Having found herself the reincarnation of martyr Joan the Arc, hottie archaeologist Annja Creed returns to save the world once more in ROGUE ANGEL: SOLOMON’S JAR. This time around, the ancient relic everyone’s after isn’t Joan’s mighty sword, but the Jar of Solomon, reputed to hold demonic forces.
Annja’s quest for the jar takes her o’er the globe, from Peru to the Netherlands to Tel Aviv. Trouble is always at her tail, but moreso after she is assumed to have slaughtered the owner of an antiquities shop she visits. Help comes in the form of an underground kabbalist. Creed’s first adventure, ROGUE ANGEL: DESTINY, was good, but this one suffers a bit from more-of-the-same disease, as if key points of the previous plots were simply blanks to be filled in on a Mad Libs.
Again, Annja gets herself involved after reading a mysterious Usenet newsgroup posting. Again, she’s aided by the centuries-old French guy. Again, she flees from tough spot to tough spot with a dashing young hunk near her side. Again, she triumphs by willing the sword out of thin air when needed – a gift of the fantastic that comes a little too easily as a convenient plot device.
This doesn’t signify a bad read – just one laden with major déjà vu. Given that DESTINY was a breezy read, SOLOMON’S JAR has to be the same by virtue of its carbon-copied nature, and it is. But for the series to have life, it needs to go in a little different direction; hopefully, next month’s THE SPIDER STONE has a compass that points elsewhere. –Rod Lott
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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• ROGUE ANGEL: DESTINY by Alex Archer
Related posts:
- Rogue Angel: Destiny
- Angel Dust Apocalypse
- Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
- Q&A with THE STUPIDEST ANGEL’s Christopher Moore
- Heretic: The Templar Chronicles
