Familiar as I am with Del Franco’s style after four books of the Connor Greys, this one was a bit of a hard go at first. It’s clearly meant to be not only the first book of a new series, but also one geared to pull in readers not already familiar with the Connor Greys. If you are already familiar with them, then a good bit of the beginning is redundant exposition, and this for me was frustrating to slog through. Moreover–and this took me several chapters before I finally realized what was going on–Del Franco’s writing this series in third person rather than in first, perhaps to help give it its own voice distinct from the Connor books.

This is both effective and distancing. On the one hand, it does indeed make this feel more like a distinct series, but on the other hand, it makes Laura Blackstone feel less immediate to me as a character. I’m not sure how much of this is simply the third person writing, and how much of it is Del Franco’s comfort level with writing a female protagonist. But since there’s stuff to like here, including a suitably engaging story and chemistry full of promise between Laura and her love interest (who gets major points for being fey and neither vampire nor werewolf nor even Sidhe), I’ll be coming back for more when Book Two is available. Three stars.

Thanks to the events at the tail end of the last book (Unfallen Dead), the Dead of the fey no longer have access to Tir Na Nog–and now they’re roaming free in the mortal world, and on the streets of the Weird in Boston. Having the Dead on the loose is nine kinds of trouble in a district already fraught with tensions, as Connor discovers when he’s called to investigate the decapitation of one of the Dead, the only way they can be permanently destroyed. We get a side helping as well of Connor learning quite a bit more about the darkness in his head–and what he can do with it.

And what it can do to him.

This is definitely the darkest of the Connor Greys so far, and I’m not sure yet what I think about the new plot twist of Connor’s darkness seeming poised to turn him into the druid version of a leanansidhe. One does hope that he’ll eventually be pulled back from this, but it’ll be interesting indeed to see how many more books this plotline will carry through. Meanwhile, Connor’s relationship with Meryl is deepening, of which I approve; I’m coming more to appreciate a series that can focus on a single relationship and develop it across books rather than having the protagonist swap out partners every three or four books or so. Well done, Mark Del Franco! Four stars.

• Naked in Death, Glory in Death, and Immortal in Death, by J.D. Robb. The first three of the In Death series, as I’m swapping out paperback copies for ebooks.
• Just the Sexiest Man Alive, Practice Makes Perfect, and Something About You, by Julie James. Bought because of Julie James being highly recommended over at smartbitches.

Total books for 2010: 75

denelian

save_liz

An explanation post for what’s going on with Liz is here.

I stayed home the rest of the week, coughing up a storm, fumbling for the tissues, and ingesting any number of OTC remedies. On Thursday, I saw one of the other doctors at my usual clinic (since my usual doctor wasn’t in that day), and she said that yep, I had a nasty cold. Never had a temperature of note so we were pretty sure this hasn’t been any form of flu. It’s just been a Martian Death Cold.

I got back enough brain by Friday to work from home, and as of today I’m functional enough to be bored silly, but I’m still snorky, coughy, and prone to needing to curl up under the blankets for random bouts of zzzz’s. I have been absolutely useless for getting any writing done or much of anything else. I’ve been consoling my ailing self by rewatching first season Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and solarbird and I have also taken the opportunity to get caught up on Caprica, which to our pleasure is continuing to fail to suck. And since I’ve also been useless for continuing my previously planned Laurie King readathon, I’ve punted instead to re-reading the J.D. Robbs–since I’ve started exchanging my paperbacks of those for electronic copies.

I’ll be staggering back to work tomorrow, and if Cliff Mass is correct in his last post, it’ll be just in time for the weather to take a turn for the sucky. Joy. I’m sick all week while it’s warm and sunny, and it gets wet and cold just in time for me to go back to work. I’ll be lucky to shake this damn cough before April.

The cats have been quite happy to curl up beside me while I’m making with the zzzz’s, though. I even got a picture of them. Dara says this is particularly good and that I should post it!

solarbird

I do have to admit it was very awesome that they got dinged to be the headlining performance at the Victory Ceremonies last night–which featured a celebration of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. (For those unfamiliar with Canadian provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador are officially one big province.) You couldn’t have chosen better ambassadors, really!

That said, Dara and I were not expecting other acts to show up as preliminaries, which was awesome as well. This led off with a nice drumming and chanting dance by a First Nations group whose name I didn’t catch, but it might have been the Nunatsiavut Drum Dancers who are featured on the Atlantic Canada House site for the Olympics? Don’t know.

Then we got surprise Irish Descendants! Y’all may recall I’ve posted about them before, so it was great to see them live even though they did only one song. Their lead singer is a rotund little guy with a voice much bigger than he is, it turns out.

Other performers that showed up were Ron Hynes, who I think I remember Bob Hallett mentioning in his Bob’s Soundtrack posts; fiddler Kelly Russell, who was featured in a video that kept running of his performing all over the world and getting people to do a Thread the Needle dance; Tara Oram, a young singer; and Hey Rosetta!, who were a pretty lively group as well.

