The Leaning Pile of Books
Nov
21
2010

Today I bought two books due to the fact that I had $10 in Borders bucks that were going to disappear if I didn’t use them over the next couple of days.  We can’t have that happening!  I was hoping to get the next Lee and Taro book by Moira J. Moore, but the bookstore didn’t have it so I ended up with these two instead:

The Decoy PrincessThe Decoy Princess by Dawn Cook

Dawn Cook is also Kim Harrison, the author of the popular urban fantasy series The Hollows.  Even though I have a lot of catching up to do on The Hollows series (I’ve read the first and liked it enough to buy the next few but I haven’t picked them up yet due to having a severe case of Book ADD), I keep wanting to pick up The Decoy Princess when I see it in the bookstore.  This time I gave in to temptation since they didn’t have my first choice book and this also sounds like fun – a girl raised as a princess discovers she is actually a decoy for the real princess.  There is one sequel, Princess at Sea.  An excerpt from The Decoy Princess is available on Dawn Cook’s website.

Princess Contessa’s dreams of living happily ever after marrying a prince are shattered when her “parents” reveal that she’s actually a street urchin they raised as their daughter to thwart assassins from their real target.

Mind GamesMind Games by Carolyn Crane

I love The Thrillionth Page, the blog of Carolyn Crane, which I’ve known about since before I even knew she was writing a book.  She’s hilarious – how can you not love her post entitled “Why aren’t men like Jamie Fraser?” in response to a question she found in her search stats?  So even though I’m getting a bit urban-fantasied out, I’m excited about reading Mind Games, the first book in the Disillusionists trilogy.  Plus there are vigilantes and some of the reviews mention moral ambiguity, which I love, so that just makes it even more intriguing.  Chapter One is available online.  The second book, Double Cross, is also available now, and the third book does not yet have an official release date but will probably be out during the second half of next year.

Mind Games heroine Justine Jones isn’t your typical kick-ass type – she’s a hopeless hypochondriac whose life is run by fear.

She’s lured into a restaurant, Mongolian Delites, by tortured mastermind Sterling Packard, who promises he can teach her to channel her fears. In exchange, she must join his team of disillusionists – vigilantes hired by crime victims to zing their anxieties into criminals, resulting in collapse and transformation.

Justine isn’t interested in Packard’s troupe until she gets a taste of the peace he can promise. Soon she enters the thrilling world of neurotic crime fighters who battle Midcity’s depraved and paranormal criminals.

Eventually, though, she starts wondering why Packard hasn’t set foot outside the Mongolian Delites restaurant for eight years. And about the true nature of the disillusionists.

The Tempering of Men by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette
Nov
18
2010

Recently I came across a link to the Tor Spring/Summer catalog on asoiaf.westeros.org and was very excited to see the sequel to A Companion to Wolves by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette was included.  The Tempering of Men will be released in hardcover in August 2011 and I cannot wait since I really liked the first book – and Bear and Monette are two of my favorite authors.

Since my husband is a huge fan of Vernor Vinge, I also took note that A Fire Upon the Deep is being re-released in trade paperback in preparation for the sequel.  According to the catalog, it is called The Children of the Sky and is coming out in October 2011.

2011 is looking like a great year for books!  What books are you looking forward to in 2011?

Review of Resenting the Hero by Moira J. Moore
Nov
16
2010
Resenting the Hero
by Moira J. Moore
304pp (Paperback)
My Rating: 7/10
Amazon Rating: 4/5
LibraryThing Rating: 3.73/5
Goodreads Rating: 3.74/5
 

Resenting the Hero is the first book in the Lee and Taro series by Moira J. Moore.  Currently, there are five books in this fantasy series with a sixth in progress.  The books following this first novel are: The Hero Strikes Back, Heroes Adrift, Heroes At Risk, and Heroes Return, in that order.

Nearly seven centuries ago, a group of people came to a planet and began a new life.  Unfortunately, they soon found that life was fraught with natural disasters and most of their technology was destroyed.  Many decided to return to their home while others stayed behind and braved the frequent earthquakes, tornadoes and volcanoes that ravaged the land.  Eventually, those who remained discovered that some people were able to combat these natural disasters using their minds, although it always cost them their lives to do so.  Yet one day a young woman stayed behind with one of these individuals, known as Sources, and kept her alive by defending her mind.  This woman and others like her became known as Shields, and the cooperation between a pair consisting of one Source and one Shield began.

