Death Lands: Time Nomad by James Axler

Publisher: GraphicAudio (2006)

Narrated By: Richard Rohan plus full cast

Amazon Blurb: In the blasted heart of the new America, Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior-survivalists search for hidden caches of food, weapons and technology the legacy of a preholocaust society stashed in lonely outposts known as redoubts.

When Ryan ingests bacteria-infested food, he lies near death his body paralyzed but his mind traveling rapidly back to his early days in the Deathlands...moving through the southwest on post-nuke vehicles called warwags...and his run-in with the Baron.

Towse, near what was once Albuquerque, is a ville in a freakishly beautiful landscape populated by scabbies and armed Apaches. Baron Alias Carson and his bejeweled wife, Sharona, welcom Ryan, J.B. Dix and the Tracker to their treacherous world.

In the Deathlands the past is a dream. The future is a nightmare.

This is bad, bad fiction. There, I was honest up front. But I sure as hell enjoyed this book. James Axler came up with a post-apocalyptic setting that intrigued me. Our main hero Ryan and his band start off exploring a redoubt for supplies and goodies. They sit down for a reconstituted meal and Ryan insists on eating some questionable fish meal. Needless to say, he becomes very ill and enters a coma-like state, at which point the reader is drawn into his past as he dreams.

The story from his past is set in what was once the US Desert Southwest and a fair chunk of the story takes place in and around Taos. This flash to his past allows the reader to 'relive' some of his sexual exploits (which were performed enthusiastically by the narrators). Aside from those hilarious moments, he and his boss, The Trader, have to figure out what kind of game Alias Carson is up to. The Trader and his war wagons had rolled into Taos to resupply - gas, food, amo, water, etc. They have gotten everything but the gas and The Trader is starting to suspect Carson plans to take their war wagons and is playing for time.

While Ryan tries to gain info from Alias Carson's wife, Sharona, The Trader and crew redouble their sentry patrols on the war wagons and quietly prepare for a fire fight.

Otherwise, while Ryan lies dreaming of his past, his buddies are trapped in this redoubt. They have water, air, and food to last for years. But as with any caged animal, they want out. When, and if, Ryan regains consciousness will they be able to escape?

So, if this was bad fiction, why did I stick with it? Well, I recently finished two big classics and needed some brain candy, it was only 6 CDs, the main character with his murky past and single eyeball was intriguing, and the audio production was incredible.

Richard Rohan was our main narrator for this GraphicAudio production and I enjoyed his even pacing. The full cast, with music and background sound effects, was amazing. It really brought this book to life and made it very enjoyable.

+++: Post-apocalyptic desert Southwest setting, intriguing characters, mutants, strong female characters with practical clothing and weapons, enthusiastic noisy bedroom scenes (can tell the cast had to get all the giggles out before recording these scenes!), audio production was superb.

---: I lost count of how many sexual encounters the main character had, cheesy lines here and there.

The Lies of Locke Lamora Week 2 Questions

Straight from our own lovely Nrlymrtl, here are the questions for this week's discussion. Enjoy! and make sure to check out DarkCargo.com, where a LOT of discussion will be taking place on the subject (they're the host this week). Also, I'll post my answers at the end.

Welcome Lynchmob!

Here follows the questions in the second week of the Lies of Locke Lamora Read Along. You are on the Super Secret List and hence are privileged to these ahead of Saturday's posting. I look forward to your inciteful and snarky comments, but please don't post anything until Saturday. This segment covers Chapter 3 through the end of the Interlude: The Boy Who Cried for a Corpse.


 
1) Do you think Locke can pull off his scheme of playing a Midnighter who is working with Don Salvara to capture the Thorn of Camorr? I mean, he is now playing two roles in this game - and thank goodness for that costume room the Gentlemen Bastards have!

2) Are you digging the detail the author has put into the alcoholic drinks in this story?

3) Who is this mysterious lady Gentlemen Bastard Sabetha and what does she mean to Locke?

4) Are you as creeped out over the use of Wraithstone to create Gentled animals as I am?

5) I got a kick out of child Locke's first meeting with Capa Barsavi and his daughter Nazca, which was shortly followed up in the story by Barsavi granting adult Locke permission to court his daughter! Where do you think that will lead? Can you see these two together?

6) Capa Barsavi is freaked out over rumors of The Gray King and, in fact, us readers are privy to a gruesome torture scene. The Gray King is knocking garristas off left and right. What do you think that means?

7) In the Interlude: The Boy Who Cried for a Corpse, we learn that Father Chains owes an alchemist a favor, and that favor is a fresh corpse. He sets the boys to figuring out how to provide one, and they can't 'create' the corpse themselves. How did you like Locke's solution to this conundrum?



1. The first time I read this story, I felt like something would go horribly, terribly wrong, but that Locke would pull it out in the end. It's an amazing thing to have such confidence in a character that seems to be biting off more than he can chew, but that's how I felt.

2. To be honest, I hadn't really noticed the detail in the drinks until now. I guess it was just another part of the "setting" for me.

3. Oh Sabetha, ever mysterious, and with some clear-yet-unspoken connections to Locke's past. She's definitely a mystery, that one.

4. I thought it was pretty creepy, yeah. Probably not as much as you did, but there's definitely a lot of "Eww, why?" going on.

5. It would make for an interesting story to see Locke as the Capa of Camorr at some point, or at least with a huge amount of influence. And they clearly get along. There have been worse arranged marriages, I suppose. But reading through it the first time, I didn't think it would happen.

6. The first time I read this book, I assumed that The Gray King was trying to undermine Barsavi's tight-knit group of leadership, and make it look like the Capa couldn't take care of his own people, so why not let The Gray King take care of them instead. 

7. The Boy Who Cried for a Corpse is my second favorite flashback in the novel (thankfully, my favorite is in the week that I make up the questions!). I think that Chains really learned what he had that day in Locke. He's someone that can get the job done, AND do it in such a brilliant way that he recoups the original cost of pulling off the job along the way. I'm thinking that Chains was probably willing to give them bigger jobs starting right after that.

Fair Coin by EC Meyers

Publisher: Pyr

Date: March 27, 2012

Blurb (Goodreads): Sixteen-year-old Ephraim Scott is horrified when he comes home from school and finds his mother unconscious at the kitchen table, clutching a bottle of pills. The reason for her suicide attempt is even more disturbing: she thought she’d identified Ephraim’s body at the hospital that day.

Among his dead double’s belongings, Ephraim finds a strange coin—a coin that grants wishes when he flips it. With a flick of his thumb, he can turn his alcoholic mother into a model parent and catch the eye of the girl he’s liked since second grade. But the coin doesn’t always change things for the better. And a bad flip can destroy other people’s lives as easily as it rebuilds his own.

The coin could give Ephraim everything he’s ever wanted—if he learns to control its power before his luck runs out.

 

 

 

I have to admit up front that I’m a sucker for stories like this. The combination of possible doppelgangers (one of my favorite things to toy around with in my own writing) and a magical thingamajig that grants wishes will draw me in almost as quickly as someone screaming “Free Cheeseburgers!”

 

But even trying to distance myself from that immediate attraction and take a broader look at what this book offers, I have to say that Fair Coin is a very good read. I finished it in a single afternoon, which has less to do with me reading fast than it does with me not stopping until the end. Because it was such a quick read, I didn’t get to do my usual process of stopping and taking notes as I read. So, while I’ll attempt to go into detail below, just rest assured that if you’re a fan of YA Science Fiction, particularly stories that have great plotting and pacing, then this IS your cup of tea. Drink up.

