The Dirty Streets of Heaven: Volume One of Bobby Dollar

Oh man was this a miss for me. I have to preface this by saying that Tad Williams is probably my favorite fantasy author of all-time. The guy can do no wrong. Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is phenomenal and the Shadowmarch series is not far behind in quality in my opinion. I was a bit skeptical about him delving into the urban fantasy realm. I say this because Tad is such a damn good epic fantasy writer. He's so good that he dominates that segment of the fantasy genre. Nobody writes with the beauty and originality of Tad in an epic fantasy setting. But since he's one of my faves, I finally relented and wanted to see what all of the Bobby Dollar stuff was all about. Well, I didn't like it that's for sure. To be honest, I'm just not an urban fantasy type of guy. It never clicked with me as a genre, so I was going into this series already with a check mark in the negative column. Then I started reading and realizing that Tad should just stick with epic fantasy (which I'm glad he's doing by revisiting the world of Osten Ard). The things that bothered me about The Dirty Streets of Heaven are: The slapstick and overly-forced witty dialogue. Oh man was this laid on thick. Bobby is just too cool for school and he can't wait to tell you about it. The dialogue is just one cleverly sarcastic statement after another. I also found the world not that interesting to tell you the truth. The angels and demons were kind of cool, but again, they were cookie-cutter for the most part each imbued with their own heavy-handed clunky wittiness as well. When I finally finished the book I was relieved and my image of Tad Williams is such that me feeling this way should never be the case. I've always relished and savored each and every Tad book that I've read and I felt kind of sad when I put down this book. I felt almost like somebody suggested that he try to write an urban fantasy series because it was a genre that grew in popularity very quickly. However, my impression of Tad writing urban fantasy was validated - a square peg trying to be rammed into a round hole. I love the guy and I will be eagerly anticipating the continuation of the Osten Ard books this coming May but man, this was a train wreck. It is safe to say that I most certainly will not be finishing the Bobby Dollar series. This experiment failed on a grand scale for me.

I have always enjoyed fantasy revolving around the afterlife, hell, etc. I enjoyed the Sandman Slim series, most recently the Daniel Faust series, Dante's Inferno, etc.The difference with the Bobby Dollar is that rather than the characters being associated with Hell, they're associated with Heaven. This, initially, was a concern for me, and left me wondering if the series would be boring.Yeah, it isn't. Book 1 was very interested, especially once it got going, with plenty of unexpected turns, a lot of action, an interesting protagonist (an underachieving earthbound angel who questions things), a very interesting premise toward the end, etc.Ok, so, there is one "flaw". At least I thought it was at first. There's a VERY contrived "love" story in this. It didn't make sense to me at first.I was initially wondering why the character would feel this way. It felt contrived. then I realized -- it's a character flaw. When you consider the history of the character, it makes sense he would act like that. And it sets up the next book.

Bobby Dollar is an honest-to-God angel. But he’s not the kind that sits around on a cloud all day strumming a tune. Oh no. Bobby just so happens to be an Advocate, a lawyered-up ‘second’ in the corner of those recently departed. His everyday – and night – job involves standing up for people who have died to ensure their life’s course is properly scrutinized for a fair and honest judgment, made by an ethereally appointed judge.The outcome of such a determination? Easy...Heaven or Hell.Just the kinda angel you’d like in your corner…or so you’d think.The trouble is, Bobby Dollar is a bit of a wise-ass who can’t keep his mouth shut or himself out of compromising situations – with his own side as much as the opposition. And when the souls of the dearly departed start going missing before their otherworldly adjudicators can attend the scene of their passing, well, fingers naturally start to point at Bobby himself.But why? One thing’s for sure…Bobby would like to find out.I gotta say, I loved this fast-paced tale of misadventure. And so will you.

An adult Noir'ish take on the whole Detective story.While the lead character is not a PI - the style of the book is definitely paying homage the the traditional Pi story.The veneer of Heavenly and hellish agents on earth adds a rather obvious set up for confrontaition and villany that somehow removes all the mystery that these stories usually build on.Despite the title heaven is mostly off limits and kept deliberately vague.Ive read a lot better from Tad williams and Ive read a lot better Urban fantasy. Its ok - but dissapointing from this author and as part of the genre.

For whatever reason, it's been a long time since I read any of the author's novels; the last was the long, but largely enjoyable, Otherland series. The news that he's writing a sequel to his Orten Ard trilogy, prompted me to see what I'd missed; and since this Kindle book was going cheap over xmas, it seemed like a match made in heaven.Ostensibly, we have It's a Wonderful Life as detective noir, with a smattering of horror, which sounds great. Sadly, the reality is several floors down from the elevator pitch. For starters, the central character is smugly irritating; something that actually had me rooting for the 'other side', who shared my opinion. More importantly, we have a thin plot, with femme fatale, evil CEO, an unkillable monster, and a bureaucratic heaven. The latter was an overly safe choice, when something more subversive might have given the story some much needed teeth. I'm assuming this is urban, rather than biblical fantasy?On the plus side, many of the characters are fairly engaging, just not Bobby Dollar; and Williams does keep the action, if not the plot, moving along, albeit over way too many pages; why do successful fantasy authors not have authoritative editors?! In short, not bad, not great; probably won't be reading the sequels, but I'm still up for a return to Osten Ard.

What a joy to read, I have read many of Tad Williams book's and he is an exceptional Author. This book of the battle between Good and Evil is a great thought provoking take on religion and how we perceive it. I like the premise that no one religion is correct or wrong, Bobby Dollar is a great character, he is like an Angelic gumshoe. He affects everyone and everything he meets, in both good and bad ways. I can't wait to read the next instalment. Fab

Overlong and the story dragged. Could have done with better editing to tighten up the story and make it flow better.This is a weird cross between urban fantasy and crime noir and on the plus side I found it quite innovative and different. You might appreciate it better if you like Dashiel Hammett and that ilk. Not really my personal cup of tea as I prefer a story to move along more quickly, so I kept putting it down and never really got into the story, which is about an angel advocate's investigation into why souls are going missing before they can be judged.

I've read most of Tad Williams' work and this one just doesn't come up to his usual standard. The denuement was clearly visible lumbering over the horizon right from the beginning, and I came up with a much more interesting use for the Clarence character, so I was disappointed when he turned out to be exactly what he seemed like - a spy.It's derivative - there are plenty of books around at the moment about supernatural detectives, and I got a bit tired of wisecracking Bobby Dollar. So 1950's! Also using the name Doloriel, which may have seemed funny at the time as the Dolorien car was a gull-wing, makes a connection with something which was a spectacular flop. Which I'm afraid this book is. Sorry.