Armada [BOOK REVIEW]

Posted By JT Hanke on Jul 14, 2015 in Featured, Origin: DGM Staff, Review: Books, Reviews, Type: Article (Text Only), Type: Article (w/ Videos)

In the near future, Zack Lightman is a video game savant at one of the most popular games in the world: ARMADA. Armada allows people with souped up VR control rigs to control flying robots and attempt to fend off an alien invasion. In a case of pop culture déjà vu harkening back to The Last Starfighter and Ender’s Game, Lightman discovers that the game is a training simulator designed to find the best and the brightest pilots on the planet to defend the earth from a real alien invasion. However, after a hurried recruitment, Lightman discovers that deception lurks…

The Last American Vampire [BOOK REVIEW]

Posted By JT Hanke on Mar 4, 2015 in Featured, Origin: DGM Staff, Review: Books, Reviews

If you’ve been following DarkestGoth since we began, you know that I personally loved the film adaptation of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. It seems like those critics that missed the point on this film failed to understand the premise of fantastic historic fiction…that the goal is not to tie into ones’ own preconceived notions, but to meet the facts that we currently have and fill in gaps with story arcs that are plausible and, moreover, interestingly insightful into a time and era that is often a mystery to the modern…

Blue Labyrinth [BOOK REVIEW]

Posted By JT Hanke on Dec 10, 2014 in Featured, Origin: DGM Staff, Review: Books, Reviews, Type: Article (Text Only)

When a lethal relative shows up dead on FBI Agent A.X.L. Pendergast’s doorstep in New York City, our favorite Gothic detective is prompted to explore places he never wanted to go.

Struggling to figure out who could have killed a man whose genetically enhanced abilities should have made him unkillable, Pendergast is provoked to look still deeper into the deadly secrets that enfold his family tree. He quickly discovers that, if he has any chance of surviving the chain of events this death kicks off, he’ll have to rely most on the very people he’s tried desperately to keep out of the line…

Revenant [BOOK REVIEW]

Posted By JT Hanke on Nov 26, 2014 in Featured, Origin: DGM Staff, Review: Books, Reviews

In the previous book, Possession, a strange series of seeming possessions tipped Harper off to a deadly game that a diabolical relative (at least, in spirit) was perpetrating. At the conclusion of it, her fiancé, Quentin, left her in the Emerald City to pursue his father and his Ragnarok-scale plans involving Bone Mages in Europe.

In Revenant, the story continues as Harper and her vampire necromancer, Carlos, return to Carlos’ home country of Portugal to help Quentin finally stop his father’s ruthless plans, using Carlos’ own dark past in the country to their advantage.

The Lost Island [BOOK REVIEW]

Posted By JT Hanke on Aug 1, 2014 in Featured, Review: Books, Reviews

When Gideon is challenged to steal a priceless artifact through his trademark social engineering skills, it leads him to a map that has been lost for thousands of years—a map designed to lead them to an island that could heal the world. In order to find it, he’ll be teamed up with, Amy, a mysterious captain who seems to hate him, and forced to explore the Caribbean–while avoiding pirates, monsoons, and one of the most dangerous predators ever recorded.

Ready Player One [BOOK REVIEW]

Posted By JT Hanke on Jun 11, 2014 in Review: Books, Reviews

In the near future, an Asperger’s hacker and super genius named James Halliday will create a new, tactile interface system that will finally permit a functional virtual reality to be created. People begin to spend so much of their lives in this world that designers and stores make more money selling virtual goods than physical ones; where in-game currency is worth more than IRL currency. Wade is a technically-brilliant outcast who’s too smart for the people around him, especially the highly dysfunctional aunt he often has to crash with…

Robert Ludlum’s: The Janson Option [BOOK REVIEW]

Posted By JT Hanke on Mar 14, 2014 in Origin: DGM Staff, Review: Books, Reviews, Type: Article (w/ Photos)

In the newest chapter in this surprisingly gothic saga, former assassin, Paul Janson, and his sniper protégé, Jessica Kincaid, are presented with a plea to help one of their enemies from the past when his noble-blood wife is kidnapped. Against their better judgment, they take the case and head back to war torn Africa to deal with Somali pirates, knowing that there are games afoot that they can’t even begin to process…

Two Weeks Notice [BOOK REVIEW]

Posted By M. Anne Deleeuw on Dec 20, 2013 in Origin: DGM Staff, Review: Books, Reviews, Type: Article (w/ Photos)

At the end of Working Stiff, funeral director Brynn Davis, along with compatriots Patrick McAllister (former Marine), and Joe Fideli (all-around badass/family man,) took down Pharmadene executive Irene Hart, who was using both murder and the company’s drug Returné in the ultimate corporate loyalty scheme. The FBI took over Pharmadene, and put Brynn on their payroll. In Two Weeks Notice, Brynn’s newly-christened Davis Funeral Home is doing good business, her connection with the FBI…

Working Stiff [BOOK REVIEW]

Posted By M. Anne Deleeuw on Dec 6, 2013 in Origin: DGM Staff, Review: Books, Reviews, Type: Article (w/ Photos)

When Bryn Davis decided to enter the mortuary business, she thought it would be a much less stressful job than her previous career as an Army soldier. After all, that netted her four years in Iraq – an experience she doesn’t care to repeat. She is excited to start her first job at the prestigious Fairview Mortuary in La Jolla, California – even if Fairview has a reputation for going through Funeral Directors faster than anyone else. But unbeknownst to Bryn, there are much darker things going on at Fairview Mortuary. Its owner, Lincoln Fairview, is involved in a big-bucks extortion scheme….

White Fire [BOOK REVIEW]

Posted By JT Hanke on Nov 11, 2013 in Origin: DGM Staff, Review: Books, Reviews, Type: Article (w/ Photos)

When Corrie Swanson–the Gothic protégé of the enigmatic FBI Agent, A.X.L. Pendergast–decides to dig into the mystery of a strange set of bodies dating back to the 1800’s in a high priced ski community in Colorado, things get tangled as soon as she steps into town. A victim of small town politics in a town filled with billionaire developers and sharks, Corrie discovers that trying to delve into this town’s past may turn up more skeletons than the ones she’s looking for…

Possession: Greywalker Novel #8 [BOOK REVIEW]

Posted By JT Hanke on Jul 30, 2013 in Origin: DGM Staff, Review: Books, Reviews, Type: Article (w/ Photos)

In Possession, Harper’s friend Phoebe sends a distraught woman named Lily to find the investigator and ask for her help with Lily’s comatose sister, who is displaying “automatic painting”–a condition in which a person is being controlled by a spiritual force to paint something they’ve never seen before. While the case at first bears similarities to a possession, Harper quickly discovers there’s more to it than that, as she stumbles across a mystery that’s woven into the very ground she treads. In the process, she has to deal with the dark past of Seattle’s Pike Place Market…