Carnage: Nate Temple Series, Book 14

Carnage, Shayne Silvers’ 14th book of the Nate Temple Series, is a satisfying drink at the end of the day. It is an epic novel that confirms your belief that Silvers is an insane genius. Talking about the long con. There are so many amazing plot twists that will shock you. Silvers brings the TempleVerse story full circle. It reveals many answers yet creates mystery for what is still yet to come. You feel like it comes to a conclusion until you realize that the depth of many characters have yet to be explored. Silvers’ trademark imagery and thought-provoking dialogue is evident in every page. His humor and sarcasm will delight you at every turn. The innuendos and pop culture references will make you laugh out loud and be glad you found this creative world. The book takes you to many places with incredible characters. Characters that are vital in Nate’s life as well as taken from the pages of mythology and pantheon legends. It was wonderful that Carnage also takes you back to classic Nate, a reunion of friends and places. Carnage also shows a lot of heart and life-changing moments. You will walk the same journey with Nate; experiencing his physical and emotional pain, his struggle for answers about love, relationships and survival. Nate’s journey finally brings him the realization that within his soul and being, he can finally be the best of himself, as his parents taught him. What is amazing about Shayne Silvers’ books is the fact that as Nate matures in his journey, you have too. You learn so much about life dynamics that you can’t help be impacted in the same way as Nate has. Nate becomes a friend to walk life with. Shayne Silvers’ imagination is the best place I have ever visited. I can’t imagine where he will take me next but I’ll be ready for the trip.

I just finished Carnage. I have to admit at first I thought I was going to check out of this one, however the payoff was much better than I anticipated. Not only was this my favorite book to date Shayne changed a few things about how the story is told that had an extremely positive impact to the flow of the book. I was really, really happy that he didn't spend as much time in the story rehashing the previous books/points. At this point you pretty much have to assume that the readers are in this with you. Well, I know that I am. There's definitely some good plot twists in this and even up to the end I was conflicted about the choices that were made. But that's also a good thing because it's not a cookie cutter story in any shape or form. The length of the book seemed much longer which I also appreciated, typically I will finish one of these in an afternoon. I think the only partially negative thing I have to say is I wish I hadn't seen any political figure mentioned. It brought me back to reality. It was however ONE line so it's not the end of the world. That story may yet be told here....

We’re now at the 14th book in the Nate Temple Series. This one is another wild ride with Nate traveling back and forth between the realm of the Greek gods and that of the Norse gods, with a few brief pauses at Grimm Tech and Chateau Falco in between. This book takes us back to some of the characters and situations in the earliest books. It also looked like it was going to go back to some of the attitudes in the earliest books. I was prepared to be offended by what appeared to be shaping up to be a sex scene between Nate and the goddess Aphrodite. But this scene morphed into something completely different – a lesson for Nate about unconditional love, and how he needed to discover who he unconditionally loved to free himself from a pair of magical handcuffs known as the Titan Thorns. Zeus had imprisoned him in these Titan Thorns, which block his access to his own magic, to assist in forcing Nate to perform some evil act for him and take the blame for it. There is a lot of physical and mental abuse in this book, as Nate and his pal the Elder Carl are repeatedly beaten and burned by Ares and Apollo at Zeus’ instigation. Along the way, Nate also does some astral projecting, and we see from his viewpoint his encounters with Quinn Mackenna that we already witnessed in Brimstone Kiss. Sadly, in his quest to discover who he really loves, Nate comes to realize that it isn’t Callie Penrose and that she isn’t his first love either. When he finally discovers not only who his real love is, but who she really is, it is an unexpected surprise. And once he has that straight, it allows all the preparations Nate has made for defeating Zeus’ plans to fully take effect.

