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Born in 1980 and raised in Johnstown, PA, I started writing a still-unfinished novel at 14 years of age. After moving to Las Vegas in 2000, I started writing again, starting with "The Seeing Glass," and eventually getting to "The Taming of Adam" series. My preferred genre is fantasy, for its adventure and explosive imagination. I once read an interview with a Star Trek screenwriter who said, "Good sci fi has to be about something," meaning it has to have a special message and not just be entertaining. I work that philosophy into my own writing, making stories that make you think about your own life without being too irritatingly preachy. The "Taming of Adam" series is a great example of this, being about a young man who starts out extremely antisocial but ends up opening his heart a little to life's boundless possibilities. It's a serious story that's not without humor, a tense drama that ends with rollicking adventure.
Reviewed by Kim Anisi for Readers' Favorite
Adam Taylor, the protagonist of The Taming of Adam: Part 3: The Dark Hour by Jason Hubbard, decides that he needs to do everything in his magical power to bring back a person that has been unfairly murdered. But the powers he is tapping into are not well perceived by others in the world. Eventually, it is not his dabbling with necromancy that gets the 25-year-old mage into trouble. A mysterious stranger turns up in Adam's tattoo shop, gets a tattoo, and creeps everyone out a little. Then the stranger appears to Adam's girlfriend and everything starts to get out of control. Adam is pulled into an adventure that will see him confront an enemy most people would have issues fighting with (can't spoil it here though). It is a powerful enemy from a different time - and he has the help of two gods on his side.
I was surprised by how easy it was to lose myself in the world of The Taming of Adam. After all, I had not read the previous books and had been worried about not understanding anything. It might be interesting to read the other books, but it is not a prerequisite to understand AND enjoy Part 3. I found it very interesting how so many different conflicts and ideas could be put into one book. There is a conflict of whether or not to revive a long lost love, how to deal with stalkers magically, how to deal with involuntary time travel, how to cope with realizing that your future self might not quite be what you hoped you would be - not to forget dealing with the fact that all you believed about the past of your planet and your gods is more or less a lie.
Adam is a fascinating character and I was surprised by some of the decisions he made along the way. It took me around 12 hours or so of total reading time to get through the book and there was never a point at which I was bored or not interested in how problems would be solved. I love long books. Well, GOOD long books - but in the modern times of book publishing you rarely ever get good long books that do not bore you to death and make you abandon them after a few chapters. This one is a pleasant exception and I would recommend it to all readers who are interested in a different kind of fantasy story where things often do not turn out to be what you thought they would.
