Michael Cummings
Imagine everyone woke up one day to discover that magic was very much real again. As with so much in our modern life, the first reaction of the government would be to regulate it, to determine what the best uses of that magic was for the welfare of the nation - and what magics would be considered safe, and what magics would be prohibited.
Welcome to the world of Shadow Ops: Control Point. Oscar Britton is your average enlisted grunt, bagging and tagging people that have manifested prohibited, or “Probe” talents, keeping America safe from one latent to probe at a time. What happens when this good guy suddenly finds himself marked a probe as his latent magic power manifests itself unexpectedly in a discipline that is forbidden (though outside his control)?
He runs.
As a concept, I think Cole has a good formula here. Magic meets military fantasy in a contemporary landscape? What's not to love in this comic book like milieu that is so reminiscent of Marvel and DC copyrights?
The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and its in the execution that we find the lumps. The world building is as solid as needed - why magic suddenly exists is as much of a mystery to the characters as to us, and that's fine. The fact that Cole chose to set this in our modern world relieves the burden of painting an extremely rich picture to convince us with. We already know the setting, which leaves us with only the unknowns to deal with - the characters and the magic. With the world so easily established, its really in the strength of the characters and the magic they wield that we rely on to entertain us.
For the magic, its rather simple and easy to grasp. You either come up with magic at some point in your life, or you don't. If you do, its in one of a few defined talents, most of which seem to be centered around control of the Greek elementals - water, fire, air, earth, and spirit (life, death, etc.). The prohibited magics are a little less well defined, but at least we don't have mixed talents (that we know of?). There doesn't seem to be any penalty to using the magic (weakness, inflammation, etc.), but it also isn't easily or quickly mastered. Simple and sweet and easy to follow once you understand the terminology that Cole bandies around.
But the characters, like with any summer eye candy, is where I got hung up with in this novel. Even in the context of the story, Oscar's waffling at whether he's a team player or being beaten down was annoyingly inconsistent. Either track would have been fine, but I needed something to rally behind, and I didn't get that from Oscar. I found many of the other characters in the book equally baffling, leaving me wanting. This is probably just hindsight, but it seemed that there were chapters during the span of which Oscar would change his mind on whether he was committed to the cause, to and fro, multiple times.
So, great concept, and perfect if you have an afternoon or two to kill and want a little magic versus assault chopper action. Myke's a really nice guy, so I have high hopes that the sequel will cast off the training wheels that were so evident in this first novel.
Book two of the Aeon's Gate trilogy picks up mere moments after the end of Tome of the Undergates with the intrepid Lenk recording recent events in his journal. The Tome of the Undergates has been recovered, and yet the gates of hell remain closed. Lenk and his five companions set sail to bring the accursed relic away from the demonic reach of Ulbecetonth, the Kraken Queen. But after weeks at sea, tensions amidst the adventurers are rising. Their troubles are only beginning when their ship crashes upon an island made of the bones left behind from a war long dead.
And it appears that bloodthirsty alien warrior women, fanatical beasts from the deep, and heretic-hunting wizards are the least of their concerns. Haunted by their pasts, plagued by their gods, tormented by their own people, and gripped by madness personal and peculiar, their greatest foes may yet be themselves.
Critics of the first book lamented that the characters were too thinly sketched, the bulk of the book being taken up by some longer than usual action scenes. In this second volume, Sykes flips that expectation on us. We delve deeper into each of the characters, getting more tantalizing glints of their depth and background as they recover on the island of the dead. To be sure, while the first book was a book of struggling, this second volume gives us a better understanding on why each of our characters - and I don't just mean our protagonists - are struggling and what it is they are trying to achieve. Which in the case of our (un)lucky band of adventurers is largely what they are struggling to run away from.
The problem, of course, is that we spend most of the book introspecting the characters, their flaws, backgrounds, motives, and favorite past times that we never quite make any headway in the story. In fact, the only real progress in the books is delivered by two new characters that are external to the adventurer party, one a librarian (don't snicker, librarians can kick your butt) on a mission to step any who use magic without paying the price (Oh Netherlings...), and the other who is commonly known as the Moth, a vassal of the Deep Shriek sent out to release the Father. The story advances under the stewardship of these two characters, but they have scenes too far and few between to give the rest of the novel momentum.