I took a bit of a break from the Templeverse for a time, and coming back to read the "trilogy" of consecutive releases for each of the three series in their proper order, I have some thoughts. It was good, but it has some flaws. Hold the pitchforks and torches until the end, folks. Going by the story contents, this is yet another massive stage-flip for the entire continuity of the Templeverse and another reshuffling of said stage for bigger, badder and more exciting things to come. More than a few plot threads are tied off nicely in a fashion equally dramatic and heartfelt, some characters go through major developments and personal growth, and as usual Silvers is never afraid to scoop up what he likes of different kinds of mythology, toss it all in a blender and hit the puree setting. It makes for another wildly entertaining ride and drags in a few more twists and turns for good measure to keep you guessing, while sprinkling some more seeds for things to come. That said, I've never shied away from giving Silvers a thorough critique of his works, even back to the first installments of the Nate Temple series. Every author can always strive to be better, something I take to heart trying to be one myself. Silvers has the talent, the drive and the discipline to keep trying to reach further with his stories, which was part of what drew me to his writing in the first place. His stance on independent publishing and encouraging change in the industry goes hand in hand with that. I avoid spoilers on principle because I don't want to deter prospective new readers, and I highly encourage anyone to take my opinions with a grain of salt as they see fit, this is more so me writing direct to Silvers, as I have made a habit of doing through these reviews and on his social media frequently where he engages myself and others on the regular. These books are excellent and this is yet another strong installment in his line-up, that is not being contested here. So that said, and with an understanding of my own on how stories can change and develop unto themselves despite your best efforts to keep it to one straightforward vision, for all the strengths of this installment and the story arc it capped off in general, it also had a couple of glaring weaknesses too. I don't go as far as to call them failures on Silvers' part, and while in some ways they worked with the flow of the narrative for the book itself, to my reading at least they stuck out quite considerably looking at it as part of the greater narrative of the series and the Templeverse as a whole. While making efforts to tie back to some seeds of foreshadowing dating all the way back to the very start of the Nate Temple series, the book also brought to a close a longstanding relationship dynamic that has been up in the air for the better part of a dozen books by now across all three series. Any dedicated readers can probably guess what I'm talking about already without having to read the book first, and I want to make it clear I'm making this review as a writer as much as a reader. One of my very first critiques to Silvers back when the Nate Temple series was new pertained to how through the first person perspective of Nate Temple, the narrative had a tendency to put a spotlight on strong, interesting female characters for all of five minutes before they'd then be regulated to secondary roles that didn't give them much time to shine whatsoever. Given the somewhat bro-mantic nature of his early relationships and his personality in general at the start of the series, I could see Nate comprehending events through his own lens to a certain point, and Silvers definitely made strides from this in the books that followed. This notion developed even better than any of us could have expected, including Silvers himself as he claimed that his second series protagonist Callie Penrose had originally been a more minor character in the overall narrative, but she grew into such a larger role and story of her own that he just had to work it all in. Given events in the overall narrative and their respective books at the time, Callie could have easily gone the route of Lois Lane to Nate's Superman, but instead she came out of it Wonder Woman. Her own character with a narrative that not only matched Nate's, but complimented and brought new perspective to events for him and the Templeverse as a whole. Her series has been excellent unto itself and for adding further depth and flavor to their shared universe. To say Silvers enjoys his plot twists is by all measures, a drastic understatement. He's peppered them into aspects of various legends, turned a number of established tropes on their heads and given more than a few of his characters some very realistic, very left field incidents of development and insight. It has more often than not done quite a bit to keep the momentum of his narrative constantly building and moving forward. In this instance however, the twist comes off heavily out of place and tosses out dozens of well made character moments and foreshadowing hints across multiple books, almost to the point of outright conflicting with how some past narrative was presented entirely. Rather than a twist that moves the overall narrative forward, this feels like an uncertain back-step. The new character dynamic that is instead solidified reads as happening incredibly fast compared to the previous, much more fleshed out dynamic that was given so much time and attention originally. While pushed as something grand and significant, the new dynamic instead comes off more as being pushed for validation retroactively to compensate for said hastiness in its development. The points used to support this are incredibly sparse, focusing on tiny, passing bits of character interaction that when framed with the greater narrative and the development of character relationships therein, honestly makes little to no sense whatsoever. I am consistently impressed by Silvers writing and narrative directions on the whole, but even taking some drastic changes to his intended storyline into account, this installment and the changes it pushes feels the most haphazard his writing has ever been for me. The actual events and changes to character dynamics themselves put aside, it just feels like the whole endeavor could have been planned and enacted to a much better degree for the flow of the greater narrative Silvers has written up to now. We've seen time and again that he is capable of making elaborate shake-ups to his overall story and still making it all fit together well, but this one just seems to fall short on that. Shayne Silvers is a good author, you won't hear that from anyone more than me. But this is a rare case for him where I think he could have done much better.

Is it over?! Really? This was the last one in Nate's series?! It cant be! There is so much more to clear up. The pups! Alice! Alcalaurd's ride? Will this all be handled with Callie and Quinn? I'm not ready for it to be over! This one was full of action and Laughs! Off to the next stop to find some answers!

As reader and fan of the Temple Verse, from Nate to Callie to Quinn and all in between from the very first book, I have to say that Carnage was one of the best of series, finally starting to pull the obviously connected characters together and explaining their pasts and futures in this wonderful creation, while STILL leaving the reader salivating for more. As I read each installment in the Temple Verse group my biggest fear is that it will be the one that is the beginning of the end. This was no exception and while revealing so many secrets we Temple fans have been trying to unravel, it also opens the doors to so many MORE. Without a doubt, the Temple Chronicles and all of the Temple Verse companions are in a class of their own, with no comparison or competition in the genre. Shayne Silvers has created a multiverse that draws the reader in and creates fans - and addicts - to just keep wanting more. As an avid reader since childhood, this has become my favorite escape and it is my hope that we are in for many, many more adventures with Nate and his family for a long time to come. Thank you Mr Silvers, for many hours of escape and enjoyment that I look forward to with every release. If you haven't entered (aka - jumped into) the Temple Verse I highly recommend you take the plunge no matter what your favored genre is. You won't regret it.

This edition in the temple verse definitely takes you for a tailspin of drama, emotion and mystery. We start out almost upset at the authors choice of direction and then finish with the not so surprising. Wow that really was for the better

Carnage, for me, was a particularly interesting installment in the series. It had a great ending; I really liked the interaction between the main characters and different pantheons; we finally received some closure on Nate’s love life; and the purpose of the new Horsemen was finally made clear, which was particularly intriguing…and as usual, there were multiple twists and turns, with these massive reveals unexpected and unanticipated. You can see the author really put some thought into this installment and set up the continuing story-line very nicely. It’s difficult to keep a series fresh after 14 books but the author has a knack for keeping the series interesting and the reader engaged. A big thumbs up for carnage and as always, I recommend and look forward to the next book in the series.