 

As I read this book, I was reminded of another YA book that I enjoyed a great deal, I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells. Now, the stories are NOT similar, but the pacing sure is. Things start building steam from the very beginning of the novel, and then right when you think you’ve got things under control, the book takes a definite turn from YA fiction into Sci-Fi territory.

 

And, just like Wells’ book, it’s a very good turn in deed. Ephraim spends the rest of the novel trying to solve the major problem that was presented at about the halfway point, and developing new relationships with the characters that are a part of that twist.

If I had to knock one thing about this book, it would probably be the ending. Now, I’m not saying that the end was too predictable or boring or poorly written. Rather, I felt that the wind-down of the book (the stuff that happens AFTER the final confrontation between the protagonist and antagonist) was too drawn out, and didn’t really fit with the breakneck pace of the previous chapters.

Now, I’m not necessarily the key demographic for this book, being a 28 year old man with two kids, but I’d imagine that if I was easily invested in the characters and their problems, then so would any teenager. I think that Meyers has hit all the right spots for this novel to succeed. Do I think it will be the next Hunger Games? No. But I do think it will be a very solid book for Pyr’s new lineup of YA books, and that it should probably be considered by any teen that loves Speculative Fiction in all its forms.

I loved

• That it was very standalone. No huge cliffhanger ending that requires you to buy another book (I’m looking at you, Robison Wells).
• Meyer’s writing. Simple, readable, engaging.
• The pacing. This novel was a real gem of a read because I didn’t struggle with any “slow parts.”
• The twist. I love a book where things are changing and there’s a big reveal that changes the shape of the novel. This definitely has all that.

I hated

• It wasn't a terrible ending, it just seemed a little drawn-out for me compared to the breakneck pace of the final confrontation between protagonist and antagonist some fifteen pages back.

Understand that I really don’t like adding numbers to these things, but a lot of readers skip straight to this point (I may change this in the near future). So, I’m giving Fair Coin a 8.5/10. I’m recommending this one to all my teenage nieces and nephews (they are legion), and I don’t often do that with the YA books I read. I’m making an exception for this very solid, enjoyable read. Basically, if the blurb above grabs your attention, then the book’s plot, characters and pacing will keep it right through the end.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Publisher: Recorded Books, LLC (2001)

Read by: Dylan Baker

From goodreads: John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression follows the western movement of one family and a nation in search of work and human dignity. Perhaps the most American of American classics.


My first question, upon picking up the book, was 'What's up with the title?' I saw the movie a few years ago, and it did not clear the fog on this question for me. Now, having read the book, I get it. It is probably one of the best titles ever, once you get it.

John Steinbeck captured the effects of the Depression and the Dust Bowl by following one family, the Joads. Isn't that an awesome last name? Does anyone know a Joad? It was a new name for me. They lived and worked in Oklahoma as tenant farmers. The story starts with son Tom Joad having been released from prison (he was in for man-slaughter that occurred during a drunken fight). He hitches a ride to his parents' place to find them gone and the ex-preacher Jim Cayce wandering nearby. They have a good chat and Jim knows Tom's family is at his Uncle John's and that they plan to go out West to find work.

And out West they do head. Packing up three generations (with a 4th on the way) and as much household items, food, and water as they can into 1 vehicle. Tom and his brother Al are the only two that know how to drive the vehicle. At the last minute, Grandpa decides he doesn't want to go and has to be drugged and placed on the top of the load. He never really recovers himself, and once he is gone, Grandma loses it mentally and eventually succumbs too. One by one, the Joad family is widdled down for various reasons.

When they finally do make it to California, it isn't all that they expected. The work is hard, and even harder to get. The family, and all other migrant farmers, are treated like trash and aren't given protection by local law enforcement. Through it all, Ma Joad keeps the family decent people - sharing what they have when they have it and treating all others like human beings. She and her son Tom are the quiet heroes of this story.

Dylan Baker really made this audiobook come alive. I could hear Grandpa's toothless lip smacking, Grandma's religious screeching, Ma Joad's rushed version of Rose of Sharon's name, son Tom's slow, firm consideration of a situation, Al's lusty fascination with the ladies, and so on. He truly made each character an individual while also having Pa Tom Joad and son Tom Joad sound related.

++++: I had a personal connection to this book (paternal grandparents were migrant farmers), Steinbeck kept taking me to that 'it's hopeless' place to pull me back out with some act of kindness, the children's fascination with flush toilets, Rose of Sharon rallied at the end and lost her silliness, Ma Joad becomes the acknowledged family leader at the end of the book, the realistic portrayal of sex.

--: This audio version had sudden, jarring harmonica music in-between scenes. More than once I almost dropped a glass or slammed on the breaks. If you are already in a depressed state, Steinbeck might not be the read for you right now.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Publisher: Books on Tape, 2002

Read by: Paul Boehmer

From goodreads: Moby Dick was first published in Britain, as The Whale, in 1851. It is an extraordinary book, made up of 135 chapters, all written in a variety of styles--from sailors' slang to biblical prophecy and Shakespearian rant. Ishmael, the narrator, tells of the adventures of Captain Ahab in his relentless quest to seek revenge on the white whale that bit off his leg. Full of allegory and symbolism, Moby Dick is an epic tragedy of tremendous dramatic power and narrative drive. This large-scale adaptation, recorded in America, skillfully reproduces the unique mixture of adventure, myth, history, and philosophy in Melville's epic tale.


This is one of those epic classics that some might find daunting to review, let alone read. Not so with me; I plan to tell you my uncultured, ambivalent thoughts on this book. I was fascinated by parts of this book and bored with other parts. Herman Melville packed A LOT into this book. It is not compact, staying on story line.

Moby Dick is narrated through Ishmael, a kind of gentlemen whaler. About half the talking cast are non-Caucasian characters, which I believe was pretty unusual in the 1850s. The most talented whalers and the guys who get the bulk of the work done are Toshtego, Queequeg, Daggoo, and Fedallah. Starbuck, Flask, and Stubb also assist Cpt. Ahab in his obsessive quest for the White Whale, Moby Dick. They go traipsing over the oceans, asking for news of Moby Dick and slaughtering other whales for oil when they come upon them.

Point of fascination: Moby Dick managed to take Ahab's leg in a previous engagement and is perceived thence forward as a malevolent beast with ill-intent towards all men. Really? Some dude commands a ship full of harpooners bent on bleeding me to death, I might defend myself to say the least. Through out this book, I found myself having to set aside my cultural norms concerning the whaling industry and hunting in general. This is a good example; the idea that man reigns supreme and that all other beasts were put on Earth to serve him in some manner, including rolling over and dying with some ease and minimal fight, is a thought that quirks my eyebrow. (Just to be clear, I have butchered my own animals and I am not squeamish about it; but if I get injured during the butchering I know it is due to my stupidity and not because the animal is malevolent).