And this is why the second volume of a series usually drags. The first volume hit us with such force and speed, the second volume had a bar set higher than it could reasonably achieve.
And yet I will still recommend this book to you. It was a well written and fine addition to the series, with all the Shict loving you can handle. Hopefully in volume three, now that we understand what compels most of the POV characters in such detail already, we will return to the tour de force that was book one, but with a better understanding and appreciation of what is driving Lenk and his merry band.
Spellwright is the introductory novel of Nicodemus, a young aspiring wizard who has been branded a cacographer because of his disability. Simply put, he has magical dyslexia - in a world where spells are visible as strings of floating, physical text, a mere touch by Nicodemus can cause a spell to be misspelled, gaining new meaning and often as not warping it from simple to potentially dangerous.
As with many fantasy novels, there is a prophesy, and depending on interpretation Nicodemus could be a savior - or the equivalent of the antichrist.
I have to confess, I've wanted to read this book since it came out a few years ago, and anticipation breeds its own expectations that reality can rarely match. As is oft said, I wish Goodreads would let us use 1/2 stars. Charlton's book is right on the cusp between 3 and 4 stars, but ultimately I couldn't round up.
The cons, for me, were twofold. First, mechanically, I found the text to be agonizing to follow in some places. It is almost worst that this is an inconsistant problem, because the rest of the time you can get a sense of Charlton's emerging voice. Future books will not suffer this problem, and you can tell. Charlton can tell a story, but that fact is buried in this first novel, and only shining on occasion.
Secondly, and perhaps this is another writing advancement that will come in the future, there are far too many info dumps. In fact, this book is an amazing example of show, don't tell. There are so many cases where if Blake had stepped back and given pause, he could have demonstrated his point, leaving the reader to “discover” the truth on their own (and therefore feel both a minor sense of accomplishment, as well as feel more involved in the story).
I read the book in five days, with a real life interrupting. In my world, that means the book was a quick read, so caveat lector.
David Brin is an icon in science fiction, and for good reasons. Brin's imagination gave us works like the Kiln People, the Postman, and of course, the seminal Uplift War saga in all of its glory. In his latest novel, Existence, Brin takes us to the near future, a world where mankind has continued to make mistakes, but has also made attempts at progress. We start by meeting Gerald Livingston, an orbital garbage collector. For a hundred years, people have abandoned things in space, and someone has to clean it up. But there's something spinning a little bit higher than he expects, something that isn't on the decades' old orbital maps. An hour after he grabs it and brings it in, rumors fill Earth's infomesh about an “alien artifact.”
Thrown into the maelstrom of worldwide shared experience, the Artifact is a game-changer. A message in a bottle; an alien capsule that wants to communicate. The world reacts as humans always do: with fear and hope and selfishness and love and violence. And insatiable curiosity. (end blurb)
The difficulty I have with describing or even assessing this book is that it felt to me like it was written in three different mindsets. The first 25% of the book falls into that class of science fiction that deals with world crisis - you may recognize the formula. The setting - near future. The cast - someone in power, someone outside of the corridors of power, and a reporter of some kind. Additional cast optional. The crisis - something outside of our control threatens the way of life globally - flood, solar flares, alien incursion, etc.. The artifact is uncovered, ripples reach out, and we see how these dozen or so lives of our cast are affected, in some ways interacting.
Then the book takes a shift.
I'm glossing over, because I'm trying to avoid any spoilers, but the next chunk of the book (@50%) left me growing impatient for something to actually happen. That isn't to say that there isn't action or progress, but the middle seemed to stretch on and on without any satisfaction of resolution. Towards the end of this chunck we get a lot of tantalyzing clues and suggestions about our place in the universe, answers to the Fermi paradox, etc.. I would classify this portion of the book as less sci-fi disaster novel and back down into the near future thriller genre.
Then came the last 25%. Neither crisis novel nor thriller, this part of the book was pure speculative space opera, which if we're talking science fiction, is known to be my preference. It'll be no suprise that I wish the writing in the last 25% of the book had actually been more like 75%.
