{"id":160,"date":"2014-02-01T14:03:58","date_gmt":"2014-02-01T19:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buddy.brannan.name\/blog\/?p=160"},"modified":"2014-02-01T14:26:18","modified_gmt":"2014-02-01T19:26:18","slug":"review-the-33-pramantha-part-1-of-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buddy.brannan.name\/blog\/2014\/02\/review-the-33-pramantha-part-1-of-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The 33: Pramantha, Part 1 of 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheHave you been wondering what J. C. Hutchins<\/a> has been up to since the Seventh Son trilogy came out?<\/p>\n

Oh wait. You don’t know who he is, or what that is? Well, that maybe is for another time. I’ll link to it later. Work with me here, OK? <\/p>\n

j.C. hasn’t been idle, no sir. He’s been working on interesting things, including a publicity campaign for the recent Fox series “Almost Human”, among other things. He seems to be Mr. Transmedia. That’s a fancy $50 word for things that transcend different kinds of media, like books and games and Internet, audio, and goodness, people who are a lot smarter than I am should probably explain it. Besides that though, he’s been hatching this idea that he brought up way back when he was still updating the Seventh Son trilogy. Now, he’s unleashing it on an unsuspecting public with the first installment, Pramantha, Part 1. This is a four-part story, set in a universe that will have lots more stories, some multipart, some standalone, and, if this first one is any indication, stories that will grab you right away and won’t let go. Kind of like a teleport across the world, except without the puking, but I’m a bit ahead of myself. <\/p>\n

Here’s how Hutch introduced the story to me:<\/p>\n


\nThe 33 is my new episodic fiction project, which debuts this Friday (Jan. 31). It’s a sci-fi\/supernatural thriller series about a group of 33 misfits tasked with thwarting a cabal of baddies keen to jumpstart the apocalypse. It’s The A-Team meets The X-Files, with a dash of Hellboy and Global Frequency added for apocalyptic spice.
\n<\/quote><\/p>\n

Whew!<\/p>\n

So how was it? In short, go get it immediately. While it’s a bit of a mystery why it begins the way it does, we don’t start with anyone’s idea of a slow buildup of action or background. We jump in with both feet. This must be a Hutch thing. It’s sort of like starting the first book of Seventh Son: Descent<\/i> with “The President of the United States is dead. He was murdered in the morning sunlight by a four-year-old boy.” Pramantha<\/i> begins in similarly dramatic fashion. I was left at the end of the story wondering how the beginning connected, but I’m sure all will be revealed in due course. <\/p>\n

This part of the story introduces us to the 33, (or at least, a few of them), just as one of its newest members learns about this secret anti-apocalyptic organization. They don’t deal with things as mundane as religious fanatics and airplane hijackings. Their stakes are higher. A more mismatched group of misfits would be harder to find. With such varied backgrounds and appearances, it’s hard to see how these people are going to interact, much less work together to foil whatever plot they’re assigned to foil, but that’s just the beginning of what I’m sure will unfold in the coming months. For instance, what are their secrets? What was the deal they made with their mysterious…boss? Benefactor? Blackmailer? Clearly, this series has, and will have, lots of layers. Kind of like ogres, except maybe not so nice as the PixR type ogres. <\/p>\n

While this first installment is self-contained, as in “Things happen, and there’s a good stopping point”, remember that this is the first part of a four-part story, which will be released a month at a time. You’re not going to get resolution at the end of this installment. There isn’t even a whole bunch of action yet. But this story lays the groundwork and gives us a small glimpse of what lies ahead, should we follow these five maybe odd characters. And what lies ahead promises to be very, very interesting. <\/p>\n

You can find out more about the series and buy your own copy of the story in either Ebook or audio format by visiting this page,<\/a> And if you really did miss the Seventh Son books (really, it was a total of five), along with other original fiction, on this page.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you been wondering what J. C. Hutchins has been up to since the Seventh Son trilogy came out? Oh wait. You don’t know who he is, or what that is? Well, that maybe is for another time. I’ll link to it later. Work with me here, OK? j.C. hasn’t been idle, no sir. He’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[90,31,30,91],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-fiction","tag-opinion-2","tag-review","tag-sf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buddy.brannan.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buddy.brannan.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buddy.brannan.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buddy.brannan.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buddy.brannan.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/buddy.brannan.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162,"href":"https:\/\/buddy.brannan.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions\/162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buddy.brannan.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buddy.brannan.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buddy.brannan.name\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}