Daniel Vanzin
A collection of short stories, none of which is exceptional, but they're interesting enough to scratch that fantasy itch. I'm reminded of Conan in the style, if not exactly in the quality.
The world is a low magic setting. Sorcerers are few and magic is feared and revered by the common folk. Geralt of Rivia is a Witcher, a human magically enhanced as a child and brutally trained to hunt down monsters. He is a wielder of some basic spells, and his mutated body posses increased strength, agility and eyesight.
His profession was once crucial to humanity, for when they first arrived in this world, monsters and other races dominated the land. The Witchers were created to exterminate the more powerful and evil monsters, while the rest of the humans took care of exterminating the other races, being they good or bad.
The Witchers are taught to be neutral regarding human affairs. Men and women may kill and rape each other in bar brawls or wars that may bring kingdoms down, they ought to not interfer. A Witcher's neutrality is essential for their profession, otherwise a king might not allow him to enter his lands to hunt down a monster otherwise.
But time has passed, and there are no much more monsters left. A Witcher is left with some hard choices to make, because in order to make a living they need to exercise their trade, the only thing they know how to do, ingrained in their minds from childhood. This knowledge emboldens their potential employers to make some moraly dubious propositions, such as to hire him as a mercenary or an assassin.
Geralt struggles with questions of morality, whether he should use his powers to help the defenseless against all evil or just the monsters he was told to slay. He is a relic of the past struggling to find his place in this new world. He is despised and distrusted by most humans because he is a mutant, as are all other races despised as well.
I ventured into a new genre, Biography. I expected to hate it, and so I did.
I considered this book because I loved The Count of Monte Cristo, but where one is a novel, which purpose is to entertain the reader, this a history book, which purpose is to be precise and accurate with names, dates and sequencing of events.
The prologue was interesting, it tells about the authors difficulties obtaining the documents for his research.
read 1:38 / 13:30 12%
No, just no. A book written in the 19th century, with vocabulary from the 15th? century, following a story structure from the NO century.
Mark Twain, just like not many, but ALL of the classic writers, bears no attraction to me. The opposite actually. I can't stand his prose, his story structure, nothing.
I think it starts in the present, explaining how the protagonist (the author himself?) is visiting some old castle, and he meets an old timer who starts telling some tales of the old chivalry times. Then it changes perspective, and all of a sudden a very flourished Sir Lancelot tale is being told.
I hate this old knight tales, that more resemble a poem, and have no content whatsoever. Sir Lancelot, who is valiant, gallant, invincible, and... I can't take this any more.
Read 0:13 / 13:25 2%
The one hour i listened to was divided as such:
- 70% action scenes
- 30% stating proper names, of characters, places, groups of people, etc.
The naming scheme was VERY offsetting, it was some African/Spanish combination.
The author failed to create an empathic protagonist by naming dozens of characters, I couldn't tell who I was suppose to care about. It has become common for reviewers to say “oh, the first few dozen of pages is crap, but keep reading it and you'll be rewarded”. I'm not one with patience for that. The books I like have me hooked form the first sentence up to a maximum of the first page.
The prologue was interesting, but it followed a way too common pattern that I hate: make a good prologue, proceed to a over the top boring nothing related to it first chapter.
A group of people arrived at a foreign land looking for a place to live. Instead of a typical colonization, they have been forced to leave their homeland or be annihilated by some not yet revealed reason.
They faced a never before crossed sea, and on arrival, they met a fierce resistance by the natives, who wielded some form of magic different and more powerful than theirs.
They managed to defeat them by calling upon the aid of their dragons, something that was very risky for them to do. Still, most of their people have been killed in the battle.
Then chapter one starts, 184 years latter.
Read 1:19 / 10:53 8%
The book seems to be written in the 70s, when people didn't yet know to write good fantasy novels. WAY too slow, too much focus on mundane activities. And for what I have seen, this will be a book about a young kid learning how to be a wizard. I hate “learning how to be a whatever” stories.
Reading the other reviewers, 50% of the book, 300 pages, is about the kid running away because she is afraid she has angered the magician's guild. Not interesting.
Read 1:45 / 14:17 12%
- engaging prose, too slow pacing, no compelling plot.
