Book Review: RealmShift

An article by Karen    3 Comments

RealmShift by Alan Baxter

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the first ebook I’ve ever read and I’m happy to say that the experience was a good one. I read it on my iPod Touch, which I must admit to having some concerns about as the screen is quite small. However, that didn’t bother me at all. The text was clear and I developed no adverse side-affects such as eye strain. I certainly will be reading more ebooks in the future.

Now, about the book RealmShift. Here’s my review.

RealmShift is a mixture of genres, but it’s mainly horror. It reminded me of some of the Anne Rice books I read years ago – as in theme, not actual storyline. There are vampires, immortals, evil humans and tons of killer instinct, which always means blood and guts are sure to follow. Luckily, that doesn’t bother me.

Of course, there’s lots of swearing too. I’m not one for swearing, but I found I didn’t really have a problem with it in this setting. The characters are mainly male and they swear like troopers, which I find is true in real life so I guess that’s why I didn’t have much trouble accepting it in the story. The female character was much more reserved but when she resorted to more powerful words I accepted it because of the situation she was in at the time.

I was pleased to find characters with depth, characters I could relate to. Strangely, I could even understand why the bad characters were bad, which means they were well written and fully developed.

The story itself is fast paced. Something is always happening, or about to happen. There’s no holding back either. If someone has to die, the reader knows every detail. It certainly gets the imagination going in that regard. In fact, I feel as if I’ve tasted the life of a killer!

RealmShift also had a theme that I found was thought provoking. Yet at the same time, this same theme slowed the story down in sections because of the amount of explaining needed to get a point across. Yet it was important to the overall story and as it was religious based I understood how difficult it was for the author to make sure the reader understood something that is quite complex. The story put a different spin on the whole religion thing which I found quite fascinating. Ultimately, the message was to believe in oneself and stop relying on others and I think that’s a good message to give.

If you want to read a fast paced, action filled story, then you should definitely give RealmShift a read.