Doubletake
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Doubletake (2012) Rob Thurman
I believe I’ve made my love of Rob Thurman’s Cal Leandros series well known. I love the relationship between Niko and Cal, and how Niko keeps Cal human, despite everything. And how Cal remains human, because of Niko.
Cal has changed a lot over the course of the series. He’s overcome the Alphie, yet remains a monster in the eyes of most, and once again, that reputation comes back to cause trouble.
I’m conflicted about this book. I still love Cal and Niko, but I’m not certain I like where the story is going. In retrospect, I can see the setup for part of this story several books back, but I am having trouble setting aside some of my disbelief.
I’m also unsure about different reactions of several of the characters–I’m not sure I saw the logic in why they behaved the way they did. I’ll have to think about that for a little while.
The other thing I realized while considering this book, is that I don’t see how this series can go on indefinitely. Cal cannot exist without Niko. But unlike Cal, Niko won’t be long lived.
So, I’ll read the next book–won’t be able to help myself–but I’m nervous as to where the story is going.
Rating: 7/10
Published by ROC
Categories: Fantasy, Mystery, Paper, Supernatural, Urban
Tags: Cal Leandros, Rob Thurman
Comments (2)
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I am a big fan of Rob Thurman and of the Cal Leandros series too. I thought that Doubletake took the series in new and interesting directions. I have heard the originally Deathwish was to be the last book of the series, which you perceptively picked up on, but the books proved popular enough to continue. Roadtrip and Blackout seem to me to be transitional books to allow the story to go in a somewhat different direction while still maintaining the core relationship between Niko and Cal. Urban fantasy is generally not long on character development, but this series has been. I appreciate the fact that you write spoiler free reviews, but I would be very interested to know what your reservations about this book are. As far as Cal outliving Nik, they are both still in their twenties and their life style is not one conducive to a ripe old age. I wouldn’t worry.
March 13, 2012 @ 3:09 PM
I’d meant to come back and write more specific comments–but got busy. I do often write spoilers, but I write them in ROT13, so someone doesn’t accidentally read what they don’t want to know.
I’ve spent the past several days mulling over the actions of Niko’s father (I can’t find his name readily) and I’m having a hard time accepting some of them. Specifically, the actions of the potion jar make little sense–that was way to valuable to use like that.
There were a couple other things along those lines, where I keep stopping and contemplating whether actions made sense.
Which means, of course, that I can’t stop thinking about the story, which means that it probably deserves a higher rating than I initially gave it. :)
March 13, 2012 @ 3:54 PM