The whole book is about a battle that is about to happen, where the protagonists have no hope to win, something like 10k vs 500k soldiers. The story focus on each character's perspective of the event, some embrace the defeat and the glorious death that will come with it, it, others plan to flee when it's most convenient to them.
There is a strong focus on painting the characters as either real people or just plain anti heroes. This spells drama to me, and its not something I look for in my fantasy stories.
Overall this is just the tale of the lives of a few selected people who might stand out in an upcoming battle. It's not interesting.
Read 3:24 / 13:13 26%
The prose is good enough, but too much descriptions, too slow pacing, no interesting characters or plot. The king drops dead to the ground. He was poisoned, he has the time to understand that and even communicate his method of killing. He does neither, and people are left wondering why/who killed him, falsely blaming one of his most trusted generals.
The story hints at a long and drawn out master/apprentice plot between his 14 years old son and the man who is suspected of killing him, plus some intrigue regarding his real murderer.
Could be interesting if the pacing was faster, but I like my plots to be clever, and the characters engaging. Everything else is optional.
Read 1:11 / 9:08 13%
This is one of those books that I hated by the first sentence. Maybe it would have helped if there were no foreword by the author, explaining the book.
He is a surveillance paranoid, which is a disease I don't share. It ranks close to flat earthers and conspiracy theorists for me. It is fine to worry about being monitored all the times, but there is a clear distinction of when that becomes irrational.
That flaw in logic shapes the persons view of the world. And it is a very distorted perspective. In every paragraph it is made clear how much of himself the characters reflect. It is too much. There is no nuance, everyone is out to get you, all the people who don't see that are sheeps.
But that is not the reason I stopped reading. In the 25 minutes I listened, besides the paranoia, there were only talk about weapons, and how important it is for the main character to be armed and ready to kill all the time. This gives a strong hint of a action heavy book, which is never a good thing for me.
Read 0:25/15:32 3%
Another one that I lowered my expectations as far as I could. This one is much larger then Narnia though.
I started with the TV series, got to a few minutes into the third episode. It took 4 hours into the book to reach that same point. It was dreadful repetitive, but I kept hoping after that It would payoff. It didn't.
The story is just too boring, the characters too plain, the world building doesn't inspire me. All is too.. juvenile, which is after all the book's target audience.
Read 4:33/10:33 ~43%
I got this book because it is the number one most rated on Goodreads and I liked the movie enough. I had low expectations and was weary of the young adult tag, but I got pleasantly surprised to find it tolerable.
The movie is a carbon copy of the book as far as I can recall. Luckily it was a long time ago I watched it, so it wasn't too repetitive. And even though I knew every single outcome of every scene, the prose is enjoyable and the protagonist is bright. She and Peter are relatable.
There is no much room to dislike I think. No heavy handed romance, good use of first person narration to transmit the character's feelings. Katniss is a survival and a pragmatist.
Overall, nothing too exciting, I'm eager to read the next book as I did not got past 10 minutes of the movie. Hopefully all parts I didn't care about will get downplayed.
For an excellent review, spoiler free, check out https://allaboutromance.com/book-review/burn-bright-by-patricia-briggs.
Patricia Briggs is back with the more traditional action packed supernatural mystery that I came to expect of her.
SUMMARY (SPOILERS)
Bran is out of the country, trying to help out poor old Mercy, who keeps getting herself into trouble. Charles is left in charge on his place when a call for help come from one Wildlings of the pack. They are a group of werewolves that are too old, powerful and unstable to live among or even near the others.
He and Anna travel to their remote hideout on the mountains, a place where no one is allowed to go, just as no one is allowed to leave. Anna expects to resolve the problem peacefully, but Charles knows that fighting and killing is very much more likely when dealing with the Wildlings.
Arriving at the scene, they find that Hester, an ancient and renowned werewolf have been captured. Her mate Hester, an even more ancient and powerful Fae, asks them to find her. During her search and rescue, she is killed along with some or hr capturers. They were a crew of highly trained soldiers, consisting of humans and werewolves, using a lot of high tech gadgets and magic.
Feeling the broken bonds, her mate kill himself, his grief nearly taking out all of the mountain with him. Charles and Anna finds a note he left behind, hinting of a traitor in the pack. Fearing for the lives of the other Wildlings, they join forces with Asil, Serge and Leah and form 3 separate groups to find and warn them. They all leave mostly separated from each other, in remote regions and often don't pick up the phone when called.
