Over at Sci-Fi Bulletin, Paul Simpson got a real kick out of Vegas Knights. He writes:
At times it’s humorous, sardonic, deadly serious, horrific — and that can be on just one page! There are so many sudden shifts in the narrative that there are times when you wonder exactly what’s going on but Matt Forbeck knows where he’s taking his story — and when you reach the end, you realise that it’s been under control the whole time.
Recommended. 8/10
I recently discovered that the Kansas City Science Fiction and Fantasy Society has named my novel Vegas Knights as the subject of their next book club meeting on August 22, at the Oak Park Barnes & Noble. If you’re in the area, pick up a copy of the book and join in!
As far as I know, this is the first time any of my novels has been the topic of a book club meeting, and I’m tickled by the idea of people sitting around a bookstore and talking about one of my stories. Big thanks to whoever put it forward, and I hope all the folks in Kansas City enjoy the book!
Over at The Fringe, Scott Wilson read Vegas Knights and enjoyed it. In his review, he writes:
Vegas Knights is populated by a varied, realistic cast, all of whom are fun to read about… The dialogue is crisp and realistic… and Forbeck has created a rather winning ‘system’ of magic and how it affects the real world.
Over at the Itzel Library — a Mexican book review site — Yel interviewed me about Vegas Knights. While all our interactions were in English, she translated the entire interview into Spanish as well and posted a braided version of the interview in both languages.
Back when I graduated college, I could speak Spanish fluently. As part of my degree through the Residential College at the University of Michigan, I took two terms of intensive Spanish, plus a term of conversational Spanish. Each of the intensive courses was worth eight credits, and we met for two hours four days a week, plus had 15 minutes of lab work each day. On top of that, we had a Spanish-only lunch table in the cafeteria and met for a Spanish-only coffee hour once per week.
At the end of those two terms, I had to pass a United Nations level 3 fluency exam, which was a three-hour exam topped by a fifteen-minute interview with two native speakers of the language. If I failed it, I risked losing out on all eight credits for that term. I studied so hard, I actually wound up dreaming in Spanish for the week before the exam.
Of course, now I’ve lost most of it. I can puzzle out some of what Yel wrote, but mostly because there’s a reliable translation right next to it. Someday I’ll get back into it. Someday. Or maybe I’ll just come to rely on Google Translate even more.
Meanwhile, Yel’s giving away an autographed copy of Vegas Knights to one of her followers. Win it, and I’ll dedicate it to you and ship it on out. Good luck!
Over at Pornokitsch, Jared read Vegas Knights and mostly enjoyed it. Unlike other reviewers, he didn’t care much for the chase scenes, but he really dug the mix of magic and gambling, especially the game Mojo Poker, which plays a huge role in the book:
Mr. Forbeck’s invention of “Mojo Poker” may be the best magical contest since Assumption. Above and beyond the pure fun of wizards duelling over the card table, Mr. Forbeck also uses the card game as a vehicle to demonstrate both cunning and sorcery.
He then sums up:
Vegas Knights has a core handful of intriguing scenes surrounded by a lot of self-consciously blockbuster icing. The latter, as crowd-pleasing as it is, is a shame. The book has the potential to be tense, low-key and subtle, but instead opts for brash flamboyance. Not unlike the city itself (which seems to be doing pretty well out of it).
Some of the other reviews have said the exact opposite of this. Those readers loved the chase scenes and the splashy stuff, but they found the card games tedious. To me, this means two things.
First, you can’t please everyone. Second, Vegas Knights is a book with a mix of sharp flavors in it, and not everyone is going to love them all. Hopefully, though, they’ll find enough to their liking that they enjoy the book as a whole.
Over at SFRevu.com, my friend Drew Bittner raves about Vegas Knights. In part, he writes:
Matt Forbeck creates a fast-paced and deeply engaging story… Every hero is measured by his villains, and Forbeck has created some great villains here… [S]hows a flair for writing breathtaking action scenes… The story itself delivers rock solid entertainment with plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing up to the last page.
Head over there to read the whole thing, and remember: Vegas Knights is on sale now!
At OddCon last weekend, I gave my pal Ken Hite a copy of Vegas Knights. After all, he’s thanked in the acknowledgements as one of my regular compadres in my many wild trips to Vegas, and few people outside the city know it as well as he does. He earned a copy of the book in the best way.
Of course, one of Ken’s favorite books is the excellent Last Call by Tim Powers, a World Fantasy Award-winning book about magic in Vegas, published back in 1992, long before urban fantasy became a subgenre of its own. Couple that with Ken’s well-known status as an erudite and eloquent critic, and I wasn’t sure how he would react to my novel. I figured that if he didn’t like it, he’d at least keep his mouth shut for the sake of our friendship.
Ken just Tweeted a blurb for the book that I wish I could splash across the cover. In its whole, it reads:
Finished VEGAS KNIGHTS by @mforbeck. Master of pacing and plot; style is humane Spillane: clear as a windshield, punchy as an ogre’s fist.
That made my day.
Over at FantasyLiterature.com, Stefan Raets gives Vegas Knights a solid review. While the book went off the rails for him later in the story, he raves about the better part of it, saying such kind things as:
Vegas Knights is a fun, entertaining urban fantasy novel that starts off with a bang and rarely slows down. A large part of the first half of Vegas Knights is one long and excellent action scene that’s genuinely exciting and impossible to put down… The pacing is so hectic that it occasionally feels as if this could have been turned into a much longer novel, but on the plus side, this also means there’s not a dull moment to be found. (And how rare is it nowadays to find a fantasy novel that could have used more padding?)
One of the biggest challenges of writing a novel is devising an ending that fits well, and I’ll admit that’s the time I often feel like I’m skittering along the edge of a mountain road, riding on the guard rail on two wheels. That’s where the thrills are after all. I don’t mind being called on it if it’s not working for a reader, as it’s often a matter of taste, but I’m glad that Stefan enjoyed the book as much as he did. He wraps up saying:
[I]f you don’t take it too seriously, you’ll have a blast with this novel. Vegas Knights is far from perfect… but it’s hard to imagine a more appropriate book to bring along and read by the pool if you’re planning a Vegas trip.
Vegas Knights came out in the US while I was hard at work at Ubisoft Singapore, which meant I didn’t have much time to plug it at the time. Fortunately, some excellent people helped out with that while I was out of town.
Over at From the Shadows, E.J. Stevens interviewed me about Vegas Knights, and I stopped by a few times to chip in on some other comments. We wrestled with questions like, “If you could be any paranormal or have any one supernatural talent, what would it be? Why?”
Meanwhile, at Worlds of Ink, Sean “Nix” McConkey — who I had the pleasure of meeting at Geek.Kon last year — reviewed Vegas Knights and gave it 4 out of 5 stars. Among the many kind things he had to say about the book:
Vegas Knights is one of the rare novels that immediately grabs you and rivets you there… While Vegas Knights is a stand-alone novel…, it was an excellent and exciting adventure and left me hoping for more from these characters.
Vegas Knights is on sale now, both as an ebook and in print. Grab it, and it’ll grab you.
Vegas Knights officially hits shelves in the USA today! It’s been out in the UK since the start of the month, and it’s been racking up loads of rave reviews. If you’d like to read a free sample before you dive in, I have the first five chapters available for you to check out.
You can buy Vegas Knights at stores all around the English-speaking world right now, and I’ve assembled a short list of places to find it, no matter where you might be. Buy early, and buy often! And if you’ve already enjoyed the book, please don’t be shy about telling your friends and neighbors. Thanks!
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