Read Recently -- November 2009 -- Urban Fantasy
Hey, remember when I used to do this? Boy, reviewing books is sooo last decade*!
It was this pile of books, actually, that slowed me down. Lots of things to say, few words to say them with. Anyway, here we go.
Sins and Shadows: a Shadows Inquiries novel by Lyn Benedict
Sylvie Lightner runs Shadows Inquiries, a private investigations firm that deals with supernatural cases. Lightner's actually not a very nice person, something which becomes important later on in the plot, but she doesn't want her friends and/or coworkers to get hurt, so when one of her investigators is killed by a group of satanists, she shuts down the company. And is in the process of packing up the office when she receives an offer she can't refuse: find the missing lover of the god of Justice. It seems that gods are real--all the gods, which makes their power a complex matter of jurisdictions. Kevin Dunne, the god in question, is part of the greek pantheon (yes, there's no god of Justice in the greek pantheon--he stole some of Hera's power, which makes his position extra precarious, since Zues is always trying to get that power back for his wife, and before that Dunne was a mortal cop) so he can't bring Lightner's dead companion back to life because the dead guy was a Christian, which would cause a war between pantheons.
The problem with this book was mostly the characters; Lightner's unlikeability I've already mentioned; as gods of justice go, Dunne's a complete incompetent whose focus on finding his lover is making lving zombies out of all the cops in the world, and whose approach to Lightner involves demanding the worship of everyone involved in any way with justice; and his lover, when we finally meet him, is a ditz whose ethics cause me some concern (more than that I cannot say without major spoilers). Oh yes, the god of justice is gay, which was actually a nice touch. I actually found myself in sympathy with the villain's aims, though not their means. Indeed, the only character I wound up liking was Lightner's surviving partner, who is immediately relegated to the background.
On the other hand, Benedict kept me reading to the end, and I think she gets some interesting between-pantheons stuff in there. That may be enough for you, but I need characters I can, if not like, at least care about, and I didn't find any here. YMMV.
Mildly not recommended.
Magic To The Bone by Devon Monk
Monk presents us with a world in which magic is common, but costly: every time you cast a spell you pay in pain: a migraine, or what have you. However, there is a way around that: you can pass the pain on to someone else, forcing an innocent to carry the cost of your working. And when this happens, Hounds are supposed to track you down and bring you to justice.
Allison Beckstrom is a Hound, but magic takes a double toll on her: sometimes, in addition to the pain, it takes some of her memory as well. She has to keep constant notes on everything new that comes into her life so that, should things go wrong, she would still be able to pick up the threads of her life. Called to the bad side of town to help a friend, she finds a teenage boy paying for someone else's magic. She recognizes the person who cast the spell instantly: it's her multi-millionaire father. She goes immediately to confront him, and threatens him before storming out. The next day he is found murdered, and she is accused. She goes on the run with a mysterious man who has just popped up in her life . . .
This is, in most ways, a very good book, and the characters are much better than the last one. But I had some real problems with the set-up, and it basically boils down to the fact that this woman's life is a real downer, and I don't think I want to read any more about it.
Mildly recommended, with a warning to avoid sequels.
Blue Diablo: a Corine Solomon novel by Ann Aguirre
Corine Solomon is a psychometric, able to gain information about people from the objects they have touched. At the start of the book, she's hiding in Mexico, running a shop and just generally keeping out of the way of anyone who might want to use her, when her former lover and partner, Chance, walks in. Chance has superhuman good luck, and the two of them used to fight crime together, focussing on the supernatural world and those who the law couldn't touch. Things got too rough for Corine and she bugged out, and Chance let her go because he's as understanding as he is good-looking. But now he needs her help, because his mother, herself something of a witch, is missing, and he needs to find her before something bad happens to her. Only a threat to Chance's mother could convince Corine to come out of retirement, because she also loves her. Soon they're back in the U.S., trying to hunt down an evil sorceror with the help of a good-looking, supernaturally-gifted cop.
