Amy and I snuck out yesterday to see Transformers 2 while the kids were at their cousins’ place.  (Please note - this was Amy’s suggestion, not mine.  Because my wife is that cool.)  Currently, the movie is getting trashed in the reviews.  21% at Rotten Tomatoes as of this morning.

But you know what?  I liked it.  It’s silly, over-the-top, with problems ranging from a cartoon plot to Prime’s face fetish, but like the first movie, that’s not the point.  You go in with low expectations, turn off your brain, and enjoy the spectacle of giant robots pounding the crap out of each other.  I thought some things worked better this time around.  It was nice to actually get some personality from Starscream.  On the other hand, sometimes Michael Bay’s idea of “personality” is problematic in the extreme.

Next up: the spoilers, including points that worked and didn’t, and a deeper look at Mudflap and Skids.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

The Sleeping God [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], by Violette Malan is a nifty book.

As heroic fantasy goes, this book has a fair amount going for it.  Well-built world and mythology that fits together rather well, badass mercenary protagonists who are more than just caricatures, a sprinkling of secrets and intrigue, and of course, a sleeping god.  Our heroes are mercenary brothers* Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane, who take a job escorting a young girl back to her noble house but soon find themselves targeted by an ancient menace.

This is not the nifty I want to talk about.

What I loved about this book is the portrayal of Dhulyn and Parno’s relationship.  This is a partnership in every sense of the word, built around a core of love and trust.  As mercenary brothers, the two of them are bound to one another in a relationship as sacred as marriage.

Most fiction tends to show us the beginning of relationships, the eagerness and the passion and the fumbling and clumsiness as people learn more about one another.  All too often, this leads to fairly predictable tension and conflict, misunderstandings and mistrust.  The Sleeping God brings us a more mature relationship, and one of the healthiest relationships I’ve encountered in fiction.  They talk to each other.  They trust one another.  They’ve got each other’s backs.  They’re romantically involved, but the romance isn’t a neverending font of angst and drama.

I asked Malan about Dhulyn and Parno, and she responded:

“So often relationships, especially in fiction though not limited to that, seem to be based on the people not telling each other things.  This is so often the basis of the relationship in romance novels and soap operas, for example (and consequently on the part of living people who think that’s how they’re supposed to act). My idea was to have two people who simply told each other what was on their minds instead of making a hullaballo about hiding things from each other. Of course, it did mean that the tension and the conflict had to come from elsewhere, but I think the story was the better for it.”

Don’t misunderstand.  Malan doesn’t spend the whole book preaching about healthy relationships.  What she does is show us the advantage of Dhulyn and Parno’s partnership.  Individually, each of these fighters is pretty bad-ass.  But put them together and they’ll whoop anything you care to throw at them.

I also liked that the characters go beyond being “just” fighters.  Dhulyn is also a scholar, hunting for new books and theorizing about the evolution of children’s songs.  Parno is … well, that would be telling.  Suffice it to say, he’s also more than he first appears.

It took me a chapter or two to really get into the book, and the plot itself may be familiar to long-time fantasy fans. Mercenaries and ancient gods, dark priesthoods and scheming rulers … there’s almost an old-school fantasy feel to the book.  But then, I enjoy old-school fantasy ;-)  I’ll definitely be grabbing a copy of book two, The Soldier King [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy].

For those of you who’ve read Malan’s work, I’d love to hear your thoughts.  To the rest, what do you think about relationships in fiction?  What are you tired of, and what would you like to see more of?

—–
*Brothers is used as a gender-neutral term.  Dhulyn is female, while Parno is male.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

A while back I finished reading Nightmare [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], by Steven Harper. This is the second book in Harper’s Silent Empire series, in which certain individuals known as Silent have the ability to enter The Dream, a kind of telepathic linking of sentient minds.  The Dream provides instant communication between the stars, and as a result the Silent are highly valued.

It’s been a while since I read Dreamer, the first book in the series.  So it threw me a little to realize this book jumped backward chronologically, exploring the backstory of Kendi Weaver.

It’s not a nice backstory. Kendi’s family is captured by slavers and separated. Kendi is discovered to be silent, which makes him far more valuable. Kendi is eventually freed, and finds himself drawn into a mystery surrounding a killer who murders people within the Dream.

There’s a lot going on in this book. The murder mystery is well done, though the ending has a strong element of coincidence to it regarding the whereabouts of our killer. (Is that vague enough?) The story of Kendi’s enslavement felt … hm. It didn’t feel like a slave narrative. I could empathize with Kendi’s pain, but at the same time, a part of me was thinking “This isn’t anywhere near as bad as it could be.” Whether or not that’s a good thing depends on how painful you want your slave stories, I guess. I thought it worked well for the story, since the book is about Kendi’s growth rather than any particular phase of his life.

I also liked the way Harper handled Kendi’s sexuality. It’s hard enough coming to terms with those adolescent drives and feelings. Try being a gay slave trying to sort it all out. Kendi’s crushes and his struggles to accept himself worked well. Not preachy, and not the core of the story, but a part of his life that most readers will be able to relate to.

As for the Dream, that’s just nifty. Communal telepathic reality. How cool is that? I loved watching Kendi and his friends learning to explore the Dream, as well as the history of the Children of Irfan (a Silent group), and all the different implications of Silent communication.

All in all, I’d definitely be interested in reading book three in the series to see where Harper goes with it.

So, anyone else read this book or the series? What did you think?

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Let me make this clear up front: I enjoyed the latest Trek movie. It was a fun little SF romp. I didn't love it the way a lot of folks seem to, but I did like it. Karl Urban as McCoy was my favorite, but I found myself liking most of the newly reinvented characters. I'm also impressed at how well the movie accomplishes precisely what it's supposed to: rebooting the series and clearing the way for new stories. A parallel universe storyline allows all of the old Trek histories and movies to stand unchanged while our young actors go forth to tell the Trek stories of this universe.

