This week’s post is a little late…  I ended up taking a break this weekend since I spent the part of my Sunday I normally spend on blogging moving things to the storage room, doing laundry, and working.  And earlier in the day I was trying to finish this very fun book I started on Saturday, Resenting the Hero by Moira J. Moore.  Even though I got a book in the mail today, I’m still going to limit this to books received prior to Sunday.  This is a review copy that I am going to have to read sometime this month.


Midsummer Night by Freda Warrington

This is the second Aetherial Tales book (although it is a separate story from the first one and is supposed to be a stand alone).  I absolutely loved the first Aetherial Tales book, Elfland, so I’m very much looking forward to reading this one.  It certainly made me want to read more by the author for its depth of characters and beautiful writing – and for just being one of those books that stuck with me and remained in my thoughts.  Midsummer Night will be available as a hardcover on November 23.

A sensuous, suspenseful modern fantasy of love, betrayal, and redemption

Decades ago, in a place where the veil between our world and the world of the Aetherials—the fair folk—is too easily breached, three young people tricked their uncle by dressing as the fey. But their joke took a deadly turn when true Aetherials crossed into our world, took one of the pranksters, and literally scared their uncle to death.

Many years later, at the place of this capture lies a vast country estate that holds a renowned art facility owned by a visionary sculptor. One day, during a violent storm, a young woman studying art at the estate stumbles upon a portal to the Otherworld. A handsome young man comes through the portal and seeks shelter with her. Though he can tell her nothing of his past, his innocence and charm capture her heart. But he becomes the focus of increasingly violent arguments among the residents of the estate. Is he as innocent as he seems? Or is he hiding his true identity so that he can seek some terrible vengeance, bringing death and heartbreak to this place that stands between two worlds? Who is this young man?

The forces of magic and the power of love contend for the soul of this man, in this magical romantic story of loss and redemption.

Update on June 15: Since this is old news now and everyone seems to be getting here when searching for reviews of this book, here’s the Magic Slays review posted yesterday!  In case that is what you were actually looking for…  Now back to the original post if you were in fact interested in that.

Today Ilona Andrews posted the cover for the fifth book in the Kate Daniels series, Magic Slays.  This makes me happy – after reading Magic Strikes and Magic Bleeds, I cannot wait to find out what happens next!  Books three and four really made me think this is how a series should be – a little more is revealed with each book while ramping up the suspense about Kate’s history, it’s action-packed but also character-focused, it’s both memorable and entertaining, and it makes me laugh.  I love this series and seeing the next book coming closer to finished is very exciting!


Magic Slays

Elfland is the first book published in the United States by British author Freda Warrington, who has written nineteen fantasy novels total.  This book is the first of the Aetherial Tale novels, which is not exactly a series but rather a collection of books that take place in the same setting. A second Aetherial Tale novel, Midsummer Night, will be released on November 23.  Warrington is currently working on a third related novel, The Grail of the Summer Stars.

Some of the ancient race of Aetherials live among the humans and have adapted to appear human themselves while others still remain in the Otherworld from which they came.  The Vaethyr, Aetherials living on Earth, remain connected to the Otherworld through a lychgate that always remains open, and every seven years there is a celebration in which the Aetherials enter the Otherworld through the Great Gates.  However, the Gatekeeper, Lawrence Wilder, has become so fearful of a dangerous presence he senses in the Otherworld that he closes the gates completely.  This does not go over particularly well with the other Aetherials, who demand he do his job as Gatekeeper and open the gates, but Lawrence insists he is doing his job – protecting the Aetherials from harm.  Either way, they are in trouble since they cannot thrive without the energy from their home.

Unfortunately for the young Aetherials, this also means missing out on an important rite of passage.  Once they reach sixteen, the teens get to visit the Otherworld for the first time and experience it firsthand. Instead they are left to wonder about this other realm, caught between feeling not quite human but not quite Aetherial.  While some dream of the Otherworld and dedicate themselves to somehow breaching the gates, others try to ignore their origins as much as possible.  Yet when denying this other nature leads to disaster, embracing the Aetheric side may be the only way to prevent even worse consequences.

