Arcane (Book)
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Written by Brian Sweet
Published by Lulu
Recently I was given a copy of Brian Sweet’s Arcane, which tells a version of a story we all know: What happens when Judgment Day hits? What horrors can we expect to encounter and rally against? In Sweet’s case, the end of the world comes in the form of demons pushing their way towards Heaven and infiltrating Earth, leaving the fate of humanity up to demon hunters and one fallen angel – Arcane.
Battling in a world the likes of which humanity has never seen, Arcane takes readers on a ride through the devastation of the planet and the hordes of demons spewing out of every available nook and cranny. Sweet writes in screenplay format, which was actually a bit distracting for this writer.
When I read a story, regardless of the genre, I like the ability to use my imagination with some of the details. Screenplays fill in the gaps with action and description detailed from the author’s point of view. While I appreciate the work that goes into penning a screenplay, I feel that Arcane would have been better served as a straight novel or even a graphic novel.
The “screenplay” runs 286 pages, which would make it just shy of five hours if shot for film. Since no horror/sci-fi movie is ever going to be five hours long, it just seems that a lot could have been cut or better purposed in narrative form.
Overall the story of Arcane held my interest, but I wouldn’t call it a complete horror story, more so science fiction. Sweet classifies it as both genres, I’m guessing because of its gore and the demon hunter element that he adds to the tale. I would really love to see Arcane as a graphic novel with more illustrations. There are 10 total throughout the book, and the artwork is second to none – but made me wish there was more of it. The story of Arcane would translate extremely well into a graphic novel and would make a great comic series.
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