The Leaning Pile of Books
Jun
20
2010

Yesterday I finished a draft of a review of Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder, so hopefully I will get that up soon. Currently, I am working on a review of Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews, one of my favorite books read this year so far. I started reading Naamah’s Kiss by Jacqueline Carey since it is a very long book and I figured that I’d be caught up on reviews by the time I finished it without any problem. However, I’m already halfway through it and still have 3 reviews left to write. It’s a lot less dense than Kushiel’s Dart was, making it a faster read than I’d anticipated. Plus it is just plain wonderful and I love it. This is shaping up to be a year filled with lots of great books!

This week I got 2 books, one review copy and one bought because I cannot resist those 40% off Borders coupons. Also, I realized I forgot to mention my first e-book purchase from a few weeks ago so I’ll include that in this week’s list.

Cold Magic by Kate Elliott

The first book in The Spiritwalker trilogy will be released on September 9, 2010. I’ve been wanting to read something by Kate Elliott for a while and this book in particular looks very good so I’m excited about it. It’s supposed to be steampunk and Kate Elliott says on her website that she refers to it as her “Afro-Celtic post-Roman icepunk Regency fantasy with Bonus! airship, Phoenician spies, and the intelligent descendants of troodons.” I’m definitely planning on reading it sometime closer to its release date.

From one of the genre’s finest writers comes a bold new epic fantasy in which science and magic are locked in a deadly struggle.

It is the dawn of a new age… The Industrial Revolution has begun, factories are springing up across the country, and new technologies are transforming in the cities. But the old ways do not die easy.

Cat and Bee are part of this revolution. Young women at college, learning of the science that will shape their future and ignorant of the magics that rule their families. But all of that will change when the Cold Mages come for Cat. New dangers lurk around every corner and hidden threats menace her every move. If blood can’t be trusted, who can you trust?

On the Edge by Ilona Andrews

Reading the Kate Daniels series has made me an Ilona Andrews fan so it was easy for me to decide what book to get when I got a 40% off Borders coupon this week. This is the first book in the Edge series and I figured I should read it so I can read the second book, Bayou Moon, when it comes out in September. I’ve heard that unlike the Kate Daniels books this one is closer to paranormal romance than urban fantasy so I’m not entirely convinced I’ll like it as much as those books, but it does sound interesting. And did I mention it’s Ilona Andrews?

The Broken is a place where people shop at Wal-Mart and magic is nothing more than a fairy tale.

The Weird is a realm where blueblood aristocrats rule and the strength of your magic can change your destiny.

Rose Drayton lives on the Edge, the place between both worlds. A perilous existence indeed, made even more so by a flood of magic-hungry creatures bent on absolute destruction.

Warchild by Karin Lowachee

This book was actually purchased toward the end of May, but I completely forgot to include it since it was my first time buying a digital book instead of a paper one. I’m not convinced e-books are for me since I’ve found that when I read excerpts I tend to skim and don’t enjoy it as much, but maybe that’s partially because I’ve only read portions of a book on the iPad instead of settling in to read a whole book. This is a book I’ve wanted to read for a while, but it is difficult to find and it’s around $20 for the mass market paperback on Amazon so buying the digital version was significantly cheaper. Plus I read the sample on iBooks and thought it seemed very absorbing so I figured it would be a decent book to start with for my first e-book reading experience. Now to forge a big enough hole in the paper book pile to start it…

The merchant ship Mukudori encompasses the whole of eight-year-old Jos’s world, until a notorious pirate destroys the ship, slaughters the adults, and enslaves the children. Thus begins a desperate odyssey of terror and escape that takes Jos beyond known space to the homeworld of the strits, Earth’s alien enemies. To survive, the boy must become a living weapon and a master spy. But no training will protect Jos in a war where every hope might be a deadly lie, and every friendship might hide a lethal betrayal. And all the while he will face the most grueling trial of his life – becoming his own man.

Review of Servant of a Dark God
Jun
13
2010

Servant of a Dark God
by John Brown
448pp (Hardcover)
My Rating: 6.5/10
Amazon Rating: 4/5
LibraryThing Rating: 3.17/5
Goodreads Rating: 3.57/5

Servant of a Dark God is the beginning of an epic fantasy trilogy by John Brown. The second book in the Dark Gods series, Curse of a Dark God, will be released in January 2011. Dark God’s Glory, the final novel, will be available in 2012.

