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7th Son: Descent – book review

Feb 2, 2010
Review

7th Son: Descent, the novel by J.C. Hutchins, has a whole backstory and life of its own, most of which I won’t try to document for you. Go to jchutchins.net, ask around the Podiobooks scene, see what his fans are saying, and you’ll get a better version of it than I can give. Basically, as I recall it (ie: without going back and re-reading stories I’ve heard dozens of times in the last couple years), he wrote a book that was too long and which he couldn’t find a publisher for (both are common problems, and not necessarily a measure of quality), and decided to join the few people (at the time) who were podcasting audio versions of their books for free, breaking his book into a trilogy and putting it online. J.C. Hutchins is excellent at marketing and self-promotion and, over several years, built a very large following and used that platform to get a publishing deal with St. Martin’s Press, which has so far put out two of his books, this one and Personal Effects: Dark Art.

In 2008 I tried listening to 7th Son, as read by J.C. Hutchins for Podiobooks.com, and couldn’t even finish the first episode. This was partially because I was trying, for the first time, to listen to podcasts while working at home  - when working at my last day job, I could listen literally all day without trouble; I found in 2008 that my current work mostly doesn’t allow for it. (I’ve recently been changing my working conditions somewhat, and have listened to a podcast audiobook or two while painting, so maybe I’ll get back to all the podcasts & audiobooks I paused in March, 2008.) It was partially because J.C. Hutchins’ voice is difficult for me to listen to. It was partially because the hook (4-year-old psychopath assassinates the president & uses swears!) didn’t hook me (actually, it was almost silly enough I quit in the first few minutes). It was partially because of the writing quality & tone of the next 25 minutes of the first episode. Anyway, I didn’t finish it and never managed to go back to it.

When Personal Effects: Dark Art was about to come out, in summer 2009, buying into the hype and all the rave reviews from the army of adoring fans that J.C. Hutchins was a good writer, not to mention that I’ve been following ARGs since I was a Cloudmaker from day 1 of The Beast, I pre-ordered a copy of PE:DA. I listened to the episodes of the Personal Effects: Sword of Blood prequel podcast story which were available at the time of PE:DA’s release with my wife, then read PE:DA aloud to her and went through the materials and websites with her, then asked J.C. Hutchins whether he would prefer me to avoid writing a 2-star review, since I didn’t want to hurt the sales of a fellow podcast author (or damage my standing in the very clique-ish podcasting community). Then I didn’t write a review.

Based on my experience with PE:DA, I decided not to pay for 7th Son: Descent until/unless I’d read and/or listened to it. So I requested that my library buy a copy, and I checked it out. And I let it sit on my shelf for a couple of months, renewing it without picking it up until someone else in town placed a request for it & I couldn’t renew it any more. It’s due back tomorrow, so, today I read the whole book. As I read it, I updated my progress on Goodreads. (warning: spoilers) Here are my updates:

  • @ page 1/356: Trying to keep my expectations super-low, to avoid nigh-inevitable disappointment & frustration
  • @ page 62/356: Time to stop for breakfast.
  • (on twitter, probably on page 62): Have I mentioned I don’t like thrillers?
  • @ page 106/356: As a fan of Dollhouse, it’s hard to like this, even knowing it came first.
  • (on twitter, page 184/356): @rkalajian Note: It is distracting to see names of people I know, like yours, peppering the book.
  • @ page 216/356: Lunch break.
  • @ page 261/356: I feel like I’ve finally gotten past the prologue & into Act 1. Or into Act 2 of a 5-Act, if you like. Yet almost finished… :(
  • @ page 279/356: Literally *just* got the stakes, ie: so far we didn’t know more than “villain is probably planning something.” This is ridiculous.
  • @ page 319/356: Really? A Nazi? Sigh.
  • @ page 356/356: Well, that was something. Most of the writing was better than expected & better than PE:DA, but I’m glad I didn’t pay for it.

As I stated, aside from the Prologue, Chapter 1, and Chapter 18, the writing of 7th Son: Descent was -overall- better than my entire PE:DA experience.  There were still the annoying italicized asides/thoughts/sounds, the J.C. Hutchins-coined slang, and a couple of characters that just reminded me of the ones that most annoyed me in PE:DA (and of Hutchins’ cloying voice, to boot). Oh, and have I mentioned I don’t particularly like thrillers? So the fact that the 7th Son trilogy is a thriller doesn’t thrill me. Last year, as part of my research before writing Cheating, Death, I ended up reading quite a few thrillers (& other commercial fiction), and I believe that J.C. Hutchins’ writing is on par with writers like Brad Meltzer and Jonathan Maberry, and is a better writer than the “Richard Castle” we were given in print.