Brin is very much in touch with modern technology, and it shows in this book. Our near future citizens aren't that displaced from today. The gadgets are shinier and smaller, but the concepts are the same, or at least taken to their next few logical steps. Its only after reading the Afterword, where Brin explains himself and the novel a little more, that we learn that a lof of that first 25% of the book was previously written material that was worked in. Although I enjoyed those bits - especially the homage to uplift - I didn't feel like they were satisfactorily given a conclusion. The same happened later in the book, where we were led along certain paths and then never saw the characters involved again, leaving those subplots just dangling.
Don't be discouraged. Existence was still a good read by a great author, just be prepared to do a little work to get there.
Thanks to NetGalley and Tor/Forge for an advance copy of the novel.
Where to begin this review? A lot of people like to highlight that Saladin's book is a nice break from Euro-centric fantasy, but to be honest, when you're reading it, that's not what you're paying attention to. What you're watching is the story and characters. Does Saladin deliver?
Almost.
We're presented with good characters and a classic but compelling tension. Something dark and evil is rising up, we have ghuls of all variety, a were-lion, a fighting dervish, magic, the mystery of the desert - where do we go wrong?
For me, the problem was twofold. First, I don't think we had enough depth. The brush strokes are so broad that there's a lack of definition with some of the characters. This might just be an artifact of the fact that its the first book in the series, and Salidan plans on giving more depth later.
My other problem with the story is that the end seemed a bit rushed. After so much time spent circling around the central mystery, the actual confrontation was a bit short and lackluster. Two sides meet and one walks away, in about as many words as this review will end up being.
Don't get me wrong - I really enjoyed this book, and it was a fun read. My dissapointment is because I expected more from the book than it actually promised. I settled on four stars because I felt it was a 3 1/2 star book with a lot of potential to be more.
My copy of ‘Leviathan Wakes' came as a free addendum to Abraham's ‘The Dragon Path.' When I finished Path, I needed a break from the story building technique's of Abraham's brain, so I set it aside.
What a mistake.
It took me a few tries to get past the initial chapters of the book, which cost it a star. The book starts with a great, tone setting hook, then switches POV immediately to a beat cop on an asteroid. Mwah? Alas, if I had just pushed past this POV switcheroo and moved ahead on my first try, I would have recovered. Miller's story took me a little while to become invested in (Holden's, on the other hand, I was taken with immediately), but I did come around. The book is laid out as an alternating POV (and worldview) between Miller, a beat cop in the Belt, and Holden, captain of a crew from a water hauler. Set in mid future - not tomorrow, but also not at a point where we're roaming free among the stars - ‘Leviathan Wakes' is modern space opera, pure and simple.
Should you read it? Maybe. But only if you are the kind of space opera reader that likes alien phages, cloaked ships, asteroid hurtling, fate of the human race in the balance kind of stories. Otherwise, nah, leave it for the folks that do.
I was so wowed by Williams with the Dread Empire series that Implied Spaces was a real let down. Solid writing, but with the stakes so low - there is no real death, and new universes can be crafted from the quantum foam directly - I had a real hard time investing interest in this novel. Another reviewer likened this book to a late Heinlein novel (we all know what that means), and I have to agree. Not bad, but not great, with a sort of boyish save the multiverse mentality.
When this series began, there were complaints from some reviewers that the destruction of Windwir seemed too inconsistent. Why did Neb survive, but not others? What was the nature of the destruction that it could raze the city, but leave random individuals untouched? At the time, I attributed this to the randomness of destructive nature - if you've ever looked at what did and didn't survive a tornado as it decimates a community, you know what I mean.
Antiphon takes a stab at starting to give the rationale in the context of the Nine Lands, and yeah, I didn't see that coming :)
Antiphon is a worthy continuation of the Psalms of Isaak, in what can only be described now as a science fiction epic, shrouded in fantasy, with the drapery of steampunk and the trappings of...fantasy. Bah. Post-apocalyptic apocalyptic fiction?
Whatever classification system you use, I call it a good fun read. Probably not the best place to dive into the story, still a great read. Enjoyed it!
If you read through the reviews for this book, they boil down to two camps - the haters and the lovers. I have to admit, I originally qualified as the former the first time I tried reading this book. The book initially feels like a transcript from a frat boy fantasy RPG, with a vibe that just left me disinterested.
