Skunk Cat Book Reviews

Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison

2012-02-04T18:47:00.003-05:00

I've been hearing about this book for years and finally picked up a copy. And it's just as good as I'd been told. There's a long series, of which this is the first.

It's told through diary entries by fourteen-year-old Georgia Nicholson, and it's very, very funny. Georgia goes to a girls' school where they have to wear berets as part of their uniform, she has a huge cat named Angus who keeps trying to eat the neighbors' poodle, and she's crazy about a boy whose name she will eventually find out.

The story consists of small events, nothing earth-shaking, but they add up to a hilarious, surprisingly realistic account of a few months of Georgia's life. Her attitude is mostly what makes the book so funny. She's horrible in a relentlessly self-absorbed, can't-be-bothered way, but she never comes across (too much) as a jerk. That's a neat trick for the author to pull. It's a fast read, too; in fact, I read most of the book in the bath while I was getting over a cough, and I laughed so hard I coughed myself into a headache. But it was worth it.

B&N link

A Rum Affair by Karl Sabbagh

2012-01-30T19:10:00.002-05:00

Who would have guessed that the world of academic botany was such a seething cauldron of intrigue?

Karl Sabbagh, his interest sparked by an unusual line in an obituary for the noted botanist John Heslop Harrison, starts a quiet investigation of the man in order to assuage his own curiosity. What he finds shocks him: an unpublished report of an investigation into Heslop Harrison's findings, complete with allegations of fraud. In other words, some of the rare plants Heslop Harrison discovered on the Scottish island of Rum showed evidence of having been planted for the sole purpose of being "discovered."

The book is a careful, quiet account of Sabbagh's research into the allegations. He looks at the main players in detail, Heslop Harrison himself and his accuser, amateur botanist John Raven, and at the atmosphere of the time, early to mid 20th century Britain. It's not a bombastic book at all; rather, it's filled with a low-key wit.

While it's readable and interesting, it's not exactly riveting. It would have been easy to put the book down and never pick it back up. I'm glad I didn't, though.

B&N link

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

2012-01-29T20:38:00.004-05:00

It took me a while to get around to this one because the Tiffany Aching books have never been my favorite Discworld series. But I was really surprised with this one. Maybe because Tiffany's older in this one (sixteen, I think, or almost sixteen), the book has a darker, more sophisticated tone.

Tiffany Aching is the witch of the Chalk, the only witch in the area. The people are still getting used to having a witch, and Tiffany's still coming to terms with the workload and the lack of help. When the old baron dies, Tiffany volunteers to go to Ankh-Morpork to notify his son, who's gone to the city with his fiancee and her mother. But people in the big city are strangely hostile toward witches, and Tiffany keeps seeing a monstrous vision of a man without eyes--a man who hates witches and seems to be following her.

The plot isn't particularly unusual if you've read a lot of Discworld books. It's well-done, though: entertaining, funny, touching, interesting, and funny (I put funny twice because no one's more consistently funny than Pratchett). The wee free men are of course part of the story, although without as central a part as in the earlier books. And while Pratchett often has his other major characters do cameos in other characters' books, there was a lot of that in this one, including one character I was very surprised to see (no, not Death. He's in all of them).

I think this is the last Tiffany Aching book, from what I've heard. I liked this one so much that I hope I'm wrong. I'd like to see what Pratchett does next with the character.

B&N link

Gemini Bites by Patrick Ryan

2012-01-28T19:58:00.003-05:00

Kyle Renneker used to be best buddies with his twin sister, Judy, until their parents separated for a year and took one of the twins each. When the family got back together again, Kyle wanted to be friends with his sister again, but she no longer seemed to like him. Now, at sixteen, the two are constantly at each others' throats. It doesn't help that they have five other siblings, all vying for their parents' attention. When Kyle announces to the family that he's gay, he's annoyed when his sister promptly announces that she's a born-again Christian.

In reality, Judy doesn't give two hoots about religion. She's just interested in getting to know a cute football player who runs a Bible study--and it doesn't hurt that she can needle Kyle with her new-found religion. But then their parents take in high school student Garret Johnson so he can finish the school year after his parents move, and both Kyle and Judy crank up the competition. Garret is a mysterious loner who says he's a vampire. And both twins are interested in him.

I think this is what you might call the highest of all high concept novels. It's a lot of fun, too. The story is told from both twins' points of view in alternating chapters. Kyle is a nice guy, and Judy is not very nice at all--but she's an oddly sympathetic character. And Garret is fascinating.

The book is sometimes funny, sometimes sad. It's not terribly deep, but it's a sweet, fast read. The Renneker parents are a little too good to be true, though, and the last chapter wraps everything up so neatly I found it kind of unrealistic. But I really like that Kyle is so okay about being gay, and in fact is better-adjusted than his sister. The way the twins use Garret to further their own agendas is clever and funny; the way Garret uses the twins in turn is even cleverer.

B&N link

Cryptozoology, ed by Chad Arment

2012-01-27T20:41:00.005-05:00

This is a collection of essays about cryptozoological animals: animals that are unknown, or presumed extinct although the occasional unverified sighting still occurs, or known only to locals and not to scientists, etc. I love well-researched books about cryptozoology, and since Karl Shuker hasn't published anything new recently, I was pleased to find this book.

The subtitle is "The Investigation of Lesser-Known Mystery Animals," which particularly appealed to me. Who wants to rehash bigfoot over and over when you can learn about bioluminescent spiders and possible new habitats of coelacanths? (Blogger's spellcheck is freaking out at this post.)

The essays tend mostly to the scientific and are well-researched and with citations and foot/end notes, although a few that are more informal in tone. It's all readable, though, and all fascinating. The last chapter is an interesting mishmash of reprinted articles from old newspapers that need to be verified by researchers. As the editor points out, journalists from the late 19th/early 20th century sometimes made up stories of strange animal sightings to fill space. He gives tips on how to spot phony articles.

I enjoyed the book very much. If you're at all interested in cryptozoology (and why aren't you? It's fascinating!), this is a great addition to the more readily available bigfoot and Loch Ness Monster books out there.

B&N link

Beyond the Grave by Mara Purnhagen

2012-01-26T18:47:00.003-05:00

This is the last book in this series, which consists of three actual books and two novellas that take place between the books' events. I didn't read the second novella, since I found the first one weak.

I have read the other two books, though. I really liked the first one, Past Midnight, and was disappointed with the second, One Hundred Candles. Beyond the Grave has been out for a while, but I didn't buy a copy until recently because I had lost interest in the series.

The problems that I saw in the second book are still present in this one, unfortunately. Charlotte is still passive and doesn't make connections between events/people that are glaringly obvious to the reader. There's not as much of the goofy new age crystal beliefs, but there's a character who's not-a-guardian-angel-but-really-he-sort-of-is, although I think he's actually called a protector. The plot is all about Charlotte being pursued by a demonic entity (not-a-demon-but-really-he-sort-of-is).

I got really tired of Charlotte waffling back and forth about her boyfriend Noah. Noah lies to her, has stopped attending school and bathing, and admits to chronic insomnia and severe bouts of sleepwalking. He has a non-healing bruise on his neck from where the demon from the last book touched him. Yet Charlotte only worries about him intermittently, and when they're together, she convinces herself that everything's okay. This is one girl who is all ready for her first dysfunctional adult relationship.

Part of the plot concerns Charlotte's mother, who is in a coma after the events of the previous book. Charlotte's grief and uncertainty about her mother, and her relationship with her father, is more compelling than anything else in the book, eclipsing the rest of the plot and frankly making all the woo-woo ghosty stuff seem frivolous. There's also a subplot of two characters getting married, which got way too much page-time.

I like Purnhagen's writing, though. I'll be interested to see what she does next. I hope it doesn't include crystals.

B&N link

How to Learn Any Language by Barry Farber

2012-01-22T14:58:00.003-05:00

I'm trying to teach myself Irish Gaelic from language CDs, so I'm after any help I can get. I don't know if How to Learn Any Language will actually end up helping me, but it made me feel better about not retaining much of the languages I studied in high school and college.

The book is a quick read, breezy and upbeat. My edition is a bit dated (1991) and talks about language cassettes and Walkmans, the surge in people needing to learn Russian, and things like that. But the basic information is still current.

While much of the book is a cheerful insistence that anyone can learn another language, there's a lot of solid advice. While Farber says grammar is important to learn, he also stresses that having fun is even more important. Grammar shouldn't overshadow the fun. He gives lots of suggestions of methods that will increase both comprehension and enjoyment, like getting a newspaper or magazine in the language you're learning--meant for native speakers, not students--and learning the vocabulary and grammar to read the first article as a major goal. He also suggests a multi-prong approach to learning: not just listening to tapes or doing paper/pencil lessons, but making your own flashcards to study during down times, using travelers' pocket guides of phrases for quick mastery of useful phrases, and making your own language tapes (not as practical these days--one thing about cassettes, they were really easy to make recordings on without special software or equipment).

There's also a section on various major languages of the world and how difficult they are to learn and how they help you learn other languages that are similar. Farber definitely wants everyone to learn a lot of languages. Just not Celtic languages, because although there's a huge long list of the Principle Languages of the World in the back that goes on for eight pages, it doesn't list any Celtic languages. Not even Welsh. So I guess I'm on my own.

B&N link (nook book)

Detection Unlimited and Penhallow by Georgette Heyer

2012-01-19T18:53:00.003-05:00

You knew I'd be back to reading Georgette Heyer's mysteries soon. I had a couple of them on my shelves and wanted some comfort reading. Not the best choice, as it happened.

I picked up Detection Unlimited first. It was a slight, mostly fun read, just want I'd expected and no more. It's very much a typical Heyer mystery, although I wouldn't say it's close to her best. It has the usual motley cast of characters, jaunty dialogue, and baffling crime. I did guess the murderer, but not why the murderer did it; in fact, I was overthinking it, and the murderer did it for a very obvious reason. So, kind of disappointing plot-wise, but the characters were worth the read.

Then I picked up Penhallow, and my goodness was that a mistake. I wish someone had warned me. First of all, although it's marketed as a mystery, it's not. We get to witness the murderer doing the deed, and we know why and how. And it doesn't even happen until around page 300 (457 pages in my edition--a very long book). Even though by then I was baffled and annoyed at the wordiness, the grim tone, the relative lack of dialogue (jaunty or otherwise), and the slow pace, I still held out hope that Heyer would pull a twist--that the murderer would turn out to be mistaken, that Penhallow would have turned out to be murdered in some other way. But there is no twist.

The first 300 pages of the book are set-up on how monstrous Penhallow is, Penhallow being the bitchy, controlling head of the Penhallow family, and how much everyone hates him. Then he's murdered, and the remaining 150 pages are about how the family members react, and how surprised they are that they're not actually happier now that he's gone. Whee.

It's a good thing Penhallow wasn't the first Heyer mystery I picked up, because I would have missed out on a lot of her fun books.

Detection Unlimited B&N link
Penhallow B&N link

Night of the Living Deed by E.J. Copperman

2012-01-12T21:50:00.003-05:00

I'm a sucker for ghosts, apparently. In this one, Alison Kirby has recently bought an old Victorian house and has started restoring it herself. She plans to make it into a guesthouse, and she and her nine-year-old daughter Melissa will live there too. Melissa claims that someone died in the house, which Alison chalks up to her daughter's imagination. But after an accident with a ladder and a bucket of joint compound leaves Alison with a concussion and the ability to see ghosts, she has to face the fact that her daughter's right: not one but two people died in the house--recently, in fact. Last year. And they were murdered.

Alison is a likable character, often funny and always spunky. I hate the word spunky, but she is. She's just not annoying with it. The plot is pretty good and I didn't guess the murderer, mainly because I thought I'd figured it all out early and refused to change my mind despite evidence to the contrary.

The ghosts are the weakest part of the book, actually. I found them kind of annoying and not much help with the plot. I think there was supposed to be a little bit of a spark between Alison and the male ghost, but I didn't feel any chemistry between them. Alison's relationship with her daughter feels much more natural and realistic. I'm happy to see that there's a second book available and a third book about to come out. I'll probably read both.

B&N link

Rats by Debbie Ducommun

2012-01-11T20:52:00.004-05:00

This was an impulse buy and I don't intend to get any pet rats. On the other hand, if I did want pet rats, I'm set because this book is very thorough. It covers everything from nutrition and vet care to teaching tricks and showing rats. The pictures of rats (and people) are adorable, and the book is well written and nicely laid out for easy reading and quick reference.

The only thing the book doesn't have, surprisingly, is a section on different types of rats. Different breeds are touched on during various sections of the book, but I really wanted a page or two with pictures of different types of rats and some description of each.

Now I kind of want pet rats. To stop myself, I may have to glance through the section on rat diseases again.

B&N link

Specimen Song and Wolf, No Wolf by Peter Bowen

2012-01-08T17:16:00.005-05:00

Last summer I read the first book in this series, Coyote Wind, but before I could review it my mother had a stroke and I stayed in the hospital with her for a month--which is why the review, when I was able to get around to it, was so perfectly awful. I did really like that book, and I want to emphasize that now because I'm about to dump on the next two books.

Actually, the second book, Specimen Song, isn't that bad. I mostly wasn't happy with it because I picked out the murderer so easily. Basically, the murderer is the only named character who wasn't around in the first book. It was still atmospheric and I enjoyed the unusual setting: partly Montana, partly dense Canadian riverland. Main character Gabriel Du Pre is a French-Indian brand inspector who plays the fiddle and sometimes helps the sheriff out as a part-time deputy.

Then I got to the third book. I really hoped the plot would be better, and at first it seemed to be. Two extreme environmentalists are killed after cutting fences and shooting cattle, and Du Pre is depressed to think the murderer is probably someone he knows and likes--and someone he'll have to help arrest. Then more people are killed after environmentalists release wolves into the nearby mountains, and Du Pre is worried there's a serial killer around.

Unfortunately, the plot bogs down into a confusing mess. I've never read a murder mystery where, at the end of the book, I still wasn't clear on who the murderer was. It was that problem that has finished the series for me--I won't bother to read the next book--but I wasn't very happy with the writing either. The books are rather stylized and spare in style, but by the third book it was already starting to feel overdone. And on top of all that, I wasn't all that impressed by the anti-environmentalist message in the book, which bordered on the offensive at times.

It's disappointing that a series that started out so strong fell apart so quickly. I should have stopped reading after the first book.

Specimen Song B&N link (used book)
Wolf, No Wolf B&N link (used book)

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce

2012-01-02T17:19:00.005-05:00

This plot is awesome. The whole book is awesome, but the plot just takes the cake. It reminds me more than a little of a modern Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with eccentric adults and a competition that's far more than it's advertised. But...well, just look at this plot.

Liam Digby is only twelve, but he's unusually tall and has premature facial hair--just a little of it, but enough to make him look stubbly. He doesn't love being called Wolverine or being treated like he's older than he really is just because he's tall (and stubbly), but the worst part is when his mother decides he needs to make friends. He points out that he has "loads of friends. I've got twenty guild members just waiting to do my bidding" (p. 27), but his mom means real life friends, not World of Warcraft.

So Liam's sent to Little Stars drama club, where he's stuck playing the giant alongside his classmate Florida. But a funny thing happens when they hang out at the mall after the meetings: people think Liam is an adult, and Florida is his daughter. Naturally Liam pushes this as far as a Porsche test drive; but when he's mistaken for his own father and wins a competition for great dads where he's one of four dads invited to a brand new adventure park in China--and since he has to show up with a "daughter," he convinces Florida to come with him.

And that is just the beginning of the book.

Liam is smart, thoughtful, enthusiastic, and likable. He applies what he's learned in World of Warcraft to real life--with generally good results. He wants to travel and is frustrated that he lives in a town named Waterloo in Britain when he could live in the Waterloo in Sierra Leone or somewhere equally exotic. Of course he's going to head to China the first chance he gets.

What I love most about the book--and it's a hard choice, because this book is freaking hilarious as well as entertaining--is how it quietly explores what it means to be a dad. It's charming and funny, and the plot zigzags from absurdity to absurdity without anything feeling stupid. My only complaint is the crappy Americanization of Mum to Mom and football to soccer--jarring, halfassed, and needless, since I don't think there's a kid in America who would be confused by the original terms. Other terms, like crisps instead of chips and biscuit instead of cookie, aren't changed.

Anyway, I loved this book so much I may reread it pretty soon just to make sure I caught all the jokes. I also know what book I'm giving my oldest nephew for his birthday this year. Incidentally, the science in this book is good too. It's all good.

B&N link

The Exiles by Hilary McKay

2012-01-01T19:05:00.003-05:00

I first read this book about a decade and a half ago, checked out from the library, and remember being utterly thrilled by it. In fact, I remember cracking myself up repeatedly by saying the line "Must have wurrums!" over and over. And I was in my twenties then, so just imagine how utterly hilarious I would have found it in my teens.

The problem was, I forgot the title of the book (and its two sequels) and I could never find it again--not until I discovered a copy at a recent library sale. I reread it and...well, I guess I'm just an old fogy now.

The four Conroy girls are looking forward to a long summer of reading and doing pretty much nothing else. The two older ones are training the two younger ones to be independent-minded, which to the rest of the world translates to "having no manners." Their parents are definitely not looking forward to the summer, so when Mr. Conroy gets an unexpected five thousand pounds, he and Mrs. Conroy plan a kitchen remodel--and take Mrs. Conroy's mother up on her offer to civilize the girls while they stay with her in the country.

I'd mainly forgotten what little shits the girls are. They really are horrible. I wanted to smack them, even though frequently what they were doing was very funny. I don't recall feeling that way when I read the book before. But their behavior does slowly modulate during their stay, without being saccharine at all. The girls have adventures--like hunting for badgers, exploring a cave, cooking over a beach fire--that sound like they could come right out of Disney but which are given a savage (and hilarious) twist by the author: for instance, the youngest girl, six years old, decides to crawl into the badger hole to see if they're home. None of her sisters stop her.

By the end, I'd remembered why I liked the book so much originally. And the line "Must have wurrums!" really is funny. But I just couldn't warm up to the book as much as I wanted to, which means I probably won't bother to read the sequels again.

B&N link

The Unscratchables by Cornelius Kane

2011-12-28T22:20:00.002-05:00

Here's one of those weird books that don't fit into any real category. It's a hard-boiled mystery peopled (ahem) entirely with cats and dogs. Intelligent ones. That wear clothes and carry guns and walk on their hind legs and wear shoes. No, I couldn't quite get my head around it either, but the book is surprisingly fun.

Max "Crusher" McNash is a detective bull terrier who doesn't like cats--especially not Siamese, after his experiences as a prisoner of war. But when a feral cat slashes and kills two rottweilers, then follows the murders up with the bloody murder of a guard dog, the chief of police has no choice but to call in the Feline Bureau of Investigation. Crusher is assigned to work with Cassius Lap, a Siamese whose delicate, pussy-footing attitude gets right up Crusher's nose. But Cassius soon turns up evidence of a conspiracy that goes far beyond a mere serial dog killer.

As I say, the book is fun. The author obviously had a blast inventing dog-and-cat stuff for his world. I had difficulty suspending my disbelief--I mean, dogs and cats just can't walk on their hind legs very comfortably, and they can't manipulate things like gun triggers very well with paws, and why would a dog need to wear shoes anyway? But if you can get past that, the mystery is pretty good, the characters are interesting, and the writing is solid.

B&N link

Sammy Keyes and the Runaway Elf by Wendelin Van Draanen

2011-12-25T14:32:00.003-05:00

I admit it took a while for me to really get into the book--a third of the way in, actually. I almost put it down a few times. I liked the mystery of the missing dog, but I hated the tense changes (which are constant and which I found super distracting). Then the book took a few twists and suddenly I was hooked.

