The Damned Busters by Matthew Hughes
Dec. 30th, 2014 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
After accidentally summoning a demon while playing poker, the normally mild-mannered Chesney Anstruther refuses to sell his soul … which leads through various confusions to, well, Hell going on strike. Which means that nothing bad ever happens in the world – and that actually turns out to be a really bad thing.
There’s only one thing for it. Satan offers Chesney the ultimate deal – sign the damned contract, and he can have his heart’s desire. And thus the strangest superhero duo ever seen – in Hell or on Earth – is born!
Mild-mannered actuary Chesney Anstruther lives a quiet life consisting of work, a weekly poker game with some work colleagues and reading graphic novels featuring his favourite superhero, The Driver. But while making a poker table one night, he inadvertently summons a demon who offers him the standard contract of signing his soul away in return for his heart’s desire. The only problem is that Chesney refuses to sign and that causes a crisis in Hell that results in all the workers going on strike, which in turn causes chaos on Earth as people are no longer tempted by sin.
With the help of a televangelist called Billy Lee Hardacre and his evangelical mother, Chesney works out a deal with Satan that sees him forming a superhero duo with a weasel headed demon called Xaphan ...
The first in Matthew Hughes’s comedy fantasy trilogy is an amusing read with an interesting twist on superhero origin stories. Chesney is an interesting enough foil – a fundamentally decent guy who’s possibly on the autism spectrum – his stubborn refusal to sign a contract with Satan is the driving force for the book’s events. I enjoyed the relationship he has with sidekick Xaphan (whose conversation and attitudes comes straight from the 1920s) and the way he explores the limits and twists in the accommodation that he reaches with Satan. However, the trilogy came from a short story idea and that shows in the pacing, with a lot of time spent on the set-up rather than in the main story-arc that relates to the plans certain interests have for the city and the main conflict in the story is confined to the final quarter and summarily dismissed in an unsatisfying way. I was also disappointed with the female characters, who are confined to Chesney’s hypocritical and hectoring mother, the petulant, bitchy and unobtainable crush Poppy and the brassy and sexually forward Melda who doesn’t hide her designs on Chesney’s superhero alter-ego. Despite these issues, Hughes’s light touch and the potential of the material makes me interested in checking out the sequel to see where the overall story goes.
For me the best scenes are those where Chesney begins his superhero work and has to learn how to juggle his real and superhero identities. There are some good lines and amusing situations and I enjoyed Hughes’s wry narrative tone, which will ensure I check out the next book.
The Verdict:
The first in Matthew Hughes’s comedy fantasy trilogy is an amusing read with an interesting twist on superhero origin stories. Chesney is an interesting enough foil – a fundamentally decent guy who’s possibly on the autism spectrum – his stubborn refusal to sign a contract with Satan is the driving force for the book’s events. I enjoyed the relationship he has with sidekick Xaphan (whose conversation and attitudes comes straight from the 1920s) and the way he explores the limits and twists in the accommodation that he reaches with Satan. However, the trilogy came from a short story idea and that shows in the pacing, with a lot of time spent on the set-up rather than in the main story-arc that relates to the plans certain interests have for the city and the main conflict in the story is confined to the final quarter and summarily dismissed in an unsatisfying way. I was also disappointed with the female characters, who are confined to Chesney’s hypocritical and hectoring mother, the petulant, bitchy and unobtainable crush Poppy and the brassy and sexually forward Melda who doesn’t hide her designs on Chesney’s superhero alter-ego. Despite these issues, Hughes’s light touch and the potential of the material makes me interested in checking out the sequel to see where the overall story goes.
After accidentally summoning a demon while playing poker, the normally mild-mannered Chesney Anstruther refuses to sell his soul … which leads through various confusions to, well, Hell going on strike. Which means that nothing bad ever happens in the world – and that actually turns out to be a really bad thing.
There’s only one thing for it. Satan offers Chesney the ultimate deal – sign the damned contract, and he can have his heart’s desire. And thus the strangest superhero duo ever seen – in Hell or on Earth – is born!
Mild-mannered actuary Chesney Anstruther lives a quiet life consisting of work, a weekly poker game with some work colleagues and reading graphic novels featuring his favourite superhero, The Driver. But while making a poker table one night, he inadvertently summons a demon who offers him the standard contract of signing his soul away in return for his heart’s desire. The only problem is that Chesney refuses to sign and that causes a crisis in Hell that results in all the workers going on strike, which in turn causes chaos on Earth as people are no longer tempted by sin.
With the help of a televangelist called Billy Lee Hardacre and his evangelical mother, Chesney works out a deal with Satan that sees him forming a superhero duo with a weasel headed demon called Xaphan ...
The first in Matthew Hughes’s comedy fantasy trilogy is an amusing read with an interesting twist on superhero origin stories. Chesney is an interesting enough foil – a fundamentally decent guy who’s possibly on the autism spectrum – his stubborn refusal to sign a contract with Satan is the driving force for the book’s events. I enjoyed the relationship he has with sidekick Xaphan (whose conversation and attitudes comes straight from the 1920s) and the way he explores the limits and twists in the accommodation that he reaches with Satan. However, the trilogy came from a short story idea and that shows in the pacing, with a lot of time spent on the set-up rather than in the main story-arc that relates to the plans certain interests have for the city and the main conflict in the story is confined to the final quarter and summarily dismissed in an unsatisfying way. I was also disappointed with the female characters, who are confined to Chesney’s hypocritical and hectoring mother, the petulant, bitchy and unobtainable crush Poppy and the brassy and sexually forward Melda who doesn’t hide her designs on Chesney’s superhero alter-ego. Despite these issues, Hughes’s light touch and the potential of the material makes me interested in checking out the sequel to see where the overall story goes.
For me the best scenes are those where Chesney begins his superhero work and has to learn how to juggle his real and superhero identities. There are some good lines and amusing situations and I enjoyed Hughes’s wry narrative tone, which will ensure I check out the next book.
The Verdict:
The first in Matthew Hughes’s comedy fantasy trilogy is an amusing read with an interesting twist on superhero origin stories. Chesney is an interesting enough foil – a fundamentally decent guy who’s possibly on the autism spectrum – his stubborn refusal to sign a contract with Satan is the driving force for the book’s events. I enjoyed the relationship he has with sidekick Xaphan (whose conversation and attitudes comes straight from the 1920s) and the way he explores the limits and twists in the accommodation that he reaches with Satan. However, the trilogy came from a short story idea and that shows in the pacing, with a lot of time spent on the set-up rather than in the main story-arc that relates to the plans certain interests have for the city and the main conflict in the story is confined to the final quarter and summarily dismissed in an unsatisfying way. I was also disappointed with the female characters, who are confined to Chesney’s hypocritical and hectoring mother, the petulant, bitchy and unobtainable crush Poppy and the brassy and sexually forward Melda who doesn’t hide her designs on Chesney’s superhero alter-ego. Despite these issues, Hughes’s light touch and the potential of the material makes me interested in checking out the sequel to see where the overall story goes.