The Gatekeeper
The Gatekeeper. The movie version always screws up something from the book.

Elfland is contemporary fantasy, but it’s not the common fast-paced urban fantasy featuring a tough, smart-mouthed woman.  It’s mainly a character-driven novel about the lives of the Fox and Wilder children as they grow up and come to a better understanding of what it means to be a part of the ancient Aetherial race.  After a couple of brief prologues, it begins with the first meeting between the Fox and Wilder children and follows them through early adulthood.  In many ways, they seem like typical humans as they deal with love and pain, but they also have this dual nature of seeming human but not really being able to experience what it is to be Aetherial.  Normally they would learn all about their heritage at sixteen, but with the Gatekeeper’s insistence that the gates remain closed, this other realm becomes shrouded in mystery.

The story of these two families is heavily dramatic.  At first, the Foxes appear to be the perfect family while the Wilders seem very dysfunctional – Lawrence Wilder is thought to be insane, his wife left when the boys were young and Sam Wilder is a teenage delinquent. Yet it turns out both families have their secrets, and people from either are capable of making poor decisions with disastrous consequences.  The pages are filled with unconventional relationships, unrequited love, jealous rages, and affairs.  For a while, it seemed as though every chapter ended on this big melodramatic note, but it was riveting for one reason: I’d really come to care about these characters and I felt like I (mostly) understood where they were coming from.

While the story switches perspectives a few times, it is mainly about Rosie Fox and her relationships – with her brothers Matthew and Lucas; Jon Wilder, whom she loved more than anything even though he didn’t notice she existed; Sam Wilder, who adored Rosie; and to a lesser extent her best friend Faith, whose part I can’t really talk about without getting into spoilers.  Rosie is compassionate with a penchant for growing things and a love of gardening, probably due to her family’s affinity with earth.  Every time she was hurt or chose a course that wasn’t right for her, my heart broke right along with hers.  Yet even when she did make a decision that you realized may not be right for her, it was understandable – she was trying to do what her head thought was right but her heart had a hard time following.  In the end, I think this novel was largely about following your instincts and being true to yourself.  Also, it dealt with the fact that you can’t always judge someone based on who they appear to be on the surface.  It was also partially a love story with a fantastic romance – heart-wrenching at times but so satisfying at other times.

The other characters were just as lovable as Rosie, at least by the end even if not initially.  Her brother Matthew tried so hard to deny his Aetherial side while her good-natured brother Lucas and aloof Jon Wilder tried so hard to embrace it.  Sam was labeled a trouble-maker, but he also didn’t really seem a bad guy other than when he was very young.  They were all three dimensional and the best part is they all changed throughout the course of the novel.  No one was quite the same person by the end as they were in the beginning or middle of the book.  There were tragedies, but those involved ended up stronger for them (although most of these tragic circumstances were fixed a little too easily – I was happy with how they were resolved, but at the same time, I felt like it lessened the impact they could have had a little).

While the fantasy element was well done, someone mainly reading the book for the fantasy world may be disappointed.  There are certainly parts that deal with the Aetherials, especially closer to the end, but the middle in particular of this 600 page book is largely a family/relationship-oriented drama.  However, there are certainly some beautiful descriptions, including one of the creation of the first Aetherials:

 

“First there was the Cauldron, the void at the beginning and end of time.  As if the void brooded on its own emptiness, a spark appeared like a thought in the blackness. That spark was the Source. For the first time or the ten millionth time — we can never know — the Source exploded in an outrush of starfire.

“As the star-streams cooled they divided and took on qualities each according to its own nature: stone and wind, fire and water and ether. From those primal energies, all worlds were formed.