The twists didn't have anything to do with the mystery, which I figured out as soon as the guilty party was introduced as a character. Instead, they had to do with the sudden addition of Sammy (Samantha) Keyes thinking about her mother, her 72-year-old friend, and her mean neighbor in a way that turns the book from a run-0f-the-mill preteen mystery to a thoughtful exploration of the meanings of friendship and loss. Yes, really.

Thirteen-year-old Sammy never intended to get mixed up with the Christmas parade, she just promised to help a friend who was part of the dog calendar float. But she gets stuck taking care of the star dog, a Pomeranian who jumps through a hoop--in this case, a wreath. Everything's going well until three people dressed as Wise Men toss angry cats at the float. The dogs go crazy, and when the dust settles, the Pomeranian is missing. While searching for it, Sammy discovers an elf--okay, an eight-year-old girl dressed as an elf--who's also been missing. But the dog is long gone and its owner holds Sammy responsible, especially after the first ransom note is delivered.

Sammy is full of energy, and outgoing without being obnoxious. Although she takes some risks, I never had a "no, Sammy, don't do it argh I can't believe you're being so stupid" moment. She's smart, too. But what I like most is that she's less interested in finding the dog to get herself off the hook than in solving the mystery of why the elf keeps running away from home. And when her mean neighbor falls and breaks an arm, Sammy becomes mixed up in the moving story of the woman's life. I like the way Sammy handles herself with someone who has never been nice to her but who needs her help--and not tangible help, but the sort that requires Sammy to think about her own motivations and those of others.

I haven't read the other books in this series, but I really liked this one. I'm glad I kept reading.

B&N link

Trillions by Nicholas Fisk

2011-12-24T14:42:00.003-05:00

One of my favorite books as a middle-schooler was Monster Maker by Nicholas Fisk. I must have checked it out of the library a dozen times, and I was thrilled when I found my own copy years ago. But that was the only Fisk book the library had. A few months ago I went looking for more of his books, and the only one I could find was this one, Trillions.

I expected to love it. It's science fiction, about millions--trillions--of tiny aliens that land on earth. As far as I could guess from the text (which is not clear on their size), the trillions are about the size of a grain of sand, and while they can move and interlock, they don't do anything else. They heap up in drifts like sand dunes, occasionally join together to imitate nearby structures, and are gathered by children because they glitter prettily in different colors. The book introduces four children, two boys and two girls, and I was looking forward to seeing what Fisk would do with such a fascinating concept.

The answer: not much. The book was published in 1971, which explains (I suppose) why the boys are the ones who do things while the girls make bracelets out of the trillions and act babyish. It doesn't explain why the entire world in this book thinks banding together to obliterate the trillions with nuclear weapons is a good choice. Remember, the trillions don't actually hurt anything. There are a few small examples given of the trillions imitating rockets (although they aren't rockets) and inadvertently causing an old man to have a heart attack, and the entire world except for one schoolboy thinks that makes them enemies. There are lots of scenes of generals shouting about taking ACTION against the trillions--which do nothing, keep in mind. Also, English children are required to leave school so they can shovel up trillions into wagons and dump them in a big pile, overseen by soldiers. This continues throughout the whole book and doesn't make any sense. Nothing much makes any sense.

The main character, sort of, is a boy named Scott. Through a combination of telepathy and handwavium, Scott learns how to communicate in a limited way with the trillions. He doesn't share this information with anyone, and although I read the damn book I still don't know why he doesn't. But that's the problem with this book: it's just got an axe to grind about people ruining the environment, and the army being, I don't know, evil or something and too ready to set off those nasty nuclear weapons--which cause some fish and birds and trees to die, but don't seem to hurt people (or the environment).

Even if the plot did make any sense--and really, it doesn't--the writing is awful. The book reads like an outline, an overview. Not only that, not much happens--and when it does, it's really too late. Why didn't Scott act sooner? Well, if he had, Fisk would had had to work out an actual plot to go with his idea.

B&N link (used book)

Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton

2011-12-23T16:21:00.004-05:00

I haven't been a close follower of Kate Beaton's online comics, although I love them whenever I happen across a link. Now there's a collection of a whole bunch of them.

Beaton's a historian so a lot of her comics are about historical figures or times, but some are based on books or are just for the hell of it. They're very, very funny even if you don't necessarily know what the source material is. What's best, though, is Beaton's artwork--skillful, beautifully rendered, and funny in its own right. Her ability to convey emotion (especially fury or disgust) through expression reminds me a bit of Nicole Hollander's Sylvia comics, but with a swifter, cleaner line.

This is a good big collection. I went to bed early last night with the book, half a candy bar, and a can of Coke, and was deliriously happy.

B&N link

How to Wash a Cat by Rebecca M. Hale

2011-12-22T14:36:00.003-05:00

In the real world, if you find human remains you're supposed to let the police know about it. But this isn't the real world, it's a book world where reality has nothing to do with anything. Oh, and the author gave the main character her same name, middle initial and all.

So, two great big strikes against the book. Third strike: it's badly, badly written and its plot is a mess and the characters are all obnoxious. That's several extra strikes, actually. I have no idea why I read the whole book.

When her Uncle Oscar dies, the accountant who goes unnamed until the very last line of the book inherits his business: an antique shop full of junk. She also inherits a key shaped like a tulip. Almost immediately, she-who-was-not-named-until-the-end starts discovering weird discrepancies about her uncle's death, including the discovery that the "preliminary autopsy" was never performed on her uncle, several people showing up suddenly to give her clues left recently by her uncle "in case anything happens to me," and several other people showing up to give her veiled threats. Oh, and she has two cats.

The plot is a godawful mess, but the characters are worse. I hated all the characters; they're all over-the-top without a smidgen of likability among them all. (Well, the cats are cute.) I especially hated the nosy neighbor Monty, who fancies himself a sleuth trying to uncover the mystery of an old tunnel rumored to be on the property. I hated Monty with the white-hot fury of a thousand suns. The main character isn't any better, though. She's a real wimp, totally without gumption. She's always having dizzy spells, or feeling faint or woozy or frightened or weepy or otherwise having to sit down and plunge into a flashback. She never does anything else and she's dumb as a stump.

But the writing! My god, the writing is bad. There are so many adjectives and adverbs in every sentence that it's hard to figure out what exactly is going on. Characters fidget around constantly while they talk. If the fidgeting and the adverbs/adjectives had all been edited out, the book would have been 50 pages slimmer--and it still wouldn't make any damn sense.

B&N link

Chelsea Mansions by Barry Maitland

2011-12-21T21:58:00.003-05:00

Chelsea Mansions is the eleventh book in the Brock and Kolla mystery series, and now that I've read it I'm caught up. It was published a few months ago. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it also ended up being the final (or next to final) book in the series.

When an elderly tourist is deliberately thrown in front of a bus after leaving the Chelsea Flower Show, it seems like a motiveless murder. Then a rich Russian expat is stabbed to death in the house next door to the hotel where the woman was staying. There's no obvious connection between the two, but Brock and Kathy both want to dig a little deeper and find out what's really going on. But Brock is sidelined by a bout of what seems at first to be the flu, and Kathy finds herself butting up against MI5.

The plot is only okay, certainly not one of the best plots in this series. The subplot of the nosy Canadian scholar who pushes his way into the investigation didn't do much for me. I won't spoil who he turns out to be, but let me just say that I definitely thought of Cousin Oliver being introduced on the Brady Bunch in a lame attempt to improve viewership. It didn't work for the TV show either.

I'm very glad I've caught up on the series. I'll still continue to read Maitland--and it looks like he's got another mystery out, one not part of this series, which I may chase down eventually. But I'm not all that into his books like I was at first. When I find myself thinking repeatedly, "Well, this book isn't the best in the series," it's not the individual book, it's the whole series.

B&N link

Shelf Discovery by Lizzie Skurnick

2011-12-18T19:49:00.006-05:00

Although Shelf Discovery is tagged "The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading," the books featured are about half middle-grade and half young adult (middle grade being for younger kids, pre-teens and tweens, in case you're not familiar with the term), although a handful of books for adults are included too. It mostly consists of book reviews--not reviews focusing on the quality of the books, but on the things girls like about the books and what the books offer to girls.

And the book is exclusively for girls--or, rather, the women the girls have grown into. Almost all the books featured were published in the 1970s and 80s. I just counted, and there are 73 books featured (unless I miscounted, which is entirely possible). I was a voracious reader as a kid, but I've only read 18 of the books featured here. The selection is skewed strongly to the V.C. Andrews and Lois Duncan readers. Except for Madeleine L'Engle, there aren't many truly speculative fiction books included.

I was surprised at the omissions. Naturally there's a limit to how many books can be included in a project like this, but why cover Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy and The Long Secret but not include the third book in that trilogy, Scout? Is it because Scout has a boy as the main character? I loved it as a kid. And why do Laura Ingalls Wilder, Judy Blume, Lois Duncan, Madeleine L'Engle, and a few other authors get so many entries--added up, those four authors probably account for a quarter of the books covered.

So the book is basically a list of books the author liked (actually, there are seven contributors to the reviews, but there's a reason these reviews were chosen from the Jezebel.com "Fine Lines" column). It's certainly not a comprehensive look at different types of teen girl reads, and not meant to be. I was disappointed that there wasn't more I could sink my teeth into, though. But the reviews are entertaining and breezily written, and I did enjoy reading about some of the books I'd nearly forgotten about. I even found a few books that I want to read for the first time.

B&N link

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

2011-12-17T20:45:00.005-05:00

This book is everywhere lately. I've heard there's even a movie planned. And it does look like an interesting, unusual book so I picked up a copy to see what all the hype was about.

Sixteen-year-old Jacob has always idolized his grandfather, whose parents sent him from Poland to Wales to escape death in WWII concentration camps. Grandpa lived an adventurous life before settling in Florida, but his happiest memories are of his years in Wales, where he lived in a remote orphanage. Jacob loves the stories he tells of the strange orphans, and the photographs Grandpa still has of them, even though Grandpa's stories of escaping monsters gave him nightmares as a kid.

Then Jacob gets a frantic phone call from Grandpa, who insists that the monsters have found him. When Jacob arrives at Grandpa's house, he finds him nearly dead--and sees a tentacle-tongued monster lurking nearby. Before he dies, Grandpa gives Jacob some cryptic directives about finding the bird in the loop.

No one believes Jacob that the monsters Grandpa talked about were real. He's sent to a psychiatrist, who nearly convinces him he hallucinated the whole thing in a moment of stress. Then he discovers an old letter while helping clean out his Grandpa's house, and realizes Grandpa wanted him to visit the orphanage in Wales and track down its headmistress, Miss Peregrine.

It took me three paragraphs to properly explain the set-up. That's about a third of the book. Once Jacob gets to Wales, things move a little faster, but not much actually happens. In a more inventive book the lack of action might have been welcome. But this book isn't actually all that inventive, except for the (real) photographs sprinkled throughout the text as illustrations--that was the stroke of genius that elevates this from a mediocre younger-YA adventure to the surreal crossover fantasy it's being marketed as.

The writing is okay. Jacob isn't a very interesting character, though, and there's a big disconnect between events in Florida in the first third of the book and events in Wales in the rest of the book. I'd have really liked to see how a Florida native reacts to a Welsh summer, but beyond Jacob's passing mention that he'd never known it could be so cold in June, Jacob might as well have been Welsh himself. The plot unfolded slowly with a certain amount of tension in the mystery of the orphanage, but when Jacob discovers what's really going on it's kind of a let-down.

It took me a while to finish the book because I kept putting it down. I just couldn't stay interested in the plot or the characters. The ending is an obvious set-up for a sequel--or more probably a series, since that's how it goes these days. But I don't have the least interest in reading more about these characters.

B&N link

Dark Mirror by Barry Maitland

2011-12-13T21:17:00.004-05:00

Well, I lied. Inadvertently, of course. I really did intend to wait a while before I read Dark Mirror, the tenth book in the Brock and Kolla mystery series, but I found myself reading it after all.

The plot is good, if the ending a tad unrealistic (which is something of a trend with these books). A university student working on her doctoral thesis collapses and dies in a London library, and is discovered to have been poisoned with arsenic. Kathy Kolla is assigned the case--her first really big case as a newly promoted Detective Inspector. But while the evidence starts to point to suicide, there are some strange details that don't add up.

Brock doesn't have much to do in this one, which disappointed me. He and Suzann argue and make up. Kathy proves once again that she has terrible taste in men. Same old same old. You know, the whole reason I fell for this series was the subtle characterization, the hints that Brock and Kathy might eventually end up together. That's long gone. When I was a kid, occasionally my brother would talk me into playing chess with him, and eventually he'd corner my king so that I had no choice but to move him back and forth, back and forth as my brother repeatedly moved his own pieces to keep my king in check without quite being able to checkmate me. This series has become that kind of chess game: repetitive, nothing new happening, the characters making the same moves over and over in each book. Maybe if I'd read them over the course of years instead of months I wouldn't have noticed it quite so much, but it's really obvious and really boring.

Anyway, there's only one more book in the series that I haven't read yet. And I warn you, I'm planning a trip to the bookstore on Thursday.

B&N link

Spider Trap by Barry Maitland

2011-12-10T21:55:00.003-05:00

This is the ninth book in the Brock and Kolla series. My local B&N didn't have this one in stock when I dropped by a few days ago, so I ordered a used copy online for a buck and also bought the ebook for $9.99 +tax so I could read it right away. I'm worried that my fury at the publisher for the inexcusably piss-poor formatting of the ebook has leaked over into my appraisal of the text. Seriously, the formatting was obviously just a bad scan without any further proofing. Punctuation (especially quote marks) was missing, words were missing, parts of nonsense words were inexplicably stuck into sentences, paragraph breaks were missing or extra breaks appeared halfway through sentences. And it's not like this was a small publisher without resources. I think Minotaur Books--you know, part of St. Martin's--can afford to pay someone to glance through its ebooks to make sure they're, you know, readable before they upload them for readers to pay freaking ten bucks plus Tennessee's ridiculous almost-10% tax.

So anyway, the book itself. Meh. It started out promising, with Brock and Kathy assigned to investigate the execution-style murder of two teenaged girls in a poor neighborhood. When human bones several decades old turn up nearby, Brock is convinced there's a connection between the old murders and the new--and he has to face his own past as a detective sergeant in the neighborhood, and the unsolved cases he left behind.

Promising, yes. But in reality, the book is more about how Kathy has rotten taste in men and poor judgment when the plot requires it of her, and how Brock will not freaking break up with Suzanne but just goes back and forth without making any kind of decision. After nine books, it's getting damn old. Much of the action is summarized or observed rather than participated in by the main characters--there's a chapter and a half consisting of Brock and Kathy watching something important happen on TV. Yeah, really.

I have the next book, Dark Mirror, sitting in front of me. It too sounds promising, but I think I'm going to take a break from the series for a little while (cue cheering from our faithful readers). Maybe when I return to the last two books, I will remember why I liked the series in the first place--because frankly, after the weakly plotted and frustrating Spider Trap, I'm not eager to read anything else by Maitland.

B&N link

Nowhere Hall by Cate Gardner

2011-12-08T19:55:00.004-05:00

Usual full disclosure: Cate Gardner is a long-time online friend of mine. I admire her writing enormously.

Nowhere Hall is a short novella published this past September and no longer available as far as I know (which is why I linked to Gardner's website instead of a buy link below). It was a limited edition that sold out very quickly.

Cate Gardner's writing is hard to describe. She has a vivid style that manages to be both brisk and dreamy, with nightmarish imagery presented with an almost childlike amusement. Nowhere Hall starts with a man trying to step out into the street, and it's not clear at first whether he's just walking to work or about to commit suicide. It's not even clear if he's actually alive--and that's what I love about her writing, the way she makes you wonder what the subtext is beneath the events she describes.

Nowhere Hall is short, and follows hapless, aging officeworker Ron as he fails to step in front of a bus (maybe) and stumbles into a hotel called The Vestibule. As the setting shifts and changes like something from a dream, Ron is forced to face a person and event from his past while still looking into his bleak future. It's beautifully written, evocative, and wryly funny. Don't you wish you had a copy?

author's website

The Verge Practice and No Trace by Barry Maitland

2011-12-08T10:15:00.006-05:00

The Verge Practice is the seventh book in the Brock and Kolla series. A world-famous architect's wife has been stabbed, and the architect has vanished. His car is found by the seaside with his clothes neatly folded and a note that just says "sorry," but police aren't buying it. They think he stabbed his wife and faked his suicide, and is hiding out in Barcelona. But when Detective Chief Inspector David Brock's team is assigned the case after it's gone cold, he and Detective Sergent Kathy Kolla start exploring other possibilities.

I really liked the book up until the time when I figured the whole plot out--with a hundred pages left to go. The theme of the book is basically The Meaning of Gender, and there are so many clues pointing to what actually happened that I didn't have any trouble figuring it out. I was really disappointed, even though the book itself is interesting as always. I also hated the ending.

No Trace is the eight book. In it, Brock's team has been assigned the case of two missing girls--and almost immediately, a third girl, six years old, is reported missing from her bedroom. Her father, a modern artist who made a splash five years ago after his wife's suicide, immediately starts a new work based on the girl's disappearance--and attracts immediate attention from his fans, who swarm into the area. But Brock and Kathy think there's something fishy about the third abduction, which is so much different from the first two.

This book was much, much better than the previous couple--dark, fascinating, themed The Meaning of Art (Maitland's insistence on themes is much more subtle usually than I'm making it sound, and adds to my enjoyment of the books). I thought I had guessed the murderer and was totally wrong, much to my pleasure. The plot has a number of twists that caught me by surprise, although the clues were laid cleverly and I should have caught them. And Brock's relationship with his sort-of girlfriend takes a surprising turn, while Kathy is still getting over her recent break-up with her boyfriend. In short, this is pure Maitland and exactly what I love about his books.

I'm glad I've reached the point in the series where the books are still in print and readily available. I bought No Trace at our local B&N and I'm hoping to pick up the next book today. But I am distressed that I've only got three more books to read before I've caught up and have to wait for the next one.

The Verge Practice B&N link (used book)
No Trace B&N link

Babel by Barry Maitland

2011-12-03T21:14:00.004-05:00

I was going to wait and review this one in one post with the next Brock and Kolla mystery after I read it, but what the hell.

Babel, the sixth book in this series, is set only weeks after the events of the previous book, Silvermeadow. Kathy is on leave and working through the panic and bad dreams she's been having as a result of those events. Her supervisor, Brock, is looking into the murder of a prominent philosophy professor* at a London university. It seems possible that the murder had something to do with religious fanaticism, and clues begin to point to the local Muslim community. Before long, Kathy finds herself drawn into the case informally even while she questions whether to retire from the police force.

The plot in this one was the weakest of all the Maitland mysteries I've read so far. I waited for the twist, but when it came, it was so goofy that I was really disappointed. I was also disappointed that I guessed a major plot point from the (unnecessary) prologue and turned out to be right. I don't want to find out I've guessed right; I want to believe I'm right and learn that I totally misinterpreted the clues. I want the characters to be right, ultimately. But Brock and Kathy misinterpret someone's vague statement without questioning whether they might be wrong, and it was glaringly obvious (to me, because I guessed right) that they did so to set up the 'what a twist!' moment at the end. But it was all spoiled for me because of that damn prologue. What the hell was Maitland thinking?

I did like the interaction between Brock and Kathy in this one. I really enjoy seeing the way their lives intersect more closely as the series progresses. So I'm about to pick up book seven.

*I admit to a surge of glee when I realized a philosophy professor had been murdered in this book, and imagined him to be the same philosophy professor from The Vices, which I read and disliked recently.

B&N link (used book)

Twenty Palaces by Harry Connolly

2011-12-01T13:46:00.005-05:00

The book is subtitled "A Prequel," and it is indeed a prequel to the three books in the kick-ass Twenty Palaces series. I've thoroughly enjoyed all the books, so I was thrilled to hear that the prequel was available.

