And more books
Cuz I've gotta get done with 2013 before "2014" stops sounding weird.
We begin with a classic, Neil Gaiman's Stardust. The story begins in Wall, a small town in rural England notable for the long, low stone wall cutting it off from a large pasture. There is a single gap in the wall which is guarded continuously - if perfunctorily - by the men of the village. Every nine years, though, the guards unbar the way and the Faerie Market sets up in the pasture. For one day, people from around the world flock to Wall to shop for wonders. One market day, a young man is seduced by a beautiful slave girl. Waking from his dazzlement, he runs home and marries his sweetheart.. who is no doubt a bit put off when a baby in a basket is left at the gap in the wall for him nine months later.
The child, Tristan, grows up unaware of his unusual origins. He has a desperate crush on the most beautiful woman in the village and proposes marriage after they witness a falling star which apparently landed somewhere beyond the wall. Trying to put him off gently, she tells him that if he retrieves the star she'll grant him anything he desires. Being the melodramatic sort, he's through the gap and into Faerie by morning. What follows is a lyrically toned drama of curses, lost heirs, murderous witches, quests, and romance. Because when a star falls in our world it's just a rock, but when it falls in Faerie you get a beautiful, foulmouthed young lady of incredible magical value.
They made it into a movie a while back, and it was... different. Whether you liked the movie or not, the book is worth a try. I read it to the kid who liked it a lot.
For a total change of pace, our next entry is A Soldier's Duty by Jean Johnson. This is the first book in Theirs Not to Reason Why which is - mostly - military sci-fi. Set centuries in the future, humanity is one of a dozen of so species occupying the galaxy. Along with all the technology, psychic gifts are rare but well regulated and understood... at least usually. Ia and her family live on Sanctuary, a relatively recently colonized "heavyworld" (meaning a high gravity planet). At the age of fifteen, she developed precognitive gifts beyond anything ever before measured... and saw what was coming. Three hundred years after her own time - and well after her own death - a cataclysm was going to crash down on the galaxy which would lead to the death of, well, everybody. Exploring the myriad possible futures, she found only a tiny thread of hope... a single path which could avoid the oncoming doom and restore a future to humanity and the other species of the Milky Way. She dedicates her life to manipulating the course of galactic civilization to make sure that tiny possibility becomes reality. Among uncountable other changes, this means she needs to join the military and pursue exactly the right career.
It's an interesting premise, and on the whole the book doesn't stink. There are some awkward spots, and the author doesn't bother to explain a number of things until the second book. The core problem, though, is that Ia is just Too Freaking Good. With a few exceptions, it's hard to take her challenges seriously because she's anticipated and planned everything to such a precise degree. Plus she has a bad habit of pulling new powers out of her kitbag whenever she needs them. I'm not sad I read it, but it's hard to recommend it.
I followed that up with an Amazon recommendation, Anton Stout's Alchemystic. This is set in contemporary New York and centers on Alexandra Belarus, construction heiress and aspiring sculptor. When her brother suddenly dies, her parents pressure her into taking over the family business. She rapidly finds out, though, that her famous ancestor who immigrated to America to design skyscrapers was also a spellmason, a wizard who worked in stone. HIs most advanced achievement was a living gargoyle, Stanis, who has stood guard over her family for generations. What follows is a somewhat sloppy plot of tracking down the places her ancestor hid magic gemstones that unlock Stanis' memories while avoiding some goonish villains out to... kill her? steal her forebearer's secrets? something naughty, anyway. I found the book clumsy and fairly dull, and I won't be reading the sequel.
At A_'s insistence, I read the first two volumes of Geoff Rodkey's Chronicles of Egg: Deadweather and Sunrise and New Lands. These are set in an obfuscated Age of Piracy. Egbert Masterson - known generally as Egg - is a thirteen year old boy living on the Caribbean island of Deadweather. Deadweather is mainly a pirate port, but his father owns a fruit plantation that supplies local shipping. Egg is a bookworm in a family of illiterate and somewhat abusive boors - his father is gruffly distant, his older siblings are minor monsters, and his tutor is a sandbagging fraud. On rare occasion, the family visits Deadweather's sister island of Sunrise, an altogether nicer place. One such trip occurs because Egg's father turned up with a parchment where he has transcribed mysterious writing in one of the native languages. His attempts to get it translated result in the family meeting Roger Pembroke, richest man on Sunrise and father of Millicent with whom Egg instantly falls in love. Tragically, Egg's family is promptly killed in a ballooning accident, and Pembroke turns out not to be the prince among men he initially appears to be.
What follows is a fairly rollicking tale of attempted murder, pirates, imprisonment, escapes, more pirates, treasure hunts, pitched battles, stowaways, deathmatches, and still more pirates. It's clearly a YA series, but it's quite solid and not afraid of getting nasty. I'm looking forward to the third and final volume later this year.
