Tormentor is the first Shrewsbury novel I’ve read, though I’ve also read a short story in the first issue of The New Bedlam Project. I really liked that story, which is why I decided to finally quit procrastinating and buy a copy of Tormentor.
Before I get started, I have to admit that I am probably not within the “target audience” for this book. I wouldn’t say I hated this book, because if I had, I wouldn’t have bothered finishing it. But it was grating in a lot of places, and for a lot of reasons, some of which are personal.
The introduction of the main character, “Battlin’ John Kern,” starts out well enough, and his tour of duty ventures into weirdness just after John gets hit by the concussive wave of a car bomb in Iraq. This somehow makes him sensitive to spirits, and while chasing insurgents, he sees a transsexual goddess along with several other spirits. The goddess guides John to safety, and he then goes on to mend at a military hospital in Germany.
And here is where things quickly fall apart for me with the introduction of Alex, the goddess’ Earth incarnation, a transsexual alchemist who coverts plastic trinkets into gold by masturbating over them. No, really, she delivers a genuine golden money shot. This was the first major eye-rolling moment in the book, but it would not be the last. That the character is “magically” both genders was another eye-roll, and just about everything Alex thought or said added more. I was ready to let a lot of this slide at first, because hey, at least the narrator consistently called Alex “she.” However, only two chapters after Alex’s introduction, both John and the narrator refer to Alex as “he, she or it.” The character becomes a slam dance of bad trans stereotypes, and she serves little real purpose to the plot other than to be a freak. She even gets astrally raped with surprise butt-secks and likes it. Yep, another eye-roll, and no, not the last. (Have I also made it clear by now that I was probably not in the target audience?)
And if Alex was the only character or narration problem, this story would still have a relatively high score. (3.5-ish at the midway point in the book.) However, the action of the story is burdened by several weak and badly stereotypical characters. There’s a sex scene between John and a stereotypically fawning nurse (who’s worshipped John since childhood. Of course.) Their scene struggles to be titillating, and instead stumbles all over itself with a buck of cold water. There’s the aforementioned transsexual masturbation “magic” and spiritual butt-rape, and then there’s a bad guy who sexes up the dead, and who conveniently holds a position of authority to prevent anyone from investigating his corpse humping ways.
About the only thing that really worked here were the action sequences. When describing fights, the narrator gives just enough information to give a clear image of what’s going on. This doesn’t bog down with extra details, so the pages with fight scenes fly by. There’s also a historical account read about one of John’s ancient ancestors, and the reasons building up to his fight are really interesting. The historical section almost brought the book back up a half a star.
But the final fight scene between Battlin’ John Kern and the Tormentor is hampered by a “twist” that tempted me to set the book down even though I was in the home stretch. The final fight is handled well, and the epilogue isn’t bad. Like all the other fights in the book, there’s plenty of action and detail in just the right amounts.
But once the story started stumbling, every attempt to recover was instantly lost by another hit being taken for weak stereotypes or convenient plot devices. I give this story 2 stars, and I’d be hard pressed to recommend it to anyone who isn’t willing to surrender completely to “action movie logic.”
... I write dark fiction in a variety of genres. My blog contains my rants and rambles, and some short fiction that can only be found here.
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