With that said, can we please get an actual writer to help with the next one? Maybe a scientist too, while we're at it. I know Star Trek has not been known for its rigorous adherence to scientific fact, and some of the stories get a little silly in terms of plotting. People are already telling me "Just ignore the silliness and enjoy it!" But there's just too much. It got me thinking about what must have gone on during the writing and rewriting process....

Warning: there be spoilers ahead.

( Scenes from the writing room with JJ Abrams )

---

In the end, I liked the movie, but I really wanted to love it. I just wish I didn't have to lobotomize myself to get past all the gaping cracks in the story. It was fun SF action, but it didn't really feel like Star Trek to me. It's not just the different actors, either. World Enough and Time felt like Trek, despite the new cast. This didn't.

But I'll definitely go see the next one.

Okay, first thing's first. If you're going to read Once a Princess [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], you'll probably want to pick up Twice a Prince [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] as well, since the end of book one leaves a fair amount unresolved.

There's a lot to like about Once a Princess. From the product description, "Warning: This title contains a kick-butt mother-daughter team, a wicked king, a witty pirate with an unfortunate taste for neon colors, inept resistance fighters, a dreamy prince who gallops earnestly hither and yon, and a kick-butt princess in waiting." I hear kick-butt princesses are all the rage these days :-)

Sasha and her mother Sun fled from the world of Sartorias-deles when Sasha's father was driven into hiding when Canardan Merindar usurped the throne. Sasha is living in LA when men from her former world come looking for her. She soon returns to Sartorias-deles and is swept up in the resistance as the ally? prisoner? of the sexy but fashion-challenged pirate Zathdar. Sun follows, looking for her daughter, and ends up in the hands of Merindar. Politics, intrigue, fighting, and romance all ensue.

Sherwood Smith's books blow my mind for the sheer world-building that goes into them. Check out the Sartorias-deles wiki. I'm awed by the amount of time and work Smith has spent developing this world and its history, the races and the individual characters, the magic and the cosmology. It's Tolkienesque in scale, but written in a more accessible voice.

This has advantages and disadvantages both. On the one hand, there were times I felt like I was missing some of the larger picture. On the other, Smith has created a world you can dive into as deeply as you choose, and stay there as long as you'd like. As I read, I kept coming back to how ambitious her work feels, each book adding another piece to her overall body of work to build this world. The story works wonderfully on its own, but it feels more ... solid than most. Smith has been developing this world since she was eight years old. It feels like you could go into any building, look behind any tree, and the author knows exactly what's there. (As opposed to some books, where you see the Hollywood-style facade if you stop to look at anything too closely.)

Back to this particular book, it's a fun read. Sasha and Zathdar were my favorites, with plenty of good banter and tension between them. Prince Jehan, son of Merindar, is a fun character as well, once you start to learn more about him. I didn't get as much of a sense as Sun, but she's as strong and determined as her daughter, just in a different arena. (Politics and intrigue as opposed to fighting and running about.) Actually, there's a nice range of strong female characters in this one.

Once a Princess comes out in paperback next week. (It's already available from Samhain as an e-book, though.) The paperback of book two follows in early May. So I'm not sure how many folks will have read these yet, but I know Smith has a good number of fans, so I'd love to hear what people think of her work in general.

Smith has a blog at sartorias which is also worth reading, with some of the most thoughtful posts and discussions you'll find on LJ.

---

Friday night, a friend and I went out to see Watchmen.

Let me get this out of the way up front so you can crucify me and get it over with. I've never read the graphic novel. I do live in a world of SF/F geekdom, so I know a fair amount of the story anyway. (Yes, I know about the squid.) But my thoughts here are based on the movie alone.

( Click for the poll, if nothing else )

Deader Still [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], by Anton Strout (antonstrout) comes out on Tuesday the 24th, but should already be showing up in bookstores. I was fortunate enough to get an early copy, because apparently someone at Penguin likes me.

Note: Anton works at Penguin. I think this is coincidence. Anton doesn't like anyone. Except maybe Amber Benson, who also said nice things about Deader Still. Gr ... Anton has Amber Benson, Pat Rothfuss has Felicia Day ... when do I get a famous Hollywood actress saying nice things about my book?

Ahem. Anyway, where was I? Oh, right, Deader Still. Fun, but comes up lacking in the werejaguar department. Deader Still is the sequel to Dead to Me [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], which I reviewed back in August. This time, Simon Canderous of New York's Dept. of Extraordinary Affairs is up against another batch of supernatural baddies, including a possible vampire invasion. Of course, the DEA is a government agency, so he also gets to fight red tape and budget troubles. And then there's tension with his girlfriend, ex-cultist Jane, not to mention some leadership troubles with his partner Conner...

Simon's a fun character. His psychometry gives him the ability to see an object's history by touching it, and his retractable bat gives him the ability to see a zombie's insides by whacking it. These two tools, along with a steady barrage of pop culture references, are pretty much what see him through the story.

This is a fun read that doesn't take itself too seriously, and never pretends to be anything but what it is. The pace moves right along, running poor Simon a little ragged in the process, but providing plenty of action. If you liked Dead to Me, it's a safe bet you'll like this one even more. We pick up some threads from the first book, and we also see Simon growing a bit. He knows how to control his powers better now -- well enough to maintain an actual relationship for the first time in his life. (Hard to keep a relationship going when you're accidentally reading your lover's secrets from everything you touch.) Of course, since this is Simon's first relationship, he gets to make all the fumbling mistakes most of us made as teenagers, which is a little painful at times, but understandable.

No book is perfect. Like I said before, this one has a deplorable lack of werejaguars (inside joke*). If you want deep, serious, intense urban fantasy, this might not be the book for you. But the only real complaint I had was a minor quibble, that the Buffy jokes started to get repetitive. Hopefully Simon can expand his pop culture references a little more for book three.

The last page gives us the hook for the next book, but since the major conflicts of this book are all resolved, I won't complain too much about being left hanging on this new crisis ... assuming Anton hurries up and gets the next book out soon.

-----
*Disclosure: I know Anton. We've hung out, and I consider him one of my writer buds. That said, if his book sucked, I'd either tell you so or (more likely) I just wouldn't review it.