The book is told in a mix of plain, easy speech, rough sailor stories and jokes (my favorites), and poetical, Shakespearean-like monologues (mostly by Ahab). This mix gave the different characters their own voices but also kind of broke up a smooth telling. The detail of the whaling industry of the time was fascinating. Since there is almost no such industry today, these details are not something I have bumped into before. Whale oil had a number of uses - perfumes, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, anointing kings and religious leaders. The bones of the whale were also used in women's undergarments, as structural and decorative bits of ships, and for Ahab's fake leg. I learned quite a bit from this book, and that is always a plus.

The voice actor Paul Boehmer did an excellent job tackling this 20 disc classic. He pulled off the changes in speech patterns among the crew very well and his even voice for the story narrator Ishmael kept me going in the slower parts.

+++: This book pushed me out of my comfort zone, one of the whalers nearly dies in a very disgusting way, there was a surprise ending.

---: Limited female rolls (but it is an 1800s sailing story), depiction of minorities, while progressive for original publication date, is a bit behind the times for today, some sections go way off in an author's monologue (like that whole chapter on the color white).

Lies of Locke Lamora questions, part ONE

Hey everyone, and welcome to the first of many posts in this fantastic Scott Lynch Read-Along! Please wander over to The Little Red Reviewer's neck of the woods and answer her questions about what we've read so far. I'll post them here, too, just in case you want to get crazy in my comments section. Go nuts! If you're interested in promoting this read-along, make sure to post on facebook, tweet about it (hashtag #lynchmob), email it to your friends, etc. We're super excited, and hope the book has been great for you so far. Now, onto the questions!

I'll put my answers at the bottom, just in case anyone wants to hear what an unabashed fanboy of the series thinks (you might be surprised).

Also, don't forget to check out all these wonderful blogs to get a feeling for what everyone else is saying about the Read-Along.

Nashville Book Worm
Dark Cargo
Rose’s Thingamajig
Felix Pearce
Books Without any Pictures
Lynn’s Book Blog
Geeky Daddy
Scruffy Fiction
Vilutheril Reviews
Booky Pony
Tethyan Books
Paperless Reading
Beware of the Froggies
John Ayliff
My Awful Reviews
Just Book Reading
Kaitharshayr’s Musings
All I Am – A Redhead
Realbooks4ever
Coffee, Cookies and Chili Peppers
Rememorandum
The Hugo Endurance Project
LisaPizza

1. If this is your first time reading The Lies of Locke Lamora, what do you think of it so far?  If this is a re-read for you, how does the book stand up to rereading?

2. At last count, I found three time lines:  Locke as as a 20-something adult, Locke meeting Father Chains for the first time, and Locke as a younger child in Shades Hill. How are you doing with the Flashback within a flashback style of introducing characters and the world?

3. Speaking of the world, what do you think of Camorr and Lynch’s world building?

4. Father Chains and the death offering. . .  quite the code of honor for thieves, isn’t it? What kind of person do you think Chains is going to mold Locke into?

5. It’s been a while since I read this, and I’d forgotten how much of the beginning of the book is pure set up, for the characters, the plot, and the world. Generally speaking, do you prefer  set up and world building done this way, or do you prefer to be thrown into the deep end with what’s happening?

6. If you’ve already started attempting to pick the pockets of your family members (or even thought about it!) raise your hand.

1. This is probably my 6th or 7th read of this book. It's a yearly deal with me, usually a book that I go to when I'm burnt out and want something comforting (yes, like Little Red Reviewer, I like my comfort with lots of violence, torture, sex and vulgar language). This book never disappoints me, which is why it was perfect to read after I finished Chuck Wendig's Blackbirds and felt that anything I read after it would disappoint.

2. The timelines were confusing for me the first time I read the book, but now they're old friends. I remember having to think really hard about what was going on the first time I read so that I could understand whether we were in the past or the present. I think for a lot of readers, this could throw them off. I stuck with it, and I'm incredibly glad that I did.

3. Camorr is amazing. This is the book that I look to when I want to read great description. I think that it can get a tiny bit info-dumpy for my liking, but I'm a recovering addict to skipping descriptive paragraphs in favor of the action. I understand now that I was hurting my abilities as a reader AND as a writer by doing that, so I've been correcting it of late. Camorr is a fantastic place to see, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to live there (unless I were rich and far from the eyes of The Gentleman Bastards, that is).

4. I have always enjoyed the idea of thieves having a code of conduct. I think it also makes it easier to root for thieves if they have honor and an organized style of pilfering. Knowing how stubborn Chains is, I would think that he's molding Locke into exactly what he says he is, the head of a guild of thieves that will make the heavens weep and will be richer and cleverer than everyone else.

5. Reading for the umpteenth time, as LRR said, the beginning is starting to get just a tad slow for me. I'm about 60% of the way through so far, and a little surprised that there was so much set up. Thankfully, when the book starts kicking, it REALLY starts kicking and doesn't stop until the end.

6. Look in my hand, that's your wallet.

The Weekend Question: Is there Sexism in Review Blogging?

So, lately there have been a number of posts going around twitter and fantasy blogs in general that have gotten me interested in gender and the role it plays in book reviews. Let me give you a quick peek at the kinds of numbers I'm seeing.

First, there was this wonderful post about how review bloggers need to be included in the Hugo Awards by the ever-interesting Stefan Raets. I totally agree with this, and I've been meaning to feature this post on my blog for a couple of days now.

NOTE: Yes, it's $50 to be a "supporting member," and vote on the Hugos, but let's remember that you get cool stuff. Just look at this post from last year about what they got.

This post inadvertently got some negative attention when it was pointed out that Stefan only included male bloggers in his examples of recommendations. Now, I don't think there was anything behind that at all, but it did get people started talking about women authors and their representation in our wonderful little corner of the internet (review blogs).

That talk (and there are several posts that I should link to, but i'm trying my damndest to be brief) led to this post about gender issues with regard to how many female authors get reviewed by male bloggers. While I don't think the data can give us very many conclusions, it did cause quite a stir. It certainly got me thinking about how many reviews I've done of female authors versus male authors, and the numbers are pretty pathetic.

My Awful Reviews currently has two full-time reviewers that have submitted content. Between nrlymrtl and I, we've managed to do something along the lines of 31 reviews this year. 28 of those reviews were male authors. Now, one of those reviews was for a trilogy of books by a female author, so the numbers are a bit skewed, but not by much.

When I started talking to other bloggers on twitter about it (or reading their comments on the above posts), I noticed several things

• Many male bloggers complained that they were sent an overwhelming number of review copies by male authors, but relatively few female authors.
• Urban fantasy was pointed at a number of times as being something very different in the fantasy world (primarily female writers and readers, with more female reviews than male reviews).
• I got some disturbing information in the form of links that led me to believe this disparity in male vs female reviewing was VERY widespread. Read them here and here and here

So, here's the long and short of what those links told me.

• authorship is about 50/50 between males and females each year in publishing. (this one still needs verified in a major way, but I'm letting it slide while I await their sources).
• Women get roughly 1/3 the review representation that men get.
• A random selection of 25 bloggers can pretty quickly show striking similarities to that 1/3 rule from the previous bullet point.

So, if the 50/50 thing stands, then we've got a problem the size of a giant pair of hairy testicles covering roughly 2/3 of the US and UK (don't you just love how description can really make something semi-professional suddenly sound like a 15 year old ranting in his basement?).