“On that outrush came Estel the Eternal, also called Lady of Stars, who created herself with that first spark of thought. Her face is the night sky, her hair a milky river of stars. For eons Estel presided over the birth of the sun and planets and hidden realms. She watched as the Earth roiled with liquid rock and white-hot fires, until the molten torrents birthed Qesoth: a vast elemental of fire and lava. Qesoth brought with her a dark twin, Brawth, a giant shadow that breathed ice. These two fought battles that shook the planet until Estel, to make them cease, took a great rock and smashed Qesoth into pieces. Her shadow twin Brawth dissipated with her, scattering fragments of fire and ice that rained into the boiling oceans. Those fragments seethed with wild energy and rose to become the first Aetherials, who were called Estalyr; forged in fire, washed in rain and infused with the breath of life.” [pp. 62]

Elfland had compelling characters, some beautiful prose and a fascinating world.  The fantasy aspect of the story does mostly take a backseat to the characters and their dramas, but their story made this book nearly impossible to put down – even if it did sometimes verge toward a little too much melodrama.  It was one of those books that immediately gripped me and never let go until it was finished. It kept me up reading later than I should be and kept returning to my thoughts when I wasn’t reading it, and I will definitely be reading more by Freda Warrington.

My Rating: 9.5/10

Where I got my reading copy: I bought it.

Read Excerpt

Other Reviews:

Yesterday I finished a draft of a review of Elfland so hopefully that will be up in the next couple of days. After that, I only have Lady Lazarus left to review – at least until I finish reading The Broken Kingdoms (I’m about halfway through it now). As soon as that is done, I’m starting The Habitation of the Blessed. After that, I think I may dig a science fiction book out of the to read pile since I haven’t read that much of it this year. I’m thinking about doing another “which book should I read” poll for that one since it’s been a while since I did that and I’m not sure which one to pick.

This week was a very good week for books. I got 5 books – 3 I bought for next year’s Women of Fantasy and Women of Science Fiction book clubs, 1 ARC and 1 review copy. These are all ones that I’m rather excited about reading.

The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

This book will be out in the UK in January 2011 and in the US in February 2011. The Heroes is set in the same world as Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy and Best Served Cold, but it is supposed to be a stand alone novel. I really enjoyed all his other books for their dark view and cynical humor so I was pretty excited to open up a package in my mailbox and find this inside. As if I wasn’t already excited enough about it, the press release that came with the book also has this great quote from George R. R. Martin:

 

“The battles are vivid and visceral, the action brutal, the pace headlong, and Abercrombie piles the betrayals, reversals, and plot twists one atop another to keep us guessing how it will all come out. This is his best book yet.”

An excerpt from The Heroes is available on the author’s website.

“Unhappy the Land that is in Need of Heroes.” Bertolt Brecht

They say Black Dow’s killed more men than winter, and clawed his way to the throne of the North up a hill of skulls. The King of the Union, ever a jealous neighbour, is not about to stand smiling by while he claws his way any higher. The orders have been given and the armies are toiling through the northern mud. Thousands of men are converging on a forgotten ring of stones, on a worthless hill, in an unimportant valley, and they’ve brought a lot of sharpened metal with them.

Bremer dan Gorst, disgraced master swordsman, has sworn to reclaim his stolen honour on the battlefield. Obsessed with redemption and addicted to violence, he’s far past caring how much blood gets spilled in the attempt. Even if it’s his own.

Prince Calder isn’t interested in honour, and still less in getting himself killed. All he wants is power, and he’ll tell any lie, use any trick, and betray any friend to get it. Just as long as he doesn’t have to fight for it himself.

Curnden Craw, the last honest man in the North, has gained nothing from a life of warfare but swollen knees and frayed nerves. He hardly even cares who wins any more, he just wants to do the right thing. But can he even tell what that is with the world burning down around him?

Over three bloody days of battle, the fate of the North will be decided. But with both sides riddled by intrigues, follies, feuds and petty jealousies, it is unlikely to be the noblest hearts, or even the strongest arms that prevail…

Three men. One battle. No Heroes.

My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me edited by Kate Bernheimer

This is a collection of dark fairy tales complete with a forward by Gregory McGuire, the author of Wicked. Since I love fairy tales closer to the original Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen on the creepiness scale, I think this one looks pretty interesting. Plus one of the stories is by Neil Gaiman. The story list includes where the original tale it is based on is from and there are stories from all over the world – Russia, Germany, Norway, Italy, Ireland, England, Denmark, Japan, Vietnam, Greece, the United States, France, and Mexico. Although there are quite a few of the familiar Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen stories, I’m glad to see there are also quite a few I’m not familiar with at all.