Structurally I had some trouble with 7th Son: Descent, but I have a feeling that this is related to the entire trilogy having been intended to be a single story. This book doesn’t have a whole story. The majority of the 7th Son: Descent is setup, background, and exposition. What Maberry has over Hutchins is structure; the climactic showdown battle in 7th Son: Descent would have been early in a Maberry thriller, and would have been followed up by at least a couple of bigger, more thrilling, and higher-stakes situations. Oh, and then Maberry would give a resolution to the story, even if he were intending to follow it up with a sequel/series. 7th Son simply stopped, just as things were beginning to build momentum. Yes, thrillers are very formulaic, and yes, 7th Son: Descent follows the formula… as far as it goes; it just doesn’t make it all the way to the end.

And while most of what I don’t like about Hutchins’ books is in the characterizations and trying-too-hard-to-be-hip dialogue, it wasn’t as bad as what I’ve seen in other thrillers. Also, something Hutchins has over writers like Meltzer & Dan Brown (at least in 7th Son: Descent — PE:DA fell into this trap) is an avoidance of having characters (who are presented as smart) who, despite their best efforts, couldn’t solve their way out of a wet sack, only to have them save the day accidentally, by coincidence, and/or by failing altogether to act. So that’s a plus.

My family is making fun of me for writing book reviews over 1k words (I’m already over 1160), so I’m going to try to wrap up some of my other thoughts quickly: I’m not a fan of Kilroy. Period. I think putting a Nazi in the book was like terrible icing on a cake built from layer after layer of preposterous premises. I’m generally pretty ready to suspend disbelief, but that sort of thing makes it difficult. Chapter 1 is the weakest chapter in the entire book, and is a big part of why it took me 2+ years to get into 7th Son. It feels almost as though two totally different writers worked on this; one who wrote PE:DA, PE:SoB, and 7th Son: Descent’s Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 18, and an occasional line of thought/dialogue, and a second writer who wrote the rest of 7th Son: Descent. I found myself semi-frequently groaning at the writing, and (sitting alone in my room) verbally describing the book as “terrible” as I worked through it.

Have I mentioned I don’t like thrillers, or most mainstream commercial fiction? By the standards of thrillers and commercial fiction I’ve read, this book is reasonably-well-written, and represents a good Volume I of a three-volume book. If/when I hear the rest of the book won’t be making it to print, I may someday listen to the whole thing in audio form, but right now the story is not compelling enough and (to my ear) J.C. Hutchins’ voice is grating enough that I do not expect to experience the rest of this story soon. Just my preferences. (To be fair, I get a fair amount of complaints about my voice(s) on my podiobooks, myself. Different people’s ears experience narration differently, just as different people like different genres.) If you like thrillers and/or commercial fiction, and/or if you don’t mind J.C. Hutchins’ voice, you may be in for a treat. A lot of people like it, and you can always try it for free.

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  • jchutchins
    Teel,

    To be absolutely clear about my recent reaction on Twitter regarding your opinions of my work:

    Yours is not the first negative review of my work, and it will not be the last. For the past four years, I've experienced reviews of all breeds, and -- as the thousands of listeners of my work can attest -- have remained as grounded and humble about the quality of my content as I was when it debuted. I do not consider myself a master storyteller by any means, but stand by every word of the works you've read, and am proud of them.

    As with all other readers, you are well within your right to critique 7th Son: Descent. I bear no ill-will toward your analysis; they are your opinions. However, I am surprised that you remain puzzled about my Twitter comment regarding your disrespectful behavior on Twitter, and so will clearly explain my reasons here, for the benefit of you and your readers.

    As you illustrated in your review above, you posted "live" reviews to Goodreads as you read the work, which as you well know, were also posted to your Twitter stream. You were well within your right to do this, and yet it showcased a level of unprofessionalism that I imagine you, as all professional writers, strive daily to avoid.

    I was not the only person following your tweetstream to feel alienated by your live tweets, and was not the only person who unfollowed you as a result of them. I was not offended by the fact that you did not enjoy the novel; I was offended by the unprofessional and childish "in the moment" comments you posted as you read the work. Just as you clearly expected more from 7th Son: Descent, I expect more thoughtful behavior from a fellow professional writer and craftsman.

    To put it in even clearer terms: Imagine that a novelist live-tweeted such comments about your work, as he read it. Would you not feel publicly disrespected for such thoughtless off-the-cuff commentary? Would you not feel a twinge of humiliation, since you likely value fellow writers' opinions? Were the roles reversed, you might believe that the novelist's behavior was not merely unprofessional, but downright deplorable. I suspect you expect more panache from a pro.