Talen has a big problem – he can’t find his work pants, the only pair of pants he owns other than one pair of good trousers. Knowing no one would want his grungy old work clothes other than a mischievous brother and sister, he hides an item belonging to each of his siblings. When River discovers her honey is missing and Ke cannot find his bowstrings, Talen confronts them about his disappearing clothing only to be chased out of the house and into a tree where they are found by his father. His father believes River and Ke when they insist they had nothing to do with Talen’s half-dressed state, accuses Talen of negligence and sends him to town with his good clothing to buy some hens.

As Talen nears the town, he worries when he sees no children playing or villagers working in the fields. He hurries to the gates, eager to be let in if there is some sort of looming disaster. Instead he is denied entry, accused of spying and beaten until the bailiff shows up demanding to know what is going on. There are two Sleth, feared soul-eaters with unnatural powers, on the loose and a bounty for killing them. These hunted children are Koramites, Talen’s people who are already despised by the Mokaddians who consider themselves better, and the Mokaddians are suspicious of any of these people now. Talen is sent to tell his father to gather the people in his area and search for the Sleth, but when Talen delivers his message his father seems less concerned about the soul-eater threat than the terrified Talen, insisting Talen needs to be more worried about being mistaken for Sleth by an enthusiastic hunter.

Although Talen obsesses over capturing the Sleth before they find him, there is an even greater danger – a creature that is stalking the land at the behest of an ancient evil.

Servant of a Dark God started out rather slowly for me, but by the time it ended I was enjoying it. It probably took about 150 (out of 448) pages for me to really start to want to know what happened next in the book and I never really grew attached to any of the main point of view characters, although there was one who was at least interesting to read about. There were three characters who carried the majority of the third person perspectives – Talen, a teenage boy; Sugar, a teenage girl; and Hunger, a creature under the control of the primary villain. Early in the story, Talen got on my nerves as he was stubborn, quick to judge, and thought too much of his intelligence:

Talen, of course, inherited all the wit in the family, but nobody seemed to value that. He was never referred to as “the bright one” or “that great blaze of brains.” Instead, he got names like Twig and Hogan’s Runt. [pp. 15]

Is this over-inflated view of oneself perfectly believable for a teenage boy? Yes. Does it make him likable, especially as he seems to be the most ignorant person in the book? Not really, but at least he does undergo development throughout the course of the novel as he learns more about himself and his heritage and he ends up much less irritating later.

Despite the cringe-worthy name, Sugar was more engaging as a character as she had empathy and was more understanding about other people’s behavior even when they were not nice to her. Yet even though I far preferred her to Talen, she never really completely clicked for me as a character, either. Hunger was easily the most intriguing, but then I always appreciate getting the point of view of the “evil” side. However, Hunger wasn’t really evil; he was created by a being who used him for her evil deeds but he was more of a puppet, and as the story progressed, he also changed.

Once it picked up, the actual plot and fantasy storyline were far better than the characters, although I did tend to prefer the secondary characters to the main ones. I’d rather not give too much away, but I did really like the unveiling of the various secrets. The social structure and view of magic seemed to illustrate oppression through hoarding knowledge and there was the question of how much should one sacrifice for the greater good. After reading this book, I completely understood why David Farland, the author of the Runelords series, was so excited about it as I saw many similarities to his series (in themes explored, not in actual story, world-building or characters).

Although this is the start to a trilogy, the main storyline in this book did have a satisfying conclusion. It left room for more story, but it also could have ended right where it did and wouldn’t have made me feel like there needed to be more.

One minor complaint I had that is that there were a lot of typos, far many more than in the typical book I read. This is no way affects my rating or opinion of the book, but there were enough misspellings and use of the wrong word that it did bother me. The version I read was not an ARC but the final hardcover edition (I don’t mention these things if it is not the actual book since I understand it has not been completed yet but just wanted to clarify).

Servant of a Dark God took a while to pull me in and never made me fully care about the cast of characters, but the actual plot and fantasy setting did hold my interest once the story got going. Since it is a debut novel that had some potential, I would probably read the next book (although I would definitely wait for the paperback were I to purchase it).

My Rating: 6.5/10

Where I got my reading copy: A publicist had a copy sent to me.

