Powers of Detection - Reviews (stories 1-6 of 12)
When magic and mystery come together, one gets Powers of Detection, a collection of short stories edited by Dana Stabenow. And so as I have finished all of the short stories within it, some of which had quite a bit of shortcomings, and others which I happened find rather well written and rewarding throughout, I figured that it wouldn't hurt overly much to put up my thoughts on each of the shorts.
Cold Spell by Donna Andrews - Welcome to magic school, which is intriguing if not overly done, but wait, this is no Harry Potter says the introduction, and so it isn't. Here we meet Maestro Justinian, one of the world's most powerful mages, and he has a cold. Now what this means is that his magic has a tendency to go haywire and something happens every time he sneezes.
Next meet Gwynn, his keeper, or so I have deigned to call her. In actuality, she is his young apprentice, and for all practical purposes in this story, his housemaid.
After a quick meeting with them to give us a sense of character, it begins. A murder has occurred and, while I didn't particularly like the story itself, I think the explanation at the end for how the murder occurred was quite ingenious, and perhaps the story is worth the read simply for that little creative bit.
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The Nightside Needless to Say The opening provides for you a glimpse of a setting that may well be the best part of the story. As it goes this builds you up for something great and leaves you somewhat disappointed overall, or so I've found. It opens in Nightside a place where those with no place left to go take refuge, where it is always 3 o'clock in the morning, and you can find anything for a price, save for happy endings.
Now, while the setup is fairly well delivered, the story held little interest for me. It starts off with the main character Harry Oblivion who wakes up dead, and follows him as he seeks the aid of his partner and former lover, as he tries to find his killer before he decays, which he does end up doing because of an all powerful time stopping wand that he carries around in his pocket. At any rate, this piece, in my opinion, left much to be desired overall, and even the wit of the last line couldn't fully redeem it.
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Lovely by John Straley - Now this piece I found to be a gem among rocks. It was insightful, creative, had its own brand of creepy, and was told from the point of view of Gunk, a raven out looking for 'lovely dead things,' to eat. Now, while there isn't much more to say about it than that, the imagery and the way you are able to see the world from the point of view of a raven, which turns out to seem fairly realistic (and reminds me of the Dean Koontz novel Dragon Tears, in which a few chapters were narrated by a dog). At any rate I wholly enjoyed this piece, which surprised me to say the least.
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The Prince by Anne Bishop. Some old favorites return, for those of you who have read the Black Jewels Trilogy, and they include Surreal, a former whore/assassin who is our narrative voice for this piece, Rainier, prince of Dharo, and finally Daemon Sadi and Jaenelle Angelline which, while being some of my all time favorite characters in the novels, and being all around fun to read about, I will refrain from going on about.
Now The Prince starts off with the murder of three Blood males, well perhaps murder isn't the right word. Surreal describes it as a slashing, the bodies torn and tattered and as Rainier says later, the heads hidden behind a screen, burned by witchfire, and oh can witchfire burn. At any rate Surreal and Rainier team up (which is great because after Dreams Made Flesh I wanted to see more of Rainier) and go a hunting for the killed, who we later find out is targeting Jeweled males simply because her consort walked out when his contract was up.
Eventually we stir in a bit off Daemon Jaenelle. Jaenelle with the ingenious illusions that lure out and 'catch' the killer, and Daemon to provide...well whatever it is that Daemon provides. ^.~ All in all, while it wasn't her best work, as a short story it did quite well, but this might just be my biased opinion speaking as the Black Jewels Trilogy still remains one of my favorite books series' ever.
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Fairy Dust by Charlaine Harris - Now here's an interesting little piece set in a world where vampires, fairys, and morphs are a daily occurrence, if only fairly recently. At any rate the main character Sookie, a telepath, is quite used to them in a way that most aren't, but when a frequent fairy customer Claudine comes in with a job. However when the job means meeting Claude, Claudine's brother, and trying to find out who murdered their sister Claudia (oh yes, I was loving the names when combined with the 3 or so retellings of what happened). While there isn't much more to say without giving away the ending, I'll say only what one learns from this story, the first being that Charlaine Harris is quite a good short story writer, and the second is that you'd do best not to piss off her fairies.
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The Judgement by Anne Perry - Now this was an interesting little marvel not for the story itself, but for the character known only as the Judge, for in this judge each person sees something different, something that sympathizes or is likened to themselves, though essentially I do believe that he is somehow able to project an image of their inner selves to him, to make them see what they want to see, which is ingenious. And of course to wrap it up, there is a wonderful little twist on the entire story in the last few lines.