    If you re-read your presentation on Goodreads and Twitter with this in mind, you may have a different perspective of the tone and content of your comments, and how their presentation undermined the very credibility you seek as an author, podcaster and professional.

    Again, to be clear: Your review did not offend me. And ultimately, the beating heart of your Goodreads/Twitter commentary did not offend me. Your presentation of that commentary, however, smacked of surly childishness. I do not know what motivated such childishness, and do not wish to know. You may want to reconsider your "off the cuff" reviewing strategy for future works. The best reviews are thoughtful ones, crafted after focus and reflection -- much like the one you intended to write here.

    In many ways, negative reviews are far more insightful for authors than positive ones. Yours is no exception. I do not offer any apologies for my voice in the podcast, for it is the one I was born with -- but I do appreciate that you made an attempt to listen to it. I also appreciate that you made the time to read 7th Son: Descent, and share your thoughts with your readers.

    I am especially grateful that you compared my work to that of multiple New York Times bestselling novelist Brad Meltzer and multiple Bram Stoker award-winner Jonathan Maberry. I've personally corresponded with both authors, treasure their personal and professional support, and strive to be half the world-class professionals they have become. You may benefit from having a similar career goal.

    Finally, in the interest of clarity for your readers, you mentioned in your review that you contacted me after reading Personal Effects: Dark Art, informed me that you did not enjoy it, and asked me for guidance. This is true. To cite your July 2009 email:

    "As someone with doubts about my own writing, I know I don't feel good when I see negative reviews of my own work. ... So I'm asking you your preference:  Do you prefer that I remain silent, or do you prefer that I write/post a 2-star review of the book?"

    While I was perplexed that anyone would ask for such permission, my same-day reply was, "While I don't see how a two star review would improve the credibility of the novel, you are welcome to do whatever you wish."

    I fully expected, and clearly empowered, you to make a frank analysis from you regarding that work, as I do with all my readers. The reasons why you did not post a review -- which as I've stated, are well within your right as a consumer -- are yours alone.
  • modernevil
    I still don't understand the problem. Am I reading you correctly, that it wasn't what I said in my tweets/GR-statuses that was disrespectful/unprofessional (to your eye), but the very fact that I made use of the real-time web to make real-time updates that bothers you? Are you saying you believe that being in-the-moment and trying to capture that immediacy via real-time tools is inherently inappropriate? Or did I misunderstand that, as well?

    I place a significant value on both immediacy and on well-thought-out response - in fact, since they are often quite different from one another, I consider the value of having both together to be quite greater than the sum of its parts, since it gives insight both into the journey and the destination and, perhaps, into the process one went through to become the other. So, for example, upon waking & reading your comment in my email, I tweeted my initial reaction - and am now writing a more thorough, thought-out response. I feel both have value.

    Re: capturing immediacy and sharing it, I am absolutely in favor of it. I have released two different poetry collections wherein each poem was, when it was written, intended to capture my experience as I was having it, like a snapshot. In the published version of the book, each poem is presented literally as a scan of the page I wrote it on, so you can see exactly what I put down in the moment. (Each poem is also reproduced in type, for when my handwriting is less than clear, but I feel showing the changes in my handwriting are part of what each page reveals about my experiences.) There is a place for slow, considered poetry, but I believe there is also a value in the "now".

    Just as one may make comments while watching a show on TV (in the moment) to their friends/family, just as one may make comments while watching movies at home, or whispered comments while watching movies in the theatre, I make comments to my friends/family/followers as I read books. "Unprofessional" is something I have no problem with this practice being described - it is a social, not a professional, phenomenon. It is one person sharing their experience and reactions casually, via social media.

    I am by no means a professional reviewer. I don't even read professional reviews, so I don't know what they do, what they intend to do, or whether there are any rules/expectations/guidelines for doing professional reviews. Frankly, I don't care if there are - I'm just writing about my experiences and opinions, here. This "blog" (née online journal) is more than half a million words of my personal experiences and opinions, captured as raw as possible, and even when well thought out are still certainly fairly in-the-moment. My tweetstream is (currently 6700) even-more-immediate & more-in-the-moment statements about my experiences, opinions, interests, and work. Seven of my books-in-print were written without any pre-planning at all, trying only to capture the story as it fell upon the page. You strive to be professional, and to be like other professional writers you admire, while I strive to be myself, immediate and uncompromised, whatever that may mean. My "credibility as an author" comes, I believe, in trying to be my truest self at all times and in not tempering my thoughts, emotions, and story ideas with consideration for what other people may think of them.

