Six week after the Angels of the Apocalypse arrived to take
over the world, things are looking pretty grim.
The Angels are neither an awesomely monikered biker gang nor anything to
do with Pinky and the Brain but rather
a horde of fearsome winged warriors whose ultimate aim is unclear but who are
clearly Up To No Good. In the midst of
this new world is Penryn, a girl travelling with her disabled younger sister
and unhinged mother – a mother for whom the new reality seems to make a
disturbing amount of sense. When Paige
is snatched by a gang of Angels, Penryn finds herself allied with one of their
number who is badly injured – indeed, who is wingless – on a quest to find out
what lies at the heart of the horror around her.
Penryn herself is actually quite an interesting character as
far as this story goes. Her back story
has engendered in her a need to be pretty tough and certainly to be able to
defend herself. She’s entirely focussed
on rescuing her sister and if this at times makes her seem rather one
dimensional then perhaps this was intentional on the part of the writer –
although when the lack of characterisation elsewhere in the book taken into
account it seems unlikely. Penryn’s
schizophrenic mother, now well off her meds, is again rather one dimensional
and is painted utterly insane. It makes
her a frightening and unpredictable force in Penryn’s story but a sensitive
portrayal of a very real mental illness this is not. Younger sister Paige is sweet but largely
absent for the majority of the book.
Raffe, wingless Angel extraordinaire is, at best, vaguely
amusing. He is, supposedly and unsurprisingly,
Swoooooony but in a way that is utterly unoriginal. Good hair, piercing eyes, great abs yadda
yadda yadda. It’s all be done, done
again and overdone and his snide comments and cold demeanour are also nothing
new while his Tough Guy talk is excruciating.
His personal storyline is massively underdeveloped and the inevitable
romance between him and Penryn lacks any emotional resonance. Other characters come and go with the most
intriguing (and only compelling) one being resistance member Obi. Sadly, he’s not in it nearly enough.
The story running through Angelfall is primarily that of Penryn seeking Paige and Raffe
attempting to get his wings sown on.
There is little more than speculation in terms of why the Angels have
invaded earth other than there are probably some dodgy heavenly politics at the
heart of it. That and the Angel Gabriel
appears to have been shot down over Jerusalem… bad move, humanity, Bad Move. The world building is standard
apocalypse/dystopia but Ee doesn’t try very hard with her description of a
destroyed San Francisco going only as far as referencing the 1906
earthquake. In terms of writing, it is
the end of the book in which any real skill emerges. Visions of an opulent nightclub populated by
Angels in zoot suits followed by a climax which descends into out and out
horror imagery bring the book to sudden life in a way that is sadly lacking
prior to the last fifty pages.
Angel books, by and large, had run their course. It’s all been done before. Yet Angelfall
garnered a real buzz prior to and since publication. In all honesty, it’s hard to see why. There is nothing original here, the writing
lacks any real depth and if this is the next big thing then, quite frankly, we
need to raise the bar on what counts as the Next Big Thing. Readers looking for Angel inspired stories
that really do try something different should check out the recently published Outcast by Adrienne Kress (review coming
soon) or Cynthia Hand’s Unearthly
series both of which offer more that this disappointing addition.
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