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As this will get rather long if I put them all up in a single post, I will put the rest up later.
Cold Spell by Donna Andrews - Welcome to magic school, which is intriguing if not overly done, but wait, this is no Harry Potter says the introduction, and so it isn't. Here we meet Maestro Justinian, one of the world's most powerful mages, and he has a cold. Now what this means is that his magic has a tendency to go haywire and something happens every time he sneezes.
Next meet Gwynn, his keeper, or so I have deigned to call her. In actuality, she is his young apprentice, and for all practical purposes in this story, his housemaid.
After a quick meeting with them to give us a sense of character, it begins. A murder has occurred and, while I didn't particularly like the story itself, I think the explanation at the end for how the murder occurred was quite ingenious, and perhaps the story is worth the read simply for that little creative bit.
------------------
The Nightside Needless to Say The opening provides for you a glimpse of a setting that may well be the best part of the story. As it goes this builds you up for something great and leaves you somewhat disappointed overall, or so I've found. It opens in Nightside a place where those with no place left to go take refuge, where it is always 3 o'clock in the morning, and you can find anything for a price, save for happy endings.
Now, while the setup is fairly well delivered, the story held little interest for me. It starts off with the main character Harry Oblivion who wakes up dead, and follows him as he seeks the aid of his partner and former lover, as he tries to find his killer before he decays, which he does end up doing because of an all powerful time stopping wand that he carries around in his pocket. At any rate, this piece, in my opinion, left much to be desired overall, and even the wit of the last line couldn't fully redeem it.
-------------------------
Lovely by John Straley - Now this piece I found to be a gem among rocks. It was insightful, creative, had its own brand of creepy, and was told from the point of view of Gunk, a raven out looking for 'lovely dead things,' to eat. Now, while there isn't much more to say about it than that, the imagery and the way you are able to see the world from the point of view of a raven, which turns out to seem fairly realistic (and reminds me of the Dean Koontz novel Dragon Tears, in which a few chapters were narrated by a dog). At any rate I wholly enjoyed this piece, which surprised me to say the least.
-----------------------
The Prince by Anne Bishop. Some old favorites return, for those of you who have read the Black Jewels Trilogy, and they include Surreal, a former whore/assassin who is our narrative voice for this piece, Rainier, prince of Dharo, and finally Daemon Sadi and Jaenelle Angelline which, while being some of my all time favorite characters in the novels, and being all around fun to read about, I will refrain from going on about.
Now The Prince starts off with the murder of three Blood males, well perhaps murder isn't the right word. Surreal describes it as a slashing, the bodies torn and tattered and as Rainier says later, the heads hidden behind a screen, burned by witchfire, and oh can witchfire burn. At any rate Surreal and Rainier team up (which is great because after Dreams Made Flesh I wanted to see more of Rainier) and go a hunting for the killed, who we later find out is targeting Jeweled males simply because her consort walked out when his contract was up.
Eventually we stir in a bit off Daemon Jaenelle. Jaenelle with the ingenious illusions that lure out and 'catch' the killer, and Daemon to provide...well whatever it is that Daemon provides. ^.~ All in all, while it wasn't her best work, as a short story it did quite well, but this might just be my biased opinion speaking as the Black Jewels Trilogy still remains one of my favorite books series' ever.
-----------------------------
Fairy Dust by Charlaine Harris - Now here's an interesting little piece set in a world where vampires, fairys, and morphs are a daily occurrence, if only fairly recently. At any rate the main character Sookie, a telepath, is quite used to them in a way that most aren't, but when a frequent fairy customer Claudine comes in with a job. However when the job means meeting Claude, Claudine's brother, and trying to find out who murdered their sister Claudia (oh yes, I was loving the names when combined with the 3 or so retellings of what happened). While there isn't much more to say without giving away the ending, I'll say only what one learns from this story, the first being that Charlaine Harris is quite a good short story writer, and the second is that you'd do best not to piss off her fairies.
----------------------------------
The Judgement by Anne Perry - Now this was an interesting little marvel not for the story itself, but for the character known only as the Judge, for in this judge each person sees something different, something that sympathizes or is likened to themselves, though essentially I do believe that he is somehow able to project an image of their inner selves to him, to make them see what they want to see, which is ingenious. And of course to wrap it up, there is a wonderful little twist on the entire story in the last few lines.
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As this will get rather long if I put them all up in a single post, I will put the rest up later.