Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

By Charlie Human

Century, out August 8 2013

Meet Baxter Zevcenko – schoolboy entrepreneur and serial killer of demonic forces. Or at least that’s what he’d have you believe…

Charlie Human’s urban fantasy is a journey down the rabbit hole into a side of South Africa that you wouldn’t know existed, as Baxter discovers that he has links to creatures from the primordial depths… Well, that’s been his justification for killing a lot of them (that’s not a spoiler – it’s pointed out in the first chapter!). With the help of supernatural bounty hunter Jackson Ronin, he’s going to do anything to rescue his girlfriend from the hands of a serial killer.

For most people, even the normality of Baxter’s existence – head of a porn-supplying syndicate trying to keep the peace between two opposing factions at his high school, each intent on kicking the living daylights out of the other – would be pretty alien. Human gets the reader accepting this before really starting to throw in the weird stuff, and it does really get weird. There are throwaway lines in here which would be enough to spark whole chapters of description by other writers, but which in this book are simply scene setters.

Human blends a lot of the staples of the genre together and gives the resultant mix more than a few twists of his own (playing on reader expectations very neatly) to create a story that will appeal to fans of very dark urban fantasy.

Verdict: Not for the weak of stomach, this is hopefully just the first adventure for Baxter and Jackson Ronin… Recommended. 8/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order Apocalypse Now Now from Amazon.co.uk