I find it's difficult to get through a long tale like this when there are no sympathetic characters. For me, if everyone is a complete jerk, I don't care about them, I don't care what happens to them - unless its comeuppance - and I have a hard time following them through their challenges and through their conflicts with their adversaries. There are some interesting ideas in this book, but on the balance, I'm glad to have completed it so I can move on to something else.

An intriguing read if this sort of thing appeals. There are a couple of missteps plot and pace-wise but I enjoyed it. Note to the author: Glocks do not have a safety. A small thing it's true but for anyone knowledgeable about firearms it immediately spoils the suspension of disbelief.

Having picked this book up out of 'dire need to read something while on the bus', I was pleasantly surprised.This is not a novel cut & dried easily for review, rather it (the novel) benefits from the layered approach: mental constructs, referred to as 'metaphors', provide some rather interesting opportunities for interpretation. Suffice to say, reading this work _is_ a little jarring. There is some jumping around that may cause the reader's head to spin. It seems essential, then, to note the Dra...

You may also read my review here: http://www.mybookishways.com/2012/06/...Alexei Kilodovich, KGB agent, has been pulled out of the water by a ship full of criminals. Specifically, criminals specializing in the trafficking of children, and using them in various money making schemes. Holden Gibson, head honcho, is bad news, but he’s nothing in comparison to the people that Kilodovich is used to dealing with. Kilodovich had been serving as a body guard to a supposed “business woman”, but who is, in...

I was initially hesitant to buy this book, intriguing as it sounds, because the author is a horror writer and I'm not really into horror. But this book is definitely not horror. WHAT it is is another question entirely; the only point of reference I can give a potential reader might be the kind of stuff China Mieville writes: gritty, sometimes disturbing stories that take reality and turn it on its head while packing in imaginative concepts from a dozen different genres.In Rasputin's Bastards Dav...

There's a lot of cleaver ideas in here, the use of the post-Cold War for settings and characters and psychic warfare. Nickle avoids the telepathy trap of just having characters stare at each other and shake, ala Scanners, by having them navigate thought each others psyches through their memories.

One to keep my eye on - see how the ratings pan out.:O)

This book makes me happy. Just the fact that it exists gives me hope. There is so much mediocre, predictable and sloppy genre fiction out there, every time someone breaks out of that mold I want to cheer (Jeffrey Ford also does that to me).I loved Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism, and this one is just as wonderful, but quite different. It's one of those rare novels that doesn't fit neatly into any category. Yes, there are elements of horror and fantasy with a bit of the spy novel thrown in,...

A frustrating read. Soviet psychics cast adrift with the end of the Cold War wage war through sleeper agents to control the world. It's a relatively simple and interesting story told in a complicated way that just made things more confusing than they needed to be. Lots of cool ideas but it never came together.

Really didn't think that I would enjoy the story line as much as I did; psychic spies from the Cold War. Really? As fantastical as the story got at times it was fun taking those twists and turns, and remarkably grounded given the plot. I had a lot of fun reading this. The author had a great story to tell and executed it with thoughtful and well rounded characters. Would recommend.

Damn. Just damn. Nickle has a lot going on in this book, with layers upon layers of reality and not reality, such that you should probably not do what I did and go a long period between chapters, if you want to grasp everything happening here. As it is, this novel is the sort that lends itself to re-reading because the second and subsequent readings will provide much more depth (and recollection of which character is which and the relationships among them) than the first go-round. But the result...

I want to read this because the blurb sounds like the very best X-Files episode ever. Also, Nickle's writing.

I only recently discovered David Nickle through his short story in Best Horror of the Year (Vol. 4), edited by Ellen Datlow. The short story is called "Looker" and I'll have a lot more to say about it when I review the anthology, but at this point let me say that it was both beautifully written, utterly creepy, and made my skin crawl.Rasputin's Bastards is something altogether different - an epic Cold War novel featuring former KGB agents - the remnants of a former Soviet program to develop psy

A spy story? Cold War? Hardly the sort of thing I pick up, on the surface. I have never seen a James Bond film, for example.This was something entirely different. Shelved Soviet projects, Cold War holdovers out of place, sleeper agents and warped psychics. Layers of identities are giftwrapped over the disquieting sense that small children can see right through any attempts at pretence. Served with a side order of giant squid and at least one absolute gem hidden in a turn of phrase at least once

Read my full review on The Crow’s Caw: http://thecrowscaw.com/2012/06/13/dav...

At first I thought this was a knockoff of Midnight's Children, but the more I read, it got deliciously weird.

I enjoyed Rasputin's Bastards and there is no doubt after reading this book that David Nickle is a very talented author. The story is elaborate, meaty and well written. It however confused me a great deal.The story based on a dozen or so central characters about Russian sleeper agents, psychics, puppet masters and of course their puppets. Who that is frequently is a mystery. Which gets to the confusion. The story is told in bursts from a variety of characters point of view. When changing you oft...

Flash back to the cold war era and add a twist. Agents who are able to get in other people's minds and use them as puppets. Many sleepers may or may not have been sleeping over many years. Then add a couple levels of this technique and mix it in with jealousy, power and greed. These are Rasputin's Bastards. While the novel is long with many story arcs it is possible to follow it. If you want an easy read, this isn't it. This is one for when you have time to register the characters and what they

Despite the constant jumping through time and space of this book, it gathers speed and finally takes you to a strange, yet fascinating climax. Taking the hypothesis of the Cold War development of psychic powers - both in Russia and the States - and adding Rasputin's own reputation as a psychic and womaniser (perhaps using his mind-powers to do so?), the program was much assisted by blood lines - which are "encouraged". At one point, I was thinking it smacked of "Village of the Damned" with all t...

Rasputin's Bastards starts out with a very interesting premise tying together psychic, sleeper agents, and Russia's dark history. As a whole, the storyline was intriguing because Nickle only gives you tiny pieces of a massive ongoing story scattered between over a dozen characters. You get bits from characters' backstory, future, present, questionable memories, and 'happy places'.My issue is only with the actual delivery. The story is told in 1-2 page snippets dealing with various characters. So...