Cameron Rogers, The Music of Razors

The Music of Razors

Cameron Rogers

Del Rey, May 2007, $17.98, 336 pp.

ISBN: 0345493192

Seventy-two angels fell with Samael and a seventy-third wanted to make a deal with him. However, knowing how dangerous Samael is, he aged the bones of another angel and used them to infuse each one with his own form and then scattered the pieces all over the world. Samuel rejected the Angel and; while an angel can neither be killed nor unmade, God stripped the angel of everything that made him unique. Now nobody knows the angel exists including himself. That is the punishment God meted out to the angel who was rejected by heaven and hell.

In the nineteenth century, Henry, a man who desperately wants to be a surgeon, needs Dorian who knows something about the angel. He and Henry as well as a few others create a coven to summon someone who can tell him about the instruments that was made form the angel's bones. That s ance turns deadly and Dorian disappears, collecting the instruments in his travels until he meets Henry again in a small Arizona town and takes his place. He collects souls to barter with the winner of the war between heaven and hell but he is getting tired now and wants to find his replacement. He thinks he found that person in the child Walter but he escapess by merging with that of the monster in the closet that was guarding him. Henry has set his sights on Walter's sister Hope and Walter will do anything to prevent it.

Fans of cutting edge fantasy will enjoy this book as it spans a century of time that to beings that are more than mortal is like the blink of the eye. Reminiscent of the works of Neal Gaiman, THE MUSIC OF RAZORS has a surrealistic feel to it which makes the different times very easy to follow and understand. Cameron Rogers richly deserves the nomination for the Aureoles Award for Best fantasy in Australia that he received.

Harriet Klausner