My brother-in-law drew my name for the gift swap this Christmas, and turned to my Amazon wish list for inspiration. As a result, I ended up with Dr. Horrible, another season of The Tick, and WebMage [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], by Kelly McCullough.

After I read it, I was glancing at the GoodReads entry for the sequel, Cybermancy. Most of the reviews were good, but what fascinated me were several of the negative reviews (we all get them), which said things like, "it doesn't delve into deeper issues", "it doesn't introduce any great new ideas to literature", and "it could be a decent read if you read it for what it is: fantasy pulp."

Right. What's with these crazy fantasy authors writing fun, lighthearted reads rather than worrying about the development of western literature? Besides, we already know Americans can't write literature anyway.

Naturally, I loved this book.

And not just because the main character, Ravirn, has a magical webgoblin named Melchior who changes into a laptop. (Though goblins do make everything better.) The book blends Greek mythology and modern-day computer hacking. The gods have learned to manipulate the magic of the universe through computers and programming code. Ravirn, a descendent of the Fates, is a skilled hacker and spellcoder. So skilled that he's brought in to assist with one of Atropos' pet projects, a spell to eliminate free will. Ravirn takes exception to this, a decision which puts him in direct opposition to the aspect of fate responsible for cutting the threads of life. Not good. He spends the rest of the book trying to stay alive, and learning that this conflict goes far deeper than he ever imagined.

The tech-heavy nature of magic and spellcasting was hard to get into at first, but only for the first few pages. I'm still not completely clear on the whole magic system, but it's a heck of a lot more sensible than spouting random pseudo-Latin and waving your wands around. I'll also say that the cover art for the series threw me off. There's an urban fantasy feel to the cover that made me think I was opening up a more serious book. Maybe it's just me. But the closest we get to "urban" is Ravirn's time on his college campus.

Is it a work that applies the shock paddles to the heart of American literature? Maybe not. (But hey, neither are mine.) So what? Some of us also read for pure enjoyment. What this book is, is a fun read. There's a love story that has just the right amount of tension. The secondary characters are entertaining, and some are far more complex than they first appear. And watching the relationship between Ravirn and Melchior evolve over the book was great. Melchior steals a few scenes, actually.

The ending came kind of quickly. Almost too quickly. I had to re-read a little bit to figure out what just happened. Overall though, I found it a light, irreverent, and entertaining book.

As always, I'd love to hear what others thought of this one.

Back when I was collecting books for my annual DV shelter book drive, stillnotbored was kind enough to throw in a book for me to read. I had been talking about and reviewing tie-ins, and she was curious what I would think of Heaven's Bones [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], by Samantha Henderson.

To start with, if not for the Wizards of the Coast logo, I never would have realized this was a tie-in. Heaven's Bones is a Ravenloft title, putting this into the dark/horror side of the gaming world. I've only played one Ravenloft campaign, but as I was reading, a few details did start to come back ... mostly the mists. Henderson puts the evil mists of Ravenloft to good use, setting much of the book in 19th century England, where impenetrable, putrid smog is just part of the London scenery. (Although 19th century Whitechapel is a bit of a giveaway about what's coming. There are no direct Jack the Ripper references, though.)

But I'm getting ahead of myself, mostly because I'm not sure how to sum this one up. There are a number of different storylines which all come together by the end of the book. The primary storylines are those of Dr. Sebastian Robarts, and the Vistani called Trueblood. Trueblood was born with the gift of cursing. While this doesn't make him evil, he chose a dark path, and was punished by his people. He survived, but his name was stripped from him, and he found himself living in the mists.

Dr. Robarts is a tragic figure, a skilled surgeon who loses his wife and child in childbirth. Trueblood reaches out to Robarts, driving him mad. Robarts begins kidnapping women, using a combination of his surgical skills and Trueblood's magic to reshape them in horrible ways, with the goal of creating angels of humans, gifts for his lost wife and child.

Other characters and storylines include Artemis, the inspector who uses his gift of Sight to investigate these crimes; Sophie, one of the first female doctors in England; and the girl Fanny and her family, who inhabit Riverbend. I was a little disoriented at first -- Henderson introduces one set of characters, and as I'm getting into their story, we jump to another. But one of the pleasures of the book is starting to see how these storylines all begin to intersect and inform one another across multiple worlds and times. It's an ambitious book, one Henderson pulls off quite well, for the most part. (I didn't feel like Fanny's story fit as tightly as the rest, though the very end does justify their inclusion.)

Heaven's Bones is a disturbing read at times, which is to be expected from a Ravenloft novel. I think the most disturbing aspect is how well Henderson brings us into Robarts' mindset, his fascination with reshaping these women. In reality, Robarts is a fearsome creature, torturing and enslaving his victims. Yet as we follow his work, using magic and scalpel to cut away organs and flesh, rebuilding bone and trying time and again to craft wings capable of flight ... on some level, a part of me wanted to see him succeed. Every once in a while, for a paragraph or a page, I shared his madness ... seeing past the horror to the ultimate goal, something that transcends humanity and becomes beautiful. Becomes angelic.

And that's disturbing as hell, as well as a testament to Henderson's skill.

The book is full of horribly fascinating ideas. The "angel" from the cover art is a particularly twisted example. Seriah, the recording angel, is a brilliant character. There is no gore for the sake of gore, no cheap thrills. It's a dark novel, but the darkness is there for a reason.

My only complaints would be that Fanny's storyline seemed less connected, and as I read her parts I found myself getting impatient to return to the other storyline. And our heroes Sophie and Artemis never felt quite as... developed? engaging? ...as their foils Robarts and Trueblood. Neither of these are serious concerns.

Overall, this is an impressive book. Not one I'd recommend to everyone, but if you like a darker, more complex story, I'd definitely recommend picking this one up.

I know at least some of the folks on my list have read this one. What did you think?

I picked up Way of the Wolf [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] by E. E. Knight (eeknight) while I was at WindyCon last month. This book has the distinction of being the first in a long time to work its way into my dreams. Given the subject matter, they weren't fun dreams. Thanks a lot, Knight!