Anna and Asil are paired together and start their visits with the most dangerous of all of the werewolves, a witchborn named Wellesley. Anna can see that he is clearly broken, seeming to be schizophrenic. During their conversation, he attacks her out of the blue, but not with the intention of killing her. He senses she is Omega, and his wolf desperately and literaly hangs on to her for help.
What ensues is an event taken place in the astral plane, where Anna calls for the help of her mate in order to defeat the evil inside Wellesley. Bran, who is supposedly outside the country, lends his energy and that of the pack to help their somewhat psychic battle.
Wellesley being free of his curse is now able tell his story. But not before Leah calls them about another attack that has taken place. Everybody drops what they are doing and go to meet her.
Lots of dead bodies, all of them from the invaders. The two werewolves that are supposed to be there are missing. They find them in a cave nearby. By that time, Charles is almost convinced that the traitor is Leah, and that's why his father is recusing to come back home, because he suspects the same. But during the confrontation with the two missing wolves, one of them says he overheard a name during the fight, Serge, and she flees with the others hot in her trail.
Charles is temporarily incapacitated by some magic, Anna stays behind with him. After a while, one of the werewolves suggests a shortcut they can take to get to Serge faster. During their walk, the werewolf reveals himself to be an ancient and powerful Shapeshifter. Charles fights him, but he is too powerful for him. Anna tries to find help, and Wellesley shows up. It turns out he is the only one capable of defeating the Shapeshifter because of his holy heritage.
In the end, Serge escapes, the Marrock returns, Leah is hurt emotionally, but proves herself to be very tough and stoic in spite of the disthruts of her mate and the others. Oh, and Asil tracks down Serge and...
The story starts as another seemly trivial day in the life of the vampire Lestat. He is working on one of his special projects, following a victim who he intends to torture, kill and feed of after a few months of getting to know him.
Lestat is peculiar when choosing his prey, trying to only kill bad people. But for these months long hunts, he has a few other requirements as well. He is looking for a particular kind of evil, a criminal who is charismatic and carries on his trade as form of art. He must be exceptionally good at what he do, to like it and be clever enough to keep doing it for many years without getting caught. Someone who cares little to nothing for the lives of others, who only do what pleases himself, no matter the costs. In other words, Lestat yearns to kill people like himself.
He tries to fully understand his victims, listening into their minds, observing their actions, making absolutely sure they are just as deliciously evil as he is. He savors every moment of his stalking, thoroughly enjoying himself whenever his target, through tough or action, confirms to be indeed what he is after. This might be a form of atonement for him, to remove from the world those who are just as monstrous as he is. At last he has the excuse of being a vampire.
Roger is Lestat's current target, a ruthless drug lord with a soft spot for his daughter Theodora. ‘Dora' is a televangelist of pure hearth and faith, a true believer. She doesn't know about the nature of her father's dealings, although she suspects it, and has broken off all contact with him, except on a few occasions on which they both meet in secret in order to spend some father/daughter time. She tries to convince him to leave his wicked ways. He in turn tries to convince her to accept his gifts, either in the form of money or religious statues and relics, which he has a lot of.
It's been a few months since Lestat has started to follow Roger. In the process, he started to like him, because of how much he resembles himself. He even developed some feelings for his daughter, although he is trying to convince himself that she is just someone he finds interesting and nothing more. But this time something seems different. Lestat is aware that while he is stalking his victim, someone is stalking him! And for the someone to be able to keep hidden from him, who has nearly godly powers of perception, this entity must be powerful indeed. Maybe one of the other elder vampires, like Mekare or Maharet.
Lestat starts to become ever more frightened of the nature of his pursuer. He believes that it might be the devil himself, came to collect his soul! He shares his concerns with his friend David Talbot, who sheds some rationality into the matter. But Lestat is unfazed.
