piratequeen

Last volume. :-(

Oh. Em. Gee.

(More soon.)

What's really frustrating to me is that I think this author and even this story had so much potential. In this book, like in [b:Anna Dressed in Blood|9378297|Anna Dressed in Blood (Anna, #1)|Kendare Blake|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1317793801s/9378297.jpg|14261925], Blake has a few moments of shining prose and some truly creepy scenes, such as the entire bit with Aunt Riika, and the Suicide Forest scene which was particularly creepy. But all in all, both books read to me like some kind of AU lovechild of Buffy and Supernatural. If this series had just been Cas and friends cruising around hunting ghosts while trying to find his dad's killer, I think that would have been much more enjoyable and I might have been more forgiving of the fanfic feel. (As I mentioned in my review for book 1, the cover blurbs from Cassandra Clare should have been a dead giveaway.) But the plot elements that Blake introduces aren't nearly as fun, and the book bogs down whenever we get away from the ghost-hunting action.

Girl of Nightmares picks up a few months after the end of the first novel to continue the adventures of Theseus Cassio in the land of unusual names (seriously, the randomness of names in this book make me chuckle), but there's honestly not much new here. Similar to book one, the first half of book two is also pretty slow, and consists mainly of Cas whining about how he needs to rescue Anna, and everyone around him telling him no.

The second half of the book gets a bit better. We learn a little bit more about the history of the athame that Cas uses, as well as Giles -er- Gideon and his occult past. A new character, Jestine, shows up in the second half who is basically a more fun female Cas, who introduces herself by jumping him and Thomas and pretty much mopping the floor with him. I kind of liked her.

Most of the book consists of Cas being whiny, selfish, and pretty unlikeable. His friends Thomas and Carmel haven't changed much, and remain the more likeable characters. The latter has some especially fierce moments in the second half of the book that made me cheer despite a predictable subplot in which she decides she's done with the dangerous ghost-hunting gig and breaks up with Thomas kind of brutally, only to show up later on, saying she was wrong and reuniting with him.

I am still not a fan of the romance between Cas and Anna, but I didn't find it as grating this time around, I think because, although it's the driving motivation of Cas in the book, Anna as a character was absent for most of the story. I was pleasantly surprised at the ending, where Anna finally rests in peace and remains dead. She doesn't suddenly come back to life so she could be with Cas, her One Twu Luv, like I was dreading.

All in all, I found this duo fairly forgettable. I will likely wait for trusted reviews before picking up anything else from this author, although I really do hope she grows into her potential.

(light spoilers, maybe, if you didn't read the book's synopsis)

I first found out about this novel when I heard that Patrick Weekes was publishing a novel through other fandom communities online. If you're a gamer or computer RPG fan, you may already know his name. Weekes was one of the writers on Bioware's Mass Effect sci-fi RPG series, and he was also a very vocal fan advocate during the kerfluffle over the ending of Mass Effect 3. I figured I would have to check the book out sometime just to support an awesome guy.

And then I read the synopsis of the book.

This book, basically, could have been written on commission for me.

At it's heart, The Palace Job is a heist story, with all the tropes that entails: a Robin Hood type hero (well, heroine in this case), planning a heist for great justice from an evil man in power. Our heroine, Loch, is a tough, dark-skinned woman who is thankfully not depicted as any less of a woman for being a warrior. The story includes themes of friendship, family, loyalty, betrayal, revenge, all with clever plot twists, a little bit of romance, and swashbuckling adventure in heaps.

Seriously, you guys. This is almost everything I love in fantasy fiction, and all in one package.

The setting is a fantastic world with elements of both traditional and 'steampunk' fantasy, including magical airships and an unusual magic system which feels more technological than magical. The world-building is subtle and doesn't hit you over the head with long passages of exposition, which I quite liked. You learn about the world by seeing it through the eyes of the characters.

Oh, and the characters! Ocean's Eleven-style, Loch assembles a motley crew to help her on her mission, including a unicorn, a death priestess with a talking war hammer, and a clueless farm boy who is, of course, destined for greatness. I found all the characters very enjoyable with fun quirks, and decently well-developed for a short novel. The writing style, including dialogue, was very modern and colloquial; occasionally I thought some of the dialogue felt a little too modern for the setting, but I figured it was my own fantasy preconceptions and it never really threw me out of the story. Weekes has no trouble balancing all the balls he throws into the air, and I never once felt lost amid the large cast of characters and intricate plotting.