Way of the Wolf is subtitled "Book One of The Vampire Earth", and comes with a nice little tag phrase. Welcome to the year 2065. Earth is under new management.

"Vampire Earth" is potentially a little misleading. Earth has been conquered by the alien Kurians, who feed on our life essences. In order to feed, they created the Reapers: nightmare creatures who tear open our throats and insert long, serpentine tongues directly into our hearts to feed on our blood while transmitting our vital essence back to their Kurian masters. In other words, if you're expecting traditional vampires and wooden stakes and garlic and quipping blonde teenagers, you're reading the wrong book.

In the humans' corner, we have the Lifeweavers, kin to the Kurians. The Lifeweavers don't fight directly, but they use their powers to change human warriors, to make them better, stronger, faster. These changed humans fall into three categories: Cats (scouts and loners), Bears (bad-ass warriors) and Wolves (the guerilla fighters). This first book introduces us to the world of 2065 through the eyes of the young wolf David Valentine.

The first half of the book is completely episodic. Each chapter is a chapter of Valentine's life, showing us his past, his training, and his missions as a Wolf. There's plenty of tension and a lot of action, but little in the way of overall plot tying it all together. That changes in the second half, when Valentine and one of his men take refuge on a human farm. Here we see more of the day-to-day life of normal humans under Kurian rule. Valentine falls in love, and then has to save his protectors from both Reapers and Quislings (human traitors who have chosen to serve the Kurians).

The early chapters accomplish what they set out to do. Each one adds to the reader's understanding of this world, and the self-contained stories of Valentine's life certainly keep you turning the pages. But I started to wonder where this was going, and whether there was an actual destination for the book, or if this was intended simply to show us this conquered world. The second half helped, but this is still a book where the worldbuilding comes first. Book two, Choice of the Cat [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], looks like it brings more balance, giving Valentine a clearer mission. (One which picks up on hints from the first book which are never fully explored.)

Knight has created a dark world, and he doesn't flinch from some of the nastiness that comes with it. I did enjoy the book, despite the dreams of that first night. But I couldn't help feeling like I was missing the larger story, that Valentine's POV limited me to the trees when I wanted to see more forest. I suspect I'll be picking up book two to see where the story goes from here.

So, anyone else read this one? What did you think of it?

A while back I talked about the dangers of switching series. As a case in point, check out a few of the Amazon reviews of Midnight Never Come [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], by Marie Brennan (swan_tower). With her latest book, Brennan has moved from more traditional sword & sorcery to intricate historical fantasy, and anyone wanting or expecting more of the same might be disappointed.

I was not. I read and reviewed Brennan's earlier books, and enjoyed them both. This one was different: richer in historical detail and description, but less action-oriented than the earlier books. This is also a far more ambitious story.

Set in the late 16th century, Midnight Never Comes opens with a pact between two women who will soon become the most powerful rulers in England: Elizabeth the Virgin Queen, and Invidiana, faerie ruler of the Onyx Court below London. The Onyx Court is a dark shadow of the city above, a secret place of cruelty and deception. One member of Invidiana's court, a faerie named Lune, struggles to regain the favor of her queen by spying on events above. Lune's counterpart is the human courtier Michael Deven, who has been tasked by spymaster Francis Walsingham with finding the hidden player influencing Queen Elizabeth. As Lune and Deven discover the secrets behind Invidiana's power and the true nature of the faerie queen's pacts, they must choose whether to work together, risking everything to try to break Invidiana's rule.

Lune was a more appealing character to me, in part I think because her stakes were higher. Whereas Deven starts out trying to secure a position in Elizabeth's court, Lune serves a more temperamental and dangerous ruler in a court that makes human politics look as simplistic and straightforward as the squabbling of preschoolers. Watching Lune navigate that court, seeing her fall and struggle to rise again, leaves Deven feeling a little bland by comparison.

I confess to being a poor historian, but even to my eye it's clear Brennan has done a great deal of research for this book. Every detail is meticulous and precise, evoking not a generic English fantasy setting but a very real and concrete place and time. Brennan then blends historical detail with the fantastic so smoothly I barely noticed the seams.

This is a book that invites you to slow down and savor. Broken into five acts, each act builds more tension, moving from a relatively leisurely introduction toward a much more focused struggle in the final act. Let me put it this way. While reading the first half of the book, I enjoyed the story, but it was easy for me to set the book down, knowing I'd be back the next night to read more. Toward the end, I had a much harder time closing the book, and lost quite a bit of sleep as things came to a climax.

If you're looking for nonstop action and excitement, this may not be the book for you. But if you want rich worldbuilding and a story you can truly immerse yourself in, I'd recommend picking this one up. For writers, it's also an excellent example of interweaving the historical and the fantastic.

(Oh, and as a random tidbit, this is a book which was at least partly inspired by a role-playing game. To anyone who bashes RPGs and gaming-inspired fiction as simplistic or somehow inferior, I wave this book at you with a hearty pbbt!)

It's been a rough few days, so when I swung by the library, I looked for some good old-fashioned escapism. I came away with Shatterpoint [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] by Matthew Stover.

I'm a bit over halfway through, and it wasn't what I expected. A page-turner to be sure, with lots of fighting and action and light-sabery goodness. But there's something much deeper going on here.

Shatterpoint is set after Attack of the Clones. Mace Windu receives a troubling message from his former Padawan Depa Billaba. Now Mace must travel to the jungle world of Haruun Kal to find Depa and either save her or destroy her.

The thing that both impresses and disturbs me about the book is how it addresses one of the flaws of the whole Star Wars universe. In these movies, we see a galaxy at war. Over a million worlds. And yet the war is clean. Sterile. Ships popping out of existence in flashy explosions. Anonymous stormtroopers falling with bloodless blaster wounds. Even lightsabers leave cauterized, clean wounds. The horrors are there, but you never see them. An entire world blows up, and Obi Wan Kenobi gets a headache. That's it.

Stover shows us a world devastated by war. Depa Billaba was sent to help drive the separatists from Haruun Kal, and she's done so, but at what cost? The planet's people are divided, slaughtering one another in the jungles even after the galactic conflict has moved on.

