By the Time You Hear the Thunder, it's too late...

What do you get when you intertwine flying prehistoric creatures, an extinct civilization, eight foot tall sultry goddesses, and Bugatti automobiles?  "Kokopelli's Thunder: Fall of the Anasazi" by Sean Cordry - that's what.

The Anasazi are people who live simple lives in impressive structures.  One could consider them almost boring, except for the fact that they raise pterodactyl type creatures from hatchlings and "imprint" with them using bagpipe like contraptions.  It is the ancient version of drone warfare, except scarier.  And they spit fire - not breathe fire - but spit it.  Two spits - one for fuel / one for fire.  Gross AND deadly!

The story jumps back and forth 700 or so years, which brings us to the beautiful yellow Bugatti that has no business driving around the desert.  A stolen artifact "recovery agent", winds up meeting Frankie, a stuttering boy, and his best friend, Turq - who is strong and wise for his age.  Did I mention a witch?  Oh, well this isn't the Wizard of Oz variety we are dealing with here - magic requires sacrifice.  And sometimes the results aren't exactly what you thought you wanted....

In his "About the Author" section, Cordry says that he has a talent for seeing and making connections between seemingly unconnected events.  This may be a huge understatement.  When I first started reading this book, I thought that Cordry was going to take us on a long and winding journey that would never quite reach it's destination.  However, Cordry lives up to his bio and pulls it off.  

I am a fan of the X-Files series, and this was like watching a couple of episodes together on peyote (I have never touched the stuff, for the record) - lots of unexpected turns with lots of supernatural events and enough deaths to make Conan proud.  I am talking whole civilizations here!  

I hope the author does well enough with this book to keep him writing.  There is definitely talent here - and I would love to see what combinations he chooses to tweak with next go-around.

Strengths 

• Fabulous story.  This author obviously did his research about the Anasazi and their culture and beliefs (what little is known about them).

• Enough action to keep your interest, but maintaining enough focus on character development and detail to spark your imagination.

• Totally original - this is what I have come to love about Indie Authors!  This is a story that may never have been shared any other way.

• No issues with grammar or spelling.

Weaknesses

• My only issue was trying to remember all of the different names of the Anasazi places and people.  But, to be fair to the author, I imagine "James Smith" wasn't a very popular name - especially since I have learned that "James" sounds a lot like "rabbit poop" in whatever language the author was using....

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