Recommendations

Dead Iron

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Thanks to a suggestion on my blog (yay!), I took a chance on this novel, Dead Iron by Devon Monk.  This is an interesting steampunk novel. Instead of taking place in England (or Europe in general) this one takes place in America. It’s an interesting blend of steampunk, fantasy and western. Oh, not to mention that one character turns into a zombie. Good times.

So…plot. The plot is that in a little town named Hallelujah somewhere near or in the Oregon Territories, a fae creature is searching for a way home. As soon as I read the name Shard LeFel, I realized this guy was destined to be 1) the bad guy and 2) a fae creature. Yeah, LeFel, LeFay (as in Morgana from the Arthur legend), pretty obvious. But not really the bad kind of obvious. LeFel has a servant of some sort called a Strange, named Mr. Shunt. Near as I can tell, Stranges are some sort of vile, shadowy creature without a natural body of their own. So they build and enchant bodies using a combination of steam tech and magic. They’re very hard to kill and they’re nasty fighters.

On the good side, we have lone wolf Cedar Hunt. And this is meant literally. Cedar, at some point in his ‘mysterious past’, was cursed by an ancient Pawnee god with lycanthropy. As was his brother, whom Cedar presumes is dead. Unfortunately, Monk never explains why the brothers were cursed. Generally speaking, people don’t just get cursed ‘just because’. If there is a sequel, I’d like to see the reason behind it.

Cedar is the protagonist of the book and as such, you’re supposed to feel sympathy for him bearing up with this curse. I suppose he’s likeable in a tough, Chris Larabee sort of way but I felt there was a little bit of doubt as to just how good a man he was. There was allusions to him losing a wife and child (or children) but we never found out if this was due to the curse or if it occurred before the curse.

The other good guys in the book are witch Mae Lindstrom, odd child Rose Small and the Madder Brothers. The Madders are not human. I think they are some sort of dwarf-based creature. They aren’t small in stature but they come from Wales and they speak to and control (to a degree at least) stone. The Madders are trying to stop LeFel’s nefarious scheme (to get home and kill his brother, a fae king). Mae Lindstrom is one of the catalysts for LeFel to open his door to home. Rose Small is a foundling child who can see the Strange.

Together, they have to fight LeFel and prevent the door from opening. It’s an interesting premise and it’s fun to read about steampunk in America. I’d love to read more steampunk in the US if anyone has any suggestions. Overall, I’d say the book is a B. It was worth the read.

Back to Black London

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Caitlin Kitteridge just released her latest Black London book, Devil’s Business. I like this series because it’s dark and gritty. The hero Jack Winter is a total ass. He’s not terribly likable and yet some how, you root for him. He is the underdog.

We start out the book with Jack getting attacked in a grocery store. The magic users in London (and elsewhere) are not happy with him. He nearly ended the world by releasing a creature called Nergal. It doesn’t sound deadly (rather sounds like a Smurf name I thought) but apparently it’s a death machine. He’s physically recovered from Pete nearly killing him.

So to get him out of London, a number of magic and anti-magic persons attack and/or threaten him. He’s on the outs with Pete (which happens a lot, let’s face it). What’s a man to do? Go to L.A. with Pete to look into some mysterious deaths. Not that it’s Jack’s first choice mind. Pete’s decided to go to L.A. to help out a former police bloke she met sometime ago (how, I’m entirely sure). Jack knows it’s a trap but he can’t convince Pete of it, so he goes with.

So on to L.A. where breathing the smog is like chain smoking cigarettes. They meet their contact, a slimy git named Mayhew. Mayhew is convinced that he has a serial killer on his hands. One that (WARNING) rips living babies out of their mothers. Once every ten years. No one on the force believes him but Pete agrees to help, possibly in part because she is preggers with Jack’s baby.

Except that it isn’t a serial killer, not really. It’s a demon. Or perhaps more correctly, a proto-demon. This baddie (by the name of Abbadon) is what was in Hell before the demons. And the demons don’t want him out and about causing havoc. Enter Belial, Jack’s old demon enemy, who bullies and tricks Jack and Pete into solving his case.

