imPerfect Magic - Book Review

Imperfect Magic, Imperfect Cathar, Book I, by C.N. Rowan, unfolds as a gripping dark noir fantasy, catering to readers with a taste for the intense and the imaginative rather than the faint-hearted, unimaginative, or easily offended. The book's preface warns of explicit language and graphic violence. Authored by a British writer, it employs British English, presenting an added layer of complexity through unfamiliar and invented vocabulary. However, the novel's intricate and diabolical plot and unexpected dashes of humor richly reward the reader, making the challenging journey more than worthwhile.

This heinously funny, supernatural suspense chronicles the adventures of Paul from present-day Toulouse, France, to 1211, back to the present, and zig-zagging from past to present with scenes set in each time period that roughly correspond to recorded history. The storyteller is Paul, a reincarnated "being" who is tortured by a magical wizard. The humorous depiction of  Paul being physically persecuted sets the tone for much of the novel. Instantly reincarnated, Paul has aged 800 years without learning much. Throughout the book, Paul shares some of his past lives and experiences.

Many centuries ago in the south of France, a Christian religious offshoot called "Cathar" was confronted by the Church, which set into motion a crusade and the inquisition against the other religions. Much of the tone and events portrayed in the novel are imaginatively distorted historical Christian beliefs. Angels inhabit humans, while pure thought and energy can transition the Talented. Reincarnation is a byproduct.

Paul is trapped by magical angel-made runes in an impossible situation. If he cannot stop what is happening, the whole world of reality is in danger. He explores dungeons and caves, fights monsters and soldiers, discovers deadly friends, and questions his life purpose. 

Mages and wizards, werewolves, and snail-like gastropods try to impede Paul's quest for a magical icon, his search for a brother, and to rescue a beautiful saint. The reader's olfactory senses are stimulated by gross gore, while visually disgusting visceral imagery is introduced by the author's language skills. "As ever succinct, if lacking in linguistic artistry", aptly describes how he invokes mental images. He writes that an attacking werewolf "looks like an Elvis-impersonating Sasquatch." And then there is Franc and a monstrous horror that leaves little to the imagination as it slithers through the tunnels.

The plot is a Gordian knot of treachery and supernatural suspense that follows three immortal heretics who are trying to uncover the powers behind a threat to destroy the world.

This supernatural, thriller, fantasy novel will surely attract readers anxiously awaiting the darkly funny sequels.