Reviews: series
Kat Richardson, Greywalker: After a near-death experience, PI Harper Blaine can suddenly see the Grey-the other world that surrounds the living, human world. And she starts getting freaky clients, including a vampire who needs help navigating the vampire world and a strange man desperately searching for a lost parlor organ. Harper’s resistance to her new circumstances was heartfelt and no doubt realistic, but quickly got boring for me, and I just didn’t get into the worldbuilding. It felt like the author was going for early Anita Blake, but without the raw enthusiasm Laurell Hamilton used to have.
Tanya Huff, The Heart of Valor: Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr is back on what should be a creampuff assignment, accompanying rookie Marines on a training exercise as an aide to a major who’s recovering from near-total body replacement using new technology. Unfortunately, things never go that easily for Torin, who is soon forced to lead the rookies in the fight of their life-for reasons that go beyond a mere screw-up. The military culture, which involves the integration of several alien species into a single fighting force, was a lot of fun; I’m not sure about the machinations of the larger political plot, but I’ll definitely pick up the next book in the series.
Mark Del Franco, Unquiet Dreams: Connor Grey, depowered druid and Boston PD consultant, gets sucked into another investigation at the intersection of fairy and human politics. A good sequel to the first book, continuing Grey’s struggle to find a place for himself when he’s packed full of knowledge but no power and still burdened with the arrogant things he did when he was more justified in being arrogant. A little hint of romance here, but still less than Harry Dresden.
Steven Brust, Jhegaala: Vlad! Need I say more? Vlad! It’s so nice to see you! Even if you’re far from home, even if you still don’t know a crucial fact about Cawti, and even if by stumbling back to your mother’s old town you set off an incredibly destructive chain of events that is tawdry, vicious, and far from the epic battles of your youth in the Empire. I may be imagining it, but you seem to have gotten more uncommunicative and noir-ish by comparison to your florid Dragaeran counterparts who have narrated Brust’s more recent Dragaeran novels. Still: Vlad!
Tanya Huff, The Heart of Valor: Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr is back on what should be a creampuff assignment, accompanying rookie Marines on a training exercise as an aide to a major who’s recovering from near-total body replacement using new technology. Unfortunately, things never go that easily for Torin, who is soon forced to lead the rookies in the fight of their life-for reasons that go beyond a mere screw-up. The military culture, which involves the integration of several alien species into a single fighting force, was a lot of fun; I’m not sure about the machinations of the larger political plot, but I’ll definitely pick up the next book in the series.
Mark Del Franco, Unquiet Dreams: Connor Grey, depowered druid and Boston PD consultant, gets sucked into another investigation at the intersection of fairy and human politics. A good sequel to the first book, continuing Grey’s struggle to find a place for himself when he’s packed full of knowledge but no power and still burdened with the arrogant things he did when he was more justified in being arrogant. A little hint of romance here, but still less than Harry Dresden.
Steven Brust, Jhegaala: Vlad! Need I say more? Vlad! It’s so nice to see you! Even if you’re far from home, even if you still don’t know a crucial fact about Cawti, and even if by stumbling back to your mother’s old town you set off an incredibly destructive chain of events that is tawdry, vicious, and far from the epic battles of your youth in the Empire. I may be imagining it, but you seem to have gotten more uncommunicative and noir-ish by comparison to your florid Dragaeran counterparts who have narrated Brust’s more recent Dragaeran novels. Still: Vlad!