Stover hammers the theme home. War is not a heroic band fighting their way past faceless enemies to blow up the Death Star and save the galaxy. It's watching your friends die of parasites and diseases, because you have no way of getting the basic medical treatment that could have saved them. It's a child stabbing a wounded soldier again and again, because that child has never known anything but war and hate. It's mutilating your enemies' bodies because you no longer see them as human. For Mace Windu, it's struggling to find the right path, the Jedi path, when all of your choices lead to darkness and death.

It's a powerful book. A little heavy-handed at times, perhaps. But I have a lot of respect for Stover for going beyond the flash-bang special effects and the relatively clean imagery of the movies and reminding readers that it ain't so.

Based on what I've read so far, I don't expect a neat or happy ending. But then, I suspect that's the whole point.

Space zombies. Floating cities. And Pepper leaping out of a spaceship and riding a heatshield down, sans parachute. What else do I really need to say about this one?

Sly Mongoose [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], is Tobias Buckell's third novel, set in the same universe as Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin, but Pepper is the only character from the earlier books. As with Ragamuffin, this isn't a direct sequel, though it does continue the larger story Buckell is creating about humans struggling to survive and find their place as they discover just how dangerous a place this universe can be.

Sly Mongoose is set primarily on the planet of Chilo, a loosely Venus-like planet with crushing gravity, a corrosive atmosphere ... generally not a pleasant place to live. The inhabitants live in floating cities, descending to the surface to maintain the outdated and unreliable mining equipment. It's a hard life, and when Pepper drops in, it gets a lot harder. The Swarm (space zombies!) is coming, searching for a secret hidden on Chilo's surface, and they're prepared to kill anyone and everyone in their way.

Buckell does a lot of cool things in this book. For starters, Chilo's inhabitants are the descendants of the Azteca from Crystal Rain. One of my comments on Crystal Rain was that the Aztecs came across as fairly straightforward villains without as much depth as I wanted to see. Sly Mongoose develops them into fully fleshed out people, still struggling to live down the shame of their ancestors' actions back on New Anegada. He also follows through on a lot of his ideas. How do you prepare for a siege in a floating city, for instance? In the final battle, the Swarm use a tactic I hadn't seen coming, one which still made perfect sense and created a wonderful "Holy crap!" moment.

I'm curious where he's going with this series. He's setting up a very dangerous and violent universe, one in which humanity will either need to unite and work together, or face extinction. Behind every villain, human and alien, waits a larger threat. It reminds me a little of Q from Star Trek when he introduces the crew to the Borg. "You think those Romulans are scary? You ain't seen nothing, yet."

The young miner Timas is a good character, but Pepper steals the book. The character of Pepper is a highly practical, survival-oriented warrior. He's an interesting one ... long-lived, and having survived enough wars to warp any man. There are times he seems to be running on automatic, more machine than human, and throughout the book you see Timas and others trying to break through to that kernel of humanity. Sometimes they seem to reach him. Other times, Pepper just lets them think so, because it suits Pepper's plans at that particular moment. Definitely not a nice man, but a fascinating one, and a useful guy to have around in a war.

Overall, I'd say this is the best of the three books, and it leaves me eager to read number four.

ETA: If you're curious, you can get more info, including links to the first few chapters, at Buckell's web site.

Continuing on my Forgotten Realms/tie-in streak, I just finished reading Mistshore [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] by Jaleigh Johnson (jaleigh_johnson). It was interesting to compare and contrast this one to Steven Schend's two Blackstaff books I reviewed last week.

Mistshore is the story of Icelin, a girl scarred by spellplague and left with a perfect memory and very imperfect magic -- the kind that tends to break free of her control and holds the potential to kill her and everyone around her. She encounters a scarred elf named Cerest. Cerest knows secrets about Icelin's past and her family, and soon becomes obsessed with claiming Icelin for his own. With the help of a butcher named Sull and a thief/monk named Ruen, Icelin flees to Misthore, the most dangerous part of the city of Waterdeep.

Mistshore is a fascinating place, a makeshift town on the water, made up of wrecked ships and other debris. The inhabitants are the lowest of the low, but still preferable to the cold evil that is Cerest and his hirelings.

Like the Blackstaff books, this one follows a small party through an adventure, but it didn't feel like an Adventuring Party. Whereas the Blackstaff books dealt with powerful (high level) characters, our heroes in Mistshore have a more common feel to them. They're less heroic, and more just regular, everyday people trying to survive. Ruen was the only one who really stood out as having an actual character class (dual-class monk/thief), such as when he uses his monk abilities in unarmed combat or to catch missile weapons. Sull is no fighter. Though he fills that role, he's simply a butcher doing what he can to protect Icelin. His weapons aren't daggers or axes, but his meat cleavers. And while Icelin shares some traits with D&D style wizards, she doesn't feel like a Wizard or Sorcerer.

There were still moments I stumbled. I don't know what the spellplague is, for example. (I suspect my Forgotten Realms friends can fill me in on that one?) And there were other references I missed, but nothing that completely threw me out of the story. As with Blackstaff Tower, I think most readers would be able to pick up Mistshore and enjoy it regardless of whether they've read anything else from the Realms.

This is a somewhat gritty book. Mistshore isn't a pleasant place, and Johnson allows us to see some of that ugliness. Some of it still feels a little romanticized -- the lepers with the hearts of gold, for example. But you get enough of the harsh edges to realize how nasty a place Mistshore can be. Combine that with Cerest -- he's an elf in a fantasy world, but he's also a very realistic stalker. The obsession with which he pursues Icelin ... let's just say it was vivid enough to make me uncomfortable, and I mean that as a compliment to Johson's writing. The result is fantasy which isn't shiny and fun and heroic, but down-to-earth and desperate and real. Not the tone I was expecting from a Forgotten Realms book, but it worked well.

Good setting, good characters, and a good plot. What more does a book need?

After all of my talk about media/gaming tie-in novels, I figured I should actually read some, you know? Fortunately, GenCon was there to take care of me.