Desperate he moves to kill Roger right away. What follows is that he eventually confirms his suspicions, the devil is indeed after him, but he wants to recruit him in order to defeat God. He spends a great deal of time explaining his position, taking Lestat to Heaven, Hell and even back in time, to the beginning of the world. God makes a brief appearance as well, trying to dissuade Lestat from joining the fallen angel.Memnoch, as the devil prefers to be called, makes a very compelling argument. His dissent with God boils down to this: he wants to eradicate all suffering, because he cannot understand how a loving God would put his creations through this. God on the other hand claims that suffering is necessary in order for humans to prove themselves worthy to enter the kingdom of heaven. Those who fail the test are sent to hell.Hell is the place that God created and placed Mennoch in charge as a punishment for disagreeing with God. His task is to atone the souls of those who are sent into his dominion. He does this by making them understand their evil ways. And that is 'a hell' for them, to experience all the evil they have caused. But those who learn are ready to ascend to heaven.Menoch is condemned to stay in hell until all of the humans souls are saved or until the end of times, whatever comes first. he is confident he can succeed but that's where Lestat enters, he realizes its is a task too hard to do alone. Hell is ever more filled with souls, many of which sent by Lestat himself.
The dialogue of Lestat and “The Devil” is the highlight of the book. The story and characters are once again interesting enough, but the Rice's theology and philosophy arguments are the really interesting parts of the tale. Spoiler ridden Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memnoch_the_Devil) has a good summary of this part.
This book was not as inspired as the previous ones. There were less attention to character development, like Dora's affection for Lestat came way too quickly for instance. Still the vampire mythos was expanded a little further, explaining the origins of the spirits which made Akasha. I'd give this a 3.5 stars. I'm rounding up because I'm fond of this series and of the latest crop of 3 star books I've been reading.
There is more busy work here then satire. It is an adventure full of events, but not as fun as the previous ones. Katheryn is the only character who becomes a better person in this story. Cooper somehow too, because of his lawful good intelligent axe, Naabi. The others are still just a bunch of assholes.
The following contains SPOILERS. It is a not very good summary of the story. I don't want to spend much time writing this.
Tim turns out to be alive and well. He is the one who captures Dave, having turned into a wererat himself. He happens to have a master plan in order to defeat Mordred, but decides to leave his friends out of the loop because their a bunch of losers. The thing is, turning into wererats changes your alignment to evil, which is an explanation for why he and whoever gets lycanthropy becomes even more assholes themselves.
Dave having become a wererat himself can now potentially help him. Tim have became the leader of a gang of wererats, teleported into his home reality, although keeping his halfling body, and smuggled guns into the fictional world. His gangs betrays him, and he teleports back to his home reality, with Dave and a hostage from his former gang. He is confronted by a cop, take him as a hostage, and through him gets some information on the investigation of his disappearance some months ago. When other cops shows up, he is again forced to escape and teleports back to the fantasy world. He ditches Dave, is pursued by Cooper, who was also bit by a wererat. They ended up in a desert, both as wererats. Cooper leaves Nabbi behind.
Katheryn and the other members of the Whore's Head Inn, plus the dark Elf Tanner, decide to take the avatar of Mordred that Cooper had captured to a safe place. They go back to the (former) Frozen Island, now a tropical paradise. They plan to establish a new base of operations there. In the way she defeat more pirates. She finds a good place to stash Mordred. She comes through as a good leader, makes some though decisions but gives her friends a sleave of hope.
Chad and Julian go back to the Moon of the Crescent Shadow. Chad disguises himself as a musician and Julian his manager. He is very successful singing Neil Diamond songs. They find one of the die, but they attracted too much attention, and Mordred shows up to get it. A wizard they had befriended teleports them to safety. Then the wizard teleports then back to the Frozen Island at their request, after a signed contract that bound them as business partners.
him
Randy, Denise and Jake, a newly arrived character from their home world go to examine rumors of a poweful Bard in another continent. They acquire passage on a ship from and old acquaintance of theirs. Denise is pregnant with scorpion babies, Randy has a special paladin mount, his pet baselisk Bazel. They eventually use the Fozen Island as a bargaining chip, and in order to prove it is now habitable, the captain takes them there.
Everyone in the island, except Tim and Cooper who are in the desert, Mordred escapes. A big fight ensues, with some pirates who came to take revenge, rising a water elemental. Katheryn metamorphed into a shark and kills Mordred.
Less moments of satire, still fun.
The following contains SPOILERS. It is a not very good summary of the story. I don't want to spend much time writing this.
