Deep Thoughts

I am Maru by mugumogu

2012-01-18T22:03:00.001-05:00

Maru is a cat that is an internet sensation- a Scottish Fold cat who lives in Japan with his owner (here in the book, she is referred to a his "roommate", who keeps a blog and uploads videos to Youtube of Maru's various antics and interests- mainly relating to boxes, bags and his enjoyment of throwing himself into boxes or sliding into them from across the floor- sometimes even more than one box at once!

In this book, we get the true story of Maru, whose name means "round object", and who was partly named for his owner's first impression of him (all rounded), but also because such a name is short and easy to call. The book starts off shortly after mugumogu (his owner's online name) adopted Maru, and is illustrated in the many, many pictures that were taken of him when he was young. Some are images of him at rest (along with the story of how owning Maru changed his owner's understanding of what cats were like. The only other cat she knew loved warm places, being cuddled, and would sit in his owner's lap, while Maru loves and/or does none of those things), while others show his funny faces, and him peeping out from under a blanket, which he loves to do.

Maru also loves to be in things- boxes especially, but he also evinces an interest in being inside small trash cans, or emptying the trashcans so that he can get inside. But he never looks apologetic about it. His face always seems to say, "What?! I'm happy right where I am."

This book is written in both Japanese Kana and Kanji, and in English, which is the original Japanese translated. At the end of the book, screenshots of the famous Maru videos are displayed, as well as an explanation of what those videos show, and some more information about Maru's life. Most of the book is supposedly from Maru's POV, and has the cat "talking to" the readers, explaining what he likes or doesn't like. The rest is straight from Mugumogu's voice, and lets us in on why pet ownership is so hard in Japan (very few places allow pets, but it doesn't say that this is because of lack of space in Japan. Only the very wealthy can afford to own pets, especially dogs, who need space to be walked that industrialized Japan just doesn't have.)

For those people who have seen Maru videos on Cute Overload, or just on his Youtube channel, this book will round out their Maru knowledge and experience with plenty of fun pictures. Maru is such a big cat, so fluffy and soft-looking, that you will want to dig your hands into his fur and touch him for yourself- but you can't...it's just a book.

Still, anyone who loves cats or even animals in general will find this a fun and heartwarming book to read. The pictures are truly priceless, especially Maru's many faces and his dressing up (including one as "Hello Kitty" that really made me laugh). It's a piece of fluff, yes, but it's a cute and adorable piece of fluff, and you certainly can't go wrong showing off more of an adorable cat like Maru.

For those who love looking at cats, or who want a cat of their own, or even people who just want to vicariously know what owning a cat is like, this book will be a fun read. It's not too large, or too expensive, but honestly, I don't know that buying the book is really worth it- it's nice to look at, to be sure, and easy to read, but you could have a lot of the same experience looking at his pictures and videos on the web. Recommended for reading, not so much for the buying.

Awkward Family Photos by Mike Bender and Doug Chernack

2012-01-18T21:17:00.000-05:00

Everyone who lived through the 70's and 80's has one or more of "those pictures" in the family photo album. You know, one of those pictures that seemed fine at the time you were taking it, but you look back on it now and the only thing that goes through your mind was "What was I (or they) thinking? Was everyone on drugs when this was being taken? How could they not know how hideous this looks? Did they actually want to preserve THIS as a family memory?!" From pictures of the entire family wearing outfits cut from the same ugly cloth, a picture of a girl who had literally peed her pants, or wet spots on the front crotch of a young man's jeans, the amount of embarrassing pictures that were immortalized in print pretty much approaches infinity.

And that's where Mike Bender and Doug Chernack come in. For they have taken the very worst of these pictures submitted to their website- awkward family photos dot com, and put them out in book form (and as a game as well) to show you that perhaps that ugly or hideous family photo in your own album might not be so bad (or if it is that bad... or even worse, you can always submit it to the site and know that at least someone is getting a chuckle out of it, and it's bringing humor to the world!) and you can take heart that there are far, far worse ones out there.

The book starts with family photos of the entire clan, moves on to mom and Dad, the kids, Grandma and Grandpa, the other relatives, Pets, and then things like Holidays. While some of the photos are just strange, a good many cross over the line to the point where your jaw will be hanging open, especially in the holiday photo section. One of the Easter Photos makes me think that the child in the picture must have been traumatized for life. It's truly that horrifying. And then there are the vacation pictures and the wedding pictures that are equally as bad.

Everyone takes bad pictures, but this book goes beyond bad to the truly horrifying. You will definitely wonder what the people who took those pictures were thinking, or if, indeed, they did think before pointing and clicking. Even more horrifying is the fact that many of these pictures were professionally taken, and are still plenty horrifying.

But these pictures allow us to laugh at the 70's and 80's, and the pictures we were all taking back then. Especially bad offenders are 80's dance togs, 70's suits and tuxedos (powder blue,anyone?) and the ever-popular hairstyle for men and women: the mullet. Other bads including trying to dress everyone in the family in the same fashion/pattern and the "ghost technique of a picture in a picture that was also more than popular back then not to mention all the fashion trends that make people shriek in horror (goth, "cowboy", bowl haircuts...).

This book may be full of really horrible pictures, but the fact remains that they are ripe for inspiring hilaritya in anyone who sees them. The wonder is not that these pictures got taken (or saved), but that those who are in these pictures are willing to let others see and laugh at them, knowing that what they are doing is going to be questioned by anyone seeing them. This book is a laugh riot, and i have to give my thanks to those who were secure enough to let them go to be laughed at by anyone seeing them or reading the book. Highly recommended for a good laugh!

Dear America: With the Might of Angels- The Diary of Dawnie Rae Johnson by Andrea Davis Pinkney

2012-01-16T12:11:00.003-05:00

Dawnie Rae lives in Hadley, Virginia in the early 1950's, when it was still segregated, both in neighborhoods and schools. She lived with her momma, who took in washing, her father, a deliveryman for the local dairy, and her brother, Goober, who is a little "special". She receives a diary for her birthday from her brother, and uses it to record her life, and her fascination with the civil rights struggle then taking place. She imagines herself writing to famous Black people, like Jackie Robinsons, Martin Luther King, and others, asking how they feel about the changes taking place in American society.

Dawnie goes to school at the local all-black school, Mary McLeod Bethune, but it's not the best place to go to school, as all of its books are old and out of date. Despite this, Dawnie is the smartest student in the school. But she and her best friend, Yolanda, both wish they could go to the other school in town, Prettyman Coburn School, which lives up to its first name. But they can't go, because that school is for white children only.

During the summer, though, "Separate but equal" educational facilities are struck down by the courts, and Dawnie and several other children from Bethune school are visited by Equal rights workers seeking smart black children to attend all white schools and integrate them. However, Dawnie's parents are the only ones to accept this offer. Even Yolanda, who is almost as smart as Dawnie and has dreamed of entering Prettyman, turn down the offer.

The white people in town attempt to close down the school to stop Dawnie from attending, and some of the most prejudiced members of the community take their children out of the school, but eventually Dawnie gets her chance to go to school, where she is picked on by her fellow students, discriminated against by the teachers and turned into the janitor for her classroom, making her do the job of cleaning up before she can join the other kids at recess. Even at home, her father is fired from his job at the Dairy, which is owned by a white man.

But Dawnie perseveres, even when her old friends accuse her of wanting to be white. She finally gets a friend at school, a white Jewish girl from New York City whose family moved to Virginia, and who is equally an outcast for her religion, and the black community decides to boycott the local Dairy, who does most of its business with the black community, and stands strong together, even if not everyone agrees with Dawnie's parents and sending her to Prettyman.

But as the school year draws to an end, the entire school must take a test to see who will be the valedictorian of the class and who will be able to ring the new Bell that is being installed to call students to class. Will Dawnie be the new bell-ringer, or will the forces of hatred, bigotry and racism triumph over her intelligence and preservance to deny her the job? And what will happen to Dawnie's family?

I enjoyed reading this book, which I felt had a lot of parallels to marriage rights for gay people today. Setting up "Civil unions" as marriage for gay people strikes me as the same "separate but equal" deal that had been struck down when it came to educational facilities. And that was hardly equal.

Dawnie Rae comes across as a very strong young woman. She is subject to a lot of discrimination when she changes schools- not just from the white students and teachers, but also from her former friends and neighbors, who think it's bad of her to try and better herself by going to Prettyman Coburn. And while not all the white teachers are against her (there is one male history teacher from Boston who treats her the same as he treats the other students), he gets fired for writing a letter to the editor of the local paper in support of her going to Prettyman Coburn. But he doesn't leave Virginia, he stays to work for desegregation.

Reading this book was a wonderful, eye-opening experience, and I enjoyed the story and the characters. My only quibble with the book (and, indeed, all the Dear America books) is how many of the characters end up unmarried, and instead, seem married to their careers. It seems like a significant number of them do. But other than that, I have nothing but praise for the books, and that includes this one. Highly recommended.

Darkness Rising by Keri Arthur

2011-12-31T13:04:00.002-05:00

At the end of "Darkness Unbound", Risa Jones suffered a horrible event, the death of someone she loved more than anyone or anything else in the world. As this book starts, she is still coming to terms with the event, even if it seems like she will never get over it. Once again, she is approached by Director Hunter of the Directorate, who still wants Risa to work for her because of Risa's special skills of traveling beyond the veil, as well as who her father is, because the Directorate also wants to find the keys to the gates of the afterlife that her father helped forge.

But this time, the offer is more quid pro quo. Join the special forces of the Directorate, and Madam Hunter will do everything she can to find the killer of the person Risa loved. And while Risa still isn't happy about working for the Directorate, for this particular consideration, she'll join with them- reluctantly, still, but she'll join.

The Director immediately sets out to give her a job. Someone has been killing the vampire members of the Directorate council. It's not another vampire, and the deaths seem almost suspiciously natural- only the fact that those killed were vampires makes their deaths anything *but* natural. The vampire who was killed also mentioned bad dreams getting worse, just before he died. Risa asks all the usual questions- are you sure it wasn't another vampire? Yes, because if another vampire could just kill him like that, he'd be qualified to take the place of the man who was killed, and nobody has stepped forward to do so. And as far as anyone knows, he hasn't seriously pissed off anyone lately.

Risa takes on the case with Azriel, who travels to the home of the purported next victim, who is already having bad dreams. She lives alone with her lover, who also acts as her servant and majordomo, but thanks to Azriel, she knows that the woman is already doomed to death- Risa can't save her. But Risa can find the connection between the two vampires, and find out who or what wants them dead and why.

Meanwhile, she is also trying to contact her dad again. While he's gone (in the sense of not having a body any longer, but his spirit/soul is somehow still around), she still has to find the keys, which are not only hidden from everyone, but him as well by his former servants, and he has no idea where his servants are, or where they might have hidden the keys he told them to hide. And with just about everyone wanting those keys, knowing both how important they are and the danger they pose to the world, looking for them, and even finding them, is by no means safe. And even just in Risa's life, there are three conflicting interests who want the keys: Azriel the Reaper, Director Hunter, and her father- all of whom want Risa to hand the keys over to them when and if she finds them. Who will Risa choose as the safest and best choice to own the keys? And what will the reactions of the other two be if and when she does find them?

And when Azriel takes steps to protect her by having her bind with an intelligent sword made by the Reapers to help protect and save her life from the danger she keeps flinging herself into, , will Risa survive the binding with a sword that has a mind of its own? And will the sword agree to be owned, or at least possessed by her, or will it take matters into its own hands (so to speak) by burning out her mind if it rejects her?

Wow, another good volume in this series. When I started reading this book, I kept smirking every time the Reaper character was mentioned, and then I figured out why- Axriel was also the name of Gargamel's cat in the Smurfs, which I watched when I was a kid. And every time his name was mentioned, I kept hearing Gargamel calling his cat in my mind, complete with the voice acting. It was rather distracting, but as I got further into the story, the more easily I could push that away and concentrate on what was happening. Though if you're old enough to remember the Smurfs cartoons, you might have that same memory, so it's just a warning.

I enjoyed this book a lot. Yes, Risa ends up working for the Directorate. Unlike Riley, who wanted to work as an agent, and not just a secretary, Risa has been told pretty much her whole life by both Riley and Rhoan *not* to work for the Directorate, and she doesn't really want to at all- she has her own life, and things she wants and needs to be doing, and the Director only wants her for her specific skill, but she'll do it because she has no choice. I also understand why Riley doesn't want Risa to work for the directorate- Hunter is far more manipulative than Riley's own former Boss, and I wouldn't trust her, either. It seems that the Directorate has become a far less nice place than when Riley worked there, and much more secretive and mysterious. Whether that's due to Hunter, or just the people she put in place is debatable, but the changes are there.

I also like the sexual tension between Risa and her current lover, Lucian, the outcast Aedh who was deprived of his wings (and how they were taken away sounds truly awful and horrendous),. and the sneaking sexual tension between her and Azriel, who seems to like her in more than just a comradely way, to the point where even she feels attracted to him, and how he seems to be coming more human, as well as making subtle jokes with her. I recall the same tension between Riley, Quinn, and her soul mate (who died on one of her cases, leaving her to be with Quinn, who she truly did love), and wonder if somewhere down the line, Lucian is going to be revealed as one of the Aedh who want the keys to screw with the gates in some sort of revenge for what the other Aedh did to him, and that he just became Risa's lover to keep an eye on her as well as giving him greater leverage in the event she finds the keys and having some kind of control on her because she fell in love with him or at least cares for him in a loverly way. (Not that I think that would work at this point in time, he's more of a fuck-buddy than an actual lover, she doesn't seem to hold feelings like that for him from what I read, at least not yet).

I enjoyed the book, and I really am getting more invested and interested in the series. I didn't feel as much for her as quickly as I did when I was reading about Riley, and it took me a while to adjust. But I do like the series, and I definitely want to read more. Again, I'm still not as invested in caring for Risa as for Riley, but I think as I read more about her, I will become so. It's a fairly fun series, as we are getting to see more supernaturals who aren't as well-known as the weres and vampires we met before. Recommended.

The Sookie Stackhouse Companion by Charlaine Harris

2011-12-30T16:44:00.003-05:00

Sookie Stackhouse is a small-town Southern girl living in Bon Temps, Louisiana. She and her brother, Jason, have lived there all their lives, but when a vampire named Bill Compton, who once lived in the town before the Civil War, returns to claim his old family house, Sookie, who has the unusual talent of reading minds, gets drawn into Bill's life, and vampire business and concerns as the Supernatural creatures who live in the area simply refuse to leave her alone.

In a short story called "Small Town Wedding", Sookie and her boss, Shifter Sam Merlotte travel to his home town of Wright, Texas, for the wedding of Sam's brother Eric to his love, Deidra. But the wedding has stirred up a lot of bad feeling in the town, not only from the Merlotte's next door neighbor, Jim Collins, but from a whole bunch of people who are upset about Shifters coming out and being accepted as citizens. Jim tries to intimidate the Merlottes and Sookie, but fails.

The next morning, she finds that he has set up a sign in the front yard, reading "Dogs belong in the Pound", and Sookie, knowing this means something bad, runs to the Pound to find all the dogs shot and slaughtered. This raises the attention and ire of the local shifters, and some not so local as well. When Sookie returns to the Merlotte's house, she takes action, removing the sign from the lawn and planting it on the lawn of Jim Collins, while yelling at him that he's nothing but a murderer. But he doesn't come out of his house or do anything else.

The shapeshifters from the town and the surrounding area come and protect the Merlottes as they attend church in the morning, then return home to get changed for the wedding. More shifters arrive, and a mob gathers in front of the Merlotte house to try and disrupt the wedding by throwing rocks and red paint on the cars of the wedding party. But the shifters take the lead and get the party to the wedding. Only Sookie is sure she sees a very familiar woman in the mob- the wife of the Leader of the former Fellowship of the Sun. Sarah Newlin. But is this most wanted woman really there in Wright, and if she is, could she have anything to do with the mob raised up against Eric and his fiancée?

After the short story, the book continues on with a day by day breakdown of what happens in each book of the series and puts the short stories in order, along with a look at the conversations between Bill and Eric, an interview of Charlaine Harris, a listing of her earlier works, and several sets of interviews and reader questions. The book ends with a listing of every character ever mentioned in one of the books and short stories, which is well over 75 pages.

I liked the new story, and the rest of the stuff in the book was very interesting- the list of every single character in the series, either appearing or mentioned, was incredibly impressive. Sookie's entry, however, was almost a reiteration of the beginning of the book, where they list, by day, what went on in every book, just because she is the viewpoint character. The only difference is that it doesn't give the numbers for the date.

Some of the other stuff, like the woman who ran Charlaine Harris' fan club, was actually interesting, as she talked about becoming friends with Charlaine, and about how they spread the word about her and her world, and I loved looking at the recipies donated by the readers and meant to be from the characters in the stories, but at the same time, I don't read books for the recipes, as there are plenty of authors who do that, and I think it cheapened the book a little.

I liked this book a lot, and there is a lot of stuff in the book to like. While not every section really appealed to me, reading the story behind how Charlaine got the series published (there was a big question as to whether it would get published at all, since it was rejected by so many publishers) was one of my favorite parts. Other readers are sure to have others. Highly recommended.

Darkness Unbound by Keri Arthur

2011-12-29T08:30:00.003-05:00

Even in a world where Vampires, Werecreatures and others are a fact of daily life, Risa Jones is different, being half-Werewolf and half Aedh, a being of magic much like Angels, who can enter the Veil beyond life and come back. Aedh are rare- most of them having been killed off by each other, and half-breed Aedh are even rarer still- Risa was conceived through an experiment, and only she survived, most of the others dying before they were born.

Risa's mother, too, is unusual- a blind seer who was abducted for her powers, but later rescued by Riley Jensen. And Risa views Riley as an aunt. But Riley has been retired from the Directorate for twenty years, and Risa is living on her own, although she and her mother are still close. So when her mother asks her to look into a case of a young girl suddenly taken to the hospital when she just... stopped, Riley is stunned to learn that this girl's soul is gone, stolen from her in an instant.

And she's not the only one who has an interest in tracking down who would do this to a young girl. The Reapers- the spirits who guide the souls through death and punish those who would do evil beyond the grave, also have an interest in the case, and in Risa- her Aedh father was an Aedh priest- one of the Aedh who has even more power over the veil than other Aedh. The Reapers want to track him down because her father was responsible for creating keys that could lock the doors that the souls travel through after death- or fling them wide open. Lock them, and eventually humans and others would die off as no souls returned to life to replace the ones that died. Fling them wide open, and the dead, even the evil dead, could return any time they liked, taking over living bodies with impunity. The Reapers want Risa to find her father for them, because ever since the keys were made, he's gone into hiding, but now that they know about the soul-stealing, they also want to track down who is doing this and eliminate them.

She and the Reaper, who calls himself Azriel (the name all Reapers go by) talk, and she agrees to track down the Soul stealer, because both of them think that someone who would do that to a child needs to die. This particular Reaper is a Mijai, a dark Reaper, a soldier among Reapers who takes care of threats to the land of the dead- and to the spirits. But she will also have time to live her own life, that is, if the head of the Directorate, a woman named Hunter, isn't trying to recruit her. And while she knows that Riley was once part of the Directorate, along with her brother, Rhoan, Risa has never really wanted to be part of it. But how long can she evade Hunter if the woman will do anything to recruit her?

As Risa finds another Aedh, a man named Lucian, she wonders if he has anything to do with the case with the Reapers- because Lucian is quite impressed with her and wants to be her lover- And Aedh- full blooded Aedh, are affectionate only at the ends of their lives, when they want to mate and make more Aedh. But can she trust anything he tells her, and what is up with all the people trying to kill her? Why does someone want to kill her, and who of her many enemies are behind it? Is it really all about trying to find her father and the keys he and his fellow Aedh priests constructed, or is there some other reason that someone wants her dead? It's up to Risa, her friends Ilianna and Tao, as well as Lucian and Azriel, to keep Risa safe and alive as she investigates who is stealing souls and finding her father, and the keys he was responsible for making. But when her father contacts her, it puts her in even more danger, and suddenly, her friends and lovers might not be enough to protect her. Will Risa and those she loves come out of the conflict alive?

Risa is a minor character from the Riley Jensen series, in which she was just a kid, only eight years old. Now, she all grown up, a wealthy woman who is part owner of a bar/restaurant with her two friends, and she's ready to start kicking ass on her own. In a way, she's rather more fortunate than Riley was, as Riley only had her brother to call on for help, and wasn't in any way rich, at least until she married her vampire lover, Quinn. But at the same time, Risa is hampered in other ways. She knows almost nothing about the Aedh side of her heritage, and nothing about her father- her mother hasn't wanted to tell her at all. And Risa definitely wants to know.

Her Aedh powers are interesting. Risa can cross the veil simply by concentrating, but it plays holy hell with anything that makes the trip with her, mostly her clothing, as it also ruins electronics, but she knows better than to try taking her cellphone with her. Or anything electronic that isn't contained inside her body I found this series somewhat different than the Riley Jensen stories, and I did enjoy it, but it does seem very different. Both characters might be a mix of races, but Riley's were ones that didn't hold much mystery- Vampires and Werewolves, whereas Risa is a mix of Werewolf and Aedh, a race we don't know anything about at the start of the book. But we learn a bit- but I feel that we are going to have to wait to learn more, like, a lot of other books.

Well, its not Riley Jensen, though she does appear. Risa is a bit more confident than Riley, though many of her feelings seem the same, like she's almost the same character. But I liked the book, and I do want to read more. So, Recommended to read, because in many ways, it's a lot like the earlier books.

The Thirteenth Princess by Diane Zahler

2011-12-28T23:34:00.003-05:00

Zita works as a servant in the kitchen of the King. But unlike the other servants, she is actually a Princess, the thirteenth daughter of the King, who was banished from the life of her sisters when she was a mere babe in arms.

From the cook, she hears the story, that her father loved her mother, Queen Amara, but an endless series of daughters born when he so wanted a son and heir made him cold and distant to his children as more and more were born female and not male. When Zita's birth ended her mother's life, he blamed the child and banished her to a life among the servants rather than being a princess like her sisters.

But Zita's life among the servants is not a bad one. When her sisters are introduced to young Princes, they go completely silent, unable to speak. Zita has no problem talking to men at all, even if they aren't Princes, and especially with Breckin, the freckled servant boy who works in the stables, as they become fast friends after he gets over not believing that she is a Princess.

She also has a relationship with her sisters, although she must hide it from her father and the other servants. She could be forbidden from seeing them entirely, but she isn't. She has also learned to bake in hopes of making her father like her- he smiled once when he liked her baking, and she hopes that if she pleases him like that again, he will smile at her again.

She and Breckin discover a secret in the woods. After the birth of Zita's eldest sister, Aurelia, the King banished all the witches from the Kingdom, hoping to prevent any curses on the young Princesses. But one witch remains, a kindly older woman who hides her cottage under an illusion of being run down and abandoned. Babette befriends Zita and Breckin, and teaches Zita the magic of being open-minded, able to see and to hide herself by imagining herself as something else- a tree, a bush, a rock, which Zita uses to get closer to her family and see how much easier her father acts around her sisters than around her.

But, abruptly, her sisters become tired and listless, their bodies drained of energy. No matter how much they rest during the day, they cannot seem to summon the energy to eat or do anything else. Zita believes that something unnatural has befallen her sisters. Maybe even something... magical. But can she do anything to free her sisters from the curse or spell that has befallen them, without anything to help but Breckin, his brother Milek, a former soldier, and the advice of Babette? Because if she can't save her sisters, nothing will be able to!

This book is based on the Fairy Tale "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", only here, there are actually thirteen Princesses. Zita is a servant, but unlike a servant, she isn't badly mistreated or starved. And if she isn't treated as well as her sisters, at least she is able to talk to men and not have to have lessons on deportment, and she is closer to a normal person than any of her sisters.

But even though she's been ignored by her father, Zita is strong in other ways, and her strength is what saves her sisters. It's her ability with magic, her courage in the face of adversity, and even her father's sacrifice that end with the saving of the kingdom and the happiness of her and her sisters.

I liked this book. While some of Zita's story is quite frankly, magical, the love and bravery exhibited by Zita is something that all girls can aspire to, even if her magic isn't. Highly recommended.

Well-Tempered Clavicle by Piers Anthony

2011-12-27T10:13:00.002-05:00

Picka Bones and his sister, Joy'nt, are looking for something to do with their long lives. The children of Marrow Bones and Grace'l Ossein, they were the childhood friends of Princesses Dawn and Eve, but Eve is married, and they are no longer children.

One night, while Patrolling a Graveyard, Picka and Joy'nt discover three very unusual intelligent animals, a bird named Tweeter and a cat named Midrange need help rescuing their dog friend, Woofer. After they come to understand each other, and Picka and his sister help Woofer out of the place where he was trapped, they share life stories and discover the strange crypt is actually a Think Tank that helps people find ideas. And since Picka lacks the usual skeleton power to rearrange his bones after being kicked in the pelvis, Tweeter thinks that maybe Picka has a different talent- a magical one.

So the two skeletons and three pets go off to find the Magician Humphrey, to find out what Picka's talent might be. They know they will have to work for the Good Magician, but it will be worth it to find out what Picka's talent is. It turns out that Picka's talent is music- he has the ability to make tunes on his own skeleton, by using his clavicles for picks and tapping them on his other bones. Now, normally the Price of an Answer is a year's service to the Good Magician, but Humphrey has a special service in mind for Picka, Joy'nt, and the pets. They must find Castle Caprice, a moving Castle that is so unpredictable in its movements that even the Good Magician can't track it down.

Inside Castle Caprice is the fabled artifact known as Pundora's Box. Like Pandora, it's full of bad stuff, in this case, truly horrendous puns- one that could destroy Xanth in no time. But hopefully, some of the puns that currently infect Xanth could also be returned to the box and make it easier to live there. They set out, accompanied by Princess Eve, who is lonely in her life now that her sister is married, and she has no one to be with.

But Castle Caprice is more than just a moving Castle, it's also intelligent, and is looking for a musician to inhabit it. Once, it had a musician who lived inside it, and used his magic to capture Xanth's more egregious puns and put them back in the box. But the musician's own propensity for chasing girls and indiscriminate loving ended up with him being cursed into the form of a blob. Unable to do his job, he was kicked out of the Castle

But when their party encounters a pun killer named Attilla the Pun, they are forced to kill him when he decides that they must go the way of the Puns. This enrages Attilla's girlfriend, who teams up with the Blob former musician, to take them down. Can the Companions fend off the attacks of Attilla's former girlfriend, find the Castle, and have Picka become its Master, using music to track down the puns and removing the worst of them from Xanth? Or will Piper, who is now dangerously fixated on Eve, kill Picka and steal Eve away, leaving the Puns to permanently infest Xanth?

Xanth has been around a long time, and some time ago, the stories started getting more and more about sex versus love- although it used to be more of the first following the second, and now it's the other way around. In other words, you can tell who is going to end up together in this one, because two of the characters become sex partners fairly early on. I'm not saying that this is wrong, exactly, but it's a big change from where the early books were. The early books were much beloved by teens, as they told stories of adventure, but now, they are more firmly in the adult camp (and to be fair, Piers Anthony has always said his books were meant for adults, it's just that now he's able to bring more of his vision to Xanth.). But I still remember merely embracing engendered a child for Prince Dolph and Princess Electra- no sex needed. So, sometimes, I really have to wonder about this.

Anyhow, being that this is the new reality of Xanth novels, be aware that there is sex in this book. Not just skeleton sex (making babies involves both parents going to pieces with a kick in the butt and assembling children out of some of the pieces), but human sex as well. At this point, I know what to expect, but I still find it distracting to the main story, as much as Piers doesn't swell on every stroke and thrust, it's still strange to have this mainly an adventure story and in the middle of a chapter have what essentially amounts to: "and they camped for the night. And HAWT SEXY TIMES ENSUE!" Okay, is that really necessary? I don't feel so. It's distracting and occasionally offputting to get this dropped into the narrative. For me, it's the adventure story I really want to read, not how the Hero and Heroine are going at it in the tent when they camp for the night. There are stories I read for romance and sex, and stories I read for adventure. And Xanth, while it had light romance, has always been in the second camp.

This book was mostly good- I liked the adventure parts when they weren't being bogged down by the rampant sex being discussed. I also found it distracting because the characters never seem too tired for sex, they never just lie there and hold each other, or cuddle- it's like all sex all the time, and while it's a strange distinction to make for a fantasy story- it just wasn't realistic in any way that the characters are always ready to bump bones, so it comes off as an adolescent sex fantasy. I'd give it a light recommendation- the bones of the story are good, and the introduction of sex allows the story of Piper's fall to be laid out in detail, but in many ways it's distracting to the story and unnecessary, as well as the whole thing being extremely unrealistic as a relationship.

Heroes at Risk by Moira J. Moore

2011-12-26T20:01:00.002-05:00

Source Shintaro Karish and Dunleavy or Lee Mallorough have finally returned from the Southern continent. But thanks to the decree of the Empress, they can't tell anyone what they were doing for all those months away, not even their fellow Shields and Sources. They return to High Scape with a new outlook on life, and a new secret to keep- during their time in the South, they have become lovers. While not strictly forbidden, it is strongly frowned upon by both of their teachers and the Triple S because of the complications it can cause in their work.

The city of High Scape has also been changing while they were away, and the once hot city, volatile with Catastrophes that had to be mitigated and eliminated by the Sources, has been cooling, with very few Catastrophes at all. Because of this, less Pairs are needed to combat the problems in the city, and so they have been being reassigned by the Triple S. For now, though, Taro and Lee's assignment remains High Scape, and the watches that they pull have lengthened from seven hours to eleven, which they must spend in a tiny room with nothing to do.

On their first night back, they go out to eat and on their walk in the city afterwards, they discover some people messing with the copper urns in an ash grove. Ash groves are like cemeteries, where people's ashes are interred in copper urns. It is extremely horrible to try to mess with someone's ashes, but that doesn't stop the people, and even though Taro chases them, he loses them in the darkness. They report what they saw to the Runners, who tell them that more and more people are stealing the ashes of those who led what they consider "lucky" lives, and that the ashes are used in new magic rituals that have become very popular in town since last year's "Harsh Summer", when the crops failed due to the extreme weather.

Taro is so delighted by their return to the normal North, where Sources and Shields need not pay for anything that he decides to go shopping, and he drags Lee with him to do so. In particular, he is interested in jewelry, and he decides to buy them matching jewelry of a type known as "Harmony Bobs". These are wishes for a particular desire, from luck and fertility to knowledge, children and so on. But none of the designs or desires strike him until he discovers one at a stall that stands for "eternity", featuring a design like an elongated figure eight. He wants those, and the merchant makes he and Lee go through a ceremony before he will let them put them on each other. By the time this ceremony has ended Lee feels like a fool and goes back to the Triple S house while Taro does some more shopping for clothes.

Shortly thereafter, Lee once again meets Dorian, the nobleman who she and Taro met and rescued in the last book. Before Lee began her romance with Taro, she was interested in Dorian, and even now that she and Taro are together, she still believes that it's just a matter of time until Taro leaves her, so she tries to remain friends with Dorian. Taro, however, seems angry that Lee is trying to maintain her acquaintance with him, and it causes an argument between them.

Meanwhile, a plague seems to be sweeping the city, centered mostly around the area where the Rivers meet, and while very few people have died, no one is treating it lightly. But no one can figure out how the disease is being transmitted, or even if the sufferers are contagious. When someone else approaches him for healing, Taro agrees to try, as long as he keeps it secret, and tells the man that he can do nothing for him- it's not something that he can treat or heal, but he can also tell it isn't contagious, and neither is it a disease, really, although what it is, he isn't sure.

And a new mayor is being elected, thanks to the removal of the last one for corruption. Lee decides to attend the festivities alone, but the martial music being played by the bands affects her so badly that she can only just keep her composure, and she has to hold on tightly to a piece of wood to do so. A local merchant, and sometime rival of her family helps her out, and reveals that he is behind getting the new mayor elected. She watches the new mayor make a speech, and then cannot stay any longer- she is still not feeling well from the music. But the next morning, she learns that the new mayor was assassinated during the night.

Risa has been trying to find out what went on between Taro and Lee when they were away, and tells Lee that she will get her drunk if it helps her find out the true story about what went on. But the Empress has died, and since her son, Gifford, was still heir at the time of her death, it seems he will be the new Emperor. He summons Taro and Lee to him to grill them about what went on at the party where they ended up saving his life from the Reanists, and about the rumors of Taro's ability to heal, as well as his ability to create Catastrophes that he learned from Creol, but Lee and Taro basically say that there is nothing to the rumors, even though both of them are being less than truthful. They return to High Scape, but Gifford is still suspicious of them and what they can do, and they know it.

As Lee tries to remain friends with Dorian, she agrees to a picnic in the park with him, but is distracted when a house goes up in flames in a puff of purple smoke. She burns her hand on the door handle, but rushes in to try and save the occupants of the house, a woman and her two daughters. She realizes that the house has a magic circle drawn on the floor and that the woman was trying to do magic- and she isn't trying to flee at all. Lee rubs out part of the circle to get past it, and when she does, the fire snuffs out instantly. After that, the woman screams at Lee and the others trying to rescue her to get out of her home. Lee has to go to the hospital to get her burn treated. and when she gets home, she finds that Dorian had come to the Triple S house to find her, and that he and Taro have been talking, and not in a very friendly fashion. Dorian makes his interest in Lee plain, and Taro is offended that she didn't tell him about the picnic- he accuses her of going behind his back, while Dorian points out how a liason with Taro can never last, and that he is the better man for her. Lee manages to break it up, but the argument between Lee and Taro afterwards draws another pair to them, and they point out how such a relationship between Source and Shield breaks the rules, then one of them announces that she is offended by their relationship and stalks off.

Lee is upset- after all, this woman is always flirting with Taro and talking about her many lovers- but her pair partner basically tells them it is talk only- none of it was real or serious, and that while she doesn't consider their relationship an abomination, she also doesn't approve. Things don't get much better for them after that, but Ben, one of the workers at the house, offers to renew the poultice on her burn so that it can heal. Lee thanks him, but reveals some bad news she heard from Risa- his daughter has been arrested for the crime of killing the mayor. Ben is upset, but tries not to show it.

