So I read Tales of the Dim Knight on the recommendation of a writer friend. We’d been talking about superhero prose and the lack of Christian superhero work. I’d already read Leaper (my review here) and that was it. But because I still read a lot of superhero prose, I wanted to read it.
*Spoiler alert*
Written by husband and wife team of Adam and Andrea Graham, the 338 page book is about 100 pages too long. While there are a lot of really cool concepts, ideas and scenes, it lacks a real cohesive story. Yeah, there’s the story thread of the wife threatening to leave the husband—the hero of the story (he finds some alien symbiotic tube that gives him pretty much any power he wants)—but it isn’t consistent and is dropped and forgotten often when the hero runs off to do this one thing or that. There are random events that have little or no relevancy to the overall story. In fact, I’m not really sure what the overall story IS.
The writing itself isn’t bad. In fact, it’s easy to read and moves along nicely. I don’t recall many typos or errors until the very last pages. It just doesn’t say anything. I kept trying to figure out what it was about…but in the end, it’s just about a guy who finds an alien that lets him do anything…it just sort of meanders along.
To make matters worse, the photo and bio of the Grahams make me think they are people I’d like to meet and know. But it felt like there was a story they wanted to tell, but couldn’t figure out how to do it and had more fun making stuff up for the superhero to do—most of which wasn’t connected.
It reads more like it should have been a series of short stories all set in the Dim Knight’s world. Except that the book had sequential chapter numbering, that’s what it felt like. Maybe that hint is in the title, too. “Tales” of the Dim Knight. IF that was the case, then present it as such and not as a novel. In fact, as I type, I think an editor should have suggested that to them. They then could have had the subplots running throughout each of the short stories and it wouldn’t have been bothersome. Except the buying public often doesn’t want to buy anthologies…unless they’re edited by George R.R. Martin.
This is one of those books that’s hard to recommend. If you’re just looking for superhero books…skip it. If you’re looking for Christian superheroes, then you should read it because there aren’t very many choices. But buy it off the sale table if you can find it.