The party were left jailed in cages floating over the empty air of a many miles high floating island known as the Moon of the Crescent Shadow. They manage to escape, but get separated in the process.
Cooper and Chad fall of the their cells into the desert. Ravenous, Julian's familiar, goes after them to make sure they are alright. They don't die, but are now stranded on their own. Luckily the desert grows food when the sand is stricken with water, and Cooper has the “flask of endless water”. They fight some Orcs, Cooper obtains an intelligent bloodthirsty axe, Naabi, which compels him to go back to her homeland and destroy the one who imprisioned her in the axe. Chad is useless, but he goes along and sometimes helps a little. They find that Naabi is a pixie queen, and the pixies she led them up to help them to defeat the dark lord, who they find after nearly dying in the hands of a group of assassin goblins. The dark lord was actually one of the avatars of Mordred, who nearly kills them as well, but they manage to capture him by putting a bag of shit in his head. See, they can't kill him, or else he will merge back with his other avatars and become even stronger. And the smell encourages him to leave this avatar's conscience, so he cannot use any spells.
The rest of the party is rescued. Dave and Captain Righteous follow up on a lead that a Wizard was selling the magical dice they need to go back home. They “convince” the wizard to help them, but Dave was infected by lycanthropy when he had eaten infected meat he found on the floor (he was 3 days without eating). Out of control, he turns on the Wizard and kill him. Maddened by the disease, he attack the rest of his friends from the Whore's Head Inn and flees when outnumbered. Lycanthropes are pariahs in the city, so he has to hide in the sewers, where he is capture by a group of other wererats.
Stacey and Julian go after the another lead on the dice. They start their search in the floating island, manage to get one after jerking off a dwarf in a flying bathtub. Then when they go for the other in the possession of another wizard, they are scammed of their own die, and ended up empty handed. They even need to flee from the island as guards are after them, so they jump off using an improvised bed sheet as a paraglider.
Tim is dead, and his sister Katheryn gather what is left of him, a pile of shit and some body parts (he was eaten by a baselisk), and asks for those who would follow her into a quest to resurrect him. Randy and Denise join her. That quest is a travel to the nearby temple in order to purchase a resurrect spell. Unfortunately that spell is hella expensive, and now they really do go out on a quest in order to obtain an artifact in the hands of a powerful sorceress, the Ice Queen. They risk their life fighting pirates in the sea, manage to acquire a boat for themselves, no small feat, and then through some disgusting cleverness and a little bit of luck, they kill the Ice Queen. The frozen island's ice now starts to melt and they quickly escape, returning back to the temple. However, the corpse in the pile of shit turns out it wasn't Tim at all.
The story ends when they realize Tim never died. They now need to find him and Dave, who has also gone rogue.
This one was a disappointment. It still has some of the qualities of Brigg's writing, but none of the plot. This is not a book about werewolves, witches, ghosts or faes. This is a book about a couple traveling on a vocation to visit an old dying friend and to buy a horse. So much of this book is about those damn horses! Pages upon pages of it!
And the characters were also very prosaic. And as this was an investigative story, it really felt like an episode of Law and Order, down to the trope where every single minor characcter gets a small dose of personality, so you don't feel like they are just there to give answers to the protagonists.
The thing is that was just too obvious and forced. This, together with the horse shopping, riding, selling... makes me feel the author was experimenting with some writing techniques in order to make her creative juices flow. Like, write a lot, about anything.
Another important part of the story was Charles and Anna's struggle to come together into an agreement to have a baby. I have nothing against having this as a part of the plot, as long as it doesn't turn the whole series into a family Drama. But the thing is, there was nothing else to hang on to, so this too felt annoying and unnecessary.
There were parts of the book where I completely zoned out, specially towards the end. There was just nothing I could care about reading. One of the scenes that felt out of place was Anna's over reaction to Charles being flirted with right in front of here. Something in the lines of “Back off or I'll kill you”.
I get that this series of books are suppose to be different from Mercy's series. They are more personal, they talk more about feelings and relationships.
This book doesn't add any lore of the vampire mythos, but it is still splendid written and Lestat is still a completely enthralling character. I hate him, yet I can't stop reading about him. It is an adventure that takes you into the mind of this fascinating creature.
