Unbound (The Havoc Chronicles Book 2)

Unbound (The Havoc Chronicles Book 2)
by
Brant Williams

The first book ends rather abruptly, but fortunately this book picks up the action a couple of hours later. Not only does Unbound pick up the action where Williams left off with book 1, but his writing style as well. On the whole this book is much better written than the first one, with the end of it being even better written in my opinion than the beginning.
The first half of the book falls prey to one of the major problems of the first book though, and that is Williams does not know what it's like to be a 16 year old girl, and so the narrator who happens to be just that, often seems to not be that girl. The first half of the book is also as I described it to my friend today, the I-didn't-save-the-drama-for-my-mama section. First, because it's all about Madison (the narrator) being head-over-heals-in-love with which ever boy/man is standing nearest to her and second, because on nearly a dozen occasions, Williams pulls the move of using the extended-hyphenated-descriptor-clause. That's unfortunate, but he does stop doing that in the second half of the book.
I have nothing against romance or melodrama in a book. If it advances the story or develops a character, then go for it. But if it's there because you're trying to appeal to a certain market and not dong one of the two above mentioned things at the same time, don't do it. Actually, I know what it's like to get off on a tangent when writing a novel, so I just want to know what the editor was (not) doing?
I'm kind of harshing on Williams, because when he's writing well, it's quite good. Parts of this book are quite good in my opinion. He is just not very consistent yet. But, I will say that just like book 1, give Unbound a chance and you'll find out it's worth it.
Williams continues to do some new and exciting stuff, though not as much this time out. In it's place he adds in a political element and exposes us to more of the Berzerker and Binder world, both of which are good things and add another layer of interesting. As opposed to the first book where I felt Williams always took the safe route with the characters, contextually speaking of course, he didn't do that this time out. Some things need to happen for the story to work, and it turns out that Mr. Williams is willing to do them. I'm impressed that he did them.
This book is a quick read. I'm the slowest reader your are ever going to meet and the book took me about 9 hours to read. I'm quessing most people would be able to read this in about half to a third of the time that I did. That doesn't seem like a bad time risk.
I do think that this book is more the second half of the first book than it is the second book of the chronicles. But that could be just because the ending of the first book was so abrupt and because I'm used to reading Robert Jordan, George R. R. Martin and J. K. Rowling.
There is no official word on just how many books there will be in the Havoc Chronicles, but in the acknowledgements at the end of the book, Williams gives the title of the third book, which will be out in a year and a half if there is as much time between 2 & 3 as there was between 1 & 2.

Unbound at Amazon.com

Threads That Bind (The Havoc Chronicles Book 1)

Threads That Bind (The Havoc Chronicles Book 1)
by
Brant Williams

This is not Mr. Williams first book, but it's the first one available (his web site states that he wrote two books for middle grades and the acknowledgements at the end of the book state this is his first publicly available novel), but it reads like a first book. Full of exposition that an editor should have cut. Full of redundancies that don't forward the plot or develop the characters. There are also at least three spelling mistakes and twice again as many grammar issues, but these are things the editor (and the spellchecker) should have caught.
This story starts out slow. Really slow. And then it adds in high school drama of a level that would bore a high school student. But, along the way things do start to happen, and what things they are. The magic in this book, or perhaps the magical is a better word, are very fresh and not like anything I've seen in a novel. There are some aspects that remind me of a RPG I played and some that remind me of a Japanese movie, but they are only similar in some respects. The baddies in this book are not like anything I've read in a fantasy or sf novel. This alone is reason to push through the slow beginning and finish the book.
The good news is that it does pick up and by the end of the book Williams seems to have hit his stride. You do find yourself thinking, "just one more chapter", which for me is a huge deal since I am such a slow reader - a chapter is a much bigger time commitment than it is for your average bear.
This book is intended to be "YA". No problem, I think some of the best books being written now are Young Adult. This book does commit the cardinal sin that all YA stories should avoid - it talks down to the reader. Now, I'm an adult male so it might seem like any YA book would do this, but that's not the case. I never felt that any of the Harry Potter books, or the His Dark Materials books, or the Hunger Games, or Little Brother to name my favorites, talked down to me. Not even the more popular, which I mean in the pop culture sense of the word, Percy Jackson books do this. I think part of it might be that a man in his 30s or 40s is trying write from the first person perspective of a 16 year old girl. I think that is something certainly beyond my capability.
Williams is just starting out as a published author and hopefully has many more books ahead of him. He currently still works a "day job" but I hope in the future his books allow him to write full time. I think with more words written under his belt, his books are going to improve. And if they continue to be as imaginative and original as this one, Williams could be a force to be reckoned with and his characters household names.
I hope so at least, since I broke one of my rules by starting a series that is not yet finished and which hasn't even stated how many books are in it. I hope that doesn't mean open-ended. Or it it does, he needs to write more and put these out faster than every several years.

Threads that Bind on Amazon.com