The biggest question I'm left with is WHY? Why does there seem to be so much more promotion and reviewing of male authors? Do female writers all suck horribly? I can't imagine that's the case. Are all the readers male? Nope, can't imagine that's right either. Even more strangely, all the publicists that I have worked with are female, yet of the 5 books I've gotten unsolicited from publishers (stop laughing right this instant! The blog is a work in progress, damn it!) 3 were male authors, and one was co-written by a husband and wife. Six authors, four of them men. I don't have enough personal data to prove there's a disparity, but I'm sure that some older blogs do, and I'd love to see it.

How can we change this depressing trend?

Regardless of the reason that this disparity exists (is it the bloggers? The publishers? The Flying Spaghetti Monster?) the important thing to remember is review blogs have a unique opportunity to strike a dent in the disparity between male and female authors and their publicity. We are the people suggesting the books, after all. So, why don't we take some time to ask around and get a feel for some of the great women writing in the genres that we know and love? I know that going forward, I'm going to be paying special attention to books that catch my eye and have a female author, and maybe you should, too. I'm not saying go incredibly far out of your way, or read and review ONLY female authors. That would be a whole new mess that I don't want my dear blog associated with at all. I'm just saying look around, and see if maybe there aren't some great female authors doing something that interests you. If there are, ask them or their publicist for a review copy. Simple, and effective. In fact, if you really like what you read, buy a copy. Capitalism can definitely help even the score here. If we all change just a little, we can really make an impact on what looks like a big problem.

I'd like to end on a person note. I think the thing that hit closest to home for me in studying out all of this is the number of opportunities I've likely missed to read great books by female authors, simply because they went unnoticed. It's depressing thinking back on some of the mediocre books I've waded through in the past few years. All that time there was a much better book, written by a woman, that no one talked about enough to catch my eye. Instead, I read some by-the-numbers fantasy plot that had me yawning and struggling to finish, simply because it got more press. We (reviewers) are the press now. Let's change up our reading habits, if for no other reason than we all hate reading crappy books when there's something better out there.

Of Blood and Honey by Stina Leicht

Publisher: Night Shade Books

Date: January 2011

Description (From Indiebound): Liam never knew who his father was. The town of Derry had always assumed that he was the bastard of a protestant - his mother never spoke of him, and Liam assumed he was dead. But when the war between the fallen and the fey begins to heat up, Liam and his family are pulled into a conflict that they didn't know existed. A centuries old conflict between supernatural forces seems to mirror the political divisions in 1970's era Ireland, and Liam is thrown headlong into both conflicts! Only the direct intervention of Liam's real father, and a secret catholic order dedicated to fighting "The Fallen" can save Liam... from the mundane and supernatural forces around him, and from the darkness that lurks within him.

One of the things that I really like about having this blog is that it forces me to admit and cure my ignorance on a number of subjects. For instance, I can tell you that I truly didn't have a clue about what took place in the 1970s in Northern Ireland. Thankfully, education through fantasy books has struck again, and Stina Leicht's Of Blood and Honey cleared that problem up in a hurry. If you'd like to know more about The Troubles, then you can refer to this quick guide here, or better yet, just go and buy Stina's debut novel from Night Shade Books.

I definitely didn't realize how interesting and dangerous the 70s were in Ireland, but Leicht captures it wonderfully. Liam's story meshes incredibly well with real-world events, and the tragedies that befall him really help the reader understand just how crazy this period in history was.

Liam's story is incredibly tragic. His fight against the darkness in him, and how that darkness keeps causing both he and his family to suffer is heart-breaking. Things DO NOT go well for Liam, and it makes for great reading. I didn't expect a single thing that happened to him to go quite the way that it did, with the exception of the end of the novel. Even then, I didn't quite get it right. And that's a very good thing folks. This book was utterly unpredictable to me, and so it should provide you with plenty of great story.

If I had to knock a couple of things in this book, I'd pick the fact that it was a little lighter on the supernatural aspects than I had imagined, and that the middle was just a tad too slow for me. The lack of magic was only a letdown for me because the fantasy aspects were very cool when they happened, so I wanted more. For some, this combined with a slightly slower middle of the novel might make for a slow read because there's just not enough magic to keep you going. But in the end, I was able to get past that and realize just what a great story was lurking on these pages, fantastical magic or no. NOTE: I have the personal guarantee of Stina Leicht that the second book has more magic in it, so fear not!

I loved

• The utter unpredictability. I was truly surprised by a number of things that happened to Liam. Leicht really knows how to put her characters through the ringer.
• The demon-fighting, whiskey drinking, psycho-analyzing father Murray. I'll be interested in seeing more of him in the sequel, which is the next book on my planned reading
• The fact that Leicht did her homework, on everything from The Troubles to racing cars, and it shows. Nothing felt like she was winging it, or relying on the reader to know less about the subject than she did. I looked up The Troubles after reading the book, and it mirrors the every detail of the book.
• The message this book is sending about violence and fear and how they make for some really terrible decisions. Look into The Troubles, and you'll see the seeds of the same thing in America today, and it's somewhat terrifying.

I hated

• The middle of the book was a little slow for me, even with magic starting to take more of a role, and it slowed my reading of the book somewhat.

Of Blood and Honey gets 8.75/10. This is a VERY good debut from an author that I'm looking forward to reading again soon. The mesh of fantasy and history  is excellent, and Liam's life is tragic and incredible. If you like fantasy and love history, go and buy this book, and get the sequel while you're at it (released just this week!)

Ten questions with author Seanan Mcguire

I've had a number of blogs over the years, some cooler than others. For some reason, I quit The Intelli-Gent Reviews back in 2010 (well, it's actually a long story that I won't be telling, so let's just leave it at that), but it had a lot of cool content, including some fun interviews I did with a few popular authors. One of those authors was the wonderful, effervescent (wow, spelled it right the first time and everything) Seanan Mcguire. Seanan is the author of the wonderful Toby Daye books, as well as the Newsflesh Trilogy under the pen name Mira Grant. Since today is the official release of  her new novel Discount Armageddon, the first in the InCryptid Series, I thought I'd post this old interview. Of course, for more information on Seanan, head to http://seananmcguire.com/.

Buy Seanan Mcguire books at Indiebound
Buy Mira Grant books at Indiebound

So, without further ado, let's ask her some questions.

1- What’s your story? You know, the one people ask you about over and over. The “How did you make it” story.

The "how did you make it" story? I wrote a book. It stunk. I wrote another book. It stunk less. I re-wrote the first book. I wrote a third book that kinda didn't stink. I re-wrote the second book. I wrote a fourth book. Somewhere in all that, I figured out how, precisely, one writes books, and stopped stinking (at least, that's my fervent hope). I found an agent. Agent make go.

2- With three books in print (that I know of) do you feel that you’ve arrived as an author? Have you been able to "quit your day job" and do writing full time?

Cheese and crackers, no. I am the most neurotic Halloweentown blonde on the planet, and I spend most of my waking hours working, one way or another. I'm still working a full-time day job, so I don't sleep much.

3-Having read both Rosemary and Rue  and A Local Habitation , I can say that I love October Daye as a character. Is she your favorite character to write? If so, what makes her so enjoyable?

I love the hell out of Toby, and yeah, sometimes she's my favorite character to write. Other times, she's not -- it really depends on my mood. When she is my favorite, it's her pragmatism that makes her so much fun.

