Order of the Skull, Third Time's the Charm

Today I'm going to be writing about my friend's book once again, part three. I'm also in a bit of a hurry, since tonight I'm heading over to Columbia to catch the amazing Lindsey Stirling in concert. This doesn't have anything to do with writing, I'm basically just bragging.

The Chapter opens with the heroes escaping from the crashed airship. The scene is confusing as hell, although I'm not sure if it's supposed to be confusing, or if it's confusing by accident. But evidently the protagonists crashed all of ten feet from their getaway car. Another I'm noticing from this scene is Tabor often describes things his characters seem to have little way to actually perceive.

A chase scene ensues, this time with cars. There's a cute moment when Carson just doesn't seem to realize how good Hawkins is with a gun. More shit goes wrong during the chase, including Calloway leaping up screaming about something. Evidently he's gone crazy. After they're done with that, we get a short scene in a town in Missouri that reveals some more of Hawkin's past, but serves little other purpose. And then the characters go through Saint Louis, which interests me if only because I happen to live there. :)

They somehow manage to find the guy they're looking for in Saint Louis, which seems...difficult. I suspect that Tabor skipped past the information gathering scene because he wasn't quite sure how the protagonists would succeed. Hey, I'm guilty of that as well, but it does amuse me. :)

The interrogation scene reveals the bad guy's name, Eigenstolf. That name is fantastic. Then the scene takes a turn that surprises the hell out of me, which is a good thing. Well done Tabor.

One thing I've noted is that Tabor likes to end his chapters with big splashes, explosions, or what-have-you. At least, this is what he does when he's writing his pulp novel, his conventional style might read differently. But when it comes to reading habits, I rarely stop at chapters, so any kind of cliffhanger is going to ineffective. Instead, I prefer to end my chapters with the close of a scene, to provide some kind of closure, then use the white space and bold text of the next chapter to provide some kind of transition to a different scene.