Since the book just came out, I don’t want to get too spoiler-y. Jack gets the crap kicked out of him. Repeatedly. We’re introduced to wraiths and princes of hell. Jack man’s up and Pete realizes that not all the bad shit that follows Jack Winter is his fault. I really enjoyed the book and was rather sad to see it end. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next. A.

A Hard Day’s Knight

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As I’ve stated before (I think…), I am a HUGE Simon R. Green fan. I love his writing. It’s evocative and witty and so very British. He reminds me of a very dark Douglas Adams. At any rate, I just re-read his latest Nightside novel A Hard Day’s Knight. I love this book, and the series, and I highly recommend them.

In A Hard Day’s Knight, private detective John Taylor starts off trying to relax from the end of the last book’s events. Spoiler alert: John has killed the infamous Walker. But let’s face it, the man had it coming. I love the Walker character but he was a right arse. At any rate, John comes home to Suzie Shooter and finds something on the table that he really, really doesn’t want. Excalibur. Yes, the Excalibur. And it isn’t what he thinks it is.

Well, alright, it’s a sword. But it’s so much more than that. And John, being neither good nor pure, has been given a special dispensation from the Lady of the Lake to bear Excalibur and find King Arthur. Yes, that King Arthur. Something of a spoiler alert, the Lady of the Lake is Gayle from his stand alone story Drinking Midnight Wine.I absolutely love when Green brings elements from his other stories together. 🙂

Unfortunately, everyone and their brother wants Excalibur and are quite determined to wrest it from John’s control. They make quite a mess of John and Suzie’s front yard…well, front land mine zone really. So in order to figure out how to get rid of the damn thing, John decides to go to the London Knights, the descendents of Arthur’s original knights. Before he gets too far though, he’s forced to accept the title of Walker and clean up a nasty little soul bomb. Some days, you should just stay in bed with the lights off.

And just to make things even more complicated…the Elves have decided to go to war with each other. On Earth. Hopefully wiping out the humans while they fight. So, just the usual day, or night, in the Nightside. It’s a great story and I can’t wait for the next book, The Bride Wore Black Leather. So get it, read it. A+ And I really hope Puck comes back in future Simon R. Green books. 🙂

Looking for Steampunk

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Okay, so I’ve read a few steampunk books and color me intrigued. I am, however, at a loss for some good books to read. I know a lot of you out there will probably say Boneshaker by Cherie Priest and to that I say…something else please. I’ve tried a couple of times to read that book and I just can’t do it. I’m not sure if it’s the writing style of the author or the completely BORING first chapters. I’d like to believe it gets better but I just can’t spend 10 bucks on a book that I find I have to slog through. So I’m hoping for some suggestions based on the following:

-I read The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook not too long ago and I rather enjoyed it. It was well written even if it did have entire chapters about sex that didn’t push the plot along. But the idea of zombies being creatures controlled by little nanite-type things is awesomely original. Or at least original to me.

-I love, love, LOVE Sherlock Holmes. While this isn’t technically steampunk, it is set in Victorian times (obviously). So Victorian era plus a good mystery plus a bit of snark equals win.

-A couple weeks ago I read a book called Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurances novel by Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine. Originally I wasn’t too sure about it but it turned out to be a surprisingly good read. I’m looking forward to a sequel or three. I will post a review eventually I’m sure. 🙂

-The Parasol Protectorate books. Of course. I love Alexia Terrabotti. I also love how Gail Carriger has mixed steampunk with vamps, werewolves and other supernaturals. Mixing steampunk, Victorian times and urban fantasy equals big win.

So if anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them. And as always, I am ever searching for more urban fantasy suggestions.

One Salt Sea

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Just recently finished the new October Daye novel One Salt Sea by Seanan McGuire. Oh. My. God. AMAZING…and yet FRUSTRATING.  It is clear that McGuire is going somewhere very complex with Toby Daye. I think  I’m mostly frustrated that I haven’t figured it out yet.  That being said…I can live with the frustration. My husband hates watching movies with me (sometimes) because I figure out the ending half way through. So not being able to see what’s coming in this series out weighs the frustration.