Read Chapter One

Other Reviews:

Read for Free: Vera Nazarian and Brandon Sanderson
Jun
12
2010

Vera Nazarian’s novel Dreams of the Compass Rose is available in several different formats as a free download for 90 days. (Note: I tried this link earlier and it did work but there seems to be an issue with it at the moment. Hopefully it will clear up soon – there just may be too many people trying to download it at the moment.) I haven’t read this one, but I did really enjoy Lords of Rainbow by Vera Nazarian and the description sounds rather intriguing:

In the vein of The One Thousand and One Nights, Tanith Lee’s Flat Earth, and Catherynne M. Valente’s The Orphan’s Tales…

The Compass Rose universe—an ancient milieu where places have no names, cities spring forth like bouquets in the desert, gods and dreams walk the scorching sands in the South, ice floats like mirror shards upon the Northern sea, islands that do not exist are found in the East, death chases a thief on the rooftops of a Western city, immortal love spans time, and directions are intertwined into one road we all travel….

You come to this place when you wonder, and sometimes, only when you dream.

The prelude, prologue and first three chapters of The Way of Kings, the first book in Brandon Sanderson’s new series The Stormlight Archive, is available on Tor.com. It is required that you register and log in to read it, but registration is free. The Way of Kings will be released in hardcover on August 31.

Widely acclaimed for his work completing Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time saga, Brandon Sanderson now begins a grand cycle of his own, one every bit as ambitious and immersive.

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.

Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar’s niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan’s motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.

The result of over ten years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.

Speak again the ancient oaths,

Life before death.
Strength before weakness.
Journey before Destination.

and return to men the Shards they once bore.

The Knights Radiant must stand again.

Review of Magic Burns
Jun
09
2010

Magic Burns
by Ilona Andrews
272pp (Paperback)
My Rating: 8/10
Amazon Rating: 4.5/5
LibraryThing Rating: 4.23/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.27/5

 

Magic Burns is the second book in the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews, who is actually a married couple instead of one writer. The books in this urban fantasy series are in order as follows: Magic Bites, Magic Burns, Magic Strikes and Magic Bleeds, which was just released at the end of May (fortunately, because this series is very addictive around the time Magic Strikes begins). There is also a related novella about Kate’s friend Andrea in the Must Love Hellhounds anthology called Magic Mourns, which takes place between the third and fourth books.

Note: The plot description may not make a whole lot of sense if you haven’t read the first book and are unfamiliar with some of the different organizations.

It’s actually somewhat of a relief when Kate is awakened by her phone at 2:00 AM: it’s Jim asking her to team up on a mercenary job and she could use the money. The two then proceed to hunt down a psycho intent on setting as much of the city on fire as possible. Although it’s preferable to capture the culprit alive, he ends up dead but not because of Kate or Jim – a crossbow bolt came out of nowhere and killed the pyromaniac as soon as they caught up with him. The marksman is gone, and Jim is summoned to deal with Pack business, leaving Kate to deal with getting the dead body back on her own.

Later Kate is visited by Derek, her werewolf friend from the Pack, enlisting her aid in finding the very same man with the crossbow who disappeared. After Jim left, he was shot by the same type of bolt and several of the Pack’s maps were stolen by the shooter, who then vanished into thin air. As part of the Order, Kate has contacts the Pack doesn’t and they’d prefer if it wasn’t known that they were searching for their missing property. Kate’s search leads her to a teenage girl whose mother disappeared with her coven of witches… making Kate wonder just what kind of forces they awakened during a time when magic power is at its strongest.

Although I liked the first book once the first half was over and it got to the better-paced second half, Magic Burns is a definite improvement. It grabbed my attention much earlier and the plot is more solid than in the first book, which had a lot of wandering around trying to solve a mystery involving the death of Kate’s guardian. There were a lot of scenes that felt like they were solely serving as an introduction to the various characters in the first book, and even though this novel introduced more new characters, their appearances flowed with the rest of the story much better instead of feeling somewhat stilted. This book’s mystery also unfolded more naturally instead of seeming like Kate was just going to one place then another place trying to gather information.

After reading the first book and becoming acquainted with the world, it is also much less confusing. The series is set in the year 2040 in an alternate earth with magic and mythology come to life (this particular book weaves a lot of Celtic myth into the story). Magic and technology alternate in waves – warding spells fail once the magic ebbs and technological devices no longer work when the magic waves hit. Magic Burns also explains more about when and why this happened, and it deals with one of the magic flares that occur every seven years (resulting in much stronger than usual magic). It’s a very interesting idea for a universe and makes for enjoyable reading, although I still can’t quite wrap my mind around why an influx of magic would cause guns to cease to work. Perhaps I’m just thinking about it too much since it is after all magic, but why would the mechanics of a gun cease to work but not a crossbow? Why would a sword or crossbow no longer be counted as technology just because they’re not more advanced weaponry? Don’t they follow the same basic laws of physics? Since this does mean the setting is so innovative and fun to read about, I try not to let myself get too hung up on the details or wonder just what I’m missing about how this works, though.