Some days later, Lee finds herself in pain from a bad headache, one that doesn't go away for several days. When she collapses after going to look for him, she ends up in the hospital from an overdose of Nyacin powder, which Ben has been mixing into her poultice. It turns out that some people are very sensitive to it-and Lee is one of those unfortunate people. It's not bad for everyone, and thus he probably didn't know she shouldn't have the Nyacin, but she tells him and has to follow a prescription of drinking a special tea and taking baths to sweat the toxins from her body.

Then more people show up seeking Taro's healing. Despite being unable to do anything for the first man, he actually got better, and credited Taro with making him better, so more people have shown up demanding healing. Again, Taro tells them he can't do anything, but agrees to try and help. But this also makes him seek out what might be making people sick. He asks around the neighborhood of Riverfront, but no one will admit to seeing anything out of the ordinary- until a young boy says there was a woman who comes to the neighborhood wearing a black cloak and that she dumped something into the rivers. But what? Could it be causing the supposed sickness, and why would anyone want to do that?

Meanwhile, Lee's Merchant protector invites her and Taro to a dinner party in his home, and this leads to additional invitations from other diners they meet at the party. But it seems strange- none of them seem to have anything in common except friendship, so why are they so interested in cultivating Lee and Taro? What could they want from them, and is this latest problem with stealing the ashes of "lucky" people, not to mention killing people perceived to be lucky and burning them to get their ashes, a threat to Taro also? And what is going to happen, or not happen, between Taro, Dorian and Lee? Is there any way for Lee to get Dorian to settle for friendship, or is the fighting between the two men souring all their relationships? And when Danger looms for the Pair once again, can Taro and Lee navigate their way out of danger, or will it just be too much for them this time?

Well, this book was an interesting change of pace. Just as Heroes Adrift changed things up by having Lee and Taro removed from their familiar home in the North, their return is just as fraught with change for the two of them. The city of High Scape is changing, becoming less active in Catastrophes, and so some of the pairs there are being reassigned. Plus, now they are lovers, and Lee feels that since she is so boring, any relationship with Taro won't last as long as there are prettier women around to attract him. Taro, though, is very annoyed at her attempts to keep her options open- he seems to view it as a personal attack on him, and given how thin his mask of self-assurance goes, (as revealed in Heroes Adrift) we can see why he feels that way.

And in this book, they must also deal with the censure of their fellows, who don't like the new relationship between the two -it's considered to be dangerous for a Source and Shield to become as personally and romantically involved as they are. Though the book sets up the expectation that once again, Taro is in danger because of who he is, I did like the way this one played out in execution- because Lee is used to trying to protect Taro, she is blindsided by the real danger, and her own illness puts her in danger as well. Once again, the real villain of the piece is in plain sight but concealed until the end of the book, and the illness that afflicts Lee made me think that there was something else wrong with her- constantly feeling nauseous and actually throwing up? For a woman, that's a rather suggestive thing...

Anyhow, I found the ending interesting, as it seemed to have removed one problem for Lee and Taro and replaced it with another, although who knows if the danger from that one source has really gone away? I mean, they were very flat out about what they wanted and what would happen to Lee and Taro's families if they didn't get what they wanted. I wonder if a simple change like what happened would protect them, or just remove the threats for a while. Regardless, this was a good, solid book, and while it's less comic in tone than some of the earlier books, it remained a fast, wonderful read that satisfied my desire for more Lee and Taro.

I loved this book. Even though the tone was more serious than the earlier books in the series (despite the all-business tone of Lee, the book's narrator, the comic possibility of the characters shines through more in the earlier books), it was more than enough to satisfy. The story is just as twisty and Moira Moore hides her villains and their motives well Highly recommended, as both a book and a series.

The Hero Strikes Back by Moira J. Moore

2011-12-26T06:21:00.003-05:00

At the end of "Resenting the Hero" Lord Shintaro Karish asked the Empress to be removed from the succession to the title of Lord Westsea without abjuring his family's name. The Empress agreed, but told him that if he changed his mind in the future, it would be the same punishment as if he tried to get abjuring his family name reversed- essentially it would be regarded as treason and he would be subject to a death sentence. Since then, he has been in the Capitol while Lee, who tired of the endless round of parties and entertainments, returned to High Scape, where her mother has come to visit her.

Lee is a bit more irritated by her mother's presence, because her mother seems to want to take over her life. She has issues with the way Lee dresses and thinks that she should dress much more stylishly and femininely than Lee cares to. But Lee doesn't really care about fashion. She dresses more for utlity, even if that makes her look less beautiful than she is, because she doesn't care to spend the time to get dresses made for her body- it simply takes too much time.

Another concern is the weather in High Scape- even though it's summer, it has been extremely cold, as in, winter cold, for several months now, and the people of the city are unhappy that the Sources do nothing to ameliorate the weather. In truth, there is nothing they can do about the weather, but the people don't want to hear that- they assume the weather is just another kind of catastrophe and that it can be eliminated like all the other catastrophes that the Sources deal with on a daily basis. The Sources refusing to do anything (as the citizens view it) is making them angry, and they have been muttering about how much of their money goes to support the sources when they do nothing.

This makes Lee unhappy, and she wants to do something, but what can she do alone? When Taro returns, he tells her the same thing that the other Sources are saying, that nothing can be done about the weather- it's a natural phenomenon and nothing like the catastrophes that the Sources dissipate in the city. Besides, he has another problem to deal with- his mother is coming to see him, and he knows that it's about becoming the Lord of Westsea. Even though he has told his mother that he has no interest in the position, she is bound and determined to change his mind, even if he has pretty much abjured the position- she only sees what she wants and is determined to bring him to heel.

As the Pairs come together to discuss what they can tell the citizens about the weather, the muttering becomes worse, and some of the Pairs are actually attacked. The eldest Source tells them to tell the citizens that they are working on it, but he actually intends to do nothing, which rubs Lee wrong. She tries to convince Taro that they should actually try to do something, as then it won't be a lie, and he tries to reiterate that there is nothing they CAN do, but Lee knows better- Taro can heal some things, and take away pain from people who aren't even in their pair-bond. Isn't it possible that there *is* something they can do, but they just haven't tried it? Reluctantly, he admits she may be right and agrees to try, but it's Lee who feels a sort of wrongness that Taro just can't feel, and sees that the background magic of the city has changed in an indefinable way- but she doesn't know how.

All of this is only possible because Lee can somehow "see" into the magic when Taro is channelling. Just as when they fought off the "Surges"- the strange magical attacks that felled most of the original pairs assigned to High Scape, Lee had visions of her Shields as a wall of bricks. Since then, she hasn't had the same kind of explicit visions, but she has a sense of magic as colors and feelings. And even though she knows little about the magic or talent that the Sources channel, she can somehow change the colors and feelings of the magic as she shields- but she doesn't know what the colors and feelings of the magic should be, so she can't figure out how to bring the weather back to normal- she changes the cold and snow to hot and humid for a time, but that's almost as bad as the snow!

Part of the reason that the people are so angry is that the weather is destroying the crops, and the city will starve if this continues. But as Taro and Lee struggle to fix things, Lee is approached by a Reanist staying in the city. Reanists are forbidden cultists who believe that sacrificing the nobility of the Empire is the only way to keep it safe from the Catastrophes that afflict it- and that these Catastrophes are caused by the Gods who want the blood of the nobility. Lee asks the woman derisively what will happen when they run out of nobles to sacrifice, and the Reanist told her that the catastrophes will end, but Lee doesn't believe that at all.

She talks to Risa, her Runner friend, who is investigating the disappearance of a number of noblemen of penniless estates and thus, no particular worth. While some of them may merely have run off, the large number of them missing is troubling. But it takes an encounter with a snippy saleswoman in a shop catering to noblewomen for Lee to see a card belonging to a club that is the female version of a club that tried to recruit Taro into its ranks. And Taro confirms that there are rarely clubs for both men and women that share the same name. Lee is sure that the club is shady and tells her suspicions to Risa.

Meanwhile, Lee and Taro have to deal with his mother, who looks down on and dislikes any people who are beneath the noble class, and doesn't respect many nobles, either. And despite Lee's mother trying to arrange a dinner between them and his mother to try to smooth things over, the dinner is a disaster. His mother tells him that she is going to petition Crown Prince Gifford to reinstate Taro into the succession for Duke, and Taro is upset that his mother is out to kill him, because if that happens, he will die for treason. The Crown Prince will soon be coming to High Scape for a visit, and his mother intends to stay around for it. But he only really loses his temper when his mother tears into Lee, who has been trying to control herself on Taro's behalf all through this conversation.

This loses his mother not only Lee's support, but her mother's as well, and in the wake of this disastrous dinner, her mother decides to leave, despite having said she would be there for a few months yet. She is upset that Lee is so removed from her mother, and she can't close the gap and have the same kind of relationship with Lee that she has with her other children- one where they come to her with their problems and ask her advice on things that trouble them. The fact that Lee has been trained to stand back from life in order to control herself, and to calm her Source as well, as well as the nature of a Shield to be almost unnaturally calm and in control in everything have grated on her, and she feels a distance between them that this whole incident has made clear can never be bridged- and she finds it bitter indeed.

But can Lee deal with the uproar between her and her mother, save Taro's life from his mother's machinations, help Risa find the missing noblemen, and deal with the unnatural weather that still wreaks havoc on the city of High Scape all at the same time? Something has to give, and it may just be Lee! How can she do her duty, keep Taro safe, and end a magical problem that she has no idea of how to fix, and can she do it before the people of the city take it out on her and Lee, or another of the Pairs stationed in the city?

I started this book immediately after finishing the first one, Resenting the Hero, and so the continuity problems that rose with reading the third book first didn't really bother me. By now, I was invested in Lee and Taro's problems, and we finally get to meet his mother and learn more of his childhood- we always knew that his brother was no prize, given the way that he died in the first book, but now we get to learn the true depth of his cruelty- and that of Taro's family, which made me pretty much despise all of them- and I was gratified to see how Taro dealt with his mother's machinations- the ending of that thread in the book made me grin widely.

I was also starting to feel in a different way for Lee and Taro- they just can't seem to catch a break- as soon as they return to High Scape, or at least are together there, life seems to put them in jeopardy once more- and once again, Taro's life is at risk merely because of what he is. But Lee shares in the danger, when a tavern owner uses the known Shield weakness to music against her and then banishes her from his bar forever because she attacked someone. I also knew by the end what the layout of the room they were in meant at least somewhat before Lee did, and so it wasn't a surprise when Lee figured it out also.

The ending in this book led directly to the third one, which I did remember without having to check this blog to remember the details, although the beginning became clearer as I learned the incident to which the Empress was referring at the beginning of the book. A lot of the Foundation laid in the first book is enlarged on here, and that made me impressed with Moira Moore's storytelling abilities. And this book shares with the first that there is a lot of story going on- so much so that the subtler clues can sometimes pass by unnoticed-but that just makes the story richer and more intriguing to me- I end up feeling like the characters are dunces if I catch on to the ending just from the clues earlier in the book, and they remain clueless throughout- or it just might he a sign of bad writing by the author by making the clues too obvious. Here, I don't have to worry about that.

I loved this book, and I am definitely loving this series. Lee and Taro are strongly-drawn characters, and just as Lee is coming to care for Taro, we the readers are coming to care for him more and more as well. I liked all the characters presented, and the stories make the heroes interesting and intelligent and she hides the clues to the ending and the identities of the villains well while writing a good and compelling story. Highly recommended.

Resenting the Hero by Moira J. Moore

2011-12-25T23:44:00.002-05:00

Dunleavy Mallorough is a Shield, part of the Source and Shield service that protects the planet from strange, unexpected cataclysms that afflict it every so often. Sources can channel forces to avert the cataclysms, but Shields protect the sources from killing themselves as they do so. Sources and Shields are protected by the Empress, and must use their powers to keep everyone safe. On the other hand, they do not have to pay for the goods and services they need- the people must give them it for free in return for the promised protection.

Sources and Shields must be matched to work together well, so when Dunleavy finally graduates, she is taken to a meeting of Sources with six of her fellows who are also graduating at the same time. There, they are introduced to a like number of Sources. While it is possible that none of them will make a match, it is hoped that they will, as the jobs for unmatched Shields is limited to teaching or administrative duties. And she knows at least four of the Sources that she hopes she will be matched with. All are fairly sober, for Sources, as far too many of them are like children- it is generally that the Shields are the practical members of the match, while the Sources are just there for their powers. But the Sources that Dunleavy, or Lee, as she is known to her family, want to be matched with are all taken by other Shields, leaving only two: Creol, a Source who is actively malevolent and whom no one wants to be matched with, and Lord Shintaro Karish, a Source who only seems to have having a good time on his mind, and who is so handsome and beautiful that everyone seems to want to get into his bed. Lee wants nothing to do with either one, but while she feels nothing with Creol, she finds herself binding with Shintaro when they look into each other's eyes.

Lee is devastated to be bound to someone like Shintaro. Sources and Shields are bound forever, and the death of one immediately leads to the death of the other, so she can't even just wait for him to die to be free of him. Her family, though, is charmed by her new partner, and seem happy and excited for her to have such an illustrious partner. Lee doesn't feel the same, but she can't explain to her family why she isn't at all happy with what happened. Afterwards, the newly paired Sources and Shields are allowed out into town for the first time on their own- it's too dangerous for them to be around each other and people without their powers (known as 'Regulars") until they are bound, as an unregulated binding can be incredibly dangerous. There is also the problem of music- Shields are incredibly affected by music, and the wrong kind can actually cause them to attack others and be dangerous, and so their Sources must protect them from it. Lee herself is one of the weakest in this regard, as music affects her incredibly quickly.

At the party, the Source and Shield are supposed to share their life stories, but Shintaro, while asking her to call him "Taro", is put off by the way she continues to call him "Karish". He realizes that she views him with scorn and while they eat a meal, he tries to charm her, only putting her off even more. And before they can talk after the meal, the receive a scroll with their new posting. They have been assigned to the town, or actually, city of High Scape. This is very unusual, but High Scape is one of the most active cities for Pairs. So many catastrophes try to affect the towns that there are six pairs assigned to the city to keep it safe. And now, with Lee and Taro assigned to the city, there will be seven. The need to leave early the next day, and the shock of being assigned so soon after their pairing makes them cut short their conversation and go to bed early.

The next day sees them set off for High Scape, and Taro finds Lees behavior to be irritating. She will only call him "Lord Karish", and ride slightly behind him and to the right, as though she is lesser. He tries to get her to ride next to him so that they can talk, but part of the way a Shield learns enough about their Source to Shield them correctly is to observe him, and this position is the best one to do that. It's also traditional, even if Taro scorns tradition, Lee feels that tradition is right, otherwise, it would not have become tradition. A stopover in a wayside inn brings a meeting with a cousin who is also a Shield, and he's just as unhappy with his own pairing as Lee is with hers, but he actively seems to despise his Source. Worse, he's attracted to Taro, as is her cousin's Source, and witnessing this double jockeying for Taro's affections rubs Lee the wrong way, leaving her more disillusioned with her Source than ever.

But High Scape is extremely active, so much so that sometimes, Taro must call on his powers at every watch. And even though Lee doesn't like Taro's seeming addiction to women, gambling and parties, she discovers that he has another power of his own: the ability to douse pain and even make someone heal faster. As Lee becomes close to a Regular named Aiden, who she met on her first night in town and defeated at an exercise called Step Dancing- which caused him to break his knee and caused him extreme pain, she has to deal with her guilt over her being the one who was there when Aiden was injured, and since he was her opponent, her feeling that she caused his crippling wound and ended his career as a professional Step Dancer, and his insistence that she is actually acting as Taro's servant and unable to see her subservience to him.

Then, a strange magical catastrophe kills off five of the other seven pairs in the city and drives another into a coma, leaving only Lee and Taro to keep the city safe. This one is unusual in that the catastrophe doesn't feel like the others, and it actually HURTS to fight it off. A week later, a second one comes, and this one is only stopped when Lee throws the pain she is feeling as her shields are slowly failing back at the catastrophe, which somehow ends the attack. But just as other pairs come to the city to help out, and Taro manages to bring the other pair out of their comas, someone tries to kill Taro. Lee is stricken, trying to keep her partner safe, and she meets a Runner, a sort of policeman, named Risa, who believes her when Lee says it wasn't her that tried to kill Taro.

Other matters keep Lee busy, like defending the Source of the last remaining pair from the original six when his Shield is unable to overcome her fear of the pain she felt in the first attack to do her job and defend him. Lee is angry at the woman, who let her fear of the pain override her duty. Now both of them will be unable to do their jobs and become useless. Lee feels that the woman has let her Source and the Triple S down by her actions. Then, just as he recovers, Taro is kidnapped and disappears. Once again, Lee must convince the Runners she has nothing to do with Taro's disappearance, and she wants to get him back. By reading his letters, she sees there are four possibilities: one is that his family kidnapped him. Taro is the second son of Lord Westsea, and his brother was in line for the position, but has since died of a disease. Taro's mother wants him to become Lord, but Taro has no love for his immediate family, and no training or the desire to become Lord Westsea. Second is that Taro might have made enemies due to his gambling or for his love interests. Lastly, there is the possibility that he could have been kidnapped by Creol, who now is in Middle Ridge and has been asking Taro to join a new association started by him to give more power to the Sources and Shields.

Aiden, who is helping Lee, helps her see that her best bet is to check out Middle Ridge, as the Runners are being too slow. Lee can't just sit around waiting for the slow wheels of Justice to grind, and even though Aiden still hasn't made a full recovery from his broken knee, he wants to help her. But every Shield in Middle Ridge is there because their Sources are being punished for misdeeds. And there are no catastrophes in Middle Ridge at all, it's what is known as a "cold site", so the Pairs are essentially useless, and they know it. But there is something very strange going on in Middle Ridge, and Lee knows it. Can she discover what is going on in the town, and find Taro and whoever has him imprisoned? Or will her very inexperience be the end of her at the hands of someone completely and utterly ruthless, who has no compunction about killing anyone who opposes them?

I got into this series with the third book, Heroes Adrift, and I enjoyed it, so I also enjoyed seeing how they came together and their first assignment together. I found myself liking this book intensely- the style was easy to read, and there was a lot of story that was packed into the pages. Because the two characters never get to share their pasts at the beginning of the book, a lot happens before both stories come out. And Lee, even though she is the viewpoint character, kind of suffers in the character department compared to her partner, Shintaro.

After having read several books in the series, it's become quite clear that Lee's judgement isn't the best, and it's because of her background. Her discovery as a Shield came quite young, at only four, and aside from having to leave her family, she experienced no real upset because of her nature as a Shield and the sheltered quality of her schooling. Whereas Taro's talent wasn't discovered until quite late, and his family thought him mad for most of his life, so suffice to say he had an extremely sucky life. His mask of gaiety and charm masks his true self and is part of his determination to be as little like the family that abused him as possible.

I also loved the story and how it built from the beginning so slowly that the twists and turns of the plot aren't seen coming until they are actually upon you. While I didn't share Lee's dismay at the revelation of the traitors, I found the idea that the powers that Sources and Shields can control aren't completely as even the Triple S believes they are to be intriguing. So much foundation is laid in this novel, and yet it's pretty much invisible until later novels in the series, yet at the same time, it's so well done that you don't realize it, as it just seems part of the story.

I loved this novel, and I find myself loving the series very much. Lee and Taro are interesting characters. Both can seem annoying, and each definitely rubs each other the wrong way on occasion, but you can see how the mannerisms of each could be incredibly annoying and not just to each other. By the end, each has learned that the other is deeper and better than they first believed, and the ending brings a smile to your face. Highly recommended.

No Rest for the Wicked by Kresley Cole

2011-12-25T10:13:00.005-05:00

Kaderin is a Valkyrie, and for centuries she has been known as "Kaderin the Cold-Hearted". Ever since Horde vampires killed her sisters on the battlefield, she has been unable to feel anything- not sorrow, or joy or love or laughter. In a way, the blessing of being emotionless has helped her-in addition to giving her relief from the intense sorrow that afflicted her after the deaths of her sisters, it has helped her to slaughter numerous vampires along the way, allowing her to punish the vampire race for her loss.

Now, even though the Hie, a magical contest that combines aspects of "The Amazing Race", a scavenger hunt and a free-for-all brawl held every two hundred fifty years by the Goddess Riora, is coming up, Kaderin still has time to hunt down and kill vampires to accomplish her vengeance. But when she travels into Russia to eliminate a vampire who has been living in the same castle for hundreds of years, she is shocked that the vampire welcomes her killing him, even as he falls in love with her beauty. Worse, the Blessing that has eliminated her emotions all these years abandons her in his presence, and she finds herself filled with pity for the vampire that hates his existence, and she ends up committing an indiscretion with him, and finding an orgasm in his arms as he kisses and strokes her.

Once the pleasure has left her, though, she is shocked and disgusted by what she has done and leaves as quickly as possible. The vampire, Sebastian Wroth, who was turned against his will, along with his family who were dying of the plague, finds that with the memory of Kaderin, and his lingering love for her, no longer wants to die. Although he has hated and scorned his own existence for years, he couldn't find it within himself to kill himself and subsists on a diet of animal blood bought from the local butcher- and because he has never drunk from a living vessel, he is not a Horde vampire. And he also knows that Kaderin is his Bride, the one who has started him breathing and living, as much as a vampire can live, once more.

In his desire to find Kaderin, he manages to achieve something previously thought impossible and to trace to a living target- in this case, Kaderin. But he finds her in Riora's temple as the Hie begins and offers to compete along with her- only each competitor must compete alone. and they also must be backed by one of the races of the Lore, and Sebastian has no one to back him, so instead, he offers to compete for Riora, and this pleases the goddess enough that she agrees to let him compete in her name. And the prize for this Hie is a key that will allow the user to manipulate time... twice. Kaderin immediately wants it to bring back her sisters and prevent them from being killed, while Sebastian thinks that with it, he can prevent his brothers from turning him into a vampire and die with honor- but he cannot believe in something that can do that, as he is scientific-minded and knows about the time paradox effect.

But in reality, he only wants to compete because it can bring him closer to Kaderin, and perhaps find him a way to win her over to his love. But the Hie, and the members of the Lore competing in it, are brutal, and none less so than Kaderin, who has won the last five Hies. As she meets him once more, the Blessing dies completely and does not come back. But does the return of her emotions mean a weakness that those other Lore creatures in the Hie can exploit? Or are the feelings she feels for Sebastian, the mingled attraction for the man and loathing for what he is, the greater weakness? And can Sebastian win the affection and love of a woman who has dedicated her life to wiping out his kind, or will her utter ruthlessness wipe out any affection he feels for her?

This book, like several others by Kresley Cole, happens concurrently due to one of the heroes being a participant in the Hie. We've had the story of Mariketa the Witch and Bowen the Lykae, and now Kaderin the Cold-Hearted. At this point, there aren't that many named players in the Hie left- some nameless Demonarchy participants and Lucindeya of the Sirens are the ones who I really remember- and the Demonarchy Demons get taken out early (like Mariketa), so I doubt they will turn up in future books.

But I loved the struggles that the two main characters went through, and the feeling of warmth I got when Kaderin finally realized that despite being a vampire, that Sebastian was a good man and a fierce warrior at heart. We also got to see his brother Nicolas again after his vanishingly tiny appearance in "Dark Needs at Night's Edge", and since he has a mate in this book I can see he is being sequel-baited for us. But it's a sequel I'd like to see, I confess.

I really enjoyed the book, which was full of the excitement and turmoil of the Hie, along with the experience of competing in it and gathering the many items that Riora wanted. We get to see exactly how grueling and dangerous it is, and to experience the love that comes over Sebastian and Kaderin as they compete. Highly recommended.

Pirate King: A Novel of Suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie R. King

2011-12-21T06:21:00.002-05:00

Mary Russell is at home on winter break from the College where she teaches, looking forward to being alone for a while when Sherlock's brother Mycroft shows up to ask her for her help. Mary is reluctant because she doesn't trust Mycroft in any way, shape or form- she views him as sly and manipulative, and to be honest, he is, seeing as he works for the secret hand of the Government in England.

She asks him why he doesn't want Sherlock to investigate, but Mycroft insists that it must be her- it seems that Randolph Fflyte, the king of London Cinema, is setting out to make another picture. This would be fine- Fflyte films are always gripping and realistic. The only problem is what happens afterwards. One of his films was about gun running, and after the film premiere, smuggled guns somehow began to appear on the English Market. Another film was about drugs and drug addiction. And, again, after the film was shown in England, amounts of drugs were sold in England that didn't come from anything like normal drug channels.

And now Fflyte is making a new film, supposedly a film within a film about Piracy, based off the Pirates of Penzance. Given what happened the last time Fflyte made a film, Mycroft wants to make sure that Fflyte isn't somehow importing crime to England. Mary reluctantly agrees to help, since Fflyte's last secretary left him (thanks to a little "help" from Mycroft), and now he desperately needs a woman who can type and use the telephone, something Mary well knows how to do. Since all of Mycroft's people are male (or engaged elsewhere) he needs Mary to act as secretary and spy, investigating what really goes on during the making of one of Fflyte's films.

Mary, hiding her light under a bushel and dressing in plain but simple clothing (and comfortable, sensible shoes) takes herself off to London to apply for the job. She's so needed that once she's proved she can type and use the phone, she is pretty much hired on the spot and thrown into the deep end, making sure Fflyte has what he needs before he heads for Majorca, Spain, along with his cast- thirteen blue-eyed and blonde-haired actresses to play the part of the daughters of the Major-General, along with those who will play Frederick and some of the Policemen. Also accompanying the girls are their mothers, most of whom are show business mothers who want their girls to be pre-eminent in the production and keep Mary running to keep them and their daughters satisfied and also to keep up with some of the nasty-minded pranks the girls play on each other.

Things go from bad to worse once they arrive in Majorca. Although he finds plenty of places to shoot in Portugal, Fflyte decides that he wants to shoot the shipboard scenes on a real ship and buys the least seaworthy vessel Mary has ever seen to do his work on. Although Mary puts together a boatwright to get the ship shipshape, he then hires the most disreputable looking crew as "actors" to play the noble pirates. In fact, Mary is pretty sure that these men are all real criminals, but she can't convince Fflyte, or his director, to moderate their course now that the bit is in their mouth, so to speak. Add to that a Portuguese translator who seems to possess multiple personalities and who writes truly execrable poetry and who also seems welded to Fflyte's side and to that of the "Pirate King", being played by the head of the band of bad men who he hired in Portugal.

As the entire party takes to the waters of the Mediterranean, headed for Morocco, the true nature of the men comes out, and the worse heads into the truly hellish as Fflyte's hired "actors" take the director and the true actors and actresses, prisoner. Only one actress, who has fallen in love with the true son of the man who played at being "Pirate King" might be able to fight his father and save them. But where is Holmes, and can Mary Russell use the supposed helplessness of the actresses and their mothers to cause herself to be underestimated and find a way to save them all? And can true life ever imitate the stage play of the Pirates of Penzance, a comedy that also poked fun at the romantic stageplays of the time as well as various kinds of music? And can Mary pull off a save in the midst of a foreign land, while immured in a literal prison?

I love the Mary Russell books, and this one was one of the best premises of all, an idea that evoked a great sense of fun. because Mary can be such a stodgy stick in the mud herself- her sense of humor seems to parallel that of her Husband, Sherlock Holmes, who isn't exactly the most lighthearted of men. And while Mary is also the most sensible one in a crew and cast littered with layabouts and people who have been almost entirely inured from real life by their stardom, it was funny to see her having to spend time with people that, in other circumstances, she'd wash her hands of and leave because of their absolute stupidity.

At the same time, she has our sympathy, so while you are laughing at her a bit, you also understand why she finds the circumstances she finds herself in so frustrating. Trying to keep a temperamental director and film impresario from indulging in flights of fancy that add time and complications to an already time-consuming and complicated process can be a real drag. But the parallels between the story as written and the play of the Pirates of Penzance was also funny. Yet, it only added to the horror of what was happening to the relative Naifs of the actors and show business people, who are totally in water over their heads once the business heads south, and their pirate actors turn out to be real pirates in the worst way, who want to hold them for ransom, and rather more in the case of some of the actresses.

And yet, Mary holds up remarkably well. All alone with only herself to rely on (and when Sherlock shows up later, he is unable to save things once they have headed into the crapper- they manage to bring everyone out successfully, and Mary has already found out who is behind the hinkiness with the subjects of Fflyte films suddenly becoming a problem in England. Although that is the reason why Mary has been sent on this job, it's not the main problem that she has to solve. And by the end of the book, she even learns to be a bit more playful and humorous and not such a stick in the mud. She may be married to an old man, and even a very famous old man, but she doesn't have to become completely like him.

I liked this book and found myself laughing aloud several times during reading it. I felt that Mary learned something by going on this case alone, and it actually improved her personality and her character. She's a strong character in her own right, and it was nice to see her being able to shine, alone, when separated from her extremely famous husband. I loved this book and would read it again, and more in this series, any time. Highly recommended.

Agatha H. and the Airship City by Phil and Kaja Foglio

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

Agatha Clay is a student at the Great university of Beetleberg. Her parents, Adam and Lillith Clay, are both employed in the city, Adam as a machinist, and Lillith as a piano teacher. In this world, the Industrial Revolution led to a world of steampunk excess. Those with a genius for invention are known as "Sparks", and each Spark was to protect an area of their own. But when an alien intelligence known as "the Other" attacked and killed some of the leading Sparks, the balance of power in Europe shifted dangerously, no more so than when the Heterodyne Boys, the genius inventor/adventurers disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

With the shift in power, a few men, also Sparks, decided to take over Europe. Beetleberg, and indeed, most of Europe, is ruled by the Baron, Baron Klaus Wulfenbach. The Baron has ruthlessly taken down the few Sparks that remain in his lands, making them work under him and adding their klanks, or mechanical men, and other inventions of war, and added them to his own forces. And now, he is coming to the great university to meet with the head of the college, Dr. Beetle.

Agatha has always had dreams of creation, but she doesn't appear to have the Spark, as her creations are always flawed in some way and end up not working. When she is awake, she is troubled by intense headaches that come on her when she is in high emotion or tries to create. After waking from a dream of how to build the perfect creation, she tries to build it, but a headache interrupts her.

Dashing to the college without any breakfast, she is set upon by two ex-soldiers who steal her locket, the only thing she has left from her true parents. Because the Clays only took her in because her Uncle Billy asked them to. And while they have raised her with love, she is still waiting for her Uncle to return. But she hasn't heard anything from him in years. At the college, she does the impossible and cleans up the room that her advisor asks her to clean up an extremely messy lab. But when Dr. Beetle goes crazy and attacks Baron Klaus, she is the only one who tries to defend Dr. Klaus. Unfortunately, Dr. Beetle is killed, and his replacement sacks her from the University.

With nowhere left to go and nothing left to do, she returns home, but when she tells her adoptive parents, the Clays, that the Baron is in the city, they tell her that they all must flee. They are very upset also when they find that her locket has been stolen, and the Clays go out in the city to try and find it for her, while they leave Agatha to pack for them and clean up the house. She does so, knowing she must leave most of her treasures behind, but falls asleep while she waits for her parents to return.

She only wakes up when one of the soldiers who stole her locket, Moloch, grabs her by her hair. She finds herself, clad only in her underclothes, in her father's shop, which is in a shambles. She assumes Moloch has wrecked the place, but he didn't. He is there to take revenge for Klaus, the other soldier who robbed her, who is now dead after stealing her locket, which had some kind of mechanism in it that Moloch is sure led to his friend's death.

Meanwhile, outside in the city, a new Clank has been sited, and the Baron is eager to find it and whoever made it. He and his son, Gilgamesh, are looking for the Spark who is the inventor. Gil was with the Baron at the school, and found himself attracted to Agatha, but he was willing to forget about her. When they find the Clank and reverse its programming, it leads them back to Adam Clay's workshop, and the man who they are sure is the Spark who made it: Moloch! Assuming that Agatha is Moloch's lover (because of her state of undress), they ship both of them back to Baron Wulfenbach's Airship City, Moloch to create more things for the Baron, and Agatha to control Moloch. If he refuses to help the Baron, they can threaten her.

But Moloch isn't a Spark- he's just a mechanician who can repair some machines. He tells Agatha that she is the one who created the Clank, but given that all her machines so far have failed catastrophically, she finds herself completely unable to believe him. However, her time on the Airship may prove to Agatha that she has the Spark, and the touch of Madboy scientist in her after all. But why does she keep waking up in wrecked labs with nothing to show for all the work she has supposedly done? And why is Gilgamesh Wulfenbach so interested in her, and is he really interested in her or in her Spark? And can she escape the Airship City to find her parents or her Uncle when the Baron is so interested in keeping her to control Moloch? Why does the Baron keep all the Sparks he has defeated, and why does he have Olaf Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, a prisoner in his airship?

I recently became interested in Steampunk. both as fashion and movement, and this book is definitely completely in that mold. It's a rewriting of the first adventure of a series of graphic novels and a webcomic written and drawn by Phil Foglio and his wife, Kaja. I remember Phil Foglio back from his days of "What's New with Phil and Dixie", a comic he drew for the old Dragon magazine, which I loved (it is also available as two graphic novels, though each month's comic was complete in itself, so it's not a continuing series like most Graphic Novels today).

Here we are introduced to Agatha Clay, failed inventor. But it's during the course of the novel that we learn her true parentage, and her existence as a Spark, as well as why both were hidden for so long. Agatha, whose parentage is not exactly hidden by the title of the novel, must come into her own as an inventor,and learn why she must hide who she is from just about everyone. Those not out to kill or capture her for being a spark would do the same merely for her parentage.

After reading the book, I also took the time to seek out the webcomic. It's a little different- the book has some fleshed out scenes and many fleshed-out characters, but the biggest change was that, in the first adventure, Agatha was depicted as blonde rather than red-haired, while in the novel, she has red hair from the first, and the jumpsuit she wears on the cover art covers her much more completely in the comic, whereas in the cover art, she is barely decent.

Regardless, it's an excellent novel and an extremely fun read. This is the sort of novel that could compel you towards a decent love of steampunk, and a fascination with its aims and fashion, design and outfits. It differs from some Steampunk in that it is much less about the innocence of the love of design, pointing out that a lot of this stuff could and did kill people. But I loved it and would definitely love to see more, and read more. It's hard not to get sucked in. Highly recommended.