So, Toby is trying to settle in as Countess of Goldengreen…just as war breaks out with the underwater fae. Unfortunately for her, the knowe of Goldengreen is right up against the Pacific. Of course. 🙂 Enter Tybalt, King of Cats. And will he EVER admit that he’s totally in love with Toby?! Okay, rant over. Tybalt offers to have his Cait Sidhe, some of the fiercest warriors in the faerie realm, to guard Toby’s knowe since most of Toby’s wards in Goldengreen are half-breed Changlings or less.

Meanwhile, The Luideag calls in the favors Toby owes her. What does Toby have to do? Stop a war. No biggie. Turns out the reason behind the war is that someone, presumably a land faerie has made off with the two sons of the Duchess of Saltmist. The Duchess suspects the Queen of the Mists (the land queen). The Queen of the Mists just wants war. Despite having some sea fae blood in her, she apparently has bigoted feelings towards the sea fae as a whole. Too bad the sea fae are BAMFs and the land fae have been sitting on their collective arses since the last war more than a hundred years ago.

To keep her friends from getting killed, Toby uses her detecting skills to find the missing boys. On the way, she takes a squire (Quentin), turns into a mermaid to visit Saltmist and (*spoiler alert*) loses her paramour, Connor. Now Connor was a nice enough person but ever since the first interaction with Tybalt, I was rooting for the two of them to get their acts together.  Connor was a little wimpy for my tastes but hey.

So this one is a must read. It’s really good. And it has a nice little cliff hanger. A+ Buy it!

The Parasol Protectorate

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I just zoomed through the latest two Parasol Protectorate novels, Blameless and Heartless. They were fantastic! I love the character of Alexia Tarabotti. A lot of the lead women in urban fantasy novels are hard as nails, fist-fighting, heavy drinking, one-of-the-boys types. I like that and understand that. But Alexia is a no-nonsense feminine leading lady. She’s a proper Victorian lady…for the most part. It isn’t her fault that her best friend is a vampire.  Warning: here follows spoilers.

At any rate, in Blameless Alexia gets kicked out of her family home once it becomes clear that she’s with child. Normally it isn’t a big deal for a married woman to be pregnant but with her it is. Her husband is a werewolf which means that he is, like a vampire, technically dead. So technically, no little swimmers. Her husband, her parents and even the honorable Queen Victoria thinks she’s cheated on Lord Maccon.

This bugged the shit out of me (pardon the language). Alexia is, as covered in the previous books, a preternatural. In this series, it means that when she touches a vampire or a werewolf skin to skin, she restores them to their original mortal state. Original mortal state. Meaning they should be more than capable of having little kiddies. I guess I can forgive the situation a bit by the fact that the author explains that female preternaturals are a rarity. I guess I can suspend disbelief to them being so rare that there hasn’t been one in the whole of written history. If I must.

At any rate, Alexia and her footman Floote and her new friend Madame Lefoux leave England in a hurry after the news broke all over polite society. Oh yeah, and the London hive vampires are after her. Seems that they feel the infant-inconvenience, as Alexia calls it, is an abomination. They’re chased all the way across France and into Italy, where because of the Vatican and the Knights Templar (yes, apparently they were never slaughtered and disbanded in this timeline) kill all vampires, werewolves and their respective human hangers on on sight. But they aren’t fond of Alexia either.

Seems that preternaturals, being soulless, are beyond salvation of the church and are therefore demons. That also kind of bugs me, but I’m not a religious person by nature so it could just be a personal thing. 🙂 Meanwhile, the drunken Lord Maccon is finally talked around by the lovely Professor Lyall, his beta, after the Maccon stops drinking formaldehyde and sobers up. Once he realizes what a complete and utter prat he’s been, he issues a public apology and races after her…just in time to “rescue” from the clutches of the evil (not really an exaggeration) Templars. And by rescue I mean pick up the pieces of Alexia rescuing herself, Floote and Lefoux. As usual.

In Heartless, whose title I still don’t quite understand, Alexia is VERY pregnant and has to foil a plot to kill the queen. As a newly reinstated member of Queen Victoria’s Shadow Council, she is contact by a ghost messenger with a vague plot about the queen being in danger. So she puts the dewan (leading lone werewolf) and the potentate (the always loveable Lord Akeldama) on alert, not the mention her husband and the BUR.