Although there are some similarities to other urban fantasy books, this conflict between magic and technology and the way the supernatural is handled sets it apart. There are vampires but they are not sparkly or handsome. They’re beasts that will just kill everything if their minds are not controlled by a necromancer. Werewolves exist as well, but there are also many other types of shapeshifters that comprise the pack such as jaguars, minxes, rats, bears, and hyenas. Learning more about the People (the cult/research facility that has a lot of vampires) and the Pack is another bonus to reading this novel.

The characterization is also much better than in the previous book and Kate herself is much more likable, which is good since she is the first person narrator of the story. She can still have a smart mouth, but I rather like that she’s also very blunt and straightforward unless she has a good reason not to be. Also, she also seems to be letting go a little more and letting readers in on more of her thoughts than in the previous book. As more of Kate’s secrets are slowly revealed, it really gives a sense of why she acts like such a tough girl sometimes and really works with her character. In addition, there are a couple of new relationships that make her seem much more soft-hearted. Early in the story, Kate takes responsibility for the teenage girl Julie but she’s more than a duty to Kate as she comes to really care for the child and is very protective of her. Another aspect that makes Kate seem to have more sympathetic is the start of her relationship with Andrea, a knight of the Order.

In addition to Kate, there are many other intriguing characters and she has some memorable conversations so many of them – of course, the aforementioned Julie and Andrea as well as some familiar faces from the first book, mainly Curran and Saiman. Curran and Kate still get on each other’s nerves but there’s potential for romance, and Saiman goes a bit nutty with the magic flare approaching, which made me even more curious about his magical abilities. All the other shapeshifters have human and animal forms, but Saiman can morph himself into any human form he’d like. The appearance of Derek, the teenage werewolf from the first book, was also quite welcome. There is not a single character I did not enjoy reading about – even Ghastek, one of the necromancers who Kate is not all that fond of.

The plot did seem to move a little too swiftly at times and crammed in a lot for a short book and sometimes the transitions felt a bit disconnected. Overall, it was much better than the first book, which moved too slowly at times, but this one did have some cases of too much happening too fast.

Magic Burns is much stronger than the first installment in every way – the plot is better although it is still weaker when compared to the world-building and character development, the novel is better paced, Kate is more sympathetic and there are some very memorable scenes between characters.

My Rating: 8/10

Where I got my reading copy: I bought it.

Read Excerpt

Reviews of other books in this series:

Other Reviews:

BEA/BBC in NYC: Final Post (I Promise)
Jun
08
2010

This is the really final post on Book Expo America (BEA) and the Book Blogger Convention (BBC). I need to start writing all these reviews of the Kate Daniels books because these are ones I really want to talk about (so much that I will most likely also write a separate series review after the individual book reviews – I finished Magic Bleeds last night and so desperately want more).

After writing about what occurred at BEA and BBC, I just wanted to write something more personal on the week. The rundown on what happened at the two events are in three posts:

The highlight for me was definitely meeting so many people I have talked to online. Waiting in line was so much more fun when there were other people to talk to and you could do things like argue over whether or not you should ever read the end of the book first (no, you should not!). Plus it was just so much fun to be able to discuss some of your mutual favorite books in person. I met some awesome people while I was there:

The people I met definitely made it worthwhile because if not for that, I would have probably wished I had saved my money to go to an actual speculative fiction convention like Readercon (whose guests include Elizabeth Bear, N. K. Jemisin and Catherynne Valente – who was at BEA but not signing, and yes, I’ve seen her before, but she was awesome, so I don’t care). There are two reasons for this:

1. Not enough speculative fiction books

Book Expo America had lots of books, but I was disappointed in the lack of speculative fiction that was not young adult. Young adult was everywhere and I ended up with nearly twice as many young adult books as fantasy and science fiction. It’s not that I don’t enjoy reading young adult – authors such as Kristin Cashore, Laini Taylor and Megan Whalen Turner are some of my more recent favorite discoveries. And the YA books I got at BEA look pretty good, too. I just would have liked to have seen more just plain old speculative fiction, though, so I could at least even out the ratio of YA to non-YA books.

