Bacon, Smith, Camille Books

Eye of the Daemon

Camille Bacon-Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Not a detective story 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I was somewhat misled by the plot description, essentially "a detective agency, run by demons, investigates a kidnapping." I expected, well, something more of a mystery to be involved. But the identity of the kidnapper is never a mystery, nor is the mysterious Eye of Omage that the kidnapper claims to want for ransom. Villains explain their dark plans at the slightest prompting, and every character introduced, like in a Scooby Doo cartoon, proves to have a role in the Big Plot. Had I been expecting something more in the vampire genre of "sex, death, and angst" I might have been better prepared to like this book.

The description of daemon thinking was interesting, and is what gives this book its second star, for me. One daemon explains: "You see a painting and feel a set of emotions you translate as appreciation. [...] If you could become the painting, love your own beauty, and then pass on, [...] then you'd be getting close [to how daemons experience things]." However, while the description of how daemons are different was interesting, by the fourth or fifth time it was explained in detail that for daemons, it's always now, I was ready for more plot, less exposition. Or, please, a little mystery.

Editorial Review:

On a quest for her kidnapped half brother, Marnie Simpson hires a Philadelphia group of private investigators whose ties to the supernatural enable them to combat a staggering plan of conquest. Reissue.

Daemon Eyes

Camille Bacon-Smith

Amazon Price: $7.99 List Price: $7.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: DAW Amazon Marketplace: 68 new & used starting at $0.01

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Subjects -> Science Fiction & Fantasy -> Authors, A-Z -> ( B ) -> Bacon, Smith, Camille

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Entertaining 4 out of 5 stars.
15 of 15 people found this review helpful.

Depressed and terrified, Evan has horrific dreams which cause him to contemplate suicide. After allowing two close friends to drag him to a satanic bar (you can tell Evan doesn't make the smartest life choices), he soon becomes a captive of the evil barkeep Mac who is secretly a demon in disguise. Ritually tortured, he is eventually freed, and must come face to face with the frightening reality of who his father is and what he must become to survive.

I admit, I picked this book up because of the cover. Two hot guys.. You can't go wrong, right? Well, the novel was a bit slow to start. It takes about 30 pages of Evan self-pity (and stupidity) to get to the good parts... The good part in my case, being Evan's Dad, Brad. Reading about Brad (no its not his real name) is perhaps the best part of the book. His evolution as a character makes it all worthwhile. Evan grew on me a bit too...But I found it difficult to like him.. Evan's not a bad kid... But he is a victim and for the first half (the first book), his victimhood and pain and abused nature did not make light reading.

Which brings me to the final issue with this novel which kept it from being a five star read. At times the author strays off target and brings in a lot of minor characters at once. There are heavy amounts of dialog and I felt like the story strayed from the tight action-packed urban-fantasy package it had previously been. Any time Claudia and her brother were mentioned for instance... Just didn't seem to fit in the whole storyline that well. The dialog in particular between these characters seemed cheesy and overdone. Also, at times I felt the story lacked grounding. The demons can teleport wherever they want to be, and sometimes the real world and the demon world was difficult to distinguish and because the writer does not employ alot of environmental description, this makes this problem worse.

Overall, a good story. Entertaining.

Editorial Review:

The paranormal mystery of Eye of the daemon and eyes of the empress Together for the first time!

Kevin Bradley and his partners are uniquely qualified to handle cases involving the occult-he and Evan Davis are far more than the mere mortals they appear to be. Kevin is a powerful daemon lord, and Evan is his half-daemon, half-human son. Solving mortal crimes should be a cinch for them. But somehow, they never get the easy, open-and-shut cases.

Science Fiction Culture

Camille Bacon-Smith

Amazon Price: $28.95 List Price: $28.95 Usually ships in 1 to 2 months By: University of Pennsylvania Press Amazon Marketplace: 19 new & used starting at $2.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In a century that has taken us from the horse and buggy to the world wide web, science fiction has established itself as the literature to explore the ways in which technology transforms society while its counterpart, genre fantasy, insistently reminds us of the magical transformations of the individual in response to the demands of the social. So it should come as no surprise that the fans and producers of these genres come together to create the culture of the future around the ideal that tales of wonder about the future and the imaginary past can be shared as both symbolic communication and social capital.

In Science Fiction Culture, Camille Bacon-Smith explores the science fiction community and its relationships with the industries that sustain it, including the publishing, computer, and hotel/convention industries, and explores the issue of power in those relationships: Who seems to have it? Who does have it? How do they use it? What are the results of that use? In the process, Bacon-Smith rejects the two major theoretical perspectives on mass culture reception. Consumers are not passive receivers of popular culture produced by the hegemonic ideology machine that is the mass media industry, nor are they rebels valiantly resisting that machine by reading against the grain of the interpretation designed into the products they consume.

Bacon-Smith argues that the relationship between consumers of science fiction and producers is much more complex than either of these theories suggests. Using a wide range of theoretical perspectives, she shows that this relationship is based on a series of continuing negotiations across a broad spectrum of cultural interests.

The Face of Time

Camille Bacon-Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

This fantasy-horror novel is hard to put down! 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

FACE OF EVIL tells a story of horror and suspense that builds steadily to its terrifying end. The people of the town of Thorgill are beseiged by a serial killer who mutilates his victims. Two detectives from Scotland Yard are called in to help the local police with the investigation, but these crimes seem to defy modern police methods. To make matters worse, the townspeople are less than cooperative. This problem, they say, requires a magical solution from practitioners of the "Old Religion." FACE OF EVIL is some of Bacon-Smith's very best writing. Readers of her "Deamon" novels should be aware that this novel does not take place in the same setting, and does not have the light humorous touch of EYES OF THE EMPRESS. FACE OF EVIL fits squarely in the fantasy/horrer genre. Like her "Daemon" novels, this work includes well-researched depictions of ancient myth and magic. Readers of both fantasy/horrer and mystery should be well-satisfied by this novel, and will find that Bacon-Smith has something new to bring to those genres.

Editorial Review:

Two Scotland Yard detectives on the trail of a serial killer face a conspiracy of silence among the townsfolk of Thorgill, where unholy rituals threaten to raise an even more formidable enemy. Original.