Cold Sight by Leslie Parrish

2011-12-19T23:57:00.002-05:00

Aidan McConnell is an outcast. Previously a lecturer and author as well as a private investigator, he used his psychic powers to find missing children. But when he failed to find the missing son of a family called the Remingtons, he was blamed for sending the investigation in the wrong direction and lambasted in the media, as well as threatened with lawsuits. It got so bad that he quit his job as an investigator and moved from Savannah, Georgia to the small town of Granville, where he simply dropped off the radar.

Now, he simply lives a restricted life in town. Except for the phone calls and occasional visits he gets from his boss, Julia Harrington, he doesn't contact anyone. And while Julia and some of the investigators he used to work with visited him about a month ago, he sees no one and contacts no one.

Lexie Nolan is also an outcast. Previously Granville's premiere reporter, she wrote a story on The Ghoul, a serial killer she believes is responsible for the disappearance of a number of young women from the wrong side of the tracks in town. But publication of her story led to censure by the police chief, who said that the girls simply ran away, either for a boy, or simply to get out of their dead-end lives. That he called them tramps also rankled her, but that wasn't the end of the fallout from Lexie publishing her article.

She got busted down to cub reporter, and even though her boss wouldn't fire her, it was a close thing. Her former mentor, Stan, who'd burned because she was better than him and wouldn't sleep with him, loved her downfall, and taking her place was just icing on the cake. Lording it over her new reduced position, he torments her every day, and loves every minute of her downfall. But he isn't the only one to hate her over what she published, and Lexie, even though she wants to believe that Chief Dunston is right, knows that any attempt at laughing off the possibility of a serial killer operating in Granville is just wrong.

When another young girl, Yvonne Jackson, daughter of a whore from the wrong side of the tracks, is snatched, it doesn't quite feel the same. Vonnie may have been from the wrong side of town, but she was smart enough to have taken all the AP courses at the Public High School and then to have switched schools for the High School on the Privileged side of town. She hated her origins and knew that schooling, and the offers of full scholarships to better Universities, were her ticket out of the life her mother lived. She would never have just run away, and she didn't have a boyfriend- or want one, either.

Lexie's boss is concerned when Vonnie disappears. His own daughters knew Vonnie, and Jessie and Taylor went to the same school. Jessie last saw her at the meeting of the Honor Society, just before Vonnie disappeared. He believed in Lexie and her article, and he's afraid for what this means- if now the Ghoul will be taking girls from the better side of town, then no one is safe anymore. Worse, a friend of his found human remains on the road. But when Chief Dunston was called out to see them, he said it was just old bear bones scattered by animals. Her boss tells her to contact Aidan- he might be able to find out the truth of what is really going on.

But Aidan really hates the Press after the hatchet job they did on his life. But he finds that Lexie's determination, honesty and stubbornness cannot be resisted. Drawn into the case, he finds himself still contacting Vonnie, whose skin he once touched when she waited on him in a restaurant. But if he wants to save her, He, Lexie and his former compatriots will have to work together to find out what ties all of the girls together and why anyone would want so many young women of the town dead. But can they do it before the killer kills Vonnie?

I've read other stories of detectives with psychic and/or otherworldly powers, like that of Marjorie M. Liu's Dirk and Steele detective Agency, but this one promised something new- no flashy psychic powers, something low-key and more realistic. And I also liked the way the story was presented, both on the blurb on the back of the book, and in the book itself. Aidan has a hard time controlling his power, and it can easily get away with him, and he's not always able to interpret what everything means, which makes him intriguingly flawed.

Lexie has her own issues as well. Her recent shunning and downfall were upsetting to her, but she is attempting to deal with it. But she is upset at the thought that her article was really true, and is angry at the Chief for being such an ass. During much of the course of the novel, it's just her and Aiden against the true killer, and while I had a suspicion early on that there was a character who would eventually be the guilty one, I was glad to be proven wrong, and the true killer was someone else, but we do meet him, in a way.

I loved this book. The revelations about what is really going on in town, and not just one but two mysteries and two killers made the action and mystery so much better and deeper. None of the characters is a cardboard cutout, not even the serial killer, and his background is equally tragic. I enjoyed every part and moment of this novel. Highly recommended, and I am anxious to read more of this series, as the next book came out in April of this year. Well worth reading.

Vampire Kisses: Cryptic Cravings by Ellen Schreiber

2011-12-19T01:33:00.002-05:00

Now that Sebastian and Alexander have seemingly made their peace with each other, Raven sort of expects him to move on. But instead of moving, Sebastian decides to stay on- because he has spent so much of his life being a vagabond, he finds it unusual to stay in one place. Even Luna, Alexander's ex-fiancée, has decided to stick around. Indeed, she decides to try a romance with Sebastian, but he's only willing to be caught for a short time- he's not sure he wants to settle down forever, and Luna seems to be fine with that.

But they aren't the only ones sticking around, so is the entire crew of the Coffin Club, which includes Jagger, the owner of the Coffin Club. At first, they won't say why, exactly, but Raven and Alexander do some snooping, and discover that jagger wants to replicate his success in Hipsterville here in Dullsville- he's decided that Dullsville needs a club of its own where the High School kids can hang out. Sort of like the Coffin Club, but with only an apartment in the basement for himself and the other Coffin Club regulars.

Raven is all for the club idea- The teens of Dullsville have always needed a place to hang out, a place to dance that doesn't serve alcoholic drinks, but Alexander is convinced that something is up with Jagger and his crew. At least, they are hanging out at the school so that Raven and her friend Beth encounter them on a pretty much daily basis. But how can they find out what is really going on? So Raven and Beth decide to offer their help in decorating the Club, which lets Raven get a look at the architectural plans for the Club- everything looks up and up, except for a place in the basement labelled as "The Crypt".

And Alexander tells Jagger that a Club for humans is fine- but Dullsville isn't like Hipsterville- it's small and parochial and if Jagger tries to open a vampire club here as well as a club for humans, the vampires are going to stick out like sore thumbs, and that could lead to vampires being outed, not just here in Dullsville, but all over the globe. Jagger reluctantly agrees with this line of reasoning, but when the crop circles that are how vampires communicate with each other go up in the fields around Dullsville advertising the club, they have also included the symbol for "all vampires welcome" Jagger claims it was a simple mistake, but Alexander finds himself not believing it, even though the symbol is x-ed out the next day, other vampires have seen it and will come.

Meanwhile, Raven finds herself coming under fire from her old enemy, Trevor, who is dating a vampire girl from the coffin club, and he keeps telling Raven about how he has an "in" on the creation of the new club- his father owned the old factory that the Club is being constructed in and he sold it to the new owner, and therefore, Trevor assumes that he will be BMOC there, not knowing that Raven is helping decorate it, and knows a lot more about the true nature of the club than he does, but she doesn't enlighten him as to the true nature of events, pretending to be in the dark.

But there are still things that trouble her and Alexander. For instance, Becky has been taking pictures in the club and around town and is beyond puzzled when Alex doesn't show up in her pictures. Could it be possible that she could find out about the existence of vampires, when more are coming out of the woodwork thanks to the problem with the crop circles? And what is really going on in the Crypt? Is it going to be a real Coffin Club, like in Hipsterville, or does Jagger have something else planned? And what plans is he making with Luna for the Crypt? And for that matter, can Raven make her Coffin Club friends see what a downer Trevor is before something really bad happens in the Club?

This book was somewhat of a departure for the series- Alexander has sort of made his peace with Sebastian, and now that he's officially broken off his engagement to Luna, he doesn't have to worry about her relatives showing up to try to cause trouble for him and Raven-but now his problems come from other vampires and what they might do to Dullsville if Jagger's new Club attracts them, which Jagger is being very two-faced about- he says one thing and then goes and does another. So it's hard for anyone to believe what he says- he talks a good game, but what are his real intentions?

It's still a threat to Raven and Alexander- but in quite a different way than they are used to, and it comes from people that Raven considers friends, which makes her at least a bit conflicted about going up against people that she considers friends, but in the end, it's really no contest. While she doesn't want to lose her Hipsterville Vampire friends, they and she both know that her relationship with Alexander is going to come first in her heart.

I also liked the reveal at the ending, and the way that Alexander and Sebastian went back to being friends again- even though they are both vampires, it was very Guy-esque and true to the way guys act. I loved this book and I loved this series, and the actions of Jagger in this book will have repercussions in books to come, and let it happen, because conflict is what drives this series... Highly recommended.

Hollywood Babylon 2 by Kenneth Anger

2011-12-17T00:59:00.002-05:00

In Hollywood Babylon, Kenneth Anger took on the excesses of Hollywood, the hard partying, hard drinking and sex scandals that has plagued Hollywood. Everything from the drinking of W.C. Fields to the sex scandal of comedian Fatty Arbuckle was covered in a no-holds barred fashion that made the stories seems just as shocking when the book was written as the time when the scandals were happening. Hollywood Babylon II continues this tradition, uncovering the hidden sex lives of the stars and starlets, the murders, drinking binges and suicides that they lived and died by.

This book uncovers several new stories, from that of Joseph Kennedy, gone from Prohibition Booze Smuggler to Hollywood Mogul, and his downfall at the hands of Gloria Swanson, whom he fell in love with and which led to his usually excellent business sense deserting him. The true life story of Loretta Young, who started out as a wild young thing who had a daughter out of wedlock and ended up trying to become saintly and holier than thou, which led to her being called "Attilla the Nun".

The true story of James Dean, whose wild life, promiscuity and drinking led to his demise before his star could properly rise, but whom posterity treated better in death than he had ever been in life. Busby Berkeley, whose great success was laid at the door of his mother, and who nearly killed himself in the wake of her death. Luckily, he survived, and he lived to climb the ladder of success again. Then there was Alfred Hitchcock- who got off from watching women through a telescope- including Grace Kelly- and who acted out his passions onscreen, where women were treated heinously and vilely- and where he fell in love with Tippi Hedren, even attempting to seduce her by threatening to ruin her on the set of "Marnie", but when she refused him, he refused to speak with her for the rest of the movie.

True stories of suicide, drinking, murder and perverse sex and affairs fill out the remainder of the volume. Some aren't covered in words, just pictures. The saddest thing about this book is that it is shoddily researched, and many of the "stories" are just that... stories that may (and almost certainly may not be) true. One of the "stories" is merely a short diatribe exulting in the death of Gloria Swanson. It doesn't make any claims about her one way or another, it's just the equivalent of the author shouting how glad he is that she is dead. Not so fun, actually.

There are few longer sections in this book- but some of the longer ones, like a list of Hollywood Suicides, merely gathers together information on the great, and not so great, and tells how they ended their lives- by drowning, by guns, by gas, by hanging, and by pills. Most of the "stars" I had honestly never heard of, but a few were still affecting, like that of actress Pier Angelli, whose amazing beauty caught everyone's eye, but whose depression over being close to 40 led her to take her own life, for she believed that "at 40, everything is over".

Most of the stories are fairly mean-spirited and rather depressing, and the author's lack of research into the truth of the stories he presents is a crippling flaw. And this volume is equally badly represented- he tells us in the opening pages of the book that these are stories that were told to him, which is why he decided to write another book after the first. Not quite as shocking as the first "Hollywood Babylon", this is scandal-rag fare, and about as well researched and true. Read, but keep a five pound salt block on hand as you do...

Magic on the Line by Devon Monk

2011-12-16T01:29:00.001-05:00

Allie Beckstrom is a magic user who works for a shadowy agency called "The Authority". "The Authority" works behind the scenes to keep strong magic users in line and to protect magic itself. Recently, the Authority in Portland underwent a great shock when several members of the magic council were attacked, and their bodies were subject to attempted takeover by those who were already dead. Allie was also attacked, and though her father's spirit merged with her, he didn't take her over. But she was unable to get rid of him, so he still shares her head.

In the wake of the attack, an Authority named Bartholemew Wray comes to Portland in an attempt to "fix" the problems there. He interrogates Allie with the help of his pet Truthfinder, who subjects her to a truth spell that hurts her badly, even burns her. But even as she is glad to have survived the Inquisition, she is convinced that Wray is up to something. But she just isn't sure what.

Even so, she has a funeral to attend, and a wake for one of her friends who died in the recent attack. She is less pleased to know that the local hounds have decided to become her bodyguard, to protect her- she thinks she can protect herself, being a hound as well. At the party, another man, Anthony, a hound who used to work for her, arrives late. He is disliked by the other hounds because he cut and run at a crucial time, but Allie has determined that he should get another chance, no matter her personal feelings on the subject.

But the party is cut short when this hound gets into a fight with another hound named Davy gets into a fight with Anthony over a woman he loves, and during the fight, Anthony bites Davy, then runs off. Allie and the hounds, including Davy, follow, and they eventually track Anthony to an alley downtown, where he is cornered, but seems to pass out. During the fight, Allie discovers that using magic now hurts her, and that her sense of sight where magic is concerned is now on all the time. She can also smell magic, and it smells foul to her- dead and rotting.

When Anthony collapses, Davy goes to attack him some more, and when Allie attempts to stop him, he tries to bite her. With her new sight, she sees weird black magic lines in his aura, and from Anthony, she sees a Veiled- the ghost of a mage, come out of Anthony, along with a green mist. When he can't bite Allie, Davy collapses, and she sees that Anthony is riddled with the same black lines like Davy, only much, much worse.

Unfortunately, Anthony is dead, and Allie is afraid that Davy will follow unless she does something about it. She consults with her father and calls upon a former colleague of his, a man named Collins, who has a brilliant medical mind that can do almost miracles with medical magic. But he's also something of a psychopath who experiments on his patients- his experimentation on friends and colleagues got him Closed, or mind-wiped of magic and memories, by the Authority. Unfortunately, his genius can't be denied, and he can still do magic- it's just much harder for him now.

As Allie tries to save Davy, Bartholemew Wray decides to restructure the Authority Council in Portland, blaming them for the magical catastrophe. He has several of the Council Closed, and names replacements, including Allie's sister as the Councillor for Flux Magic- which is magic mixed with Technology. Allie is unhappy that her sister is working with Wray, but Violet feels she can do the job and remain just fine, and Allie hopes she is right.

Meanwhile, there is a sickness going around the city, of a strange sort of pneumonia which is leaving its victims in comas. But when Allie sees a Veiled coming out of a woman with the same sort of green effect as the one she saw around Anthony, she wonders what is going on, as she sees the woman coughing and coughing as the Veiled leaves her. She attempts to freeze the Veiled with a spell, but the sickness from her magic makes her pass out and hit her head, and the Veiled gets away.

What is going on with the Veiled and magic? Anthony's death came about because he was poisoned by magic- but can Allie and her allies track down what is going on and convince Wray that there is something going on that he should listen to and take care of before it causes trouble for Portland and the Authority itself? Or will it be up to Allie to find out and stop the problems with magic as shadowy forces in the background conspire against her? Does she have any chance to succeed when the deck is so stacked against her?

I didn't know going into this that this is book seven of a nine book series. Allie has risen from someone despised by her father and ignorant of who and what controlled the world she lived in to someone who moves and plays with the power players- but she is still not trusted by most of the authority. The hounds she has worked with and who worked for her love her and want to protect her, and her soul complement, Zayvion, has formed a loverly relationship with her, but even those relationships are complicated- Zayvion was in love with Chase, the woman whose funeral they attend in the first part of the novel, and at her funeral says he will never stop loving her, which hurts Allie deeply, but not enough to stop her loving Zay.

Part of the problem for me in reading this book was how tightly the books in the series seem to be linked. A lot of the first part of the book is about the characters dealing with the fallout from the last book, and the ending has only limited closure, leaving the rest up in the air. At the end of the book, characters drive off to deal with more stuff, and the ending as it is seems a little abrupt and more like a "to be continued", Not necessarily bad, but it makes the series hard to pick up if you haven't read the first six novels.

And even though there isn't a lot of explanation of the kinds of magic, or what "Veiled" are (I had to wait a bit to understand what a Veiled was beyond some sort of ghost), most of the book is clear and understandable without extended explanation. The characters are complex and fairly well drawn, but I would have liked a bit more explanation of the complex stuff like Soul Complements (Apparently, it's like a piece of your soul that fits exactly with another person's. Not all Soul Complements are lovers like Allie and Zayvion, but they do share a close mental and emotional connection.)

I liked this book, but it was a bit hard to get into and I felt that the ending was left too open ended to feel much like a coherent story on its own. It's less like a sequel and more like one huge book that has been chopped into pieces willy-nilly for better marketing. Although that's not a bad thing on its own, it makes it much more difficult to pick the series up from a book that isn't the first book. Recommended, but read the other books first. I assume that makes the story much better and more complete than the one I dropped into reading.

Natsume's Book of Friends, Volume 9 by Yuki Midorikawa

2011-12-10T04:42:00.006-05:00

Takashi Natsume has always been able to see Yokai, and because of that, he lived a very hard life. His inability to pretend he wasn't seeing what he saw had him being shuttled from relative to relative, each one afraid of what they saw as his strangeness, and other children teased him for his eccentricities and called him a liar. But then, he was taken in by distant relatives who actually wanted him, and they treated him as they would have their own son... had they had one. Grateful for their love and kind attention, Natsume was determined not to make these two suffer because of his strangeness and managed to conceal what he saw.

But Yokai continued to attack him, thinking him to be his grandmother, Reiko, who had the same abilities. But unlike Natsume, who only wants to be left alone, Reiko blamed the Yokai for how others treated her, and challenged them to contests, taking their names as she won, and binding the pages with their names into a book, The Book of Friends. Even though the Yokai eventually realized that Natsume was not his grandmother, they wanted the Book, because it was a source of power. Finally, Natsume stumbled on a Yokai named Madara and accidentally freed him. As a boon, Madara agreed to be Natsume's bodyguard and teacher, in exchange for the book when Natsume dies. He now watches over Natsume in the form of a ceramic Maneki Neko, or "Lucky/Beckoning Cat" statue, which others see as a real cat, and whom Natsume calls Nyanko sensei.

In a thicket near his house, Natsume discovers a flock of crows attacking what looks like a kitten. But when he dives in to rescue it, he discovers that it isn't a kitten after all, but some kind of Yokai fluffball with eyes. Thinking it might attack him, he tosses it away and runs home, only to find that it has hitched a ride along with Nyanko-sensei. He gets a better look at it, and decides it's cute, but when he tries to see its injuries, it goes wild, bouncing around like a ball. Natsume catches it, only to discover that its fluff can turn sharp as needles. He tells it to calm down, that it is safe here, and it slowly calms down. He tends its injury with some Yokai medicine he once needed and tells the fluffball that it can stay with him for the night, but it needs to leave in the morning.

The next morning, he releases it back into the forest, only to catch a glimpse of it at school. But it isn't alone. There are lots of them. When he gets home, he gets attacked by a Yokai named Amana, whose name he returned the day before. She accuses him of being a thief and commands him to give "it" back. It turns out she lost her ring, and if it isn't returned to her in three days, she will burn down his house and everything in it. They look for the ring with no luck and then decide that it may have accidentally been picked up by the fluffball. Natsume asks for help from the Yokai he knows, and Hinoe tells him that the puffball is a Karu, a rare Yokai that travels in groups. Natsume finds them and asks about the ring, and they attack him, injuring him further, but are driven off by the other Yokai.

Hinoe tells him that this is the way the Karu are- that alone, they are shy, but when grouped together, they are strong, and can eat other Yokai, even fairly powerful ones. They continue searching, but the Karu are gone. Later that night, Natsume tells Nyanko-sensei that his wounds still hurt- Karu spines are poisonous. But when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he sees a spot of red on his sheets. Blood? No, it red lotus seeds- well known among the Yokai for drawing out poison. The Karu brought it.

But when Natsume is about to ask about the ring, another Yokai shows up, and the Karu gets overexcited again and once again injured Natsume. When he finally gets it to calm down, it flees- obviously feeling bad for having once again injured Natsume without meaning to. But can Natsume find the Karu again and get the ring back for Amane? And will she believe him that he didn't steal it, merely retrieved it for her?

Then, Natsume is approached by a Yokai asking for help in freeing its trapped friend. But when he does so, the Yokai tells him to run. Natsume is too confused to run and is grabbed by a group of Yokai in strange masks, who demand "The Book of Friends". They want it for their leader, but then, Natsume, in the process of being rescued by Madara, aka Nyanko-Sensei, finds himself on the run from Mr. Matoba of the famous exorcist family.

He and Madara get separated, and Natsume sees one of Matoba's "created by spell Yokai" grab one of the masked Yokai and put him in a jar to contain him. Then, the one of the spell-Yokai grabs him as he tries to find Nyanko-sensei and hides in a small shrine. The Spell Yokai takes him to Matoba, who is intrigued by Natsume and attempts to question him about who he is and his abilities. Natsume remains silent until Matoba decides to threaten the jarred Yokai, and even then, he tries to conceal as much as possible.

Matoba asks him about his grandmother, Reiko, and Natsume reveals that he never really knew her, and certainly never met her. But he doesn't know about the "Book of Friends", and none of his captured Yokai seem to have enlightened him about it. Natsume wants to leave, but Matoba doesn't want to let him. Can Natsume find a way to get away from Matoba with the Book of Friends, and will he blame the masked Yokai who originally kidnapped him for his capture? Will Matoba learn about the Book of Friends, and just how dangerous will he be to Natsume in the future?

The book ends with another story about Natsume from a girl who knew him at his last school. While she doesn't understand him at the beginning of the story, she comes to realize that there is something special about him that the others just don't get. But can she enlighten them to think better of him, or will she become an outcast on her own just for defending him?

I really enjoyed this book. There are two stories in here, but the first one had an exceptionally beautiful ending, and the second presages more bad news for Natsume. Now, Matoba seems to be interested in him, and by the end, he might have learned about the Book of Friends. This is especially bad when you see how powerful Matoba is already. He may think that his Yokai can't stand up to the friends of Natsume, but his attitude towards Yokai means that the Book ending up in his possession would be... bad. Very bad. Probably World-Endingly BAD.

The only thing I see being able to save Natsume at this point is that Natsume counts Yokai as his friends. Matoba's Yokai are all his servants, and forced into that service as well. Slaves don't have much reason to fight for their master. Not fight well, in any case, while a friend will defend you to the utmost. But I am alarmed at the thought that Matoba will consider Natsume someone to be fought and tamed, or brought forcibly to his side, and he already knows that Natsume can be controlled by threatening a relatively harmless Yokai with death or torture by spells- that gives him a leash and a goad to controlling Natsume, at least for a while. I can only hope that if he is captured again by Matoba for some kind of final showdown, that all the Yokai whose names he has returned from the book will be rounded up to defend him.

I love this series so much! Each book is slightly different, and Natsume's attitudes towards Yokai have changed and grown with each one. And the danger to Natsume has also grown, but I hope that my fears won't come to pass, even though I am not so sanguine about that hope. Highly recommended.

Natsume's Book of Friends, Volume 8 by Yuki Midorikawa

2011-12-10T03:10:00.003-05:00

Takeshi Natsume is a young man with a secret: all his life, he's been able to see Yokai, or supernatural creatures. Because of his reactions to seeing them, he made people uneasy, so after his parents died, he was passed from relative to relative until they couldn't take his strangeness any more. Not only did his relatives find him unsettling to be around, but the other kids at school teased him and called him a liar.

But now Natsume is living with two distant relatives who treat him as they would their own son, and he's made a vow that he will conceal what he sees from them to keep them from scorn over him. But at the same time, he finds he has inherited a book from his grandmother, Reiko, that contains the true names of various Yokai. She had the same ability to see Yokai, but blamed the Yokai for making people uneasy around her- and challenged them to contests and made them give her their true names when they lost. Natsume inherited the book, and the Yokai who see him think he is his grandmother, which leads many of them to attack him. During one attack, he met a Yokai named Madara, who agreed to become Natsume's bodyguard and teacher about the world of Yokai in exchange for the book when Natsume dies. He's angry that Natsume agrees to give back the names of the Yokai who ask for them, because the book can compel the Yokai whose names are within to serve its owner, and he wants the power for himself. Madara has been imprisoned in a Maneki Neko Statue or Lucky/Beckoning Cat for so long that even normal people can see him when he is in cat form, which allows him to be almost constantly near Natsume.

Natsume's classmates are walking home when they see him standing backwards on a bridge rail. He backs up and falls into the river, and they help him out, although he remains suspiciously silent about why it happened. When he changes into dry clothes afterwards, he finds a strange rock in the shape of a skull in one of his coat pockets, and he has no idea how it got there. He quickly throws it away, but gets a bad feeling from doing so.

Meanwhile, the school festival is coming up and Natsume's friends at schoul, Taki and Tanuma, finally get to meet when they meet with Natsume to discuss what their various classes are doing for the festival, and all three quickly become friends with each other. But the rock that Natsume found isn't just a rock, it seems to have had a Yokai hiding in it which is trying to steal power from Natsume. But what does it want, and why is it possessing his classmates? And can Natsume keep all his new friends safe without revealing his strange powers and freaking out his classmates? Or will his schooltime troubles start all over again?

Then, Natsume and Nyanko are in the forest after a storm, and Nyanko hopes to find some good Yokai booze hidden in the hollows of a blown-over tree. But something falls into Natsume's eye, and after he meets with Tanuma, they talk a little and go their separate ways. The next day, Taki gives Natsume some pictures that she took at the festival, including one of Tanuma, but when Natsume goes to his classroom to give it to him, he finds that Tanuma is home with a fever. Natsume goes to see him, but Tanuma tells him it might be catching and warns him off. But the "Cold" seems to persist, and Natsume finds himself catching glimpses of a hand holding a hammer out of the corner of his eye... and mirrors seem to be shattering for no reason.

Later, he finds Tanuma digging frantically in the dirt for... something, and when Natsume tries to go talk with him, Tanuma is gone, but Natsume feels a dreadful pain in his eye. Then Tanuma decides to talk and tells him that he's had a feeling that he was possessed but he didn't have proof until he suddenly found himself scrabbling in the dirt. And when Natsume leans over the dirt, he feels a pain in his eye. Soon, they find out the truth- Tanuma is possessed, and the Yokai possessing him wants to find the pieces of the mirror she broke accidentally- but to make Natsume help her, she will keep possessing his friend, as the shard of mirror in his eye will resonate when he gets near a piece. But can Natsume get her to keep her promise after he finds all the pieces of her mirror? And will the search give Tanuma a chance to experience what life is really like for Natsume?

And then an encounter with a Yokai he encountered at the last relative he lived with gives him a terrible fever, and the Yokai tells him that he will kill everyone for Natsume and then Natsume can come to live with him and be happy. Meanwhile Natsume shares with Nyanko-sensei the story of how he met the Yokai and how he came to be living with his current family, a distantly related aunt and uncle. But can Natsume convince the Yokai that he is happy now in his new home and persuade him to leave his new parents alone? Or will the Yokai persist in believing Natsume unhappy and wanting to kill everyone around him? Or will Natsume and Nyanko sensei be forced to banish the Yokai forever?

And the last story in the volume follows Chobi, a minor Yokai who Natsume knows. We get to see how he passes his days, and how he informs Yokai looking for Natsume what he is really like. But is Natsume the horrible monster that he believea him to be, or is he actually worse in their eyes when the Yokai finds out the truth? And why does the Yokai want to find Natsume, anyway?

In this volume, it's back to several short stories involving Natsume and his friends, and while Taki and Tanuma have never met before, both have some experience with Yokai, although Tanuma gets more of a feeling that they are there and Taki can only see them when they pass through the magic circles they have drawn on the ground. But both like Natsume because he helped them and he can understand what they are going through and how cut off from normal people they can feel, with their abilities. But each can only dimly understand what life is really like for Natsume, and when Tanuma finds out, as in this volume, he wonders how strong Natsume had to be to grow up being able to be normal after seeing what he is able to see.

I liked that it's not just Natsume and Nyanko-sensei facing the world alone any more. Now Tanuma and Taki want to help, but it's uncertain how much Natsume would allow them to help out, because he wants to keep them safe from harm, as they are his friends, just as he tries to keep his aunt and uncle safe by not telling them about his abilities. I also have begun to wonder what Natsume will do with his life when he is finally an adult. He's too caught up in the Yokai world to be able to have a very normal life, and I doubt he has the kind of religious sense needed to become a priest or monk. And his fellow dealers with Yokai are, lets face it, pretty horrible people to a man (or woman). So what will he end up doing? He'll always see Yokai- and I can't see him putting up with the other horrible people who deal with Yokai for long.

Well, I guess that is speculation that will be answered in the last volume of the series, whenever that is. But this series continues to delight and thrill me with each new volume. I haven't gotten tired of reading them yet, and the sentimental feel of this series combined with sometimes horror makes a combination I haven't yet found anywhere else. Highly recommended, both as a volume, and the series as a whole.

The Morganville Vampires: Bite Club by Rachel Caine

2011-12-09T13:57:00.004-05:00

Not much time has passed in Morganville, but with the mail comes a new notice. Someone has set up a gym and will be teaching self-defense classes to humans. Although some might be troubled that the teacher is a vampire, Shane isn't upset. He's looking forward to learning more about fighting, and he also thinks that humans should learn to defend themselves against vampires. He and Claire decide to check it out.

Meanwhile, Claire has to hurry to class, and discovers that the teacher is making the students test blood. Unusually, it is vampire blood, which boils away when exposed to strong light. They are to work out why it does so, and what might prevent it. Claire is rather shocked that the vampires in town have descended to being this careless with the students, but using them as unpaid lab techs is just par for the course in Morganville.

What isn't par for the course is her labmate, a guy named Richard who has really bad body odor. Her mental name for him is "Stinky Richard", and she's less than thrilled when he tries to come on to her. But it gets even worse when Richard steals some of the vials of vampire blood from the class. Claire is concerned about Richard and what he intends to do with the blood, but Frank, the brain of the ex-vampire that runs the town, tells her vampire blood is essentially worthless- you can't use it as a drug because it doesn't last long enough, with some bad side-effects and coming down off it is a very hard crash.

But when Eve tells her roommates what Richard did, they all go with her to help her retrieve the vials- she's worried that one of the vampires in town will punish him for what he's done. and she tries to keep other humans safe. But by the time they get to his room, which reeks far, far worse than he does, he is already dead, and the vials are gone. Nobody can tell who might have killed him or wanted him dead, and the vials are gone.

Was it a vampire angered at Richard's tresspass, or for some other reason that he got killed? None of the vampires Claire knows will say- they are too busy chasing Bishop, the vampire "Father" of the town's vampire founder, Amelie, who was starved and imprisoned by her but has escaped.

Meanwhile, the roommates go to the gym, where Claire watches Shane attack and defeat a vampire named Terrence who is giving the self-defense classes. But to do so, he has to call on the great store of rage inside him, which Terrence notices and so places Shane in an advanced class. Claire, watching the display, is scared of Shane, but is dragged away by Eve to learn fencing.

While they are there, they are interrupted by Amelie and Oliver, who have come to practice some fencing of their own. Eve gets challenged by Oliver after she is snarky to him, but after she gets a touch on him, he retaliates by touching her so hard on the ribcage with his epee that he nearly breaks her ribs, and it leaves a huge bruise. Afterwards, as Eve recovers, they watch Amelie and Oliver sparring, and are amazed by how fast and skilled they are. But when the vampires discover them watching, they tell the two to leave.

Afterwards, at home, Shane loses a videogame to Michael, and blows up over it. Normally, he doesn't like to lose, but his rage this time is totally unlike him, and once again it scares Claire. That night, after Claire goes to bed, Myrnin comes to see her and brings her to Amelie. On the way, Myrnin is attacked by something, and she ends up not seeing Amelie that night.

But when she comes back to her room, she thinks she hears Shane canoodling with another girl in his room. She goes in to confront him, but he is watching television and there is nobody there. She only sees a streak before her eyes, but nothing else, and she can't accuse him of cheating if there is no one there. He's upset that he went into her room and she was gone- he knows she went off with Myrnin, who he doesn't like her hanging around. But they argue and Claire is heartbroken.

The next day, they manage to make up, but Shane is gone a lot of the time, and his temper problems are growing worse. And Gloriana, or Glory, one of Bishop's vampires, seems to be playing with him. Claire is unhappy, but Glory has the power of Charisma. Not quite the same as Compulsion, but still effective in getting people to do what she wants. It even affects Claire, and she has been warned about Glory. Only Frank giving her a powerful shock allows her to throw off the effect.

And Shane isn't the only one with growing temper problems. Monica Morell's friend Gina has taken to carrying a knife and nearly kills Miranda, a friendless girl who gets visions that allow her to see the future. Claire is able to save her and attempts to act as friend to Miranda, who is grateful, but she knows that she is dangerous to know, and saves Claire's life from Gina, who soon afterwards is in a car accident that sends Gina to the hospital.

Adding to Clair's confusion and problems, is the offer she's always wanted- to attend the prestigious physics program at M.I.T. But will the vampires let her accept and let her leave town? And for that matter, will Myrnin, her erstwhile teacher?

But does Gina's worse temper have anything to do why Shane is losing his so often? And what do Glory and the Gym have to do with it? As Claire and Amelie investigate, it's clear that someone is training the humans in town to fight in cage matches against Vampires. And to track them down, Claire will have to deal with Eve's old friend Kim, and Glory as well. But when Shane and Michael are matched up and the survivor must fight against Bishop himself, can Claire and her friends survive the fight and put down both Glory and Bishop so that they never threaten Morganville again?

This story is mostly told from Claire's viewpoint, with occasional interjections of Shane's as well. The story is very well told and entertaining. Even though I was very tired, I put off sleep until I had finished the story- I simply couldn't bring myself to stop reading.

Even though several problems have been solved for Morganville at the end of the novel, there are plenty others hanging on the horizon, like what will happen to Claire and her housemates. There are plenty of problems that still overhang them, like Michael's music career, Shane's problems with vampires, and that their lives are forfeit should they try to leave town. Can Morganville ever become safe, and will the Vampires ever let her leave? Or is she stuck there for the rest of her life?

Needless to say, I still love this series, and I still find the characters fascinating. Claire and her housemates occupy an important position in town, and each one represents a different opinion or section of Morganville's human and vampire populace. I love the characters, and the problems keep drawing me back in and keep me fascinated. Highly recommended.

