"The Bone Triangle (Unspeakable Things: Book Two)" by B.V. Larson

When we last saw Quentin Draith he had temporarily saved the world from an impending alien invasion from another dimension, he had a great girl at his side and was newly rich. Things were looking up for the amnesiac rogue. That is until he receives a cryptic warning from an old acquaintance and becomes involved in a mystery involving multiple deaths in a neighborhood in Vegas known as The Bone Triangle.

Picking up a couple of months after the first book in this series ended, we are quickly thrown back into the dangerous and interesting world that Draith inhabits. With all the set-up already out of the way, author B.V. Larson jumps right into the story and throws a number of obstacles his way to keep audiences guessing and on the edge of their seats.

I’m not going to go into a whole lot of detail about “The Bone Triangle” so that those of you that have not read the first book in the “Unspeakable Things” series, “Technomancer”, aren’t punched in the face by multiple spoilers, so this will be a relatively short review.

While Larson dives into the mystery surrounding Draith’s memory loss in full as well as expands the world and the overall story arc for the series, he does take a minor step backwards in terms of the plot in the title of the novel. I do enjoy the world in which this series takes place, the standalone story in “The Bone Triangle” is quite lame and not all that gripping when compared to “Technomancer”. Essentially this is a big gooey monster story, and not a very good one at that. The creature that can rip through to our dimension to periodically to eat people isn’t all that fun when compared to the Gray Men from the first novel, and some of the new characters introduced here aren’t even remotely likable.

While I do like the power of the artifact the new love interest, Jacqueline Swanson, holds (a candy cane that makes you invisible and can blind you if you use it for too long), she is as boring and one dimensional as sidekicks come. I mean seriously, her motivation for using the candy cane – stealing shoes. Lots and lots of shoes. Wow. Just wow. And she just wants to fuck. A lot.

New Domain Lord, Gutter Jim, lives in the sewers and can teleport in and out of them at will. Basically he’s just there to help move the story along and provide exposition whenever needed. I‘m not as fond of him as I am of the Rostok character who makes a return appearance here. He’s more interesting this time around since his pet lava slug Ezzie has left him and he’s desperate to have her found. We see his vulnerable side, well, as vulnerable as one can get when he’s always covered in darkness.

I do like the twists the story takes in the final third, which I will not ruin here for those interested in reading the eBook. It came out of nowhere and gave some already established characters added depth and a new angle. There are also more clues dropped in regards to the impending alien invasion and how it all ties into Draith’s lost past.

But the main issue I had with “Technomancer” rears its ugly head here as well, and that’s Larson’s horrible dialogue and the way his characters talk. No one speaks in this ultra-formal style he seems to think they do, and it grates on the nerves something fierce. I can understand a couple of the more uptight characters doing so, but not everyone, including a dude that lives in a sewer. It’s an annoying writing style Larson has chosen and I hope he can move past it in future novels.

Like I said, Larson excels when he’s world building and expanding the mythology of the series. His problems lie in finding a decent story for the main characters to participate in to link it all up properly and the way they interact with one another. While I did enjoy this book I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the previous one. Still, “The Bone Triangle” is definitely worth a read.

3 out of 5