The fairy tale lives again in these forty new stories by some of the biggest names in contemporary fiction

Neil Gaiman, Michael Cunningham, Aimee Bender, Kelly Link, Lydia Millet, and more than thirty other extraordinary writers celebrate fairy tales in this thrilling volume-the ultimate literary costume party.

Spinning houses and talking birds. Whispered secrets and borrowed hope. Here are new stories sewn from old skins, gathered from around the world by visionary editor Kate Bernheimer and inspired by everything from Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” and “The Little Match Girl” to Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard” and “Cinderella” to the Brothers Grimm’s “Hansel and Gretel” and “Rumpelstiltskin” to fairy tales by Goethe and Calvino.

Fairy tales are our oldest literary tradition, and yet they chart the imaginative frontiers of the twenty-first century as powerfully as they evoke our earliest encounters with literature. This exhilarating collection restores their place in the literary canon.

Indigo Springs by A. M. Dellamonica

This is one of the selections for the Women of Fantasy book club. I’d actually been considering getting it before I saw it was one of the books since the trade paperback was available on Amazon for about $5 as a bargain book (probably because it is coming out in mass market paperback this week). This is another one of those books that I don’t remember hearing about at all. I found it in the back of Elfland when I was reading it and immediately looked it up because I so loved Elfland. It sounded very good so I immediately added it to the wish list. I want to wait until closer to its month in the book club to read it so I don’t forget the details about it, but I’m very tempted to read it soon.

Indigo Springs is a sleepy town where things seem pretty normal . . . until Astrid’s father dies and she moves into his house. She discovers that for many years her father had been accessing the magic that flowed, literally, in a blue stream beneath the earth, leaking into his house. When she starts to use the liquid “vitagua” to enchant everyday items, the results seem innocent enough: a “’chanted” watch becomes a charm that means you’re always in the right place at the right time; a “’chanted” pendant enables the wearer to convince anyone of anything . . .

But as events in Indigo Springs unfold and the true potential of vitagua is revealed, Astrid and her friends unwittingly embark on a journey fraught with power, change, and a future too devastating to contemplate. Friends become enemies and enemies become friends as Astrid discovers secrets from her shrouded childhood that will lead her to a destiny stranger than she could have imagined . . .

Prospero Lost by L. Jagi Lamplighter

This is the first book in the Prospero Daughter’s trilogy and another selection for the Women of Fantasy book club. Like Indigo Springs, it was one I was planning to get soon anyway even before seeing it was on the list. It’s been on my wish list since last year, but now that reviews of the second book have started coming in it’s reminded me just how intrigued I was by the first book. Fantasy based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest is right up my alley so I’m very excited about this one. I really should wait until closer to March to read it, but it sounds so wonderful it may be difficult to do so…

More than four hundred years after the events of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the sorcerer Prospero, his daughter Miranda, and his other children have attained everlasting life. Miranda is the head of her family’s business, Prospero Inc., which secretly has used its magic for good around the world. One day, Miranda receives a warning from her father: “Beware of the Three Shadowed Ones.” When Miranda goes to her father for an explanation, he is nowhere to be found.

Miranda sets out to find her father and reunite with her estranged siblings, each of which holds a staff of power and secrets about Miranda’s sometimes-foggy past. Her journey through the past, present and future will take her to Venice, Chicago, the Caribbean, Washington, D.C., and the North Pole. To aid her, Miranda brings along Mab, an aerie being who acts like a hard-boiled detective, and Mephistopheles, her mentally-unbalanced brother. Together, they must ward off the Shadowed Ones and other ancient demons who want Prospero’s power for their own….

Lilith’s Brood by Octavia E. Butler

This is one I purchased for the Women of Science Fiction book club, and it has also been on my wish list for a little while. It’s an omnibus containing Dawn, Adulthood Rites and Imago. This nearly 800 page trade paperback was available on Amazon as a bargain book for about $7 so I snatched it up.