Which brings us to Codex Born by Jim C. Hines, book two of Magic ex Libris. This is a return to the world of Isaac Vainio, a libriomancer who can magically extract things from books into reality. His discipline was founded - and is still run by - Johannes Gutenberg. Following the events of the first book, Isaac is supposed to be researching the nature and origin of the malevolent creatures that seem to be trying to enter the world and wreak havoc. He's also getting used to being in a romantic relationship with Lena, a dryad pulled out of an obscure science fantasy novel. Lena's species were designed as blatant wish fulfillment.. she's physically powerful but compelled to cleave to a lover for whom her entire personality will tune to become their ideal mate. Lena is trying to find a sense of independent identity by splitting her time between two lovers... being unable to fully attune, she may actually manage to be herself. In a lot of ways this is Lena's book... each section begins with what's essentially a journal entry of her detailing her life and her evolution as a person.
Isaac and Lena's personal issues are quickly trumped by a new villain. Whoever he is, he's murdering the local werewolves - who come from a host of different books and crossbreed like crazy so there are a lot of flavors - and using a form of libriomancy Isaac has never seen before. Isaac also starts to suspect that Gutenberg may know this form of magic all too well and that both the immediate mess and the greater enemy may be more of the founder's long buried sins coming back.
We'll wrap up with Jaye Wells' Blue-blooded Vamp, the last book in the Sabina Kane series. This is urban fantasy, but not the particularly good kind. Sabina is a halfbreed, daughter of a mage and a vampire. She also turned out to be a twin, her sister having been raised by mages just as she was raised by vampires. Over the course of the books, she's dealt with personal issues, her cruel and murderous grandmother, summoned a demon familiar, fallen in love, seen her twin driven mad and murdered by Cain (yes, that one - apparently the father of the vampire race via Lillith), etc. In this volume, she's off to Italy to meet Abel (not that one), the only mage known to be able to face Cain. This leads to various plots, family reunions, the odd action scene, and ultimately a trip to Irkala - an afterlife dimension for the various "dark races" like vampires and mages. It wrapped up the series adequately, but all in all I'm just as glad to be done with it.
Inauspicious an ending as that was, it is the end.
Total for 2013: seventy-six books.
This entry was originally posted at http://squidminion.dreamwidth.org/375997.html.
There are
comments there. You could add one via OpenID.
Or you can comment here if you'd rather; it's okay.
We begin with a classic, Neil Gaiman's Stardust. The story begins in Wall, a small town in rural England notable for the long, low stone wall cutting it off from a large pasture. There is a single gap in the wall which is guarded continuously - if perfunctorily - by the men of the village. Every nine years, though, the guards unbar the way and the Faerie Market sets up in the pasture. For one day, people from around the world flock to Wall to shop for wonders. One market day, a young man is seduced by a beautiful slave girl. Waking from his dazzlement, he runs home and marries his sweetheart.. who is no doubt a bit put off when a baby in a basket is left at the gap in the wall for him nine months later.
The child, Tristan, grows up unaware of his unusual origins. He has a desperate crush on the most beautiful woman in the village and proposes marriage after they witness a falling star which apparently landed somewhere beyond the wall. Trying to put him off gently, she tells him that if he retrieves the star she'll grant him anything he desires. Being the melodramatic sort, he's through the gap and into Faerie by morning. What follows is a lyrically toned drama of curses, lost heirs, murderous witches, quests, and romance. Because when a star falls in our world it's just a rock, but when it falls in Faerie you get a beautiful, foulmouthed young lady of incredible magical value.
They made it into a movie a while back, and it was... different. Whether you liked the movie or not, the book is worth a try. I read it to the kid who liked it a lot.
For a total change of pace, our next entry is A Soldier's Duty by Jean Johnson. This is the first book in Theirs Not to Reason Why which is - mostly - military sci-fi. Set centuries in the future, humanity is one of a dozen of so species occupying the galaxy. Along with all the technology, psychic gifts are rare but well regulated and understood... at least usually. Ia and her family live on Sanctuary, a relatively recently colonized "heavyworld" (meaning a high gravity planet). At the age of fifteen, she developed precognitive gifts beyond anything ever before measured... and saw what was coming. Three hundred years after her own time - and well after her own death - a cataclysm was going to crash down on the galaxy which would lead to the death of, well, everybody. Exploring the myriad possible futures, she found only a tiny thread of hope... a single path which could avoid the oncoming doom and restore a future to humanity and the other species of the Milky Way. She dedicates her life to manipulating the course of galactic civilization to make sure that tiny possibility becomes reality. Among uncountable other changes, this means she needs to join the military and pursue exactly the right career.