    If, to you, that makes me childish, then so be it.

    * * *

    Ooh, in re-reading, editing, and adding to my above comments and thinking carefully about my word choices, I may have had an insight into the problem. As I just stated, one of the things I try to do is to be raw and honest without "consideration for what other people may think..." And while my intention in doing so is to avoid dishonesty & politics from creeping into my stories and other communication, the literal result is that I am, in some ways, inconsiderate. I do often try to be big-picture considerate. I was trying to be considerate by ordering PE:DA, and then again by giving your work another chance by reading 7th Son: Descent. I was trying to be considerate when I asked you before writing about PE:DA. (I understood your response to mean "I won't/can't stop you, but would prefer if you didn't." Perhaps I misunderstood that, as well.) Extending being considerate of others to the point of changing or ignoring the ways I think and feel and react to the world (and to the books/etc in it) seems to cut too close to the bone. It feels like a form of censorship. In fact, the feeling that I'd been self-censoring by not writing about PE:DA certainly bled through to my handling of 7th Son: Descent. I've written many thousands of words on this "blog" about my going back and forth between trying to be considerate of others and then hating having to constantly censor myself simply to accommodate others' sensitivities. So, when I read PE:DA I was near the trough of the cycle and readily stopped tweeting about the book after a few chapters, later going so far as to self-censor my entire reaction. And now I am nearer the peak of self-expression, wherein I don't hate myself so much, but rather find other people hate me for being myself.

    Anyway, the insight was that, yes, my behaviour is -in a way- inconsiderate. Which you may have read as being disrespectful/unprofessional/childish. So perhaps that was it. Perhaps you think that "if one hasn't anything nice to say, one oughtn't to speak at all..." (Except in the formalized context of a professional review?) Which is an attitude that matches well with my interpretation of your response to my query re: PE:DA, but thus may indicate that I haven't understood you at all but am simply projecting something I have seen in others onto you, both then and now... I don't know. I am sorry that my tweetstream alienated you, both because I believe it indicates that I have been misunderstood and because I had hoped you would be someone who might understand. ie: I am not sorry for what I said or how I said it, but I am sorry that my intentions for doing so and the value of doing so were not understood.

    As to the idea of having another author (or anyone at all, for that matter) live-tweeting comments and off-the-cuff commentary about my work, as they read it, I think that would be super. With several of my books, reading the final pages entirely changes one's understanding of the rest of the book - so that people aren't even able to accurately recall after-the-fact what they thought of it while they were reading it, only a sort of meta-experience filtered by the endings. (This is usually intentional.) Occasionally I am blessed to catch someone and get their reaction mid-book, and -especially in light of their final assessments- I find the off-the-cuff remarks about their incomplete experience to be more useful and insightful than their carefully-considered, thoughtful responses to the work as a whole. Thus, for me, live-updating my experiences as I work through books, movies, et cetera is part of my attempt to apply the golden rule in my actions. I would like people to do this with my work, so I do it with other people's work.

    Oh, and thank you for your response, here. As I said on twitter, it was both thorough and professional. I appreciate your taking the time both to consider the situation and to craft a reply. If you wouldn't mind taking another moment, I have a question: Do you think I ought to read/listen to the rest of 7th Son?
  • spiritualtramp
    As a cheerleader for Hutch and an unofficial Beta Clone, I gotta say I appreciate your honesty. While much of your criticism seems to be "I don't like thrillers" and "I don't like Hutch's voice" you also point out that for its particular genre it's above the bar so to speak. I agree with that, most certainly.

    Should you ever happen to want to pull apart another podcast novel thriller, feel free to have a look at mine.

    Cheers,
    Scott
  • modernevil
    I'd considered going into more detail, adding a lot more spoilers in the process, and dissecting what I liked and didn't like about the book, but suspect that such would take me another couple thousand words (at least)... and at almost 1500 words already, there are few who will actually read this whole post. Approaching 4k+ words, I think the only way to get people through it would be as a half-hour podcast of the review/analysis. Except that if I were going to invest that much time and thought into analyzing and going over the book, I'd want to do so in light of the entire series in all its incarnations, so I'd probably end up with around 1.5 to 2 hours of podcast or ~15k-20k words. My last novel was only 33k words. Writing a Novella-length review that would (likely) tear the book(s) apart piece by piece in detail would certainly come across only as an intentional attack, rather than my attempt to properly review the work. My intention is not to attack Hutch, or his work; just to say that I just didn't like it, and give the basics of why.