The Steampunk Bible by Jeff Vandermere with S.U. Chambers

2011-12-02T14:51:00.004-05:00

Steampunk is a fairly new movement within science fiction and fantasy, one that hopes to recapture the hope and whimsey that characterized the very beginning of the industrial revolution, the hope and idea that mechanization and new inventions would be be able to lift humanity up out of the scramble for power and struggle of living a workaday life and somehow make our lives more uplifted and easier, before it became obvious that those same machines could be used to marginalize people, to push them down into the dirt and junk.

To do that, Steampunkers create a world of Victorian-esque gentlemen and Lady adventurers, slightly mad scientists, constructors of mighty machines and airships with as much style as substance. But as for why people get into Steampunk, the answers are as varied as the people who are into it. Some do it for the roleplaying aspects, others as an idea for stories, while others love the style and the look of Steampunk, while others are there to make Steampunk pieces for others, with goggles, rayguns and so on showing a love of this Victorian-esque style mingled with the future as in the rayguns.

The book examines the roots of steampunk, where it arose and when and why. Although the modern day steampunk vision is fairly new, it has its roots in the 1800's and the works of Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells and the incipent genre of science fiction. But reinvigorated by authors and illustrators of the 1990's Steampunk burst back onto the scene, getting people interested in steam-powered technology.

Not all of it strictly about inventions powered by steam, but includes technology involving exposed, often outsize gears and inventions that parallel the creatures we see in nature made over into iron and steel creations that work in a similar fashion to the actual animal. But the movement has gone beyond fiction and drawn art to include (non working) ray guns constructed to suit the Pseudo-Victorian aesthetic, wire-frame goggles that are both enhancing to vision as well as headgear, corsets with exposed wiring and decorations meant to evoke gear-driven machinery and so on.

I found this book fascinating, both about the history and origins of steampunk and the people who espouse it and work to bring their mental visions and creations to life. Places like WETA Worskshop have even had their creations included in modern videogames like Team Fortress 2. But there are places where artists have constructed all sorts of creations at many times larger than life size, just to infuse a place with a sense of wonder similar to how people felt about the future in the Industrial Revolution.

This book has it all, lots of text and tons of evocative pictures. My favorites were spilt between some of the large-sized creations of Steampunk rocketships, the image of dozens of steampunk ray guns, and the images of the types of people who inhabit the steampunk world by choice- all in costumes of their own making.

I loved this book and found it a real hoot to read. I found the pictures amazing and inspiring, and everything about the book added to the overall feel, from the cover to the sepia-tones photos of real life steampunks in costume. And yet there was nothing ridiculous about the pictures, each one was beautiful, awe-invoking or inspiring, and often all of these at once. If you like Steampunk, or just want to understand it, or just like looking at pictures of alternate worlds, you'll definitely want to take a look at this incredible book. Highly recommended.

Natsume's Book of Friends, Volume 7 by Yuki Midorikawa

2011-12-01T23:18:00.002-05:00

Ever since Takashi Natsume was little, he's been able to see the creatures called Yokai, and because of that, he's been rejected by normal humans who can't see the same things he can. Now, he's finally situated with a family who loves and accepts him- but he keeps the truth of what he can see from them because he doesn't want to cause them trouble. But Natsume is also keeper of a book compiled by his grandmother, Reiko, who could also see Yokai and was rejected by normal people because of it. Taking her anger out on the Yokai, she challenged them to contests, and when she beat them, she demanded that they write their names down in her book.

Using the book, she could compel them to help her. So even though the Book is known as "The Book of Friends", it was really a book of Yokai enslaved to her by their names. Natsume, though, doesn't blame the Yokai for his problems. So even though Yokai attack him to try and get the book of names, or because they think that he is his grandmother, he doesn't hate them for it. But he has promised the book to another Yokai, Madara, who acts as Natsume's bodyguard while he is alive. Madara isn't happy that Natsume is glad to return the names in the book if the Yokai ask- he wants the power of the book for himself, but he lives up to his promise. And since Madara was imprisoned in a Maneki Neko statue or a Lucky/Beckoning Cat, people see him as an actual cat- even normal people. Only Natsume can see Madara's true form, and then only when Madara assumes it. In this form, Natsume calls him "Nyanko-Sensei", Nyan being the sound cats make, -ko being a suffix meaning small, little or cute and "sensei" meaning teacher.

It is almost time for the Summer Festival, and Nyanko-sensei is hungering for eel. Natsume buys him some, but then bumps into a woman coming down a set of stairs and finds a drop of blood on his clothes. Following the stairs back to where she came from, he discovers a small, seemingly abandoned shrine littered with the bodies of Yokai and a strange shadowy figure who sees Natsume and thinks he is also Yokai and attacks him as well, trying to strangle him. But a winged female Yokai who isn't quite dead springs up to save him and carry him off.

Nyanko sensei is glad to see that Natsume is safe, but reveals that someone is out there killing Yokai and draining their blood- presumably for use in spells, which would mean that the attacker was human. Bit who would go around doing that to Yokai? Meanwhile Natori meets with Mrs. Nanase, who reveals that her bosses, the Matobas, are in town, and tells him not to interfere with them- they are dangerous. She also wants to know where Natsume lives, but Natori won't tell her. Natsume goes looking for the human who is killing Yokai and finds a large, shadowy Yokai attacking the bird woman who saved him at the shrine. Madara banishes him, ripping off a mask that the Yokai is wearing. Soon after, Natsume encounters a young man with a scratch on his arm where he scratched the attacker at the shrine, and the man introduces himself as Matoba. He's interested in Natsume, because he realizes that Natsume can see Yokai, but Natsume doesn't trust him after the incident at the shrine and declines to tell the man his name.

But when Natsume and the female bird-Yokai are attacked, who should show up to protect him but Natori. Natori explains that Matoba and his entire family are powerful Yokai exorcists, or killers- but what so interests him in this region. Natsume and Nyanko sensei realize that the Yokai who attacked the bird woman wasn't even a real Yokai, but one created by a spell. By mapping the attacks on a map of the area, they find where the attacks started and find where Matoba is staying. Apparently, he is interested in enslaving a very strong Yokai imprisoned in the area, and Natori feels that Matoba is up to something strange in the area. But can Natsume do anything to stop Matoba from finding and freeing the Yokai, which both Madara and Natori feel would be an exceedingly bad idea, or to stop his plans to set it free? And whose side is Matoba on= that of the humans, that of the Yokai, or that of himself? And is there anything Natsume can do at all? And even if he manages to make a difference, what interruptions to his life will come from attracting Matoba's attention?

Then, Natsume and Madara are invited to a drinking party by several lesser Yokai, the event to take place under a full moon. This is very unusual, as humans are almost never invited to Yokai parties. Natsume introduces them to a new human game, known as "Troll". One player is the troll, who tries to step on the shadows of the other players. The first person whose shadow is stepped on is the new troll. But when Natsume falls down a hole when he plays, will the other Yokai think to rescue him?

The volume ends with a stand-alone story called "A Midsummer Sigh". A boy named Yajima is hiding two secrets: his abilities to run and jump expand exponentially when he drinks juice, and that he likes a girl who has long been his friend. But when he confesses the first secret to his female friend, he inadvertently puts them in danger from a thief. Can he find the courage to confess his other secret, or will it be too late already?

This volume of the series was mostly one long story, and we get the feeling that most Yokai exorcists are not nice people. All of them seem to have problems, and this Matoba most of all. He's less menacing than seemingly actively malign, and Natsume only manages to prevail because of his favorable friendships with Yokai. But this makes him stand out when we see how humans are more evil and more dangerous than seemingly even the most dangerous Yokai-or at least the ones Natsume has encountered, anyhow.

The only Yokai Exorcist who is less than malign or threatening is Natori, and I suspect that this is the influence of Natsume on him, and even he is slightly shady and resorts to practices and methods that Natsume finds troubling. The only problem is that I suspect that the other Yokai banishers want to use him as a tool, and Natsume, even with all his spiritual power, is too weak yet to take them on. And they have no interest in being softened in their attitudes towards Yokai for him to affect them. And while anything is possible, I just can't see it happening- unless a lot of very powerful Yokai stand with him to take them on... and Natsume just isn't there yet.

Despite the rather intense and frightening humans in the volume, the story was intense and satisfying, and the generally happy nature of the drinking party story was the perfect antidote to the story before. This series continues to impress me and I enjoy it more with each volume I read. I wonder where the greater story is going, and how long the series itself can last. In any case, if you get a chance to read it, please do. It's one of the best manga I have read in quite a while. Highly recommended.

Within the Flames by Marjorie M. Liu

2011-11-30T13:14:00.001-05:00

Eddie is a former street guy, who have up a normal life because of a mistake he'd made when he was a kid, when he accidentally killed a man with his power to manifest and control fire, and ran away from his family for fear that they would be blamed for his crime, or that he would lose control and end up killing them as well. He lived on the streets until he was found and taken in by Dirk and Steele, the detective agency, that helped him control his talent and make a better way to live. But a recent near-death experience has once more stripped him of his control and left him with the power, forcing him to stay inside a glass box when he feels his own power cutting loose, as not to hurt anyone else.

But when he's sent to New York to help Lyssa, the last of her family, part dragon and equally damaged by life and her past, Eddie is struck by the fact that she is just as damaged as he is. For Lyssa, who makes her living illustrating children's books and living in the tunnels that honeycomb New York with the rest of the homeless and abandoned, is deathly afraid. For she is being hunted by the Cruor Venator, a group of witches that could make the evil witches of fairytales look warm and grandmotherly. They want Lyssa for the power in her blood and the strength that stripping her of her powers and adding them to their own could give them.

But despite her position among the down and out, Lyssa is also trying to protect those who share her home with her. Disfigured by the scales that she can no longer hide, Lyssa seeks almost to negate what she is, and keep those she loves and cherishes safe, while remaining untouched by them so that if she loses them, she will not be hurt when they are no longer there, not realizing it's already too late for that, and now that the Cruator Venator are tracking her down in earnest, they won't just go after her, but they'll target those she loves and is trying to protect in order to get to her and draw her out.

Eddie, too, is still trying to protect the ones he loves and his friends,but his presence in the city is causing friction between his friend Lannes, and his wife, a witch, who hasn't yet confessed to her very close family that not only is she in a relationship, but that she is married and expecting his child. And now he, too, has someone he wants to love and protect, But can he overcome his past baggage to do so?

Meanwhile, Lyssa is finding herself reliving the day her parents died, and remembering more and more pertinent details, all of which impacts the decision of the Cruor Venator to come after her. But when she takes out two of the minor members of the group, will it make her less inclined to face the single woman who embodies the Cruor Venator, or will their ability to strike total, petrifying fear into the hearts of others only make those of the strongest member seem worse? Because to truly overcome the evil witches, she will have to face every fear in her heart, and give in to love and hope...

I like the Dirk and Steele novels, and it seems I must have missed one because I don't remember reading the book in which Eddie got injured. But he's been in other novels, so it was nice to see him again. But now he's changed- stripped of his usual control, his life is spinning off the rails and he knows it. But the incident that made him run from his family was also the one which set him on the path of being a protector. And faced with the reality of a beautiful woman, and the vulnerable girl she once was, to protect, this chance means everything to him.

And Lyssa has her own demons to face and her own fears to confront. She has been running all her life, and without Eddie, she would just keep on running. Well, Eddie and a small boy with a mother who was an abused woman make her protect them and try to save them from life on the streets, as much as she can. Her reaching out is the first sign that she might be growing beyond her fear and might finally be able to face up to those who killed her mother and father, and at the same time, the lessons she still has to learn from their deaths are coming hard and fast. One of her fears is of her other side, and the damage she believes it can do. But perhaps what she remembers isn't all truth, and she must trust in herself and her mother's love to find a new and different way to be.

This romance novel involved supernatural beings, but it was not just about that. It was about choosing what we are, and how powers that seem hard and difficult and evil can be turned to be used for good and healing. It was quite wonderful to read, and the characters were wonderful to read about and share their thoughts and feelings. Highly recommended, as I found this book simply wonderful. A gem.

The DC Comics Ultimate Character Guide by Brandon T. Snider

2011-11-29T11:40:00.002-05:00

Back when I was growing up, one of my favorite comics being published was a multiple issue comic that covered all the characters in the D.C. Universe, known as "Who's Who in the D.C. Universe". I still remember the first issue I picked up, somewhere on the far side of the middle, and the character of Nekron, one of the first entries in the comic that I purchased.

So, when I picked up this book, I expected to return to those happy memories. But the "Ultimate Character Guide" is rather... sparse. far from that huge "Who's Who", this book only covers the really important main superheroes and villains, and everything else (and everyone else) is left by the wayside. This, I felt, was far from "Ultimate", and actually seemed rather sparse and anemic after reading the much larger character guide when I was younger. Yes, there might be a hundred or so entries in this book, but it can't come near to the number of interesting, if marginal, characters from the earlier work.

When I hear that a character guide is "Ultimate", I expect it to be the largest, best and most complete, and this particular guide is none of those things. Many characters are left out (like many of the named Green Lanterns, with the exception of Guy Gardiner and Kilowogg and Jon Stewart. And each character is given a short blurb about their abilities and history. While the same short blurb covered their statistics and abilities in the Who's Who series, there was definitely more description of their history and clashes with heroes or villains in the earlier comic series, and far less in this one.

Another thing I had a problem with is the images of the characters, too many seemed rather anime-ized, especially Lightning Lad of the Legion of Superheroes, and while I understand that showing characters as they are currently drawn is important, I also would have liked to see more classic images of the heroes and villains, as I found the anime-ized illustrations stomach-turning.

It's an okay book as far as the DC universe goes, but I would by no means label it ultimate (where is the original Liberty Belle's entry?) in any way, shape or form. I would have liked to see more character history and more than a page per character for the really important characters in the DC Universe. Not recommended, look to earlier works for a more complete comic book history and more on the heroes and villains of the DC Universe.

Changes: Book Three of the Collegiate Chronicles by Mercedes Lackey

2011-11-28T08:29:00.000-05:00

Mags was a former slave, worked in a gem mine in the backcountry of Valdemar along with other children, who could get into the tightest places to retrieve the gems that the owners of the mine demanded. Slavery, though, is not allowed in Valdemar, and when Mags and his fellow workers were found, it meant bad times for the owners of the mine, and Mags and his fellow workers were freed. Also, Mags was Chosen by one of the fabled Companions of Valdemar, the white spirit-horses that are so beloved by the people, and hated by the enemies of the small country.

Because of his background, and how much he had to learn before he could join the other Trainees, being unable to read or write, and his scrawny body from the lack of food given to those at the mine, Mags never fit in with the other trainees. But he didn't lack friends- Mags found friends in Bear, a trainee at the Healer's Collegium without a healing gift, but whose ways with herbs and other ways of healing not magical was near-legendary, Lena, the extremely gifted daughter of a famous Bard, whose own father ignored her and her gift because of his own need to be the best and the brightest, and Amily, the daughter of the King's Own Herald, whose crippling impairment makes most activities too strenuous or damaging for her. None of them seemed to judge him, and all had their own problems, which meant that they could just be friends, and lean on each other for support, knowing that the others would understand how they felt.

But Amily's friendship brought Mags to the attention of the King's Own. And this King's Own, Nikolos, was carefully chosen by his companion, Rolan, to be something of a spy. Nikolos is particularly forgettable when not in Herald Garb, and the small Mags, who is equally forgettable, had the kind of abilities that Nikolos is looking for to be of special service to the King. So while Mags undergoes standard Herald training, and plays on the Kirball team, he is also tagged with being part of the "Special Service", essentially, with being a Herald Spy, and training for that, too. In effect, Nikolos is setting himself up as a fence in the lower city, with Mags playing his deaf-mute servant, and using his knowledge of gems and gemstones that he learned in the mines, to aid Nikolos in his work.

But Mags, in addition to helping his friends Bear and Lena with their family problems, and planning for Amily to receive the surgery she needs to fix her leg from Bear and the Healers, runs into a group of ruthless men in the lower city, using a bunch of homeless orphans as unpaid servants and forcing them to steal and spy for them. When Mags finds out, he knows he has to do a horrible act himself- because of the way the orphans have been mistreated, they will never accept kindness or handouts, seeing charity as something completely unknown. Instead, he must force himself to act the bully and take over their small group- to treat them, in seeming at least, the way that others have while actually allowing them to eat better and get better food and clothes than they have ever been used to before, and also in better quality. He must also make them do the same job- spying, that they have been doing for others, and somehow prepare them to find better homes off the streets and be accepted, and all without letting any hint show how hard and sickening such an imposture is for him. For if they sense anything off, they will run as far and fast as possible, and Mags wants to save them, if such a thing can be managed. And the city is suffering from strange irritation, possibly from the heat and possibly from a far distant source. Can Mags track down what is making people so hot under the collar, or will he be drawn into these irritations himself?

But he's also trying to help his friends deal with their family. Lena's father cares nothing for her, and only for himself, and Bear's family has decided that he will never amount to anything without a healing gift, despite the fact that his facility with herbs and healing in the slower, more natural way is worthy of the time and attention of the Healing Collegium- and they agree. But Lena's father is more than simply self-centered, and when her own father's crimes are finally revealed, can she stop looking to him for attention and respect and decide to stand on her own talents? And what of Bear? He knows his skills have worth, and that the Healing Collegium respects him for them, but can he ever stand up to his own family and decide that he is worthy, even if that means they will never respect him? And Amily's crippled leg may hold her back, but why is she so important to the assassins that keep coming into Haven and trying to make trouble? Will Mags lose her love if she gets back her mobility, and can he rescue her when the assassins steal her and take her into the lower city to escape?

And will Mags ever learn who his parents really were, or is it more important that he decide who he wants to be without that knowledge? Can Mags and Nikolas track down who the real culprits behind the assassins and saboteurs are, and what is happening in the situation with Karse? What will become of the three friends after they have become adults? And how will they fare in the Valdemar to come?

In a way, I was happy to see this book, but after I finished reading it, I found myself in many ways disappointed. Most of Mercedes Lackey's series set in Valdemar and its world (like Arrows of the Queen, the Last Herald-Mage, Magewinds and so on) are trilogies, but this book is the least like the ending to a trilogy I have ever read. Too many questions are unanswered at the end to make me feel entirely happy with the ending. And given how Bear and Lena seemed to have made progress before at the end of a book, only to go back to whining about their problems in the next, I distrust that they have finally learned their lesson after this one. Okay, yeah, Lena's father is under house arrest, and so is the bard who got drawn up in the plan of the kidnappers, but not much else really changes- there has either got to be a fourth book or another trilogy coming.

That annoyed me. Another thing that increasingly annoyed me was Mags's accent. Its tried to be explained away by saying that he keeps it so that people who don't know him will underestimate him. Okay, I can understand that. So then, why does he speak that way when he mind-speaks with Dallen, his companion, for heaven's sake, and even with his friends? He can speak normally perfectly well, and he certainly does it at the end of the book when he is searching for Amily, but when he does, his speaking without that horrendous phonetical accent is only described, not written out. And reading his accent, with the missing letters, apostrophes and all, is time-consuming and kept breaking me out of the story because it didn't flow with the rest of the words of the narrative.

Another irritation is Kirball, which showed up way too many times, and for too long. It looked like it was there to pad out the pages of the story, and I would have preferred to see more story and less sporting event. And the constant telling, not showing got irritating to me. Mags is explaining how people feel with his empathy, and I felt talked down to like I was in first grade and not very bright, to boot. Come on, you can let me figure it out... I'm not stupid or dumb, or even autistic. I felt that the overinsistence on telling got me as angry as the people in the Capital when Stone and Ice were around. But I knew why I was angry.

That being said, I still found the situations intriguing, and the ending got my blood pumping, but the irritation at all the telling and having to interpret Mags's ludicrous accent rankled fiercely. So many questions stuck around and new questions were raised that it scarcely felt like the ending of a trilogy. Read it, but you might want to pick this up from the library, or wait until the series has ended before picking it up, because there is a fair bit of irritation to interfere with the pleasure of reading. Not recommended. YMMV.

Ran Away by Barbara Hambly

2011-11-27T23:45:00.004-05:00

New Orleans in 1837 is rocked by the scandal of two harem girls of the Hussein Pasha being thrown to their deaths from the roof of his house. Benjamin January, a free man of color who, although trained as a doctor, can get no patients because of the color of his skin and therefore supports himself by playing music on the cornet for the rich New Orleans Creoles at their parties, is thrown into the middle of what actually happened to the two women because he knows Hussein Pasha from his earlier sojourn in Paris, where he studied to be a Doctor.

Just as in New Orleans, Ben supported himself in Paris on the strength of his ability to play music, and even had a wife, an Arabian girl who herself had been raised in the Harem named Ayasha. Because of her knowing Arabic, when another of Hussein Pasha's concubines was poisoned with Quinine, his wife turned to Ayasha to find someone who would know how to save her. Ben was brought in to treat the girl and save her life, as well as that of her unborn child, which was supposed to be male, and thus would be Hussein Pasha's first and only son. The concubine's ability to get pregnant with a boy child engendered jealousy and hatred in the other concubines, and they wished to eliminate her.

Thankfully, Ben was able to save her life, but he is sure she will lose her baby- only she doesn't, and shortly afterwards, she runs away from the house and Hussein Pasha, for unknown reasons. Is she in fear of her life, or that of her unborn son, should she continue to stay among the other women of the harem? Ben only knows that he must find her before Hussein Pasha returns to the city from England if he doesn't want there to be more violence in the Harem.

But when kidnappers abduct his wife by mistake, apparently thinking her to be the missing concubine, he must ally with Hussein Pasha to save Ayasha and get Hussein back his son, if not his Jewish concubine. But can Ben do that, even with the help of Hussein Pasha, if his slave girl has returned to a distant branch of her family in Paris?

In the present, Ben knows from experience that simply killing the two women by defenestrating them is something that Hussein Pasha simply wouldn't do. He says as much to his mother, who tells him that everyone knows that women's lives mean nothing to Mohammedan men, and that "everyone knows this". Ben protests that, but it seems that nobody will listen to him except for his wife, Rose. Everyone is acting as if Hussein Pasha is guilty, but the man who says he saw the Arab kill the women was having carnal relations with one of them, and is in no way a credible witness- but he'll be believed simply because he's white.

With sentiment in the city souring towards Hussein Pasha, who is in jail, his wife and his household are in danger from those who would lash out at a man they consider a murderer. But as January works to find out the truth, there are those who would see him arrested and executed for supporting a man who everyone else thinks is guilty. Can Ben discover who really killed the women, and who stole Hussein Pasha's gold? And for that matter, can he save a man who may be ugly on the outside, but who is honorable and good on the inside, even if everyone else assumes his guilt as a matter of course?

I always enjoy reading the Benjamin January books, and this one was no exception. At first, I thought that the story of how Ben met Hussein Pasha,and how the man saved Ben's wife, Ayasha, was going to encompass the whole book. But that wasn't the case, and I was pleasantly surprised by how the first part of the book was a mystery all on its own. It's almost half the book, but at the same time, didn't feel rushed or cut short, and I loved the interaction of Ben and Ayasha.

The second part of the book, rooted in New Orleans is also amazing, and I have to say that the last page of the ending almost made me cry. The understanding that Ben and Rose have, and the new understanding they reach at the end, with their refusal to lie to each other about their dreams, really touched my heart. It felt very heartwarming and not at all fictional. People are people and sometimes, love and real life hurts in a way that fiction doesn't, and it was the most real part of the book to me.

I enjoyed this book very much. In the hands of a lesser writer, it could have seemed a bit schizophrenic, with two separate stories joined into one. But the view of the marriage of Ben and Ayasha really made the ending, and the first story showed us the honor and nobility of Hussein Pasha in a way that a recounted story could not, and showed us why Ben knew that Hussein Pasha could never have killed his concubines the way he was claimed to. An excellent story that touched me and entertained me at the same time. Highly recommended.

A Christmas Homecoming by Anne Perry

2011-11-26T22:49:00.002-05:00

Caroline Fielding is the mother of Charlotte, who is the wife of the policeman Thomas Pitt. Now married to her second husband, the actor Joshua Fielding, she and he are headed to Whitby, a Yorkshire Fishing village, to read and put on a play of Dracula written by the daughter of a rich man. Ordinarily, the troupe would never do such a thing, but the money that her father is paying them will be used to support other theatrical presentations that the troupe would like to give, so they do their best to make the best of it, and to iron out any problems the play might have before putting it on just after Christmas Day.

Traveling along with the Fieldings are the other actors: Vincent Singer, the man who is to play Van Helsing, Lydia Rye, who will be playing Lucy Westenra, Mercy Carstairs, the lead, who will be playing Mina Murray/Harker and James Hobbs, the other actor, who will be playing Jonathan Harker. Joshua himself will be playing Dracula, and Caroline will be both the book holder, and the person who is in charge of the lighting for the play.

At the house, they meet Alice Netheridge, the woman responsible for writing the attenuated play based on the book, and her father and mother, Charles and Eliza Netheridge, and Alice's fiancee, Douglas Patterson. While her parents are paying the actors to put on the play for Alice to be happy, her fiancee seems to think that she should forget all about any pretensions she has to writing or creativity and settle down to be a simple happy homemaker like her mother- who isn't actually all that happy, as her home was decorated by her husband's mother in a rather overwhelming style she is unhappy with, and she longs to change it, but her husband won't hear of it.

At their arrival at the Netheridge home, a bad snowstorm starts, one which everyone hopes will pass by the time they have to actually stage and give the play. But as they talk over the play, and Alice makes changes to what she has written to make the play better, a new arrival comes to the house. Anton Ballin, a businessman whose carriage was a victim of the storm, arrives to beg shelter until the storm abates. And while his arrival is unfortunate for him, he invigorates the play with his understanding of stagecraft that allows the play to descend into true horror and wrings the best performances from all the actors, and his discussions with Alice, Caroline and the others on the nature of evil allow her to craft an even better play.

Still, one night when Caroline descends to the room where they are to give the play in order to retrieve an article left behind, she trips over Ballin's dead body. But who has killed him? After alerting the Netheridges and the other actors, the family decides to leave the body in place over night and to look for clues in the morning, under better light.

But during the night, the body vanishes, and cannot be found in the house, despite frantic searching. Caroline, against her better opinion, knows that she must look into the death to save the theatre company from being blamed for Ballin's death. For only they are outsiders, and they are also the perfect scapegoats to blame when the storm subsides enough for the magistrate to come calling. But can she discover the true murderer and why Ballin was murdered in the first place? And will the theatre company leave the house intact, or will it split over the subject of the play?

Anne Perry is very good at mysteries and this book is no exception. In her Christmas mysteries, she takes a minor character from one of her other mystery series, one who isn't usually a crime solver, and puts them into a situation where a death occurs on or near Christmas and has them do the heavy lifting work of investigating the crime, usually because they are the only one who can or are the only one who cares to get to the true bottom of the mystery.

And this one is very good. Not quite a locked room mystery, but more of a locked house mystery, with a limited number of suspects and a missing body. There are two good suspects right away- one an actor, the other a member of the family, and both have unpleasant personalities, so she can't be accused of using "Unpleasant character is evil and therefore the murderer by default" excuse. But we get to see that one of them is not too bad, so, in a way, the unpleasant character does point the way to who really dunnit.

Yes, it's a bit formulaic, but it's also never dull, and despite the small number of pages, the characters seem fully realized, even if we don't get to see them onstage very often. The mystery and the denouement are wholly satisfying, even if the bit of information we need to identify the how and why of the murder isn't revealed until almost the last moment. Still, the excellent writing will make you forget the cliché nature of the story right until the very end, and it's still a satisfying mystery. Recommended.

The Secrets of the F.B.I. by Ronald Kessler

2011-11-25T07:49:00.003-05:00

The FBI, or the Federal Bureau of Investigations is in charge of keeping the Unites States secure from both terrorists at home and abroad. With a wide array of powers granted by the government of the United States, and limited by the power of the judicial system, it often seems monolithic to outsiders, as well as extremely mysterious and often secretive. But where did it come from and how does it work today? And what is the truth about several allegations made in the past, like the truth about J. Edgar Hoover's sexual and cross-dressing proclivities?

The Secrets of the FBI (such as they are) are all exposed in this book, from how the FBI believes information can be obtained from anyone, without torture, to how they work and the stratagems they use to catch crooks, and to why they didn't go after the Mafia in the US for so long. Other chapters talk about Waco, Ruby Ridge and how Robert Hansen, a former FBI Agent whose capture inspired the movie "Breach" was caught. But the movie, based very loosely on the case, is completely fictional when it came to how Hansen was actually caught. and this book tells the true story.

The book also tells the true story of the Break-in at the Watergate hotel, Deep Throat and his activities, and how the FBI began profiling serial killers, and the truth regarding one of the things that ended up bringing down Deputy Director Bill Sessions down- his wife, Alice. There is the truth behind the death of Vince Foster (that he committed suicide, unable to handle the stress of his position- he confessed as much to his sister, who gave him the names of three psychiatrists he could see), and how Louis Freeh, the next director after Bill Sessions, may have been a somewhat better choice, but at the same time, he had his own idiosyncrasies that hurt his own ability to do the job right.

In part, his contempt for technology and preference for doing "brickwork", or getting out and hitting the streets rather than investigation through computers, hamstrung the FBI when it came to things like investigating information on Bin Laden and other technologically savvy terrorists and individuals, leading almost directly to 9/11. It was only after Freeh left that this problem could be addressed.

The book closes out with more cases in which their TacOps team has broken into homes and businesses to plant cameras and microphones, and catching various crimes on tape, including Mafia takeouts and one in which Zein Isa killed his own daughter because she had a job outside the house and was therefore a danger to Isa and his cell. He even called 911 after the crime and claimed that he killed his daughter in self-defense, but the truth was that his wife held her down as he stabbed her in the chest multiple times, telling her to die quickly.

I found this book fascinating, with so much information about the FBI past and present, and the details of the cases were actually fascinating and horrifying at the same time. But still, I know that not everyone who reads this book is going to believe it, especially if they are heavy believers in certain conspiracy theories, like that of the Clintons having Vince Foster murdered, or that the FBI and other Federal agencies were behind a conspiracy to make believe 9/11 was done by bombs to make the US go to war in the Middle East.

People not as wedded to conspiracy theories and who don't necessarily believe that the government was behind 9/11 will find the accounts from the FBI personnel on the ground to be a mixture of competence and incompetence- exactly the way that humans always are, and that makes these accounts believable, especially to me. Most conspiracy theories require that those pulling them off are more perfect than any human could make them- all the time. In fact, most conspiracies fail for exactly that reason- humans aren't perfect. They fail, someone screws up, someone speaks out, and they get caught.

But for most people. this book will be one of the best and most interesting books you will read this year. The information and the stories are excellent and incredibly fascinating, both in the stories of what the FBI has uncovered and how it works. It opens a window on an agency and lets us see it doing its job, and how it does that job, along with past successes and failures. Highly recommended.

The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler

2011-11-19T09:43:00.003-05:00

Joseph Campbell is justly famous. For in his study of mythology, he realized that many of the great myths had the same structure behind them, a structure tied to "coming of age" tales the world over. Each culture, no matter how far distant in time or distance from our modern society, had the same themes and myths in their coming of age and hero tales (Hero tales are about coming of age and seizing power and agency for ones self at their very heart).

But while these tales still resonate within the cultures that use them to help their children grow up, our modern society has eschewed them almost entirely. Instead, we try and build that structure into our movies, so that the tales we tell within them resonates in the audiences that watch them. But in separating us from our own mythic tales, the tales we tell in the movies we see are flawed, and sometimes fatally so, by not including the normal parts of the mythic tales that make the tales themselves interesting. Christopher Vogler, himself a screenwriter, applied the Hero's Journey to the movies he saw and the ones he was writing to help make the tales more interesting and more fulfilling to the audiences that watched them.

This book is the result of that exercise, with a clear explanation of the parts of the mythic journey, how each is important to the tale, and how modern movies both get right, and mess up the hero's journey in their tales. And not just old Hollywood movies, but new ones like the Lion King, Finding Nemo, Dances with Wolves, Pulp Fiction, The Full Monty, Titanic, The Wizard of Oz, and of course, the most famous movie of all to use the Mythic Hero's Journey: Star Wars.

But even insofar as this book goes to explore the Hero's Journey, it's just that, a journey for men, used to get the hero into the outside world. The Journey to becoming a modern, fulfilled and adult woman is very different, and is often more of an internal journey than the external one of the male hero. But that isn't to say that women cannot have a hero's journey. The film Titanic is definitely based on the Hero's Journey, and the one on that journey is Rose, the main female character. Her lover, Jack, becomes a mentor on that journey for her, but he himself doesn't really change as the hero must during the journey. He is merely the catalyst for Rose's own journey of self-discovery and how to lighten up and find happiness.

I found this book invaluable as a writer, because most adventure stories are really all about discovering how to be a hero, even if it is only in small ways, and these are tropes and inspirations writers can use to make their stories of journeys of discovery and adventure better. He lists the different points on the journey and how filmed movies both made use of those moments, and how they got it wrong, and what he suggested for a better movie, but wasn't always listened to.

Moreover, he tells why these moments are important to the structure of both the mythic journey and to the story you are writing. Because if you use the Hero's Journey and get it right, the story will better resonate with your audience, who may not have the same connection to the Hero's Journey in cultural tales, but who will still have encountered them in our own modern society, through both movies and legends of other cultures (tales like those of Hercules, or modern-day re-envisionings like the Thirteenth Warrior). They show where modern tales have done it wrong, and how to make those tales work right to have them resonate in the same way as the mythic Hero's Journey. But it's not a template bolted in steel. it's a guideline rather than something you must follow slavishly.

"The Writer's Journey" is a book that gives you a great deal to think about, and a guideline to follow if you feel that your story is somehow lacking in something to make it interesting, memorable and most importantly, satisfying as a tale. Following the guideline can make your stories better and make it resonate more with readers. While not guaranteeing that this will fix all the problems in your narrative, it is certainly something to think about when you are planning your stories to give them greater impact and accessability. I found it very interesting, and will certainly recommend the book to other writers.

Jane's Guide to Dicks (and Toms and Harrys) by Ross and Kathryn Petras

2011-11-16T23:25:00.001-05:00

Once upon a time, Jane was a sad girl who knew nothing about Dicks. Or any other boys, either. All she wanted was a boy of her own. But she had to learn a lot of lessons about boys, and about getting along with them, before she could land one of her own.