After seventeen years of study, Dunleavy (Lee) Mallorough has finished her training as a Shield and is now ready to participate in the ceremony that may result in meeting the Source she will work with for the rest of her life.  Once Sources and Shields meet, sometimes the two form a bond that cannot be broken until they both die (if one of them dies, so will the other). These pairs work together to protect the people from disasters.  Lee is excited but nervous – of the six Sources, there are four she would be happy to work with, but she’d rather not be paired this time than work with the other two.  One has a reputation for being crazy, and the other is extremely talented but has a reputation for sleeping around and recklessness.  Lee would much prefer she end up with a steady, reliable partner.

Instead, Lee ends up bonded to Shintaro Karish, the exceptionally gifted but ill-reputed nobleman everyone wanted to be bonded to except for her, leading her to believe she must have been evil in a past life.  That same night, the two of them also learn they will be joining the six pairs already posted at High Scape, a large city with an unusually high number of natural disasters.  Lee is going to need to learn to work with Taro if she is going to survive – especially when an unprecedented disaster kills or seriously injures all the pairs in High Scape, leaving only Lee and Taro to defend the city.

Last weekend I just felt like reading a fun book and had a feeling this might be what I was looking for – and I figured I couldn’t go wrong with Resenting the Hero since Angie of Angieville and Thea of The Book Smugglers have both mentioned enjoying this series on a few occasions.  This logic proved accurate and I ended up reading the book in just two days (of course, it also helped that it was about 300 pages long, but I could also hardly put it down until it was finished).  It was entertaining with likable characters and an intriguing setting, although it did “tell” more than “show” too much at times.  For instance, most of the first chapter was an info dump as Lee, the first person narrator, filled us in on whom she hoped to be paired with and why.  Then the ceremony officials supplied background on the history of the planet and why pairs were important.  It wasn’t a particularly tedious info dump since all of this was both vital to the story and interesting, though, and at least once that was out of the way the story took off and only very occasionally stopped to fill in some information.

The whole premise of this world creates some intriguing situations since it’s protected by pairs of people, one who can prevent natural disasters and one who keeps the other person from dying in the process.  Since the bond between these two pairs is created on first sight, it also means working for the rest of their lives with someone they have never met before that moment.  Being bonded with another person does not mean the two automatically get along, either – some pairs end up hating each other.  It’s a difficult place for two people to be in when one petty argument getting in the way could be the difference between life and death. In the case of Lee and Taro, Lee has to come to terms with her prejudice toward Taro based on rumors she’s heard about him for years.  Someone with the sense of duty Lee has is going to do her best at her job and take her task of protecting him seriously, but that doesn’t mean she’ll do it happily or pretend to like him.

Another aspect of the world I enjoyed was that it seemed very gender equal.  In spite of the country’s ruler being an empress it never seemed like a matriarchy since some of the nobles such as Taro were men.  Also, the Sources and Shields consisted of both men and women – anyone with the appropriate ability could become a Source or Shield.  Pairs of Sources and Shields could also be two women, two men, or a man and a woman.  Any power imbalance seemed to result from issues other than gender, which I found to be rather refreshing.

Both Lee and Taro were wonderful characters I’m looking forward to reading more about.  Taro always seems friendly and charming, so it’s hard not to feel sorry for him when Lee isn’t willing to give him a chance.  Even if she is stubborn and blind at times, the dutiful, sometimes naive Lee still managed to be sympathetic – she just wants to do her job and do it well.  It was understandable that she might be hesitant to trust someone she’d heard bad things about for years, especially since she is often very practical and reasonable when it comes to other situations.  Plus who wants to be stuck with someone you don’t really want to work with forever with no way out?

There’s also some mystery since Lee and Taro need to figure out the cause of the strange natural disasters that wipe out the other pairs of High Scape.  The identity of the main villain was not that surprising, but I did appreciate that at one point I almost felt sympathy for this person.  By the end of the book, any pity I felt for the villain was gone, but still for a brief bit it seemed like maybe this wrongdoer wasn’t so bad after all.

Resenting the Hero is a delightful book with main characters easy to root for and empathize with, a fun plot and a world history that leads to some very intriguing social dynamics.  I’m looking forward to reading the next book and hope as the series progresses some of the questions I have about bonding and the vast number of natural disasters are answered.

