Right off the bat, I’ll admit that this review is vastly different from all the others which have come before it for the simple fact that it’s my first big boy, all grown up review - I received my copy of Vegas Knights as an advance copy; strictly for reviewing purposes. Though technically unpaid, this review is the first (hopefully of many) fully professional reviews that I’ll be writing for Angry Robot Books

I picked up Vegas Knights first because it was classified as Urban Fantasy, a genre which I have quite a passion for as both a reader and an author myself. I adore the mixing of concepts like magic, good and evil and fantastical creatures with contemporary settings such as St. Louis, Chicago or in this instance, Las Vegas.

Initially, I was sceptical about Vegas as a setting - it’s glitzy, it’s gaudy and it symbolises greed better than any other location on the planet. None of which do I generally associate with the ‘good’ Urban Fantasy stories that I’ve read in the past. But you know what? Matt Forbeck really makes it work for his story. The idea that it isn’t the Mob that runs Vegas but Magicians is an unexpected spin though not so unexpected as to seem incredulous.

Having said that, I did find some things that stopped Vegas Knights from joining the ranks of my favourite Urban Fantasy books - mostly niggling plot details that needed a bit more … something. Not polish, the story as it stands is already very well constructed, I just wanted some more clarification in certain areas I guess. As an example, the whole deal with the bullet right near the beginning - there wasn’t any explanation offered for where it actually came from. And I found that irked me, much more after I’d finished the story than while I’d been reading. There was also no clear reason given as to why some of the zombies were just ‘mindless killing machines’ while some others (alright, at least one) retained their higher neural functions.

The biggest thing that annoyed me was simply that the story suffered from Superman Syndrome, in that the main character is too powerful for anything to believably challenge him, especially towards the end. Should Vegas Knights become an on-going series, the writer will either have to come up with more and more ludicrously overpowered enemies for Jackson to fight OR contrive a reason for him to lose much of his power, which just cheapens making him so powerful in the first place.

While reading Vegas Knights, I was very strongly reminded of one of my favourite games from last year - Fallout: New Vegas. The obviousness of the setting aside, the parallels of a (reasonably) naive character pursuing a personal quest only to be caught up in a war between different factions only to end up (potentially) right at the very top of the food chain are unmistakable and made Vegas Knights feel rather nostalgic for me.

It may not have rocketed straight into place as My Favouritest Book Ever! but there’s more than enough here for me to say quite truthfully that I enjoyed the ride - strong, easily distinguishable characters, pop-culture references liberally scattered all over the place, a genuinely intriguing twist on the standard Urban Fantasy set-up and most of all, a writer who wasn’t afraid to write a fantasy story where every obstacle wasn’t surmounted with the equivalent of hurling fireballs at it.

If nothing else, Matt Forbeck has earned a place on my Authors To Keep An Eye On list because, even if this wasn’t his The Dresden Files or Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, there’s every reason to believe that he’ll get there eventually.