It's an interesting premise, and on the whole the book doesn't stink. There are some awkward spots, and the author doesn't bother to explain a number of things until the second book. The core problem, though, is that Ia is just Too Freaking Good. With a few exceptions, it's hard to take her challenges seriously because she's anticipated and planned everything to such a precise degree. Plus she has a bad habit of pulling new powers out of her kitbag whenever she needs them. I'm not sad I read it, but it's hard to recommend it.
I followed that up with an Amazon recommendation, Anton Stout's Alchemystic. This is set in contemporary New York and centers on Alexandra Belarus, construction heiress and aspiring sculptor. When her brother suddenly dies, her parents pressure her into taking over the family business. She rapidly finds out, though, that her famous ancestor who immigrated to America to design skyscrapers was also a spellmason, a wizard who worked in stone. HIs most advanced achievement was a living gargoyle, Stanis, who has stood guard over her family for generations. What follows is a somewhat sloppy plot of tracking down the places her ancestor hid magic gemstones that unlock Stanis' memories while avoiding some goonish villains out to... kill her? steal her forebearer's secrets? something naughty, anyway. I found the book clumsy and fairly dull, and I won't be reading the sequel.
At A_'s insistence, I read the first two volumes of Geoff Rodkey's Chronicles of Egg: Deadweather and Sunrise and New Lands. These are set in an obfuscated Age of Piracy. Egbert Masterson - known generally as Egg - is a thirteen year old boy living on the Caribbean island of Deadweather. Deadweather is mainly a pirate port, but his father owns a fruit plantation that supplies local shipping. Egg is a bookworm in a family of illiterate and somewhat abusive boors - his father is gruffly distant, his older siblings are minor monsters, and his tutor is a sandbagging fraud. On rare occasion, the family visits Deadweather's sister island of Sunrise, an altogether nicer place. One such trip occurs because Egg's father turned up with a parchment where he has transcribed mysterious writing in one of the native languages. His attempts to get it translated result in the family meeting Roger Pembroke, richest man on Sunrise and father of Millicent with whom Egg instantly falls in love. Tragically, Egg's family is promptly killed in a ballooning accident, and Pembroke turns out not to be the prince among men he initially appears to be.
What follows is a fairly rollicking tale of attempted murder, pirates, imprisonment, escapes, more pirates, treasure hunts, pitched battles, stowaways, deathmatches, and still more pirates. It's clearly a YA series, but it's quite solid and not afraid of getting nasty. I'm looking forward to the third and final volume later this year.
Which brings us to Codex Born by Jim C. Hines, book two of Magic ex Libris. This is a return to the world of Isaac Vainio, a libriomancer who can magically extract things from books into reality. His discipline was founded - and is still run by - Johannes Gutenberg. Following the events of the first book, Isaac is supposed to be researching the nature and origin of the malevolent creatures that seem to be trying to enter the world and wreak havoc. He's also getting used to being in a romantic relationship with Lena, a dryad pulled out of an obscure science fantasy novel. Lena's species were designed as blatant wish fulfillment.. she's physically powerful but compelled to cleave to a lover for whom her entire personality will tune to become their ideal mate. Lena is trying to find a sense of independent identity by splitting her time between two lovers... being unable to fully attune, she may actually manage to be herself. In a lot of ways this is Lena's book... each section begins with what's essentially a journal entry of her detailing her life and her evolution as a person.
Isaac and Lena's personal issues are quickly trumped by a new villain. Whoever he is, he's murdering the local werewolves - who come from a host of different books and crossbreed like crazy so there are a lot of flavors - and using a form of libriomancy Isaac has never seen before. Isaac also starts to suspect that Gutenberg may know this form of magic all too well and that both the immediate mess and the greater enemy may be more of the founder's long buried sins coming back.
We'll wrap up with Jaye Wells' Blue-blooded Vamp, the last book in the Sabina Kane series. This is urban fantasy, but not the particularly good kind. Sabina is a halfbreed, daughter of a mage and a vampire. She also turned out to be a twin, her sister having been raised by mages just as she was raised by vampires. Over the course of the books, she's dealt with personal issues, her cruel and murderous grandmother, summoned a demon familiar, fallen in love, seen her twin driven mad and murdered by Cain (yes, that one - apparently the father of the vampire race via Lillith), etc. In this volume, she's off to Italy to meet Abel (not that one), the only mage known to be able to face Cain. This leads to various plots, family reunions, the odd action scene, and ultimately a trip to Irkala - an afterlife dimension for the various "dark races" like vampires and mages. It wrapped up the series adequately, but all in all I'm just as glad to be done with it.
Inauspicious an ending as that was, it is the end.
Total for 2013: seventy-six books.
This entry was originally posted at http://squidminion.dreamwidth.org/375997.html.
There are
comments there. You could add one via OpenID.
Or you can comment here if you'd rather; it's okay.