I wasn't sure what to expect, though, since the author released the book himself. I was very happy to discover that it's fully as good as the books published by Del Rey. Although it is a prequel, like all of Connolly's other books it works well as a standalone story.

Ray Lilly has just been released from prison and is going to live with his aunt and uncle. He lucks into a part-time job right away, but isn't so happy to run into an old friend from middle school. Turns out that there's something strange going on with Ray's former best friend, the guy who lost the use of his legs in a handgun accident--and Ray was holding the gun. His friend's walking again, good as new. Some people are calling it a miracle, others insurance fraud. But as Ray discovers by accident, there's some really weird stuff in the world, and his friends have stumbled into something horrible.

I really liked seeing Ray before he met Annalise, and in fact was surprised and delighted when she appeared in the book and we get Ray's first impression of her. I also like knowing how Ray made his ghost knife and how exactly he ended up as Annalise's wooden man.

Like the other books in the series, this one's a helluva ride. The action starts fast and doesn't let up. The writing is clean and to the point, without the excess of description in the first book, Child of Fire (I mention this in case some people were reluctant to pick up a book set before Child of Fire for that reason). Ray's a firmly likable guy, raw from his time in prison and trying hard to make his way in the world without falling into his old bad habits.

Right now the book's only available as an ebook ordered directly from the author (link below). [Correction: it's also available through Amazon and will be up in a few other online venues soon.] It's definitely worth the couple of bucks, and is an excellent addition to the series.

ebook buy link (directly from the author)
Amazon link

Wake Unto Me by Lisa Cach

2011-11-30T21:46:00.004-05:00

Oh, Goodreads recommendations, I love you so much and yet you recommend such crap at times.

Wake Unto Me starts off with an unnecessary prologue (aren't they all unnecessary?) so overwritten that I almost put it down right then. A lot of witches are gathered around a photo of the heroine, fifteen-year-old Caitlyn Monahan, discussing whether she is the Dark One who will fulfill an obscure prophesy that is presented in rhyming couplets. I made it to chapter one, and Caitlyn mopes around and wonders why she doesn't like the guys in her Oregon small-town high school, and decides that she's waiting on her soul mate.

The book almost lost me there too. I hate the notion of soul mates, especially in YA fiction. Look, there are seven freaking billion people in the world; I think there's a possibility more than one of them might be a good match for any given person.

But I was reading for the ghost, and despite the horrible, gushy writing I was interested to see what happened next. Caitlyn is offered a full scholarship to an exclusive girls' French boarding school--because the witches who run the school want to scope her out and see if she's the Dark One, but she doesn't know that because she never reads prologues. She leaves her dreary Oregon days behind and flies to France, where her roommate turns out to be a princess and the school is in a thousand-year-old castle. But Caitlyn has always had trouble with bad dreams, and she doesn't leave the nightmares behind the way she hopes. On the other hand, she dreams also of a handsome young Italian man named Raphael who once lived in the castle--dreams so compelling that Caitlyn wishes she could stay in them.

The book gets into its stride after a few chapters and settles into a less overblown style. Caitlyn is bland but not repellent. She likes to draw and has small triumphs and miseries as part of school--nothing compelling, but it's not precisely dull either. I'd have liked to get a better feel for what it's like to go to a boarding school where all the students are from different countries, but let's face it: the story is all about Raphael. Everything else is background.

Unfortunately, the scenes with Raphael are the weakest in the book. Caitlyn is smitten, but I found Raphael not much more interesting than she is. There's a confusing mystery about a heart as the main part of the book and Caitlyn and Raphael work to solve it while they're together in Caitlyn's dreams (there's a not-at-all-explained timeslip going on and she's visiting Raphael in his own time rather than him being a ghost in her time). He is, of course, her soul mate. Never mind that they don't know each other at all, never mind that Caitlyn's mooning over Raphael focuses entirely on his physical looks: they're soul mates!

I want to see Caitlyn's take on soul mates when she's an adult, rather than a sheltered fifteen-year-old.

I'm probably being too harsh; the book kept me interested, if not riveted. It has a nifty take on ghosts, even if the explanation is so convoluted that it makes no sense at all. I saw the ending coming a mile away and all I can say is, good thing that other guy turned out to be handsome. If he hadn't, I wonder how Caitlyn's ideas about soul mates would change.

There are some real problems with the book beyond the goofiness and confusion of its plot, though. The school-and-nightmares plot is geared toward younger YA or tweens. The Raphael-in-Caitlyn's-dreams plot has a much more mature feel--not just the content, where Caitlyn and Raphael make out a little in very romance-paperbacky style, but the characterizations. Nothing about Caitlyn's personality (such as it is) suggests that she can flirt with any sophistication, but she can when she's with Raphael. For that matter, the first two chapters feel like they were written by a fifteen-year-old--I may not love those chapters, but they do feel authentically teenagery, Mary Sue content and overblown prose included. The rest of the book does not. Also, Caitlyn doesn't have any real problems adjusting to her new school; there's one girl who's kind of bitchy, but not really mean, and Caitlyn embarrasses herself at her first riding lesson and doesn't do well in French, but if you took the timeslip dreaming out of the story, there wouldn't be much left. There's very little tension in the book, too much exposition, and wildly uneven writing.

Oh, and I was promised a ghost. I did not get a ghost. I feel cheated.

B&N link

Ghosts of the World by Diane Canwell and Jonathan Sutherland

2011-11-27T21:17:00.005-05:00

Here's a sample line taken from Ghosts of the World, pretty much at random: "Lying in bed one night, he was awoken by a loud noise, causing him to leap from his bed and go to investigate." (page 226) I can't find anything to indicate that the book has been translated, but maybe the authors are non-native English speakers. That's all I can figure. Their contorted, often disjointed and confusing prose sure makes it hard to appreciate the book. (Unless, of course, you treat it as a nonfiction The Eye of Argon.)

Most of the articles about ghostly sightings are short on details, too. I didn't expect more than a surface view of ghosts--just a fun book to spook myself with when I can't sleep at night--but this one's incredibly vague. It's full phrases like "sounds have been heard" and "the ghost was seen," without names or dates or anything, you know, interesting.

Here's another priceless butchering of the English language: "What had happened was that they had moved back to a past time dimension, then forward, returning to the present." (page 119) Oh, and this gem: "A friend of hers, Katharine Macquoid, saw her standing at the bottom of her bed and was puzzled as to why this had occurred." (page 137) And this confused mixture of specific detail and total vagueness: "It is allegedly linked to at least 13 deaths, and one of the new owners was in fact injured in a hunting accident the very next day, necessitating his arm being amputated, while the other vanished in a mysterious way and was never seen again." (page 37) Or this deceptively clear sentence: "The officers thought it was a throwback to a past event, but on closer investigation found it to be a ghostly repeat of what had happened 60 years before." (page 238)

I could quote from this book all day.

On the other hand, the photographs are lovely and some of them even have something to do with the text. This is the kind of book you shelve in the spare bedroom for insomniac guests to flip through.

B&N link

The Bippolo Seed by Dr. Seuss

2011-11-25T21:42:00.002-05:00

The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories is a collection of some of Dr. Seuss's work published in magazines. Most appeared within a few years of 1950.

Although the stories are all intended for children, this collection is obviously meant more for adults. It's got a long introduction telling about the stories and about Dr. Seuss's career mid-20th-century, and the text of the stories is dense on the pages. There aren't as many illustrations as there would be if the stories had been originally published as books, but the layout could have been made easier on the eye. New readers may have trouble with it as a result.

The seven stories themselves are charming, the illustrations prime Seuss. They're good enough that you don't need to be a Dr. Seuss completist to want the book.

B&N link

The Vices by Lawrence Douglas

2011-11-24T20:50:00.004-05:00

Everything about how this book is being marketed and reviewed suggests a literary murder mystery. Look, people, it's not a murder mystery. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have bought it; but once I bought the damn thing I felt compelled to read it.

Philosophy professor Oliver Vice disappears from the deck of the Queen Mary II during a storm, presumably as a result of the sea and weather, but there is a suggestion that he committed suicide. His friend, the unnamed narrator, discusses Oliver's life in 343 detailed pages, questioning who Oliver really was.

This is supposed to be a darkly, bitterly witty book. The narrator is unreasonably besotted with Oliver, whom he repeatedly describes as being noble in his suffering. It's supposed to be amusing that Oliver's suffering is due entirely to his being so neurotic and self-absorbed that he can barely function normally; and it's also supposed to be amusing that the narrator comes out with lines like "My father may not have been a brain surgeon, but it wasn't for any lack of smarts; when he entered the service at eighteen, he scored a stratospheric 152 on the army's IQ test" (p. 148). But every time the narrator showed himself to be unaware that he was such a buffoon, I cringed--for the author.

There's a hint, around the two-thirds mark of the book, that the narrator may not even be real--that everything we're reading may be false, a fantasy created by Oliver Vice himself. That would certainly explain why the narrator apparently looks very much like Oliver, and it would explain why the narrator is intelligent and yet profoundly stupid. It would certainly explain why the narrator is so obsessed with Oliver. What it would not explain is why the author bothered.

The entire book is about identity--self-identity and the identities that we invent and show others. Not much happens in the book, which is mostly the narrator mulling things over and occasionally having a conversation. I actually do enjoy this sort of book occasionally (that is, when I'm not expecting a murder mystery), but only if the writing blows the top of my head off. The writing here is nice, moving along facilely if not deeply, but the book is far too long and not clever enough to really explore the issues it presents.

It also doesn't know where to end. The story ends on page 339 but doesn't stop until page 343.

B&N link

Silvermeadow by Barry Maitland

2011-11-23T16:03:00.005-05:00

Yeah, well, I couldn't help it. I picked up the fifth Kathy and Brock (or Brock and Kolla, depending on what edition you buy) mystery. What can I say, it was right there and I needed something to read.

In this one, a teenaged girl has disappeared from Silvermeadow, a huge shopping mall, right before Christmas. Since Brock's old nemesis North, a bank robber responsible for the murder of several cops, has been spotted at the mall also, Brock arranges for his team to move in, ostensibly to investigate the abduction but actually to find out more about North's movements and plans. Then the missing girl's body turns up--crushed by the mall's trash compactors and wrapped in plastic--and Kathy uncovers rumors that other girls have disappeared from Silvermeadow.

A lot of Silvermeadow, particularly the first section, is told from Brock's point of view. I like that since Kathy's been the focus in the last couple of books. I like both characters, and I love their interaction in this book, subtle though it is. The plot is good, although not as tricksy as the other books in the series.

I wasn't as keen on the fact that Kathy delays following up on several important clues just because she's having an affair with another character. Since when does having sex make someone stupid? One of the things I like about Kathy is that she catches stuff no one else does, not even Brock, but she's not portrayed as very perceptive in this one.

I've ordered the next two books, though. Because apparently they're made of crack.

B&N link (used book)

Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi

2011-11-18T15:20:00.003-05:00

Fuzzy Nation is a fast, fun read--much more fun than I expected. Jack Holloway is a contractor for ZaraCorp, and a wiseass. Everyone likes his dog, though. Jack's in prime position to become a multi-millionaire--even a billionaire--after he discovers a motherlode of sunstones on a planet he's prospecting for his employer. Then he discovers something else, a species of animal native to the planet that he calls fuzzys. The trouble is, the fuzzys may be more than just animals. And if they're sentient, Jack's billions may go up in smoke--along with the fuzzys themselves.

The writing is easy, confident, and fast-paced. It's also frequently funny. The fuzzys are appealing as well as believable SF creatures, and no one I know of writes dogs as well as Scalzi does. And there are moments in the book when I wanted to jump up out of my chair, do a fist-pump, and shout, "YES!" It's a really fun book.

In tone, Fuzzy Nation is very similar to Scalzi's Agent to the Stars, which I read earlier this year and liked okay. But the flaws in that book are not found in Fuzzy Nation, which has a tighter, more believable plot. I really need to read some of Scalzi's other books, because at this point I'm wanting to say that he basically only has a few characters and he recasts them over and over, but I'm probably wrong. This one just feels an awful lot like Agent to the Stars.

I thought I'd read Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper when I was a kid, the book on which Fuzzy Nation was based, but I must be wrong because nothing about Scalzi's book rang any bells. I'm probably thinking of a different book. After reading Little Fuzzy, though, I'm definitely keen on reading Piper's original story to compare the two.

B&N link

The Chalon Heads by Barry Maitland

2011-11-16T15:38:00.006-05:00

The Chalon Heads is the fourth book in the Brock and Kolla series. I hadn't intended to read it right after the third one, but I couldn't stop myself. I've got the fifth book lined up but will try to control myself.

I didn't wholeheartedly love the third book, but The Chalon Heads was much stronger. Kathy Kolla and David Brock are called in to investigate the kidnapping of a rich stamp collector's young wife. The ransom notes each come with a rare stamp cut in pieces. The trouble is, the stamp collector is well-known to Brock as a tricky, manipulative man with an unsavory past. He and Kathy don't know how much they can trust him about anything, even the kidnapping.

The plot is clever, if not as intricate as some of the previous books' plots. I loved the uncertainty about what crime has actually been committed and who is actually the victim. And there are a few twists in plot and character that really surprised me, in a good way--and even more revelations at the very end, which I expected (but still didn't see coming). It's a great mystery.

The theme of sexism does keep popping up in the series. I appreciate this, especially since it doesn't take over the books. I do wish that it was more realistic, though. If sexism in real life was as blatant as it is in these books, it would be easy to call people on it. But it's fiction, and fiction exaggerates.

While I did enjoy the book, at three times during particularly fraught scenes the narrative switches to present tense. I'm sure Maitland did this to make the action more immediate. But OMG, I was so frantically furious at being thrown out of the story by a tense change during the juiciest parts of the book! I really, really hope that this was a one-time experiment and doesn't pop up in the other books.

B&N link

All My Enemies by Barry Maitland

2011-11-10T19:53:00.004-05:00

This is the third book in the Brock and Kolla mystery series, and while it was still good, it's much weaker than the previous two. Detective Sgt. Kathy Kolla starts her new job at New Scotland Yard's Serious Crime Division, working directly with DCI David Brock, and is immediately assigned to the violent murder of a young woman. As Kathy investigates, she finds connections between the woman's murder and a series of other brutal murders, all of them connected oddly with the theatre.

The plot was good, but not great. It relied a bit too much on coincidence and I didn't really buy the reasoning behind the murderer's actions. On the other hand, I was positive I had the whole plot figured out and I turned out to be 100% wrong.

The writing is still dense, but I found it a much faster read than the first two books. Maybe I'm just getting used to Maitland's style. There are a few short passages from other characters' points of view, but the story is almost completely told from Kathy's point of view, which I prefer. But although it's a 'Brock and Kolla mystery,' the two characters interact very little. Kathy barely thinks about Brock. I was disappointed since a big part of my interest in the series is the subtle development of the relationship between the two characters. Also, Brock scratches his beard so much in this one that I wondered if he had a skin condition, or fleas.

B&N link

Snuff by Terry Pratchett

2011-11-09T14:56:00.003-05:00

This is the 39th Discworld novel. Holy cow! It's also a Sam Vimes book, a subseries which is probably my favorite. (If you want to start reading Pratchett but don't know where to start, Guards! Guards! is the first book with Sam Vimes as a main character, and it's also an excellent starting point for the Discworld and Pratchett as a whole.)

Sam Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, is on his first holiday, much against his will. His wife Sybil insisted on taking him and Young Sam (who is six and enraptured with a series of children's books about poo and other gross stuff) to the Ramkin family estate in the country. Vimes expects to be called back to the city at the last second by an emergency, but it never materializes. But once in the country, he doesn't have to dig very far to discover something disturbing going on--something to do with the local goblins.

The last Discworld book, Unseen Academicals, dealt with the Ankh-Morpork class system from the bottom up. Snuff deals with it top-down, with Sam Vimes--a gutter rat turned duke--typically uncomfortable having to play the country squire. It's a fascinating book with an excellent plot, but I did think it was a bit too talky. Vimes talks and thinks too much about what the class system means. It slows the action down, makes the book longer than it really needs to be, and becomes slightly repetitive.

That's not to say it's a bad book at all. Vimes is his usual pugnacious, hardheaded self, grimly determined to solve a murder and a disappearance. His relationship with Sybil is quietly touching (and funny), and Young Sam is awesome in his singleminded pursuit of new friends--no matter what they look like--and poo for his poo collection. The goblins are a great addition to the creatures of Discworld, with a fascinating religion and good reasons why they haven't cropped up in the series before now.

Unlike most of Pratchett's books, this one is told almost exclusively from Vimes's point of view. As a result, it doesn't have the huge scope of many Discworld books. I would have liked to see more directly what happens to Fred Colon, since a lot of his subplot happens off-page. But Vimes is a great character and certainly fun to spend time with.

B&N link

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

2011-11-06T21:23:00.003-05:00

The True Meaning of Smekday starts off as an essay written by Gratuity (her friends call her Tip) Tucci as a class assignment, but Tip has a big story to tell and keeps writing even after her essay is finished.

Tip's story happens after the aliens--the Boov--landed and defeated Earth pretty handily. The Boov have decided they want most of the Earth to themselves, so they're moving the humans to colonies. Everyone in America, for instance, has to go to Florida. Tip's mother has been kidnapped, possibly killed, by the Boov, but Tip hasn't told anyone. Rather than go in the alien ships with most people, Tip gathers up her cat, named Pig, and decides to drive from Pennsylvania to Florida. She's a good driver for an eleven-year-old.

But she hasn't gone far when she's shot at by the Boov and wrecks her car. While she's trying to find food at an abandoned convenience store, she encounters a Boov who doesn't try to kill her. In fact, he's friendly. He fixes her car and asks for a ride. She agrees reluctantly, and the book takes off as she and the Boov, who calls himself J.Lo in the mistaken idea that it's a really common name, head for Florida together.

This kind of book could be hideously depressing, but it's not. It's funny--deeply, brilliantly, cleverly funny. And this kind of book could also be hideously moralizing, but it's not. Despite the importance of the message of tolerance and understanding, and the clearly drawn parallels between the Boov's relocation of humans and the forced relocation of Native Americans, the book never preaches. In fact, in one scene, a white character tells Tip they will be taking the local Indian reservations back since "we need that land." Just about any other author would have given in and had a mini-lecture, or just had Tip rant. Instead, Tip gets icily furious, doesn't say a thing, and leaves. Readers are left to make their own conclusions.

I also like that Tip herself is of mixed race. She doesn't make a big deal of it, but it comes up a few times. Tip's relationship with J.Lo is the real strength of the book, though. Their dependence on each other, their cautious trust and growing friendship, were all beautifully done and funny as hell.

It's a long book, but I never minded. I enjoyed the whole thing. The ending was maybe a little too pat, but it worked. And the book is illustrated brilliantly by the author, including some comics that tell some of the history of the Boov. They're funny too.

B&N link

Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell

2011-11-01T21:51:00.003-04:00

It took me a while to get into this book. At first the studiedly arch tone really put me off, despite the clever humor. I couldn't imagine wanting to read an entire book written that way.

Then I got to the second chapter, which is mostly related through a letter from one of the characters to the others. Suddenly the whole thing clicked and I was enjoying the book. So if you try this one and don't like it, at least give it two chapters.

It's an oddly constructed murder mystery in some ways. The murder takes place in Venice, but the main character--dry Oxford don Hilary Tamar--never leaves London. Hilary is spending a month out of the summer housesitting for a friend and doing research, but what she's really doing is hanging out with a bunch of young lawyers, many of them former students of hers, while they themselves are spending as many working hours as they can get away with drinking coffee, visiting restaurants, and gossiping. One of the bunch, Julia, is on holiday in Venice. Ostensibly she's part of an Art Lover's tour, but really she's there to seduce someone attractive. When a handsome young man turns up dead in her bed, she's the only logical suspect. It's up to Hilary and her vapid friends to figure out what really happened.