Meanwhile, a couple of perky announcer types, up on a raised platform facing the main stage, were doing initial banter and throwing trivia questions out to the crowd. While all that was going on, Dara and I chatted with the girl sitting next to us on our row. Our seats turned out to be farther back than we’d hoped, but we did have a lovely conversation with Michelle, who like us was pretty much there to see Great Big Sea and who told us that her husband was in fact from Newfoundland. We stayed in our seats to chat with her before the preliminaries, and while they were handing out the medals. From there I was able to get a good view of pretty much everything that was going on. The whole place was done up in blue, green, and white, which amused Dara and me to no end since those are the colors on the Cascadia flag. ;)

Watching the medals handed out was pretty cool. They alternated between where we were, BC Place, and up on Whistler to hand out for various events, including Men’s Freestyle Skiing, Men’s 4×7.5km Relay, Ladies’ Parallel Giant Slalom, and Alpine Skiing Ladies’ Slalom. I was charmed to see Norway take the gold in the relay, and that the Norwegian team was visibly singing along with their national anthem. After each medal handoff, at least at BC Place, they shot metallic confetti in gold, bronze, and silver into the air. That looked very neat. The medals themselves were also very pretty, quite large but sort of crumpled-looking discs, which was an interesting artistic touch for them. And I must also note that I was quite charmed, during one of the Whistler handoffs, to see several people wearing cow hats on the big screens in their audience. COW HATS! <3

But then we got down to business and introduced the B'ys! We got a countdown on the screens for them, and the audience started going suitably berserk. And we got LASERS cutting through the air over our heads, which was very, very cool. Dara and I had already noticed a wide standing room only area before the stage, though--and as the B'ys ripped into "Ordinary Day", their first song, we abandoned our seats and bolted for there. We got out there only because we showed tickets to the harried-looking BC Place personnel, but we did make it safely out!

Not surprisingly, this was only a one-set show, and a somewhat rearranged one at that. It was pretty much full of Great Big Sea's best-loved standards, with nothing off the forthcoming album, and only "Love Me Tonight" and "England" from Fortune’s Favour, too. Here’s the full set list, transcribed out of my hastily scribbled notes:

• Ordinary Day
• Lukey
• Love Me Tonight
• The Night Pat Murphy Died
• When I’m Up
• Jack Hinks
• England
• When I Am King
• Sea of No Cares
• Helmethead
• Consequence Free
• Mari-Mac
• Run Run Away
• Encore: Excursion Around the Bay/Fortune

There was minimal banter as well, which wasn’t really surprising either due to the Serious Business of this particular performance. This didn’t stop Alan from letting out the obligatory crack about “the lovely and talented Séan McCann” while introducing Paddy Murphy, though–or from announcing his opinion that there should be Olympics every year, in Newfoundland and Labrador, and inviting the audience to think of the events they could have. (Clearly, Vertical Movement would have to be a regularly featured event.)

It must also be said that the B’ys all looked very, very fine. Alan’s lost the beard and has gone back for the nonce to his soul patch look; he had his black jacket, black long-sleeved shirt, and blue jeans look going on. Séan looked very fine with his hair slicked back, a sort of blue-violet shirt, and a really swank gray striped jacket on over that. Bob had a jaunty scarf on, and Kris had some red-and-black-checked bandanna action going on back at the drumkit. Only Murray looked his usual understated self, with that green shirt I’ve seen him wearing at pretty much every show. It only took a couple songs in for Alan and Séan both to lose their jackets, though!

Hands down, the best fun Dara and I had with this was being among an extremely lively crowd out on the floor. There were a group of Russian girls right ahead of us, and when Dara and I started singing, they turned back to us with these startled grins; Dara said they totally looked like they were thinking, “We do not know how you are, but we like you! You know how to party!” Especially when we whipped up the Cascadian flag between us.

A Newfoundland flag showed up just to the right of us a few songs in, and one very lively gentleman kept bellowing happily about how this was music to dance to. He encouraged us to come back to the back of the crowd where they’d get some old-time dancing going on the next big song; the only reason Dara and I didn’t do that was because we were too busy representing TEAM CASCADIA! <3

And a Polish woman showed up just behind us as well with her red and white Polish flag. She wasn't really getting how to hoist her flag, so Dara helped her do that! And we got her flag to show up on camera with one good clear shot--there was a camera on a high wire sliding back and forth over the crowd, so there were all SORTS of crowd shots that kept showing up on the big screens next to the stage. We got the Cascadian flag up several times, too, although we didn't keep it up all the time. Didn't want to completely block the view of folks behind us, and a few girls did ask if they could scooch up ahead of us. We let them, naturally.

But man, it was a truly international crowd, and seriously, seriously awesome. The energy was astounding, even for a Great Big Sea show. You could tell a lot of GBS diehards were on the floor since we did get the obligatory "GREAT! BIG! SEA!" chant going, and although several of the international folks in the crowd didn't know what that was at first, they caught on fast. By the time the B'ys left the stage after their one encore, I was absolutely limp with exhausted delight. Dara turned to me, grinning from ear to ear, and proclaimed that that was AWESOME. She was correct. I'm not sure it would be physically and biologically possible to top the awesomeness of that crowd, unless it involved us going to St. John's and seeing the B'ys perform on their home turf.

