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The Edge Of Reason by Melinda Snodgrass
02/08/2008 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: TOR/Forge. 381 page hardback. Price: $24.95 (US), $27.95 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-7653-1516-8. Buy The Edge Of Reason in the USA - or Buy The Edge Of Reason in the UK  check out website: www.tor-forge.com
The premise of 'The Edge Of Reason' by Melinda Snodgrass is actually quite clever. Not so much a horror story, just a different interpretation of the evidence. The Old Ones are essentially inter-dimensional creatures that gave rise to all the various gods demons and myths across the planet. They get off on the suffering of mankind and delight in plunging humans into such mayhem. Opposing them is the Lumina, who are endeavouring to liberate them.
Into this mix comes police officer Richard Oort from the Albuquerque Police Department, who after witnessing some of the mayhem gets the attention of the Lumina as their latest paladin mostly because he is of the rare breed that isn't corruptible by magic. A little jiggery-pokery behind the scenes has him elevated into the detective division so he can continue to crack this particular case and the religion that houses this particular set of creatures masquerading as humans.
That's fine as far as it goes. The real problem comes to the lead character, Richard Oort. Snodgrass reveals he's less than an everyman drawn into these events but from a wealthy background and a bi-sexual with a guilty secret. I'm not entirely convinced it was necessary to call him by his Christian name throughout text and dialogue but that might just be me and the normal trend of having a bit of variety between fore and surnames. I'm not having a dower on Snodgrass on this cos like a lot of the writers who worked on the 'Wild Cards' project, I do like her writing.
All of the characters she has here have some interest and are fleshed out but occasionally it swamps out the action. Several instances of deaths or characters vanishing, it happens so fast that you're left bewildered as to what happened. Whether this was in a squeeze for word count or not, it gave a feeling of something missing. Certainly, there is a lot to like here and one can only hope if Snodgrass visits this reality again that she develops it further.
GF Willmetts
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