The book is witty, sometimes self-consciously so but always with a tongue-in-cheek feel. The characters banter incessantly, which is part of the fun. And the plot, while a bit far-fetched, is well-constructed and a good mystery. I didn't figure out who the murderer was--in fact, my guesses were all way off.

I should also point out the awesome cover illustration by Edward Gorey. I actually owned this whole series at one point back when I had a huge Gorey collection, but I never read the books. It's too bad I didn't keep the others, because I think I'll read the rest of this series eventually.

Powell's link

God, No! by Penn Jillette

2011-10-31T04:25:00.003-04:00

This was a total impulse buy. I just got paid and I was in the book store, saw a book by Penn Jillette about atheism, and thought, "Hey, sounds fun!" I was expecting an interesting, thoughtful, funny discussion of Penn's atheism and how it's affected his life.

Unfortunately, the book is a mess. I wouldn't mind that so much since a lot of the anecdotes are really funny and I don't mind rambling text if I'm being entertained. But there's almost no content. Occasionally he'll make a stab at explaining his views on atheism, but he's too easily distracted from the topic. Any points he brings up are lost in the bluster and noise of his writing style.

I started the book being open to his views; I'm certainly sympathetic to anyone who rails against lies and ignorance, whether I agree totally with them or not. And I've always thought Penn was a clever guy. But by the end of the book I was so turned off by his personality that he could have told me I needed to breathe air to live and I'd have thought, "You are so full of shit."

For someone who states repeatedly that people are mostly good, he sure hates a lot of people. He spends page after page trashing individuals who've slighted him in the past--sometimes decades before. Let it go, man. Geez. Women he's angry with he calls cunts, and women he's not angry with are pretty much 100% in the book so he can mention having had sex with them.

In short, it's a wankery of a memoir, not at all what I expected. I was disappointed, since it's not entertaining enough as a memoir and not intelligent enough as a discussion of atheism. I was particularly turned off by his increasingly ranty political essays, which were so weird that I wonder if the book fell through a wormhole from another dimension.

Although Penn's obviously dying to infuriate people who don't agree with him--he repeats himself when he gets sacrelicious, which makes me think he uses the same phrases a lot to shock people--there actually isn't much criticism of any religion except Islam, which he loathes with a white-hot passion. Christianity? Oh, well, his dad was a Christian and his dad was great. Judaism? Oh, well, isn't it weird that Jews can't eat bacon? That's pretty much it for religion. He doesn't even talk much about atheism beyond some generalities and a chapter on how Santa Claus is a stupid concept.

I can't imagine many atheists finding God, No! very interesting--there's just not enough substance. I suppose people who think they're fighting the good fight against atheism might pick up the book to see what their enemies are up to, but they'll be disappointed too. Unless they're really prudish about swear words, of course. Then they can get righteously angry.

B&N link

Skunk Cat Book Reviews turns two!

2011-10-29T19:32:00.003-04:00

Happy birthday to us! Skunk Cat Book Reviews turns two today. In the last year we've reviewed 112 books--one more than in our first year. So just projecting forward, next year we'll probably review 113 books.

Thanks to all our readers, and thanks to those authors and publishers who contact us asking if we'd like to review their books. Um, I don't reply to most of those emails because we get a billion of them. But we love you anyway.

Here's to another year!

Dracula by Bram Stoker

2011-10-28T22:06:00.002-04:00

I've read Dracula many times, but not recently. I picked it up this week to reread.

I'd forgotten what a remarkable book it is. It's an epistolary novel, told mostly by entries into various characters' diaries, and by letters between the characters. I watched the 1931 film version last night with Bela Lugosi, which was a lot of fun but no closer to the story than any other film version I've seen; so if you haven't actually read the book, you don't really know the plot.

Solicitor Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to finalize the sale of a London residence to Count Dracula. Dracula is creepy as hell, incidentally. He keeps Jonathan a prisoner once the papers are signed and sent back to England, but Jonathan escapes--but not before Dracula has left for England along with fifty boxes of graveyard earth. Meanwhile, Jonathan's fiancee Mina goes to visit her friend Lucy in Whitby, where a ship runs ashore in a storm--a ship with no one left alive except a large dog, which flees in the night and is never seen again. Lucy begins to sleepwalk at night, to Mina's distress, and to lose health and vitality, growing paler and paler. Also, Renfield the madman who eats flies; Van Helsing the Dutch doctor who is first to accept what's going on; and a cast of millions, including wolves, bats, and rats.

The first part of the book is my favorite, where the characters are still figuring out what Dracula is and how much danger they're in from him. The characters talk way too much, as was the style of writing in those days, until I get impatient and start to skim. But the plot is fascinating and creepy. I've never been all that fond of the last third of the book, which is basically a slow-motion chase, but the ending is satisfying.

I own two editions of Dracula, the nice hardback illustrated by Edward Gorey that my mother gave me, and a battered Wordsworth Classics edition published in 1993, which is the one I actually read (it's lighter and I don't care if it gets torn up). The text is in the public domain, so you can find copies everywhere.

New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear

2011-10-25T21:32:00.003-04:00

I'm in the mood lately for denser fiction, which makes Elizabeth Bear perfect. She packs a lot into her sentences, and they take concentration to unpack.

Until this one I've never been able to finish a book by Bear, actually, because I just don't like her characters and she's so damn depressing. The main characters in New Amsterdam are more likable than I expected, although I never felt very close to any of them. And I admire her often-elegant prose enough to overlook the grim tone of her writing in this book.

Each chapter of New Amsterdam is more or less standalone, with a murder to solve in each and bigger events that arch from chapter to chapter and tie the book together. There's a term for this kind of novel, but I'm damned if I can remember it. It's set in the last year of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th, in an alternate history where magic exists--as do vampires and other such creatures. The vampire Sebastien de Ulloa whiles away his empty years by helping solve crimes; sorceress Abigail Irene Garrett is a magical crime investigator for the crown in New Amsterdam.

Despite the murders and solutions--which get more complex as the book progresses--the book is not at all plot-driven. Its real purpose is to explore the meanings of love and loyalty. Sebastian is old enough that he's lost all purpose in life (or undeath) except his love for his protege Jack Priest; Abigail Irene has affairs with married, and powerful, men who don't deserve the loyalty she offers them. It's bleak, frankly. Bear's characters never feel joy.

I appreciated the writing, as I said, and the story kept me interested. I didn't love the ending, which felt abrupt--the book didn't so much end as just stop. There's a sequel, Seven for a Secret. I might read it.

B&N link (ebook)
Powell's link (used book)

The Marx Sisters and The Malcontenta by Barry Maitland

2011-10-20T15:14:00.004-04:00

These are the first two of a series. If I can chase down the third and fourth, expect to see review of them pretty soon. They're excellent. The first book was published in 1994, and the eleventh is being released next week. It looks like the second book is out of print. I found mine at a used book store.

The books are densely plotted, clever murder mysteries with two main characters, Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla of the Metropolitan Police--that's London--and Detective Chief Inspector David Brock of Scotland Yard. Their careers intersect in the first book when Brock is assigned to help Kathy on her first murder investigation. An old woman has died under questionable circumstances--the coroner isn't completely convinced it was foul play, but not completely convinced it was natural causes. Kathy is certain something fishy is going on. She and Brock piece together a profoundly complicated (and thoroughly satisfying) mystery.

The second book takes place about a year after the first. Kathy's been assigned to investigate a suicide at a health spa--but she and the coroner are pretty sure it was murder. But when she's abruptly taken off the case, which is then closed and labeled a suicide, she seeks out Brock for his advice. Again the mystery is complicated and satisfying.

I've seldom come across mysteries--or heck, any books at all--as well plotted as these. I had no idea who the murderer was or why he/she did it. The clues are planted deftly, the red herrings are all important to the overall story, and there are multiple motives. While I enjoyed reading the books and the fairly dark (sometimes claustrophobic) tone is lightened by flashes of low-key humor, they also took some concentration--although I never felt like I was trying to hold a timetable in my head.

The main characters are likable for the most part. They're hard to get to know. It's obvious the two feel some interest in each other, but their relationship moves very, very slowly. I like that. It's a nice change from so many mystery series where the main characters are starting to grope each other before the first chapter's over. I'm really looking forward to seeing how Kathy and Brock interact in the other books.

Like the subtle characterization, the pacing is slow and sometimes bogs down under its own weight. The first book had a lot of lengthy exposition which was mercifully absent in the second; but a big chunk of the first section of the second book is told in flashback as Kathy relates the events of her investigation to Brock, and a big chunk of the second part is Brock investigating on his own, after he checks into the health spa as a patient. I didn't mind the slow pace; it too is a nice change, and enough happens that it kept me interested and reading. I only caught myself skimming toward the end of both books, when I got impatient with having to read lengthy descriptions when urgent stuff was happening.

Murder mysteries in the 90s were big on having themes--usually social issues that the writer addressed as part of the plot. These two books are sort of like that, although I'm not sure Maitland was doing it on purpose or if it just fell out that way. The Marx Sisters seems to have the theme of Infidelity, while The Malcontenta seems to be about Sexism. I didn't notice the themes until the second book, when Kathy's investigation is shut down and she seeks help from Brock, and then I thought back and realized the first book had a theme too. Like I said, Maitland may not have intended these to be themed books, and the themes may very well run throughout the rest of the series. The only reason I really bring it up is because of a few lines in The Malcontenta which really, really bothered me.

Kathy has been explaining the situation to Brock, and here are a few lines of him mulling things over: "[H]e was concerned at her obvious antagonism towards Tanner, Beamish-Newell and Long--all of the main male characters in her account so far, apart from Dowling, whom she seemed to be mothering. He worried whether she was being objective enough in her assessments." (page 53 of my edition) It seems like an odd thing for him to wonder about, particularly under the weird circumstances of the case. And it didn't go anywhere: nothing to do with the main plot, nothing to do with the subplots, no further developments along those lines in Kathy's relationships with male characters in the rest of the book. So basically Brock just shows that despite his affable and polite appearance, he's actually deeply sexist himself and is ready to discount his colleague's account because she's female and can't handle working alongside males. It made me like him a lot less, and also made me hypersensitive to how Maitland, a male author, portrays Kathy, a female character. But Kathy is a believably strong woman, so I'll give Maitland the benefit of the doubt--although Brock had better not start spouting more of that kind of shit in the next few books or I'll drop the series.

Anyway, all that aside, I did really enjoy the books. I'm hoping the next ones are available as ebooks so I can start reading the third one tonight.

B&N link The Marx Sisters
B&N link The Malcontenta (used book)

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

2011-10-16T21:23:00.004-04:00

I've been meaning to read this book for years, and fate kindly intervened at DragonCon this year when I won a copy at a panel. The series is so popular that it seems pointless to review it, but I review everything I read here.

I was disappointed, actually. I found the plot predictable, the book overly long considering how little actually happened, and I thought Percy was kind of dumb for not figuring out who was betraying him when it was pretty damn obvious. The characters are flat, and I never got any sense of real friendship between Percy, Grover, and Annabeth.

Still, the story moves along briskly despite its length. Some of Percy's adventures are amusing or clever, and would probably seem a lot fresher if I were eleven years old and hadn't read all the books I've read. There were some really funny lines, too, and I did like Percy's relationship with his father (although his mother was such a marshmallow I found it offensive).

But you know what really annoyed me about the book? Grover, who is a satyr, eats tin cans. Goats don't eat tin cans. Mammals of any kind, whether real or mythological, cannot eat metal and live. Yes, it was played for laughs, and yes, it's in a book about gods that are real so it's not like it's a natural history story, but it's still stupid. And I dislike stupidity in the books I read.

B&N link

A Puzzle in a Pear Tree by Parnell Hall

2011-10-11T22:30:00.003-04:00

Someone gave me this book or I'd never have read it. I was given the first book in this series years ago and couldn't finish it. These are terrible, terrible books. I suspect no one ever buys these books for themselves; they're only ever given as gifts.

This is the fourth book in the "puzzle lady" series. In this case, the puzzles are acrostics rather than crosswords. There are three or four of them in the book to solve, but if you don't want to bother the solutions are given a few pages after each puzzle. The puzzles are pretty good.

The writing, however, is awful. Every character speaks alike except for the "Scotland Yard" detective, who is so cheesy-fake-British that it's embarrassing. Author Parnell Hall uses the words wanna, gonna, gotta and so forth all the time, so that all his characters sound like they're speaking with mouths full of mashed potatoes. And his prose tics, such as leaving the conjunctions out of compound sentences, are so constant they started to get to me within a few pages--and even show up in dialogue.

The plot isn't all that great either. Cora Felton is taking part in the local Christmas play, as is her niece Sherry and pretty much everyone else in town as far as I can tell. When someone leaves an acrostic that, when solved, implies that the leading lady is in danger, Cora swings into action. Well, okay, she doesn't. For reasons no doubt made clear in the previous three books, despite being known as the puzzle lady, Cora can't work puzzles worth a damn. Her niece solves the puzzles. Then a high school girl playing Mary in an unrelated pageant is murdered, and the clues point confusingly to different people in different plays.

I won't spoil the plot, but I will say that it's one of those horrible mysteries where the clues hinge on timetables that are so convoluted no one but the author would be able to figure them out (or care). The murderer's motive is weak, and verges on ridiculous. The local cops are portrayed as morons who don't know the first thing about conducting a murder investigation, who are happy to take orders from the "Scotland Yard" detective (look, we do all know it's not called Scotland Yard anymore, don't we?), and who don't seem to care that Cora is committing felonies left and right as she "investigates." If I were a cop, I would shoot this book for being too stupid to live.

No one better give me any more of these awful books, because I refuse to read another one.

B&N link

No Wind of Blame by Georgette Heyer

2011-10-07T20:09:00.004-04:00

I'm like a junkie with these Georgette Heyer mysteries. I try to stop, but then I pick another one up and want to just keep reading them and reading them. Eventually I'll have read them all, and then I don't know what I'll do.

Actually, I can just keep rereading one of them, since they're all pretty much identical. Heyer found a formula that worked and kept with it. In this one, the despicable Wally Carter is shot dead and everyone has a motive but no opportunity to have killed him.

Of course the murder takes place at a country estate, and the characters are pure Heyer: the rich wife who used to be on the stage, her frivolous nineteen-year-old daughter, Wally's sensible cousin Mary, a Russian prince who may be a fake and who's certainly only interested in the rich wife, the local farmer who loves the rich wife and despises the husband, the husband's ne'er-do-well friend, the local barrister's son, the local doctor, etc. As always, the real fun of a Heyer mystery isn't so much the mystery (although that's particularly good in this one, with a clever plot twist--I didn't guess the murderer) as the zippy, slang-filled conversation. I could listen to Heyer's characters talk all day long.

B&N link

The Royal Scam by Gini Koch

2011-10-03T19:43:00.004-04:00

Full disclosure: I have a novella with this publisher (release date early 2012).

I really wanted to love this novella, the first installment of a space opera that looks like a lot of fun. It's about a band of spacers who pull elaborate cons--in this case, main character Danielle Daniels (known as DeeDee) has spent three months impersonating the youngest princess of Andromeda for reasons that are complicated (in a clever way) and lucrative (also in a clever way). There are hints that the group's ultimate goal is to restore the Martian royalty to the throne--and the royal brothers are part of the crew. In fact, one's the captain.

All the elements of a fun, swashbuckling space opera are in place: a motley crew of scofflaws, hidden royalty, old scores to settle with entire planets, alien beings that resemble frogs or spiders, and ships that can jump to hyperspace to travel between star systems. But nothing really gels. The characters are bland and all speak alike no matter how alien they look, and I never felt a sense of tension. Nothing seemed to be at stake, and sure enough, DeeDee and her friends got out of a small potential mess without any difficulty.

Worse, though, I never felt close to any of the characters. They just don't have much personality. I didn't care about DeeDee, and I certainly didn't care about any of her shipmates. She's supposed to have a romance with the captain, but there was no spark between them. I just didn't care, and I badly wanted to.

A note on the formatting: This is a PDF ebook. Like most PDFs, the text displays really, really tiny on my Sony PRS-505. Also like most PDFs, when I enlarge the text, it screws up the formatting. Part of my negative reaction to the story may be due to frustration with figuring out where paragraphs began and ended, which has nothing to do with the writing and everything to do with display. I hope the publisher can fix this issue for their future releases (although to be honest, nothing I've tried has made PDFs display better, so it may just be a sucky problem with Sony readers).

Musa Publishing link

Hero by Perry Moore

2011-10-02T09:52:00.004-04:00

I think this is the first young adult novel I've seen that actually tells us on the back that the main character is gay. Good for Hyperion.

Thom Creed's father was one of the country's best-loved superheroes--despite having no superpowers--until something awful happened. Now Thom lives in the shadow of his father's disgrace, his mother took off when he was still little, and his father works at a factory and can barely make ends meet. Thom isn't allowed to talk about the League of superheroes his dad used to belong to, isn't allowed to talk about superheroes at all. But when Thom develops powers of his own and discovers some pictures of his mother hanging out with League members, he realizes he doesn't know much about his own family. And when the League finds out about Thom's superhealing abilities, they invite him to try out--and Thom wants to join the League as badly as his dad hates the League.

The book is slow-paced despite some good action scenes. I didn't exactly get bored while reading, but I did repeatedly think, "Geez, this book is so long, why is this book so long?" It's 428 pages, which seems excessive for a YA about superheroes. Then again, a lot happens. It just happens slowly with a lot of talking.

In some ways, Hero reminds me of Austin Grossman's brilliant Soon I Will Be Invincible, in that it shows some of the internal workings of a league of superheroes and in its awkward moments of character backstory infodumping. At least four times in the book, a character tells Thom his or her story at length and in decidedly literary (rather than conversational) language. I found it extremely jarring. I also found the writing rough at times, with transitions often so abrupt that I couldn't figure out what was going on. A couple of times I had to check to make sure I hadn't accidentally turned two pages instead of one.

The superhero plot is pretty good--not great, frankly, because there are too many holes. I didn't notice most of them while I was reading, but once I'd finished and was thinking about the book, I kept thinking, "Wait a minute, why did...? And what the hell did that scene have to do with...?"

Overall, though, the book is good--moving and interesting. Thom's romance with another character takes a long time to get underway, but it feels natural. I kept tearing up, too, because Thom's life really is shitty: he's terrified someone will out him to his dad, he's terrified his dad will find out he's joined the League, he's lost his place on the high school basketball team due to rumors of his being gay, his League teammates apparently all hate him, and he's trying to deal alone with superpowers he barely understands. The ending is satisfying, even if the book itself tends to be melancholy and occasionally depressing.

B&N link

The Ghost and the Goth and Queen of the Dead by Stacey Kade

2011-09-28T21:13:00.005-04:00

I picked up the first book in this new YA series, The Ghost and the Goth, despite its terrible cover. The sequel, Queen of the Dead, has an even worse cover. Seriously, how stupid does the guy in that second cover look? Pretty damn stupid. And not anything like Will in the books.

But anyway, the books are good. High school senior Will Killian can see and hear ghosts, a 'gift' his father also had. Ghosts are frantic to talk to the living and get their help, pestering and demanding and sometimes attacking ghost-talkers. Will's father ended up killing himself three years before, in part due to the pressure. Will himself has been labeled schizophrenic. He can block out the ghosts and pretend he can't hear them if he listens to music. But when he crosses the school principal at the wrong time and gets his MP3 player confiscated, he's vulnerable to attack from the school's many ghosts.

Enter Will's classmate Alona Dare--the late Alona Dare. A few days ago she was hit by a bus while skipping school. She's not sure why she's still hanging around as a ghost, but she knows she needs Will's help--even if he is the kind of guy she'd never even have looked at while she was alive.

