Despite the ‘this was originally a web serial’ warnings in the Foreword of Alex Gilbert‘s Journey of Black and Red series, for the most part the books feel very much like proper books. Only the occasional missed stopping point hints toward their origins.
Content-wise the first seven novels feature a nice mix of comedy and action accompanying a consistent series of plot developments covering the period from North America’s Revolutionary War through its Civil War. What’s particularly notable is that while a lot of urban fantasy series will reference some past event that separates their timeline from actual historic events, this one decides to actually focus on the divergent event itself. At this point the only thing I have to complain about is that it’s never properly explained how the protagonist was able to fake her death when dead vampires are supposed to turn to ash.
A work by the same author, The Calamitous Bob is remarkable for being completely different. Setting, characters, comedy style; all different. The only similarity the two share is the protagonists’ absolute mercilessness toward their enemies. While for the most part that’s a good thing and the variety is welcome… this series is unfortunately nowhere near as well constructed.
Although perfectly solid up through the third book, it begins to deteriorate early in the fourth following the ‘Birth of Harrak’ arc’s conclusion only to end up a complete mess by the end of the fifth. The worst part is, I can’t even see what the author was going for that would result in such a pile of inconsistent and self-contradicting plotlines. There’s just no discernable rhyme or reason whatsoever to the event developments.