| Thomas F. Monteleone author of The Reckoning- "Bob McCoy is one the newest generation of writers who writes not only with confidence, but a singular vision. There are traces of Zelazny and Gaiman resonating in his prose, and that pretty much says it all. This guy can write." ********************************************************** Science Fiction Chronicle (November 2004) "McCoy does an excellent job of building the atmosphere and suspense, ...A debut novel that suggests a successful future for the author and more good reading for the rest of us." ********************************************************** Harriet Klausner Reviews When Luke Yeager returns to college in Mill Run, Kentucky, he notices changes have come to the town with two new malls, one of which houses Ice Cream Dreams. Luke senses something evil about the store and the men who run it and does his best to avoid it. People who eat the strawberry ice cream change, subtly at first, until they turn totally to embrace the dark. Luke knows these things because he is a Paladin, an order sworn to fight the demons and fallen angels that prey upon mankind. Mill Run is the place where the second fall of angels plans to make their stand, seducing most of the town into obeying them. This is a special place where the oldest cathedral in America was built; a site where the leader of the fallen angels rests and waits for his minions to do the necessary work that will awaken him so they can proceed with their plan; if successful they hope to reunite with God in heaven. From the very beginning readers know that there is something wrong with the town. Places on campus are closed to man and nobody is seen entering or leaving those closed rooms. An orange fog permeates the town but the majority of the townsfolk pay no attention to it. The smell of strawberry permeates the area, a sign of evil that is on its way. Robert Wayne McCoy has written an apocalyptical thriller that is spellbinding, enthralling and memorable, a work that uses archetypes from the Judeo-Christian system, but could just as easily used them from any religion where the forces of good and evil fight the eternal battle. ************************************************************ Julia Alameri Romance Reviews Today The King of Ice Cream ...is chilling THE KING OF ICE CREAM - Robert Wayne McCoy Five Star ISBN: 1-59414-148-7 September 2004 Dark Fantasy/Horror Mill Run, Kentucky – 1992 When Luke Yeager was a child, he was the sole survivor of an auto accident leaving him a ward of the state of Kentucky, and raised by a Catholic Priest, Father Rosenzweig. Luke was trained to belong to a special order of people hand picked by the Pope to help balance evil. Luke is a Paladin, a heroic champion, a gunslinger. When he returns to Mill Run to find many strange things are happening, they all seem to center around a new ice cream parlor, Ice Cream Dreams. Many people in town are obsessed with the owner’s homemade strawberry ice cream, while others just feel something is wrong and stay away from the ice cream shop. In the Book of Genesis, there is mention of a second fall of angels. Their leader, Samyaza, was buried under the town of Mill Run and was bound to that spot by the power of King Solomon and the Ark of the Covenant. Samyaza’s followers are using the ice cream to force the townspeople to their will. Their sinister plans will raze Hell and use the people’s bodies and souls to make an elixir to restore Samyaza to his full power. When the majority of the people are under the ice cream spell and many have already died for the elixir, Luke and his remaining fellow Paladins find themselves locked in a struggle of good against evil, and Luke will have to defeat Samyaza to win. Luke, as a fifteen-year-old child, was trained in martial arts and sharp shooting. He is still in training but it feels as though he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. Secondary characters all have their own stories to tell, but they are interwoven as a necessary part of this tale. THE KING OF ICE CREAM is a disquieting tale that has similarities to Stephen King’s GUNSLINGER in The Dark Tower series, and strikes me as a condensed modern-day version of these books. Robert Wayne McCoy pens a chilling narrative that is descriptive enough to make anyone think twice about having a favorite summer treat. THE KING OF ICE CREAM is a chilling book that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys dark fantasy books. ************************************************************** Nathan Brazil Reviews 'Crucifix in hand, he went back into that log cabin, now as a Priest of Jesus Christ, and he walked down to the room with splattered blood on the cement floor and walls, where fourteen pairs of eyes were displayed in a glass case.' Scrolling down the monthly list of new books the title of this novel jumped out with the promise of something quirky and unusual. A little investigation produced the publisher's description of a debut novel, the premise of which included rogue forces seeking to unleash the leader of a second angelic fall. This sounded too good to miss, and so with hope in my heart I requested the book. Just occasionally, a debut novel turns out to be a staggeringly fine distillation of raw talent, but more usually, is something which shows the promise of what may come as the author matures. The King Of Ice Cream is closer to the latter, and often reads like a good book trying to get out. There are some highly entertaining ideas here, such as the Codices of Smoke, the object of one character's search. It is the last book of the damned, a dangerous, supernatural tome, which is on the Church of Rome's list of books to be burned without ever being opened. Then there are the Paladins; special individuals trained to combat fallen angels, and by so doing implement the Word of God. The author also has an interesting line in supporting characters, including the Patchwork Man, who has strawberry ice cream for blood, Nathan Ellis, a taxi driver whose dead mother sits in the back, and Mac MacKindell, a grizzled Paladin on the trail of a fallen angel named Gustav, who like all angels lacks the power to dream. It's the kind of commercial, light horror which it's easy to imagine lighting up the eyes of any commissioning editor worth his salt. A slightly fuzzy opening, concerned with the origins of the Codices of Smoke and Gustav, leads straight on to a block of chapters which introduce McCoy's main character, his friends, and the town of Mill Run. The main man is 16 year-old Luke Yeager, a newly trained Paladin, on his way back to college. We find that all is not well in the town, and the problem seems to be centered around Ice Cream Dreams, a store run by an unctuous salesman named Truman Goodspeed. 'I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.' The children's chant is repeated over and over. Throughout the first hundred pages, the author lingers on the minutia of characters lives, at the expense of the plot. People meander into various situations, and there's a feeling that he knew where he wanted to end up, but wasn't entirely sure about the route he would take. There's also a jarring tendency to flip back and forth in time, and from third to first person perspective. It took until about halfway through, before the good ideas swam back into focus; Gustav's search for the Codices of Smoke, the second Fall of what biblical legend describes as Mighty Men, the Sons of God who came unto the daughters of men, Truman Goodspeed's dark zeal in selling angelic ice cream, and the fallen angels skewed plan to end evil by taking Hell from Satan and giving it back to God. It's a heady mix, made irritating by contradictions and lack of clarity. Both of which could have -- and should have -- been banished by the editor. For example, the Paladins are supposedly highly trained, well educated people. But not one of them ever questions anything written in the Bible, a book which has passed through at least three languages, and been mercilessly edited to suit the agenda of various branches of Christianity. The kind of questions which occur to most educated Christians are never mentioned by any Paladin. Instead, we're presented with a bunch of people who are nice enough on the outside, but have a collective mind set which is no different to any other Fundamentalist fanatics. A little dissent among the ranks would have produced some welcome tension in what deteriorates into a good guys versus bad guys tale, all black and white with no shades of grey. Most bizarre of all, is the epilogue, which has the feel of a Clint Eastwood movie set, crossed with Stephen King's The Dark Tower. I was left with the impression that Robert Wayne McCoy has imagination and much promise, but his debut novel suffers from rather poor editing. I'd like to see his next work pared down by about 150 pages, polished until it gleamed, and tightened until the nuts squeaked. Copyright © 2004 Nathan Brazil SF Site: The Home Page for Science Fiction and Fantasy ************************************************************************* |
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