Steven E. Schend (aka brainstormfront) had been kind enough to give me a copy of his first book earlier this year, and I got his second at the con, meaning we're all set for another double-review.

Blackstaff [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] is the story of Khelben Arunsun, Chosen of Mystra, Archmage of Waterdeep ... which immediately brings up a problem. I've played D&D for years, but I've never been one of the more avid players. Coming into the book, I felt off-balance. What's Waterdeep? Who is Mystra? Should I know who Khelben the Blackstaff is? Are we enemies? Where's Buttercup? I'm not sure how much knowledge the reader is assumed to have from reading other Forgotten Realms books, either novels or the gaming sourcebooks, but I found myself struggling a little.

That said, the story still drew me in. This is a book that operates on two levels. On one level, you have the actual plot, which involves mysterious and deadly artifacts, a dangerous race of oily, shapechanging creatures, a lich, and a prophecy. On another level, this is the story of Khelben himself. An accident binds Khelben's soul to his apprentice Tsarra, giving us a window into Khelben's history and character.

Tsarra was a good choice for a viewpoint character, and her winged tomcat Nameless is a lot of fun. But she also contributed to my sense of not knowing what's going on. Khelben is the one who knows the prophecy and is working to bring various people and events together. Tsarra is drawn along, and for most of the book she doesn't understand the purpose of the various fights and quests. For me the reader, when we get to the end of the book and all is revealed, I still felt like I was missing the significance of the ending. It's an engaging story overall, with fun characters, but I couldn't help feeling left out at times. Still, I enjoyed it enough to start reading Schend's second book.

Blackstaff Tower [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] is set many generations after the events of the first book. Khelben and Tsarra are long gone, and an ambitious wizard called Ten-Rings conspires to steal the power of the current Blackstaff and claim Blackstaff Tower for himself. Vajra, the true would-be heir to the Blackstaff, must gather allies to stop Ten-Rings from claiming power.

This book worked much better for me. I'm sure it helped that I had read the first book and knew the history, but even without that, I felt the story was more ... welcoming, if that makes sense? I don't know that I ever stopped reading to think, "Wait, am I supposed to know who that is or why they're important?" All in all, this was a fun adventure, with interesting characters and moments of genuine emotion. What more could I ask for?

People will talk about being able to hear the dice rolling when they read gaming-type books. And in both books, there are certainly moments when you know you're reading a gaming tie-in. Vajra seemed quite fond of the Color Spray spell, for instance. I sometimes found myself reading battle scenes and thinking, "Okay, that was a fireball, and this guy just shot some magic missiles, which means X damage ... how many hit points do they have?" But these weren't gaming sessions transcribed into book form. They're stories told by someone who knows what he's doing, an author who has his reasons for each twist and turn of the plot, reasons that go beyond rolling a 1 on an attack roll or flubbing a saving throw.

My conclusions? I think you'll get more out of these books if you're familiar with the Forgotten Realms setting. Like any genre or subgenre, it can be hard to jump in unprepared. That said, those of us who haven't read a Forgotten Realms book in eight years can still read, understand, and enjoy the books, particularly the second. We might not get quite as much out of them, but story is universal, and Schend has given us two engaging stories with these books.

I'm not a fast reader, but I seem to be an even slower reviewer. I'm going to try a twofer and see if that works. So let's chat about two very different books, The Duke in His Castle [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] by Vera Nazarian (norilana) and Dead to Me [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] by Anton Strout (antonstrout).

The Duke in His Castle [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] is a fairly short (118 pages) book about Rossain, the Duke of Violet. Like the other dukes in this land, Rossain has been cursed to never leave his castle ... but there is one hope for escape. When the dukes were cursed, each was said to also receive a secret power. If any one duke learns the powers of all the others, he or she will be free. While the others plot and scheme, sending messengers to try to pry secrets from their counterparts, Rossain seems uninterested in playing. He simply wanes away, his life empty and relatively meaningless until a messenger from the Duchess of White arrives at his palace bearing a box of bones and asking him to restore them to life.

Like most of Nazarian's work, this is a richly written world of depth and complexity. The references to various colors (White, Violet, etc.) made me wonder if this story tied into her book Lords of Rainbow, but they seem to be separate. Indeed, there are hints that this is set in some version of our own world: a reference to the lost library of Alexandria, for example. I'm afraid those lines bumped me out of the story. This doesn't feel at all like our world, but there were just enough hints to make me wonder how it could possibly be our own. Hints, but no answers.

That's a minor complaint, probably more from Jim the writer than Jim the reader. The larger problem I had was that I simply didn't like Rossain. In the beginning, he's essentially given up. He's rude, lost in self-pity, and not someone I want to read about. That changes somewhat as Lady Izelle arrives -- their game of magical hide-and-seek is wonderful. But as the story moves on, one of Rossain's later actions undoes any sympathy I've developed, and then some. (No spoilers in the review, but ask me in the comments if you're curious.)

The story itself is a complex one, with several unexpected twists. Izelle herself is a marvelously deep and tormented character. Her story is easily the most engaging, and the most tragic. I've yet to read one of Nazarian's stories that settled into the typical fantasy mold. This is another very original tale, and at times very powerful. I will admit that I didn't completely understand the ending, where we discover the nature of Rossain's power (oh, right -- like that's a spoiler). But that might be me being a little slow.

In some ways, Strout's book is the flip side of Nazarian's. Dead to Me [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] is a light urban fantasy about Simon Canderous, psychometric newbie in New York City's secret Department of Extraordinary Affairs. Simon meets (and develops a bit of a crush on) a beautiful ghost, which leads him into a mystery involving cultists, a wooden fish, a killer bookcase, zombies, and all sorts of fun.

In case you can't tell, this is a book that doesn't take itself too seriously. Turning to a random page gives this line: "All undead are subject to a $10.00 cleaning fee after using the Reference Room." If you follow Strout's LJ, you know he's an entertaining person, and that comes through in the book. Simon's a likeable fellow, a former petty thief trying to make good while wading through the (somewhat exaggerated ... but only somewhat) bureaucracy of government agencies. If there's a problem with this one, it's that the humor keeps me from taking the stakes as seriously as I might have. Balancing humor and conflict is hard (and I don't claim to always get it right myself, either). In this case, I think the humor keeps the tension from rising as high as it might have otherwise.