I get to see the world through his immortal eyes. Rice's philosophy and prose are still very much on point. The minor appearances and references to the other vampires were just about right. It was bound to to be a hard task to follow Queen of the Damned, as it brought up our expectations so high. Having met his creator, the first of the vampires, and becoming a living god himself, how could Rice still surprise and entertain us?
Quality writing. That's how. This book is, as were the previous two, about Lestat. It is a one man's show, nothing more matters. And yet we still get a magnificent tale, told once more through the words of our beloved villain, the vampire Lestat.
The book starts a bit slow. There are 3 other major characters in the story. His antagonist, the Body Thief, the man that can grant him something he has always wanted: an end to his torment, something more precious then immortality itself. Something that all vampires secretly craves after a some years, when they realize that their supernatural lives have become meaningless, making them apathetic and jaded to the world.
This man, a con artist by his own definition, has a proposition so enticing that the oh so impetuous Lestat could never refuse, be damned the consequences for himself or the others. Even after being admonished against it by his closest and most beloved friends. Surely nothing can stop him from getting what he wants, right?
David Talbot is the supreme general of the Talamasca. A man who dedicated his life to study the occult, and who has or had at a certain time in his life some powerful telepathic abilities himself. He might be the only ally that Lestat truly have in this endeavor. But just how much abuse derived directly or indirectly from Lestat's actions can this virtuous and dignified man take before he is forced to act on his conscience?
Louis is Lestat's progeny, his second born. He worships him like a god, in spite of being constantly annoyed by his self destructing nature. His loyalty will also be tested in this adventure as Lestat's continue on his quest to break any and all rules that are imposed on him. Even if that means committing the greatest of sacrileges against his kind. Not to mention humanity.
And finally we also have a significant participation of a minor character, Gretchen, a devote and compassionate nurse who helps him in his moment of most need. She shares with Lestat emotions she herself has never felt, and he never though could ever feel again.
This is again a book where the characters are the main attraction, even though the plot leaves nothing to be desired. It is just not as spectacular as the previous books. And the ending, oh how infuriating it was. But to be fair, Lestat's does warn us against continuing reading it!!!
So, to conclude, Lestat still is the marvelous monster the author set him up to be from the very first book of the chronicles. Most people didn't seem to get it, but I hope it has become very clear by now what we're dealing with here. And it is this consistency that I love about Rice's writing. She doesn't compromise his integrity and still manages to make us interested in what he is about to do next.
Can't wait for the next book.
Oh how utterly boring this turned out to be. Even more sexist then the previous book, but with none of the novelty of discovering the world of Xanth, interesting characters or witty world building and prose.
There is too much focus on the ‘adventure' part, describing many different encounters in detail, much like an average Dungeon Master might do in a RPG campaign.
Read 05:15 of 13:17 / 40%
This as a very unimpressive story. At least the author does give her motivations to write this story. It is after all part of the famous tale Le Morte d'Arthur. It is not all her fault it was so boring.
The book has none of the characters we grew to love in the series, other then Morgan. But even her presence is not enough to make this interesting. I kept waiting for a connection with the Arthurian mythos, but I found none. It is just a classic tale of chivalry retold with some more sober lenses, without all the magical fantasy and perfectly virtuous knights you would expect.
This review and some others express some of my sentiments.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1512075595?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1
The recent revelation of the werewolves to the public has forced Charles to be more active in his role as enforcer then ever. It is important to keep the regular citizens feel safe with with their existence, and as such, minor transgressions are having a harsher sentence then ever.
This has taken a toll on Charles, who views some of the killings he has to perform in his role of executioner as unnecessary. In order to alleviate his guilt, Bran sends Charles and Anna on a different kind of mission, one with a double purpose. They are to help the FBI in capturing a serial killer, thus giving the werewolves some good PR and also making use of Charles skills to punish people who are undoubtedly guilty.
Charles and Anna are met with agents from the FBI, Homeland Security and Cantrip, the agency responsible for dealings with the supernatural. Only the FBI is oficialy investigating the serial killer, the other agencies are more interested in the werewolves themselves.
The serial killer has been active for many decades, but only now the FBI has identified that his more recent victims are mainly supernatural beings, faes and werewolves. And since it is not easy for a human to take down a supernatural creature, they suspect the killer is supernatural as well.