And yeah, both guys start competing for Corine, which is one of the quickest ways to piss me off these days. Romantic triangles are rarely resolved well (see Iron Kissed for an example of a romantic triangle resolved well), and rarely contribute anything new to the story. And I was already pissed off by the whole, "the ex- who's gorgeous but bad for me comes back into my life and awakens my feelings for him again" thing. If you can deal with the romanticc stupidity, though, this isn't a bad book, and it gives us a supernatural world that isn't just another, "vampires and werewolves and faieries, oh my!" -set up.
But what, you ask, is a "blue diablo", and what does it do to gain pride of place in the title? It is, as xiphias is doubtless about to point out, a drink. Corine has one in a bar at one point in the story.
That's it.
Mildly recommended (yes, this was the high point of this entry).
Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews
So, why isn't the latest installment of one of my favourite series' the high point of this entry? Cause Andrews has finally managed to piss me off.
The plot basics: to help out her friends in the Pack, and also in exchange for money from the shapeshifter Saiman, Kate gets drawn into an illegal pit-fighting society and faces off against some odd and extremely dangerous opponents.
We learn more about Kate's past. We learn Saiman's secret identity. We learn how Curran came to be the leader of the Pack (pun intentional). We learn Jim's full name. We even learn approximately what year it is (2040, give-or-take).
So what, exactly, pissed me off so much? Curran. We find out that he's been breaking into Kate's apartment and watching her sleep. Yeah, that's not creepy at all. There is an attempt to explain this as shapeshifter mating practices, but that doesn't excuse it. In fact, it is made plain that he's been deliberately making shapeshifter advances towards her and not telling her what was going on all along. cissa and I have had a longtime argument over the work of Linnea Sinclair, and whether the men in her books are too "Alpha Male" or not. I say not. But Curran may have just become too alpha male for my taste.
I should also add that I wouldn't be bothered by Curran's determination to seduce if I got the feeling that he respected Kate for her abilities, but I rather get the feeling that he sees her as something to be conquered, rather than celebrated. And that I can't put up with.
Mildly not recommended, because the good stuff is there too.
* Does anybody else hate it as much as I do when someone says something like that? "That was sooo 2008!" "Here is your sign. Go sit down."
It was this pile of books, actually, that slowed me down. Lots of things to say, few words to say them with. Anyway, here we go.
Sins and Shadows: a Shadows Inquiries novel by Lyn Benedict
Sylvie Lightner runs Shadows Inquiries, a private investigations firm that deals with supernatural cases. Lightner's actually not a very nice person, something which becomes important later on in the plot, but she doesn't want her friends and/or coworkers to get hurt, so when one of her investigators is killed by a group of satanists, she shuts down the company. And is in the process of packing up the office when she receives an offer she can't refuse: find the missing lover of the god of Justice. It seems that gods are real--all the gods, which makes their power a complex matter of jurisdictions. Kevin Dunne, the god in question, is part of the greek pantheon (yes, there's no god of Justice in the greek pantheon--he stole some of Hera's power, which makes his position extra precarious, since Zues is always trying to get that power back for his wife, and before that Dunne was a mortal cop) so he can't bring Lightner's dead companion back to life because the dead guy was a Christian, which would cause a war between pantheons.
The problem with this book was mostly the characters; Lightner's unlikeability I've already mentioned; as gods of justice go, Dunne's a complete incompetent whose focus on finding his lover is making lving zombies out of all the cops in the world, and whose approach to Lightner involves demanding the worship of everyone involved in any way with justice; and his lover, when we finally meet him, is a ditz whose ethics cause me some concern (more than that I cannot say without major spoilers). Oh yes, the god of justice is gay, which was actually a nice touch. I actually found myself in sympathy with the villain's aims, though not their means. Indeed, the only character I wound up liking was Lightner's surviving partner, who is immediately relegated to the background.
On the other hand, Benedict kept me reading to the end, and I think she gets some interesting between-pantheons stuff in there. That may be enough for you, but I need characters I can, if not like, at least care about, and I didn't find any here. YMMV.
Mildly not recommended.
