Priest: Purgatory

On the surface, it feels like a solid beginning to a story arc - the discovery of something, the gathering of the team, then the start of the journey, and the beginnings of conflict within the team.

But perhaps it's due to this being the first book, its rather shallow on story. It's a nice touch to tell some character back story while in the middle of an ambush, but the jumping around before, during, and after the ambush felt somewhat disjointed. The characters are a bit cliché but given the nature of this dystopia, you can't really expect much more than that.

It's light on story and flavour because the pages never tried to give colour and reason to why the world is the way it is. No attempt at all except right at the beginning which sort gave it a vague history. No attempt to explain how the priesthood rose to become a militant order. It just is. Just like the ambush - it's just an ambush. There's no consequence at all, despite mention of tyres getting destroyed by caltrops. They still continued on their mission, which brought them to an army getting attacked by the vampires - why is there an army in no-man's land? Unexplained. It's just there for plot convenience to do some character development.

I really wanted to like this since I saw it by chance. I might get volume 2 if I ever see it, but it just feels like wasted opportunity to develop the world more. Granted, it's a movie prequel, but it could've been more.