Dara scarfed a few snippets of the metallic confetti off the floor as mementos, and on that giddy, glorious note, we rambled out of BC Place and out along the crowded, chaotic Robson Street. More on that in the post I'll do on this trip in general! All you need to know from this one, really, is that Great Big Sea + Olympics = unremitting awesome. Team Cascadia takes the gold in Vertical Movement!

Jade Man’s Skin, by Daniel Fox, a.k.a. desperance! Fantasy. Purchased in print because the cover is gorgeous, and also, all of his books, I get in print. (Watch this space for a forthcoming Chaz Brenchley/Daniel Fox readathon, in fact!)

And, in electronic form:

• Every last currently available book of The Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher. Because he’s also somebody I’ll buy in print, but he’s Just That Awesome, so I’ll buy him electronically too! (Also, because the last couple of paperbacks for the Dresden Files are in that slightly-bigger-than-mass-market format, which is vexing–so while I want a print copy for purposes of Supporting Jim, it’ll be easier to read them electronically.) Anyway, that’s eleven books of Harry Dresden Awesomeness, and it’ll shortly be twelve when Changes comes out!
• Midnight Never Come, by Marie Brennan. Fantasy.
• Four of the In Death series, by J.D. Robb: Purity in Death, Seduction in Death, Reunion in Death, and Promises in Death. The last one is actually the newest one I was lacking in the series, and the other three are replacements for loaned copies of the paperbacks I never got back. Mystery/romantic suspense.
• Six Shannara-related books, by Terry Books–because I was in the mood to kick it old school and go back and re-read the original Shannara trilogy. Only now there’s a prequel and an epilogue as well as several other books that bridge the gap between the present-day world and the future world Shannara’s set in. Titles: Running with the Demon, First King of Shannara, The Sword of Shannara, The Elfstones of Shannara, The Wishsong of Shannara, and Indomitable. Fantasy.
• The Convent of the Pure, by Sara M. Harvey. Heard about this one via the Outer Alliance. It’s steampunky and it features a lesbian demon-hunter and the ghost of her dead lover. Fantasy/steampunk.

Total here: 24
Total so far for 2010: 69

And just to add insult to injury, Dylan’s even got Connor’s old office.

It’s nice to be far enough along in the series arc at this point that we’re past Connor’s initial wave of resentment about his disability, and are moving on to him figuring out what it is and how to conquer it. There are events in the last act of this story that raise all sorts of interesting questions about what exactly happened to Connor, especially given how his nemesis Bergin Vize finally shows up on camera–in a state that Connor does not expect at all. But that’s only part of what he has to deal with from Vize, given that that elf’s bent on taking out the Seelie Court. Meanwhile, another fey is killing people and framing Meryl for the crime, giving Connor yet another challenge to juggle.

Good strong story over all and I’m looking forward to diving right into Book Four, now that it’s out. Four stars.

Much of this book’s plot, in fact, is dealing with ramifications of what happened in Book 2. A portal has been opened, you see–and the Ifrit Gone Wrong is not the only thing that’s come through. Something else has shown up in the city, and it’s able to imitate anyone. Even magical practitioners.

This time around as he’s trying to fix what’s gone wrong, we get to see Mason meet a pretty young psychic who is understandably shocked that there are people who can actually work magic in the world. She’s even more shocked when she starts having visions with troubling suggestions indeed for what’s about to happen to Mason, too. We also get a couple of new side characters we haven’t seen before, and you can probably guess from that what sort of role they’ll have in the plot; this was handled well enough, though, that I didn’t mind the obvious pointers in their directions.

What’s got the biggest possible ramifications for further books in this series, though, is the return of a character we’d thought dead as of Book 1. I won’t say who to avoid spoilers, but I’m hoping that what I read as hints that this character has also gone Wrong will bear fruit.

We’ll just have to see, because after two satisfying reads in this series, I’m definitely coming back for more. Four stars.

In this installment the crime that has to be solved is the mysterious draining of life essence out of San Francisco practitioners–one of whom is one of Mason’s old girlfriends, Sarah. Mason and his colleagues Eli and Victor must figure out who’s responsible, and the fact that a known dark practitioner from Portland has recently moved into the city seems like a suspect on a silver platter. This is of course Too Easy. A suitably alert reader won’t have trouble figuring out who the perpetrator actually is, but a good bit of the substance of that revelation comes from Mason’s own reaction to it, so it’s okay.

Some of the side plots were the ones that were more interesting to me, though. Campbell, the healer from Book 1, makes another appearance here–and while I was initially disappointed to see her described as Mason’s ex at this point, things are clearly not really over between them, so I’m pleased on that account. There’s mileage with Victor having a potential steady love interest who actually contributes a bit to the plot, and it’s pretty neat just to see the most competent and badassed of Mason’s colleagues being a gay guy. There are new theories thrown around about where Ifrits come from, and in fact, there are intriguing attempts to make new Ifrits that go horribly, horribly wrong and which have ramifications clear into Book 3.

Good fun overall. Four stars.