Part One of the Soul Trader Trilogy, in which Nick Hob, Soul Trader and Horsepower Whisperer, discovers the plot to destroy our very souls and how the great struggle between good,evil and the forces of bland began.
Fast and furious meets carry On Screaming
Ever felt your spirits are being sapped? Are the colours being rinsed out of life’s rich tapestry? Is your soul being destroyed? Ever thought it might be deliberate?
Nick Hob is the Horsepower Whisperer.
He talks the torque and races in the Wild Hunt.
With a few well chosen words, he inspires engines to great feats of speed, power and endurance. And he will share this power with you if you will trade with him your soul.
But after answering a Save Our Souls message from a doomed airliner, he can barely believe his Extra Sentiency Perception. He’s been short changed. Something in Post Unification Euphobia encourages severe soul erosion.
Can Hob offer salvation?
Or is he just another destroyer?
Part One of The Soul Trader Trilogy
Excerpt
The stranger took a business card from a pocket of his battered leather jacket and presented it to M Cadvare.
"My card."
M Cadvare stood up and studied the stranger for a moment. His clothes did not follow any obvious fashionality and he spoke with one of the pre- unification dialects. The hand that offered the card had long steely fingers with several notable scars and dirty black fingernails.
M Cadvare took the card and glanced at it. "There's nothing on it," he said.
"Modesty forbids it."
M Cadvare turned it over. "And no address either."
The stranger smiled and shrugged. "I'm never at home."
But something made M Cadvare turn the card over a second time. " 'Nicholas Eldritch Hob,' " he read out. " 'Soul Trader and Holder of Soul Rites.' What odd spelling. 'Horsepower Whispering a speciality.' Pleased to meet you, Monsieur - er, Mister Hob," and they shook hands. "Enrico Cadvare, at your service."
Hob grinned a diabolical grin that defied the conventions of muscles and tendons. "Call me Hob, like everyone else."
Professional Reviews
A rollicking romp
The Horsepower Whisperer by Bob Blackman is a rollicking romp through time, space and history from the age of the dinosaurs to the far flung future filled with irreverent but delightful humor, quirky characters and non-stop action. It also makes one pause, and think, and look at this non-stop world of ours in a different light.
I must admit I had no idea what Cult Engine Punk is and even less idea what or where Anarchadia is when I first embarked on this crazy ride. I took a side trip to the Anarchadia website (http://www.anarchadia.co.uk/index.html) to get a bit of an idea before I started reading. Once I started reading I didn’t care. I was plunged into the fast paced and - now and again - confusing plot from the outset.
I was never quite sure if Hob was really the good guy or the bad guy. I suppose it’s all in your point of view. If free-wheeling freedom and a healthy disregard for conforming to anyone’s standard but his own makes a good guy then Hob is very good indeed – soul trader or not. Of course, those who find deviation from the established norm disturbing and even unlawful will see Hob as evil personified.
What ever he is, Hob is likeable, entertaining, full of himself and, down right fun. His escapades and ploys shoot the plot forward with only a pause now and then to catch one’s breath. Hob’s adventures in Euphobia, his rescue of Monsieur Cadvare, the transaction auditor and Nenuphar, the vegetarian, and his clashes with Comformorians lead the reader a merry chase over Post Unification Euphobia across the ocean and to the shores of Anarchadia itself.
But is doesn’t stop there. What ever is Therese Darlmat up to in that souped-up pink Cadillac of hers? And what about Kevin Mullins’ travels through time and his conversations with God?
The first book of the Soul Trader Trilogy sets the stage, whets your appetite and leaves you hanging with baited breath and still-ringing laughs for the next installment. I enjoyed every word ~ even the ones I was never quite sure what they meant. But then you must travel to Anarchadia yourself to find out about that!
In the second book in the Ember Reign series, Megan and her friends decide to investigate a haunted mansion to discover it was once a secret government laboratory dealing with extraterrestrial biological entities.