The books are told from alternating viewpoints, a chapter from Alona followed by a chapter from Will. It works, mostly because their voices are so distinct. Alona is fierce and cool and determined to get her way. Will just wants to keep his head down so he can graduate in a few short weeks and move somewhere more or less deserted.

The mysteries surrounding both characters kept me riveted, and the tension mounts beautifully. The pacing in the first book is just about perfect. I literally could not put the book down, and when I did I kept thinking about it. Despite the light tone and often funny writing, the book tackles some serious issues. Alona's mother drinks heavily, and Will is still dealing with his father's suicide. But it's the interaction between the two that I just loved.

I won't tell much about the second book's plot, since I don't want to spoil anything. I will say that I was disappointed about halfway through, when the plot went off the rails and nearly fell apart. I still enjoyed the second book, but not nearly as much as the first. Without going into details, there's something that I firmly expected to happen in the first book; I was really glad when it didn't, because it was just too obvious and lame. But it happened in the second book after all, pushing the plot off track and taking over when I'd been enjoying reading about Will discovering another ghost-talker and how she deals with ghosts.

I also felt that the second book was just a set-up for the third. Which I wish were already available, frankly. This is a fresh and breezy take on the YA ghost story books that are everywhere lately (and how I do love this subgenre). Despite the weaknesses in Queen of the Dead, it's still much better than a lot of ghost stories available right now.

B&N links:
The Ghost and the Goth
Queen of the Dead

The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes

2011-09-25T15:20:00.003-04:00

I've had this book on my To Read shelf for a few years now and finally picked it up. I really like the cover. The Somnambulist is set in a bizarro version of Victorian London, where stage magician and amateur detective Edward Moon and his mute, hulking assistant The Somnambulist are about to take on a bizarre murder case that is no mere murder.

The book started out fun. It's frequently amusing--not laugh-out-loud funny, but witty--and the cast of characters interested me because of all the mysteries surrounding them all. The plot had me intrigued, too. But around the halfway mark, I started to lose patience with the author.

First of all, every character is quirky to such a degree that I stopped finding it interesting. Quirky details that I thought would lead to some revelation or turn out to be clues were just there so Barnes could (presumably) pat himself on the back at how inventive he is. Second of all, the book is surprisingly joyless. I didn't like any of the characters, and the characters didn't like each other either. I lost interest in the story because I didn't care what happened to anyone in it. Lastly, the plot just fell apart at the two-thirds mark and never recovered. The end was a mess, and not an interesting one.

The writing is good, at least, and if you like this sort of book you'll probably really love The Somnambulist. I enjoyed it enough to read to the end, and I'll keep it on my shelves (mostly because of that very nice cover). But I'll be hesitant to pick up anything else by Barnes without looking very carefully at the reviews.

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Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks

2011-09-20T21:33:00.003-04:00

I picked this one up at a Borders going-out-of-business sale, and my goodness was it a good choice! I like amusing travel memoirs anyway. In this one, comedian Tony Hawks accepts a drunken bet to "hitchhike round the circumference of Ireland, with a fridge, within one calendar month."

It's a lighthearted, happy book. Tony spends a lot of nights getting drunk with friends he makes along the road. He meets some colorful characters and sees some beautiful scenery, but unlike a lot of travel writers, he doesn't feel compelled to hit the official sites to report bleakly on them and he doesn't make fun of every other person he sees (Bill Bryson, I'm looking at you). Tony obviously likes people and genuinely cares about them, and if he has to drag a fridge around with him to make people happy and win a bet, by God he'll drag a fridge around with him.

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The Spirit Thief by Rachel Aaron

2011-09-19T21:02:00.005-04:00

I like heist books and thieves make interesting main characters. Unfortunately, The Spirit Thief fails on both counts.

Eli Monpress is a wizard who also happens to be a thief. His goal in life is to get his bounty raised to one million gold standards, and to that end he kidnaps the king of a small country where wizards aren't allowed. But his actions open the way for another wizard to come out of hiding, a wizard who doesn't have the scruples Eli does.

My quick synopsis, and the one on the back of the book, make it sound like the book is all about Eli. But after a long section at the beginning where the book doesn't seem to know who the main character really is, it turns out that the viewpoint character is another wizard called Miranda, who has been sent to stop Eli from stealing a valuable artifact. She and Eli end up having to team up against the evil wizard.

In some strange ways, the group of characters reminds me more than a little of the group of characters in the anime Cowboy Bebop. There's even a freaky kid and an intelligent dog (although one that's a bit bigger than a Corgi). But while the similarities are remarkable, the biggest difference is that I like the Cowboy Bebop characters, while The Spirit Thief characters bored me.

Mostly, I never felt any tension. I never believed Eli or his friends were in any real danger. Bad stuff happened to them, and Eli or someone else got them out of trouble. In the end, a deus ex machina saves Eli at the last second, not at all to my surprise. There's precious little character interaction, too, even between Eli and Miranda. They go places, Miranda is surprised that Eli is such a good wizard, and they eventually accomplish precisely what they set out to do. Then they do that all over again.

While I found the characters bland and the plot predictable, I did really like the worldbuilding. The magic system in this world depends on spirits that only wizards can talk to and manipulate. Everything on the planet is a spirit or potential spirit: each creek has its own spirit, which blend into a river spirit, and the ocean is a mad maelstrom of spirits all swirled together--and a waterspout would be yet another spirit, and so forth. It's complicated, well-thought-out, and fascinating. I enjoyed seeing how the different wizards used spirits to help them. It's just too bad the rest of the book didn't engage me as thoroughly.

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Line Up for Murder by Marian Babson

2011-09-12T21:53:00.003-04:00

I liked this book but there's something important you should know: it's not a murder mystery. It's only barely a mystery. I didn't mind, but some people might.

Dorrie Witson considers herself an expert queuer, so when the London department store Bonnard's holds a special sale to celebrate its 100th anniversary, Dorrie is third in line a week before the store reopens. Behind her are a mysterious young woman and her sullen boyfriend. As the days drag on and Dorrie gets to know her fellow queuers, she senses something strange is going on with the woman--and possibly with Bonnard's itself.

About a third of the way into this book, I caught myself wishing that there wouldn't be a stupid murder to mess up the cozy enjoyment of reading about these people waiting for a big sale. Lucky for me, there is no murder. Yes, one character has a gun and another character has (possibly) poison, but it's okay. No one dies. (Maybe I should have marked that as a spoiler, but someone does get shot at and someone does swallow the doctored drink, and it's not like I just told you who and what precisely happens.)

The plot is shallow and not really a mystery. It was just what I was looking for, though. I did have a problem with the racist overtones in Dorrie's (and other characters') dislike of two foreign characters. The book was first published in 1980, which is plenty recent enough for authors to be more sensitive when it comes to issues of race.

But except for that, and the weird non-mystery-ness of this mystery, it's a fun little book.

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Night of the Living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall

2011-09-11T20:55:00.003-04:00

Holy crap! I'm behind on my reviewing and was planning to review the pending books in order, but I just finished Night of the Living Trekkies and have to share how fun it is.

I thought it would be stupid, too. I'd been putting off reading it because I thought the humor would be heavy-handed and the plot moronic. But it's not!

Jim Pike works as an assistant night manager of a crappy hotel, a job he likes because if he screws up, no one dies--unlike his last job in the army. He can't forgive himself for some of the men who died under his command in Afghanistan. But when a Star Trek convention at his hotel is suddenly overrun with zombies--real ones--Jim's the only one who can help lead the few survivors to safety.

The book is solidly written. While Jim sometimes comes across as a little too hopeless about his situation, it worked; and I liked that a woman he rescues really is a strong female character without acting like a man-with-boobs or a sexy-sidekick-with-guns character. The plot is predictable but has some fun twists.

I'm not a huge Trek fan, but I got a lot of the geek humor in the book. A real Trekker would probably find even more to enjoy. And the zombies really are scary, as is the build-up to when Jim realizes what's happening. The book's a quick, enjoyable read, and it has depth of character too. Second successful zombie book I've read this year--it's a record!

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Circle of Enemies by Harry Connolly

2011-09-07T19:51:00.003-04:00

This is the third book in the Twenty Palaces series, and I really do think it's the best so far. The writing is tighter, as is the plot.

Ex-con Ray Lilly is between temp jobs--both ordinary and magical. He's also waking up screaming almost every night from nightmares about the events of the previous book. Then an old friend shows up and accuses him of killing her and all their friends--and disappears. Literally. Of course Ray takes off to L.A. to find out what's really going on.

Like the previous books, the action starts immediately and doesn't let up. It's fast, brutal, and riveting. I don't know that the violence is quite as much as in the last book, but the creepiness factor is just as high. Connolly's monsters would freak the hell out of Lovecraft.

I really like Ray, who's tough, practical, and does what he has to do even if he doesn't like it. I would have liked to see more of Annalise, Ray's boss, but their interaction in this book is satisfying; I like the way their uncomfortable relationship is unfolding at the same time that Ray is learning more about the Twenty Palaces Society Annalise works for.

One great thing about this book: while I recommend you read the first two books just because they're great too, you don't really need to; and while this book sets up for the events of the next ones, it doesn't end on a cliffhanger. In other words, Circle of Enemies stands alone while also forwarding the overarching series plot. I wish I could say the same of all series.

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Travels with Alice by Calvin Trillin

2011-08-31T21:55:00.002-04:00

I'm caught without anything to review this week--I've been reading, but I haven't finished anything. So here's a review of the only book I have to hand that I've actually read before.

Calvin Trillin is an excellent essayist. I highly recommend anything he's written (although his political poetry goes over my head since I don't follow politics). I've read Travels with Alice a number of times, and I always laugh my head off.

This is an older book, first published in 1989. Alice is Trillin's wife, and in these essays their two daughters are still fairly young. Trillin writes about their travels, naturally, during which he tries to, as he says, "stuff a little culture" into his kids, although mostly he just wants to eat good food. The writing is lively, funny, and always interesting. Trillin relates trips to places like France, where he and his family spent a month just hanging around in a small town, and Barbados, where Trillin ate a lot of fried chicken.

It's actually taken me a long time to write this very short review, because I keep dipping into the book and reading it. It's well worth chasing down a copy.

B&N link (used book)

Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik

2011-08-24T12:43:00.002-04:00

This is the sixth book in the Temeraire series. I've read all the previous books, although not recently. If you haven't read any of them, you really shouldn't start here. Novik drops the reader into the story without trying to catch us up. I don't have any problem with that, myself, but it would be difficult to figure out what's going on if you haven't read any of the earlier books. You wouldn't even be able to figure out Temeraire is a dragon right away.

The series is set during the Napoleonic wars, but this world has dragons. In the first book, sea captain Will Laurence captures a French ship carrying an unusual dragon egg; when the egg hatches, the dragonet inside chooses Laurence as his companion, and Laurence has to leave the Navy and join the Aerial Corps instead. It's a great book.

The other books are good too, but oddly enough, nothing much really happens in them. The characters typically travel a great deal in some foreign land, maybe participate in a few battles, Temeraire discusses philosophy with Laurence and with the dragons and people they meet along the way, and at the end the war advances in a new direction. That's not to say the books are boring at all; I can't stop reading them once I start, and I'm really looking forward to the next book (there are nine planned). But they're slow-moving.

This one takes place in Australia, which is still a penal colony with only one city, Sydney. Laurence and Temeraire have been transported for treason, but they're soon given a useful task: search for a pass through the mountains. But things go awry, and soon they're chasing across the continent after a group of thieves and/or smugglers.

Temeraire is an appealing character, and Laurence's relationship with him is always charming to see. It's really the characters, and the good writing, that keep me interested in this series. (Although I must say, I don't reread any except the first book, and then I skim all the battles, so I refuse to buy these books in hardcover and have to wait for the paperback to come out, a year or so after.)

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Heroes at Odds by Moira J. Moore

2011-08-20T11:19:00.004-04:00

I reviewed the fifth book in this series, Heroes Return, last year. I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed this one too. I like this series, which is solid and always interesting.

In this one, Lee and Taro are dealing pretty well with their posting at Flown Raven. Their relationship has finally settled down (and thank goodness). While Lee doesn't love the area, she's made some friends and passes her spare time teaching herself casting.

Then her mother and two younger brothers show up unexpectedly. It seems that when Lee was a toddler, her parents arranged a marriage for her with another merchant family's son. Lee was never told, since when she was discovered to be a Shield and sent to the Academy, all prior contracts were annulled--but the merchant's family is in financial trouble and is grasping at straws. They want the marriage contract fulfilled, whether or not Lee likes it. Lee is horrified enough at the news, but she's also distracted by some senseless attacks on the local people: fires set, fish poisoned, etc.

For years I've been trying to decide if Lee's portrayal as particularly dense when it comes to figuring other people out is something Moore does on purpose or if it's just clumsy writing. I've decided Moore does it on purpose, mostly because in this book Lee acknowledges that she's not good at reading people. That's an understatement.

I like that Lee and Taro have resolved some of the issues plaguing them over the last several books, although I'd have liked to see more warmth between them in this book. I also (as always) want more channeling of natural disasters--it's what attracted me to the series in the first place, what fascinates me most about this world, but it hasn't had a central role in the books for a while now.

One thing that frustrates me in this series is that Lee doesn't take the initiative often, even when she is aware that something needs to be done. That's part of her character, of course, but I still wish she'd be a little more active--or at least voice her worries to Taro, who can do something about them.

Still, I enjoyed this book a lot. I would have liked a little more forward momentum in the overarching plot, but there are a number of small but important steps towards Lee and Taro's conflict with the emperor. Hopefully they'll get out of Flown Raven soon, because frankly I find it almost as boring there as Lee does.

The Book Smugglers reviewed this book recently and had something to say about the cover--notably, that all the Heroes books have terrible, terrible covers. Terrible. I've been saying this for years myself. Please look beyond the covers, because these are fun and interesting books.

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Looking for Bobowicz by Daniel Pinkwater

2011-08-18T09:33:00.002-04:00

I've liked Daniel Pinkwater's writing ever since I was a kid, although I'm also the first to admit that he can be a little over-the-top with his plots. Looking for Bobowicz is one of his better books, a fun and fast-paced story about a kid who moves to Hoboken and gets mixed up in a mystery of a giant chicken and a phantom who steals bikes.

The writing is brisk and sure, a given when you're reading Pinkwater. It's also very funny. I loved Nick's parents, especially his dad, who provides a lot of the humor in the story.

I never figured out the mystery, although I thought I was getting close a few times (I wasn't). I thoroughly enjoyed the ride, though, and the solution was satisfying.

Powell's link (used book)

Bullets for Macbeth by Marvin Kaye

2011-08-14T18:36:00.003-04:00

I can't say I've thought about the mystery of the Third Murderer in Macbeth since my college days, and even then I didn't lose any sleep over it. Bullets for Macbeth, first published in 1976, proposes a new solution for which character the Third Murderer is, and ties it in to a murder.

Gene (whose last name I never did figure out) is a private investigator, although he actually works as an assistant to Hilary Quayle in her small PR firm. They're hired to advertise a production of Macbeth, whose director, an old friend of Hilary's, has a new idea for the Third Murderer and plans not to reveal it to anyone except the actor in question until the play opens. But Gene soon discovers that strange things are going on, events that the actors and director think are just due to Macbeth's bad luck--until someone is killed and the mysterious Third Murderer is a suspect. But no one knows who the Third Murderer is.

It's an interesting premise, but I don't know that it quite works. Kaye twists the plot into a pretzel in order to pull it off, keeping information from the reader to prolong the suspense. I was surprised at who the murderer is, but not in an "aha, of course!" way. I didn't really believe the person had done it, frankly. It didn't make a lot of sense, although I was more interested in the literary mystery of which character portrays the Third Murderer in the play.

I haven't read the first two books in this series so I don't know anything about the characters' history together, but I just couldn't warm up to Gene or Hilary. The book is also terribly dated, with lots of 70s slang, rampant sexism, and some coy but hostile references to gays. My attention wandered a lot. I stopped caring about who did it when I realized I couldn't figure it out because Kaye was withholding clues.

But it's a fast read and never actually made me mad. It just didn't grab me.

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Red Glove by Holly Black

2011-08-11T09:24:00.003-04:00

This is the sequel to White Cat, which I reviewed earlier this year. I really liked that book. I think I like the sequel even better.

Cassel Sharpe is starting his senior year at an exclusive high school, but his troubles are far from over. His oldest brother is murdered, and the Feds want Cassel to join them and find the murderer. They don't plan to take no for an answer--and they're perfectly capable of going after Cassel's emotion-worker mother, who's taught Cassel everything he knows about conning people. But the head of the Zacharovs, a mob family that Cassel's own death-worker grandfather works for, wants Cassel to join the family business. And Zacharov's daughter, Lila, has enrolled at Cassel's school.

The plot is intricate and dark. The more I learn about this world, the more I want to know about it. Cassel found out in the last book that he's a rare transformation-worker, a secret that's leaking out despite his attempts to hide it. He has to make hard choices between loyalty to family and friends and what's right, and the choices aren't a bit clear.

I like Cassel, who's smart and a fast thinker. He isn't afraid to face his own doubts about himself, too. His relationship with Lila and his other friends is as complex as the main plot.

I still can't say I'm enamored of the present tense writing. I keep seeing it in YA books lately, and it always comes across as gimmicky and frequently jarring. But that's the only real problem I have with the book. I really hope there are more in this series.

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Freak Show by James St. James

2011-08-07T10:47:00.005-04:00

Billy Bloom has moved in with his father just before his senior year, after an event so cataclysmic that his mother can't deal with him anymore. Billy can't exactly remember what happened, sort of. Now he's in Florida, where his father barely acknowledges him and his only friend is the maid, Flossie, who doesn't like him all that much either. And now he's got to start his senior year of high school in an exclusive, ultraconservative school in the middle of a swamp.

That would make a great set-up for any YA novel. That Billy's a drag queen in training just makes it that much better.

Billy is a greatly likable character. He's vulnerable without even realizing it, dealing with his situation and his mood swings by designing fabulous new outfits or sometimes just hiding in a kitchen cabinet to fantasize about a better life. He can be tough when he needs to be, although he doesn't even realize it. Seeing his friendly overtures rejected is painful even when it's funny.

I won't tell anymore about the plot, since anything at all could spoiler it. I will mention the writing style, since not everyone will like it. It's written in a sort of stream of consciousness from Billy's point of view, which makes it immediate and gives the reader a straight view into Billy's brain. But sometimes I caught myself longing for a few paragraphs of ordinary prose. I found I had trouble reading for more than 50 pages at a time without feeling kind of fractured and hysterical. Your mileage may vary.

I did really enjoy the book, though. Billy's journey is an especially hard one, but I loved how he dealt with everything from gay-bashing to Homecoming. And I only mentioned in passing earlier, but the book is often hysterically funny--although sometimes I was crying at the same time as I was laughing.

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The Magic Thief: Found by Sarah Prineas

2011-08-03T11:45:00.005-04:00

I think this is the conclusion of this particular trilogy, although I don't know for sure. It feels like a conclusion, anyway.

Apprentice wizard Conn is trying to find a way to protect the city of Wellmet--specifically, the city's magic, a living being--from a predatory magic. Conn is hampered since he still doesn't have his locus stone that allows him to work magic. He's also hampered by the city guards, who are convinced he's nothing more than a thief, and by the city's other wizards, who don't believe the magic is alive and don't believe it's under threat. With his mentor's help, Conn casts a spell to help him find his locus stone--a spell that leads him far away from Wellmet when the city needs him the most.

When I first read this book, I was a little disappointed. When Conn leaves the city, I didn't expect that part of the story to last so long. I kept itching for him to get back. But that was just me; now that I think about it, Conn's trip to find his Locus stone is a key part of the whole trilogy. That's where he discovers what the magic really is. I was just being impatient.

As always, I enjoy Conn's reticence and practicality along with his clever sense of wordplay. These are fun books to read and I daresay they'd be fun to read aloud. I hope there's more in this series, but even if there aren't, I like the ending a lot.

