Book Reviews
Cuz I ought to take them off the backlog faster than I read them, and I'm not sure I am....
We begin with Black Arts by Faith Hunter, book seven(ish) in the Jane Yellowrock series. Jane, as I'm sure you all recall, is a shapshifting Native American creature nominally employed as a vampire hunter but these days mostly working for them in and around New Orleans. This time, her estranged best friend Molly the witch has vanished, supposedly while on her way to see Jane. There are also visiting vampire summits to arrange, missing women to investigate, and her other self (the soul of a mountain lion she absorbed as a child) to manage. The pacing is good, and the action is compelling. There's also growth on Jane's part as she realizes her time as a loner has ended; through her own actions she's now the center of violent and unconventional family. Her love life remains utterly uninteresting but also easily ignorable.
And in another never-ending urban fantasy series, we have Fury of the Demon by Diana Rowland, book six of Kara Gillian's adventures. Kara is a demon summoner (think extraplanar creatures, not religion) living now in the demon realm. Her former patron having been revealed as a monster, she's working with another of the demon lords to rescue an abducted friend. Happily, the venue returns to Earth where we reconnect with more of the characters and backstory. There are somewhat abrupt plot shifts when things are conveniently dropped into place for the story, but mostly it flows well. We learn some of the secrets of the demon realm while others are still dangled but not explained. I'm not ready to dump the series, but overall it feels kind of forced at times.
And now we get one I actually like and recommend, The Emperor's Soul, a novella by Brandon Sanderson. This is an episode in the life of Shai. Shai is a Forger, someone with the magical power to change things by transforming their history. For example, she is given an old, ruined table. She alters its past so that it was instead well cared for, and now she has a fine antique in her room. Shai is caught replacing an artifact in the imperial museum with her own copy, and since her powers are deemed immoral as well as illegal, she's sentenced to die. However, the chief ministers of the empire bring her to a secret session. It seems the emperor narrowly escaped an assassination attempt that severely injured his brain. The healers were able to repair his body, but his mind is gone. Since his removal as emperor would cost the ministers their power, they want Shai to do the nearly impossible... Forge a new mind for the emperor so that he can remain in office. And, since they can only conceal his infirmity for so long, she has to do so under a severe time limit.
The book chronicles Shai's handful of months under house arrest in the palace. In order to create a Forgery strong enough to take (and convincing enough to serve), she has to truly understand the emperor's inner mind. This mean interviewing his friends, counselors, and staff. Reading his journals. Experimenting with template after template. And, of course, dealing with prying ministers who can't help thinking that a more... pliable... emperor wouldn't be such a bad thing.
The story is interesting and the magic system is fascinating. What really made the book stand out to me, though, is its capture of Shai's passion as an artist... her drive to succeed not just because of self interest but because of the task's sheer audacity. I liked it a lot, and I recommend it highly. And if you don't agree with me? It's short!
I'm counting this one twice because after I finished I read it to the kid.
On the much odder side of the house we have Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half. Brosh writes the blog hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com where she intermittently posts cartoon stories, generally about her life. A lot of them are very funny, and she has a piece on her bout with depression that made a lot of sense to me. This book collects some of her more popular posts. Or, you know, you could just read them off her blog.
We'll close tonight with Simon R. Green's Once in a Blue Moon. This is the third and (presumably) last book about the magical Forest Kingdom and its champions, Prince Rupert and Princess Julia. It's hard to say what number the book really is, though, because after the first book Ruper and Julia rode off to a distant city and had several novels as the brutally hard-boiled cops Hawk and Fisher. They were summoned home in the second book where they once again saved the world and got exposed to all kinds of crazy wild magic in the process.
This book opens nearly a century later. After sneaking out of the Forest Kingdom again, Rupert and Julia founded the Hawk and Fisher Hero Academy where aspiring adventurer types can study weapons, magic, traps, and whatever other weirdness someone (or something) is willing to hang around and teach. To honor its founders, the school is always headed by a married pair of adventures who take on the names Hawk and Fisher. Which is to say every decade or so Rupert and Julia announce their retirement, ride out into the desert, magically alter their appearance, and ride back in as the newly hired headmasters. This pleasant existence is interrupted when they receive unmistakable signs that the Weird and Deadly is cranking up again in the Forest Kingdom. So, they head off to see what horribleness their several great-grand nieces and nephews have gotten up to. Along the way they pick up their children (a warrior priest and a soldier), who are now getting on in years but still kick reasonable ass.
Ultimately, this lacks some of the oomph of the previous two books. Rupert and Julia's world is changing, the magic on its way out (despite this book's attempt at a violent Renaissance). Rupert and Julia are anachronisms, and the book does a decent job of capturing that feeling. It's interesting, but it also left the immersion a little off-kilter... on the whole it was kind of awkward. Which I think was totally deliberate on Green's part, but it still left me feeling odd.
This brings my total for the year to twenty.
This entry was originally posted at http://squidminion.dreamwidth.org/380685.html.
There are
comments there. You could add one via OpenID.