I think one of the most powerful aspects of the book was the way Strout examined the effects of Simon's power on his personal life. Psychometry means Simon can touch an object and see into the minds of those who have owned or used that object ... which tends to play havoc with relationships, among other things. The use of his power leaves him with a blood sugar crash, so we go through a lot of Life Savers in this book. (Side note -- the night I started reading the book, I had just come back from karate where my own blood sugar dipped low (damn diabetes), and was replenished by half a roll of Life Savers. So I had a lot of sympathy for poor Simon.)

All in all, it's a fun book and a good first novel. I'm always up for more fun SF/F, and I'll be curious to see what happens to Simon in book number two.

What I'd really like to see is a collaboration between Nazarian and Strout. (Maybe something involving were-jaguars.) Both are skilled authors. Nazarian brings beautiful language and amazing world-building depth. Strout brings a fun character and more humor. Combine these two writers and their strengths, and you'd get ... okay, I don't have a clue what you'd end up with. But I'd pay to read it!

Today I finished reading Hotter than Hell [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] by Jackie Kessler (jackiekessler). I posted a few early thoughts last week, and having finished the whole book, I find it one of the more thought-provoking books I've read lately. Also, there are spoilers a-coming, because I can't discuss everything I want to touch on without spoiling some things.

I'd put Hotter than Hell into the paranormal erotic romance category, which means I was reading a subgenre I'm not as familiar with. Always interesting. This is the third book in Kessler's Hell on Earth series. The first two dealt with Jezebel the succubus, and while you don't really need to know the full story, there were some bits where I was left wondering what I had missed. In brief, Daunuan the incubus is given an assignment to corrupt a good soul. If he succeeds, he becomes a prince of Hell. If he fails ... well, Hell has little use for failures. Complicating matters, various other demons seem to want Daunuan dead, and he doesn't know why. And then, to make things even worse, he's starting to fall in love with the woman he's supposed to damn...

I enjoyed the setup of Kessler's Hell, the way demons are assigned to various sins, the organization of the various kings, queens, and princes, and so on. But there were aspects of the rules that left me troubled. cissa commented about not seeing any real way for an incubus' victim to avoid her (or his) fate, and I have to concur. Daun mentions that once his target kisses him, his power comes into play, at which point he's able to manipulate their lusts and make himself all but irresistable. In other words, after that first kiss, you're basically damned. Does that mean a truly good person never kisses anyone, or that they should somehow know this is a demon? The rules just seem a bit unbalanced to me. You can't expect Hell to play fair, but there's also the assumption that Hell alone doesn't dictate the rules, and it just nagged at me.

There's also the fact that Daun's use of powers basically equates to rape, at least in my reading, and that's troubling. He stresses in the early chapters that he's never forced a victim, by which I assume he means he's never used physical force. However, magically drugging the victim to induce insatiable lust and desire? That's not really fitting my definition of consent. From a storytelling perspective, I have no problem with the idea that a demon of lust would be a rapist. Demons are supposed to be evil, after all. But this is a book that constantly blends sex and violence, and opening with the message that this isn't rape is troubling. Of course, it's the demon himself claiming he's no rapist, and he's hardly a reliable narrator. Either way, it's very uncomfortable reading a book from the perspective of an active rapist.

In a lot of ways, this is the ultimate Beauty and the Beast, "Love is enough to fix a bad man" book. Daun's kindnesses in the beginning are pure calculation, all designed to help him seduce his target. But as he comes to know and love Virginia, those kindnesses become real. He truly wants to ease her pain, to make her happy. And while he does ultimately lose himself in his own lust and damn her soul, he also pulls back before destroying her utterly. He even tries to find a way to save her. The trouble is, I've never bought into the myth of love saving a bad man. More often, I see that myth helping to trap women in nasty, abusive relationships with the bad men. (And yes, the role of the man and woman can be switched about on occasion.)

That said, it does make for a good story. Kessler is a skilled writer, and despite knowing what Daun is, I found myself hoping and wanting him to find a way to slaughter his enemies and end up with the woman he loves. There are also parts of the book that are damned funny, pun intended. One of my favorite bits was when Daun was trying to seduce Virginia, and she gives him her phone number. Daun is a little out of touch with modern dating, and watching him struggle with what to do next was great: Do I call her tonight, or is that too soon? If I wait too long, she'll think I'm not interested, but if I rush in, she'll think I'm desperate, and damn mortals anyway for making this so complicated!!! Ironically, it makes Daun feel human, and I suspect most readers will sympathize with him in that moment.

The ending felt right, and it worked. I thought Daun's magic came a little too easily at the end, and without a clear explanation as for where all of this power was coming from. (Love again, perhaps? Makes you wonder if there's a deeper plan here, one intended to empower the loving demons, but at this point I'm just guessing.) But the resolution fit the story, and that's a hard trick to pull off with a setup like this one.

One other minor nitpick -- this is probably a personal taste issue, but I got a little tired of reading page after page of graphic sexual description. I understand this is a more graphic subgenre, and Daun is after all an incubus, a demon of lust, but I really didn't need to know that much about his naughty bits, nor hear his thoughts about what he wants to do to one passing woman after another.

Balancing the minor nitpick with a minor brilliant bit -- I loved the part with Mozart. That was inspired, and added a hell of a lot to the story and Daun's character.

In closing ... I don't know. There's a lot worth thinking and talking about with this one. My guess is, if it sounds like something troubling, you probably shouldn't read it. If it sounds like something you might enjoy, you probably will ... if that makes any sense at all.

And now that I've finished it, I'd love to chat or swap thoughts with anyone else who's read this and/or the others in Kessler's series. ETA: I've also invited the author to stop by and chat.

Some time last year, Simon Haynes (halspacejock) sent me an ARC of his next book: Hal Spacejock: No Free Lunch [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy]. My reading stack being what it is, I ended up reading the book earlier this month while I was up north. Well, it's my loss for waiting.