Meanwhile, she has to deal with the infant-inconvenience and the newly made werewolf/former vampire drone Biffy. Biffy was made a werewolf at the end of the last book because it was either that or he would be very much dead and gone. Biffy was Lord Akeldama’s favored drone and the pair were (shockingly in the Victorian era) quite in love. Biffy is not taking his change from potential vampire to werewolf well at all. He can’t control his changes as well as the others and it causes all sorts of grief for the pack, Biffy and Alexia, as she has to turn him human again to calm him down. Not an easy thing to do when eight months along.

Not to mention poor Madame Lefoux is acting very strange and withdrawn from Alexia. Lefoux’s dead aunt, Beatrix “formerly” Lefoux, is losing her hold on the world and becoming a very vague ghost. This is an upsetting time for Madame Lefoux but there’s something else going on…

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Normally I can see an ending coming after a little while but I was honestly surprised to find out that the plot against the queen wasn’t referring to Queen Victoria but the the vampire queen, Countess Nadasdy. This leads to a very interesting shake up of the social dynamic in London between the vampires and the werewolves. Not to mention Alexia ends up giving birth inside a giant, steam driven octomaton built by Madame Lefoux.

I highly recommend both books. A

Two New Anthologies

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Okay, so with Tropical Storm Irene shutting down the T here in the Boston hub area, I don’t have a whole heck of a lot to do today. New post time! I just finished two anthologies: Home Improvement: Undead Edition and Blood Lite II. As I’ve stated, I love these urban fantasy type anthologies because you get introduced to authors you may not have heard of previously.

Home Improvement: Undead Edition focuses on stories of people (mostly but not always supernatural) doing, you guessed it, home improvements that are disrupted because of ghosts. Some of the stories are fun and some of them are a bit more serious. Charlaine Harris contributes a Sookie Stackhouse short and Simon R Green gives an original short.

Blood Lite II is mostly supernatural creatures getting their feed on. This one was a bit funnier than Home Improvement. In one memorable moment, one author used the angry ghosts of primates doing what primates at zoos tend to do and coined the phrase polter-schiests. I LOST IT. I was on the train home and giggling for about ten minutes.

So I thought they were both pretty solid B books. As always with anthologies there are some hits and some misses but over all they were pretty good. And with Borders going out of business, you can get some pretty sweet deals, so no excuses!

Latest Dresden

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Oh holy crap! I just finished the latest Dresden Files book, Ghost Story, last night. After a few extra months waiting, it was well worth it! This book was great.  While I had pretty much figured out who had shot him at the end of Changes, I didn’t know the why until the end of this book. And I was pleasantly surprised to not see it coming!

All my favorite characters make an appearance except Toot Toot. Hopefully the leader of the Za Lord’s Army will return in the next book. And considering the way the book ended, there will be more of Harry Dresden. Yay!! This post will be a little short. Because the book is so new and so awesome, I don’t want to give out spoilers.  But you must read it. Now. I’ll wait. 🙂 Rated: A++

Sherlock Revisited

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So I’ve been on this total Sherlock Holmes and Great Britain kick lately. I’m a total Anglophile, though not so bad that I stayed up for the royal wedding a few months ago. 🙂 At any rate, I got started on this by watching BBC’s new Sherlock series. If you haven’t watched it, Netflix it. Now. I’ll wait.

Done? Fantastic! And so is that show. So sad I don’t get BBC America, but I digress. I’m here to pick up an anthology called The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. This was a collection of short stories featuring the worlds greatest detective as written by fantasy authors. There are well known authors such as Steven King and Neil Gaiman, as well as a bunch of folks I hadn’t heard of.

Arthur Conan Doyle was a spiritualist and as such, he worked some of his beliefs into his Holmes stories, such as The Hound of the Baskervilles, which featured the mystery of a demonic hound. Holmes himself wasn’t a spiritualist and indeed proved the hound to be nothing more than a violently trained dog covered in a phosphoric substance. Inevitably in the Holmes stories, there is always a reasonable and logical explanation.

