Fade to Black by Tim McBain & L.T. Vargus

Jeff Grobnagger is just a normal guy who suffers from seizures.  While not visibly odd or alarming outside the normal, in reality, Jeff is transported to a strange realm, where he is finds himself reliving the same dream over and over again: arriving hanging upside down, being chased by a mysterious figure, and getting killed.  During one such seizure he wakes up and meets Glenn, a man who, through his own struggles, Jeff comes to find might have some connection to what’s happening to him.  While he initially blows him off, choosing to keep to his normal, introverted lifestyle, after almost being killed in real life, Jeff decides that working together might not be a bad idea. Jeff finds that his strange dreams might somehow be connected to the same astral projection obsessed cults that Glenn has been looking into to find his missing daughter.  What he uncovers will leave him questioning everything he knew about life, assuming he doesn't die in the process.

Fade to Black had a lot of potential.  It touched on genres that I like to read but, due to what I can only assume is lack of editing, experience, or both, it really fell short.

There are four key problems I found with the story.  The first three are mostly prevalent in the first half, occurring in the second half occasionally, while the fourth was prevalent throughout but mostly in the second half.  First, the transitions between ideas and events were weak to nonexistent.  Given that this story is told from first-person perspective, Jeff’s, the narrative is told in a very train-of-thought manner, and I don’t think the authors made a bad choice in that.  However, the transitions made the story very jarring, pulling me out of the story and making it hard for me to build up any steam.  I could mostly tell how events led to one another without clear transitions, but I shouldn’t have to stop and think about the how.  This problem is almost solely in the first half but, because of that, it draws even more attention to itself.

Second, and this one is minor, is that the sentences are a bit too simple at points.  Short and compact sentences are one thing, able to express a lot with a little, but the short sentences here would serve much better as compound or complex sentences, able to add to the flow of the story.  It’s not a huge problem, but it’s prevalent enough that they feel like ideas for sentences/paragraphs that were never finished.  This isn't an issue for most of the story, but because it can be found throughout the story, it has the same problem as the transition issues in that I kept being pulled out of the story.

Third, events in the beginning of the story happen way too fast.  Events crucial to the story happened out of nowhere and for reasons that weren't fully explained.  Many of these crucial events in the first fifty or so pages of the book are important to the story, yet were never fully integrated into the book and since they weren't explored or introduced fully enough, I had trouble believing in their authenticity.  It seemed like the authors were saying “here is some important information, accept that it’s important and lets move on.

The fourth and final key problem is that, at about the halfway mark in the book, there’s a notable shift in dialogue and theme that, at times, crosses into the territory of outlandish and inane.  I can appreciate what is being aimed for but, at the same time, the way it’s gone about seems almost a caricature of what was trying to be written.

The length is also an issue.  As this is part of a larger series, I can only wonder whether all this was originally part of a longer story that got split into multiple books, especially with the way this book ended, more an interruption than a cliff-hanger.  It almost seems like it should be Part I of a larger book.  The problems I listed above could have been easily fixed by increasing the size of the book.  It seemed as though the authors wanted to finish this in two hundred pages, when three hundred or so would allow for more impressive and consistent sentences, better transitions between sentences and paragraphs, and made the flow of events and ideas seem much more natural.  As for the twist(s) at the end, due to the lack of density in the story and Glenn’s MacGuffin status, they weren't that surprising.  It’s a problem to lose the story in the details, but without enough it feels like it’s incomplete. 

Glenn is an interesting character.  He was a bit of a clichéd “elder who has wisdom for younger main character” type of character, but I still liked him, or at least I wanted to like him.  He had a cheery personality, was a very warm person, and, though he seemed a bit manufactured and a bit of a MacGuffin, his problem in the story mixed well with the main conflict of the story, giving him an authentic reason to be helping Jeff. 

Ms. Babinaux is even more of a MacGuffin, serving only to provide information and move the story along, without much explanation behind her purpose.  (She is one of the events crucial to the story I mention in my third key problem)  There’s a difference between making a character mysterious and leaving them underdeveloped.  The few times her personality does show through you can tell she’s got a sarcastic, secretly-terrifyingly-angry sort of thing going on.  And then at the end of the story we’re essentially told to ignore the little development made on her character because she’s actually the opposite of how she seems.

Jeff’s flashback/recollections of events with Allie come as a bit out of place, suddenly appearing with no clear connection to the overarching story.  After the first two—these moments come without much transitions—they work with the story, but only because I became aware that these events were relevant.  She’s initially thrown in out of the blue.  I know that this story is told in a very train-of-thought manner, and I know that, in real life, that type of thinking can be very random, one thought not even tangentially related to another somehow triggering it.  But that’s harder to accept in a story.  Thinking about her and what his life was and what it’s become is a way to establish and build Jeff’s character for the reader.  It’s also, arguably, the most important facet of the entire book.  Given how this plays a much larger role in the overarching story, it shouldn't have a weak introduction.

Though I clearly have a number of problems with the book, I don’t hate it. While not what manifested itself in the book, the potential for a good story and good storytelling is there.  The story has potential and I'm curious to know what happens next.  However, since this book and its sequel were published in the same year, I don't see how any large corrections could've been made.  The time just wasn't there.  Maybe the corrections were made but, based on the information I have, it's not worth finding out.  Above all else, an editor would do wonders here. I’d say that anyone who’s read any of the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz and/or The Marbury Lens series  by Andrew Smith, and liked the theme, might like this. I recommend skipping this book, though keep an eye on the authors.  The potential is there.

Rating: 1/5