The acclaimed trilogy that comprises LILITH’S BROOD is multiple Hugo and Nebula award-winner Octavia E. Butler at her best. Presented for the first time in one volume, with an introduction by Joan Slonczewski, Ph.D., LILITH’S BROOD is a profoundly evocative, sensual — and disturbing — epic of human transformation.

Lilith Iyapo is in the Andes, mourning the death of her family, when war destroys Earth. Centuries later, she is resurrected — by miraculously powerful unearthly beings, the Oankali. Driven by an irresistible need to heal others, the Oankali are rescuing our dying planet by merging genetically with mankind. But Lilith and all humanity must now share the world with uncanny, unimaginably alien creatures: their own children. This is their story…

Oct
29
2010

There are two great book giveaways over at the Tor/Forge blog right now (they are only open to US residents, though).  One is a Brandon Sanderson prize pack, which consists of hardcover copies of the Mistborn trilogy, Elantris, Warbreaker and The Way of Kings.  The other is 25 assorted fantasy books from them, and there are some really interesting sounding books there (including one of my new favorites, Elfland, which I’m working on a review of now).  It also includes A Shadow In Summer by Daniel Abraham, Servant of a Dark God by John Brown, Passion Play by Beth Bernobich, Dreadnought by Cherie Priest, Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson, Prospero Lost by L. Jagi Lamplighter, Eye of the World by Robert Jordan, and Night of Knives by Ian C. Esslemont.

Thanks to Sarah at Bookworm Blues, I also saw that Tor.com had a conversation with Steven Erikson and Ian C. Esslemont about the Malazan books today.  They were answering questions from visitors so if you’re a fan of the series it should be pretty interesting.  (I’m afraid to read it all myself since I have a lot of catching up to do on the series as I’ve only read the first 3 books and 2 of the novellas.)

Also at Bookworm Blues, I saw the US cover for The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi, which is coming out in spring 2011.  I’ve been curious about this one for a little while but I love the cover and am now even more curious about this book.

Scholastic has a new social networking site, You Are What You Read, that is about connecting with other readers who have been influenced by the same books or have similar favorite books.

 

The Spirit Thief is the first book in The Legend of Eli Monpress series by Rachel Aaron. It just came out the beginning of this month, and the next two books in the series will both be out by the end of this year. The Spirit Rebellion is available now, and The Spirit Eater will be available in December. A fourth book, The Spirit War, is in progress with plans for release in 2011.

The king of Mellinor is ecstatic to have captured the infamous thief and wizard Eli Monpress. After all, there are two bounties on Eli’s head for a total of twenty-five thousand gold and he could use a new arena.  However, he hardly has time to figure out how to spend his all that money before he’s informed that Eli has somehow escaped. For while the king was gloating over his imminent increase in wealth, Eli convinced the door to his cell that it was not in its best interests to remain attached to the wall.

During the chaos resulting from the unknown whereabouts of Eli, the wizard Miranda arrives at the castle gates. Miranda traveled to Mellinor on behalf of the Spirit Court with a warning for the king.  The Spirit Court members heard that Eli had recently shown interest in Mellinor and suspect he intends to steal a dangerous artifact from the royal  treasury. Unfortunately, the message comes after Eli’s plan has come to fruition, although the Spirit Court’s guess about the thief’s intentions was not entirely accurate: Eli did not want a magical item but the king himself.

Miranda determines to search for Eli but soon discovers the kingdom is faced with an even greater threat than this conniving thief – and the only way to stop it may be for her to work with him to overcome it.

First of all, I’ve seen a lot of posts on different blogs mentioning they got this book in the mail but don’t think they will read it because the cover makes it look like paranormal romance in disguise.  That is not the case at all.  This is light, sometimes humorous fantasy adventure, and there is no romance in this book, not even a romantic subplot.  It seemed more like a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, albeit one set in a different place than the Dungeons and Dragons universe.  It did not surprise me at all to read the interview at the end of the book and discover that the idea for the book began with a character from a D&D game- a thief whose goal in life was to increase his bounty to one million gold, which is Eli’s motivation for much of his thievery.