    On Twitter, Hutch suggested that I'd treated him with disrespect with my review & my tweets about my experience with his book. I feel that I expressed quite a bit of discretion and respect in both avoiding any real review of PE:DA (which, unlike 7th Son: Descent, I hated, rather than simply disliked), and in holding back from writing the more complete review I believe the work is due. I respected him enough that -although I didn't want to spend my own money on it- I got my local library to buy a copy (that it otherwise wouldn't have). I respected him enough to be honest about my opinions.

    In fact, I tried to be positive and to end on an up beat. A sort of "this isn't for me, but if you like this sort of thing, it's a fairly good example." Like my old review of a particular champagne, this is a review of something in a category I know I do not like but which, for whatever sick reason, I go ahead and finish consuming & then reviewing, stating all the while that someone who likes such things would give a better review. It's like pompous "film critics" panning fun action/scifi blockbuster movies, because that isn't the sort of movie they like to watch, except you'd never expect them to admit it, or to point you to Ain't It Cool News (or such) for a review from an appropriate audience.

    My reading list is super-full right now (doing research for an alternate history zombie novel), but yours is already on the list (I want to try to get through all the books I've traded promos with... which means that at some point I'll write a similar 2 or 3 star review of Jack Wakes Up, even though I actually know Seth in person and think he's a great guy), though it might be a while.
  • spiritualtramp
    Yeah I didn't quite get the "disrespect" remark that Hutch made. But you know what, we're all human and have our unique and marvelous flaws. I still like and respect him for what he's accomplished.

    I agree that a much longer dissection would likely be a poor use of your time and would come across even more negatively than this one did.

    Some people would ask (and I guess have asked) if you don't like thrillers then why read them? But I'm of a mind that if you don't like something it's still not a bad idea to try something now and again that you don't like. You may find that your tastes have changed or you may (as you did here) simply find a good example of one and it can help you examine why you may not like it even in light of the fact that you have that example.

    No rush in getting to mine. Archangel isn't in print yet. Perhaps (God willing) it will be by the time you get to it. Not that I have even sent it out yet or expect that it will be, but you never know.

    As I told Allison Duncan (svallie on twitter) I don't mind people taking a hacksaw to my work. Maybe it will hurt, it definitely would if they said nothing good, but my hope would be that I would find a useful takeaway from it. And if I don't? Well it wasn't my time that was used up other than in the reading of the review.
  • modernevil
    As to why try things in categories I usually don't like, it depends. In this case it had a lot to do with reputation and recommendations. Or in the case of Archangel, Jack Wakes Up, South Coast (plus I'm waiting on the last Solar Clipper book, to listen through all at once), The Dreamer's Thread, Alibi Jones (plus probably the whole Vatican trilogy), et cetera, it has to do with relationship; you all reached out and agreed to swap promos with me, or at least offered promos when I put out feelers. I didn't just take every promo offered - I tried to vet for quality and for subjects that matched one or more of the things my writing covers so my "audience" might be *actually* interested... and because I thought I might be interested, too.

    Oh, and I like to say "I'll try anything twice." It's almost entirely true, and for most things it's a good idea. A single sample isn't usually sufficient or appropriate to judge a whole. (Just as I found that the first episode of 7th Son: Descent wasn't a good representation of the rest of the novel.) So when I tried PE:DA and didn't like it, I figured I'd give Hutch another try. And when I tried Meltzer's The Book of Lies (because the premise intrigued me, and because Joss Whedon recommended it) and didn't like it, I asked around and found that fans of Meltzer liked Zero Game better, so I tried that one too. If I try a new restaurant and don't like it, I don't assume I dislike their entire menu; I remain willing to come back and try something else.

    And just because the first few thrillers (most of them in the last year) I tried didn't work for me doesn't mean I won't someday find thrillers that do, or that my tastes and mood won't change. I also suspect that medium has influenced me somewhat; if the 7th Son series were adapted into a slick SciFi miniseries (perhaps by SyFy), I'd probably watch it and think it was swell.

    Oh, and if you think this review is bad... I've been trying to finish reading Atlas Shrugged for the past year and expect to write a VERY negative review of it soon. THAT book is shit. THAT book put me literally to sleep several times (which is rare), once in the middle of a sex scene. THAT book makes 7th Son: Descent feel like a pleasant diversion.

    In fact, I didn't mention it, but I intentionally read 7th Son: Descent in between other very heavy books. I just finished reading Shock Doctrine and I'm about to start grinding my way through several history books about World War I, Einstein, Hitler, and the 1918 Flu epidemic, among other things. It was a totally different sort of reading.
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