My Rating: 7/10

Where I got my reading copy: I bought it.  I even bought it in an actual bookstore to my great chagrin since I felt like the clerk who rang up my purchase was probably laughing at me due to the horrifying, cheesy, awful cover.  Now that I’ve read it, I really want to know – why does Lee seem to be subservient to Taro?  She’s not violent, but I still find it easier to picture her strangling him with the cloth than kneeling down and shining his shoes for him…

Other Reviews:

October Reading
Nov
15
2010

As it’s halfway through November already (eek!), it’s a little late but here’s the October reading list (since my review of Resenting the Hero is so close to done but my brain is starting to feel too mushy to get it quite right).  It’s a short list, but that’s largely because I was working on getting this new site up and trying to get caught up on some reviews.

Books read in October:

41. The Spirit Thief by Rachel Aaron (review)
42. Elfland by Freda Warrington (review)
43. The Broken Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin (review)

Favorite book: This was actually a really good month for reading – The Spirit Thief was fun, and I read two books that I absolutely loved back to back.  Elfland is definitely my favorite, though, and I’ll be reading the new Aetherial Tales book next because I enjoyed it so much.

What did you read during October and what did you think of the books you read?

The Leaning Pile of Books
Nov
14
2010

November is turning out to be a crazy month, but I’m hoping to get a review of Resenting the Hero by Moira J. Moore started today and up sometime this week.  I just needed to read something fun last weekend and ended up picking that based on what I had heard – and it was just what I was in the mood for.

This week brought three review copies and one ARC, plus my husband bought an e-book a couple of weeks ago that he reminded me I forgot to mention.

The Sea Thy Mistress by Elizabeth Bear

The third book in the Edda of Burdens will be available in hardcover in February 2011.  I loved both All the Wind-wracked Stars (review) and By the Mountain Bound (review) so of course I immediately said yes when I was asked if I wanted an ARC of the third book.  The Sea Thy Mistress is a direct sequel to All the Wind-wracked Stars (the middle book, By the Mountain Bound, is a prequel).  The cover is not available on any of the sites I normally get covers from, but if you want to see the whole cover spread, Elizabeth Bear posted it on her blog a little while ago.  I decided not to post the blurb here because it contains a lot of spoilers for All the Wind-wracked Stars, but here is the publisher’s description of the The Sea Thy Mistress if you do want to read it.

The Castings Trilogy by Pamela Freeman

This omnibus contains Blood Ties, Deep Water and Full Circle and is huge – over 1200 pages in trade paperback.  I was thrilled to get a copy since I’ve been curious about the first book in this trilogy for a while now and recently decided I definitely wanted to read it after I saw Sarah’s review of it at Bookworm Blues.  All the individual books are currently available, and this collection containing all three will be available in December.  The first chapter of Blood Ties can be read online.

A thousand years ago, the Eleven Domains were invaded and the original inhabitants were driven onto the road as Travelers, belonging nowhere, welcomed by no one. Now the Domains are governed with an iron fist by the Warlords, but there are wilder elements in the landscape that cannot be controlled and that may prove the Warlords’ undoing. Some are spirits of place – of water and air and fire and earth. Some are greater than these. And some are human.

Bramble: A village girl whom no one living can tame, forced to flee her home for a crime she did not commit.

Ash: A safeguarder’s apprentice who must kill for an employer he cannot escape.

Saker: An enchanter who will not rest until the land is returned to his people.

As their three stories unfold, along with the stories of those whose lives they touch, it becomes clear that they are bound together in ways that not even a stonecaster could have foreseen – by their past, their future, and their blood.This omnibus edition includes all three novels – Blood Ties, Deep Water, and Full Circle – together for the first time.

Law of the Broken EarthLaw of the Broken Earth by Rachel Neumeier

The third book in the Griffin Mage trilogy will be released in December.  Both the previous books, Lord of the Changing Winds and Land of the Burning Sands, were published earlier this year.  I haven’t read Lord of the Changing Winds yet, but I have been wanting to start this trilogy so hopefully I will read it at some point.

In Feierabiand, in the wide green Delta, far from the burning heat of the griffin’s desert, Mienthe’s peaceful life has been shaken. Tan – clever, cynical, and an experienced spy – has brought a deadly secret out of the neighboring country of Linularinum.