Anyone who's read this blog knows I'm a very serious, somber fellow, so normally I wouldn't be caught dead reading one of those humorous SF/F books. But, well, I was on vacation, you know? And every once in a while it's fun to lighten up a bit.

The Hal Spacejock books are satirical action tales about a not-entirely-competent freighter pilot (Hal) and his too-serious robot partner (Clunk). I've reviewed the other three books in the series, and my sense all along has been that they're entertaining reads, but that the silliness was sometimes a bit too strong for my taste. There would be scenes where the jokes felt like they interfered with the stories, or broke my suspension of disbelief. Enjoyable, but each time I ended up giving four stars out of five over on old Amazon.

Hal IV, ironically, is a five-star book. Haynes has improved with each of his novels (which is exactly how it should work). This time, Hal joins up with a young peace force officer on her first assignment, while also trying to deal with a rival freighter pilot. Hal makes an interesting deputy, and I was surprised at how well the romantic subplot between him and the peace officer worked. Naturally, the assignment uncovers all sorts of nastiness, and things roll along at a good clip. If you've read any SF at all, you'll probably figure out some of the mystery long before our investigators, but the book also threw in some twists I wasn't expecting.

This book works. The humor flows with the story, and the story is the most cohesive and engaging of all four books. At least one of the twists at the end did feel a bit too coincidental for me, but that was a minor thing. I won't tell you how it all wraps up, but it left me curious to read book five.

Haynes is with an Australian publisher, so U.S. readers might have a slightly harder time tracking down the books. (Also, you'll have to accept that those Australians just don't know how to spell. "Tyres" indeed!) On the other hand, Haynes has made the first Hal Spacejock available as a free download, and you don't get much more convenient than that.

I'm so far behind on my book reviewing. It's been at least a month since I finished Tobias Buckell's second novel Ragamuffin [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy]. And this is why I haven't tried to become a professional reviewer.

This was an interesting sequel to Buckell's debut novel Crystal Rain [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy]. Ragamuffin is set in the same universe as the first book, but tells a completely new story ... at least in the beginning. Buckell pulls back to show us a larger universe in which homo sapiens are in pretty sad shape. Nashara, our heroine, is a living weapon against the alien Satrapy who rule humanity, and who might now be moving to eliminate us altogether. Eventually, the book leads us back to John, Jerome, and Pepper, filling us in on events since the last book and showing new conflicts on Nanagada. These two storylines come together in one final battle which could, in the words of Star Trek, lead to "a fundamental shift in the power structure in this quadrant."

There's a lot of fun stuff in these books. Interesting colony worlds, wormholes, space battles, mind control, and fairly nonstop action. And of course it's always fun to see Pepper again. There were a few parts that moved almost too quickly for me. I had a little trouble following exactly how Nashara operated, near the end. That could be me turning pages too fast, though ... or maybe I've been spending too much time writing fantasy, so my SF brain is a little rusty.

Buckell doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. Like the first book, there's some real grit to this one. War has consequences, and some of those consequences are pretty ugly. I won't spoil things, but those of you who know me and read the book will probably guess which part hit me the hardest.

The split storyline -- starting with Nashara, then switching back to John et al. on Nanagada -- was interesting. Ragamuffin isn't an entirely separate book in the same universe, but it's also not a direct sequel. It's both in one book, and I don't know that it completely worked for me. Moving into the second storyline, I started to lose touch with the first. On the other hand, writing a second book is tough. You don't want to just recycle the first book, but if you completely divorce book two from the first, you're going to have some cranky readers. So even though I stumbled a little, kudos to Buckell for trying something new with the structure of the book, and for branching out to show us much more of a fascinating and well-thought-out universe.

All in all, a good book, and a worthy sequel. I'm looking forward to book three, Sly Mongoose. I hear rumors Buckell will be giving us space zombies :-)

One of the books I picked up at Ad Astra was Dangerous Dames [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] by John Zakour & Lawrence Ganem. This is a two-in-one that combines the first two Zachary Nixon Johnson books, The Plutonium Blonde and The Doomsday Brunette.

I'll admit that the first few chapters worried me. I really wanted to enjoy these books, having heard good things about them. (Not to mention the fact that I've met one of the authors.) But the first few chapters felt like they were trying too hard to be funny, giving backstory and shooting off jokes without really starting the story.

Thankfully, those chapters were short, and the book picked up once things started happening.

The Zack Johnson books have been described as part parody, part homage to the old pulp detective novels. It's fifty years in the future. Zach Johnson is the last licensed P.I. on Earth. He's a bit of a celebrity, which means he gets some interesting cases. In book one, Zack and his partner HARV (supercomputer extraordinaire) must track down a homocidal plutonium-powered android superbabe. Book two sets Zach and HARV out to learn who murdered a genetically enhanced superbabe. (There's a theme* to these books...)

After those initial few chapters, the books were a lot of fun. Some jokes worked better than others -- I couldn't quite buy everyone swearing by "Gates" and "DOS" -- but then, that's going to be the case whenever you write humor. The story is good enough to draw you along, which means the humor is a bonus.

I thought the second story was stronger than the first, and I've been told the series continues to improve. The silliness sometimes threatens to cross the line, but it never felt over-the-top enough to throw me out of the story. Not even the attack toaster or the pixie/nymphs.

Will you like the books? That depends a lot on your taste and sense of humor. I wish I could find a sample chapter to link to. The silliness quotient is higher than in my goblin books, if that gives you a basis for comparison.

They're fun. Not terribly deep, but who am I to complain about that? If you're looking for a fun, light read, I'd give them a try.

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*The "superbabe" theme could very easily have gone in a direction to make me throw these books away. Particularly the first book, wherein we have an android duplicate of a former exotic dancer. From a feminist perspective, there are aspects of the stories and characters that annoy me, but no more so than most books out there. The women are actually pretty well-developed characters. But while I enjoyed the stories, I will say it's a little tiresome to read about yet another male hero either fighting or saving a world of exclusively superbeautiful, supersexy women.