Time passed and the world turned, as they say, and I gave the book another shot. Read it in a week, and will probably try and get a hold of the sequel(s) at some point to boot (there's only one as I write this, but I think Sykes has mentioned that the third volume is already done). The book is a fantasy action lark without any redeeming quality, which is the first clue to the kind of reader that will enjoy this. If you loved Abercrombie's First Law books, but wished they had a metric ton more magic, then you'll probably enjoy Tome. The characters aren't really heroes or heroic, and yet by the end you understand what makes them tick (mostly), and why they are the crappy examples of morality that they are.
Cons? “Adventurers” just sounds too much like we're describing a bunch of my fellow geeks on a Saturday night, and really shouldn't be in a self respecting book. Also, the book can be pretty evenly divided into the half where we think everyone's a jerk, and the half where we learn, one by one, what each character's motivating secret is.
Pros - everything else. Don't go looking for a lost ballad and you'll have a blast. Watery tarts, magic fire, purple skinned warriors, elf-like pro-antagonists, demons, gates to hell, the works, all wrapped in a neat, tidy package.
** DON'T READ THE GOODREADS SYNOPSIS OF THIS BOOK. IT IS A SPOILER AND GIVES MOST OF THE BOOK AWAY. **
Tobias Buckell, known for his Caribbean influenced science fiction Xenowealth series and additions to the Halo universe, brings us his first new novel in four years with “Arctic Rising”. In the very near future, the Arctic ice cap has all but melted as rising global temperatures change the dynamics and balance of power in the world. Tundras are now prairies, and the once ice locked islands of the Arctic circle are now the coveted centers of commercial and shipping success.
Anika Duncan is an airship pilot for the U.N. Polar Guard, patrolling these northern shipping lanes by air when events kick off in the novel. Readers are propelled through this eco-thriller as the stakes are raised and the balance of power is at risk.
Buckell's book seems somewhat apropos this year, when in the dead of winter we are looking at 70 degree days during a time of year when we usually measure the day by how deep the snow is. At its heart, “Arctic Rising” is a thriller set in the backdrop of a world where global warming has already started to wreak severe havoc, destroying tropical islands in floods while at the same time opening the northern reaches of Canada and Russia to more temperate activity.
When the book excels as a thriller, it really excels. Buckell has a gift for writing down the play by play action of a fight scene, whether that fight is in the scrub of Greenland, or between armed groups in a disintegrating floating city. Sadly, its not without its flaws - the info dumps, when they happen, are a force to be reckoned with, and occasionally someone takes a sip of the monologue draught.
Buckell always does a great job of breaking us out of the northern European descent perspective of the world, giving us a better rounded view of the world. His characters aren't just white Americans - they're Nigerian, Caribbean, and Canadian, and they come from a culture and history that you can almost feel.
I would love to learn a little bit more about the world Anika and friends live in, though. If the Arctic is melting, what about the Antarctic? What's going on south of the equator? Maybe a future book will give us that glimpse. For now, I'd recommend this near future thriller for the fast paced zeppelin ride that it is.
The book had a lot of great tips on why you should be outlining, but in the end I found the practical side of it lacking. Don't get me wrong, its an entertaining read, and Weiland makes a compelling case on why you want to outline, what the benefits are, and what all of the factors of a well rounded outline include (not just the scene list). I had hoped for something a little more in depth about the different toolsets you can use (not just “this is a mind mapping,” but “this is mindmapping - here's how to do it and make it useful for your outline if that strikes you”).
In this sequel to Across the Universe, author Beth Revis takes us back aboard the colony ship Godspeed just three months after Amy was revived from cryogenic storage. The inhabitants of the Godspeed are struggling to deal with life without the calming effects of Phydrus, and at the same time with the shift in leadership paradigms that Elder is attempting to introduce. But not everyone is happy with the new freedoms of thought and free will, and the body count starts to rise as a message is clearly sent to anyone that will listen: Follow The Leader.
At the same time, Amy is presented with a series of tantalizing clues left to her in video clips by Orion, the very man that tried to kill her in the last book. Are the two related? What is the secret that Orion is trying to guide Amy to, and why does he say that only she can decide the fate of the Godspeed? Readers will be captivated by Revis' flowing writing as the attempt to unravel these two ribbons of the plot.