The most recent victim is the daughter of a powerful fae, Alistair Beauclaire, who joins them in the hunt for the serial killer. Even with their combined efforts though, he proves to be a touch opponent for them.
During the investigation, must struggle not only to find the killer but also to fight prejudice and contempt from some of the agents, all the while keeping Charles inner demons at bay.
Still more long-winded then I'd like, but less so then the previous one. The writing is still great and the author's reinterpretation of Mordred and his relationship with Arthur was welcoming. I did not like the ending very much because it felt forced an rushed, but the author at least gave a good explanation her decisions in the end notes.
With that exception, the story is filled with logical reasoning. Arthur's reunion with his son is the perfect example of this. His reaction to the prophecy that Mordred was to be his bane was a stoic one. Either magic doesn't exist or if it exists and came from the gods then there is nothing we can do about it. Mordred's response was likewise. Why should he hate his father for not being there for him if he did not even knew where he was? And why should he have any ill intentions towards the greatest hero and king Britain has ever seen?
Ruling is hard, and Mordred would rather do it with Arthur on his side. And Arthur was very happy to have someone he could count on, and an heir should the need arise. Mordred soon came to see his curse as a fate. If he indeed was to be Arthur's end, maybe it was for the best. By ‘ending' with his reign he would secure Arthur's place in history as a legend.
The ending was very unsatisfying. After it had become clear throughout the book that that there was no way Mordred would betray his father, how could they possible become enemies? Well, by a series of unfortunate accidents, plus some dreams of ambition and suspicion on both sides. Arthur had declared Mordred as his successor in the case of his demise, and even insisted on him making new deals with all the other kings, including the Saxons, in that event. When he is presumed dead after a battle, Mordred starts to act on those plans. News of Arthur's being alive somewhat did not reach Mordred, and so, he kept acting as a King. Arthur's next in line for the throne did not like that, and started to spread rumors that Mordred was an usurper. Arthur knew he could not trust that man, for an obvious conflict of interest. Still, it made him wonder.After setting sail back home, a storm forced his ship to land on Saxon territory. They had a truce with them, but the king's ship was not hoisting any flag. The Saxons were first scared of an invasion now that Arthur was dead and couldn't uphold previous agreements. But after knowing that it was the king that landed there, they became even more aggressive, fearing Arthur's reputation of never having lost a battle.News came to Mordred and the other Saxons about the kings actions, and through a series of more misunderstandings, they ended up killing each other
I fully expect this story to be further explained in the next book, but nonetheless it hardly will make up for such an abrupt brake from the up until know nearly flawless logic the author had presented.
As the leader of the North American werewolves and one of the most powerful werewolf in the world, Bran Cornick, the Marrok, decided to make public their until now secretive supernatural existence. His reasons are clear, there is too much powerful people that knows about their existence already, and they are using that knowledge against them.
He schedules a meeting with the “unofficial” leaders of the werewolves from all the regions in the world in order to listen to their concerns, since this is obvious not a very popular decision among their kind. I say unofficial because the only place that there is a true leadership among werewolves is North America. The rest of the world doesn't have werewolves powerful enough to keep the others under control or they simply just don't want the burden.
The meeting is not supposed to put the decision up to a vote, the Marrok is merely giving the others the opportunity to express their concerns and to offer whatever help he can to help during the transition period. Not all countries are as liberal as the USA.
Charles, his son and enforcer, maybe as strong as his father, insists on going in his place to this meeting, due to a premonition he had about the safety of his father's life. The meeting will be full of the most strong and old Alpha werewolves in the world. Alphas don't deal well with other Alphas, and some of them hold a grudge against the Marrok.
He brings Anna with him because he thinks this trip might be good for her and for them as a couple. Her powers of an Omega wolf can be quite useful as well, as she has a calming effect on others, no matter how strong they are. She can even sooth the Marrok himself.
They begin their mission by enlisting the help of a Grey Lord, one of the leaders of the Fae, very old and powerful. She can guarantee that no violence will happen during the meeting. Charles had an affair with her some years back, and some tension grows between the three of them.
During the course of the meeting, some members are attacked, some are killed, some are framed, some of the authority figures have ulterior motives. But who is responsible for the apparent sabotage and why?