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Hammered by Kevin Hearne

2011-07-29T13:17:00.002-04:00

This is the third book in this series, which I've enjoyed a lot so far. I like that the first three books, which form a sort of trilogy, were published in successive months. There will be a wait for the next book, but I can handle it.

Hammered follows up on the promises made in the previous two books, Hounded and Hexed, and we get to see Atticus attempt to kick Thor's ass. The book has the same mostly upbeat tone and (sometimes dark) humor that grace the previous ones, but the plot is a bit unfocused. That's partly because it's having to wrap up events from this trilogy while setting up for the next, and partly because of a long section in the middle where the other characters going after Thor relate their stories.

I can't decide what I feel about that section. I can see why Hearne included it, and it was kind of interesting, but I still think it slowed the whole book down right when the action should be kicking into high gear.

Anyway, the book is still a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to the next one.

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Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell

2011-07-22T10:58:00.002-04:00

Ordinarily I don't quote the back cover blurb of books, mostly because they're not very descriptive. This one is great, though, so here it is straight off the back cover:

Summer in Ondine, Louisiana is always predictable: hot and boring.

Not this one. This summer, fourteen-year-old Iris doesn't have to make up spooky stories for excitement. A real one falls right into her lap.

Years ago, a teenager named Elijah disappeared. All that remains of him are whispers. Until a ghost begins to haunt Iris, and she's convinced it's the ghost of Elijah.

What really happened to him? And why, of all people, has he chosen Iris?

Okay, it's not great--but good and descriptive. It leaves out Iris's bossy best friend Collette, who's as important to the story as Elijah is. It's Collette who bullies mild-mannered Iris into pretending they're contacting spirits in the cemetery; it's Collette who's angry when the ghost contacts Iris and not her. The relationship between the two girls is well done, particularly where it concerns their friend Ben: Collette is boy-crazy and Iris is not, which causes friction when Ben is around.

The setting in modern small-town Louisiana is both atmospheric and unusual. I liked the way Mitchell's writing captured the speech patterns of the region without becoming hokey or hard to understand. I also liked the way the summer's heat is woven into the ghost story.

The plot itself is good as Iris, Collette, and Ben dig into Elijah's disappearance to discover what really happened to him. There are a lot of surprises that I didn't see coming. Unfortunately, the very end is a bit of a let-down. The action is taken out of Iris's hands and she becomes an onlooker as adults take over and fit in the last missing pieces. I would have liked Iris to come to all the conclusions herself. But the book as a whole was very good, and a nice change from teen ghosts that are drawn as sexy.

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Bad Taste in Boys by Carrie Harris

2011-07-15T13:12:00.004-04:00

I've been reading Carrie Harris's blog for a few years now, and she's a consistently funny, funny person. So is her first book, Bad Taste in Boys. Nothing else could have made me laugh quite so hard in the hospital, trust me.

Kate Grable is a high school senior who's planning to become a doctor. She's the student trainer for her school's (horrible) football team, which means she gets to treat minor injuries and help the team's physician and coach out with medical issues. It also means she gets to spend time with the quarterback, Aaron.

When Kate discovers unlabeled syringes among the medical supplies, she's positive they're steroids. But the truth, as she finds out the hard way, is a lot weirder and even more dangerous. Something is turning the football team into...well, into zombies. And only Kate can get to the bottom of it before the whole school is infected.

The book is seriously funny. It's also fast-paced, light, and thoroughly readable. I liked Kate a lot, and not just because of her name; she's smart and funny without coming across as a smartass. I also like that she's got epilepsy without it being a big issue. Her relationship with her nerdy little brother is touching but often hysterically funny.

If the book has a fault, it's that it's rather shallow. While Kate does learn confidence, she's pretty put-together to start with and doesn't have a weighty character arc. But hell, it's a book about zombies. There's no need to get too serious here. I'm glad Harris understands that, and I can't wait to read what she comes up with next.

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The Baby Name Wizard by Laura Wattenberg

2011-07-09T15:59:00.004-04:00

Sorry for another quick review. One day my life will shift out of crisis mode.

I've used The Baby Name Wizard as a writing resource for years. It's not the usual name dictionary that gives a name, alternate spellings, and the traditional meaning. Instead, there's a huge amount of information for each name, stuff not available anywhere else.

For instance, I just turned to the name Terry in the Girls' Names section. It tells me the name was the 97th most popular in the 1950s but is rather rare today (there's a little chart with that information for each name). It gives me the pronunciation, spelling variants, and gives a short list of "sister" and "brother" names--names that are stylistically similar. There's also a short paragraph about the name itself.

The Sister and Brother lists are incredibly useful, incidentally. If I have a character named Terry but I want to rename her, I can look at the sister names and make a choice from Jackie, Lynn, Sheryl, Connie, or Trudy. If I want to give Terry a brother, I can choose from Rick, Garry, Danny, Steve, or Bruce. That keeps the same feel of my original Terry while giving me a lot to choose from.

There are also a bunch of lists in the second half of the book, everything from Nordic names to Literary and Artistic, from Timeless names to Saints. It's useful for a writer, and I suppose it's probably also useful for parents-to-be.

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Coyote Wind by Peter Bowen

2011-07-02T13:19:00.003-04:00

Another very quick review due to circumstances beyond my control. I apologize for that, particularly since this book is worth a much more in-depth review.

Gabriel Du Pre is a cattle brand inspector in rural Montana. Sometimes he doubles as a deputy if no one else is available. But when fresher bones turn up in a newly-discovered 30-year old plane wreck, Du Pre has to face his own past as he searches for the truth behind the murder.

That's a pretty good setup right there, but it's the setting and flavor of the book that had me hooked. The mystery is good, but it's secondary. Du Pre is a richly drawn, sympathetic character steeped in the traditions of his French-Indian heritage. That sounds stupid, but I don't have time to make it less clunky.

Evidently there are a lot of books in this series. If I get a chance to read in the next few weeks, I will probably be reading the next Gabriel Du Pre mystery.

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Magic by the Lake by Edward Eager

2011-06-25T14:30:00.004-04:00

This review will be short. I apologize for that. I'd go into why, but this isn't my personal blog.

I love Edward Eager's books, particularly Half Magic, which Magic by the Lake is a sequel to. Eager's style is purposefully similar to E. Nesbit, which he greatly admired, and his stories are charming, clever, inventive, and funny, with realistic children and magic that has unexpected consequences.

Unfortunately, Magic by the Lake is not nearly his best book. It's a bit too episodic, without much of an overarching plot to tie the magical events together. The children from Half Magic travel with their mother and stepfather to a lake for the summer, and almost immediately they discover a talking turtle who explains to them the rules for the lake's magic. Thereafter the children have adventures that include mermaids, pirates with buried treasure, and so forth.

It's a quick read, but unless you're just wanting to read everything Edward Eager ever wrote, you're much better off reading Half Magic without needing to read this one too.

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Give Up the Ghost by Megan Crewe

2011-06-19T21:31:00.004-04:00

I read this book the day after I read Vintage, and the two actually make surprisingly good companion novels. Both feature realistic teens with serious problems, both main characters can see and talk to ghosts, and both books are excellent.

Sixteen-year-old Cass hates everyone in her school except Norris and Bitzy. They happen to be ghosts, and her only friends. Four years before, Cass's former best friend, Danielle, turned on her and made sure everyone else in the school did too. Cass has discovered a foolproof way to keep from being bullied: have her ghost friends spy on students and report everyone's nasty little secrets to her. As a result, Cass's school life is lonely but bearable.

Also four years ago, Cass's older sister Paige died--and didn't leave. Paige gives Cass the big-sister advice and encouragement she never gave when she was alive.

When Tim, one of the most popular kids in school, asks Cass to help him contact his recently-deceased mother, she only agrees because she plans to make him give her dirt on Danielle. But Tim turns out to be a genuinely nice guy who is overwhelmed with a grief that no one he knows can understand.

Cass's defensiveness and anger feel very real. She's tough and resourceful, but she doesn't recognize Tim's attempts to make friends with her. In her experience, people only act friendly when they want something. Tim's problems are realistic too, as is his increasing desperation to find relief from his pain. I cried for the last hundred pages of the book, but it was a good cry.

If the book has a fault, it's that Cass and Tim tend to be a little too articulate about their feelings than most teens are capable of. It works with the story, though. I loved watching Cass learn how to deal with living people again, a slow and sometimes painful process. I also loved the details about the ghosts: that they can't remember things very well, that each ghost has a particular scent (and even taste) that Cass can pick up on.

The ghosts aren't scary in this book, but the living people often are.

Note: The cover is horrible. Disregard it.

B&N link

Vintage: A Ghost Story by Steve Berman

2011-06-16T16:00:00.005-04:00

I read a review of this over at The Book Smugglers months ago, and downloaded the ebook not long after. I finally got around to reading it. I must say, this is one of those finds that makes me love the internet. I'd never have even heard of the book if I hadn't seen that online review.

The writing in Vintage is atmospheric, the prose often elegant and always slightly melancholy. It takes place in early autumn, perfect for a ghost story. I am happy to report that I read it on a dark, stormy day, which made the ghost parts that much more spooky.

The one thing I didn't like is that the main character in Vintage isn't named. The story is told in first person, so it's not too noticeable--but while I do recall a mention of the guy's last name, we're not given his first name. Why? What earthly reason is there to keep the name from us? All it takes is for one person to say, "Hi, Bennett" once and I'd be happy.

I'm going to call the main character Bennett.

Shy seventeen-year-old Bennett is living with his aunt after running away from home. It was either run away or be kicked out after his parents learn he's gay. He's afraid to talk to his aunt about why he showed up on her doorstep, but he's lucky enough to have met a friendly goth girl, Trace. He's also found a job at a vintage clothing store where he's allowed to borrow clothes. He and Trace like to hang out in the local cemetery, sometimes attending funerals for people they don't know.

But one night, Bennett walks home late and meets a handsome boy on a lonely road, a boy wearing clothes from the 1950s, including a letter jacket with the name "Josh" stitched on it. Bennett overcomes his shyness enough to compliment Josh on his clothes--and Josh disappears.

It turns out Josh is the ghost of a high school football player who died on the road more than fifty years before. And it turns out also that Bennett is the only person Josh can hear. At first Bennett is delighted: Josh is the first boy who's ever been interested in him, the first boy who's ever kissed him. But before long, Bennett discovers Josh's darker side.

That's a long description of the book, and it only scratches the surface. There's a lot going on in this book besides the ghost story. Bennett isn't happy to discover he can see and hear other ghosts--and they are drawn to him. He has to deal with his growing attraction to Trace's brother and his worries about how his aunt will react to him coming out to her. He has to consider his own future--getting his GED, facing his parents.

Bennett is an enormously sympathetic character. His loneliness feels realistic, and makes him vulnerable to the ghost Josh. He thinks a lot about his problems without coming across as whiny or self-absorbed, and his romance with Trace's brother is sweet in its awkwardness.

The plot is great, too. I was never certain where the story was going, although it ended up right where it should. Parts of it are downright scary, particularly the scene where Bennett follows Josh to an overgrown cemetery to see Josh's grave; that's where Bennett discovers other ghosts are drawn to him too. There are a lot of twists and turns in the plot, and the pacing is good--not slow, not rushed. I loved that Bennett and Trace have to dig into Josh's past to solve the mystery of his death.

I also love that Bennett doesn't have to grapple with the fact that he's gay. He's not conflicted about that; it's just what he is, and he's happy with it. It's all those other people, living and dead, that he has to worry about.

B&N link
Powell's link

Death in the Stocks and Behold, Here's Poison by Georgette Heyer

2011-06-15T19:54:00.005-04:00

Behold, Here's Poison is the sequel to Death in the Stocks. It just so happens that the two books are more or less identical in many ways. They also both happen to be the best of Heyer's mysteries that I've read so far.

In Death in the Stocks, a well-to-do and generally disliked businessman is found stabbed to death and his body displayed in the old town stocks. In Behold, Here's Poison, a well-to-do and generally disliked businessman is poisoned to death. In both books, family secrets are unearthed during the investigation. There are lots of other parallels, but I don't want to spoil anything.

They're formulaic, but they're excellent entertainment. Both feature Inspector Hannasyde, although these aren't really sleuth-oriented books in the modern sense. The mystery in Death in the Stocks is particularly good; I wasn't able to guess the murderer at all. I didn't get the chance to guess the murderer in Behold, Here's Poison since I'd accidentally read a spoiler a few months ago that tipped me off, but the plot was well-done and full of surprises.

Heyer really shines when she's writing dialogue. In particular, the banter between the brother and sister in Death in the Stocks is often hilarious. I'm also always surprised at Heyer's ability to make me hate a character early on and then bring me around to liking that same character without actually changing the things about the character that annoys me. For instance, in Death in the Stocks, at first I found Antonia irritating and kind of bitchy, but after a few chapters I liked her and by the end I was cheering for her. In Behold, Here's Poison I loathed the smooth, caustic character of Randall for half the book, then gradually started to like him.

Heyer wrote a lot more mysteries, but I suspect these are her best. I'll be reading more of her mysteries (I can't stop myself), but not right away. I think I'm reaching saturation point for the moment.

B&N link: Death in the Stocks
B&N link: Behold, Here's Poison

Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi

2011-06-09T10:10:00.003-04:00

When Tom Stein, a junior Hollywood agent, is called into a meeting with his boss about a new client, he has no idea that the future of interstellar relations is about to be dumped in his lap. The Yherajk, an alien race with super-advanced technology, have been listening to our TV and radio broadcasts for years. Now they want to meet us--but they have an image problem (namely, that they resemble blobs of snot and they smell like garbage). Tom's job is to find a way to introduce the Yherajk to humans with as much positive spin as possible.

I've read John Scalzi's blog for years but had never read any of his fiction until now. He's a solid writer, his prose clean and low-key, and he's very funny. Agent to the Stars was his first book (originally published online in 1999, then picked up and republished in 2005 by Subterranean as a limited edition, then republished by Tor in 2008) and it shows, but it's still a lot of fun.

The book went in a much different direction than I expected. Instead of focusing on Tom's attempts to improve the Yherajks' public image, it's more about Tom's other problems and how they relate to the Yherajk.

Unfortunately, the plot depends almost entirely on coincidence. Tom doesn't come up with any ideas except as a reaction to events. All the characters act and speak alike--but they're funny, clever characters so I didn't mind. What I did mind was the ending, which wasn't a bit plausible. In fact, I had a huge problem with the entire last quarter of the book, where the plot just seemed to derail.

But the book is fast-paced, funny, and very readable. The aliens are interesting too. Just don't expect the world's best plot.

Powell's link

Ink Flamingos by Karen E. Olson

2011-06-07T21:58:00.000-04:00

Ink Flamingos is being released today, so you totally need to run out and buy a copy. This is the last book in the Tattoo Shop mystery series, and it's thoroughly enjoyable.

Tattoo artist Brett Kavanaugh has promised her brother--a homicide detective--that she'll stay out of his business. But when a longtime client and friend is found dead with a botched tattoo, Brett can't help getting involved, especially when someone is trying hard to point the blame at her. Someone else--unless it's the same person--is impersonating Brett, and creepy-stalker photos of her keep showing up online. Worse, the dead woman was a singer whose band had recently shot to fame, and her fans are out for Brett's blood.

It's no secret that I absolutely love Karen Olson's writing. I've reviewed her previous books here and here and here. Her plots are intricate, her characters fascinating. Ink Flamingos is a great addition to her other books.

The plot in this one is particularly complicated, with lots of clues and a great resolution. I had no idea who the murderer was or why they had done it until the reveal, and then I could have kicked myself for not picking up on those clues. I love that feeling. The parts about the stalker were perfectly creepy; as a result, Brett is understandably more shaken than usual, although she's still a likable, strong character.

Since this is the last book in the series, a low-key romantic subplot takes on more importance as well. I was really hoping for that, since I like the character in question. I wasn't disappointed. I'm sorry that there won't be more books about Brett, but the series has a thoroughly satisfying finish. I'm looking forward to reading whatever else Olson writes.

B&N link

Hexed by Kevin Hearne

2011-06-06T21:35:00.005-04:00

I reviewed the first book in this series, Hounded, a few weeks ago. Hexed is technically being released tomorrow, but I snagged a copy early at the book store and of course read it immediately.

Hexed is almost as much fun as Hounded. It's a bit longer too, or seems that way since the ending is a very long, involved brawl. It's that ending that keeps me from recommending the book with quite as much enthusiasm as the first one, although it's certainly not bad at all. I just thought the action was drawn out a bit too long.

But that's a minor issue, really. It's still a hugely entertaining story with a more complex plot than Hounded and a lot of hints at what to expect from the next book (Hammered, which will be released next month). There's a ton of action and a lot of humor.

The book takes place about three weeks after the events of Hounded. The local coven of witches has been weakened and as a result, several sets of baddies are trying to move in on the Tempe, Arizona area. The coven wants Atticus to help them defend their turf, something he wouldn't ordinarily agree to. But as it happens, he has unfinished business with the witches and demons on their way into town--and to take them down, he's going to have to call in some serious favors and make some serious promises. Oh, and steal some serious weapons.

One of the best parts of these books is Atticus's realistic friendship with his dog, Oberon. The two can communicate, which is the source of some of the funniest lines in the book and some of the most poignant exchanges. Atticus is a likable character even without Oberon, largely because of his concern for his friends. And the worldbuilding details are enormously entertaining. I can't wait to see what Hearne does with the next book.

B&N link

Mus Musicus by Colin Hazlehurst

2011-06-02T18:29:00.005-04:00

I saw this while browsing the kids' books for my Sony Reader and thought the cover and title were both clever. I bought it on impulse without realizing it was self-published. But it turned out to be a charming little book.

It follows a mouse family, the Muskers, who move into an abandoned house and make their nest in a piano. But the house doesn't stay abandoned for long. A woman with purple shoes has moved in--and soon after, a man arrives to tune the piano. The mice are terrified they'll be discovered, but at the same time they're fascinated by the sounds their home is making. Before long, the mice are imitating the music the purple-shoes woman plays.

It's a simple, sweet story for younger kids. It mostly follows Mr. Albert Musker's brother Charles and two of Albert's children, shy but observant Frances and adventurous George. I liked the mouse-eye view we get of the house and its furnishings, and the mouse-ish way the mice think. When Frances discovers what the pages of music are for, she explains to her family that the lines represent the piano wires while the notes represent where the mallets should strike the wires--a remarkably clever way to explain musical notation.

There's not a lot of tension in the book and what there is is small and not very scary: George struggling to climb all the way up the piano, Frances getting trapped behind a row of books, Charles deciding to show himself to the purple-shoes woman. It's perfect for younger, musical kids.

I almost said it's perfect for younger, musical kids who like mice--but everyone likes storybook mice.

B&N link (nook book)

The Fourth Stall by Chris Rylander

2011-06-01T17:53:00.005-04:00

Sixth grader Christian, better known as Mac, can solve your problems. Need to get into an R-rated movie without being caught? Want that video game your parents won't let you have? Need the answers to a test? Mac can help you. For a price.

Mac and his best friend Vince run a little business from a disused bathroom in his K-8 school. They started it to help people, but they're also making a killing: specifically, almost $6,000 they're planning to use for baseball tickets in the unlikely event that the Cubs make it to the World Series. But...the Cubs are doing really well. This could be the year! The only problem is Fred, a nervous third grader who comes to Mac with a particularly tricky problem. The legendary figure of Staples is running a crooked book-making business in the area schools, and he's just expanded into Mac's school; Fred's a former bookie who wants out. He needs protection. But before long, Mac realizes he's in way over his head. If he can't take down Staples once and for all, Mac could lose his business, his money--and his best friend.

For the most part, the book is a lot of fun (and often very funny), especially the first section where Mac and Vince are discovering just who and what they're up against. But as the story progressed, I started to have more and more problems with it.

