Dominion is the second in the Burned Man series by Peter Blake.  The story picks up not long after Drake (the first in series) left off and the action is fairly intense from the get go. I thought Dominion was a solid instalment in the series, the characters have been fleshed out and added to and the dark side of London is explored further.  Be warned, if you haven’t read the first in series there may be spoilers contained below. Dominion, probably in the style of other UF stories, is a self contained instalment – it can probably be read as a stand alone although I would always suggest starting from the first so that you pick up more background to the characters. At the start of the story our main protagonist, Don Drake, former hitman (or diabolist), has been roped into checking out a potential problem below the streets of London – in fact below the Tube.  Basically, deep beneath the underground tunnels of London live the elementals, gnomes.  It seems that their home is slowly being destroyed by something they know only as the ‘Rotman’.  Everything is decaying, including those who lay eyes on this monster and the…

Just finished reading Drake, a new urban fantasy written by Peter McLean and set in a gritty London underground where gambling and gangsters, demons and other ancient creatures stalk the shadows.   Don Drake is essentially a hitman, he calls himself a ‘Hieromancer’ but basically, in his own words, he ‘summons and sends’ demons and other nasties to do the dirty work he’s been contracted to do by the local mob. He has a little helper, a rather repugnant and vile mouthed creature called the Burned Man. The Burned Man is in actual fact an archdemon who has been imprisoned many years ago and is now represented on earth by a small effigy of a burnt man chained to an altar. Of course the actual demon really resides in Hell but having been captured and bound in this form he is compelled to serve his owner and his power is really quite vast.   The story gets off to a fairly rapid start and we are introduced to Don just as he hits an all time low, losing at cards to Wormwood, the seedy (not to mention other worldly) owner of a gambling den. Losing at cards of course means…