Following in the footsteps of works like Robert Heinlein's “Orphans of the Sky,” Revis presents a fresh and entertaining story in this second book of her trilogy. The intensity and action increase as our two protagonists, Amy and Elder, deal with both a murderer on the loose, and the future of the Godspeed itself and everyone on board it. Recommended for science fiction readers starting at age 13 for mature plot elements.
A five star rating, though I would really say 4 1/2 stars - but hear me out. I tend not to enjoy independent fiction, completely for unfair technical reasons. The stories may be fine, but the execution is typically so distractingly poor that I can't bear to make my way through.
Umstead's “Grabriel's Redemption” defies that generalization. Well written and engaging, the story is spartan and fast paced. I only paused once to question some science (this is what the genre brings out in us, and I stand by my assertion that that's not how science works). Otherwise, I read this without pause or inhibition and enjoyed the heck out of it.
Some criticize that the characters aren't well developed enough, but I would argue that they are just as well developed as any Clint Eastwood or Bruce Willis character (hmmm, take that as you will on second thought). No, we don't get a feel for how Gabriel feels about global warming or what his preference is brandies is, but we do know how he will react, and he remains true to that characterization throughout.
This was a quick read, but I don't regret it at all. If you're looking for some non-Earth military action, you could do far worse than to sit with Gabriel and his team.
I have to caveat this review before it even gets started. Like the near mythical James Halliday in “Ready Player One,” I was born in the mid-70's. That means my perspective on the 80's is skewed through the lenses of someone who saw them as a child to teenager. Cline's use of Halliday's obsessive fascination with the 80's and all things geek, then, fits into my world picture just fine. But if the rousing call of “Thundarr!” doesn't even tickle a memory cell, or if the thought of Ultraman and Mechagodzilla make you just scratch your head in bewilderment, then Cline's book is going to be a tough and/or boring read. The book seems to have been written for and caters to the sci-fi and computer geeks who came of age in the 80's, and despite its future setting was intended to pull on those nostalgic heart strings.
On to the review!
The year is 2044, and life is about as we expected. Fuel shortages, housing shortages, poverty, its all there in spades. The only saving grace in this near dystopian future is the OASIS, an MMORPG so vast and pervasive that it has its own equipment for accessing it, and nearly everyone in the world actually does. The inventor of the OASIS, James Halliday, is wealthy beyond measure. And then he dies, willing both his fortune and ownership of the OASIS to whoever can solve the quest he has designed to find the Easter egg. “Ready Player One” is the story of Wade Watson, told in the first person as he takes part in this global quest, to find the three keys that open the three gates that lead to Halliday's prize Easter egg. Its a fairly fast paced story, where a lot of the action takes place in the OASIS itself, the augmented virtual reality that is so key in this world.
As far as complaints go - well, you can see that Cline is a fanboy of Whedon with his references to the Whedonverse and Firefly, but where's Farscape? Where's Earth Above and Beyond? Was there really too much culture to be able to reference in under 400 pages?
More seriously, the biggest problem I see folks having with this book is that it is so niche. I'm not unfamiliar with the marketability of the culture in question, believe me, but outside of our circle I can see this book being a very boring read for folks. The book could have taken place in 2014 as much as 2044 - most of the technology that is critical is at least at the speculative layer today. Which means when you peel back the “sci-fi” of it taking place in the future, all that you are really left with is a book that's reminiscent of an 80's movie that takes place in a virtual reality where knowledge of the 80's is key.
And yet, I loved the book. I couldn't put it down, reading it within a week of getting it, which says something this time of year. If my caveats have done nothing to disuade you, then go grab a copy now, and enjoy!
The second book in the Dahak trilogy picks up right where Mutineer's Moon left off. Earth faces attack from the Achuultani, while Colin is off looking for help and what happened to the Fourth Imperium. The book covers a lot of ground quickly as Weber almost rushes to get us to the point where we see some action. Without being a spoiler - yes, there are answers to most of the big questions from Book One.
I think my only complaint about this book was the lack of effort on Weber's part to deal with real universe physics. Not the complicated parts, like how warp missiles would function at a quantum entanglement level, but just the basics of: if ships are on opposite sides of a solar system (which is presumably at least a few light hours in width), how is it they see each other in real time?!? Sorry, I know this isn't something most folks care about, but ever since I read The Dread Empire's Fall series by Walter Jon Williams, this is the kind of thing I think about in epic space battles that make these kind of mistakes (detection based on hyper signal? sure! based on seeing the ship appear on the other side of the system instantly? Light doesn't work that way!!!)