Nothing Mac and Vince do actually helps them--in fact, every single attempt they make to solve their increasing problems just makes things worse. It got to the point that I felt the hand of the author among all the misery, and I was right. They can't make progress because then they couldn't have the big showdown at the end.

But the showdown was lame. I was bitterly disappointed. In fact, the whole book turned into a Moral Lesson on seeing things from other people's points of view. And the point the whole book was building to, the "HELL YES" moment when the good guys triumph and the bad guys get taken down the way they tried to take down the good guys...it never came. Instead we get a few didactic paragraphs and an unsatisfying denouement about the Cubs.

Because of the lame ending, and the near-absence of girl characters in the book, I wouldn't give this to my nephews to read. I'm glad I bought it as an ebook, because if I'd dropped money for the hardback I'd be pissed. Oh, and the main character has the same first name as the author, which always bothers the hell out of me.

B&N link

Long Ago When I Was Young by E. Nesbit

2011-05-29T21:41:00.003-04:00

Memoirs written by children's authors about their childhoods are much better than memoirs written by anyone else. They're more interesting, for one thing. For another, they're not usually depressing (unless they're written for an adult audience, in which case they're extra depressing).

E. Nesbit (Edith, but she was always called Daisy as a child) is one of my favorite authors anyway. I fell in love with her stories when my grandmother gave me a copy of Five Children and It. I had no idea that she'd written her memoirs until I found a copy at a library sale.

It's a short book but charming. Poor little Daisy was kind of a neurotic child, but it makes for very funny (and sometimes scary) reading to hear about what frightened her and why. She had an unsettled life, punctuated with awful boarding schools and sun-drenched months of perfection with her family at various homes in England and France.

She never bothers to explain "I had X number of brothers and sisters and these were their ages"; in fact, she doesn't include mundane details like that at all. The narrative wanders from event to event--exactly the way memory works, connecting one detail with another without necessarily staying in chronological order. The looseness of the narrative is both a positive and a negative. It made it a rambling, story-like read, but I'd have liked a little bit more about events outside the immediate scope of Daisy's life.

Since she was a child in the mid-19th century, it would have been particularly interesting to know more of the historical context of her life. Then again, the happiest parts of her childhood were spent in the countryside, where she and her brothers played pirates and explorers the same way my brother and I played when we were little. Maybe that's all the book needs.

B&N link (used book)

Carbonel, The King of the Cats by Barbara Sleigh

2011-05-26T22:28:00.005-04:00

This is a charming book that reminded me a lot of E. Nesbit and Edward Eager. It was first published in 1955 and has been reprinted in a nice hardback edition with the original illustrations. I'd never read it before, but I would have just loved it as a kid.

Ten-year-old Rosemary plans to buy a broom so she can clean neighbors' houses over her summer break, intending to surprise her widowed mother with the money. But the broom she buys turns out to be a witch's, and along with it she acquires the witch's cat, Carbonel. But Carbonel is no ordinary cat. He's a prince who was catnapped from his cradle as a kitten. He needs Rosemary's help to return to his people.

The story is lively, inventive, and a complete delight. I read it in a few hours and enjoyed every word. Its portrayal of both children and cats is realistic and very funny, and I especially liked that everyone ends up better for their experience, even the witch. I think there are sequels, too.

B&N link

The Desert Spear by Peter V. Brett

2011-05-26T22:16:00.002-04:00

It's a little odd to be reviewing this book without linking to my review of its predecessor The Warded Man (printed as The Painted Man outside the US). But I can't find that prior review, so maybe I simply imagined it.

Remembering how much I enjoyed reading The Warded Man, it's hard to believe I wouldn't have written a review of it. Strange. I guess I'll have to cover both this time.

This is an epic fantasy series that is thankfully entirely devoid of elves, zombies and vampires. Brett instead posits a world where mankind is a dwindling species, largely clustered inside fortified towns and villages against a demonic horde that coalesces out of the mist each night at sundown and vanishes again every morning at dawn. (Well okay, that sounds a little weak when I lay it out flat like that, but trust me: Brett manages to present that premise as a cold, hard, compelling reality.)

These corelings are largely mindless, but vicious and powerful. Most are elemental in nature: sand demons that are impossible to see in the dunes and are covered in overlapping armored plates, wood demons bristling with limbs and jagged teeth, fire demons that flicker and spit flame. Their numbers seem endless, and the world of men is dwindling in the face of their infinite onslaught.

But there is still some hope in the form of wards: drawings of a particular shape--some simple and some intricate--that can keep the demons at bay. There are only a few of these wards known now to men and these are painted or chiseled into doorposts or roadway markers by skilled craftsmen, providing some safety against the weaker demons.

But that safety isn't enough for Arlen Bales, who longs to travel outside these boundaries as a messenger--one of the elite men who can paint their own wards and keep themselves safe at night as they travel the yawning distances between safe-havens. The Warded Man follows Arlen as he learns his chosen trade--and as he eventually stumbles on a forgotten trove of ancient wards. Wards that do more than keep demons away--that can protect and kill.

This whole premise is deliciously novel--a welcome relief from a long line of LOTR wannabes. Plus, Brett proves to be a capable character builder and a superb world builder. The result is a series that's hard to put down. I think I read The Warded Man in the span of two sittings, and its sequel over the course of three days.

I did have some trouble with the architecture of The Desert Spear. In an interview in the back Brett describes his writing process, which involves planning out every scene in the book long before the words come out--which means there's really no excuse for those architectural issues either.

First, Arlen (the Warded Man himself) is obviously the hero in the first book; the author follows that character exclusively throughout his travels, watching as he visits cities in far-off lands and learns the skills he needs to fight the demons. And so a reader would naturally expect that the sequel--placed in the same world at the same time--would follow him too. But it doesn't: Arlen in truth doesn't appear until halfway through, and thereafter he's on stage only about a third of the time. The new main character is Jardir, who was a bit player in the first book--and an interesting one, sure, but not who I wanted to read about. Certainly not at such length.

Second, the first third of the book--and only the first third--intermingles current events in Jardir's life and the back-story that got him where he is now. But it does so in a very clumsy fashion, leaving the reader in the past for several chapters running, then seamlessly presenting one chapter from the present (with exactly the same characters, only now fifteen years older), then jumping right back into the past. I frequently had to puzzle out whether the younger characters were simply acting strangely, or whether we were suddenly reading about the older characters for a short time.

Those are pretty minor problems, though, in what is otherwise shaping up to be an excellent series. Brett promises a five-book series, and apparently there is a movie in the works--something I would simply love to see.

B&N Link

Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovich

2011-05-23T08:40:00.005-04:00

Moon Over Soho is the sequel to Rivers of London (published as Midnight Riot in the U.S.), which I loved. I spent extra again to get the UK edition in hardback, which I think is entirely worth it even though I had to buy through Amazon (ick). I don't always understand the slang, but it adds to the atmosphere of the book--and I like the UK cover a lot better.

The book picks up a few months after Rivers of London. PC Peter Grant is apprenticed to the last magician on the force, learning Latin and magic while also investigating some strange cases. Like the men who've died after having their penises bitten off--and the teeth weren't in the mysterious woman's mouth, either. But when a pattern of unexplained deaths come to light among jazz musicians, Peter takes more than just an academic interest. His own father's a jazz musician--nearly famous, twice--and is working on a comeback.

The plot is fantastic. It's unbelievable. All the elements dovetail so beautifully after they seem so complex and disparate that I was left in complete awe. And the best thing is, everything unfolds naturally; nothing is forced or cobbled together or clumsy.

I like that we get to see more of Peter's parents, particularly his dad. While this book had a lot of action--more, I think, than the first book--the pacing was perfect. It's also darker than the first book, but just as funny. While the issue of Peter being multiracial isn't a big deal, it's always there, a deft and subtle reminder that he's living and working in what is often a quietly racist society.

I'm willing to shell out for the hardback and overseas shipping charges for as long as Ben Aaronovitch wants to keep writing these books.

B&N link (U.S. edition)
Amazon UK link (UK edition)

Trolls in the Hamptons by Celia Jerome

2011-05-20T21:48:00.004-04:00

Someone at DAW accidentally put "Fantasy" on the spine of this book instead of "Romance."

How can you tell a paranormal romance from an urban fantasy? It's easy. If the (already weak) plot screeches to a complete halt so the main characters can have hawt sex for about 50 pages, it's a romance.

Willow Tate (who goes by Willy, geez) makes a living writing and illustrating graphic novels. One day she comes up with a new idea, a superhero who's a troll. She sketches him, and a real-life troll appears in the street outside her apartment, causing chaos even though no one can actually see him--no one but Willy. It turns out that Willy is a particularly special snowflake, someone who can visualize beings from an alternate world called Unity. She has to help the Department of Unexplained Events--and specifically hot Agent Grant--save a kidnapped boy who may hold the key to something or another. I wasn't really clear on what the boy was supposed to be able to do. It didn't really matter anyway. The plot was just a vehicle to get Willy together with Agent Grant so they can have arguments and sex. As far as I can tell, the only reason the kidnapped boy was in the plot was so that Willy could feel all maternal, because she wants babies.

I really disliked this book. Willy comes across as whiny, neurotic, and needy. She hardly does anything to forward the plot. She claims she's imaginative because she's a writer, but here's what she does when she sees the troll: freaks out and calls her boyfriend to whine that he should drop everything and come reassure her. Then she spends more than half of the book disbelieving that the troll is real, even after seeing him repeatedly. She does not do what any artist would instantly do in this situation, which would be to think "Can I do this twice?" and then start drawing, I don't know, unicorns or something.

Thin as the plot is, the characterization is even thinner. All the characters act alike and dialogue is oddly stilted--Celia Jerome doesn't seem to like using contractions. Willy actually started out as a reasonably interesting person and I had hopes that she'd lose the neediness and grow a spine during the book. But she actually gets worse over the course of the book, until I grew to actively hate her. I didn't like Agent Grant either. He's bland, never makes a mistake, and keeps having to rescue (and then sexxor) Willy.

Willy claims to know karate. I guess that's why she clonks a housebreaker over the head with a vase--only it's not a housebreaker, it's Agent Grant! And she just got out of the jacuzzi and forgot to tie her robe closed, which I totally always forget to do when I'm about to confront a burglar. So Agent Grant has to make mad hot love to her for a couple of chapters.

But you know what I hated the most about this book (and that's saying a lot)? Way early in the book, when Willy is still being neurotic that her then-boyfriend won't hurry over to hold her after the shock she's had of seeing a troll kick over a fire hydrant, a cop comes to take her statement. The cop is the only character in the book I actually liked, a genuinely nice guy called Van that Willy is instantly attracted to. He's a black man and Willy is white, so I was hopeful that the book would actually have an interracial romance. But a chapter or two later, white man Agent Grant shows up and is even hotter than Van (that's another clue that you're reading a romance: each male character is hotter than the one before), and Willy instantly forgets Van exists. He drops out of the plot pretty much entirely. Because Agent Grant is BRITISH and has a TITLE. He's a LORD. Also he and Willy are FATED to be together.

The troll doesn't do much either. Man, this was a bad book.

B&N link

Hounded by Kevin Hearne

2011-05-19T21:18:00.005-04:00

This is the kind of book I'm always hoping for when I go into the bookstore. It's light without being shallow, fun without being stupid, and fast-paced without being frenetic.

Atticus O'Sullivan looks 21, but that's off by about two thousand years. He's a druid who's managed to stay alive, and a step ahead of a Celtic god who wants him dead, for a very long time thanks to his magic, an enchanted sword, and a healthy dollop of paranoia. Currently he's living in Tempe, Arizona with his wolfhound Oberon, running an occult bookstore and keeping quiet. Arizona's a good place to hide: not too many Fae around and not too many local gods or goddesses. But he's stayed in one place for too long and his old enemy has found him--and Atticus is tired of running.

The plot isn't especially clever, although it works perfectly well and was entertaining. The setting is interesting (how many fantasies--heck, how many books--are set in Arizona? Poor Arizona) and the characters are likable, especially Atticus and his dog. Mostly what I enjoyed about this book, though, was the sense that the author was having as much fun writing it as I was reading it. There's a lot of humor in the book, sure, but it's more a feeling that runs through the whole thing, like someone walking with a bounce in their step because it's such a nice day. Hounded made me feel like smiling at strangers.

I think it's mostly to do with the writing, which is fluid and sure. Or maybe it's the worldbuilding. Hearne obviously had a blast throwing everything into the mix--this is a lot more than a Celtic fantasy. All the gods and goddesses are real in this world, as are vampires and werewolves and witches and other things like that. But it's not a wacky-zany kind of book, either. The stakes are high, as is the body count. It's also a very fast read and hard to put down; I read the first chapter to see if I liked it, and the next thing I knew, I'd finished the book.

The next two books in the series, Hexed and Hammered, are going to be released in the next two months. You can count on reading my reviews here.

B&N link

The House Eaters by Aaron Polson

2011-05-18T12:37:00.008-04:00

I've been a fan of Aaron Polson's writing for years, and I'm also lucky enough to count him among my online writer friends. His short fiction is excellent, but The House Eaters was the first of his novels that I've read.

Seventeen-year-old Nick's family is going through some hard times. His mother has lost her job and his younger sister Tabby is still recovering from a severe bout of depression the year before. The family has moved to a podunk town two weeks before Nick's senior year of high school starts. But even worse than Nick ending up in his English-teacher dad's class is the derelict house built into the side of a hill, just visible from Nick's bedroom window. Something about the house creeps Nick out.

At school he befriends a pair of nerds who are fascinated with what Nick thinks of as the House. They're convinced it's haunted and want to do some ghost hunting--not something Nick is enthusiastic about. He's attempting to ignore the voice that seems to be trying to contact him from the House, for one thing. For another, he's scared of the dark.

The plot is deliciously creepy, a fresh twist on a haunted house story. I'm a wimp--I had to read this in the daylight or I'd never have been able to sleep. But the creepiness is only part of the story. Nick also has to deal with being the new kid in school, his parents' relationship problems, his sister's issues. The contrast between his normal life and the events surrounding the House makes for a fascinating, layered book.

Nick is a likable guy. His relationship with his sister is realistic, warm one moment and annoyed the next. Despite his fears, he's not a wimp; he takes on the school bully even when he knows he's not going to win, and he faces his fears to help those he cares for. The book's frequently very funny, incidentally, and the writing is wonderfully atmospheric.

I enjoyed this one a lot. Sometimes it's fun to be a little scared. As long as it's daytime.

B&N link

Corvus by Paul Kearney

2011-05-16T19:21:00.004-04:00

Corvus is the sequel to The Ten Thousand, Kearney's masterful novel describing old-school warfare. Corvus picks up with the same main character Rictus, now a decade older and hoping to retire. A new, brilliant commander has arisen and presses Rictus into service as a general; together, they try to unify the entire people of the Macht.

Like its predecessor, Corvus manages to show us battles writ both large and small. Kearney goes to pains to present a wide campaign, conquering this city and bypassing that, considering entire legions as mere playing pieces in a grand game--some to be retained, some to be sacrificed. But where he really shines is in the intimate details of the spear phalanx, leaving the reader feeling muddied and wounded and pressed on all sides in the grip of othismos--the very marrow of war. These battle scenes are utterly gripping, managing to be both gruesome in detail and yet impersonal in intent as the phalanx presses the leading ranks from behind, lifting the leading elements off their feet such that the men literally walk on the dying bodies of their enemies. Kearney's descriptions show us warfare that is both vicious and uncaring--and he does it in the context of a novel that also carries realistic characters, a rich world setting and a compelling plot.

The one area where Corvus does not manage to match The Ten Thousand is in plot twists. In its predecessor, important characters are suddenly lost and battles shift unexpectedly, emphasizing the unknowable truth of a mercenary's life; in Corvus, the plot arc could be guessed by reading the summary on the back and maybe a few key paragraphs, and it never really deviates from that arc. It's a good arc, to be sure, but it's too predictable to really match The Ten Thousand for intensity.

B&N Link

Death Lives Next Door and Coffin Underground by Gwendoline Butler

2011-05-13T13:21:00.003-04:00

Death Lives Next Door is the first of literally dozens of books featuring John Coffin, a police detective in London. I was happy to find a used copy for fifty cents, since I had picked up several other John Coffin books but didn't want to read any until I'd read the first one.

I really disliked the book for reasons I'll go into shortly, but since it was published in 1960 and the 1960s are probably my least-favorite era when it comes to literature, I went ahead and picked up Coffin Underground next to see if I liked it better. It was published in 1988, nearly three decades after Death Lives Next Door. You'd think it would be different, if not better.

These are not well-written books. They're barely coherent. And the 1988 book was virtually identical in tone, theme, and voice to the 1960 book.

Warning: there will be serious spoilers ahead. If you think even for a moment that you might want to read these books, don't get pissed at me if you read the next couple of paragraphs.

The 1960 book's plot is based on pop psychology, which was all the rage at the time and which is partly what makes late 1950s/early 1960s literature such a wasteland. In this case, the murderer turns out to be--look, I warned you there'd be spoilers--the split personality of one of the main characters, who doesn't even know she has a split personality. It made for a "what the fuck?" ending, not one of those lovely "so that's what those cleverly-placed clues meant" endings. The 1988 book is just as bad and just as dependent on pop culture--in this case, the murderer turns out to be hooked on a game called Tombs & Torturers, one of many such games said to be causing mayhem across the globe as previously normal children and teens are sucked into the seamy world of what is described as a board game and start killing people.

Yeah, I remember the hysteria surrounding Dungeons & Dragons in the late 1980s. I also play D&D so I know how laughable the hysteria was and how weak a grasp Butler has on role-playing games. Near the end of the book, John Coffin thinks to himself portentiously, "It was only just beginning now. Where would the infection be in ten years' time?"

Because, you see, the book published in 1988 was set in 1978. It took me a long time to figure that out, though. It's not until about three-quarters of the way through the book that we get an actual year, although I was piecing together clues from various mentions of celebrities and politicians before then. There's a prologue set in 1974, but since the character in the prologue is only identified as "the girl," I wasn't completely certain that she was the same character as one who appears later in the book.

Both books are like that. They're vague on details but full of extraneous information. It's not that Butler is trying to distract us with red herrings. I actually think she thinks she's writing great literature by, for instance, digressing for three or four paragraphs about what the waitress in the fish and chips shop is thinking about her job while giving John Coffin a cup of tea.

It's not even as though these are interesting mysteries or interesting character studies. The mysteries only remain mysteries because Butler withholds both facts and clues; the characters are uniformly neurotic and dull. In fact, I had a meta mystery experience while reading Coffin Underground since I knew perfectly well who the murderer was and why he did it, but I was baffled over the mysteries of what time period the book was actually set in; how old the character of Sarah (also confusingly called Sal) was--I mean, she's described as looking 16, but I swear I saw a reference to her actually being 15, but maybe she was 15 when her parents died four years ago--that's important because John Coffin is interested in her and that's creepy even if she's 18 or 19 since he has to be at least 40; and whether the character Nona was a black girl as was clumsily implied but never actually described--and if so whether she was adopted or if only her dad was black since her mother was described as blonde, or maybe her mom frosted her hair--and if she did, was that actually common in the late 1970s, because I don't think it was, but maybe the book wasn't set in the 70s....

It's a mess. With the vagueness of the details and the morass of extraneous information, it's as though Butler just wrote a fast stream-of-consciousness book and has left it up to the reader to carve a plot out of the text.

Maybe the other thousand books in the series are better. Somehow I doubt it. And yet people obviously like them or there wouldn't be so many. I just don't understand.

Death Lives Next Door B&N link (used book)
Coffin Underground B&N link

The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey

2011-05-07T09:07:00.003-04:00

I've been wanting to read this since I saw it reviewed on another blog (and I've been tearing up the internets trying to find which blog so I can link to it, and it eludes me). I was also gently chastised by my aunt for not liking Tey's Daughter of Time. So I finally got my hands on The Man in the Queue and read it.