4-The time of the e-book seems to be upon us. While I’m not carrying a sign around telling folks to repent of their papyrus ways, it seems pretty clear to me that we’re quickly approaching a tipping point in the way the publishing industry works. What is your opinion of all of this, and how has it affected you as an author so far?

I like my books not to be turned off during airplane take-off and landing. I am a paper book girl. I use them to insulate my house. Also, and this has been a big one recently, there isn't a single e-book format -- every format requires a separate contract, negotiation, and release. This matters because when someone doesn't have their preferred format available instantly, I get angry email, sometimes accompanied with justification of piracy. As someone trying to make my living doing this, this makes me sad. So do the cries for an e-book price limit of under five dollars. I like eating. My cats like eating. So it's a thing.

I do tend to think that the publishing world is changing, and will have to change, but I don't think overnight change is a good idea, either for authors or for readers. We need to do this in a sustainable way.

5-Along the same lines as the e-book question, I want to ask about internet presence and self-marketing. It seems this is now the norm for authors, having to work hard to draw fans in through their websites, blogs, and other methods. Do you enjoy posting a livejournal and having social networks or other websites, or is it something you wouldn’t mind living without?

I've been blogging since 2000, and prior to that, I did a weekly humor column distributed to my college and an email list. I really love interacting with fans and being able to go "golly, I have this in-universe short story, guess I'll just put it up online." I wish there wasn't such a need for all the self-promotion, just because not everybody enjoys it? But I am a perky perky princess when you get me going, so it's a good time.

6-What’s your writing process like? I know people hate this question, so feel free to be as specific or general as you’d like. Some folks in the past have given me and hour by hour breakdown of a day in their life, and other people have just told me, “I get up and write.”

It depends on the project, honestly. Sometimes books start with detailed outlines and serious points. Other times, I sit down and start writing. I have beta-reading pools aligned by project, and they get installments every chapter or two. When they return their commentary, I back-track, edit, and carry on. I also retype books completely between drafts one and two, introducing typos and fixing jumbled sentences. It's a thing.

I type a hundred and twenty words a minute, and my cats make sure I occasionally get up and walk around.

7-Lucky number seven is an opportunity to shamelessly plug anything you’d like.

I have two series of short stories available for free online reading. "Sparrow Hill Road" is at The Edge of Propinquity and is the story of Rose Marshall, hitchhiking ghost from the 1940s, as she travels America in search of a jacket, a cheeseburger, and vengeance on the man who killed her. "Velveteen vs." is at my website, www.seananmcguire.com, and is the story of Velma Martinez, also known as "Velveteen," a former child superheroine who just wants to be left the hell alone. It's deeply silly, but stealth serious at the same time.

8- Your new series, The Newsflesh Trilogy, is really something great. We've chosen it for our segment Two Dudes Review: and we'll have a full review up soon. For the people who didn't immediately rush to the bookstore (oh, the shame they must feel), could you provide a quick synopsis of what's going to be going on in the first book, Feed?

Twenty years ago, the dead rose. This was a problem for a while...but we got over it, for the most part. In the post-Rising world, all the balances of power have changed, but some things are forever. Bloggers Shaun and Georgia Mason, and their friend Buffy, have been tapped to follow the Ryman campaign as he tries to become President of the United States. Then things get messy.

I tell people it's what you get when you cross Night of the Living Dead with The West Wing and Transmetropolitan. It's more political science fiction than straight horror. I'm very fond of it.


9- I'm learning more and more that I'm a fan of zombie fiction. Can you explain why you think zombie fiction has "risen from the grave" to become so popular lately?

Because vampires got sexy.

Look: we always need a monster that's just a monster, and things are cyclic. Zombies are the fear of contagion, they're the fear of loss of self, they're the fear of blending back into the crowd. This is the age of the zombie, where they're the only thing we can kill without guilt, and where we're terrified of becoming them someday.

10-And finally, the great equalizer: If you were an assassin traveling through time, who would you be sent to kill and why?

I tend to think that messing with history is a form of genocide, since the ripples will unwrite countless human lives. It's not cool. So I'd "accidentally" leave my gun in the time machine, and spend an afternoon hanging out with Vincent Price. Man was a god.

Super Seekrit Info from Scott Lynch, and No, it's Not Republic of Thieves

So, a certain someone named Scott Lynch has gotten on board with our Read-Along. He'll be posting behind-the-scenes information about the books as we read them, letting us know things that he hasn't talked about before. It's all going to be right here on his livejournal, so make sure to tune in each Saturday to learn more about the story behind the books. Very exciting stuff!

NOTE: I'm also really excited that he mentioned our little blog on his livejournal post. If you watch Archer at all, this was a Spoosh moment for me.

Early Horror Works by H. P. Lovecraft

Publisher: Classic CD Books (Dec. 6, 2005)

Performed by: Erik Sellin

H. P. Lovecraft is widely regarded as one of America's greatest horror writers. In this audiobook, Classic CD Books speaks new life into five of his stories. Listen to the story of a curious tourist's confrontation with The Beast in the Cave. In Dagon, a naval prisoner escapes his captors... but to what? The Statement of Randolph Carter recounts the horrifying experience of two researchers. A group of thieves get more than they bargain for when they choose The Terrible Old Man as their next victim. A metaphysics student is eerily intrigued by The Music of Erich Zann.

This cool little audiobook, ~72 minutes, was my introduction to H. P Lovecraft. I know - I am so way behind on that To Be Read Mountain that keeps burying me. It doesn't help that I am attracted to shiny books weekly.

I don't particularly care for horror and rarely watch a horror flick and almost never read a horror story. Maybe that title is what kept me from enjoying Lovecraft for so long. I could easily see a 'science fiction' or 'fantasy' label attached to these five stories. These stories were written between 1905-1921.

The Beast in the Cave was a concise little tale of the fear of being lost in a cave, even if only temporarily. I have been in a deep cave with all the lights out before. I think most humans would prove to be pretty helpless in such a situation and therefore, this makes an excellent setting for a suspenseful tale.

Dagon intrigued me with the unknowns left for the reader to ponder - how did this bit of sea floor come to be raised up? Who or what wrote the unknown hieroglyphics? Is there a threat to humanity waiting at the bottom of the ocean?

When two guys go into a swamp with a few shovels and a portable telephone - well, you know they are not up to the usual gator or orchid hunting. The Statement of Randolph Carter is told after the fact by the survivor of a tomb dig gone horribly wrong.

The Terrible Old Man has Spanish gold coins but no friends. That is why I think he was highly entertained by the idiots who showed up to rob him.

The Music of Erich Zann was a great retelling of the classic myth of trying to outplay the Devil - but this time with a viol.

The narrator, Erik Sellin, did a decent job of character voices. I especially enjoyed how he performed the hollow telephone half of the conversation in The Statement of Randolph Carter.

+++: The stories weren't focused on gory, gruesome details, each was distinctly different, and I like how not everything is answered for the reader.

--: No female characters at all and I found myself wishing for more character development and setting (a lot to ask for in short stories).

Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan

Publisher: Orbit

Date: November 23, 2011

Blurb (Amazon):

 THEY KILLED THE KING. THEY PINNED IT ON TWO MEN. THEY CHOSE POORLY.

Royce Melborn, a skilled thief, and his mercenary partner, Hadrian Blackwater, make a profitable living carrying out dangerous assignments for conspiring nobles--until they are hired to pilfer a famed sword. What appears to be just a simple job finds them framed for the murder of the king and trapped in a conspiracy that uncovers a plot far greater than the mere overthrow of a tiny kingdom. 

