Metaphorosis Reviews
Written on Mar 6, 2025
Summary
In an alternate post-world war Los Angeles full of vampires, zombies, and wizards, Jack Mitchell is a private investigator with a smart-mouthed cat and more debts than clients. Until Dora Urban, a glamorous vampire, hires him to find her half-brother, and Mitchell finds himself tangling with powers well beyond his scope.
Review
I encountered Harry Turtledove’s writing decades ago, via the Krispos of Videssos books. I enjoyed those, but realized that most of his writing was too alternate-history for me. I’ve dipped into a few of his other books with mixed results. But when I saw this fantasy noir offering, I thought I’d give it a try.
I guess what I can say is that the alternate history element is strong and well developed. References to real history are simple enough to figure out – fylfot (swastika) supporters, etc. I’m not normally a fan of vampires and zombies, but those elements work fine. Unfortunately, it’s the detective noir piece that fails. I just didn’t buy Turtledove’s voice on this front. It’s as if he’s trying to amalgamate noir tropes and standards by imitation rather than organically; it all feels like a clumsy copy.
Beneath the awkward voice and jokes that mostly don’t land, there’s a pretty good story. It’s not groundbreaking, but it fits its territory – poor but capable detective, femme fatale (more literally than usual), etc. There’s even a sarcastic cat.
This was an ARC, and seemingly less polished than most. Almost no typos, but there’s a lengthy piece of description (of a zombie) that’s repeated verbatim once, and paraphrased again. There’s pretty hefty continuity error regarding a lawyer. Hopefully these issues will be cleared up before publication, but that’s in ten days, so I doubt it.
All in all, a decent book and start to a series, but more for Turtledove and alternate history fans than noir aficionados.
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.