It wasn't bad. The prose is often lovely and the plot is mostly good. But the pace is much, much slower than I like, mostly because Tey stops everything to describe surroundings for paragraphs on end, and only stops descriptions to let her characters natter on for sometimes pages about events, repeating herself and repeating herself.

Inspector Grant of the CID is assigned a strange case. A man was standing in line for a popular play where the crowd was shoving along for standing-room-only seats, and when the woman in front of him moved away, he slumped down--dead, with a dagger stuck deep in his back. No one saw the murder happen, no one remembers much about the people who came and went during the long wait. Grant has to follow up the slimmest of clues to get to the truth.

I did like the plot, as I said, but the ending was a let-down. Grant doesn't figure it out at all; the murderer comes in to confess out of the blue, astonishing him. Not a good way to make your sleuth seem intelligent.

The book was first published in 1929 and does have lots of fascinating details of Britain back then. I enjoyed it for that, but I can't say I'm much of a Josephine Tey fan. Her novels fall somewhere between the lively fun of Georgette Heyer and the true literary genius of Dorothy Sayers, and come across (to me) as kind of stodgy.

B&N link

Reviewed by Sin: PRESSURE

2011-05-04T14:35:00.005-04:00

PRESSURE
By Jeff Strand
Amazon link (Earthling Publications version)

If you don't like first person narrators, I urge you to make an exception for PRESSURE, by Jeff Strand. This is one of the best books I've read in years, the kind that you read in one day and wind up exhausted because you couldn't put it down. So if I forget to feed the dog, or fall asleep while writing this, it's Jeff Strand's fault.

PRESSURE is a story about Alex, a young men with asshats for parents. Young Alex makes one mistake, the kind countless kids have made, and they send him off to boarding school. This is done in an incredibly believable fashion, when it could have looked like a gimmick, and I found myself more and more pissed off at Alex's parents. As any kid can tell you, grown-ups can be incredibly stupid. In boarding school Alex has a little bit of good luck, meeting two cool friends, and a whole lot of bad when he meets a kid named Darren. Awful thing happen, which I won't ruin for you, and Alex and Darren part ways. But Darren comes back, and as the book progresses you feel more and more claustrophobic. Darren is smart, relentless, and you never know when Alex will see him again. First it's in college, when Alex has his whole life to look forward to. Then it's after he's married and has a little girl he loves more than anything. Darren wants Alex to be like him, and he doesn't take rejection well.

Don't start this book unless you have the time to read A LOT of it at once. It will bug the crap out if you not knowing what happens next. I went to sleep around four last night, and quite frankly I feel like shit. This is what love of literature gets you, kids. That's why writers are addicted to coffee, and often booze. If you want to avoid sleep deprivation and lead a constructive life, well I have no idea how to help you. If you want to have some fun, pick up Jeff Strand's book.

Weird Tennessee by Roger Manley

2011-05-01T10:42:00.003-04:00

I've read Weird U.S., which I got for Christmas several years ago, and really enjoyed it. When I saw Weird Tennessee in the book store, I checked the index to make sure my hometown was listed (it is) and bought a copy.

The book is a compendium of weird, from ghost stories to unusual gravestones, local fables of various bigfoots to strange carved stones dug up by farmers. Each entry is short but mostly informative. The book is meant to dip into here and there, but I read it straight through.

I liked the practical side to the book. Its purpose is entertainment, but it's not credulous. Ghost stories are presented with a "maybe-maybe-not, who are we to say?" attitude; where local stories have veered from known facts, the facts are presented along with the stories. That actually makes the book a lot more interesting. Sometimes I was frustrated at the short length of the entries when I wanted more research, but that's not what the book is about. There's a lot of history and many photos. Since directions to sites are given in most cases, you can use it as a travel book too.

B&N link

Why Shoot a Butler? by Georgette Heyer

2011-04-30T20:43:00.003-04:00

I'm embarrassed to be reviewing another Georgette Heyer so soon after the last one. I've just returned from a short but awesome beach vacation, and Why Shoot a Butler? was the book I literally grabbed on the way out the door. It happened to be the perfect beach read: light, fun, and not too absorbing.

Frank Amberley is on his way to visit his aunt and uncle when he comes across a car stopped on the edge of the road with a woman standing alongside. He stops to see if the woman needs help, only to discover a dead man sitting behind the wheel of the car. Amberley is drawn into a complicated plot of murder and deception, where nothing is quite what it seems on the surface.

The book was published in 1936 and has a lot of fun period details and slang. I enjoyed it even though Amberley comes across as a real jerk sometimes and Heyer doesn't play fair with the clues. She withholds information from the reader the same way that Amberley withholds information from the police. Even so, I figured out the whole plot ridiculously early--there's one all-important clue near the beginning that unravels the whole thing if you're paying attention.

Ordinarily I'd be sneering at a book with such an obvious plot, but the romance between Amberly and the woman he first sees near the corpse is so satisfying that I don't care that I guessed the murderer so soon. I enjoyed the book a lot.

B&N link

The Case of the Goblin Pearls by Laurence Yep

2011-04-26T21:19:00.005-04:00

I've liked Laurence Yep's writing for years, ever since I read Dragon of the Lost Sea when I was a kid. Occasionally I pick up another of his books and I always enjoy them.

The Case of the Goblin Pearls is about twelve-year-old Lily Lew, who lives in San Francisco, and her Auntie, an actress who gained fame decades before as Tiger Lil but whose glamorous days are over. Auntie Lil comes to visit for Chinese New Year, mostly because she's organizing a parade float for a businessman whom she hopes might one day finance another Tiger Lil movie. But when a thief steals the famous Goblin Pearls, Lily and her Auntie end up digging into the mystery behind the theft. Not only do they uncover some shady goings-on in Chinatown, Lily learns a lot about what it means to be Chinese-American.

I liked the book, although it seemed a little rushed in the beginning while also taking a while for the actual plot to get underway. There's a lot of set-up for the whole series, not just this book. I would have liked to have a little more character development, too. But once the mystery really gets started, it's a lot of fun. Lily is roped into helping during the parade, and witnesses the theft of the pearls. She only decides to investigate when she realizes there's a connection between the pearls' owner and a sweatshop where the mother of a girl she knows works--a sweatshop that hasn't paid its workers in three months.

Oddly enough, the parts of the book I liked best were those where Lily was grappling with her own heritage and thinking about things she's always taken for granted. Another writer might have made this a Message book, but Yep handles the topic lightly. The glimpses of Chinese-American culture, particularly around Chinatown, are fascinating without overpowering the mystery. The book is for younger kids, so while the mystery isn't terribly hard to figure out, it's satisfying.

The book was published in 1997, and it's surprising how dated it feels. Lily's mother rents VCR tapes to show the family Tiger Lil's old films; when they can't find some of the movies, Lily asks a computer-nerd friend to check with his "connections on the Internet" to chase them down. It's a shame that the dated stuff shows up early in the book, because it's both distracting and not a bit important to the actual plot. I suppose if the book is ever reprinted it would be easy enough to update it.

B&N link (used book)

Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer

2011-04-22T21:04:00.003-04:00

Footsteps in the Dark was first published in 1932. I love mysteries from that era. While this book isn't the finest mystery ever written, it was still a lot of fun.

Charles and Celia Malcolm, Celia's sister Margaret and brother Peter, and their aunt Mrs. Bosanquet have all inherited an ancient property known as the Priory. It's a picturesque place despite its lack of modern conveniences--like electricity--and they decide to stay there for the summer. But the Priory is locally infamous for being haunted by the sinister figure of a monk. Before long, the family hear footsteps and unearthly groans. Charles and Peter are determined to discover who's behind what they're sure is the only rational explanation: that one of the strangers lurking in the area is trying to drive the family away from the Priory for some purpose.

The book is surprisingly long, much longer than it really needs to be. The pace is slow. Characters recount to each other events that the reader has already witnessed, or repeat conversations the reader has already heard. But it's also a fun mystery, with lots of eccentric characters--from an entomologist supposedly searching for rare moths on the property at night, to a drug-addled French artist who fears and loathes the ghostly monk. There are skeletons and secret passages, people who aren't what they seem, suspicious-sounding conversations overheard.

While the plot is kind of absurd, there's a charming 1930s feel in the murderer's elaborate scheme. The subplot of a romance between Margaret and another character is abrupt but sweet. I can't say this is the best mystery I've ever read--it just moves too slowly and I did actually guess the murderer well ahead of time--but it was certainly entertaining and worth keeping.

B&N link

Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick

2011-04-18T20:50:00.002-04:00

I'm sure this comparison is being tossed out all over the place, so I'll get it over with. This feels a lot like Scott Lynch's books, just not as grim. It's Scott Lynch lite, if you will.

It's not derivative, though. Among Thieves feels like the Gentleman Bastards books because of its subject matter, not its plot or characters (sort of like all heist movies resemble each other superficially). Main character Drothe is a Nose--someone who collects information--for a crime boss in the city of Ildrecca. He also runs a tidy side business dealing in relics.

Things are turning bad in the part of Ildrecca known as Ten Ways, where none of the city's bosses have the upper hand. Drothe's boss wants him to find out what's really going on. Drothe never wants to go back to Ten Ways--he's just happy he got out in the first place years ago. But when a relic Drothe has been after turns up somewhere it shouldn't be, and assassins turn up in his bedroom, he realizes there's a lot more going on than anyone suspects.

The plot is intricate, fast-paced, and clever. There's plenty of violence, but Drothe is a nice guy with a strong (if skewed) sense of morality--likable enough that I rooted for him without hesitation. The worldbuilding is solid too, with lots of unique details about the empire's history. In fact, there's an awful lot of what felt like infodumping toward the beginning of the book, although it's not as bad as the book goes on. While the story doesn't flag, all the extra information makes the book longer than it probably needs to be.

I enjoyed Among Thieves a lot despite its length (and it's not all that long, really; I'm just an impatient reader). It stands alone, but it's also definitely set up for a sequel. That's fine with me. I'll be reading it.

B&N link

Raising the Dead by Mara Purnhagen

2011-04-12T21:20:00.002-04:00

I'm pretty sure this novella is only available as an ebook. I bought mine from the Sony Reader store, but I'll link to the B&N ebook site below so anyone who's interested can go look at the description even if they don't have a Nook.

Raising the Dead takes place between the first and second books in this series, a few weeks after the events of the first book. During a talk by Charlotte Silver's ghost-busting father (a talk where she's helping out by handing him props, much to her chagrin--it's Friday evening and she has nothing better to do), a massive storm moves in. On the trip home through the downpour, Charlotte sees a coffin floating down the flooded street.

The coffin, and many others, have washed out of an old cemetery outside town. Charlotte's parents volunteer to help identify the remains so they can be reburied. Charlotte is still unsettled by the haunting she went through over the summer, and the cemetery dates back to the same era of her ghost, so she joins her parents to help and maybe learn more about what happened to her. But the cemetery holds more mystery than history*, from a strange figure lurking around to some coffins that aren't quite what they seem.

Since this isn't a full-length novel, there's not as much going on in the plot as in the other books. Also, since it's an interstitial story that doesn't really fall in the arc of the regular series books, none of the important issues (like Charlotte's incipient romance with her friend Noah) are really addressed. It is a mostly fun little story, though, set in the week before Halloween.

I get the impression that this might have been initially released as a serial story online, judging from the repetition of events and information at the beginning of chapters. There are also some weird discrepancies that argue a minimum of editing--for instance, one character mentions his grandchildren early in the story, but later on it's a plot point that he has no family.

The plot starts out slow but picks up quickly, and becomes really exciting halfway through where some of the mysteries start to come to light. But the ending is terrible. I do like that the mysteries are more natural than supernatural, and Charlotte still shows some spunk in this story. But the ending is so lame it overshadows everything that was good about the book.

*did you see what I did there?

B&N nookbook link (ebook)

Reviewed by Sin - Popular Hits of the Showa Era

2011-04-09T20:54:00.007-04:00

POPULAR HITS OF THE SHOWA ERA
by Ryu Murakami
Amazon link

"Popular Hits of the Show Era" is about unlikable people doing horrible things to each other. It is also one of the funniest novels I have ever read. Written by Ryu Murakami, of "Almost Transparent Blue" and "The Audition" fame, it tells the story of two groups of people: six young men and six older women. The young men have no lives, outside of peeping and karaoke, and the women aren't any better. There wouldn't be much to say about their lives worth reading if they hadn't started killing each other.

It starts on an impulse. One of the young men, armed with a hard-on and no common sense, kills one of the women. Rather than go to the police, her friends discuss a course of action amongst themselves. Soon there's another dead body, and another murder being plotted. Hilarity, and more murder, ensue as Murakami gets inside each character's head and shows you that even the biggest losers can become heros - if only in their own minds. Set against the backdrop of Tokyo, Japan, this is a comedy for everyone with a dark sense of humor.

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

2011-04-09T16:59:00.004-04:00

It may be obvious that recently I've been reading classic mystery authors whose books I've never gotten around to reading before. I picked up The Maltese Falcon used last week, mostly because I've never seen the movie either and I wanted to read the book first.

I enjoyed the book and definitely see why it's been so popular for so long. The writing is old-fashioned and comes across as weirdly clumsy sometimes, but it's a great mystery. The surprises kept surprising me.

Sam Spade is tough and smart, and I actually really liked his secretary Effie and wished she was in the story more. The book is definitely a product of its time, though, with casual sexism and Sam smoking constantly. I also caught a few plot holes (like the disappearing daughter), but nothing major.

Now I get to watch the movie.

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

2011-04-02T22:21:00.004-04:00

Alan Grant, a Scotland Yard inspector, is laid up in the hospital and bored. A friend suggests he work on a historical mystery to keep him occupied. Grant chooses Richard III, whose portrait intrigues him. With the help of a young historian to do the legwork and a lot of books, Grant researches whether Richard III actually killed his two young nephews, the Princes in the Tower--and if he didn't kill them, who did?

The writing is old-fashioned but lively, the characters pleasant to spend time with. This book was first published in 1951 according to my 1988 edition. I actually like this kind of cerebral mystery, a subtype of cozy mystery that's pretty much nonexistent these days.

But I didn't like this book. I don't know a whole lot of British history, but I do know that Richard III has long been exonerated of his nephews' murders. Moreover, I got the strong feeling that Tey had several axes to grind and was more interested in setting the record straight about certain historical events than in writing a mystery.

So the book fails as a mystery, and since it isn't a scholarly work it also fails as a history. I don't know what details Tey invented for the purpose of her story and what details are real. I never could get invested in the plot, and the more Tey insisted on telling me I should think this way about these events, the more annoyed I became with her.

What I really want to read is The Man in the Queue, Tey's first novel, but I haven't been able to chase down a copy yet. This was a poor substitute.

Running on Empty by Sandra Balzo

2011-04-01T08:53:00.000-04:00

I think this book is being released on April 1, so if I did it correctly this review should run on April 1.

AnnaLise Griggs is a reporter in Wisconsin, but she heads home to North Carolina when she hears her mother drew several pints of blood instead of just one from a blood donor. AnnaLise is concerned to discover her mother is having occasionally memory lapses that might be early signs of Alzheimer's. She's less worried when the body of a local man is fished from the lake--it's Labor Day weekend and the man was drinking. But when another body turns up under much more suspicious circumstances, AnnaLise starts to wonder what's really going on in her sleepy hometown.

Running on Empty has all the elements of a fun mystery and for the most part it is fun. The plot is excellent--I truly had no idea who the murderer was or why the murders happened--and I enjoyed following along with the clues.

I was less impressed with the writing. Balzo seems to dislike using a name more than once a paragraph and practically twists herself into a writerly pretzel to avoid doing so, referring to characters as "the innkeeper" or "Daisy's daughter" or just "daughter." I found it jarring and sometimes confusing. I also felt like the book was trying hard not to switch to first person from third: frequently AnnaLise gave asides to the reader that seemed more appropriate to a first-person narrative. Even so, I never felt very close to her.

But the setting, a small tourist town in North Carolina, was well realized and I liked AnnaLise's mother and her mother's best friend. And as I said, the mystery was very good.

A copy of this book was provided to Skunk Cat by the publisher or author for review.

B&N link

Con & Conjure by Lisa Shearin

2011-03-29T21:04:00.002-04:00

I've been a fan of this series for years. Con & Conjure is the fifth book; last spring I reviewed the fourth, Bewitched & Betrayed. I said then that I thought the series was nearing a natural end, mostly because the main character's romantic subplot had resolved. But after reading Con & Conjure, I definitely see I was wrong. The series hasn't lost any steam, and in fact seems to be accelerating.

Raine Benares is still linked psychically with the Saghred, an ancient artifact once used to annihilate armies and enslave entire countries. Raine just wants to get rid of the thing, but there are a lot of people who want to use it--and her--for their own purposes. One wrong move and Raine will end up starting a war.

Raine brings in her cousin Mago, older brother of her pirate cousin Phaelan, to help. Mago isn't a pirate, though. He's a banker--and the best there is at emptying other people's bank accounts for his own use. Raine figures her enemies won't be able to do quite as much harm if they can't pay their minions.

The book is action-packed and fun, an urban fantasy set in an alternate world. There's a lot of tension but a lot of humor too. Some of the main characters from previous books don't have a lot of page time in this one, like Tam and Phaelan, and others aren't in the book at all. Raine is the prime mover, and since the action is nonstop she doesn't get much rest.

I liked that some of the plot arcs from the previous books resolve in this one, while new ones pick up. It sounds like the next book will take place in another city. The worldbuilding here is particularly fun, with inventive settings and details, so I'm looking forward to exploring a new area. I was disappointed that Mago's swindling--which was set up so perfectly in the beginning--didn't come to much. I'm hoping he'll stick around and do more next time.

While the plot is thoroughly satisfying, the cliffhanger ending means it's going to be a long wait for the next book.

B&N link

Dark Jenny by Alex Bledsoe

2011-03-28T07:48:00.000-04:00

I reviewed the second book in this series, Burn Me Deadly, a few months ago and really liked it. The series takes the hard-boiled detective genre and wraps it up in a fantasy world, a great combination.

In the dead of a bitter winter, sword jockey Eddie LaCrosse gets an ominous reminder of an old case: a coffin delivered during a snowstorm. The case was one of the strangest of Eddie's career, one that led to the downfall of an entire country.

The main story takes place in the past, framed by the arrival of the coffin in the present and Eddie's subsequent relating of the tale to everyone in the tavern where he's drinking. Ordinarily I hate that kind of structure, but it works here. I'm also not too fond of Arthurian tales, which this is, but Bledsoe has such a fresh take on it that I was smitten immediately.

At its heart, Dark Jenny is a murder mystery. Eddie was on another case when he witnessed a murder: a knight ate an apple intended for someone else, and died of poison. Eddie himself is suspected of the murder--but so is Queen Jennifer of Grand Bruan. Eddie wants to exonerate himself and get the hell out, but he also wants to find out the truth. While tracing the poisoner, he gets mixed up in royal mysteries, atrocities in the name of peace, and betrayal on both the personal and national scale.

The story is often violent but it doesn't feel particularly dark, thanks to the frequent black humor. There's also an added layer of enjoyment from recognizing how Bledsoe translates hard-boiled detective tropes and jargon into a fantasy setting. There's a lot of well-paced action too, tempered by some quieter moments.

Eddie is a flawed but honest character with a dark past; I was disappointed that his girlfriend Liz didn't have much of a part in the plot, since it mostly takes place before Eddie met her. But my only real complaint is the big ending where the murderer is revealed; it felt a little chaotic to me, probably because so many characters were present. Overall, though, the book is extremely good, with a tricky mystery and a fascinating setting.

A copy of this book was provided to Skunk Cat by the publisher or author for review.

B&N link