But I digress, because despite that physics problem, the story is about the characters and the struggle, and as with the first book, it continues in good spirits here. Off to the third book!
Dragon's exist. Descended from alchemically altered knights, the Slayers know this to be true. Now a diverse group of teens that includes Tori, a smart but spoiled senator's daughter, must prepare to save the rest of us at any cost. Because after laying dormant for centuries, the dragon eggs are ready to hatch.
“Slayers” is the first book in this YA series by C.J. Hill, the noms de plume of a YA romance writer with 18 other books published. The writing of “Slayers” is generally tight, the pace and action following an escalating pace, but the book is not without its faults. Reading “Slayers,” one gets the impression that the author wasn't completely comfortable breaking away from romance novels. At inconvenient and even inappropriate times, the action is interrupted with spurious romantic observations and thoughts.
I have no problem with the fact that there is romance in the story - only with the odd way it interrupts the action, sometimes literally in mid-fight having the protagonist wonder if so-and-so likes her, and maybe he'll kiss her? Its as though the author tried to merge two different stories, or went back through to add the romantic elements to flesh out the story after the fact. Because while both the action and the romance are well written, they don't mesh well together, leaving the reading a bit disjointed.
All that said, the story has potential. There is a temporary resolution in the story and we are left with enough nuggets to know that the story will continue. I only hope its handled better.
Readers of YA fiction looking for something new and contemporary, but with fantasy elements, will enjoy this novel. With a title like “Slayers,” I had envisioned something more like Buffy vs. dragons instead of vampires, an expectation that tainted my appreciation for the story.
Shadow's Lure is the second book of Sprunk's Shadow Saga, following the debut of “Shadow's Son” last year (2010). In this volume, we return to Othir immediately after the events of “Shadow's Son” as Caim heads north, looking for answers to his past and the murder of his parents. What he finds is a land under the grip of the Shadow, personified in the witch Sybelle and the hints of shadow born magic that darken the land. Meanwhile, Josey, as Empress, is struggling with the politics of a land that seems beset with chaos, not to mention assassins out to remove her. And then there's the fae Kit, who early in the book is whisked away from Caim as she has to deal with her own troubles.
“Shadow's Lure” needs to be read in sequence with the rest of the series, unfortunately. Sprunk gives the new reader nothing to identify with with the characters, plunging the reader into a world where the three main characters have very little direct interaction with one another. readers coming to this book directly from the end of book one, though, will appreciate that this book picks up within days of the first book.
Sprunk keeps the secrets of his world at bay, giving us only hints and suggestions. For now, this is enough, though the third book, “Shadow's Master,” has a lot of promises to deliver on. Sprunk's books will appeal to the sword and sorcery fans - assassins, magic, and action litter the novel, leaving very little room for the doldrums to creep in.
John Scalzi books are always fun because they're not intended to be deep tomes of introspective reflection on the future of humanity and our interaction with the Universe at large. Scalzi writes fun, quick to read science fiction that you enjoy because they aren't huge investments of your life. In fact, they tend to be self contained volumes, so you also don't have to buy into an expanse of books just to keep up with them.
In “Fuzzy Nation,” Scalzi revisits the world of H. Beam Piper's Fuzzies, with a bit of a modern update. I have to confess, I haven't read the original, so I can't compare this effort, but for my money it was a fun read. The novel follows one Halloway, disbarred lawyer turned prospector and dog owner as he deals with making two huge finds - one that can make him rich, and the other that can take it all away from him. Halloway is the type of incorrigible rogue that will be familiar to readers - a smart mouth, quick decisions that you know have an agenda even if it isn't obvious, and he's entertaining.
I don't usually gush, but this was a great read. The story was written with all of the flavor and fervor of the character centric storytelling of a classic Niven or Heinlein. The pace is fast, the characters engaging. A thoroughly fun read!
I started reading this during the recent onset of rainy weather here in Virginia, starting with the hurricane last month. There's is something in my brain, a trigger, that associates cool, rainy weather with the trifecta of Saturday evenings, comic books, and pulpy science fiction/fantasy. It doesn't get much pulpier than Weber's Mutineer's Moon, book 1 of the Dahak trilogy. (I'm actually reading the omnibus edition, but thought it would be more fair to list the books individually as I finished them.)