Can a self-serving thief and an idealistic swordsman survive long enough to unravel the first part of an ancient mystery that has toppled kings and destroyed empires in order to keep a secret too terrible for the world to know?

The Riyria Revelations series has become somewhat of a sensation over the last couple years, selling boatloads of copies. It's a true tale of self-publishing success, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. If you want to know more about how Michael J. Sullivan went from giving up on writing to selling more copies by himself than most published authors, then look no further than his blog.

Now, on to the actual review.

I will be completely honest with you. I went into these books not expecting to be wowed. And I wasn't, for the first little bit. These books aren't the kind of books that I typically read. I have never read a book with Elves in it until now, for instance. Yes, never read Tolkien, have no desire to. This is probably the single biggest thing that deterred me, initially. However, I have read plenty of bromances, and Royce and Hadrian are an epic bromance if I've ever seen one. I'll tell you now before I even finish the review that I'll be reading the other books in this series just to see what happens to Royce and Hadrian (though I've already got my theories).

Theft of Swords is an omnibus edition, so it's really two books in one. The first half of the book (originally called The Crown Conspiracy) had some little things that niggled me (that's not a racist word. Get a dictionary!), but I pushed on, knowing that things would get better.

And they did.

The second half of the book was faster, funnier, tighter plot-wise, and even had better action scenes (the action scenes were already good in the first half). I was just starting to complain that good guys never die in these books, and then one did (though his relative didn't really seem to mourn him, which I thought strange). Things are definitely looking up from part 1 to part 2.

So, should you run right out and buy all of these books? I don't know.

For me personally, it's CURRENTLY a no.

But the problem that I'm having writing this review is that I knew going into it that others had complained about certain parts of the story and that it wasn't the kind of novel I read on a day-to-day basis. In short, If I were on jury duty and this book were on trial, I would get kicked off by the defense before the case ever started. I was prejudiced.

For a lot of people, I think these books will be very fun and very enjoyable. I laughed out loud at several parts of the book, and breezed through the second half of the novel. I can only imagine that each book will get better, so people who read this style of fantasy day-to-day will go from liking Riyria to LOVING Riyria.

These are good books, well-written and enjoyable. They're just not for me

I loved

• Hadrian and Royce. They're funny, they're extremely capable, and they're very good at getting into deeper crap at every turn.
• That I didn't find myself hating elves and dwarves nearly as much as I thought I would.

 I hated

• Lots of places that were "tell" when they should have been "show."
• The monologues of the villain and dwarf in the first part

For a quick guide on who "those people" are (trying to decide if that sounds more racist or elitist), check out Staffer's Musings. His review has a pretty great checklist of whether or not he thinks you'll like this book. I know I didn't meet many of the checkmarks, and so it makes sense that I'm giving Theft of Swords 7/10. It's fun, funny and lighthearted, but it's just not quite my kind of book. Hopefully it will be yours, because Mr. Sullivan is a hell of a guy.

I'll be checking out books two and three of the omnibus edition down the road. I imagine that my reviews will be higher for each one, because unless something goes horribly off-track, everything about the second half of the book was better than the first and I'm assuming that trend will continue. Plus, I've gotta know what happens to Royce and Hadrian. :)

Scott Lynch Read-Along Dates and Times

We're just a couple of days away from getting started with this great big thing, so I figured I'd better get you the specifics. We'll be reading this bad boy in 5 weeks, starting March 3rd. Since this isn't the kind of book club where we all purchased the exact same copy of the book, Andrea at little red reviewer was nice enough to split the book into five sections. This is a copy paste job of those sections, so let me know if you have any questions.

First of all, if anyone is concerned that they might not be able to keep up with this reading schedule, the blog Dark Cargo Explorer is running a "slow a long" - the same book but at a slower pace. You know, because sometimes work gets in the way. Or kids. Or life.


Week 1-  Read prologue thru end of Interlude called “Locke Stays for Dinner”. Discussion questions go out on March 8, posts go up on Saturday March 10

Week 2 –  Read Chapter three thru end of Interlude called “The Boy who
Cried for a Corpse”, Discussion questions go out on March  15 , posts
go up on Saturday March 17.

Week 3 – Read Chapter five thru end of Interlude called “The Half
Crown War”.  Discussion questions go out on March  22, posts go up on
Saturday March 24.

Week 4 – Read Chapter nine thru Interlude called “Orchids and
Assassins”.  Discussion questions go out March 29, posts go up on
March 31

Week 5 – Read chapter 14 thru end of the book.  Discussion questions
go out April 5th, posts go up April 7th.

I'll be sending you the first set of discussion questions on March 8th. If you have your own blog and want to post them there, please feel free. We love Scott and want to make sure that every corner of the interwebs knows what's going on and has the opportunity to participate.

Also, PLEASE check out the revamped blog post about how this is going down and how you can participate. The short version is you can have these questions up on Saturdays on your blogs, along with anything else you want to do. Or, if you're a little strapped for time, just comment on the questions on a blog out there. OR, if you're even more strapped for time, join Dark Cargo Explorer for a slower version of the read-along. I don't have a life, but I'm sure someone out there does.

You guys are the best, and I'm really looking forward to all of this. Enjoy!

Mirrormask by Neil Gaiman

Publisher: Harper Audio

Date: December 27th, 2005)

Performed by: Stephanie Leonidas

Blurb (Amazon): A fitful dream the night before her mothers surgery takes 15-year-old Helena to a world split into light and darkness. The queen of the White City is ill, and only the stolen MirrorMask can save her and her kingdom. As Helenas quest to find the Charm wears on, she realizes that she might not be dreaming after all.


I love Neil Gaiman's work, so I had to read this short story based on his movie, Mirrormask. It starts off simply enough - a family of circus performers with a teenage daughter who dreams of running away from the circus to have a normal life. Imagine your life of school/work with laundry and dishes and movie night being enviable to a teenager. Yeah, right.

But this tale is a fantasy, and a beautiful at that. There are the twisted, demented, dangerous bits coupled with the humorous, and deeply beautiful moments. Helena Campbell must find the balance to escape her dream world.

Her mother has fallen gravely ill and on the eve of her mother's serious operation, she finds herself drawn into this alternate reality, with the alternate faces of those she knows and loves. For friends and guides through this world she has a masked clown of sorts - Valentine, and a very wise and brave book.

This audio version was performed by the star of the film, Stephanie Leonidas. Since I had seen the movie, and already had a firm idea of the characters, this was a great match in creating the audiobook. She captured the teen angst perfectly.

+++: At ~75 minutes long, great for a commute or a session of dishes; love the deadly winged cats and the orbiting giants.

-: I wish there was a longer version....pout.....

Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig

Publisher: Angry Robot Books

Date: April 24, 2012

Blurb (Amazon): Miriam Black knows when you will die.

Still in her early twenties, she's foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, suicides, and slow deaths by cancer. But when Miriam hitches a ride with truck driver Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be gruesomely murdered while he calls her name.

Miriam has given up trying to save people; that only makes their deaths happen. But Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim. No matter what she does she can't save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she'll have to try.