For the first half of the book, I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to like it.  Even though it had an interesting universe, it also had a fairly conventional plot and one dimensional characters.  By the end, I did find that a couple of the characters had really grown on me, though, and there were also enough hints of larger developments for future installments that my curiosity is piqued.  In particular, I’d like to see the ramifications of living in this world explored in greater detail and hope to see more of that in the next book.

Since the next book looks like it deals more with the Spiritualists in the Spirit Court, this wish just may come true.  In The Spirit Thief, everything has a spirit – even normally inanimate objects such as doors and naturally occurring objects such as trees, wind, fire, and rocks.  Wizards are those humans who can actually communicate with these spirits, and the Spirit Court is a group of wizards who are spirit rights activists.  Part of being a wizard is being able to control spirits, and the members of the Spirit Court believe it is unethical to force a spirit to do their bidding without that spirit’s willing consent.  For this reason, the Spiritualists make mutually beneficial contracts with the spirits that serve them.  There were a couple of scenes that showed the types of dilemmas living in a world in which essentially everything is alive cause, and these were some of my favorite parts of the novel.  Although it may not really be fitting with the overall light tone of the novel to dwell on more serious issues too much, I am rather hoping future installments show at least a little more of the consequences of living in this sort of world.

Other than the setting and magic, not much else in the book stands out as particularly unique, although it was an enjoyable story once it got going.  The plot starts as a heist but soon turns into two enemies putting aside their differences for the greater good of the world (or, er, part of the world anyway).  At the beginning I thought the characters were rather generic, although I did like Eli from the very beginning.  (How can I resist a charismatic, competent thief as a protagonist?)  As the story progressed, it made me more and more interested in the origins of his powers.  In addition to being a thief, Eli is a wizard – but as is apparent from the very first scene, he’s not the same as the other wizards.  He’s better able to communicate with the spirits, who are very willing to accommodate him thanks to his amazing powers of persuasion.  There are some brief parts about where this power came from, but I’m definitely looking forward to learning more details about how this came about.

By the end of the book, I also found Miranda had grown on me a lot.  She’s obviously compassionate because she believes so strongly in doing no harm to any living spirit, but she’s also tough and admirable.  If she needs to, she can put aside her qualms to do what she thinks needs to be done, and she’s also able to change her actions when she realizes she is wrong.  For instance, when the librarian at Mellinor is annoying her with ill-informed questions about wizardry, Miranda’s first reaction is to snap at her.  Yet Miranda quickly reminds herself it’s not her fault she doesn’t know anything.  She puts herself in the young woman’s shoes, realizing she has lived her entire life in a country that hates wizards.  Soon, Miranda is ashamed of herself for her treatment of the one person who seems interested in learning more about her profession, and she becomes friendlier and more informative.

Other than Eli and Miranda, none of the characters were that compelling so I’m hoping they get better fleshed out in the next book.  Nico, the demonseed who appears as a girl, definitely has potential, but both her character and the warrior Josef need more depth.  At this time, they don’t actually seem to be more than figures with a few traits.  Josef wields a huge magic sword and fights well, and Nico is freakishly strong with a dark side to her nature.  The villain was also one dimensional, although at least his actions made sense with how he had been treated.

The ending was well done – very exciting, and it also wrapped up the main storyline nicely while leaving the feeling that there’s more to the overall story.  At the same time, there are also plenty of small threads left open for the next books, such as more background on some of the characters and the mysterious League of Storms that shows up a couple of times.  The way some of these were included felt a little clunky since there were a couple of perspectives that just came up once or twice and seemed somewhat out of place, but at least by the conclusion it felt like setup for the next book instead of pure randomness.

Even though the beginning of The Spirit Thief had me wondering whether or not I’d enjoy it, I found I had rather enjoyed it once I reached the end.  It’s a fun story set in a fascinating world in which everything has a spirit, and wizardry is not spell-casting but the ability to hear these spirits.  While some of the characters are rather shallowly depicted in this first installment, the charismatic Eli and dutiful Miranda are both engaging, likable characters.  I’m looking forward to finding out what happens in The Spirit Rebellion.

My Rating: 7/10

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

Read the First Two Chapters

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