2. Not enough authors I’d read

This may be at least partially related to the above as well as not being the most voracious reader in the world, but I was really hoping to be able to get a book signed by an author I’ve admired. Once the schedule was released in April, I looked over it eagerly to see who would be there and found two authors I’d read – and I didn’t enjoy either one of their books. They were books I actually disliked, not even just ones I just lacked enthusiasm for. So I was sad. A small number of the authors were on my TBR so I picked up a book by one of them I expected to enjoy – Poison Study by Maria Snyder. I did indeed enjoy it and was hoping to get a copy of Inside Out but guess which line at BEA was the most disorganized long mess of crazy I saw the whole time? Yes, that one. Maria Snyder was signing one other book, but I opted for the Deanna Raybourn signing instead since Snyder’s other book was a few books into a series I haven’t read. Oh well, I am sure I will discover some new authors with the books I did got and will be happy I have pretty signed copies once I read them.

Of course, Readercon also does not have a Book Blogger Convention, which was very well organized and also fun. I did come away from it feeling like I hadn’t learned anything new, but it was interesting to listen to the different discussions and viewpoints (although it did seem as if most people in the panels tended to agree with each other – the only major difference of opinion I can remember is the stats argument). Overall, I found it enjoyable and was glad I had the opportunity to attend, though.

Now I will return to reviewing – next up will be a review of Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews followed by Servant of a Dark God by John Brown. The next three books in the review queue are Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder, Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews and Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews. (So I had a bit of an Ilona Andrews kick and just might have to read The Edge and Silent Blade sooner rather than later.)

Book Blogger Convention 2010
Jun
07
2010

The day after Book Expo America was of course the first Book Blogger Convention. I usually try to avoid talking about blogging too much here so I don’t bore those of you who aren’t bloggers, but this is one thing I would like to discuss as there may be people who are curious about going next year.

It started with registration and breakfast (yes, coffee!!!) and then we all headed into the main room to listen to the keynote speaker, YA author Maureen Johnson, who amused us all with stories about attending a Catholic high school and explaining the plot of one’s book to someone who really just isn’t all that interested in it in the middle of a busy bookstore. (We each also got the audio version of her book Suite Scarlett as part of our Book Blogger Convention swag.)

Next we listened to a more serious talk on Professionalism and Ethics given by Ron Howard. The talk is available on his website. He discussed topics such as why he says that book bloggers won the war between critics and bloggers, different standards of ethics and how to be trustworthy, and the FTC Guidelines that caused quite a stir a while ago. I won’t go into it too much since if you’re really interested, you can watch it and read more about it on the website.

After these two talks and question/answer sessions for each, there were panels in which different bloggers discussed a topic. The first of these, Writing and Building Content, made me feel very disorganized. They were talking about keeping notes on each book read, creating posts ahead of time, coming up with ideas for new features and making sure they had other content such as press releases for days when they couldn’t write much.

As much as this one overwhelmed me, it did make me decide that after I start a new book, I may try note taking to see how it works. Lately I just haven’t had as much spare time as previous years and keep getting behind on reviews, and then I end up practically rereading some of the books I already read in order to refresh my memory to write about them. It really made me wish I was one of those people with a detailed blogging calendar. I keep thinking it’s not possible since blogging is something I do in my spare time after the full time job and how much time I have for it varies, but that’s the way it works for most bloggers so maybe I’m really not as organized as I could be.

The next topic was Marketing – things like using Twitter, Facebook and other social media to grow your blog and commenting on other posts to get your name out there and make friends. Toward the end the conversation turned to stats – most people thought quality and generating discussion through comments was more important than the number of visits.

Blogging with Social Responsibility showed how bloggers can make a difference, such as during a couple of the recent instances of “whitewashing” covers (depicting white people on the cover when the main character is a person of color). Recently, there were a couple of instances where this happened and due to the public outrage, the cover art was changed to present a more fitting portrayal of the character (Liar by Justine Larbalestier and Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore).

The final panel was on Author/Blogger relationships. I was fairly surprised by the fact that some people will not put up a negative review of a book by an author they’ve become friendly with. It is difficult to do so I understand it; there have been occasions before in which I’ve emailed with an author, thought they were so nice and really wanted to be able to say I liked their book – and have been very sad to find I just can’t say that. But even if it’s not the most positive review in the world, I’ve seen other people comment on some of these reviews on various blogs and say it sounds like it is their type of book even if not to the reviewer’s taste – and they may never have even heard of the book if not for that review, even if it is not a glowing recommendation.

Oh yes and we also had a break for lunch with actual food which was fantastic after living on coffee and chips or coffee and cake during busy Book Expo America!

Next up: One more post on the trip – thoughts about BEA instead of just what I did while there and then back to books, I promise! I actually have two review drafts at the moment that just need to be proofread and edited and should be close to ready to go.