This book lived up to the hype surrounding it, which is going to grow and grow before its release. Just before I started it, I took a peek at Graeme's Fantasy Book Review and boy did he speak highly of it. So highly, in fact, that I didn't believe it. He's never steered me wrong before, but I thought he was full of crap or was sleeping with Chuck Wendig or something. Well, now I'm going to make it sound like we're having a threesome.


First of all, Graeme was right. That cover is awesome, and a paperback will never do that thing justice. Joey Hi-Fi is an amazing artist, and hopefully people are lining up to get their book covers from him. My blog looks 1000% cooler just having that picture on it (which is why I made it so damned big), and his cover of the upcoming Mockingbird looks even better.

Now, to review the actual words inside the book. I guess I'd better start by saying that I'm a pretty straight-laced guy. I'm one of those guys that grew up sheltered in a small town, and to this day foul language and gratuitous sex still put me off a bit. I remember as a teen that I couldn't keep reading George R.R. Martin's books because A Game of Thrones was just too dirty for me at that point. I'm still that same awkward teenager about certain things, and so the first ten pages of pain-peeling language in Blackbirds had me second-guess Graeme's review.

You see, in the coming months you'll be seeing a lot of what I'd like to call "sandpaper reviews" of this book. There will be a metric ton of words like gritty, abrasive, rough, harsh, and edgy. Yes, this book would make a sailor blush. Yes, horrible, terrible, awful, no good, very bad stuff happens to almost everyone. And yes, you'll be a little shocked if you're like seventeen year old me. But honestly, by the time I was twenty pages into this book I wouldn't have put it down for $50. By the time I was 80% of the way through, I wouldn't have taken $250. Understand, I'm not a rich man, and $250 would do a lot for me. But I HAD to know what would happen to Miriam; if the visions that she saw of Louis would come true, and what sort of crazy, self-destructive things would happen along the way.

Make no mistake, you'll be reading this book for Miriam. She is equal parts morbid, hilarious, sexy, depressed, perverse, uncaring, and insane. She drives you away only to lure you back throughout the novel. With the ability to know the exact second people will die, and see it in full HD, you'd kind of expect her to be this crazy. Miriam is incredibly interesting as a character, and should be able to drive several novels. It seems that with a power like hers there's a lot she could do in future novels.

Honestly, it's hard to explain much about this book without giving away too much. The novel is on the short side, which means the pace is crazy-fast, and there's nary a minute of downtime for our poor heroine. Speaking of heroin, there's plenty of drugs and sex and guns in this book. It reminds me of some sort of crazy dream Quentin Tarantino had, after which he called Chuck Wendig and told him all about it (Chuck took excellent notes). The drugs and the sex and guns all lead to some very intense situations. These are made especially tense by the fact that you don't really see five pages go by without someone getting killed (or at least Miriam seeing it), so you're always expecting the worst for everyone you see. It gives the novel a real sense of despair, like everything Miriam does is for nothing, because these people will die, and there's no way she can stop them.

This despair is counterbalanced nicely by a lot of humor. This book made me laugh out loud several times while reading it, and I think for a lot of people the humor will be the book's saving grace. I think without the quick one-liners and snarky nature of the book it would have been too depressing for me. Thankfully, Wendig's a very funny man, and so is his book.

Miriam's decisions throughout Blackbirds are also funny. Not funny HAHA, but funny "WTF did you just do that?"Miriam makes a lot of choices that you or I might call reckless or stupid or just plain bad, but that has to do with how she feels about fate. I really didn't expect to be having long conversations with my wife about the nature of fate in our lives after reading a short urban fantasy (I guess that's where this falls, right?). But I did. And that's when I realized that this wasn't just a page-turner, this was something more.

Miriam's world is violent and absolutely uncaring, as are the characters that surround her. She's hunted on every side, and doesn't dare believe that she should ever be anything more than a drunk hot mess hitchhiking her way through life. You know how some book reviews (my own included) say that the author, "pulled no punches"? Well, Chuck Wendig's Blackbirds goes out looking for more things to punch. Miriam is a tortured character if I've ever seen one, and I may never see one that's waded through more death and gore than her. When it comes to tough love, Blackbirds is brutal, gory, filthy. It is also thought-inducing, poetic, and beautiful.

I loved:

• Miriam. She will draw you in, even if you don't want her to. You will root for her, despite all her many, many flaws.
• The magic. Mysterious, fleeting and for the most part unexplained. This will be something that can get more detail in a second book.
• The prose. Brutal, shocking, and ultimately incredible because of how it makes you think and feel.

I hate

• That the language and sex and violence in this book will probably keep some people from reading it. Yes, I think that it was all necessary to give the story the feeling that it has, but it's still disappointing that it will make it (perhaps) less well-read than it should be.

Blackbirds gets 9.75/10. Perhaps the best way to describe just how fantastic this book was is to tell you about my favorite book. I'm a huge fan of Scott Lynch, particularly The Lies of Locke Lamora. It's my favorite book of all time, in fact. I would give The Lies of Locke Lamora the exact same score I just gave Chuck Wendig's book. Blackbirds might not grab you like it did me, but I can't keep my fanboy out of this review. I connected with this book, and I hope you do, too.

Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn

Publisher: Highbridge Company

Date: September 12, 2003

Blurb (Amazon): A tour-de-force novel set in ancient Japan filled with passion, fantasy, and feuding warlords. The first volume in the highly anticipated Tales of the Otori trilogy.

Sixteen-year-old Takeo's village has been massacred by an evil warlord, and he is about to be slain by the men who murdered his parents and neighbors. At the last moment, his life is saved by a nobleman, who claims the boy as his kin and begins his education.

But nothing is as it seems. Takeo discovers that he has rare powers that are useful to those around him. As he grows into manhood, he must decide where his loyalties lie: with his noble master and adoptive father; with the Hidden, a secret, spiritual sect whose beliefs are forbidden; or with the Tribe, the assassins and spies who consider him one of their own.

A story of treachery, political intrigue, and the intensity of first love, set in a world ruled by formal ritual and codes of honor, Across the Nighingale Floor crosses genres, generations, and genders to captivate fans of all ages.

You know what it is like to have a love affair with a book, right? Well, Across the Nightingale Floor is my new love affair. I have been eyeing this book for some time - the title is intriguing and the cover has a sword on it. Why wouldn't you be intrigued by this book?

Lian Hearn created a beautiful and complex world with this first installment in the Tales of the Otori. Set in ancient, feudal Japan, Takeo is orphaned in a night of flame and saved by an enemy of those who set fire to his village. Shigeru Otori takes Takeo with him, giving him his new name, a name that resembles Shigeru's murdered brother. Takeo has given his loyalty freely and completely to Shigeru, who treats him as a son.

But unfinished business from Takeo's past, and even his heritage, will come to haunt him. His mother was of The Hidden, a group of worshipers that are often persecuted for their believes. Takeo learns to hide this part of himself, burying it deep with him. However, without the proper training he cannot hide his blood heritage. Takeo's father, an unknown figure in his life, was of The Tribe, a highly trained, specially skilled group. They are little known, but what is known is of their skills as assassins.

Lady Kaede's predicament is that she as been a useful hostage of a feudal lord. And now she has been ordered to marry an Otori to seal a truce and a compact of loyalty. However, these are not her desires. That coupled with her reputation to being death to any man who acts upon his desire for her, surrounds her with a certain mystique.

