Occasionally my planned reading schedule throws up an unexpectedly appropriate pair of books to read together. and this was one of those times - both books feature palace politics in a grand fantasy world, and in both cases the main character is an illegitimate offshoot of a royal family, trained as an assassin, with the added benefit of imperfect ( Read more... )

27) Heart of Stone, by C.E. Murphy
28) House of Cards, by C.E. Murphy
29) Hands of Flame, by C.E. Murphy

( Catie's urban fantasies )

13) Walking Dead, by C.E. Murphy

This is the fourth novel in the Walker Papers (see also Urban Shaman; a novella; Thunderbird Falls; and Coyote Dreams), featuring a Seattle policewoman with mystical powers; it won't be published until next year, but mizkit kindly let me have sight of it. NB that she has been posting short stories on her livejournal this ( Read more... )

A shorter visit today.

( Read more... )

A great day at MeCon yesterday - I post these pictures and a video to make you all feel jealous that you weren't there.

( MeCon X )

40) Coyote Dreams, by C.E. Murphy

The close of the first three Joanne Walker novels by mizkit, featuring a Seattle policewoman who is also a somewhat unwilling shaman. I think that if you like Buffy, you will like these books; there are obvious parallels in the heroine's resentment of the way her mystical powers have turned her life upside down, and ( Read more... )

I am fortunate enough to read many interesting things on my friends list. Here are some of them from the last week to share with you all:

John Scalzi is right (about Catcher in the Rye).

homais in Yemen.

wyvernfriend finds wisdom in MASH.

peake on mild fame, and on online vs printed reviews.

rozk's TLS review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (spoilers ( Read more... )

24) Urban Shaman, by mizkitThe first of C.E. Murphy's stories about Joanne Walker, policewoman and reluctant gateway to the spirit world. I had previously read the next two in the series, which is certainly the wrong order; while the others are self-contained narratives, there is important back-story here which would have helped me enjoy the other two ( Read more... )

3) Thunderbird Falls, by C.E. Murphy

I regret that I haven't been able to get hold of the first book in this series. Urban Shaman sold out, apparently, even on the side of the Atlantic where it was available, which is not this one. I did at least get hold of the short story that comes between the first and second books.

The heroine of Thunderbird ( Read more... )

25) Winter Moon, by Mercedes Lackey, Tanith Lee and C.E. Murphy

mizkit is in good company here, her novella sharing covers with two of the giants of the field, all three providing fantasy stories involving the moon and winter. Cate's is also much the best of the three. The Lackey is an awfully bog-standard romance yarn; while the heroine is slightly ( Read more... )