UNCLEAN SPIRITS

From the very first page of Unclean Spirits I found myself constantly going back over paragraphs, genuinely wondering what the HELL I had just read. RC car bombs, walking lumps of scar tissue with a fondness for blowing things up, and unicorns that looked like they were made of every burning and angry thing that hell ever spat out.

Even halfway through, I found myself being shocked back into a state of "wait- WHAT?" in all the best ways. Every crazy thing got topped by another crazier thing. 

But really, what else should I have expected from a book about a man who is attempting to seek revenge on just about every god that has ever prowled the earth? 

Chuck Wendig's voice in this is like stale cigarette smoke, motor oil, and gravel. Its heavy and raw and does not fail, even once, to dish out the gory details. Every character fails, missteps, makes impulse choices, at times even the gods do as well. It makes it easy to melt into the story and the world he has created. 

My only two grievances with this book are somewhat trivial. The story is written in present tense, which always takes me a while to acclimate myself to and can make the initial chapters a little tedious to settle into. The other is the end. Not story wise- the ending is a massive cliffhanger that means I will be waiting like a madman for the next installment, but with the pacing. I came to the end and had no idea that I had. The buildup seemed to be missing just a few beats there at the end and it's left me feeling a very very mild dissatisfaction. Mild enough that it in no way mars my opinion of this book. 

Its freaking great. I would happily suggest this to anyone with an interest in ancient gods, unfettered violence, or even just huge taxi drivers named Tundu.