This anthology was based on the premise: What if there wasn’t a logical explanation? What if some of the things Holmes investigated turned out to be truly inexplicable? Or what if the world Holmes lived in featured the supernatural in every day life. This was a chance to go to town with Holmes.

The book started out promisingly enough with a short by Stephen King. Normally I’m not a Stephen King fan. An ex-boyfriend of mine gave me a collection of King’s short stories, telling me that they were creepy and horrifying. I used them to get to sleep at night. It wasn’t that I didn’t get what King was going for. I did. I just found his writing a bit too trite and predictable for me. I’m the type of person who figured out that Bruce Willis was ghost half way through The Sixth Sense, so the short Trucks didn’t do it for me.

At any rate, Stephen King wrote a refreshingly subtle and original Holmes short. It wasn’t too different than something that Doyle would write I feel (and yes, I have read the original Holmes. All of them. I love them) but with just a little bit of a spiritual twist.  I was a feeling better about having spent 15 bucks on the book.

The next story (or perhaps the third, can’t remember the order at the moment) featured a mirror universe. Being a Trek fan, I know that alternate or mirror universes are often used in sci-fi/fantasy stories. I like them because you can see the what if but you can get the original that you love back.  Haven’t you ever wondered with an evil Holmes or a good Moriarty would be like? Well, read the book! 😀

I was a little disappointed however by some of the later stories. Some of them didn’t really seem to have anything to do with science fiction or fantasy at all. That’s not to say that they weren’t entertaining or well written, but I was expecting a bit more fantasy in a book I found in the fantasy section of the book store.

All in all it was worth the read. The writing was very well done (B/B+). However, I have to give it an overall rating of C+ simply because there could have been much more fantasy involved in some of these stories. And man, they should have let Jim Butcher have a crack at one of those stories!

New Books

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Okay, it’s been a massively long time since I’ve last updated my blog here.  Work, work, work and a nasty respiratory infection will do that to you. So instead of just one book, I’ll review a few books/series.

An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire. This is the next installment of the October Daye series.  I was waiting so long for this one, or so it felt. I really love this series. Toby Daye is a fairly complex character and her relationships are equally complex.  This book is about Toby trying to figure out who or what is killing off her friends and trying to frame her for it. Not only that, but she has recently been promoted to Countess of the knowe Goldengreen. This knowe previously belonged to Countess Evelyn Winterrose, who died in the first book and brought Toby back into the Fae fold. It was a wonderful mystery, and a bit sad too. I can’t wait to read the next book! Rating: A.

Blue Moon by Laurell K. Hamilton. This is book 5 or 6 of the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. I can’t remember because I stopped in the middle and I haven’t gone back yet. It isn’t because I wasn’t enjoying it, because it is starting out to be another wonderful book. Truth was I just needed a break from Anita Blake. Anita’s werewolf ex Richard is being set up as a murderer in Tennessee and Anita is determined to help, against Jean-Claude’s wishes. So far, it’s a solid B book.

A Brush of Darkness by Allison Pang. This was an interesting premise. Heroine Abby is living in a town where the supernatural is a part of every day life. Supernatural creatures can only come and go in this town through Touchstones, sort of like magical anchors. Abby is a Touchstone for a Faerie named Moira. Trouble is, Abby is spectacularly ignorant and gets in way over her head when patron Moira disappears. There are incubi, angels (called Celestials), Faeries, pixies, miniature unicorns and more.  Like I said, interesting premise. The writing could be a bit better. I’m mildly interested in seeing what happens next in the series, but I’m not going to be running out to get the next book. More likely I’ll wait until I’m desperate for something new to read. Rating: C-.

Demon Bound by Caitlin Kittredge. This is the next installment of the Black London series. I like this series because its very gritty. It’s kind of reminiscent of the old pulp novel.  Both main characters, Jack and Pete, are hard living, drinking, smoking, cussing people. The novel starts out with Jack having been dragged to Hell (end of the last novel) and Pete trying to pick up the pieces. Trouble is, being Jack’s girl is closing more doors than it opens. I really want to see what happens in the next novel. Rating: A to A+.

That’s all for now. More in the next post. If anyone has suggestions, I’m looking for new books to read.