I listened to the Audible.com version, performed by Kevin Gray and Aiko Nakasone. Having two performers for this book really added to the quality. Both had even, easy-to-listen-to voices with expert pronunciation of the Japanese names.

++++: Everybody could be dangerous including the ladies, love is not a weakness, people die eventually, there's a heron.

-: One minor negative point: There is a love scene that I wish the author had given us just a bit more.

Giant Thief by David Tallerman

Author: David Tallerman

Publisher: Angry Robot Books

Date: January 31, 2012

Blurb (Amazon): Meet Easie Damasco, rogue, thieving swine and total charmer.
 
Even the wicked can't rest when a vicious warlord and the force of enslaved giants he commands invade their homeland.  Damasco might get away in one piece, but he's going to need help.

Big time. 


Giant Thief was a fun roller coaster. I dug into it, thought it was predictable, and then the author hit me with something unexpected. I read on. The story felt predictable again, and whack!, another unexpected turn. Clever, ain't he?

David Tallerman put together a tale of war, revenge, betrayal, loyalty, and thiefery. Easie Damasco is our narrator, telling the tale through his jaded, self-absorbed eyes. Right off the bat, the dude is being hung, is abruptly saved from that fate to be press-ganged into a battle he has no interest in. Through coincidence, he has to take charge of one of the many giants forced into the war. Being quick in thought, he directs the giant, Salt Lick, back to the main camp with a scheme to steal from the main bad guy, Lord Moardrid.

But Easie gets more than he stole for - and is pursued relentlessly the rest of the book. He finds old friends.....well, once-upon-a-time-alliances and forms a few other tentative friendships. He repeatedly breaks promises, constantly thinks about himself, and has no real regard for others. So why did I root for the guy? Little by little, Easie has to witness the outcome of his selfish behaviors on others. In the end, will he try to fix them?

In short, I had fun with it and hope there is a sequel in the works. I enjoyed all the Hispanic names, which gave this book the flavor of Europe.

+++: Fun, easy to get into, pace keeps moving, I like that people call Easie on his idiocy, not everyone is a good guy.

--: The last few lines by Easie Damasco at the end of the book kind of left a sour note - hadn't the dude learned a few lessons? Salt Lick deserves some decent clothes.

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

A woman wakes up in another woman's body. Oh, and she has amazing superpowers. Awesomeness ensues.

Publisher:Little, Brown and Company

Date: January 11, 2012

Blurb (From Rookfiles.com):

“The body you are wearing used to be mine.” So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her.
She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Checquy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.
In her quest to uncover which member of the Checquy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined.


The Rook is told through two different peoples' eyes, Myfawny (sounds like Tiffany) Thomas, and Myfawny Thomas. Sounds crazy? Well, the main part of the story comes from New Myfawny Thomas, the person in the body during our opening scene in the rain with the weirdos with latex gloves. The rest of the story comes in the form of letters and entries in a large binder by Old Myfawny Thomas, Rook of the Checquy, a seemingly mousy and somewhat pathetic paper-pusher.

The very first thing I want to comment on is how well I felt the female characters were done. I don't always pay attention to this in books, but I came away impressed with what I thought were well-written females. They weren't men with breasts. They also weren't all emotional wrecks or nagging housewives or Martha Stewarts (the baking kind, not the insider trading kind). Good work, Daniel! Now, with that out of the way, let's move on to some of the things that might cause readers trouble in this novel.

I enjoyed the letter portions of the story immensely, as that's something that I really like to see in novels. It was also a clever way for O'Malley to work his way around that old "show, don't tell" chestnut. But for some, these letters might be overlong and not give enough to the current plot to keep the reader interested. The only time I had a problem with any of the journal entries were when the came directly after a cliffhanger in the current plot.

As far as the excellent background O'Malley gives us in these letters is concerned, I was left feeling like it was a necessary evil. While this story does start our character out in a place of weakness (loss of memory, under attack) it doesn't start her out low on the food chain. Instead, The Rook starts the main character off in a very high position of authority, scrambling to get her legs under her and figure out what's going on. The letters are the only way this character could possibly impersonate Old Myfawny. Thus, necessary evil. For some readers, though, it might make the novel drag just enough to make it feel too long. On my Kindle, it shows that The Rook is roughly the same size as The Lies of Locke Lamora, while other one-lead urban fantasies are about 75% of that. For me, the letters added a lot of color to the story, and explained why other people didn't immediately realize she had lost all her memories, but your mileage may vary.

The characters of The Rook were very well done. Everyone that shows up in The Rook feels real, living and breathing. Even those characters that died during some of the action scenes were people we had developed some sort of connection with. No Red Shirts in The Rook, and that's a very good thing.

I was very impressed with the ending of the book. O'Malley finished The Rook in a way that was very comfortable, and will not lead to massive fanboy ranting for a sequel. But rest assured that there's plenty of stuff going on at the end of the book that warrants one. The ending was sharp, enjoyable, and fulfilling, like a wheel of cheese.

I loved:

• The letters between Myfawnys. But this could go in the other column for many people.
• The superpowers. We've got 4 bodies with one mind, a crazy flexible dude, a human squid and much much more.
• Female characters that aren't just men with breasts.

I hated:

• The length. It was sort of necessary for all the worldbuilding he did, but it felt just a tad too long.

The Rook gets 8.75/10.  If you enjoy Larry Correia or Myke Cole, this is the slower, more British version of those, and it's great. There's plenty to enjoy here, and I suggest you go out and enjoy it very soon.

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

The story opens with everyday happenings in the life of Cayce (pronounced Case) Pollard. She is a 30-something 'cool' finder. She recognizes patterns and trends in fashion and points a corporation to the next thing that will be desired by the masses. She is often used as a consultant for new logos - what works and what doesn't. Her special gift derives from her condition - apophenia.

But with this gift comes the flip-side. Certain logos/trademarks freak her out; they cause terror, tears, vomiting, anxiety to some degree or other. Personally, I can sympathize with Cayce's feelings concerning the early Michelin Man.

William Gibson put together a fascinating read with Pattern Recognition, the first book in the Bigend trilogy. Cayce's hobby is following a website that is all about this most engaging film that is being released in snippets in various places throughout El Internet. Pretty soon her hobby turns more into an obsession. She partners with a new boss, Hubertes Bigend, and a computer wizard Boon Chu to track down the maker of the film footage. Bigend believes it could be the next big cool and he wants to market it. Boon Chu has his own motivations and Cayce has to admit to herself that she would try to find the maker on her own anyway.

But soon enough this quest becomes much more dangerous and convoluted that Cayce had expected. She travels from England to Tokyo and eventually Moscow to try to unravel this mystery. In the background, she is plagued with unanswered questions concerning her father, presumed deceased. He disappeared in NY on the morning of 9/11/01. However, no body was ever found. Her mother is convinced that he is gone and that she has received messages from him from the other side, messages directed at Cayce.

The reader, Shelly Fraser, was awesome. From the first disc, her voice was Cayce Pollard. She also pulled off a variety of accents, imbued her voice with incredulity, boredom, frustration, fear, and awe at the correct times.

+++++: This book goes on my ETERNAL shelf. The world building and leading up to the crux of the mystery were excellent.

-: Hmmm... can't really think of anything negative.....Maybe a few more humorous emails from Cayce's British friend Damien would have been welcome.