Book Review: Archangel, by NR LaPoint

Raven Mistcreek is back. But so are all the forces of Hell

Look up “full gonzo” in the dictionary, and the Raven Mistcreek novels should be held up as an example. The horseman of war riding atop a velociraptor, mounted with duel miniguns? That was just the first book. Then the Seven Deadly sins came after her again in Dusklight.

Now, Raven Mistcreek is going to have to stop the end of the world … again. Somehow, it never gets easier.

The Story

“I was surrounded by dead bodies, and only half of them were my fault.”

Has NR LaPoint been reading Jim Butcher again? Because that’s the opening line of Archangel.

To begin with, Raven Mistcreek and her friend the Kistune (and her friend the half-succubus) have been ambused by the forces of darkness. “Even the cute little pink bow” on her nightshirt had blood on it.

Then they are promptly swallowed by a sandworm of Dune. When they force it to cough them up, they land right in the middle of Raven’s old Catholic girls school.

Unfortunately, they ended up exactly where the worm was supposed to drop them.

Raven’s old school has been turned into a gauntlet. Two of the Deadly Sins are out to kill her and her friends. The walls are rearranging themselves. Monsters are crawling out of every corner of the high school. Every death drags the school deeper into the varying levels of Hell itself. Her chalk golem August is getting beaten around, her chainsaw is running out of fuel, and they’re all running out of bullets.

And that’s only act one.

I have to hand it to Nate LaPoint, the man knows how to write a flying start to a novel. At this point, Nate feels like he’s in a race with himself to see just how fast he can pace a novel. Also, he’s trying to top how many weird monsters he can stuff in each book. Chalk golem? How mundane. The horseman of War with a Velociraptor mount, armed with miniguns? Droll. Time to throw in giant blind albino penguins and a Yoggoth!

Nate gets double bonus points for the Lovecraft references.

Agatha Christie liked to wave the main clue under the reader’s nose the entire plot of her book. By Nate LaPoint is more like Mickey Spillane; the reader is so busy being caught up in the action, one barely notices that there’s even a mystery to solve, never mind the clues being assembled in front of them. He and Timothy Zahn have that in common.

While Zahn’s heroes are busy with a full puzzle, LaPoint just keeps everyone running too fast.

The Characters

Raven Mistcreek is the oddest fairy tale Princess in the written word. She’s an oddball, and even the other magic users and half-monsters think she’s a little off. She stops short of being full Magical Girl, and will slow down long enough to think her way through to the novel’s solution.

One of our characters is the literal Beast of Gévaudan, who will also go by Cerberus, who also sounds like Christopher Lee for some reason.

But really, this has all of the wacky, colorful characters from the other two books. There’s her kistune friend Kasume (with a katana named… Katana), the knight Percy Dayspring with “smart metal” swords that throw plasma, and August, Raven’s chalk golem. There was also Damien Mistcreek, Raven’s brother the Paladin, and her sister Ariadne, who walks through shadows and feels like Wednesday Addams.

The World

Oh, this world is so interesting. It’s supposed to be a backdrop, but it feeds the plot so heavily they’re indistinguishable.

NR LaPoint has a great visual style, painting an elaborate landscape wherever the plot takes him. Some of these horrors are what HP Lovecraft would have described if Lovecraft every moved a step beyond "this horror was indescribable."

Politics

None. No, seriously, none. Unless you think that having Templars and the Holy Catholic church are heroic figures is political. If that’s how you think, I worry about you.

Content Warning

None. It’s a credit to Nate’s writing that he can have a succubus as a character, an incubus as a villain, and Deadly sins as demons, and still be on this side of PG-13. In fact, it would probably be considered a relatively soft PG-13… however, you can’t go by me, I read Jurassic Park when I was ten.

However, it is horror. So if you’re squeamish about tentacled monstrosities … I still wouldn’t worry. This isn’t Hentai, and there aren’t even any jokes along those lines. Not even from the Kitsune.

Who is it for?

If you like the action of Larry Correia, John Ringo or Jim Butcher, with the mind of John C Wright, you should already own this book.

Why buy it?

If you like insanely good action with a fantasy world that stops just short of over-the-top, you are going to enjoy this one.