Book Review: Emergence – Author William Vitka

Well, here we go again with Mr. William Vitka. We last visited his world in a stellar end of days account in Infected. His new tale is a prequel to Infected. Something I was very excited to hear about because Emergence Day is spoken about in Infected but you never really find out any details. Well, kiddies, the details have arrived.

While Emergence is advertised as a “Dark, gritty young-adult horror fantasy”, I found it to be a very mature and very old-adult. There is plenty of swearing, drinking, smoking, and gore. It is also advertised as a “coming of age story”. Yeah, sure, if coming of age means that you are a pre-teen/teen and are getting ready to learn that you have super-powers that have been passed down eons from some insane, corrupted titans from space.

Our chronicle takes place around three horror-savvy children; Jack, Catarina, and Caleb. They are children of immigrants living in Brooklyn and consider themselves a tribe. They had a forth (spoiler), Patrick, but he doesn’t…eh…make it. Although Patrick meets his demise about half way through the book, we do get to see him again and he is the one that really dots the I’s and crosses the T’s in our tale. He accomplishes this with the help of a body possession by an ancient titan Hroza. I look up Hroza (because I am like that) and it is a word from German/Slovak language meaning horror or fright.

These Hroza have been slumbering in our earth forever and many years ago they had the misfortune of running out of food. This is a little complicated but some of them decided to go into space to find knowledge while some of them decided to stay. Mr. Vitka explains this better than I ever could. The important part is that the ones that went into space apparently went insane in all of the blackness and now have decided, after many centuries, to reclaim the earth.

Our heroes, Jack, Catarina, and Caleb are decedents of these beings and have super-powers that threaten the crazy Hroza’s plan with retaking the earth. The tribe (our heroes) sees their powers rise to the surface and will do anything to save our earth and beat back the ancient ones.

Emergence is a cool read. I found the beginning quarter of the book very confusing. I think this was on purpose in order to get the reader in a frantic state of mind like our trio of super-kids. Once Patrick (re)shows up things begin to streamline and everything becomes much more clear and concise.

I have said this before, Mr. Vitka writes great action. And his action comes with heaping helpings of gore and blood and entrails and chipped bone and…ya’ know what I mean. This book really made me want to go back and reread Infected, just to see the parallels. Nice job, Mr. Vitka. And, of course, coodles to your brother, Sean, on another amazing cover.

Book Review: Emergence – Author William Vitka