But Jane learned her lesson, and now she's come to teach you the lessons she had to learn so that you can win a Dick, Tom or Harry of your very own!

The first thing you have to learn is that boys are simple. While girls can be very mentally and emotionally complex, boys think less about emotions than about things. This can be something concrete, like cars, or more abstract, like baseball statistice. They also don't deal with emotions. If you watch a movie about a romance between a jet pilot and a nurse. While you are thinking happily about their relationship and what it means (and how it might be like your own relationship), your boy will be thinking of the nurse's attributes, the fast jet, and the fighting scenes. This will make him equally as happy as you are, but it's not really in the same realm.

Jane will show you how to grab a boy's attention, and then keep it, and make it result in the desired action for you (asking you out on a date as opposed to just staring at you longingly from afar). She also shows you how to manage your expectations and keep the relationship spiced up so that neither of you end up bored and looking elsewhere.

With Jane's super-secret hints and tips, you can not only snag a hot hunk of your very own, but keep him and ensure that both of you are happy. And even if you think there is nobody out there for you, or that you have to kiss a million frogs to find your Prince, be assured that you will find the man of your dreams.

This short, amusing book, purports to be written by a grown-up Jane from the old "Dick and Jane" books, and while the advice is written in an amusing way, it does have some very, very good points to make. Like, not drinking a lot when you are out on a date, and spending less time talking about you than about him, looking in unusual places to meet a man (go somewhere guys hang out, but not a bar where there is too much competition, or at work, where such things are generally looked down on), snd even what men look for in a woman.

While many of the "Hints" are tongue in cheek, and are illustrated with 50's era illustrations, some of them are very spot-on. All of them are very amusing. But it's much better at amusing than at being taken seriously. Still, sometimes you need a laugh when trying to find a good date has got you down.

This is the perfect bite. Not long enough to be boring, and filled with plenty of amusing pictures and advice. It makes you laugh at the whole idea of dating and how to meet a man, and may even help you lose your fear over talking to a man. Recommended for a good laugh and some cute advice.

The Tale of Castle Cottage by Susan Wittig Albert

2011-11-08T15:27:00.001-05:00

Beatrix Potter, children's author and farm owner, has finally found a new man in her life to love, Will Heelix, the solicitor who helped her with so many criminal cases, has asked to marry her, and she accepted. But the renovation and remodelling of Castle Cottage, the farm she has inhabited for so many years, seems to be at a dead standstill. The man she has contracted to do the work, Mr. Biddle, is taking forever, and he claims the work has been stalled by someone stealing from him.

In fact, he soon fires Mr. Adcock, the carpenter, who seems as honest as the day is long, and which gains Mr. Biddle quite a bit of anger, not only from Mr. and Mrs. Adcock, but from the other workmen as well. Mr. Adcock can only maintain his innocence and stomp off in high dudgeon.

But Beatrix isn't the only one with problems involving theft. Everyone in town is missing something- and the culprits might very well be a group of thieving rats who have moved into town and are stealing everything that isn't secure- and that is an awful lot, from money and food to silver and small items. But when Mr. Adcock turns up dead soon after being fired, it's up to Beatrix to figure out what is going on and find the true culprit who is stealing from Mr. Biddle and who is behind the run on the town's possessions.

For among the missing items is a very, very valuable book that could be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. And Beatrix must find it to save the name of a maid and keep her from being transported for theft, because she is convinced that the maid didn't steal it. But the thefts and the slow work on the new house she intends to share with Will Heelis aren't the only things holding up her marriage,. for there is also her parents.

Beatrix's parents are not especially wealthy, but they are comfortable, and with that sort of money, they are completely opposed to Beatrix marrying anyone who actually works for a living, known as "Being in Trade". When Beatrix fell in love with and became engaged to her former suitor, Norman Warne, she was tremendously happy. But he died after a very short illness, and while Beatrix has fallen once again, her family will oppose her match with Will for the very same reasons that they opposed her match to Norman- and acted so very relieved when he died.

Beatrix doesn't know if she can go through with her father's anger and her mother's anger and fainting to push for another marriage, even if it would make her supremely happy- and she isn't the only one hiding her true feelings. Her brother. Bertram, hasn't told his parents that he has been married for years to a young woman who worked as a maid and in a factory and who now lives with him on his farm in Scotland.

When he comes to visit her, can Bertram help Beatrice face their parents, or will he remain a coward and leave it all to her? Will there be a happy ending for Beatrice and Will, or will the second great love of her life have as unhappy an ending as her first? And can the animals of the town and the Badgers of the Brockery end the plague of rats that have overrun the town?

This was the last book in the Beatrix Potter mystery series, and it's just as full of interesting characters, both human and animal, as the first. And both sides of the town, human and animal, are threatened by thieves and murderers. The humans by thieves both human and animal, and the animals because letting the thieving rats run wild may mean that their humans will no longer support them- after all, cats and terriers are supposed to mean the death of rats.

But both sets of thieves are unusually vicious and it's up to each side to gain allies and deal with the threats correctly. And in each case, to make sure a happy ending comes about with the miscreants dealt with and the status quo restored. If anything made me somewhat annoyed during the novel, it was Beatrice being allowed to not deal with her parents. Even if it was true to what really happened, I felt that she needed to take more of a firm stand to them, and that just felt lacking in the book.

Other than that, though, it was all good. Beatrix and her friends and neighbors have been a part of my reading life for so long that the ending was a little bittersweet for me- but I'll hsve fine memories of the books to look back on. Highly recommended, for both the book and series.

Vampire Academy: The Graphic Novel by Richelle Mead, Leigh Dragoon and Emma Vieceli

2011-11-07T14:15:00.002-05:00

Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, the half-vampire guardian of the Moroi Vampires. Ever since she was young, she has been bound to her friend, the Moroi vampire Lissa Dragomir, the last of her line. The bond they share is greater than any other Moroi and her Dhampir, because Rose can see through Lissa's eyes, and she also can feel what Lissa is feeling. But they are currently on the run from their people, because Lissa's life was at risk, and no one but Rose believed her.

Being on the run has made Rose do things that her sort of Dhampir shouldn't have to do- like feed Lissa on her blood. There are two kinds of Dhampir- Guardians, like Rose aspires to be, and breeders, who make more Dhampir by mating with other Moroi and who share their blood. But since there is no one in the human world that Lissa can properly feed on, Rose willingly shares her blood with her friend.

But soon, Rose and Lissa are found by the Moroi and dragged back to the school they fled two years before: St. Vladimir's Academy. Hoping that the threat they fled from is gone, Lissa and Rose slowly blend back in to the mass of Moroi and Dhampirs at the Academy. It isn't easy, though. Those who once knew them shun them, and while the Dhampirs are rather impressed that Rose has managed to keep Lissa alive all by herself, they aren't going to go easy on Rose- she endangered Lissa's life by removing her from school, and now she is going to have to work extra hard to make up on the training she missed.

But there are compensations for being back at School. Lissa meets a boy named Christian Ozera, who seems to like her and not shun her. And Rose is being tutored by Dmitri Belkov, a hunky Russian Dhampir Guardian who may not be as blind to Rose's feelings as he pretends to be. But when Lissa's life is once again put in danger, can Rose protect her friend by staying around instead of running off with her once more? And what is Rose and Lissa's connection to St. Vladimir and his Dhampir Guardian, Anna?

I have already read this series as a book, but it was interesting to see it turned into a graphic novel. Some incidents have been cut out, and the book as a whole shortened, but the story still carried through fine and clear. It's just that in this one, we get to see what the characters look like, and it's clear when a character stops being Moroi and turns Strigoi.

Although you lose a bit of the closeness of being able to read about the characters feelings without being distracted by the pictures, I think this was a successful adaptation of the original novel, even if it wasn't done by Mead itself. The art was nice, if a bit sparse, but the story itself was dense. Despite being more like a comic book, it still read like a book and took more than a considerable while to get through.

As a graphic novel adaptation lover, I admit it's always better to read the original book than a graphic adaptation because so many things are left out- especially when you consider the size of the book in comparison to the novel. It's well done, and I would definitely recommend it- but I'd recommend the book even more!

The Devil's Diadem by Sara Douglass

2011-11-06T08:25:00.003-05:00

Meg Langtofte is a good, god-fearing young woman, so when she gets a job as a nursemaid to the wife of the Earl of Pengraic, she is sure to thank God and keep the Earl and his wife in her prayers at night. But she finds herself liking her mistress, Adelie, who is blonde, pious and devout, much more than her Lord, who has always treated her coldly and who has an unnerving and secretive air about him.

But the news of a plague sweeping across Europe and heading for England strikes fear into not only the lowly, but the great and powerful as well. The Earl sends his wife and his family to safety in Wales, but is recalled to London by Lord Edmond, the King. It isn't just the sickness that has people worried, but the ending of it, where its sufferers burst into flame spontaneously. People whisper that it is no ordinary sickness, that it has actually been sent by the Devil.

Meg worries about her mistress, who is pregnant with the Earl's child, and whom the incessant travelling is weakening steadily. But Meg has caught the eye of the Earl's oldest son, Stephen, who lightens her days, even though she knows there is no future for them- he is the son of the Earl and must marry another noble or even royalty, but she finds happiness in his nearness nonetheless.

Arrival at Pengraic Castle is wonderful, but Adelie's weakness continues, and she withdraws into her room, with only Meg's fellow servant, Evelyn, for company. Meg keeps herself busy with other duties, spending time with Stephen when she can, but with no physical demonstrations of love between them.

Then, she discovers a horrible fact: Adelie has the Burning sickness, and she and Evelyn have been hiding it from everyone. Soon, almost everyone in the castle is either sick or dying, Meg and Stephen among them. Those who weren't sick fled, and all the rest of the Earl's children are dead. She and Stephen wait to die, knowing that their castle isn't the only one afflicted.

But when the Earl arrives, Meg is clinging to life by a thin thread, the last living soul in the castle. Somehow, the Earl is able to heal her, and saves her life, though he denies doing so. He tells her that she owes him for letting his family get sick and die, and he intends her to repay every last jot of the debt. Even as she wonders how she can repay a debt of such a vast scope, the Earl proposes marriage to her- she will replace his wife and give him children- many children, to replace those who died in the plague.

And while Meg secretly fears her husband, aside from those remarks, he is kind to her and doesn't abuse her-in bed or out. But then there are more disturbing rumors- that the plague was the Devil's attempt to find something that has been stolen from him, and that he still seeks the thief in the world. And when the sickness returns, Meg will discover that she has come to the Devil's attention. But what is it about her that makes the Prince of Darkness seek her out, and what does she have to do with the rumors of what has been stolen from the Devil? Can Meg find the object that the Devil is seeking, and what will his attention do to her life, that of a devout and God-fearing soul?

This was the first Sara Douglass book that was set in something approaching our world, and I found it much more interesting than the Axis books or the Wayfarer Redemption series, possibly because the story it told was complete in this volume. The story is sad and exciting all at once, and at the same time, mysterious, as we wonder what Meg and the Devil have to do with each other, and how her husband could save her from the plague when everyone else died.

Meg is quite suspicious of her husband, and readers come to share her suspicions, because we often feel he is lying or being less than truthful to her, and his secrets made me feel that neither Meg nor anyone else should trust him. Is he the Devil himself, or was he sent to this world by the Devil to bring back the thing he wants to Hell? Nobody can be sure, although what the Devil is searching for should be obvious from the title of the book.

An interesting, fascinating book that keeps readers guessing right up until the very last page. Meg's life was rather fantastic, but at the same time, it was easy to understand and go along with the decisions she made and to feel sorry for her- sometimes, it feels as if life has her over a barrel and any choice she makes will end badly for her, but she can't refuse to choose at the same time. Highly recommended.

Born of Shadows by Sherrilyn Kenyon

2011-11-05T07:38:00.002-04:00

Caillen Dagen is the half-brother of the bounty huntress Shahara Dagen. He's a smuggler, and pretty much good enough not to get caught. But when his sister Kasen gets in trouble, he's enough of a gentleman not to drag her down with him- because she would crumble and fold the minute any authority would start questioning her, torture or not, while he knows he can stand on his own, and often has.

However, Kasen is smuggling an antibiotic so potent that it's completely outlawed by a number of systems under the control of the pharmaceutical companies who don't want it cutting into their enormously bloated profits- and in the system they are in, it carries a death sentence. Cai hates that, but he's willing to face it, until his execution is cut short by the knowledge that he is a Prince, the son of Emperor Evzen of the Garvon and Exeter systems. Caillen has a hard time believing it, and he doesn't want to be an Aristo, since he hates that more than anything, but at the same time, he also doesn't want to die, and he guesses that going with the Emperor and learning to be his heir beats being killed for being a smuggler of prillion.

However, learning to be a Prince of the kind that he thinks his father wants is very hard for him. His upbringing has been anything BUT Princelike, and with his father going into talks with the Quillaq Empire, he wants to keep him safe, because his father has always been the target of assassins. Still, knowing that is nothing compared to having to rescue your father from one yourself, and his dad's lacksadaisical attitude towards the situation doesn't help.

Meanwhile, Desideria of Qillaq is a member of the Royal family, but her position hasn't made her life any pampered or easier. In fact, because her father was actually able to escape his servitude to her mother, the Empress, has made her genetic heritage looked down upon and her life a living hell. Anyone who is able to kill her or humiliate her won't be punished- they'll be lionized, including her own half-sisters and her other relatives. So, when her mother takes her along to the talks with Emperor Evzen and his Empire, it's a signal honor like nothing she's ever known- even if all her mother's other guards hate her and despise her- and make no secret of it.

But when an assassin kills her mother's guards, and nearly her mother, she's the only survivor, and thinks that Emperor Evzen's people are responsible- and Caillen is most insistent that his father had nothing to do with it. Alone and at the mercy of Caillen and his people should the assassins try again, Desideria must team up with Caillen to find out who is really responsible for the attack on her mother. But as she begins to have feelings for this most unusual Emperor's son, who treats her like she's valuable and worthwhile instead of worthless trash as her own people do, can she prevent the takeover of her own planet and save her mother and her people from those who would wish them harm?

Caillen has never felt this way about anyone, and he can't see why anyone would reject such a strong and intelligent woman. Can he convince Desideria that he is on her side and that she has worth in herself? Or will politics end up rending them apart- with each Empire blaming the other for assassinations and attempting to start a war?

This is the first new book in the League novels in some time, and to be honest, I wished I liked it more than I did. But it has the same problem that plagues the other series that Sherrilyn Kenyon writes- reusing the same background and ideas. So far, every man in the League novels has turned out to be some sort of Prince. Every one, and every one, of course, has the requisite "My background is shittier! No, mine is!" contest that is making me sick of her heroes. It's okay a few times, but that horse she is beating is just stinky bones- not just dead, but completely decomposed for me.

What I liked was that the heroine in this one has a shitty life, too. In fact, it's worse than the hero's. This is a first for a Kenyon book, and was at least a change from what I was used to. It's not just the heroine making it all better for the hero by applying her love and body to his life, but the hero doing the same for her. Again, a huge change. I only can see that there is some sequel-baiting for Desideria's brother, who finds out his mother wasn't as big a bitch as he thought she was, but the "secret King/Royalty" bit is getting old. And so is the "I've had the shittiest life ever" competition going on among her heroes. Honestly, can't she try something new?

It was an okay book, and really only okay to me, because I am getting tired with the overused tropes in her stories. I'd really like to see her try something different for a change. There are other ways to generate conflict than someone whose life has been total shit as a reason to be untrusting and cynical. It's typical Sherrilyn Kenyon. Whether you see that as a plus or a minus is up to you as a reader.

Natsume's Book of Friends, Volume 6 by Yuki Midorikawa

2011-11-04T00:40:00.002-04:00

Takashi Natsume has long been able to see things that others can't, specifically Yokai. And because of this, his relatives rejected him after his parents died, and his classmates in school called him a liar. Now that he has been taken in by distant relatives, he doesn't want his aberrations to cause them problems, so he keeps quiet about everything he can see, both to his relatives and classmates. There are a very few who know his secret, and even fewer know about the reason why so many Yokai are hostile to him: The Book of Friends.

Natsume's grandmother, Reiko, had the same talent for seeing Yokai that Natsume has. Rejected by humans for her strangeness, she turned to Yokai to interact with, but went about it in the wrong way- challenging them to contests of power and taking their names when they lost, making them her virtual slaves who had to come when she called. Natsume inherited the book, and his resemblance to Reiko made them hate him as well. But a chance encounter had him freeing a powerful Yokai named Madara, who agreed to be his bodyguard in exchange for the book when he passed on. Madara can be seen by normal humans because he's been trapped in a Maneki-Neko or "Beckoning/Lucky Cat" statue for years. So he can only be seen as the cat. In his normal Yokai form, he's invisible to normal humans. But he wants the Book of Friends to boost his own power, and he gets upset when Natsume frees names from the book.

In this book, Natsumi discovers a child locked in a coffin in an abandoned house on his way home from school. He manages to find the boy's nametag, which got left behind in the box and tries to track him down to give it back. He learns from the boy's schoolmates that he feels he's being stalked, and can see ghosts, but the boy thinks that Natsume is the one stalking him, and gangs up on him with his friends, driving him off with stones. But there is a Yokai who is after the boy to eat him. And when Natsume and Madara take care of it, they find out from Natori that the child they have been helping is really a Yokai- a Yokai powerful enough to disguise itself as a human child. But even though Natsume has befriended him, can he keep the child, who loves its life as a human, from killing any human, like Natori, who threaten it? And when the Yokai gets the wrong idea about Natsume, can he repair their friendship before it comes to a real impasse?

And then the child fox spirit, rescued once by Natsume, decides to run away and visit himin the city. Another Yokai promises that if the child fox brings him three baskets of fish, he will give the child a pill that will turn him human for a day. But it's a trick and will merely allow him to be seen by humans for a day. But can he find Natsume among the noise, stench and crowds of the city?

Then, we learn how Hinoe met Reiko and how they became "friends". Reiko met Hinoe in the woods, and while Hinoe hates men, she likes women. She only likes Natsume because of how much he resembles Reiko. Is there anything that means more to Hinoe than her hairpin?

And the final story is a romance between a schoolgirl and her teacher. "The Corner of the Schoolhouse" tells of Kanako Noda, a schoolgirl who finds her teacher, Mr. Suga, catching her attention. But even though he's young, he's quiet and standoffish. How can she make him interested in her, with all the problems that come from a student/teacher romance? And is he even interested in having a romance, let alone with his student?

Another interesting volume of this series. Most of it is taken up with one story, that of Kai, and how, even though he was set to free two horrible ogres just to try and make friends, his friendship with Natsume was such that even after he believed that Natsume betrayed him, he still couldn't bring himself to try and hurt Natsume, not even by trying to steal the Book of Friends that the Yokai believe is so important.

All the stories bring attention to how strong the bonds between human and Yokai can become. Humans bring something to Yokai lives that Yokai cannot get from their fellow Yokai. It seems that because human lives are so short, that they burn brighter and more brilliantly than Yokai can- and their memories linger far longer than human memories can. It's sort of like how elves are traditionally portrayed in fantasy fiction- much longer-lived than humans, but humans fascinate elves because of their vitality and how they burn so bright and so brilliantly.

I liked this volume's story a lot, and the smaller, side stories were excellent as well. I thought the extra romance story was only okay, as it kind of hit an area which wasn't quite pedophilia, but is close enough to ephebeophilia to make me a little uncomfortable. But it was only an extra story, so it didn't really affect my perception of the series as a whole. I still enjoy this series, and find myself wanting to read more- a lot more, I hope. Highly recommended.

Natsume's Book of Friends, Volume 5 by Yuki Midorikawa

2011-11-03T23:20:00.002-04:00

Natsume has long had a problem. Ever since he can remember, he has seen Yokai. And after his parents died and he was taken in by relatives, it caused him problems, because he was truthful about what he was seeing, and told his guardians as well. They considered him creepy and it caused them to pass him on to other members of his family as quickly as possible. Children at the schools he went to thought of him as a liar.

But now that he has been taken in by distant relatives, and he is older, he has begun to see what he hears and sees as something he wants to keep to himself. He is tired of causing problems and just wants to seem normal, no matter how abnormal he really is. And this set of relatives really likes him and treats him kindly, so he really doesn't want to cause problems for them. He has also acquired a guardian/Bodyguard, a Yokai named Madara who inhabits a statue of the Maneki-Neko "Beckoning/Lucky Cat" variety. Because he has been in the statue for so long, normal humans can see him as a normal cat, but cannot see his Yokai form at all. Natsume calls his cat form "Nyanko-sensei".

He has agreed to act as Natsume's bodyguard to get access to the "Book of Friends" a book assembled by Natsume's grandmother, Reiko. Reiko, like Natsume, could see Yokai and was rejected by normal people for it. So she took out her frustration on Yokai, challenging them to contests and taking their names when she won. The Yokai whose names she held were essentially her slaves, and they resented her for it. Thinking Natsume is Reiko, who he strongly resembles, they try to get revenge on him, but he has been giving back the names, which Nyanko hates, because he only gets the book when Natsume dies, and Nyanko wants the power of the book over others for his own.

In this book, Natsume and his study group take a trip to an inn to finish the last studying they will have to do this summer before the school year starts. But it seems the lake is haunted by a Yokai- a mermaid. Legends tell of the power of a mermaid's flesh and blood- they can confer immortality. The lady who runs the inn tells Natsume that she saw a mermaid when she was young, and it gave her some of its blood. But she gave it to someone else, and now she is looking for him. The mermaid is real, and wants the Book of Friends. Although she's weak as a Yokai, can Natsume discover what the truth is about the claims of Mermaid blood and find out what really happened to the man who the innkeeper gave the blood to?

Then, Natsume discovers a strange spell scratched into the ground, and an even stranger girl hovering nearby. She recognizes him by name, and then curses when she realizes she's said it aloud, and promises Natsume she'll win, then runs off. He's puzzled, but the next morning, he discovers his name and the word "one" written on his body in the mirror. The words quickly disappear, but he's puzzled by what happened. And then he sees the girl again, and she tells him that her family are diviners. Her grandfather wanted to see Yokai, and she found the spell diagram in his notes. She used to draw it everywhere, unthinkingly, until she realized that with it, she could see Yokai. But one of the Yokai saw her back, and it told her that if she could find him again within a year, he'd let her go. Otherwise, he would eat her, and the last thirteen people she'd called by name. Now that she's named Natsume, he has no choice but to help her find the Yokai. But time is running out. Can she find and see the spirit, and if they find him, will he live up to his word? And when Nyanko-sensei also falls victim to the curse, can he help the both of them find the spirit and end it?

Next, when Natsume goes to pick Persimmons on his uncle's property he is nearly killed by an axe flung from the trees. Shortly afterwards, he sees strange, six-toed tracks going down the street to the door of the house he shares with his aunt and uncle, and a strange shape drawn on the street. Strangely enough, his uncle sees it, too, and feels that the art is familliar somehow. Then, it seems that a strange Yokai has somehow come into the house, but it's too fast for Natsume to catch. And then his uncle tells him a story from when he was young, and he knew a very strange girl who lived nearby. He was friendly to her, even though everyone in the area said she was cursed. But when his house was haunted and strange footsteps were heard in the night, she was the only one who could help- and she did, and the curse of bad luck was broken. Was this strange girl Reiko? And can Natsume and Nyanko-sensei exorcise the Yokai a second time? Or will the strange curse of bad luck plague the house again?

The last story involves Tanazma, the boy in Natsume's class who can see the Shadows of Yokai sometimes. He knows Natsume's secret, and wonders how different Natsume's world is from his own, which for Natsume must be in living color, as opposed to his shadows. It gives him something he can share, just a little bit, with Natsume, and makes him wonder at the world that Natsume sees, which must be so large and colorful, which he can only see as shadows.

Another wonderful volume. This one involved threats to Natsume's life and health much more than usual, and the Yokai in this one are also less strongly drawn. We never know why the spirit wants Natsume's house, and Natsume connects much more strongly with the human girl than the Yokai who has cursed her, but the first story about the Mermaid is one where Natsumi finally connects with both the human side of the story and the Yokai side of the story. Each side has a point of view, and the scene where the old woman sees the Mermaid who helped her when she was a girl once more was absolutely beautiful. We get to see the girl inside the old woman, and it had a wonderful beauty to it.

We also finally get to see Reiko interacting with humans, and get a sense of why people found her so scary and troubling. I also felt more than a little sympathetic to her, despite the lengths she eventually went to to pester Yokai aren't that nice, you can understand why she used Yokai as her outlet. It's also aninsight into her character by a child, who accepted her as she was. I found it wonderful as well. But my favorite story is the last, and it's bittersweet and beautiful as well. It sort of reminded me of the way that artists see things in a way normal people can't (or won't), and yet, we can see through a glass darkly by looking at their art. It made me smile, but it made me a bit sad, too.

I love this series. Every new volume brings more stories to love and enjoy, stories that pluck at my heartstrings and make me feel things that very few manga stories, heck, very few stories at all, ever make me feel. That's my reason for loving this series, and I'd love to keep reading this series forever and for the stories to never end. Highly recommended.

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

2011-11-02T11:42:00.002-04:00

Tiffany Aching is the Witch of the Chalk. It is her duty to make people's lives a little smoother with her magic and her ability to make medicines. But not to make their lives too easy. She also has to deal with other problems, like abusive husbands. One of the men discovered that his daughter was pregnant and nearly killed her with a beating, and his wife as well. Tiffany has to save his life by convincing him to flee the chalk before his fellow men kill him for what he has done.

After he takes off, she takes his daughter to the mound of the Nac Mac Feegles for some more healing from their Kelda, Jeannie. But she discovers that the girl loves being with the Nac Mac Feegle, and doesn't want to be separated from them, more, she can understand some of the secret language of the Kelda.

Concurrent with the problem of the girl, Tiffany discovers that people on the chalk are suddenly becoming distrustful of witches. When the Baron, lord of the village, passes on, Tiffany has to track down his son in Ankh-Morpork to deliver the news, only to be accused of killing the baron and stealing money from him by his nurse when Tiffany had merely come to take away the Baron's pain away. But the Chalk isn't the only place that seems to be coming to hate and fear witches, and Ankh-Morpork is being affected as well.

Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax track Tiffany down to tell her that her kissing the Wintersmith is having widespread consequences, one of which is the return of a spirit known as "The Cunning Man", a former witch-burner who has lost his body but is still looking for more witches to burn- and now, thanks to Tiffany, he has his eye on her, and is influencing people to hate and fear witches even more. Tiffany must team up with the only female wizard ever to come out of the Unseen University, an extremely intelligent man of the Baron's guard, and the affianced Bride of the new Baron to be to try and keep witches safe. But only she can deal with the Cunning Man and banish him back to the void- because if she doesn't do it on her own, she'll forever be known as the witch who couldn't cut it, and secretly be pitied by all the witches.

And she also has to decide several things about her own future and what she wants to do with her life besides being a witch. It's possible for a witch to get married (witness Nanny Ogg), but what does Tiffany really want for herself, and if she does want marriage and even children, who can she find that isn't afraid of her and her powers? And can she do all this while fighting the Cunning Man and keeping other witches out of his grasp?

This book is the final book in the Tiffany Aching series, and even though it's for young adults, the book talks about some very dark subjects- about abuse and the darker side of human nature, where you may owe someone, but feel resentment for owing them, rumors and jealousy, as well as the difficulty for women of being a woman and having a job without having one or the other taking over your life to the exclusion of all else. Yes, Tiffany is a witch,and a young one, but she also wants to be a woman and do other womanly things, and she feels a pang of what she might miss out on should she ONLY be a witch all her life.

But for a book that deals with some very dark subject and uncomfortable emotions, Terry Pratchett is also careful to leaven the book with a goodly dose of his usual humor. The Nac Mac Feegles are responsible for a lot of it, but the inhabitants of a shop for witches and witchly paraphenalia also brought a lot of humor to the party. And who doesn't love the Nac Mac Feegle, Scottish Faeries who spend their time stealing, drinking, brawling and getting into trouble?

I found the book entertaining, but also more serious than any of the Tiffany Aching books before it. Some readers may feel that the serious nature, aspects, and some of the foul language of the book are something they don't want their own teens/children to read- and that's okay. But adult readers will find much to enjoy here as well. Admittedly, the beginning of the book is somewhat rambling- maybe the result of Terry having to dictate the book rather than type it due to his Alzheimer's, but the book does a wonderful job of coming together in the end, and I found it a satisfying ending to the series. Recommended, but with some cautions for subject and language depending on the reader.

Beauty and the Beast: A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms by Mercedes Lackey

2011-11-01T04:29:00.004-04:00

Bella is the daughter of a rich merchant who remarried after her mother died. Saddled with a stepmother who is young, beautiful, and not very good at doing anything, Bella has become the de facto head of the household, keeping the servants in line, doing all the menus and some of the shopping, and making sure her two step-sisters are her friends as well as keeping her new stepmother appreciating rather than resenting her by going through her father's warehouses and gathering up small bits of fabric, lace and other bits for all of them to beautify themselves, but saving the best for her new stepmother.

Bella works hard to prevent becoming the resented normal daughter, and knows that if she didn't take the care she did in catering to the others that they would resent her or turn her into an unwanted workhorse. One of the ways she befriends her stepsisters is to help them sneak out to the local guild ball for some dancing and punch, but making sure they all leave before things get too heated or the hard liquor comes out. But when she leaves the town to visit Granny, the local wisewoman who lives in the woods, her old, normal world is dealt a hard shock.

First, she has a nasty encounter with the local Lord's gamekeeper, who thinks she is a peasant girl trying to poach game from the woods, which is against the law. Bella really starts to get upset with him when he tries to demand a pawing (or worse) for his encountering her in the woods, which is when she unleashes her real name and position on him. He's mildly cowed by her name and position, but it still makes him angry when she treats him coldly. She dismisses him and continues on to Granny's house to ask her advice.

But when she stays a bit longer than she planned for, asking Granny for both advice and for her normal teaching about herbs to be found thereabouts so that Bella can make her own potions and tinctures, she tries to hurry home as night falls and the moon comes out. But as she hurries through the forest, she is attacked by a gigantic wolf who knocks her down and nips her ankle before she can scold it away from her. She somehow manages to make it home, and bathes her wound, hoping that the beast can be found and killed.

Of course, her attack doesn't go without being notice, and before she can properly recover, she is collected by the town guardsman and taken to the castle of Sebastian, the mostly-unseen local Lord. As it turns out, Sebastian is not only the lord of the town and surrounding area, but he is also a werewolf, cursed into a monstrous beastly form during the time of the full moon. But as far as anyone can tell, he's never been bitten by a werewolf, nor done any of the usual sorts of things that would lead to the disease or curse of werewolfism. It is a puzzling case, and this is why he stays on his estate and is never seen.

During his beastly transformations, he is supposed to be locked up in a cage and watched over by Eric, his woodsman, and as it turns out, his half-brother. But somehow, last night he broke free of the room he was supposed to be locked in and ran off into the woods, where he attacked Bella. Since no one knows if his disease is catching, Bella must be imprisoned with him for at least three months, since, if she is going to become a werewolf, it will happen in that time.

Bella is upset, to say the least, with her own imprisonment, but she wouldn't want to endanger her father or her own family if she was somehow infected with vampirism, so she agrees to stay in the castle with Sebastian and Eric and wait and see if the curse strikes her as well. But her hunger to see her own family lead to several gifts from Elena, the grandmother who is overseeing the problem of Sebastian's curse- a mirror that will allow her to watch her family, and an enchanted box that will allow her to exchange messages with her father once a day.

The mansion she is now living in is devoid of human servants, but strange, invisible spirits watch over the castle, cleaning where it is needed, cooking food and doing many of the chores that humans would normally do. But Bella is the first person to actually talk to them, and discovers that they aren't merely dumb spirits. Some of them can actually think.

As she sets the castle in order, she finds herself coming to appreciate Sebastian more and more, as well as helping him work on his magic and developing her own magic, which has increased with the trials she has undergone. But as she deals with the trials ahead of her, she must also discover who is behind turning Sebastian into a werewolf, and her fears that she herself might turn fuzzy on the nights of the full moon. But can she discover who is behind the curse when even the Grandmother Elena cannot, and will she be drawn to the bookish Sebastian, or his half-brother and gamekeeper, Eric?

Of course, this book is based on the faerie tale, "Beauty and the Beast". But, unlike the original tale, the Beast is only a beast part of the time- at the full moon. The rest of the time, he's a somewhat bookish mage who spends more time in his head and on his magic than thinking about other people. It takes Bella (whose full name is Isabella) to make him take an interest in the world around him.

Sebastian has to learn to interact with people, and Isabella has to learn to let go a little and not try to run everything around her, and both have to deal with treachery and betrayal and learn to love. And save both Sebastian and Bella when the true author of the curse reveals themselves. But can they do it alone, or will they need help?

Anyone who knows the fairytale will probably be able to figure out who the villain of the piece is long before the end, but the story is very well-told, with lots of twists and turns, and the usual reaction towards people learning about the traditions when they didn't before (cue "Oh, that's horrible- but it explains so much). I enjoyed this book a lot. Even though it's based on a fairytale, the characters are well-developed and never feel like cardboard cutouts. Highly recommended.

The Wonderful Future That Never Was by Gregory Benford and the Editors of Popular Mechanics

2011-10-27T08:23:00.001-04:00

Back in the old days, the world was going to be so much better in the future. We'd conquer hunger, wars and disease, crime would be a thing of the past, and everybody would have their own jetcar or heli-car, and everybody would be comfortable, peaceful and happy. What happened to those predictions?

Well, for one thing, they were wildly off. For another, people became aware of a lot of downsides to the things they thought they wanted. It's all very well and good to promise people aerocars that combine a light plane and a car, but think about this: it's a lot harder to learn to fly an airplane than a car, and a single mid-air collision has a better chance of killing you than a rather simple car crash. For one thing, in a car, you aren't condemned to falling tens or hundreds of feet out of the air after the crash in a coffin made of metal. Second, think of the things stupid people do in cars... do you really want them doing these things in a car which is also a plane?

