Category: Book Log

By modern standards, The War of the Worlds isn’t much of a plot: Martians come and take over the world, everybody goes OHNOEZ!, Martians conveniently are beaten not by any efforts of the protagonists, but rather by a deus ex machina (which I will not identify, on the off chance that someone reading this review might not actually know what that deus ex machina is). That said, this story is still totally worth reading just for it being one of the very first SF stories, and for the general style and atmosphere that Wells sets up with a Britain falling apart under siege.

I found it interesting that not only was the narrator never identified by name, in keeping with the style of the time, but neither were his wife, his cousin, or any other characters he encountered. Rather, people were identified by their careers and/or general functions in life. This fosters a nice sense of these people less as individuals and more as representatives of humanity falling to the Martians. It makes it a bit hard to keep track of who is who, though, especially when large chunks of the narrative shift over to the narrator’s brother (presumably with the conceit that his brother told him later what he’d done and seen).

Wells’ focus on Britain is pretty much to be expected, and I never got any real sense that the Martians were invading globally–especially when at the very end, you learn that other nations bestowed much aid upon poor beleagured Britain. It’s fun, too, to see what bits of actual science he gets right in his assumptions for how the Martians work as biological creatures and what is just made up right out of whole fantastical cloth. And while the narrative as a whole lacks in overall structure, look for the sequence towards the end, too, when the narrator and a curate are trapped underground on the rim of a Martian pit, which is decently suspenseful and creepy. Overall, three stars.

After getting four books in on the Connor Grey series, it’s both a refreshing and a disconcerting change of pace to jump over into the Laura Blackstones, the new series Del Franco is spinning off. This series is set in the same universe, but featuring a new protagonist, the druidess Laura Blackstone, a covert operative who operates under three, count ’em, three different identities at once for the Guild. And when an op she’s on under one of her covers goes horribly, horribly wrong, Laura has to investigate exactly what happened–and run the risk of losing not only that cover identity, but her actual life as well.

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.

With Unperfect Souls, the latest in the Connor Grey series, we’re well and thoroughly into the action at this point. If you’re new to the Connor Greys, this is not the book to start with.

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.

Because I forgot to mention in the grip of the Martian Death Cold, picked up more ebooks from Fictionwise:

• 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

Unfallen Dead is a good strong installment in the Connor Grey novels by Mark Del Franco, advancing the storyline not only for the world at large, but also for the story arc about what happened to Connor to disable his druid abilities. More specifically, we’ve got ourselves a story where the Convergence, the great merging of the human and Faerie worlds a hundred years or so back, seems to be finally reversing itself. But Connor’s got his own issues; an underQueen of the Seelie Court is bent on interrogating him and Meryl Dian about the events at the tail end of the last story. And furthermore, Connor’s old Guild partner from New York, Dylan macBain, has shown up in town to fill in for Keeva macNeve, suspended from duty because of those same questionable events.

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.

I swung into Unleashed, Book 3 of John Levitt’s Dog Days series, pretty much on the heels of Book 2. This was a very good way to read it, given that certain events from Book 2 have immediate ramifications for Book 3; in fact, Unleashed opens with Mason and Victor having to hunt down one of those dangling plot ends.

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.

I was hoping that John Levitt’s Dog Days novels would sharpen up their act with Book 2, and I am pleased to say that I wasn’t disappointed. One of the biggest beefs I had with Book 1–our hero Mason’s friends’ annoying propensity to harp on him about what a slacker he is–was pretty much absent from this book. And there’s nice mileage with Mason making music here, and of course, plenty of cute not-really-a-dog mileage with his Ifrit, Lou.

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.

It’s safe to say that Apricot Brandy by Lynn Cesar is one of the more unusual urban fantasy novels I’ve ever read, and I’m a little sorry I missed it when it first came out. It’s got its flaws, but I give it quite a bit of credit for what it tried to do. Being an unusual urban fantasy novel these days is very hard to pull off.

First of all, we’ve got the title, which is pretty much the thing that drew me to the novel. The drink for which the title’s named has good plot relevance, and it stands out very nicely against the glut of urban fantasy titles that involve “night” or “blood” or “darkness” or whatever. And thank you, Cover Art, for actually showing us a heroine’s face rather than making her a headless torso! Both of these got my interested enough to look at the actual blurb about a small town being overrun by a rising Mayan god.

Huge, huge points as well for the heroine being a lesbian. Gay men are getting more inroads in fantasy novels to be sure, but lesbian heroines are still pretty thin on the ground and it’s nice to see one have the lead role in an urban fantasy for once. On the other hand, I was really disappointed that her beloved–and I’ll say this only because this happens fairly early on in the story–is killed off, after her one on camera scene shows her acting pretty heavily out of character due to supernatural influence. I was similarly disappointed that the only other person in the cast who has sexual interest in their own gender is one of the bad guys, because this could leave a less discerning reader with the impression that queer people are screwed up.

And, was it really necessary to make the lesbian heroine a victim of sexual child abuse? You could make an argument that it’s plot-relevant, but I wouldn’t necessarily buy it; there’s a lot in the plot about how Karen’s beloved father turns into a monster and how this eventually makes Karen an alcholic in her adulthood. But I’m thinking you could have pulled this off without involving rape.

Similarly, I was disappointed at how the heroine’s interactions with the main male character came perilously close to being romantic. They didn’t actually cross that line; at no point does our heroine show any actual sexual interest to the guy. But he’s definitely got sexual interest in her, and there are moments between them that are definitely intimate even if they’re not romantic. The circumstances that force this closeness on them are pretty brutal, and it’s reasonable for them to form a bond. Yet, again, I could see a less discerning reader leaping to the conclusion that our heroine is romantically interested in the guy.

This sort of unfocused treatment of the main characters has similar echoes out in the plot at large. There’s a lot of POV jumping, and in fact, the heroine actually vanishes out of the action for a big section of the last third of the novel. I must give Cesar credit for her heroine not actually being the main driving force behind fighting the Big Bad of the story, but on the other hand, it was quite disconcerting to have her vanish entirely for a big swath of the narrative. Likewise, Cesar’s prose has moments where it’s surprisingly lyrical and others where it swings right into purple floridity.

All in all though a decent read, even if it never did quite come together fully for me, and even despite its disappointments. There are bits in particular where Cesar describes the townsfolk being subsumed by the plant god that are genuinely creepy and worth reading. Three stars.