Or you can comment here if you'd rather; it's okay.
We begin with Black Arts by Faith Hunter, book seven(ish) in the Jane Yellowrock series. Jane, as I'm sure you all recall, is a shapshifting Native American creature nominally employed as a vampire hunter but these days mostly working for them in and around New Orleans. This time, her estranged best friend Molly the witch has vanished, supposedly while on her way to see Jane. There are also visiting vampire summits to arrange, missing women to investigate, and her other self (the soul of a mountain lion she absorbed as a child) to manage. The pacing is good, and the action is compelling. There's also growth on Jane's part as she realizes her time as a loner has ended; through her own actions she's now the center of violent and unconventional family. Her love life remains utterly uninteresting but also easily ignorable.
And in another never-ending urban fantasy series, we have Fury of the Demon by Diana Rowland, book six of Kara Gillian's adventures. Kara is a demon summoner (think extraplanar creatures, not religion) living now in the demon realm. Her former patron having been revealed as a monster, she's working with another of the demon lords to rescue an abducted friend. Happily, the venue returns to Earth where we reconnect with more of the characters and backstory. There are somewhat abrupt plot shifts when things are conveniently dropped into place for the story, but mostly it flows well. We learn some of the secrets of the demon realm while others are still dangled but not explained. I'm not ready to dump the series, but overall it feels kind of forced at times.
And now we get one I actually like and recommend, The Emperor's Soul, a novella by Brandon Sanderson. This is an episode in the life of Shai. Shai is a Forger, someone with the magical power to change things by transforming their history. For example, she is given an old, ruined table. She alters its past so that it was instead well cared for, and now she has a fine antique in her room. Shai is caught replacing an artifact in the imperial museum with her own copy, and since her powers are deemed immoral as well as illegal, she's sentenced to die. However, the chief ministers of the empire bring her to a secret session. It seems the emperor narrowly escaped an assassination attempt that severely injured his brain. The healers were able to repair his body, but his mind is gone. Since his removal as emperor would cost the ministers their power, they want Shai to do the nearly impossible... Forge a new mind for the emperor so that he can remain in office. And, since they can only conceal his infirmity for so long, she has to do so under a severe time limit.
The book chronicles Shai's handful of months under house arrest in the palace. In order to create a Forgery strong enough to take (and convincing enough to serve), she has to truly understand the emperor's inner mind. This mean interviewing his friends, counselors, and staff. Reading his journals. Experimenting with template after template. And, of course, dealing with prying ministers who can't help thinking that a more... pliable... emperor wouldn't be such a bad thing.
The story is interesting and the magic system is fascinating. What really made the book stand out to me, though, is its capture of Shai's passion as an artist... her drive to succeed not just because of self interest but because of the task's sheer audacity. I liked it a lot, and I recommend it highly. And if you don't agree with me? It's short!
I'm counting this one twice because after I finished I read it to the kid.
On the much odder side of the house we have Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half. Brosh writes the blog hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com where she intermittently posts cartoon stories, generally about her life. A lot of them are very funny, and she has a piece on her bout with depression that made a lot of sense to me. This book collects some of her more popular posts. Or, you know, you could just read them off her blog.
We'll close tonight with Simon R. Green's Once in a Blue Moon. This is the third and (presumably) last book about the magical Forest Kingdom and its champions, Prince Rupert and Princess Julia. It's hard to say what number the book really is, though, because after the first book Ruper and Julia rode off to a distant city and had several novels as the brutally hard-boiled cops Hawk and Fisher. They were summoned home in the second book where they once again saved the world and got exposed to all kinds of crazy wild magic in the process.
This book opens nearly a century later. After sneaking out of the Forest Kingdom again, Rupert and Julia founded the Hawk and Fisher Hero Academy where aspiring adventurer types can study weapons, magic, traps, and whatever other weirdness someone (or something) is willing to hang around and teach. To honor its founders, the school is always headed by a married pair of adventures who take on the names Hawk and Fisher. Which is to say every decade or so Rupert and Julia announce their retirement, ride out into the desert, magically alter their appearance, and ride back in as the newly hired headmasters. This pleasant existence is interrupted when they receive unmistakable signs that the Weird and Deadly is cranking up again in the Forest Kingdom. So, they head off to see what horribleness their several great-grand nieces and nephews have gotten up to. Along the way they pick up their children (a warrior priest and a soldier), who are now getting on in years but still kick reasonable ass.
Ultimately, this lacks some of the oomph of the previous two books. Rupert and Julia's world is changing, the magic on its way out (despite this book's attempt at a violent Renaissance). Rupert and Julia are anachronisms, and the book does a decent job of capturing that feeling. It's interesting, but it also left the immersion a little off-kilter... on the whole it was kind of awkward. Which I think was totally deliberate on Green's part, but it still left me feeling odd.
This brings my total for the year to twenty.
This entry was originally posted at http://squidminion.dreamwidth.org/380685.html.
There are
comments there. You could add one via OpenID.
Or you can comment here if you'd rather; it's okay.