Third, a lot of the ideas were needlessly impractical. A Lightweight house that could go up in an afternoon and was made out of polymers? What happens on really windy days? Or phones with televisions that would show you the person you were talking to? Well, think about having to look good and made up every time the phone rings... or someone calling to see you while you are in your nightgown! Or in the shower... So, while we do have teleconferencing and other ways of combining video with phone calls, it was in much less demand than people thought it was going to be.

What's amazing is out of all the many advances predicted by Popular Mechanics, how many of them came true- ultrasound to diagnose disease, ultraviolet light to cure Vitamin D deficiencies, the rise of the computer, and even things like teleconferencing, which came out of the whole "video telephone" idea. But the hits are few and far between when most of the supposed technological advances are misses. Eating food made of sawdust doesn't even sound very appetizing, but you can see where most of the ideas weren't well thought out and why they failed, and in other cases the author explains why they never caught on with a wide variety of people. Things like houses that were mostly outdoor living spaces aren't really compatible with places that get extreme weather, like hurricanes, earthquakes, heavy snow (and to be honest, that's most of the country), while others are eventually coming true, like the truly paperless office.

This book provides a fun overview of the predictions of the past, and why most of them went horribly, horribly wrong. Written in a breezy and entertaining fashion, this book is a fun read that you don't have to plow through in one sitting- instead, you can nibble here and there among the past offerrings when you have the time and inclination. Well worth the read, I highly recommend this book.

Dexter is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay

2011-10-20T19:56:00.003-04:00

Dexter Morgan is a blood-spatter expert for the Miami-Dade Police Force, whose job it is to analyze crime scenes and help catch killers and predators. But Dexter Morgan is no ordinary cop, not even in Florida. You see, Dexter Morgan is also a serial killer, but with a difference. He's a serial killer who preys on other serial killers. Once he followed the rules laid down by his father, the cop Harry Morgan. Dex idolized him as a child, as much as he was able, but he found out that Harry wasn't the incorruptible role model that Dexter thought he was, and now Dexter does what he does because, in his own way, he makes the world a better place and takes out the trash that other cops can't catch.

Dexter recently married his girlfriend, Rita, and they have settled down together in happily married Bliss... as much as Dexter is able to feel or mimic any such thing. But Rita's two kids, and now Dexter's adopted kids have revealed that they, too, are incipent serial killers, and want to go along with Dexter and help them with his mission. Dexter delights in the thought of raising another two children to follow Harry's Rules, but with the birth of his new daughter, Lily Anne, Dex's Dark Passenger, the part of him that demands he track down and kill the people who deserve it, seems to have gone missing, and his two little incipent serial killer kids are feeling that he is letting them down by not training them as he promised.

Adding to Dexter's private life gone to hell is the return of his serial killer brother, Brian, who is willing to play uncle to his new kids and take them on all the exciting adventures that Dexter is no longer able to since his Dark Passenger abruptly abandoned him. Now he has to worry that Cody and Astor will abandon Harry's Rules and that Dexter might have to kill the two kids he really does have paternal feelings for, if totally twisted ones.

Meanwhile, Dex's sister, Deb, needs his help finding a missing girl. The FBI and her parents believe she's been kidnapped, due to a quantity of blood being found at the home, but Dex thinks that the girl has simply run off and is pretending she's been kidnapped to get more money from her parents. He tests the the blood and finds that it isn't the girl, Samantha Aldovar's type. Deb and Dex go to Samantha's school, and question the Principal, but she doesn't want to talk about it. However, they find out that there is another girl missing as well, Samantha's friend, Tyler Spanos.

Aside from that, both girls hung out with a boy who has his teeth filed into sharp points, and Dex questions Dentists who will do such a modification, only to find that there aren't that many. The boy might be Bobby Acosta, which is a problem, since his father, Joe Acosta,is a powerful politician in Miami with many powerful friends who are certain to cause problems for Deb and Dex.

Soon, Deb calls Dex to another crime scene, where it seems that someone has been cooked and eaten. But the bones don't belong to Samantha, only to her friend, Tyler Spanos. One of Deb's detectives finds two Haitian men who swear they saw Bobby Acosta leaving Tyler's car at a local chop shop. Deb and Dex also arrest a man named Chapin who runs from them when they try to question him, but before they can really grill him, the public defender shows up and forces them to release him. Dex tracks him down and unleashes his Dark Passenger on Chapin, and before he dies, he confesses having helped cook and eat Tyler Spanos. But Dex, of course, can't tell this to anyone, but when Deb's partner, Deke is found partially eaten, Dexter finds his blood-soaked shirt in a nearby garbage can, along with a chip for a Goth Nightclub known as "Fang".

Deb and Dex go to the Nightclub and use their police credentials to force their way in. Bobby Acosta is there, but before they can do much, the manager of the club, angry at their presence, has them thrown out. Dexter waits until everyone leaves, and then breaks into the club. He knows there is something going on here because he once researched the owner of the club for his Dark Passenger. Too many undocumented immigrants have gone missing from the club- and from the city, after working there.

And his suspicions are confirmed when he finds Samantha Acosta in one of the massive refrigerators of the club. He tries to free her, but she locks him in with her. She tells him that both she and Tyler had the same dream- both of them wanted to be eaten, so this situation is a dream come true for her. Later, the cultists come back and move her and Dex from the refrigerator into a locked trailer in the Everglades. There is no food, and they are only given a jug of water to sustain them.When they drink it, they begin hallucinating, and end up having sex many times- the water was laced with Ecstasy.

Thankfully, the Miami PD tracks them down and rescues them both. But while Dex is grateful, Samantha is angry that she won't get her dearest wish- to be eaten, and threatens to tell the Police that Dexter raped her if he doesn't keep quiet about it. Soon, Samantha has run off again, and Deb and Dexter go to talk to Bobby Acosta's father, hoping that they can keep him from going to jail if they can find Samantha. But his father refuses to talk to them and is angry at the implication. Their meeting ends when Bobby Acosta's stepmother, Alana, comes in to see her husband.

Deb and Dex leave, but are surprised when Alana Acosta approaches them before they can exit the building. It seems she overheard their conversation with her husband, and she tells them that Bobby is hiding out in a defunct amusement park owned by his father. Even though she didn't give birth to him and she's a former singing star, she doesn't want Bobby to go to jail- she feels something maternal for him.

Dexter, Deb, and her lover Chutsky go to the amusement park loaded for bear to try and save Samantha and arrest Bobby Acosta. But it isn't nearly enough,and they are taken captive. Dex is thrown in with Samantha once more, and Deb and Chutsky are taken away, and then the real cannibal, the one who started the whole cult, is revealed. Can Dexter save Samantha, Chutsky and his sister from the Cannibals? How can you even save someone from something they want more than anything else in the world? And will Dexter be able to go back to killing after having given it up to make a better life for his new daughter, Lily Anne? What could cause him to back on that promise?

Jeff Lindsay and Dexter have taken us a lot of places I never expected to go as a reader. Having the main character be a serial killer and even sympathetic, to the point where you cheer for him- let's just say I never expected to be able to do anything like that for a serial killer. But Dexter Morgan, with his code and his strangely self-deprecating humor... well, it works. It just works, and I'm not completely sure how, but it does.

Yes, they've made a TV series from these books, but the television series Dexter is not quite the same as the Dexter from these books. He's a kinder, softer Dexter in the TV series, although both eventually come to the same conclusions about killing and why to do it. You'll also notice that they killed off Doakes in the TV series, where he is alive in the books. Alive, but very much changed- knowing what Dex is but unable to prove it, and missing a lot of his body parts, something book Dexter takes a sort of gruesome pleasure in. Like I said, different. But I have actually come to prefer book Dexter. While being darker, there is also something strangely purer about him. He's the real deal, not adulterated and watered down for television. Purer and more complex, which makes him, to me, a more interesting character.

If you watch or watched the television show, you'll find yourself enjoying these books, but will find the Dexter within somewhat to very different from the character on TV. Whether you like that, as I do, or find that a bit more uncomfortable, Jeff Lindsay keeps pushing the boundaries of what is possible and what is disgusting, but I love these books, and am looking forward to the next one. Highly recommended, but steer clear if blood, killing or cannibalism makes you feel sick.

Natsume's Book of Friends, Volume 4 by Yuki Midorikawa

2011-10-19T21:46:00.002-04:00

Natsume has always been able to see Yokai, and all his life it has caused him trouble- causing him to be labelled as a liar by other children, and turning the relatives who took care of him after his own parents died to feel creeped out by him and pass him onto other relatives as soon as possible.

But now his situation has changed. He's decided not to tell everyone what he sees, and not to trouble his new guardians with the details of what he sees all the time, and his new guardians, who are very distant relatives to him, truly do care about him and his welfare. He's also made friends at school for the first time, and he also has a new guardian, a Yokai named Madara, who can be seen by everyone as a cat due to his long imprisonment in a Japanese Maneki-Neko or "Beckoning/Lucky cat" statue for many years. In exchange for being given a book made by Natsume's grandmother, Reiko, Madara will keep him safe from other Yokai, and possess the book after Natsume dies.

Reiko could also see Yokai, and since other humans rejected her, she took her ire out on Yokai, challenging them to games and receiving their names in her book after they lost. Using their names, she could call on them for favors or tasks, a position many of them bitterly resented. Now, Yokai meeting Natsume tend to think he is Reiko, but he returns their names to them if they ask him, even though the task takes all his spiritual power and leaves him exhausted. But it is also getting the Yokai whose names he doesn't hold to trust him.

In this book, Natsume and Madara find a field which used to hold two guardian statues in the woods after a snowstorm. Now, only one is left, and the spirit inside tries to snatch Natsume's body when it realizes he can see it. But instead of taking him over, it misses and takes over a snow bunny sculpture instead. This miss causes the spirit to confess why it wanted Natsume's body: many years ago, an evil spirit was imprisoned in a tree that the two statues guarded. Three days ago, someone cut down the tree, freeing the spirit to do evil. Natsume agrees to help, but is the statue-spirit being truthful about why it wanted his body, and the nature of the spirit freed by cutting down the tree? Moreover, is any of what it has said truthful, and why would it lie?

Next, Natori returns once again, and seeks Natsume's help, this time by using his paper magic to literally drag Natsume from his home to where Natori is. He claims to want to take Natsume to a hot springs resort he won tickets to, and to wants Natsume to come because he and Natsume have the same problem- both have seen Yokai since they were young, and both were rejected for it. But now Natori is a fairly famous actor- but he's also usually less than truthful- and it seems to be true in this case as well- He's actually been hired to take care of a Yokai who is haunting the Hot Springs. But can Natsume overcome the Yokai with Natori's help, or will he always be the one doing the heavy lifting?

Next, Natsume goes to the market to buy some noodle dishes for his family when he passes a woman selling old furniture, including a painting that catches his eye. But it seems the painting is haunted by a Yokai who casts down flowers upon him as he sleeps. She calls Natsume a thief, though, and tells him that the painting was once hers, and contains a human named Lord Yasaka, and he loved flowers and butterflies. Natsume tries to give her the painting, since it is so important to her, but it literally won't come off the wall. The Yokai, Miya, promises to come back every day until the painting can be removed. But when the painting starts growing roots into the wall, can Natsume determine the true reason for it's sprouting, or will he be forced to destroy it and all it means to Miya, especially when it starts draining his energy?

Then, when Natsume protects a fox spirit child from being picked on by other Yokai, the yokai follows him and tries to become his servant. But Natsume neither needs nor wants a servant. Could it be that he and the fox spirit can be friends instead? Next, Natsume is noticed by a Yokai when he is a child, and it picks on him. But will their interactions always be the same, and by following him, can it notice that he is alone and without friends? Finally, Nyanko has had enough of following Natsume's restrictions and runs away on his own. But when he falls into a deep hole in the ground and encounters a lost little girl who also fell down the hole, will he run away and leave her there, or will he take pity on her and keep her safe from harm?

Well, this set of stories haven't affected me in the same way that the others had, but I have to admit that I still loved reading them. It seems, especially from the last set of stories, that the reason why Yokai hate humans has to do with their misunderstanding them, and that if and when they do finally get to see that humans are often just as miserable as they are, that their hatred for humans as a whole evaporates and they end up seeing humans as individuals, not just a shapeless mass of malice, that, admittedly, many humans see Yokai as.

I also found it disturbing that some of the humans who see Yokai and who are exorcists, come off much worse than the Yokai themselves. Natori is a thoroughgoing user who usually ends up dragging Natsume along because of his great personal power- if he was a Yokai, his personalitty would fit right in with how the Yokai usually use humans. He uses Yokai (as his servants) as well as Natsume, so he comes off as a really repellent individual to me. Now, every time he turns up, I ask myself "Okay, what do you want now?" And its sad that humans come off as worse than Yokai in this respect. Everyone out to protect humans seems to be a not very likeable individual.

But the depictions of Yokai sell this book for me, and I love reading the stories where humans and Yokai get to interact and understand each other- that's why my favorite stories in this book were the three at the end, and I hope I get to see more of those character. Yes, Nyanko-sensei included. Highly recommended.

Natsume's Book of Friends, Volume 3 by Yuki Midorikawa

2011-10-19T13:10:00.004-04:00

Takashi Natsume is teenaged boy who can see Yokai, or spirits. Because his gift caused him to be rejected by so many in his family after his own parents died, he has learned to keep his powers and talents a secret. Now, with the help of a spirit named Madara, who he calls Nyanko-sensei after his form, which is that of a ceramic Maneki-Neko or "Beckoning/Lucky Cat", he is attempting to return to the Yokai the names that his grandmother extorted out of them in her "Book of Friends". But ever since he made the decision to return them their names, he has learned a great deal more about the Yokai than he ever knew before.

In this volume, Natsume is suprised by a Yokai who looks almost exactly like Nyanko-sensei, right down to the Maneki-neko body. But when it steals "The Book of Friends" and takes off, it's up to Natsume and Madara to get it back, even if Natsume has to pretend to be a Yokai to do so. As they infiltrate the Yokai drinking party, they discover that the Yokai plan to attack humans to get "The King" back... the King, who has been imprisoned in the Black Maneki-Neko. But can Natsume discover the King's real name and free him in time to keep the humans safe?

Then, it's the time of the fireflies. Natsume and Nyanko go into the forest to look for them, and find a sleeping man being haunted by a Yokai. It turns out that the Yokai and the man were once friends when he could see Yokai, but he grew out of his ability to see them, and can no longer see her. She wants to see him in his finery when he is to be married, so she stays with Natsume until then. But as Natsume grows closer with the female Yokai he calls Veyo, can he find out her story and reunite her with the man she loved, and who loved her one last time?

Then, Natori returns to ask the help of Natsume in tracking down a Yokai. Not only is it a horrible one, it chased another Yokai into Natsume's closet, leaving a trail of Yokai blood only he can see. This time, there is a reward for the yokai and Natsume is interested, since it ran away from his closet when he and Natori found it, leaving the injured bird-Yokai behind. Natori takes Natsume to a meeting of exorcists, some of whom know of his grandmother. But can he trust them, or will they all turn out like Natori was at first? And when he and Natori track down the evil Yokai, will they be able to catch it and seal it away?

One day, when Natsume returns from school, he encounters a hungry Yokai who travels through the cracks in walls and floors. After he feeds her, she tells him that there is a bird's nest in the yard, and that the birds will hatch today. And there is and they do, but there is one egg left behind, still warm. Natsume decides to try and hatch it, but what is in the egg, and what will hatch from it? Something good, or something evil?

Once again, this series affected me deeply, nearly bringing me to tears several times, which is very unusual, especially for a manga. But for some reason, this series seems to being out the best in both the humans and the yokai, and reading that was very emotionally affecting, especially when the stories end happily for both the humans and the yokai... not that this means a traditional happy ending, but one in which the human survives, and the yokai is affected by their friendship in a happy way.

My favorite stories in this one are the one with Veyo and the one with the Dragon egg, as both were bittersweet, but beautiful. Veyo was affected happily by the human she came to know, and she was simply happy to have known him. And likewise, the story of the Dragon Egg showed the Yokai to have been positively affected by being raised by Natsume. I do hope that he comes back someday to repay Natsume, more than just helping him against the Yokai who was hunting the Dragon for a meal for its master.

I really love this series, and every time I read it, I just end up wanting to read more and see how Natsume affects the lives of those around him, almost always for the better. And I think he will also affect Natori's life as well, not just by Natori using him as a tool against other (bad or evil) Yokai, but against the other Yokai exorcists as well, none of whom seem to have Natsume's respect for Yokai or sensitivity in dealing with them. And strangely, it's Madara/Nyanko-sensei's "protection" that has allowed Natsume to see that Yokai are just as individual as humans. While some of them are bad, not all of them, or even most of them, are. It's a series that makes me think, and I love it. Highly recommended.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen j. Dubner

2011-10-18T05:41:00.005-04:00

Most economists wrestle with terms of power and money inherent in societies, but Steven Levitt is not your typical economist. He looks at questions most economists never think to ask, and doesn't accept the "accepted wisdom", asking why things are the way they are. And his looking at various parts of society that never get examined by most economists often brings strange and fruitful answers up into the light that most people would never realize.

For example, cheating. Levitt exposes cheating in two places- Chicago schools and in Sumo wrestling. For example, Sumo wrestlers at a certain level of competition must win eight bouts to pass into the elite tournament. And if you look at a Wrestler who is 8-6 in their bouts will often fight wrestlers ranked 7-7. You might expect a wrestler who is already ranked 8-6 to win slightly more often in that last bout because he is slightly better than the other wrestler. But this often turns out not to be the case. But why?

The answer goes back to the Sumo Culture. Most of the top Sumo wrestlers know each other, and indeed, have trained with each other. The 8-6 wrestler knows he will be moving on to the elite competition. But because winning the match won't confer any additional benefit to the wrestler who already knows he's moving on, he often seems to let his opponent win simply to allow them a chance to enter the elite tournament with him. Now, the Sumo wrestling federation maintains that there is no cheating, but then, how to explain those results? (In fact, these elite tournaments were stopped in 2008 simply because of claims of this sort of cheating.

Similar are claims of cheating in academic tests in Chicago teachers. Some teachers will attempt to simply give their students the answers on the board during the test, while others cheat after the fact, correcting the answers their students give. But in both cases, this can be discovered. In the first case, one of the students came home and told her mother, quite cheerfully, how her teacher put the answers on the board for them while they were taking the test. In the second case, while students got earlier, easier answers wrong, they got later, harder answers correct.

The teachers, in both cases, were caught. But there are subtler ways of trying to cheat that may not get caught when the teacher or class is actually cheating. The best way to measure student achievement to track it over time. if a set of students have truly learned from a teacher, they will retain that knowledge into the next grade. If they mysteriously "forget" what they supposedly learned, it's a pretty good bet that they never really "learned" the information in the first place. But if they not only retain but build on the knowledge, it's also a good bet that the teacher they learned from is superior.

In addition, the authors take on how drug dealers are like any other corporations, how the Klu Klux Klan are like Real Estate Agents (and how they were taken down by the writers of Superman, no less!), why crime dropped in the 90's, what good parents do to help their kids succeed, and how your child's name can be an indicator of success, and why outlandishly-spelled names can cause your kids to do less well in life and in school.

While some of the conclusions of this book have been called into question (specifically the contention that crime went down in the 90's as a result of abortions that happened in the 70's after abortion was decriminalized), but the others have not been disproven, as far as I know. This is still a pretty mind-blowing book, linking together several things that actually seem counter-intuitive, and as a result, are surprising.

Well, perhaps not quite counter-intuitive, but definitely against common wisdom, and shows that common wisdom is often not what is right or correct. Some of the stories in this book are definitely interesting, like the one about how the KKK was defanged by the writers of Superman (and a spy who infiltrated the organization). Since then, it's still around, but not in the same large way it was in the 50's and before.

This may not have the same sort of impact it once did, but it remains a fascinating look at life and various things within it and how quickly names change from being trendy to being past when it is adopted by people perceived as being lower class. This book is still interestin and makes a great read. Recommended.

Blood Spirits by Sherwood Smith

2011-10-17T04:00:00.001-04:00

Kim Murray knew nothing about her family's heritage or background until she took a trip to Europe last summer. Then, she learned her grandmother had once been the Princess of a small European nation called Dobrenica, and that she had run away, leaving the Kingdom in some turmoil. Kim found herself on the run with Marius Alexander Ysovorod, the Prince of Dobrenica, as he looked for the woman promised to be his bride, Aurelia, better known as Ruli. In addition to being related to Ruli, Kim, whose first name is also Aurelia, was her virtual double, enough to pass for her now-missing distant cousin. She decided to help Marcus search for his fianceé, and somewhere along the way, fell in love with him. But when they finally did find her, she knew that, despite Marcus returning her feelings, he was promised to Ruli, and that she couldn't get in the way of that.

He also needed to be with Ruli for a different reason- his marriage alliance with her was tied up in ancient magics that would conceal Dobrenica from the modern world, and Dobrenica, where magic itself still lingers, needed that concealment. So she left Dobrenica and Marcus and Ruli behind, returning to America, and a job teaching kids in Oklahoma German and French. But when one of her colleagues in the Language Department is injured in an accident, she pretends to be his sister to make sure he is taken care of until his new wife arrives. Somewhat grateful, the woman asks why, and when Kim tells her about the situation she left behind, the wife tells her she needs to deal with it. Kim agrees, and travels home to California for the Christmas Holidays, only to find that her mother and grandmother have already left for England to meet with the Dobrenican Ambassador. Her father says that they have bought a ticket in Kim's name as well, and she agrees to go with them to England.

In England is not only the Dobrenican Ambassador, but Marcus's cousin, Tony, who agrees to take Kim on a tour of the London sights, but actually takes her back to his place and challenges her to a duel. During the duel, he tells her that Ruli is dead in a car crash, and that Marcus appears to have been driving. He asks Kim why she has come back now, and appears to think that she and Marcus colluded in Ruli's death so that they would be able to be together. Kim denies any involvement in such a scheme, and Tony appears to believe her... for now.

But he abandons her in London, and Kim knows that she has to return to Dobrenica, and find out what really happened to Ruli and to see if she can put right what has happened and unravel the mysteries surrounding the land. But in the airport on the way to England, she had an encounter with Ruli's ghost or spirit, asking for her help and she wants to know what happened to Ruli as well. So she travels to Dobrenica, where Marcus is in mourning, and many people think of her as an imposter, if they think of her at all. But that is only the nobles. The common people think of her as a hero, and support her, but Kim must be careful, lest Tony's suspicions be shared by everyone.

What she finds is disheartening. Marcus, who has a drinking problem, thinks he was drunk and responsible for the crash that killed Ruli. In fact, in council, he asks for the matter to be investigated, and if they find him responsible, he will pay for his crime in any way necessary. And this has convinced many people that perhaps Marcus isn't the best heir to the throne, and so some of the older families are looking to overthrow him, either barely on the sly, like Tony, or in secret, like others. But something is also happening with Dobrenica's magic, and their connection to vampire-like creatures called the Dark Ones is also in the mix. As Kim tries to deal with learning to see and listen to the dead, and Dobrenican crystal magic, she must also learn to winnow the truth from falsehood and keep herself from dying in the coming conflict. Because if she fails, those she loves, and her own family might end up being the ones paying the price...

I never read "Crowns and Coronets", the first book in this duology, but in many places, I didn't really need to. The characters, while not familiar to me, were explained enough that I could understand the gist of who they were and how they were important, to both Kim and the plot. Plus, there are plenty of new characters, and eventually you get a feel for how it all works together. It takes a while for the main part of the story to start, but once it does, it pulls you right through to the end.

I did find this a little surprising, that the story is billed as a fantasy with magic, the book is so rooted in the real world, so to speak. But it's very low-fantasy fantasy. What magic there is is limited to seeing spirits and portals to a world where vampires (The Dark Ones) come from. And yes, vampires and ghosts exist, but it's hardly the sort of heroic fantasy I was expecting. I was thinking more something like Glenraven, and what I got... wasn't. This doesn't make it bad, but not having read the first book, it was rather disappointing. The only fantastic elements were a country that doesn't really exist, a very low-key, low-power magic and vampires. And while every story with fantastic elements can be said to be a kind of fantasy, that's not the sort of fantasy I was expecting, so I did find it somewhat disappointing, to be honest. But that was more about my expectations than the story itself.

As a story. it hangs together well. It's not the sort of high fantasy where elves, dwarves and wizards are lurking atop every mountain or in every grove, with unicorns hiding behind the trees. It's much closet to reality than high fantasy, and as long as you aren't expecting "Normal human from reality meets high or low fantasy Kingdom", then you won't be disappointed. But I have to say I feel mislead by the dust jacket copy into expecting the first and getting the second, so I felt disappointed by the novel. I would recommend the story, but not as what I thought I was getting from reading the dust jacket blurb.

Natsume's Book of Friends, Volume 2 by Yuki Midorikawa

2011-10-16T16:28:00.000-04:00

Takashi Natsume sees Yokai. When he was a child, after his parents died, it caused him lost of trouble when he told the relatives who took him in what he saw, so he has learned to hide it. But his grandmother, Reiko m also had the same ability, and was rejected all her life by people. Instead, she turned to Yokai for someone to interact with, playing games with them and if they lost, making them write their names in her notebook.

Natsume is often bothered by spirits who think he is Reiko. Some of them attack him, while others only want their names out of the book. He can return the name to them by imagining the name in his mind, putting the page in his mouth, and breathing out, but doing so takes all his energy. Returning their name frees them to move on, but since not all the spirits like him, he has another spirit, Madara, who he calls "Nyanko Sensei" to be his bodyguard and protect him. He calls him "Nyanko Sensei" because he is bound into a Maneki- Neko or "Beckoning/Lucky Cat" statue. When he takes on statue form, everyone can see him, but they think he is just a cat. In his true form, only Natsume can see him.

In this book, Natsume is asked to join a summer group that is going to do a walkthrough in a haunted house. They need 50 people to participate, and he's the last person they need to get permission. He goes along, but the House is haunted by Yokai, and the yokai begins abducting members of the group as they go through the house. However, it turns out that the president of the group once encountered the Yokai in the house when it helped her find a special amulet she lost there. She's done this activity to try to meet it once more and thank it for helping her. But the spirit doesn't want to meet her. It considers itself tainted. Can Natsume speak to the Yokai and convince it that it isn't tainted, and get it to free all the people it has abducted?

Later, when Natsume frees a frog from a spiderweb, he is marked by a Yokai who wants to eat him. Through the assistance of the Yokai whose messenger he freed, he discovers that the mark is a five day mark- the Yokai will drain his energy for five days or until it has enough energy to leave where it is. Hinoe, a Yokai who once knew Reiko, helps Natsume for her sake. But when the spirit sends its shadow to find Natsume and eat him, can he stay out of its way for the whole five days?

Next, Natsumi discovers an actor, Shuichi Natori, has the same ability to see spirits, and a birthmark shaped like a lizard that moves around his body. But while Natsumi wants to be a nicer person, both to other humans and Yokai, Natori uses his own powers to exorcise and kill Yokai, while having three Yokai who serve him. But when he comes to destroy a Yokai he once helped, can Natsume protect the Yokai from Natori? Can the two of them ever agree on Yokai and whose attitude will affect whom when it comes to Yokai?

Later, Natsumi is at school when he encounters another Yokai who travels in a flying umbrella. When the Yokai senses that Natsume can see him, he demands that Natsume let him have his body. Nyanko comes along to prevent it, but he learns that the Yokai is carrying the spirit of a harpist named Asagi. Asagi was a lutenist beloved by the gods, until she fell ill. She went away into the forest, and her skin sloughed off. Now, she wishes to play for the gods one last time, but she needs a body to do so. And then the Yokai puts Asagi's spirit in Natsume as he sleeps. Natsume agrees to help Asagi, but can they find the things needed to make a lute, and return to Asagi's beloved Lord Mibu in time to help her put on one last concert for her friend?

This second book, much like the first, really touched my heart. We see more of the Yokai world, and how Yokai form attachments just like humans. But being unaging, if they form attachments with humans, it often leads to grief on both sides since humans age and die, unlike Yokai, and also unlike Yokai, are often weaker and more fragile, leading the Yokai to inadvertently damage their human friends without meaning to.

Also, since humans die, it means that the Yokai is driven to grief or rage when the human they counted as their friend is no longer there for them. But even while friendship between the two is a bad idea in most cases, it can also be beautiful and change both human and Yokai lives for the better. It's this beauty that Natsume's Book of Friends explores. While Natsume's grandmother, Reiko, had it wrong, Natsume can still make bad decisions, but for the most part he does the friendship aspect right.

And it's this reason that makes me want to read more of these stories and keep seeing more. Nyanko may view Natsume as an annoyance, but I think his friendship with Natsume will change him for the better, and Natsume as well. It's this peculiar relationship that makes the glue in this story, but it's a compelling one, along with all the other stories of Yokai. Highly recommended.

Natsume's Book of Friends, Volume 1 by Yuki Midorikawa

2011-10-16T14:47:00.005-04:00

Takashi Natume is a strange boy with very few friends because of a shameful secret: he can see Yokai. Because of this, and the way he acts and reacts around them, other children think he is weird, and he's been shuttled around from relative to relative in his family, because his parents died shortly after he was born.

But he's finally in a better position, being taken in by relatives who, though they may not completely understand him, do love him and feel happy to have him there. But as he is chased by a Yokai one day, he takes refuge in a shrine in the woods, and releases another Yokai, this one imprisoned in a ceramic Maneki Nekp cat statue. The spirit has been in the statue for so long that it spends most of its time in that form. In exchange for rescuing Natsume from the Yokai, and helping him, Natsume agrees to give the spirit, who he calls Nyanko Sensei, a book called the Book of Friends when he dies.

You see, Natsume's grandmother, Reiko, also was able to see Yokai. But since other people around her treated her so badly, she turned to the Yokai. Not to befriend them, but to test her spiritual power against them in battle. When she won, she forced them to scribe their sigil onto a piece of paper, which would make them come when she called on them. Nyanko wants this book for power for himself, but Natsume would rather free the Yokai from the book, despite his experiences with the book. In addition to helping him, Nyanko will be Takashi's bodyguard from angry Yokai.

And right away, Takashi discovers he can return a Yokai's name to them by taking the page from the book, wetting it with his saliva and breathing on the spirit's name. But doing so tires him out, as it takes spiritual energy to do so.

When a Yokai approaches him for the return of its name, the page its name is drawn on is stuck to another. He can't rip the pages apart- that would harm the yokai whose names are on the pages. All he can do is search for the Yokai on the second page. But as he does, he comes to know one who embodies the spirit of a shrine. Once many people came there to worship- now only one woman remains. But the Yokai has grown small from a lack of worshippers, and the woman is old. What will happen when she ceases to worship the Yokai of the shrine? And can Natsume find the second Yokai to free its name?

Next, two Yokai come to Natsume, not to get their names back, but to ask him to get rid of a Yokai exterminator that has been bothering them. While Natsumi is excited to run into someone who can see Yokai like he can and who might understand him, Natsume has begun to sympathize with the Yokai,but will this new person feel the same? And can Natsume find the real Yokai exorcist? And will he bond with a new kid who can feel and sometimes see strange things?

Next, Natsume goes to see a submerged village, visible because the summer is hot and the water has dropped. The Yokai there come to get their names back, but also reveal that Natsume is being haunted by yet another Yokai. But the Yokai only hitched a ride because there was a human it once knew that it wanted to see again. Can Natsumi find the person the Yokai wants, or has it simply been too long?

I love this series. I didn't expect much out of it at the beginning, but some of the stories honestly made me cry. Like the one about the Yokai who became the shrine God. The ending of it was so bittersweet and lovely that I just teared up. Yokai in Japan are very much like monsters, but not all of them are necessarily bad. Like European Faeries or Fae, most of them can be very, very bad for humans, but some of them are helpful, like brownies.

As soon as Natsume is befriended by Nyanko-sensei, he begins discovering that Yokai don't exist merely to make people's lives hard- they have their own lives and their own concerns, and only because humans live just about everywhere in Japan do their lives cross with those of Yokai. But while humans have moved on in technology and culture, that of the Yokai is pretty much stagnant. So looking at their culture is like looking back in time.

I really enjoyed this first volume in the series, and I want to read more. I feel that this series has a lot of the same things that attracted me to Fruits Basket- a kind, gentle look at the world, a damaged main character, and yet he is someone who doesn't resent the things that have made their life hard. Highly recommended.

Deeper Than Midnight by Lara Adrian

2011-10-15T08:35:00.000-04:00

Hunter is a Gen-One Breed, a vampire bred from humans by an alien race known as the Ancients. The Breed are policed and protected by two forces, the Breed Enforcement Agency, and the Order. The Agency, however, has birthed Dragos, a man determined to rule over both Breed and human society by mating female humans and Breed with the last remaining ancient.

For too long, his actions and plans went unnoticed, but now the Order have uncovered his plans, and even rescued women from the labs where they were tortured and experimented on, forced to carry the children of the Ancient. Corinne Bishop was one of those women, abducted from her home and enslaved by Dragos. But her friends who promised to take her home are now stuck in Alaska, trapped by a blizzard, so Hunter agrees to escort her back to her Breedhaven.

Hunter feels that he knows Corinne from somewhere, but cannot recall where, and then, he suddenly remembers looking into the young seer, Mira's, eyes, and seeing a woman pleading for the life of someone she loved, begging Hunter not to kill him. And Corinne was that woman. He also finds himself struck by and attracted to her, something he doesn't quite understand, since he was raised to feel nothing and have no ties, except to Dragos. But he can't deny the pull he feels towards her.

Corinne wants nothing more than to go home, to the family she was stolen from. But there are lingering problems from her imprisonment. She continually fought her captors for almost the entire 70 years she was imprisoned, until she gave birth to a son that was stolen from her almost thirteen years ago. Now, even though she has been rescued, she wants her son back. She will do *anything* to rescue him.

But on her return home to Detroit, she finds out that the man who adopted her, who she thought of as her father, was the one who was complicit in her not being rescued. He was being blackmailed by Dragos, in his role as Starkn, head of the Agency. Discovery of his role in Corinne's abduction drove his son into Bloodlust, from which he only escaped by comitting suicide. This revelation destroys any peace Corinne might have been able to find in her old home, and her mother, who still loves her deeply, and Corinne ends up leaving with Hunter, travelling with him to New Orleans, where the Order has discovered a new link to Dragos.

