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My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It wasn’t until I actually started reading Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood that I found out it was in fact a sequel to Oryx and Crake, which I am told is actually a better book. This I didn’t find a hardship, because I did actually like The Year of the Flood. And thankfully, it stands alone from Oryx and Crake since it’s less a true sequel and more a covering of the same events from the points of view of different characters.

Make no mistake, Atwood’s renowned aversion to being associated with the genre aside, this is definitely an SF novel. We’ve got a futuristic setting of indeterminate timeframe, in which a decadent civilization is about to fall. Its apocalypse is, I’m given to understand, covered in more detail in Oryx and Crake; here, instead, we have a character study of two women involved with a religious sect who preach the coming of the Waterless Flood and who are taking steps to try to survive the disaster along with stores of foodstuffs. Toby is one of the so-called “Eves” of God’s Gardeners, drawn into their company despite her own lack of personal conviction, and finding purpose in teaching the children; Ren is one of those children, whose mother eventually flees with her back to the society they’d come from, where Ren eventually becomes an exotic dancer. What happens to both women as the Flood finally occurs forms the overall pattern of the book, winding back and forth between their backstories and on up to the Flood itself.

A lot of this book’s character-driven rather than plot-driven, though, which resulted in the overall plot being rather thin. There are decent sequences all throughout, with interesting periodic bursts of outright action as the Gardeners schism in the years leading up to the Flood. Ultimately though things don’t so much resolve as meander to a halt. I didn’t mind this so much since Atwood’s language and worldbuilding were lovely, but others may find that a problem.

Since this book focuses on a religious sect, be prepared for that to drive a lot of the character motivations; they’re especially forthright in their abhorrence of eating meat, for example. It fit well with the characters for me, though, and seeing how different members of the Gardeners reacted to their own tenets provided a substantial amount of the character conflicts.

Overall I found this a good, solid read and am looking forward to checking out Oryx and Crake. Four stars.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Scoundrel, Book 2 of Zoe Archer’s Blades of the Rose series, came across my radar with a bang thanks to the Smart Bitches Trashy Books ladies and their current montly book club. As I mentioned in my review of Book 1, Warrior, I was very happy to see a cover with a hero who’s not only fully dressed, but who also seemed to come right out of a mold I find most swoonable indeed: the Indiana Jones archetype, ready for adventure.

Even more so that with Book 1, Scoundrel delivered this in spades. I enjoyed Scoundrel quite a bit more, in no small part due to the hero. Bennett Day of the Blades of the Rose is an unhesitant rake, cheerfully cutting a swath through the dozens of women willing to go at it with him in the sheets in between his far more serious missions for his compatriots, and sometimes both at once. Little does he know he’s about to meet up with London Harcourt, the daughter of an Heir of Albion–and whose husband Bennett in fact once killed. London has no idea whatsoever of the nefarious activities of her father and spouse, and suffice to say, her worldview is blown wide open when she finds out that her father has hauled her off to Greece to make use of her gift with ancient languages. Harcourt’s bent on tracking down the same Source Bennett’s pursuing, and Bennett and his fellow Blades have no choice but to abduct London, clue her in, and hope like hell that she’ll defect to their team and help them.

A couple of things kicked Scoundrel up another notch over Book 1 for me. One is the secondary romance playing out between the witch Athena and the boat captain Kallas, which was in some ways almost more fun than the primary romance of London and Bennett–but only almost, because I had great fun with them too. I very much liked that London had refreshingly little angst about Bennett’s womanizing ways, which led beautifully into Bennett flooring himself with his obligatory Realization of True Love(TM). The big revelation of said True Love in particular was quite charming; look for the “monkeys in hats” lines, here.

I also have to give Archer props for actually making me not skim past a sex scene, for once. If an author is going to actually make me read a sex scene, she needs to have either a masterful command of the language and make me swoon on the sheer power of words alone. Or, she needs to say something interesting about the involved characters, and give me something more to go on than just the physical depiction. Archer does the latter in a goddess-play scene that I’ll freely admit was, indeed, rather hot for the delightful things it said about London as a character and as a woman.

Meanwhile, in the main plot, we’ve got ourselves a chase through Greece through lovingly described islands and waters. The Heirs are still fairly flat as villains–I still never really get a sense of any of the Heirs as actual people rather than bad guys spouting “For the Glory of Britain!” Here, though, London’s father is actually genuinely creepy in the final big showdown between them. The Heirs’ dark mage, as well, is legitimately creepy in a scene involving torture.

All in all not something to take too seriously, but a highly engaging read nonetheless, in no small part because of the charm of London and Bennett. Four stars.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I came into Zoe Archer’s Blades of the Rose series courtesy of the fine ladies at Smart Bitches Trashy Books, when they chose the second book of the series as a book club read. Pretty much right out of the gate I wanted these books, and I’m not ashamed to admit that a big part of that was because of the covers on Books 1 and 2. First and foremost, I want to thank whoever did the cover art! Gabriel on the cover of Book 1, I’m not ashamed to say, totally slew me for looking like he stole Indiana Jones’ outfit, and even aside from that appealing to my fangirl sensibilities, I just found it such a refreshing change from a lot of the shirtless, overmuscled guys on the covers of romance and paranormal romance these days.

Happily, the book itself also proved to be quite enjoyable. Warrior, as the opening book of a series, has the task of setting up the world for us, and it does a nice strong job of doing so by giving us our hero, Gabriel, drawn into saving a man’s life in a brutal attack. The man he tries to rescue dies, but not before begging Gabriel to take a message–and a mysterious compass–clear around the world to Mongolia.

Gabriel, you see, has stumbled into the ongoing conflict between two factions at war over magical Sources, artifacts all over the globe which are so named for being the repositories of great power. The Heirs of Albion are bent on securing these Sources for the greater glory of the British Empire, so that Britain might take over the world. Pitted against them are the Blades of the Rose, sworn to avoid using any magic save that which is theirs by gift or by right, and to keep all Sources safe in the hands of their rightful people.

And the man Gabriel has to take the dire message to? He is of course a Blade, living in Mongolia with his daughter Thalia, who is naturally afire with the ambition to follow in her father’s footsteps. Neither want to embroil Gabriel in their affairs, but Gabriel won’t be put off easily. He has after all come all the way from England at the behest of a dying man. Also, Thalia is awfully, awfully hot.

It’s a nifty worldbuilding concept, and Archer has great fun with it, setting up an engaging blend of period adventure and supernatural activity that hearkens indeed back to the aforementioned Indiana Jones as well as the Mummy movies with Brendan Fraser. As these are in fact paranormal romance novels, you do have the obligatory blazing chemistry between the lead characters and more than one sex scene in which they indulge it–but for once, my tastes in such things are actually pretty in line with what a romance novel has to offer with that. Archer’s very good at giving her female leads strong sexual agency, and the sense of equality between her heroines and heros is awesome both within and outside of romantic contexts.

In this particular story, as she’s been brought up in Mongolia, Thalia is very much afraid that a man from her native Britain will expect her to behave like a proper British lady–and she’s delighted to discover that Gabriel, as a commoner and a foot soldier, is just as happy that she’s anything but. The two of them must set out to find and protect the Source the Heirs are targeting, and along the way, have themselves quite the adventuresome ride. There’s a bit too much obvious pointing at characters who are destined to have their own installments as the series progresses, and a bit too much simplistic motivation on the part of the bad guys. But all in all this was fun and it made me quite interested in continuing with the series. Three stars.