Now, as three countries and two species rush toward destruction, Mienthe fears that even her powerful cousin Bertaud may be neither able nor even willing to find a safe path between the secret Linularinum would kill to preserve and the desperate ferocity of the griffins. But can Mienthe?

And, in the end, will Tan help her . . . or do everything in his power to stand in her way?

The Bone PalaceThe Bone Palace by Amanda Downum

The second book in the Necromancer Chronicles will be available in December.  Last year I read the first book, The Drowning City, and had very mixed feelings about it (review).  I liked the prose but could not connect with the characters, and I only found myself enjoying the last third of the book.  It’s not a book I would have bought myself, but since it was sent to me I might try it at some point although it won’t be a high priority with all the other books there are to read.  I am a bit curious since I liked what I read of the beginning and I saw this was on the Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2010 list for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.  Plus the cover quote by Jacqueline Carey is taunting me (although the main reason I read the last one was the cover quote by Elizabeth Bear, whose writing I love).

Death is no stranger in the city of Erisín– but some deaths attract more attention than others.

When a prostitute dies carrying a royal signet, Isyllt Iskaldur, necromancer and agent of the Crown, is called to investigate. Her search leads to desecrated tombs below the palace, and the lightless vaults of the vampiric vrykoloi deep beneath the city. But worse things than vampires are plotting in Erisín…As a sorcerous plague sweeps the city and demons stalk the streets, Isyllt must decide who she’s prepared to betray, before the city built on bones falls into blood and fire.

I Shall Wear MidnightI Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

This is the e-book I forgot to mention a little while back.  My husband bought the newest Tiffany Aching book (in the young adult Discworld series) and has already read it.  I haven’t read any of these books yet (actually, I haven’t read the latest in the main Discworld series yet either), but he has been enjoying them.  The previous books in the series are, in the following order: Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith.

It starts with whispers.

Then someone picks up a stone.

Finally, the fires begin.

When people turn on witches, the innocents suffer. . . .

Tiffany Aching has spent years studying with senior witches, and now she is on her own. As the witch of the Chalk, she performs the bits of witchcraft that aren’t sparkly, aren’t fun, don’t involve any kind of wand, and that people seldom ever hear about: She does the unglamorous work of caring for the needy.

But someone—or something—is igniting fear, inculcating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Aided by her tiny blue allies, the Wee Free Men, Tiffany must find the source of this unrest and defeat the evil at its root—before it takes her life. Because if Tiffany falls, the whole Chalk falls with her.

Chilling drama combines with laughout-loud humor and searing insight as beloved and bestselling author Terry Pratchett tells the high-stakes story of a young witch who stands in the gap between good and evil.

Review of The Broken Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin
Nov
11
2010
The Broken Kingdoms
by N. K. Jemisin
412pp (Trade Paperback)
My Rating: 9/10
Amazon Rating: 5/5
LibraryThing Rating: 4.8/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.53/5
 

The Broken Kingdoms is the second book in The Inheritance trilogy by N. K. Jemisin, following closely behind the February release of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the first novel.  The third book, The Kingdom of Gods, will be available in 2011 and is told from the point of view of Sieh, the trickster god.

The majority of The Broken Kingdoms takes place ten years after the end of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.  While this book has a different main character than the previous novel and could work as a stand alone, I’d recommend starting at the beginning.  Since Oree, the main character, does not have a lot of inside knowledge about the events ten years ago, she does not understand all of what is happening for a while, but those who have read the first novel will be one step ahead of her.  Although it might be fun to discover what is happening right along with the narrator, knowledge of the background will help to get the most from the story.  Plus it is fun to see familiar characters from the first book make appearances.

One month after the appearance of the World Tree in Sky, Oree left her home to go live there.  For ten years she makes a meager living selling her artwork in the streets.  One morning when she goes to throw out her paint, she happens to see a rather unusual sight – she sees “glory awaken in a pile of muck” when a glowing man arises from a heap of garbage.