Meanwhile, back in Boston, Sterling Chase, known to the other Order Warriors as "Harvard" is becoming increasingly aggressive and angry. As an Op spirals out of control into a fight, he finds himself giving into his bloodlust and causing no end of problems for his former friends and brothers. But when his uncontrolled investigation ends up with him outing another of Dragos' plans, he has to figure out what plans Dragos is hatching to destroy the Order once and for all, and if he possibly can- put a stop to it.

Hunter and Corinne's path takes them to the Big Easy, and to another of Dragos's pawns, Henry Vachon. Vachon has kept a lot of the data that flowed out of Dragos's labs, and unbeknownst to Hunter or Corinne, Vachon was one of the people responsible for Corinne's abduction and rape those many years ago. Hunter discovers this when he finally finds out his talent.

He quickly kills Vachon when Vachon starts bragging about Corinne being a fine piece of tail that anyone would want, implying all sorts of nasty things about them both. But when Hunter recovers the data from Dragos' labs, he quickly discovers that there is more information than just about Corinne and her son in there- there is information about himself as well. But what will he learn about his upbringing, and can Hunter and Corinne find her son and free him from Dragos' control, and the UV collar that is sure to kill him if Nathan ever tries to escape?

I was of two minds when reading this book. For one thing, Lara Adrian always writes well and movingly, and her treatment of Corinne Bishop was more than up to her usual high standards. But on the other hand, Hunter is sort of.... well, a rather non-entity. He'd been introduced several books back, but as the consummate killer, he rarely shows anything like a personality- certainly not as much of one as the other Breed Warriors of the Order from her past books.

But the story of Corinne and Hunter isn't the only one to make up this volume, and the seeming nonentityness of Hunter's personality also doesn't come on stage for much or very long. Instead, more time is given to Sterling Chase, setting him up as the possible protagonist of the next book, and of a problem- that the Order must move their HQ, as they have been infiltrated by a Trojan Horse from Dragos.

I felt that towards the end of the book that Hunter was starting to develop a strong and interesting personality, but by the time the "Happily Ever After" was made, it hadn't quite gelled yet and I would have liked to have seen more. Perhaps he'll be developed more in a future book, but the romance story here ended just when it was getting good. It felt a bit abrupt and rushed, and that was a shame.

I still enjoyed reading this book, but it wasn't one of her best. I felt Hunter needed to develop a stronger personality sooner to make the book a success on the romance front. The rest of the book was excellent and tightly plotted. Worth a read and somewhat recommended.

Exiled: Clan of the Claw by S.M. Stirling, Harry Turtledove, Jody Lynn Nye, John Ringo, Michael Z. Williamson

2011-10-14T04:29:00.002-04:00

The world of this book is one where the asteroid that struck the earth and caused the death of the Dinosaurs never happened.. Dinosaurs developed human-level intelligence and created massive lands ruled over by Saurian lords who could control the others with the power of their minds. They call themselves the Lishkash, and their primary lands are in the South, where it is mostly hot and dry. But they aren't alone on this world. Mammals also survived on this world, becoming cat-like creatures who call themselves the Mrem, and they and the Lishkash fight on a regular basis.

But catastrophe has come to the Mrem, and their own southern lands are being overrun by waters, forcing them to travel to reach the northern lands where their people dominate. But their journey will take them through the Lishkash lands, and the Lishkash love the Mrem... they think they make the best slaves. Can the Mrem survive the Lishkash lords who will attempt to enslave them on their journey and keep themselves strong until they reach their northern kin?

"The Mrem Go West" by Harry Turtledove tells the story of Rantan Taggah, Clawleader of the Clan of the Claw. It is under his aegis that the clans, seeing that they will be overrun by the Lishkash as the waters continue to rise, decide to gather up their beasts, possessions and warriors, and begin their trek across the Lishkash lands to those of the Northern Mrem. To do this, the warriors will have to work with the Priestesses of the Goddess Assirrah and the God Aedoniss to ensure that the armies of the Lishkash don't find them easy marks. But there are warriors who have never been in battle and only talk a good game. Can Rantan Taggah keeo his warriors safe when there is dissent and even treasonous cowardice in the ranks that can end up defeating his force before it has even begun to fight?

"A Little Power" by S. M. Stirling is about a Mrem who has been enslaved by the Lishkash, Ranowr. When the Lishkash ruler Ashala (who calls herself a goddess) decides to use her slave Mrem as warriors against their own people, she assigns her daughter Hisshah as their leader, tasked with turning them into a viable fighting force. But as Ranowr works to help his slave brothers become an effective fighting force, can he play Hisshah off against her mother and the other Lishkash who are expecting her to fail- even to the point of placing her on her mother's throne? And can he do it without selling out either his fellow slaves or the free Mrem who he hopes will accept his people into their ranks? And furthermore, what will be the cost to him and his fellow Mrem should he somehow succeed?

"Battle's Ride" by Michael Z. Williamson tells the story of Nrao Aveldt, a farseeing Mrem who carved out his hold from the lands of the Lishkash. But the encroachment of the waters means he soon must move, because displaced Lishkash will reinforce the ones he already must protect his land from. So he assigns his Talonmaster, Hress Rascil, to work with the Priestess Cmeo Mrist to strengthen the battle chant that allows the Priestesses to Dance and make the Magic that can protect the warriors from the Lishkash assault on their minds that can enslave them. But will the warriors be able to work with the priestesses on an arrangement that is fair to all and keep everyone protected? And can the two of them find a way to ensure that the warriors keep the Priestesses from harm and don't run off to join the slaughter of Lishkash, leaving the Priestesses unprotected? Can they defeat the forces of Oglut with magic or nature?

"Cata" by John Ringo and jody Lynn Nye tells of the Rangil Clan, who had to trade with a Lishkash city for food to continue their Trek to the great Water. But the Price of the food is for the ruler of the city to see the Dance to the Mrem Goddess. So, some Priestesses and Warriors must travel there to do it, and a group of Warriors must be sent along to protect them. But is the price merely a trap intended to kill or enslave the Mrem in it, or are they hostages for the rest of the tribe? When the rulers decide to kill the warriors and priestesses in the city, can the warrior and Priestess in charge of the detatched group escape the city and rejoin their tribe without falling victim to the Lishkash who want to kill them? And will they succeed in allowing the rest of the tribe to get far enough away to escape any Lishkash sent after them?

I liked the Premise of the book, which is a mix of science fiction (asteroid which wiped out dinosaurs never fell and Dinosaurs and mammals both achieve sentience) and a sort of fantasy, as the world is in a fairly medieval state and has a kind of magic with mind-powers, goddesses and protection from Mind-Powers. It's an intiguing mix. The Mrem, while forced to being warriors because of the Lishkash hostility, don't inspire parallels with the Kzinti. However, the Lishkash are portrayed with the sort of cold-bloodedness that Dinosaurs are supposed to possess, but at the same time, Dinosaurs weren't really all cold-blooded, and the Lishkash shown on the cover looks an awful lot like a Dragon, while the Mrem looks like a cat-eared Neanderthal (with a Longbow, I must admit).

But the stories inside are pretty much all stories of war, and owe a lot to science fiction war stories written by authors like David Weber and Simon Green. Most of the characters in the stories are warriors and Talonmasters, like Generals or High-ranking army guys, while the Priestesses are more like civilians or support personnel. Most of the stories end up with the warrior and priestess falling in love, or at least showing some sort of attraction, which made some of the stories more attractive to me. And even though each of the stories are written by separate authors, the stories as a whole hang well together, and some of the details from one story are known to the clan in another, making them seem like they are happening in the same world and to the same people.

Some worldbuilding goes on, but it's limited to about two pages at the beginning of the book, and you don't need to read all of the stories to know what is going on- you can read the two page setup/intro and one story and understand everything that is going on, which is really nice. The interstory links are just icing on the cake, really. And as this js just the first volume of the story, it;s a good thing that I want to see more. It would be nice to see some Lishkash that didn't decide to kill or enslave the Mrem merely because they are different. Can we have some non-villainous dinosaurians? That being said, my favorite story was "A Little Power" because of the interaction of the characters on each side.

It's a great volume that manages to make a coherent work from four different stories and a background. I liked the book and the characters. Each story was different, yet managed to evoke the feeling that each was happening on the same world. A wonderful story and each one is well-written and compelling to read. I am looking forward to more books in this series. Highly recommended.

Retribution by Sherrilyn Kenyon

2011-10-13T08:05:00.003-04:00

Not all Dark-Hunters are from Greek and Roman times, or even the Dark Ages. Take William Jessup Brady, a gunslinger from the Wild West. Just when he was about to marry the woman he loved more than anything, he was gunned down by a man who was supposedly his friend, a man who also wanted the woman Jessup loved. Taken by Artemis to become a Dark-Hunter, Jess has never forgotten that moment, and took his revenge on the man who killed him before becoming a devoted protector to the humans he once scorned and killed.

Meanwhile, Abigail Yeager is the only survivor of a massacre that destroyed her entire family while she remained hidden. Taken in by a family of vampires, she's been raised with the belief that it was Dark-Hunters who destroyed her family, and that they are the evil ones who go after and kill, not only blameless vampires, but humans as well.To that end, they have trained her to go after and kill the Dark Hunters to keep humans and vampires safe, and Abigail is eager to both take revenge for the death of her family and protect the new family who took her in and kept her safe.

But when Jess is sent in to find out who is killing off Dark-Hunters, he's more than surprised to find out that it isn't a Daimon or some other funky race that wants to off Dark-Hunters, but a human. While Dark-Hunters have power over Weres, Apollites and the like, they are meant to protect ordinary humans, and won't kill them. But what can Jess do when he finds out that the beautiful Abigail is behind the killings? Can he persuade her that the Dark-Hunters had nothing to do with the death of her family? And what will happen if the foundation of everything Abigail believes crumbles away under her feet? Can she survive the shock of having been willfully lied to for so long?

But the death of Dark-Hunters isn't the only thing on the minds of Abigail's "family", and there is a greater purpose at play in who they are planning to kill off among the Dark-Hunters. Because the Native American God Coyote wants to get more power and have his revenge on a certain couple who were once human and rejected him- long ago powers that Abigail and Jess are heir to. If he can have them kill each other, or worse, be at each other's throats, he can easily defeat them separately. But if they should manage to get back together, and worse, come to love each other, it could seriously ruin Coyote's day.

But can Jess make Abigail see he is telling the truth, and what is going on with the strange signs of the coming apocalypse? Or will the very strangeness of what is happening all around them convince her on its own? And, more importantly, can he and the other Dark-Hunters tied to the coming apocalypse avert it and save the world from the machinations of Coyote?

Well, I've ranted about how Sherrilyn Kenyon's heros all seem to have a "worst childhood EVER" competition going on, so I won't reiterate that here, but while Jess, while he had a pretty bad one by most human standards, it wasn't as bad as some of Sherrilyn's heroes, so this was actually pretty nice to read. I'd honestly say that Abigail's was worse, because having your entire family slaughtered, raised by the people who killed them (although she didn't know it at the time), and lied to about it while being raised to kill the ones you thought was responsible? Well, that's pretty damn bad. Especially when you suddenly realize you've been lied to all these years, and the people you thought cared for you were only taking care of you and pretending to care to make you into the perfect weapon.

And in this book, we also get to see that it's not just the Gods of the Ancient world that are real- Native American gods are real, too, if somewhat less "hands-on" with their worshippers than the Greek and Atlantean Gods. But Abigail kills someone important, so she is not only being used by the vampires, but by Coyote as well.

To be honest, this book is a departure from Sherrilyn Kenyon's usual crew of Dark Hunters that hang out in New Orleans. Most of the usual suspects are missing, and cameos are sparse. A "Bonus scene" at the end of the book with Ash, Soteria, Nick and Artemis is a blatant attempt to shoehorn those characters into a novel that is completely not about them, except in the most peripheral ways. And I didn't see why Dark-Hunters had to even come into it. It felt like a new series that could just have been about the new characters and mythology without being crammed into the Dark Hunters series. It's like the League Novels, and could have been a fine stand-alone series, but trying to put it into the Dark Hunters feels more than a little out of place.

This book was an attempt at something new for Sherrilyn Kenyon, working up a new mythology and characters into her usual Dark-Hunters series. It felt a bit out of place for the Dark Hunters, and I wish she'd had the courage to turn it into a separate series rather than shoehorning it into an existing one. The attempt feels less successful and the Bonus scene is not going to be enough to satisfy fans of the New Orleans crew. It will work better if you pretend this is an entirely new series and approach it that way. It worked for me, but other readers will feel differently. Recommended, but not highly, and with big caveats to her regular Dark-Hunter fans.

Black Jack, Volume 14 by Osamu Tezuka

2011-09-30T07:44:00.004-04:00

Fourteen more stories involving Black Jack the world's best unlicensed surgeon. He charges outrageous prices for his interventions, but his skills are more than enough for him to triumph.

In the first story, "The Corsican Brothers", Black Jack and Pinoko are at the circus when there is an accident. One of a pair of high-flying twin acrobats takes a fall, and the brothers share a psychic link that one twin feels the other's pain. When the circus owner calls on Black Jack to help, can Black Jack save the one brother while convincing the other that he won't die even if the surgery somehow fails?

"The Third Call" has Black Jack at home when he gets a call from a man who blames all Doctors for the death of his mother. Doctors are too expensive and can't be trusted, so he threatens to kill Pinoko after kidnapping her. When the time comes, he shoots Black Jack. But when the man's sister shows up to stop him, he ends up shooting her accidentally when trying to finish off Black Jack. The only way to save her life is for Black Jack to operate and remove the bullet- and he can only do that with the help of the young man. And even if he does save the Sister's life, will the man help Black Jack save himself?

"A Transient Love" follows Michiru, a young girl dying of cancer who is in love with love and wants to get married before she dies. But when she fixes her hopes on marrying Black Jack, he wants nothing to do with it. But can Black Jack save her life and show her the man who truly loves her and wants to marry her?

"Full Moon Disease" follows Black Jack as he makes a visit to a grave. Afterwards, he goes to a restaurant for coffee and discovers that the waitress who used to work there abruptly disappeared. Through her ex-boyfriend, he is able to track her down and discover that she is suffering from Cushing's disease- also known as "Full Moon Disease". But far from the sob story that her boyfriend told Black Jack, he broke up with her when her disease affected her, and once Black Jack operates to cure her, can he keep her safe from the man who dumped her? And why did he save her?

"Captain Satan" brings a former American officer who served in Vietnam to Black Jack to have surgery to remove the bullet from his head. He was shot at the end of Vietnam, but the bullet can't be removed because of where it is- if lesser surgeons tried to remove it, it would kill him. But the children who are survivors of the village he massacred don't want Black Jack to save him, saying that he should die for murdering their parents. But can he teach both sides a lesson before he operates?

"Urashima" has Black Jack facing off against Dr. Kuriko to determine the fate of a boy crushed in a mining accident 55 years ago. But even though he is in a coma, he hasn't aged. Who will win the fight to save him, or is this a fight that can even be won?

"Little Devil" follows the problems of a small boy whose mother is going to be worked on by Black Jack. When he gets the idea that Black Jack is going to hurt her, not fix her, can he prevent the operation, or will Pinoko be able to get it through his head that Black Jack is only trying to help her?

"Stop Drawing" follows a man who supposedly creates a manga that wins a famous award. The problem comes because he isn't actually the artist- he's a mere stand-in for the resl artist, who is sick and could lost the use of her arms if Black Jack can't save her. But to do the job, she's going to have to stop drawing. What will happen when the secret comes out, and can Black Jack save her life?

"A Rapid Current" sees Black Jack needing to cross a river, but the Bridge is out. Nearby lives a ferryman, but he is busym and only his wife and children are there. She agrees to take Black Jack across, but she's heavily pregnant, and in the course of their trip, starts to give birth, only to be interrupted by a Flash Flood. Stranded on a stone in the middle of the river, can Black Jack save her life and her baby's as well?

"There Were Two Films" sees a famous director come to Black Jack to try and save his son, who was born with illness and stayed that way all his life. Now, he's afflicted with cancer, and he wants Black Jack to save him. But he also wants to film him doing it, and Black Jack agrees- as long as he gets to pick his assistant. But when the surgery is over and the boy is saved, will the medical association allow the film starring Black Jack to be shown?

"The Man Swallowed by a Whale" tells of Shoichi, a whaling worker swallowed by a whale along with teo other sailors washed overboard. Only he survived, but he can't remember anything, and he was so burned by the whale's gastric juices that they had to construct a whole new face for him. They have decided to give him back to his mother in hopes it will jog his memory. But while she tries everything, nothing seems to work for him. What can make him regain his memory?

"The Vanished Noise" has a man who stabbed his own eardrums three times to stop being driven crazy by the noise of jets taking off and landing from a nearby airport. Can Black Jack find a way to defeat the problem, and will the man be grateful for the fix?

"Black Jack Disease" has Black Jack finding out that there has been a disease named after him. It's an ironic name, since only the rich recover. But when the man who named the disease, Dr. Kooma, starts sending Black Jack the stomachs of the people infected by the disease asking for his help in discovering a cure, can Black Jack help the small African country affected by the disease, and discover the cure in time to save Dr. Kooma as well?

"Just like B. J." has Black Jack witness a young girl trying to commit suicide. Saves her, only to discover that her attempt was necause her grandmother is ill. Her doctor saved her life three times, but the money it cost is bankrupting the family. Can Black Jack make the Doctor, so very like himself, see reason? Or will he continue to save the grandmother;s life, with each attempt costing them more and more money?

I liked how this volume was less about the operations (although, yeah, that was important), but led right into some of the things that are around the doing of medicine: medical ethics, quality of life, and the ability to choose when life was over and the DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) orders. As well as ongoing medical problems. Some of the problems showed Black Jack that he was wrong, like "Just like B.J.". There are tales about Doctors with too much pride, who think they are like God, but life and death and the universe can be their undoing.

And it's not just Black Jack who learns that, but a whole lot of other Doctors as well, including Dr. Kuriko, his longtime Nemesis, who feels it is better to let people out of their pain rather than try and save them. And sometimes, sacrifices must be made, as when Dr. Kooma sacrifices himself to save the people who are ill in Africa. And though he passes away by the end of the story, Black Jack is determined to find a cure (and we assume he does so) for the disease named after him.

A fairly widespread set of stories, in kind and aim, but altogether interesting reading. As this series goes on, it's getting more and more interesting, as the people are becoming as important as the diseases. Osamu Tezuka makes an interesting case for what is wrong about the practice of medicine, mainly in Japan, where he studied to be a Doctor, but here we see that even Black Jack, brilliant and dedicated as he is, doesn't have all the answers and is guilty of pride. A fascinating series. Highly recommended.

Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee, Volume 6 by Hiroyuki Asada

2011-09-29T05:21:00.001-04:00

Lag Seeing is supposed to write a letter to deliver to Gauche Suede to make him remember his heart, but he's finding that harder to do than he supposed. Every time he starts, he ends up focussing on things that aren't important and getting off-track, so that each time ends in frustration and failure. How can he bring back Gauche's heart with a substandard letter?

None of the other bees can help him, either, as none of them have either written letters, or written them about anything near as important. Gauche heads out into Central, only to bump into an extremely tall maid, who asks him to come back into the house where she works to meet "the lady". Lag has no objection and meets Rei Attlee, a woman who has her hair cut short and so looks like a man. Rei, however, has a problem Lag may be able to help her with. She comes from the mountains, but was sent to this house by her parents for her health, as her lungs are weak. Lately, she has been receiving letters from someone, but with no idea as to who sent them to her. The letters weren't delivered by Bee, they just show up at the front door, And there isn't a single word in the letters, they just show paintings of the mountains in a single color, Hydrangea Blue.

The paintings of the mountains bring back happy memories for Rei, and give her the strength to go on when her illness threatens to overcome her. She asks Gauche to find the person who sent her the letters so that she can thank them. But when Lag finds the real letter writer, she begs him not to tell Rei that she was the sender, but won't say why. When someone else takes credit for sending the letters, can Lag keep his promise and still reveal the truth behind the letters?

Then, we see the story of a lighthouse keeper and his grandson, all he has left to him since his son and his son's wife went away. But when the grandfather seemingly goes mad and tries to kill his grandson out of hatred, will we see how this story has anything to do with Lag? And what will happen when the famous Letter Bee Jiggy Pepper must get involved to save Lag's life? Can he save Lag when even Niche cannot?

Then, Sylvette gets a letter from a girl who wants a doll that looks just like her so she can give it to someone to take with him so he won't forget her when he is far away. But she wants the doll by the very next day, so Sylvette uses a doll she already made, mixing it up so that she can have the doll ready. But when she leaves to deliver the doll on her own, Lag insists on accompanying her, to keep her safe. She jokes that for now, he's her Dingo. But when the coach they are on is attacked by a bandit intent on stealing any items of value, can Gauche, and his own Dingo, Niche, retrieve the doll and bring the little girl the doll she wanted?

Then Lag and Niche travel to Blue Ground, where Lag's friend and mentor, Suede, lost his heart and his memories. Can Lag discover why Gauche lost his memories, and figure out a way to get them back for him and return Gauche to his sister and the capital? And what is the truth behind the stories about Niche, the Child of Maka and the town of Blue Note?

This was a mixed bag of stories, but most of them really were heartwarming, especially the first story. You might even think that most of them are filler, as they are distractions from the main story of Lag trying to write a letter to Gauche to bring back his memories. But in reality, they are meanders as Lag tries to think about what he needs to put into his letter to get Gauche to remember. And by the end of the volume, he knows that his mission isn't hopeless, that Gauche remembers at least something of his past life.

I really like this series. Yes, Lag comes off as something of a crybaby- he's constantly tearing up when something makes him happy, sad or upset. But then again, his name is based off a Japanization of the word "Lacrimae", meaning "tears" in Latin, so it's not really surprising that he always seems to be crying. And this volume was a return to the early style of the manga, where lighthearted side stories were the norm at the beginning. And this volume is mainly a return to that, but by the end, you can see that there is going to be a return to the more serious stories.

I like this series, and I wonder how Lag is going to return Gauche's heart to him and what will happen when he does. There is still the problem of Reverse and the rebellion in the provinces to deal with, not to mention what happened to Lag's mother and the whole "Day of the Flicker" thing. This is a series that could conceivably go on for a very long time, and I'll want to be there to see what happens. Recommended.

Vermonia,Volume 5: The Warrior's Trial by Yoyo

2011-09-29T02:02:00.002-04:00

Jim, Doug, Mel and Naomi were just skateboarders on Earth who came together to form a band, but when Mel was kidnapped to an alternate world, the other three followed her, hoping to rescue their friend. They found a world conquered long ago by General Uro, who rebelled against the real Queen. She managed to protect the four elements from him by using her followers to merge with the shrines, becoming pillars that support the land and protect it from ultimate dominion by Uro. Each of the band members and friends became one with one of the elemental guardians, gaining access to powers to call on and a beastly companion that aids them in battle.

Mel, however, remains imprisoned by Acidulous, one of Uro's followers, and her melding with her guardian is incomplete, because Acidulous wants to take the power of the bonding for himself. Mel is allowed some freedom, but she realizes that Acidulous is not a completely willing follower of General Uro. Although she doesn't know what could cause someone to do what he has done, she has sympathy for him and hardly realizes that his turning by Uro was so that he wouldn't have to face up to the ultimate grief of losing the woman he loved.

Jim has dived into the lake to rescue Rainbow, who he has feelings for, from drowning. But it's not really Rainbow, but one of Uro's female warriors, who is using the power of the lake, and its ability to make people see what they most love, against them. But when Doug joins them, another illusion, that of Naomi, is added to what they must face. But can they convince the power of the lake that they are on its side, trying to fight for Vermonia against General Uro?

Meanwhile, Naomi, Fly, Khaan, and the rest of the Potonawi, having failed to prevent the takeover of the temple of the pillar of flame, are fighting against one of Uro's creatures. But Naomi's powers, given by Suzaku, are running out, and to call on even more of his power, she mustaccept it and be open to the change that comes with accepting the physical changes that come with calling on more of his powers. But if her changes are a sign of what is coming for the friends, will they even be human by the end of the battles to come?

Naomi's sacrifice frees the guardian of the island, and it allows Doug and Jim to access the crystal that embodies the pillar of thunder. But when a squelp that resembles Satoshin shows up, will their distraction mean they lose control and possession of the crystal? Will they be able to save the floating island and the Tribe of the Turtle?

Meanwhile, Satoshin is tricked by the other Squelp into imprisoning himself in a prison of ice. There; he meets Mel, who tells him that every day, her captors control more and more of her, and she fears she is becoming like them. Arussha attempts to see what is so special about Satorin, but touching him brings out the true self at the core of her being, and Acidulous must help her fight it back down. Just what is this Squelp and why is it so important?

Then, Jim is recovering from his injuries when he is contacted by Rodvel, who shares his memories of Uro and his life. Queen Frasinella, who seemed so pure and good, had ulterior motives for controlling Uro during his life. But can Jim find out the truth of what Uro and his brother Lord Boros were before they were split into separate beings by the Queen and what she was attempting to control?

This is a new volume in the series, and far from being the slipcovered soft-cover form of the earlier books, this volume has reverted into the usual softcover manga form, which was somewhat disappointing, because I liked the other books somewhat more. But here, I started to get the idea of what Uro might have been, when I put Uro and Boros side by side, you get a word very similar to OUROBOUROUS, the worm with no end. Did Queen Frasinella separate some elemental force into two beings in an attempt to control them both? I suspect that the next volume will make this clear, and makes me wonder if Queen Frasinella was as good as she is supposed to be.

Meanwhile, more changes are ahead for the rest of the warriors from the Blue Star (aka Earth). Naomi's transformation makes clear that the more power they call on from the totems that power them, the more physical changes that they can expect. But as Uro's power grows closer to taking over the world and destroying the pillars, can they manage to beat off his forces and free this world, and then the world of Vermonia? And does Vermonia and its Queen deserve to be freed? If she was playing around with forces that should have been left alone, I'd have a hard time summoning up sympathy for her.

This series continues to make me think, and to wonder. I am enjoying it, and the various ideas, many of which have resonances to other stories featuring various elemental forces of thea cosmos and the sacred beasts Byakko, Suzaku, Genbu and Seiryu, but which is refreshingly different. I recommend this book and this series, and remain interested in where it is going from here.

Ironside by Holly Black

2011-09-28T15:14:00.007-04:00

Kaye is a pixie of the Unseelie Court. Roiben in the Prince and is soon to be coronated, and Kaye loves him, but is unsure of how anyone could accept a pixie as queen. When she gets drunk at the coronation and declares her love before the entire court, Roiben is forced to set her a quest before he will be able to make her his queen.

And his quest is the most impossible one that anyone at Court has ever heard: to find a faerie capable of lying. This is impossible, because Fairies can only tell the truth. They can shade the truth, and speak around it, but to actually lie is impossible for them.

In addition, Kaye is a changeling, a faerie placed with a human woman in place of her real child. Kaye is beginning to believe that her human mother has never loved her, and that her being with her human family is a horrible imposition, and that she should simply go away and never bother them again. But first, she must restore to them what has been taken away...

Unfortunately, Kaye has no idea who or what fairie took the real Kaye, or where she is now. So in addition to her being able to find a faerie that can lie, she must also recover a human child from a faerie who may not want to give her up- and to do it, she'll have to enter into the human world in a way she has never done before, and do battle with the forces of the "Ironside" on its own terms. But will her battle to return Kaye lead to her discovering the solution to her dilemma with Roiben?

And when Kaye falls in with a boy who has been cursed by the Fae, it may cause her even more troubles than her love for Roiben and the impossible quest she is on. For he has been using faerie essence to gain fae powers, and, in essence, stealing them from other fae. But she needs his help to find her mother's real daughter, and to search for a Faerie who can lie. But as she tries to keep up with her human friends and the human world, her faerie self and human self cross over. Is there any hope for Kaye to fill her self-imposed search and the one imposed by Roiben at the same time? And when she falls into the clutches of Silarial, the Seelie Queen, who wants Roiben's throne, can she keep the man she loves safe from harm even while he must shun her until she succeeds at his quest?

I love Holly Black's faerie stories, because they embody the real faerie stories and not the more hopeful, sanitized versions that pass for faeries in a lot of the fantasy novels written. These are the real faeries, who are as specialized in the arts of pain as the arts of love and combat, even those of the Seelie Court- the Seelie Court merely has better press. These faeries are scary! But this is the third book in the trilogy that began with Tithe and continued in Valiant, and characters from both novels feature here, including Corny, Luis and Dave.

In time, this book picks up after Tithe (Valiant was happening at about the same time as Tithe), and continues the story. Here, Kaye has to juggle her life in the human world and her life in the Fae world, and which is the more important? Or are they both important? Can she win Roiben's love and that of her human mother as well? Kaye has to decide what she really wants, and shows one of the more interesting sides of Faeries- yes, they have to tell the truth, but truth and the meaning of words can be parsed so many different ways... That's part of what makes fae so scary.

I liked this continuation of the story, and all the characters got some kind of ending. Whether those endings are happy ones or merely pleasant is up to the reader. Certainly worse things could have happened to Kaye, Roiben and the rest. But the ending was the very best part. I had the feeling that Roiben broke down laughing at Kaye's words. Recommended.

Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men by Mara Hvistendahl

2011-09-27T15:03:00.003-04:00

Every father wants a son to carry on his name. But in places like China, where couples are limited in the number of children they can have, the importance of having a son, even if it is the only child you have, plus the advent of ultrasounds that can show a pregnant mother their child in the womb, combined with the widespread availability of therapeutic abortion, has created a world in which 160 million women are missing.

That's more than the entire female population of the United States. Imagine a US where there are no women- no mothers, no daughters... just men and boys. That will give you an idea of the magnitude of the problem.

You may feel that this isn't a problem at all- if people choose not to have female babies, what's the harm? I mean, there are six billion people in the world, so what if there are a lot fewer women?

Well, this book shows why that is a problem. For one thing, in a world with that many missing women, what happens when those boys grow up seeking marriage? Where do they go to for wives? In some places, and in many cases, this is already becoming a problem. With so few women to go around, the men of China are seeking wives in other, nearby countries. They have gotten so many wives from there that the same sort of problem is affecting the men of the countries they are importing wives from- who will the men there marry?

The price of a bride is rising, meaning that many poor men cannot afford to pay a bride price and thus, cannot marry. Men without an outlet for their affection and attention, and depressed by the thought of never being able to afford a bride, have turned their attentions to more violent and manly pursuits- gun battles and gunfights with water or paintball guns that look disturbingly similar to the real thing- and none of them want to stop at just water or paintball guns. Some of them want the real thing, and the violence in China is rising as these unmarried and unable to get married men take out their frustrations in violence, because literally, they have nothing left to lose.

But violence against women is also growing in China. Women in some places are commodities, and even the Chinese are beginning to wonder where their precious sons are going to procure a bride. And perhaps, if it was just China, that might not be a worry. But China is not the only country where this is happening- India has had a long history of just the same sort of manipulation of the Genetic lottery. While there is no compulsory government punishment for having more than one child, the government is pushing the idea of a "perfect" family with a mere two children. And just as in China, the availability of Ultrasounds and no questions asked abortions has pushed the total of male children born over that of females- leaving India in dire straits with regards to the marriage dilemma as well. And not just China and India, but other places as well that put a premium on male children as a means of carrying on the family name and legacy.

And what can we do about it? At this point, it is almost too late for some countries. The collision of choice and technology mean that entire generations of men are going to be without a wife. And while you might think that this would only raise the status of women, it's having the exact opposite effect- women are becoming a commodity and are being kidnapped or even forced into prostitution to satisfy the men who can't get a wife of their own legally. Even brides bought from elsewhere aren't having very good lives- treated as slaves by the families who buy them for their husbands- most unable to speak the language and mistreated if they should ever go against their husband- life for these women is often bleak, and while some may find love, oftentimes the families of their husband views her as an interloper should the man die.

But it's not just men who are at a premium in some areas- now women could be as well. And one of the places that is happening is in America. Women tired of boys are paying a premium to have baby girls- could this lead to the same kind of skewed gender politics as is happening elsewhere, only with a female twist? That remains to be seen. Nonetheless, women in America are not aborting boys, but instead paying for other forms of gender selection, but the implication is clear- we could be next.

I found this book intriguing and at the same time, horrifying. Places like China and India have long preferred male babies over females, but the idea that because now Ultrasound allows parents to see their offspring in the womb, and abortion is seen as clean and tidy (and Western and Advanced, and therefore good) as opposed to taking the baby out somewhere and abandoning it to the elements, selecting the sex of your unborn child is seen as no big sin or bad thing. It's like a weird science experiment: if it's not what you like, discard and try again. I've always been pro-choice, but this is over the line, even for me. We all agree that women's bodies are theirs to do with as they will, but here, the choice of all these women (and their husbands) to abort a daughter and have a son, are really screwing up society.

The idea that a child should be loved and wanted no matter its sex comes bang up against the idea that a man needs to have a son to carry on their family name, or that having a son is somehow 'manlier' than having a daughter- especially if you are limited to only having a single child. But now that there are more than 160 million men who will have to go without wives, the balance of those countries are screwed up, and there is nothing that will change that- and the Chinese who made that choice are only just beginning to realize that. Even if things do eventually get better, things will get worse before they get better- and that's not good news for those countries or the world. Men without wives, or even the hope of a wife, will get more radicalized, and marriage, by and large, calms those impulses by giving men other things to think about- like a wife and children.

This book is a fascinating and terrifying look at what sexual politics, and the politics of having babies of the parents choice, can lead to. It paints a disquieting picture of a future of society skewed in all the wrong ways by the unforeseen consequences of a leap forward in technology, and governments who use abortion on demand for population control. But it's not just abortion that has consequences- it's just one of many sex selection techniques that are fraught with problems for the future. The question is... what are we going to be able to do about it, and is China and India just the first part of the world that is going to have to deal with this problem? Highly recommended.

Angels of Darkness by Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Meljean Brook and Sharon Shinn

2011-09-26T00:13:00.002-04:00

Angels of Darkness is a short story anthology about Angels who do not come to give hope and enlighten, but who are there during the darker emotions of humans, from death and fear and sadness.

