Dancing on the Head of a Pin

Dancing on the Head of a Pin (2009) Thomas E. Sniegoski

Remy Chandler may have averted the apocalypse, but things aren’t looking any better for him this time around. He’s been hired to recover some missing weapons–weapons that are most certainly more than they first appear.

The second Remy Chandler novel actually follows the short story in Mean Streets. When I read the first book, A Kiss Before the Apocolypse, one thing I noted was that I started hurrying through the second half of the book, but thought it might have been because I’d read the novella in Mean Streets first, and so had a good idea what was going to happen.

Unfortunately, I found the same thing with this book. Part of it was possible the continual flashbacks to Remy’s life with Madeline. I get what the author was trying to do with the flashbacks, but to me they felt like speed bumps in what was otherwise a fast-paced story.

Additionally, some parts of the mystery seemed almost blindingly obvious. Relatively early in the story I thought, “well, that’s where the weapons are,” then thought, “no, that’s just entirely too blatant,” yet that was it precisely.

Not that parts of the story were not a surprise–they were. But even that was a bit of a problem. I kept being reminded of other books and tales (Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and Simon R. Green’s Nightside kept coming to mind, as did Mike Carey’s Felix Castor novels [Interestingly, all those are British authors. Do the Brits have a better idea of Hell than Americans?]) and kept finding this story falling flat in comparison.

One other thing. Upon inspection, this is a really terrible cover. Every time I looked at the cover, I kept thinking Ben Browder was about to be attacked by mini-glowy-eyed hyenas and extra tall, extra skinny jawas. I know that a cover shouldn’t make or break a story, but I really hate bad fantasy covers. With covers like that, small wonder no one wants to take the category seriously.

So although this story does have much to recommend it, it is most definitely not my cup of tea, and in comparison to other books set in Hell or that deal with Lucifer, this was unfortunately a letdown.

And now I want to watch “Farscape.”
Rating: 6/10

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