Its a little startling to realize that this book is just shy of twenty years old - the politics and climate of international affairs in the book, while a bit simplistic in some ways, still manage to resonate as being right on cue for modern day to near future Earth. You know, except for the fact that the moon is really a giant, orbiting alien space craft set to look like a moon when the proto-human population on the ship faced a mutiny. Except for that, of course.
I called it pulpy, and I'll stand by that - don't pick this book (or series) up if you are looking for deep discussions on human nature, highly correct science and scientific conjecture, or really deep, introspective science fiction. This is big explosions and quick action scenes that don't necessarily always make sense in retrospect, but that work nicely in the context of the fast paced story that Weber has written.
If you've read the kind of books I review high, especially in the science fiction category, and agree with me, then this is probably a good fit. Its eye candy for the brain, in all the brain rotting sweetness our mother's used to warn us about. And keep an eye on the moon, because there might be something up there keeping an eye on us, too.
Hellbent was my first foray into the world's of Cherie Priest. I've heard wonderful things about her steampunk series, the Clockwork Century, but of her vampire series, beginning with Bloodshot, I'd heard very little.
Let me put that to rest.
If you're just looking for all that glitters, this isn't the spot. Nor is Priest's take on vampires entirely horrific, though. What she is is blunt and snarky and very engaging.
You can almost forget that Ray (Raylene) is a vampire, except maybe when she's rescuing a kitten that's tracked through a crime scene because its paws smell so good, what with all that fresh blood. Ray is a thief. A very, very good thief, who's hired to track down some magical artifacts and relive their current owner of them. The maniac witch that's threatening to bring down heaven and hell with them is just a complication in the plan, right?
The other major plot threads of the novel center around blind Ian (another vampire) and his former House, and Adrian's (a human) search for what happened to his sister. While a lot of the historical details to these plots is left unsaid, enough context was given (and even an outright “This is what happened before” blurt) that you didn't feel lost if you hadn't read the first book. It also didn't feel like Priest overly did the recap, as most of it was up front early on, letting the story progress on its own from there.
Hellbent was a splendid mix of action and comedy, and of course magic, vampires, ghouls, and some tasty, bloody kitten paws. Probably a few too many jokes about the objects Ray is hired to steal (I'd hate to be the one to reveal that spoiler), but other than that a solid, fun read.
I should start this review by saying that all in all, I am not a big reader of dystopian novels (future or otherwise). Sure, I love a good Sci-Fi epic like any other bred and raised on Star Wars geek, but all in all I'm not usually interested in near future sci-fi, calamitous or not.
Which made it all the more fascinating to me that Marie Lu's debut novel and first volume in her Legend series, “Legend,” was so mesmerizing. “Legend” is a near future story set in a future Los Angeles following the collapse of the United States. Told from the first person perspective of Day, a wanted criminal, and June, a rising law enforcement officer, the novel flips back and forth each chapter as we see the world through their eyes, waiting for the two world views to mesh together. June and Day have no reason to interact with each other until the day June's brother is murdered and Day is fingered as the prime suspect. As the facts are shed to reveal the truth beneath, we learn that there is more to this story than we realized, and interesting tidbits that seemed spurious take on new meaning and context.
The novel wasn't perfect, though. It was never clear to me how Day, a rebellious street punk with a definite antiestablishment agenda, became the most wanted criminal in the Republic. Before being accused of murder, none of the crimes we are told about involved anything more than vandalism and disrespect for authority. Yet even before we see the paths of these two characters cross, it is plainly telegraphed that Day is the Republic's most wanted. I understand that in a tyranny, anyone that speaks out against the establishment must be silenced, but Day, who is only his late teens, seems to have earned a disproportionate amount of attention.
Lu gets away with this, though, by giving us an engaging story that deftly intertwines two disparate views into a single, cohesive story that has us both rooting for resolution and disappointed when it all comes to a conclusion. I look forward to seeing where Lu takes this series in her next novel, and would recommend it as a good read to YA and up looking for a quick escape to a darker future.
