Books: The Unhappy Medium by T.J. Brown (2014)

“Dr Newton Barlow has everything a scientist could ask for – a glittering career both in the lab and on television, a beautiful wife, and best of all, the opportunity to promote his rock-solid certainty that supernatural and religious beliefs are nothing but complete and utter hokum. But Barlow is about to take a tumble. Mired in accusations of fraud, incompetence and malpractice, Newton is cast out from the scientific establishment and ejected from the family home. His life in tatters, he descends into a wine-sodden wilderness. Then, after three lost years, Barlow is suddenly approached by his old mentor and fellow skeptic Dr Sixsmith with an extraordinary proposition, an offer that Newton simply cannot refuse. There’s just one small problem: Dr Sixsmith is dead.

“Thrown headlong into a new reality that simply shouldn’t exist, Dr Newton Barlow is about to come up against the best and the worst of human nature: tooled-up vicars, paper-pushing ancient Greeks, sinister property developers, a saucy rubber nun and possibly the most mean-spirited man ever to have walked the earth. Twice.”

The Unhappy Medium is another book I really, really wanted to like. And I do, because it can be a fun ride most of the time. But much like Dan Brown, author T.J. Brown is prone to showing off too much World Building here; mostly through some very clunky prose and sparse dialogue that easily deflates any tension. There is very little internal conflict (typical British stereotype) and no real sense of threat that La Senza is supposed represent.

The book seems to want to appeal to many genres, as well. It has some sardonic humor, but it borrows too much from Dan Brown, Monty Python, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and Christopher Moore to be original (side note: where are the women who write supernatural satire? Please tell me). Not saying there is not a good idea here, and under a steadier hand (and a proper editor), this book could be winner.  

There is a second book in this series and while I’m tempted to buy it, with so many other books to read, I cannot see me really getting it anytime soon. This is a pity, because, again, there is some potential here. Maybe this works well as television series (though many would likely compare it too Buffy, Friday the 13^th: The TV Series, Reaper and other shows that focus on returning objects and escaped villains from The Other Side), but as a novel, it takes way too long for anything to happen. And with too many side trips that go nowhere, I found myself wanting to change the channel.