Miskatonic & Gin' Wrote:I'll agree that none of them had the gut-wrenching impact on Jack's life but we were offering up our nominees for THE BEST (your words) book right? I'm just arguing my side of why I don't think Harbingers is the BEST Jack book.
Now, I would also argue that the "most all out action filled book" would have to be All The Rage or Gateways as opposed to Harbingers. Think about it for a monet....er, moment.
As for revelations, Gateways could give Harbingers a run for the money but I'll give you the edge there....slightly.
And as for gut-wrenchingest? The scene between Gia and Tara Portman's father in The Haunted Air affected me far more than anything else in the Jack series. And nearly FPW's entire ouvere. Harbingers was intense for sure, but that moment in The Haunted Air was very raw and emotional and really hit me hard. This very human moment amidst a haunting supernatural ghost story really took me by surprise. The way FPW conveys her father's sense of loss in that scene is incredibly heartbreaking and highlights his strength as an author to shift gears from the supernatural to the very human at a moments notice. We thought Gia might unearth some clues regarding Tara and we were treated to something very, very different there.
These are just my opinons, but...
Breaking down the action:
Gateways: Jack versus Otherness twisted hillbilly's
All the Rage: Jack versus comitted Serbian drug dealers
Harbingers: Jack versus stone cold, highly trained assasins
On the gut-wrenching front, while that scene from Haunted Air was very touching for us, the readers, I don't recall Jack being directly involved.
"A spear has no branches" and all that it involves for Jack's whole family was pivotal to Jack and equally gut wrenching for the reader. I fail to see how one moment in Haunted Air, however touching, can compare to the events that occur to Gia and Vicky in just Harbingers, let alone the revelation of who is respobsible for the cumulative tragedy to Jack's family in 4 previous books (Hosts, Haunted Air, Infernal and Gateways).
It seems we will have to continue to disagree.
-Wapitikev