I'm a little late in reading this, I realize - the sequel is now out, and here I am just getting to it. I remember when “The Magicians” came out, critics likened it to “Harry Potter, but with older kids.” Of course, the fans called it “Harry Potter, but with older kids!” I guess it was whether you used an exclamation mark that made the difference.
Personally, I found the novel a little uneven. Prior to going off to magic university, I liked the protagonist, Quentin. At school he was a jerk, but ok, not following some of your decisions or comments, a little out of the blue, but I can move along past the angst of entering a new world. By the end of the book I cared less and less about his choices, what he was doing, or even why. I cared more for the secondary characters than for Quentin, and I never got that emotional bond that's supposed to tie you to book and make it impossible to put down.
The coolest part of the book was the laying out of the Narnia like story the characters grew up with, and then interacting with the real thing. But even here the story was uneven. Some of it was the gritty underbelly of a pseudo-Narnia you know is lurking in the shadows, but then it stopped and became all quick brushstrokes again, glossing over any sense of depth and leaving it all feeling hollow.
The parts of this novel that were good, were really, really good. Sadly, the parts that weren't dragged this down a couple of stars in my opinion.
The third volume of the Seven Realms series, it really felt like Chima finally has settled into the story of Han and Raisa. Han must finally face the moment we've all waited for - when he discovers his friend and love interest Rebecca is in fact the Princess Heir Raisa of the Queendom of the Fells.
Overwhelmingly, though, this is Raisa's volume. Friction and violence increase as the people trying to keep Raisa out of the way increase their efforts.
Will they succeed?
Of course not. This is a fantasy series, and we all know the heroine and hero ultimately will prevail to win the day. Right? Maybe. Not everything will go to plan as Raisa returns home in this volume. The action and pace of the third volume are more consistent, giving the reader a solid return for their investment in the series. My biggest complaint, and perhaps this isn't fair since the principal character is a sixteen year old girl, is the complete inconsistency in her feelings towards the men in her life. Its difficult to tell who we should be rooting for as a love interest when Raisa herself changes gears every few pages, from mooning over Amon, to Nightwalker, to Micah and Han.
If you've read the other two volumes of this series, then you deserve this volume. The first half of the book is fast paced (I read the first 300 pages in a day) and will keep you on your toes. The second half of the book slows down, right about the point we realize that we are being set up for the fourth book. Although I think this was the best volume of the series so far, I'm only going to give it four stars - my socks weren't blown off, just mildly uncurled at a few points. I would have liked more from Han, and found the one chapter from Amon's perspective both refreshing and unexpected since no other non Han/Raisa character ranked their own chapter.
The second volume of Chima's Seven Realms series begins right on the tail of volume one. Haunted by the loss of his mother and sister, Han heads south to study in Oden's Ford at Mystwerk House. But leaving the Fells doesn't mean leaving the danger behind, as Han quickly discovers when he learns that his fellow students include the Bayar twins, scions of the High Wizard.
Meanwhile, Princess Raisa has escaped to Oden's Ford, looking to hide from those that would try and force her on a path that is not in her best interests. In Oden's Ford she lives an assumed identity, hiding from those that would force her into a marriage that would break the thousand year old laws that bind the Fells.
The Exiled Queen is a story of false pretenses and politics, framed within the lives of Han (17) and Raisa (16). This second volume of the series starts off much more strongly than the first, and could easily be broached by readers new to the series. Chima does a great job of refreshing our memory of the plot points without too much backtracking, letting the story carry us forward on its own merits.
The Exiled Queen is a solid volume in terms of story. The first book of the Seven Realms introduced us to these two characters, making it clear that they were going to be interlinked some day, but focussed largely on world building. This second volume explores their development as individuals, giving us more depth and intertwining their stories as individuals, focussing on character over scenery. Most of the time in Oden's Ford is glossed over with a few brush strokes, focussing instead on the characters thoughts and emotions. In each character we see the shade of the adults they will become developing, at the expense of the story at large moving along.
For that, this book earns some criticisms. Where the first volume focussed on the world around the characters more than it did on the individuals within it, this second volume takes the exact opposite approach. As a consequence, the action is fairly predictable to anyone that's ever read a fantasy hero/heroine novel before. The state of affairs in the Seven Realms at the start of the book is the same as it is at the end of the book, with only a few pawns moving around on the outskirts of the story. The real story is about us watching Han and Raisa make the decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.