An enthralling mystery with great writing, good plot and okay characters. Some mythology is brought to the table, including King Arthur and his legendary sword, Excalibur.
Well, let's see. The protagonist (author?) is sexist, chauvinist, anti-government libertarian, know-it-all, bully, bossy, calls every woman darling. And yet none of this bothered me much.
But the author abuses of one of my cardinal sins in writing: anthropomorphization. More specifically, computers are treated as real people. Woman to be more precise.
I can understand maybe treating androids as humans, but even so, the idea of machines acquiring conscience is intellectually unappealing to me. And it gets worse, as the machine becomes more human, they start to develop human flaws and feelings. And that makes them better “beings” as a whole, because cold hearted logic isn't enough to succeed in life.
The philosophical discussion regarding this subject is very interesting, but this is not what the book is about. It just assumes that machines are just like people, but Lazarus, the protagonist, is the only one capable of noticing that. And then he explains to the others how they should treat their computers like they would any other person. Things gets a whole lot worse then that.
Some paraphrasing: “Oh, you upset her. And you know how women are...”.
The premise of the book is present in the title. Lazarus, a ~2500 years old man is trying to explain to the “future” generations what love is, because of the society have become too logical, and is therefore in the brink of destruction... obviously.
There are more then one meaning to the title “Time enough for love”, I think one of those is that people with regular life spans doesn't live long enough to be worth loving, or something like that.
Other then that, the book is a collection of short stories heavily glued together, as in there is a lot of glue. The glue being the overarching plot, that the oldest man alive wants to kill himself, and a group of notorious people are trying their best to prevent him. They believe that by recalling the stories of his life, he may again find a reason to keep existing.
The writing is intelligent, as I expected of Heinlein. The future is a somewhat perfect society, with everyone living mostly in peace, with no prejudices because of color or sexuality. Lazarus's attitude of being better then everyone else, but saying otherwise, is annoying. The short stories are ordinary, they have a feeling of a snake oil salesman telling them. By that I mean that the protagonist of the stories, presumably Lazarus himself, always find an “ingenious street smart”? way to overcome his difficulties.
Read 9:19 / 25:52 36%
Read Alpha & Omega first (book 0.5) first, it matters. It is a short story that shows how the protagonists met each other.
The Alpha & Omega series is much more love oriented then Mercy Thompson. It starts with a romantic relationship, and then it proceeds to describe the story and evolve the werewolf mythology. And it does a fine job at both aspects.
The characters may not be very nuanced, but they easy to empathize. You have your typical lone wolf personality, the brooding, stern, stoic male, Charles, who finds a vulnerable, abused, broken female, Anna, to rescue and marry.
Their love slowly evolves throughout the story, as Anna starts to heal from her psychological wounds, as the physical part is quickly healed by her werewolf blood. A gift and a curse, as that allows her to take a lot of punishment without the merciful release of death.
Charles is patient and considerate of her feelings. His whole life, hundreds of years old, he and his wolf have never taken anyone for a mate. He has had lovers, but never has fallen in love. As the enforcer for his father, the Marrok who is the leader of the werewolves in North America, it is part of his job to be emotionally disconnected from others, because he might one day have to kill them.
But Anna is a special and very rare kind of werewolf, an Omega. She is able to quiet down the beast inside others in a way no one else can, not even the Marrok. Charles wolf is immediately taken over by hers.
I enjoyed seeing the briefly mentioned characters in Mercy Thompson come to life in this story. This is much more fantasy heavy, supernatural focused book. The Marrok's character which is was briefly mentioned in Mercy's books, here he is fully fleshed. We get to see his behavior towards his children, friends, pack and the troublesome relationship he has with his mate. Also Azil, the Moor, plays an important part in the story.
The plot revolves around a rogue werewolf who is killing people in the Marrok territory. It may be an isolated case of madness, something that happens to some young werewolves who are unable to control the beast inside them, specially after they have just turned. But it also may be something else.
The Marrok is in the process of carrying out his decision to make the werewolves existence public, and there are a lot of people who doesn't like the idea. It is up to Charles, with the help of Anna, to investigate and deal with the matter appropriately. It it is a mad werewolf, maybe Anna can calm him down. If it is a political act, Charles will have to deal with him his own way.