Magic To The Bone by Devon Monk
Monk presents us with a world in which magic is common, but costly: every time you cast a spell you pay in pain: a migraine, or what have you. However, there is a way around that: you can pass the pain on to someone else, forcing an innocent to carry the cost of your working. And when this happens, Hounds are supposed to track you down and bring you to justice.
Allison Beckstrom is a Hound, but magic takes a double toll on her: sometimes, in addition to the pain, it takes some of her memory as well. She has to keep constant notes on everything new that comes into her life so that, should things go wrong, she would still be able to pick up the threads of her life. Called to the bad side of town to help a friend, she finds a teenage boy paying for someone else's magic. She recognizes the person who cast the spell instantly: it's her multi-millionaire father. She goes immediately to confront him, and threatens him before storming out. The next day he is found murdered, and she is accused. She goes on the run with a mysterious man who has just popped up in her life . . .
This is, in most ways, a very good book, and the characters are much better than the last one. But I had some real problems with the set-up, and it basically boils down to the fact that this woman's life is a real downer, and I don't think I want to read any more about it.
Mildly recommended, with a warning to avoid sequels.
Blue Diablo: a Corine Solomon novel by Ann Aguirre
Corine Solomon is a psychometric, able to gain information about people from the objects they have touched. At the start of the book, she's hiding in Mexico, running a shop and just generally keeping out of the way of anyone who might want to use her, when her former lover and partner, Chance, walks in. Chance has superhuman good luck, and the two of them used to fight crime together, focussing on the supernatural world and those who the law couldn't touch. Things got too rough for Corine and she bugged out, and Chance let her go because he's as understanding as he is good-looking. But now he needs her help, because his mother, herself something of a witch, is missing, and he needs to find her before something bad happens to her. Only a threat to Chance's mother could convince Corine to come out of retirement, because she also loves her. Soon they're back in the U.S., trying to hunt down an evil sorceror with the help of a good-looking, supernaturally-gifted cop.
And yeah, both guys start competing for Corine, which is one of the quickest ways to piss me off these days. Romantic triangles are rarely resolved well (see Iron Kissed for an example of a romantic triangle resolved well), and rarely contribute anything new to the story. And I was already pissed off by the whole, "the ex- who's gorgeous but bad for me comes back into my life and awakens my feelings for him again" thing. If you can deal with the romanticc stupidity, though, this isn't a bad book, and it gives us a supernatural world that isn't just another, "vampires and werewolves and faieries, oh my!" -set up.
But what, you ask, is a "blue diablo", and what does it do to gain pride of place in the title? It is, as xiphias is doubtless about to point out, a drink. Corine has one in a bar at one point in the story.
That's it.
Mildly recommended (yes, this was the high point of this entry).
Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews
So, why isn't the latest installment of one of my favourite series' the high point of this entry? Cause Andrews has finally managed to piss me off.
The plot basics: to help out her friends in the Pack, and also in exchange for money from the shapeshifter Saiman, Kate gets drawn into an illegal pit-fighting society and faces off against some odd and extremely dangerous opponents.
We learn more about Kate's past. We learn Saiman's secret identity. We learn how Curran came to be the leader of the Pack (pun intentional). We learn Jim's full name. We even learn approximately what year it is (2040, give-or-take).
So what, exactly, pissed me off so much? Curran. We find out that he's been breaking into Kate's apartment and watching her sleep. Yeah, that's not creepy at all. There is an attempt to explain this as shapeshifter mating practices, but that doesn't excuse it. In fact, it is made plain that he's been deliberately making shapeshifter advances towards her and not telling her what was going on all along. cissa and I have had a longtime argument over the work of Linnea Sinclair, and whether the men in her books are too "Alpha Male" or not. I say not. But Curran may have just become too alpha male for my taste.
I should also add that I wouldn't be bothered by Curran's determination to seduce if I got the feeling that he respected Kate for her abilities, but I rather get the feeling that he sees her as something to be conquered, rather than celebrated. And that I can't put up with.
Mildly not recommended, because the good stuff is there too.
* Does anybody else hate it as much as I do when someone says something like that? "That was sooo 2008!" "Here is your sign. Go sit down."