The tone of the book is often humorous, but the book is satirical more than it is silly, and it doesn't make light of the very real dangers to our team of criminals. Weekes not only takes a satirical jab at racism through Loch and her companion Kail, who are both part of a maligned racial minority fighting for equal rights, he also takes a poke at politics, in particular U.S. politics.

The United States' two-party government system has an equivalent in the book's Republic, with the Learned party versus the Skilled party. And those race issues I mentioned are also all tied up in the party politics as well. I particular enjoyed that the people of the Republic are apparently kept up on politics by the use of puppet shows reminiscent of "Punch and Judy" -- in which a gryphon representing one of the parties and a manticore representing the other are kept in check by a 'neutral' dragon moderator, ending with the tag line "it's your Republic". Very clever, tongue-in-cheek, and an amusing commentary on political reporting in the U.S., I thought.

Was it perfect? No. As I said earlier, occasionally the modern dialogue would throw me off, and it is a fairly short novel which means Weekes has to cram a lot of character development and plot twists into 300-some-odd pages. However, I loved it a lot, and I would proudly shove this book into the hands of as many people will listen to me go on about it.

Like most of these anthologies: read some, skimmed some, skipped some. Jim Butcher's story was good - nice to get something finally from the POV of occasional Dresden Files villain/ally John Marcone, who is probably one of the most complex and interesting characters in the series. The Carrie Vaughn story was also a standout for me, about a dragonslayer getting ready to retire and training her church-appointed replacement. The setup for Shannon Butcher's story had me interested, but the end fell a little flat for me. I also enjoyed the story by P.N. Elrod about a vampire PI in a noir style tale of gangsters and guns. Most of the rest I had either already red or couldn't really get into.

Review coming later. When my brain recovers.

A collection of short stories about witches and magic. Originally picked this up for the Dresden Files story, the first in the "Bigfoot" trilogy of short stories, but I was surprised to find some other favorite authors in here, so I read most of the stories. Some didn't grab me so I skipped over them. Star rating based on the stories I read.

It's a little like Harry Dresden, with books instead of traditional wizardy. A really fun story with geek humor, bibliophile charm, and an interesting, non-traditional romance.

The second book in the Kingkiller Chronicle was not quite as good as the first, but still an enjoyable roller-coaster ride. Rothfuss's style is easy to get caught up in, both the third-person framing story and the first-person account of Kvothe as possibly unreliable narrator.

A couple of spoiler-y thoughts on finishing the book:


For me, the book dragged a bit in the middle, mostly in the sections after Kvothe goes traveling. The part hunting the bandits was a bit dull; the section with Fellurian felt longer than it needed to be.

I'm pretty sure Kvothe's mother will turn out to be the "lost" Lackless sister who ran off with an Edema Ruh lover.

I'm beginning to think Denna the walking plot device might be Fae or part-Fae.

I liked the symmetry of the chapter names at the beginning and end of the book.
Beginning: A Silence of Three Parts, Apple and Elderberry, Holly, Luck
End: Locks, Folly, Elderberry, A Silence in Three Parts

It might go further than that but those were the ones I noticed.

Only read the Butcher story, wasn't interested in the rest of the stories. Butcher's Dresden Files story was good.

Rating based only on the two stories I read, the Butcher (Dresden Files series) and the Vaughn (Kitty Norville series) which were both enjoyable side story additions. I skimmed the other but none of the other stories really interested me.

Really more of a 4.5 to me. Loved it. More later.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. I had received ample warning about the level of sexual violence in the novel (and it probably helped that I read the worst of these scenes while sick with a fever last week). If you can handle that, the central mysttery of the young girl's disappearance is interesting. The writing style is simultaneously what I would call detailed yet utilitarian. This is probably at least partially something in the translation but the author goes out of his way to mention brands and specs for computers, for example. And oh, the endless coffee and sandwiches. And apparently Mikael is gods' gift to women? One would think so considering how much sex he has in this book. He's pretty clearly some kind of author self-idealization.

For all these faults and the lack of any real character growth, I still found the book entertaining and Lisbeth suitably kick-ass. Will likely read the others when I have the time.

Some of the sillier and more serious stories in the same volume, at least part of this volume was written after Takeuchi started the Sailor Moon manga, so this is full of cameos from other characters. Definitely a must for Sailor Moon fans.

Hit or miss, like most short story anthologies, but this one has a relatively large proportion of stories that held my interest.

A fun preview of McGuire's upcoming InCryptid series. Loved the characters and banter, looking forward to the first book in March. My only real complaint is that there were some formatting errors in the PDF version.