It may seem unusual that Oree can see anything at all – she is actually blind.  However, she has always been able to see magic, leading her to believe this man must be one of the many godlings living in the city.  She takes him home out of a combination of kindness and loneliness but soon discovers she’s not quite sure what this man is:

 

I was almost certain he was a godling. The “almost” lay in the fact that he had the strangest magic I’d ever heard of.  Rising from the dead? Glowing at sunrise? What did that make him, the god of cheerful mornings and macabre surprises? He never spoke the gods’ language – or any language for that matter. I suspected he was mute. And I could not see him, save in the mornings and those moments when he came back to life, which meant he was magical only at those times. Any other time he was just an ordinary man. [pp. 20]

This extraordinary personage, whom Oree nicknames “Shiny,” never speaks to her until Oree finds a dead godling in an alley.  This seems to have raised his ire, leading to trouble with a priest of Itempas.  Oree gets help to bail him out of trouble, and in the process, she meets a couple of other gods who seem rather unhappy with Shiny.  It leaves her wondering just who he is and why no one will tell her anything about him, but it seems they have bigger problems – they learn that there are 30 days to find the murderer of this godling or one of the three gods not known for restraint is going to deal with it.

Like The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, I loved The Broken Kingdoms, which I actually thought was a little better than the first book.  It was very absorbing – after reading just a few pages, it became difficult to put down.  The world, the characters and the writing all just work so well for me, and call me sadistic, but I also liked that the ending was bittersweet with more bitter than sweet.  Not everything worked out perfectly, but it also made sense as the reasoning behind the conclusion was fitting for the characters involved.

The Broken Kingdoms is told from the first person perspective of Oree, a young blind woman who can see magic and has some magical ability of her own through her artwork.  Oree is a very likable character, compassionate with a lot of inner strength, and I rather liked her unique magic.  Like Yeine, the narrator in the first book, Oree has a very conversational narration style, and she is also trying to uncover part of her identity – why she has this ability, exactly how it works and what it means.  Her voice is very chatty and direct, and at times she will even pause in her story to say how she feels about what she has to tell us next.  There were a couple of times I was taken out of the story because she did use some rather modern expressions such as talking about someone trying to “chat her up” but for the most part I was very riveted by the way she casually related her tale.  Just because her voice is informal, it does not mean there are not some lovely passages, though, such as the first time she saw the god she eventually took home with her:

 

At first I saw only delicate lines of gold limn the shape of a man. Dewdrops of glimmering silver beaded along his flesh and then ran down it in rivulets, illuminating the texture of skin in smooth relief. I saw some of those rivulets move impossibly upward, igniting the filaments of his hair, the stern-carved lines of his face.

And as I stood there, my hands damp with paint and my door standing open behind me, forgotten, I saw this glowing man draw a deep breath — which made him shimmer even more beautifully — and open eyes whose color I would never be able to fully describe, even if I someday learn the words. The best I can do is compare it to things I do know: the heavy thickness of red gold, the smell of brass on a hot day, desire and pride.

Yet, as I stood there, transfixed by those eyes, I saw something else: pain. So much sorrow and grief and anger and guilt, and other emotions I could not name because when all was said and done, my life up to then had been relatively happy. There are some things one can understand only by experience, and there are some experiences no one wants to share. [pp. 16 – 17]

As much as I liked Oree, I did find there was one instance where it seemed to take her longer to put two and two together than I would have expected.  She had all the information, but did not seem to realize what that implied until it was pointed out to her.  Also, there were a few times I felt her descriptions were a little too descriptive for a blind person, but these were also a bit tricky since she could see at times so I tried not to wonder about it too much.

The Broken Kingdoms also showed the aftermath of the end of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and how the world has changed as a result.  As a commoner, Oree also had a very different viewpoint from Yeine since she mostly saw the outskirts of the palace.  Her life consisted of selling her artwork in the streets with others who were barely scraping by.  It was still far from ordinary since she had magical abilities and was romantically involved with one of the godlings, but she didn’t have much knowledge about the royal family or many of the things Yeine knew about.

On the topic of Yeine, she, Sieh and Nahadoth do all appear in this novel.  I was particularly happy to see Sieh, so childlike but also cold and not someone you want to tick off.  The gods range from inhuman to almost human-seeming, and a lot of the more major ones tend toward being temperamental and prone to over-reaction.  Yet they still do have definite motives for being upset.

The Broken Kingdoms had everything I loved about the first book in this trilogy – an absorbing story, an intriguing setting and world mythology, and a likable narrator with a compelling voice.  The next book cannot come out soon enough.

My Rating: 9/10

Where I got my reading copy: Review copy from the publisher.

Read the first three chapters:

Other Reviews:

Review(s) of other books in this series: