the more interesting characters in the genre of paranormal fiction.

Bobby Dollar's Heaven is seedy and a bit rundown. He is a hard-boiled detective-type, speaking on behalf of those recently deceased souls who're caught between Heaven and Hell, and who must be judged worthy of Heaven, or Hell, or at least worthy of being sent to Purgatory. 

The other characters in this tale are just as sleazy, and those are just the Angels.  Bobby has enemies within his own world. In many ways the demons are more likable! It makes sense, after all Lucifer started out in Heaven, and look how he turned out. 

Williams has a knack for getting the atmosphere of a tale just right, and he nails it with book one of his Bobby Dollar series.  It reads as fresh and non-conformist as a good genre-twisting indie book. That refusal to fall into formulaic writing just because a particular type of book or series is wildly popular is what I like the most about all of Williams's work--he's not afraid to walk on the wild side. 

I will definitely be reading the next volume, Happy Hour In Hell when it comes out!