Angel's Wolf by Nalini Singh, follows Noel, a vampire from Rafael's Court in New York after he is sent to serve Nim'ra, a powerful female angel said to be extremely cold and cruel. Noel is recovering from a terrible attack that nearly killed him, and he views this reposting as a judgement on his inability to forsee the attack that laid him low. But Nim'ra, though a fairly young and powerful angel- may be cold and retiring, but that is because her heart is soft and rather too easily affected, which would be considered a terrible weakness in a ruling Angel. But when it becomes clear that someone in her court is trying to kill her- possibly in a bid to overthrow her, can Noel find the person who hates Nim'ra enough to try to do away with her, and can he undo the effect of her caring and beauty on his own previously cold heart?

Alphas: Origins by Ilona Andrews has Karina Tucker, an abused wife, who is fleeing from her abusive husband who has tracked her and her daughter, Emily, down. In the course of her flight, she is rescued by Rishe and his crew, who identify her as a Donor, and abduct her into an alternate reality where she must stay with her child. It turns out that the men who have rescued her are the many times removed offspring of alternate versions of humanity, each with their own separate powers. She is paired with Lucas, to bond with him and remove some of the rage that pervades him. But each time he does, there is a greater chance that she will also develop powers. Can Lucas persuade Karina to stay with him and not try to flee? Or will Karina put the world at risk to save her daughter from eventually having the same fate?

Nocturne by Sharon Shinn is the story of Moriah, a worker at the Gabriel school. Hiding from those she has taken advantage of in the past, she drudges through the night hours in the kitchen at the school, cleaning and preparing for those who will work in the morning and the afternoon- washing dishes and preparing the kitchen to be used once again. But there is a strange story hidden in the school, and the house on the hill. And Moriah, through her spying and prying, discovers the secret- a blinded Angel lives in the house. It is hoped that he will somehow find the strength of will to live again, and not hide himself and his talents away from others. But can the former conwoman Moriah make the Angel Corban see that life is still worth living, and can he effect a similar change in her life as well?

Ascension by Meljean Brooks follows Guardian Angel Marc Revoire, who is investigating the disappearance of Vampires in the community he watches over. But another guardian, Radha, who he had a relationship with in the past, insists that he isn't safe and that he needs her help to accomplish his duties. But when the killers turn out to be someone he would never have suspected, and Radha saves his life, he's forced to conclude that she is right about the way things are. But as they track those who put the killers up to their deeds, can they re-forge the thread of their loving connection, or have things gone too far awry to ever get it back?

This was an unusual series, because in many cases, the characters really *were* angels- not so much the "Alphas" story, as that was the proverbial "Guardian Angels" rather than actual angels, but each one stood out as the stories were about one person protecting another from horrible fates, or having lost hope- although it's a turn around in "Nocturne", because it's the human woman bringing the angel hope, and her slightly peppery personality is just the thing to keep shocking him into doing something, either for her approval or to overcome her disapproval.

In fact, the stories in this book were so good that I had a hard time picking my favorite. It came down to a toss-up of "Nocturne" or "Angel's Wolf", both of which were really excellent stories in worlds I love and will continue to read in. I actually can't decide which one I liked better, as Sharon Shinn's lyrical writing and Nalini Singh's wonderful ability with story and characterization really fought it out to a standstill in my mind. The other stories were fine, too, but my familiarity with both Sharon Shinn and Nalini Singh's Angel worlds made me prefer them. I am just less used to Meljean Brooks's angels, and Alphas was a new world for Ilona Andrews.

I really enjoyed this anthology. The stories were excellent, every one, and if you haven't read stories set in those worlds before, this volume is likely to make you want to seek them out and read them. I even would like to see more of the Alphas series, which is new to this volume, although I have read other of Ilona Andrews series. A stunning set of stories with plenty of adventure and romance, and the kind of happy ending you want to read. Highly recommended.

Tiger's Quest by Colleen Houck

2011-09-25T02:46:00.001-04:00

Kelsey Hayes is back at home after spending the summer in India, but she's upset that Ren, who is no longer solely tied into his tiger form except for an hour a day, hasn't tried to contact her. After the adventure they shared and the love that she thought flowered between them, she thought he loved her, but when he doesn't try to contact her in any way, she decides to get on with her life, going to college, albeit living in private housing rather than a dorm, and living her life.

However, when she's finally decided to take her romantic life in her own hands and go on a date with a guy she met through her Kung Fu class, who should return to her life but Ren, who is equally upset that Kelsey didn't contact him over the ensuing time that they were apart, and he is not only going to college with her, but lives in the house next door to her own. Kelsey, though she longs for the return of the closeness that she and Ren shared in India, is nonetheless not sure that she and Ren- who is, after all, a Prince, are totally right for each other. She is still determined to go on dates with other boys, as she is sure that Ren is only fixated on her because she helped fight off part of the curse.

Ren, for his own part, is blisteringly angry that Kelsey wants to see others, but he is determined to back off and show her that their love is true. So as she goes on dates with guys from college, he takes her out on dates as well, and she has to admit that, next to Ren, all other guys are not measuring up. Soon, she is sure that she loves Ren, but he still holds her at arm's length, determined to make her see that they should be together by showing her how the other men she would date are either jerks or not what she is interested in.

Finally, the semester is over, and Kelsey travels back to India to help break the next part of the curse. But when Ren disappears, she and Mister Kadam are sure that Lokesh is behind his disappearance. So where does that leave Kelsey? Well, she can still help break more of the curse with Kishan, Ren's brother who happens to be the Black Tiger to Ren's White Tiger.

Kelsey doesn't know if she can trust him, because of his behavior last summer, when she and Ren broke the first part of the curse. Kishan wants Kelsey as his own, but for now. he is willing to back off pursuing her strenuously because he realizes how much she misses Ren and wants to find him. But to break this form of the curse, he and Kelsey must call on the aid of the Goddess Durga, and find a tree that touches the sky- the entrance to which they will find somewhere in the Himalayas. But as Kishan and Kelsey journey together, she finds herself softening towards him. She will maybe not fall for him the way she fell for Ren, but she could definitely see herself doing so at some point, and her feelings for the brothers become confused.

But by the time they come together to rescue Ren from the forces of Lokesh, a reversal worse than anything else she has experienced thus far in her relationship with Ren hits Kelsey with unexpected force. Suddenly, everything she thought she knew about the two of them and her own feelings is up in the air. Could this be the end of a relationship between Ren and Kelsey, or can it be saved to return to what they had before?

I was very much looking forward to the sequel to Tiger's Curse, that I read back in May, and this volume didn't disappoint. The first volume ended on an undecided note, but in this book Ren and Kelsey came back together as neither seems to be able to forget the other, no matter how much time or distance separates them. And while the first book reminded me of "Twilight" a bit, this one reminded me of "New Moon", with Ren's somewhat antagonistic brother being added to the mix. He promises to take care of Kelsey and not make any moves on her, but with how much time they will be spending alone in each other's company, can Kelsey believe his promises?

It was certainly possible in this book to feel somewhat sorry for Kishan. Unlike his brother, Ren, he succumbed more fully to the nature of the Tiger and lost something of his human nature. As a result, he's more of a "Bad Boy", and more likely to resort to violence and rage. But as with Ren, being with Kelsey draws him back to more of his human nature, and he obviously feels something for her, something a bit big-brotherly and something romantic as well. The ending of the book was a real shock, as Kelsey has done so much to be there for Ren and to rescue him from his imprisonment by Lokesh, who certainly doesn't want to give either Ren or Kishan up- or the power he gets from their imprisonment. But by the end of the book (an ending I am not going to give away), I felt bad for Kelsey and Ren both- and for Kishan as well. It was saddening and shocking after all that had gone on and all Kelsey had gone through, like getting thrown face-first into a wall.

This book was great, and the ending makes me want to read the third book even more than I wanted to read this book after reading the first. These two books are so strong in story and character. and although I compare them to the "Twilight" series, they are so much the better for having a stronger heroine who doesn't just fumble around tripping over her own feet and waiting to be rescued, that even the elements that bring to mind the Stephanie Meyers series are made immeasurably better. Highly recommended. but read "Tiger's Curse" first to understand the characters and what is going on. I can only hope the third book is the icing on the wonderful cake of this series.

Pegasus by Robin McKinley

2011-09-24T23:58:00.002-04:00

Sylviianel is the daughter of the King. As for all her life, she has known that she will be bound to a Pegasus when she turns twelve. She is the only daughter of the King, and because she has three older brothers, she is used to thinking of herself as superfluous. Even her binding with a Pegasus isn't expected to change that, but when the time comes and she meets her new Royal Pegasus, Ebon, a handsome black Pegasus, both of them soon realize that the binding, which is intended to allow them to occasionally be able to read the gist of each other's thoughts and words, is far, far stronger in them than in any of the other human/Pegasi bonds. Not only can they understand each other, but they can actually hear what each other is thinking even *before* the binding Ceremony!

This angers the Chief Magician in charge of the Ceremony, Fthoom. Although Sylvi can't read his thoughts... indeed, he frightens her beyond belief, she has reason to think that it might be because only magicians are trained to become translators between bonded humans and their Pegasi, and Sylvi and Ebon being able to understand each other so clearly endangers the pre-eminent place that the magicians hold in human society, for as well as using their magic to protect the Kingdom, they are the only ones who can tell the humans what the Pegasi are saying. Indeed, Sylvi and Ebon felt that the binding ritual was not so much tying them together as trying to push them apart.

But that night, after the ceremony, Ebon comes to see Sylvi after everyone else has gone to sleep, and ignores all the restrictions that have been established between humans and Pegasi by touching her and offering to take her flying. The rules of human society are very strict on that regard- no touching and especially no flying, to protect the dignity and consequence of the Pegasi, but neither he nor Sylvi really care about that, and she is small and light enough that carrying her is no real problem for him. During their night flight over the Kingdom, and out beyond the wall that protects most of it from monsters that infest the land, they come to love and trust each other as few bonded "friends" ever manage to do.

The next day, Sylvie is summoned to a meeting of her father and Fthoom in a small audience chamber, and Fthoom, confident in his ability to sway people to his own way of thinking, claims that the bond between Sylvi and Ebon is not only a danger to the Kingdom, but to human-Pegasus relations and demands that the bond be dissolved. Once again, he frightens Sylvi, but this time, she leaps to her feet to defend her friendship with Ebon, as Fthoom gets so angry he almost- almost strikes her. This angers her father, along with Fthoom's using a glamour to try and influence everyone in the chamber, and he relieves Fthoom of his place at the head of the magicians and sets him a task to seek out tales and stories of human and Pegasus bonded partners who could speak to each other as Ebon and Sylvi do and to present his findings, no matter how long it may take.

Sylvi is very upset by what Fthoom tried to do, but it doesn't prevent her from continuing her friendship with Ebon, as well as their night flights. But while some people believe Fthoom was right, Sylvi, while continuing her studies, also goes out into the world to show people everywhere that there is nothing bad or wrong with her and Ebon's bond. She attends countless country celebrations, where Ebon allows the littlest humans to ride on his back for a bit and even answers questions put to him through Sylvi from people in the crowd- generally harmless ones about things like "What is your favorite color?" or some practical ones about farming- because his people plant crops of their own and know something about farming.

As Sylvie grows older, she is given more duties and responsibilities at the court, and spends it in research and gathering facts about rivers and streams in part of the Kingdom, to determine where dams and Bridges should be built. But this isn't anything she decides for herself, it's something pressed upon her by her father. Even so, Sylvi comes to enjoy it, and even ends up making a contribution to the healers of the Kingdom when she finds out that Pesasus healers have their own remedies which may be useful for humans as well.

Even so, her presence, and her ability to speak so clearly with Ebon, causes division in the ranks of the Magicians, some of whom still support Fthoom, and even in her own court, where some people still believe that Sylvie should not be able to understand Ebon so clearly. Even if Fthoom is still doing his researches... and finding nothing, Sylvi knows he won't rest until he takes his revenge on her and Ebon for what happened to him. But as her sixteenth birthday approaches, Sylvie is asked by the Pegasi to visit their own land of Rhiandoom, and she very much wants to go, to be an ambassador between her own people and the Pegasus, about whom so very little is known despite the humans being allied with them for over 800 years.

But while the human council argues over whether or not to allow it, Sylvi must deal with her own fears and wants. While she wants to visit Rhiandoom very much, it would also mean being the only human in that country for over three weeks, and Sylvi has never been on her own for that long before. And she's been comparing herself very unfavorably to Pegasi- how can they stand to look at someone so ugly and stunted compared to her? But when the council eventually votes to allow the visit- even though the country has lately been more plagued by attacks from monsters thought banished from the Kingdom, can Sylvi bear what she learns about the Pegasi and how they think? Or, for that matter, what her people's magic does to the Pegasi and their Shamans? Or will she find a new way of living for her people, one that will draw the humans and their Pegasus allies closer together and allow them to overcome the differences that separate their peoples? And what will happen when Fthoom finally has the information he needs to present his findings to the King and Court?

Robin McKinley is a magical writer. Once you start reading her stories, every word is chosen so well and fittingly that you are simply drawn into her stories and her worlds before you can blink. While most of her books are stand-alone works, which I expected this one to be, she also does sequels, and the ending of this one promises to have an excellent sequel- and very soon, I hope! I was drawn in by Sylvi and Ebon, by her world and Ebon's world of the Pegasi, which is so different from that of the humans, not only by how they live it, but also how they conceive the world to be. And also in their magic, which is very, very different from human magic.

I loved how traveling to Rhiandoom was like almost like being on a different plane of existence for Sylvi. Like the Shaman's journey in our world, other humans aren't going to understand the difference in the world unless they have had something like that experience as well. And those who haven't had the experience could use Sylvi's words against her to twist the meaning so that it would be something bad and threatening instead of simply different, as if she was speaking an entirely different language. And in a way, she is- it's hard for her to put her experiences in Rhiandoom into human words and concepts, and because of the danger of someone twisting her words like that, she doesn't even try. But even that cannot save her from some of the backlash of her trip into places no other human has seen or experienced.

My only disappointment in the book was how abruptly it ends, but that was also good, because it meant that Robin McKinley must be writing a sequel, and it's one I desperately want to read. This book is so beautiful that it seems lyrical and is utterly amazing to read. It actually feels wrenching when the book ends and you feel like, "That's it? I want to read more NOW!" And the sign of a good book is that it leaves you wanting more. And boy, did that book do this for me! In spades.

I completely loved this book, I honestly can't think of any problems it had or anything that I thought should have been better written or edited. Robin McKinley continues to impress me with her level of writing skill and I only wish she could write faster to get the sequel into my hands all the sooner- but I know her writing is worth waiting for. Highly recommended.

Out of the Waters by David Drake

2011-09-23T23:21:00.004-04:00

Poblius Corylus and his friend Gaius Alphenus Varus have been instrumental in saving the Rome-like City of Carce from the minions of Fire, but they know their task isn't done. For on the heels of Carce's death by fire is the omen of an even more horrible death, this by the forces of Water. So as they sit back to enjoy a fete organized by Varus's father, Saxa, over his appointment to the Governorship of Lusitania, the play they are watching as part of his triumph turns into a vision of a City being destroyed by a Giant monster that comes out of the water to engulf the city, a monster better known as Typhon.

But the city that Typhon destroys isn't just Carce, it's also a city of glass towers and circular canals that greatly resemble the classical view of Atlantis. And while Corylus, Varus and Varus' mother-in-law Hedia, Saxa's second wife, see a monster, It's Alphena, Varus' sister whose interests include swordfighting and other traditionally masculine pursuits, instead sees a powerful man. But why was her vision so different from those of the others?

As Varus works with his friend Corylus to find out information on the new doom facing the city, Corylus' nurse, Anna, who also happens to be a powerful witch and married to a man he fought with on the German frontier, has a vision of an amulet that might allow Corylus to survive the coming conflict. But first, the amulet must be recovered from the Etruscan tomb in which it was buried.

And Hedia, who went into the Underworld in the last book to rescue Alphena, encountered her dead ex-husband there, and only just managed to escape, but also managed to rescue Alphena. Her actions were not without cost, for now she is being troubled by horrible dreams of her ex-husband being tortured in Tartarus, and of three glass men who are part of those torturing him, and who frighten her very, very much. She wakes from these dreams screaming loudly, and notices that there are three new friends and advisors of a senator named Tardus who somehow remind her of these glass men.

So when she is kidnapped from her chamber by these same three glass men, this time it is Alphena who must go to rescue her stepmother, who she has come to cherish and respect after the last book. But instead of winding up with her mother, she falls from the mount that Anna summons and is rescued from the void by the man that she saw in the vision in the theatre. He tells her his name is Uktena, and he is defending the village from attacks by an Atlantean named Procron. Procron was a Minoi, or ruling magician of Atlantis, but he replaced his own skull with one of crystal, giving himself greatly enhanced powers and making him functionally immortal. He's been cutting a swath through the other Minoi, and other magicians as well, and Uktena, because of his great powers, has been loosed by the magicians of this village to defend them and their people.

Meanwhile, Hedia has been kidnapped by the Minoi of Atlantis because she has visited the Underworld. They are convinced that she, too, is a magician, because no one but a magician could travel to the Underworld. But Hedia manages to escape the glass men for a short time, finding herself, naked and alone, in the jungle. But after encountering a man-headed monkey and some other very strange creatures, she is recaptured and taken to Atlantis by one of the Minoi. The other Minoi of Atlantis are angry to find out that she isn't a magician after all- which they can tell from her aura. Deeming her to be of no use, they imprison her beneath their city.

She is freed by the human-headed ape, formerly a Minoi, who was reshaped by Procon into his current form, and robbed of his ability to think and reason as a human, not to mention, speak as a human. But in saving Hedia, he brings her back to his former hold, where they are eventually forced to escape between the worlds and back to Carce. As Corylus fights against the forces of Atlantis in the skies with the help of a tree nymph whose tree-nut was long ago entombed in a piece of glass, and another creature who was buried beneath her tree, Varus must give in to his destiny as a magician and go face Procron on his own.

But can he survive the attack of Typhon, who was once Uktena, after defeating Procron and saving the world? Or will he have to rely on someone else to talk sense into the creature that became Typhon and to be able to go home again? And how will Corylus and Alphena ever find their way back to the city? And can they defend Carce from the forces of Atlantis who are ready to invade from the doomed future?

I had enjoyed "The Legions of Fire", and this book is the sequel in the books of the Elements. Carce will be attacked by the forces of the four elementa, and the attack by the forces of water was forecast at the last book. Despite that, this book does take a bit of time to get going. We get re-introduced to the characters who were important in the last book, but many of their relationships have changed in this one. Alphena hated Hedia in the first book, but now, she realizes that her step-mother would do anything to save her and loves and cherishes her, to the point of taking her advice gladly. Corylus and Varus are still friends, but their friendship has deepened, and Alphena still likes Corylus, but hasn't had much time to spend with him. And Hedia remains who she is, but we have a deeper understanding of her character, and she is closer to Alphena, and even Varus.

What I especially enjoyed this time around was Alphena's role in the story, and she gets something to do that makes her character more well-rounded. Besides getting kidnapped in the last book, she spent some time fighting, but she is using her experiences to change herself for the better- not treating her slaves like objects, and learning to keep her temper and to fight her battles. All the characters are changing, but for most of them, it is becoming more of who they really are, whereas I feel that Alphena is discovering not only who she is, but who and what she wants to really be, and it's interesting to see that character growth, since she was a very angry, shrill person in the last book. She still has a lot of anger, but she's learning to manage it better and not take it out on the people around her, which makes her a less disagreeable character. I actually managed to like her this time around.

This book took off faster than "The Legions of Fire", though the build-up seems like it is going to be more gradual because of the way it begins. Clues are becoming clear that Varus is going to be a very powerful mage, and Alphena is one also, which leads me to wonder if it was their mother who they inherited their power from, since neither Saxa nor Hedia has that type of power... and was Saxa's first wife something like Corylus's mother? Something or someone not entirely human? Or did her power that she passed on to her children come from her family heritage? Something I'd be very interested in finding out. In any case, if you are looking for an excellent fantasy book, this series is well able to provide them. Highly recommended, both the book and series both.

Star Wars: The Old Republic, Volume 2- The Threat of Peace by Rob Chestney, Alex Sanchez, and Michael Atiyeh

2011-09-22T19:27:00.004-04:00

The Republic and the Sith Empire have decided to broker peace between the Jedi, the traditional protectors of the Republic and the Sith, who bear a grudge against the Sith for a long-ago war. But when the Sith lay siege to Coruscant, the seat of the Empire, and destroy the Jedi temple, it puts them in a superior position in the talks- they can threaten to destroy Coruscant unless they get what they want.

But their actions and decisions are not without consequences. Master Dar'nala, and her student, Satele Shan, are in the middle of Negotiations with Sith Lord Baras, but even the treachery of the Sith means that the Peace will go forward, despite the fact that the Sith wiped out most of the Jedi on Coruscant.

On Coruscant, Jedi Master Orgus Din and his friend, Lieutenant Tavus, are too slow to prevent the fall and destruction of the Temple, but they do find out the identity of the Sith Lord in charge of the attack- Lord Angral, a Sith Warlord. But Lord Baras is supposedly taking advantage of the recently declared Peace to destabilize the Jedi order, including killing Master Dar'nala, and destabilizing several planets while allying with the Hutts of Nar Shadda. But even as the two groups team up with the Bounty Hunter known as Braden and another Jedi Master named Fortris, they must discover who is really seeking to Destabilize the peace and defeat an alliance that undercut the Jedi and all they stand for... But will Satele, descendant of Bastila Shan, fall to the Dark side as the Sith hopes, or can her muddled emotions possibly lead her to the correct decisions?

This graphic novel is based on the game by Lucas Arts and the new MMO being developed by Bioware. As it stands, they introduce characters from all the major classes, from the Jedi Negotiator to the Sith Warlord and Sith Manipulator- each of which have a very different feel and powers from the "standard" Sith or Jedi. The story seems a bit scattered at first, since despite the threads being linked, the characters are separated by large bits of space, but eventually the characters combine and so do their stories link up, showing a larger, overarching story that is being told to manipulate the Jedi and the Republic.

I found the book interesting. It "introduces" the different classes, but aside from Baras being more subtle in his use of power, it doesn't really underscore what makes the different classes so different at the level of what kinds of powers they develop. And the Bounty Hunter "class" is given short shrift in the story- although the character of Braden ends up being successful in his hunt, he also ends up being hunted by both sides- the Republic and Sith. The characters are also more than characters, many of them stand in for the attitudes in various parts of the Republic, like Tavus, who respresents the attitude of the Republic military, even if he is also a character in his own right.

I enjoyed the book, which told an interesting story, but for those who are looking forward to seeing the differences coming in the game, well, there isn't much there to go on. Maybe after the game comes out, this is a graphic novel you can go back to and find the story enhanced by the game. But as for now, it's just a regular story and not much more. Recommended.

Batman: Bruce Wayne- The Road Home by Fabian Nicieza, et al.

2011-09-22T06:44:00.003-04:00

Bruce Wayne was thought dead during the Blackest Night event, but in reality, he had somehow been shunted back in time and had to slowly work his way back to modern Gotham City, aided and abetted by the mystical order of the Bat.

But Gotham hasn't been static in his absence. Dick Grayson has stepped into Bruce's shoes and taken over the role of Batman. while Bruce's Son with Talia Al'Ghul, Damien, is still the new Robin. And, as Bruce has planned for this in case he ever disappeared, he is happy, but not content. Instead, he decides to test how effective they are in their new roles, teaming up with Tim Drake, the former Robin, now fighting crime under the name of "The Red Robin".

But along with Bruce come back, someone else is making a comeback in Gotham City- Vicki Vale, Bruce's onetime love interest and reporter. She's been demoted from the television show and the notoriety she used to have, but now she's on the trail of a story- the true identity of Batman. And not just Batman- she's laying bare the entire criminal underworld as well, and that has garnered her attention of the entirely wrong kind. The question is, which of Batman's Rogues Gallery is trying to take her out, and can Bruce Wayne, the former Batman, now using a different suit that gives him powers similar to the Justice League and calling himself "Insider", can he keep Vicki Vale safe and convince the villain who is after her to let her go free? Or will he even be able to keep himself alive as he tangles with his rogues gallery old and new?

I am of two minds about this graphic novel. Yes, Batman is showing us that he's his usual crazy prepared self- to the point of actually having a plan put in place as to what to do if he ever disappears and is presumed dead in Gotham- one which he told Cassandra Cain about, but presumably no one else, since her not being Batgirl any longer was part of this plan.... But he's also kind of being a jerk, not telling Dick Grayson or Damien about him being back while he travels the world, "testing" the various allies and shades of gray villains as to how they are doing without them, even after deciding that Dick and Damien are doing just fine.

I know there is a joke internet site called "Superman is a Dick", but this is the first time I've ever wanted to tag Batman with the same label. Okay, here, the "crazy prepared" drifts over the line into outright "crazy". And the whole idea of testing everyone in his "family" to see how they are doing without him struck me as a bit... well, jerk-y. But at the same time, almost in character. I just found the premise a bit troubling. Batman has never seemed OCD before.

I found this book, as I said, troubling, and the ending left me wondering when exactly he was going to tell Dick and Damien that he was still alive. He puts off telling them for the entire book, while Alfred knows and Tim knows, and by the end of it, Oracle And Selina know. It just seems like he's delivering a massive diss to Dick and his own son, by NOT clueing them in. I've never seen Batman playing such a jerk before. I didn't like that characterization at all. YMMV, but I don't recommend this graphic novel, even if the stories it tells are interesting.

Sup with the Devil by Barbara Hamilton

2011-09-21T04:31:00.000-04:00

Abilgail Adams, the wife of John Adams, is a New England Patriot in colonies that are still under the control of King George of England. Trying to run her house, aid her husband, and raise their children is difficult at the best of times, and with England coming down heavily on the colonies in order to try and bring them to heel, it is no easier.

Abigail is contacted by her nephew, Horace Thaxter, and finds out that an attempt has been made on his life after he was contracted to write a letter on behalf of a mysterious woman. Unusually, the letter was written in Arabic, which Horace had some knowledge of, but after he did the translation, someone drugged him and tried to drag him into a carriage out on the streets, and he isn't sure that his attackers were either a person in employ of the woman who hired him, determined to silence anything he might have to let slip about the letter, or someone who may have wanted the woman dead or disappeared as well, as nobody seems to have seen her again afterwards.

Abigail, worried on Horace's behalf, travels to Harvard to find out what is going on, and discovers that there is another mystery brewing as well, surrounding some books purchased on the supposed behalf of the college, some of which are very dirty books indeed, being full of licentiousness and filth, while others are on chemistry. Nevertheless, the books seem to be disappearing from those who owned them, and a volume bought by Horace in Arabic is merely one of them. Could the problem with the disappearing woman who may or may not have been trying to kill Horace be behind it, or is she merely caught up in the same problem?

Meanwhile, one of Horace's only friends at college, a fellow student, is murdered in the middle of the night, and some of his books stolen. Suspicion falls on his black manservant, who had drunk overly much of his master's wine, and as a result, quarreled quite loudly with him. Those who heard the argument assume that the manservant killed his master, and figure it is a fait accompli to arrest him and return him to the boy's father, who can then kill the manservant for killing his master, which is a capital crime in the Colonies. But neither Horace nor Abigail believe the manservant killed his master, and Abigail is determined to get to the truth of the crime before the young man's fianceé can add her own voice to those that call the servant the murderer.

Meanwhile, Abigail must also work to discover the truth behind the letter that Horace translated for the woman, one that spoke of hidden pirate treasure. It's no secret that the Sons of Liberty need gold to fight the forces of the King, and also that anyone would want the money that a pirate treasure represents. But the books that are being stolen seem to connect to the stories of a hidden treasure in a strange way, and Abigail and Horace Thaxter will have to travel into New York State to find the truth of the stories and how the treasure connects to the books and acts of murder. But can Abigail find the truth when so many want her to fail and find the riches for themselves? And what if the treasure isn't gold or jewels at all, but a far more dangerous secret that could lead to many, many more deaths?

I like Abigail Adams as a detective, somewhat because there aren't that many mystery series that are set in this particular time and place, but also because she really was a formidable and intelligent woman who probably would have been excellent at solving mysteries had she actually come across them in real life. She was not only intelligent, but well-educated as few women of her time were, and she arranged that her own daughters were educated as well. If there is such a thing as a "Renaissance woman" in the same way that there are "Renaissance Men", she is definitely one of them.

I also liked the stories in the book and how they all came together. The early colonial period certainly was at the same time as Caribbean piracy, and i like how the stories all tied in together with the chemistry and biology books, and the final revelation as to what this "treasure" was that the original owners of the books were working on. It was something I rarely see used in historical mysteries, and it holds just as much shock as the ending of "The West End Horror" did back when I first read it in the 70's. A superb story!

I highly recommend this book for the way that the historical facts and details have been interwoven with story elements of this book, introducing you to the way things were and the facts of history that you might not have put together on your own before (like the colonial period and pirate treasure being so close together, along with true historical details of the real Abigail Adams. I definitely recommend this series, and this volume.

Across the Great Barrier by Patricia C. Wrede

2011-09-17T23:50:00.002-04:00

Eff is the thirteenth child in a family of fourteen children, and her twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son. Her family moved to Mill City to escape their own relatives, who were busy building Lan up because of his magical status of a seventh son of a seventh son, but at the same time tearing Eff down because she was an unlucky (and malevolent) thirteenth child. In reality, Eff was not malevolent at all, but her relatives treating her as if she were might have made such a thing actually happen.

Life in Mill City gave Eff a lot more confidence in herself, and she learned Aphrikan magic from her teacher at the local school, because her Avrupan magic was going badly wrong for her. But when a magical plague of bugs started attacking the outside settlements across the Great Barrier, Lan and Eff ended up being the ones to overcome that problem with their magic, and it turned out that Eff was the heroine of the hour. This made her a three days wonder, and while she found it refreshing at first to be a hero and not derided for being a thirteenth child, she has gotten tired of it completely. But as her secondary schooling nears its end, her brother, already going to attend an Eastern Magical College, pushes her to go with him and learn to do more of her own magic.

But that isn't what Eff wants to do, and his pushing does have the effect of making her actually think about what she wants to do with her life after her schooling is over. And after thinking it over for a good long while, she decides that she wants to go exploring beyond the Great Barrier, to see what sort of plants and animals live there, as very little is known about them. In the meantime, she wants to continue working at the Menagerie, where animals from the west are kept for study. Her mother objects to Eff wanting to put herself in danger, but at the same time, her parents have supported all their children in what they want to do as adults, meaning that while her mother isn't happy about it, neither does she cut Eff off after learning her daughter's plans.

Sooner than she might have thought possible, Eff learns that, because of the problem of the Bugs and Grubs that caused so many problems for the settlements, the Council which runs the settlements has agreed to send a scientific expedition out beyond the barrier to survey the land and see what has changed after the bugs wreaked their destruction. However, the amount of money given for the expedition means that it will just be one professor, a Scandian woman named Professor Torgeson who worked with Eff at the Menagerie, and Eff herself, along with Wash, the Aphrikan Circuit-Riding magician responsible for the area which they will be studying.

But as they leave the Barrier and some of the oldest outposts behind, they discover that the Rationalists are having a very... unrational response to the crisis with the Bugs that Lan and Eff dealt with. Some of the Rationalists, those who don't want to use magic, think that they should use even less magic in response, and Eff's sister Rennie is angry that even the little magics she once used to help her family aren't being allowed in the settlement any more. But it gets worse. Some of the Rationalists think that they should round up whatever bugs and grubs remain and use them as a weapon against the magic-using settlements around them. Because if the Rationalists use no magic at all, they would be safe from the grubs and mirror bugs.

But Professor Torgeson points out that there are plenty of other animals out there that the rationalists aren't safe from, and that using the bugs in that would could possibly kill the people whose magic is used to sustain the barriers. Rennie's husband is already concerned, caught between his wife's opinions, wanting to keep his children safe, and the outright hatred that his fellow rationalists regard anyone who uses magic with. It has even begun to imperil his family, and it's not safe for Eff, Wash and Professor Torgeson to stay with Rennie and her family in the settlement. Eff is concerned for Rennie and her relatives and writes to her mother to tell her to invite Rennie and the others to come to stay with them, which may make it easier for her to stay safe.

Not just that problem is brewing on the plains, but the loss of the ground cover have hit the prey species hard, and now packs of Sabercats and Columbian Sphynxes have come out of the West in search of food and are imperiling the settlers and settlements where they have never or very rarely seen before. Not only are animals affected, but the whole feel of the land is changed, with all the magic sucked out of the land by the bugs and grubs, it's taking longer for all the plants and animals to return to where they once had been. Eighteen settlements have failed since the attack by the mirrorbugs and grubs, forced out by lack of food, and some others are on very shaky ground.

But out in the furthest settlement of all, Promised Land, where escaped slaves were sent during the War, the three discover some strange rocks when they look into a stream that has suddenly gone dry. These rocks are white, but resemble bits and pieces of animals. And what's even stranger is that they aren't carved, but seem to be actual animals petrified and turned to stone. No animal known could do such a thing, but what caused the animals to be petrified, and if it was an unknown animal, what can be done about it?

Upon their return to civilization, Professor Torgeson sends out pieces of the rock to be examined by experts in biology and geology. But when a magical disaster engulfs her brother Lan, can Eff save him in time to be there when the mystery of the strange animal statues is finally investigated? And can she correct her own wandering magic in time to save herself when the new expedition goes horribly wrong?

I loved Patricia Wrede's "The Thirteenth Child", and this book is the sequel, which I had been long waiting for. Starting this book made all of my memories of Eff and her family come back in a great rush, and I was once again enmeshed in Eff's world of magic and problems in an alternate America. Here we get to see a lot more of the land that is on the other side of the protective barrier, where two of Eff's siblings have chosen to live their lives. And even though Eff once considered Mill City to be little better than the wilderness, now we get to see the true wilderness and how dangerous it can be.

I love how Eff slowly begins to resolve her problem with Avrupan magic. In the first book, it seemed that Aphrikan magic might be her saving, but here we learn it was merely another crutch to keep her from seeing the real source of her problems and dealing with it. Part of which is that, like her brother, Lan, Eff is very magically powerful, and she uses too much power in her spells. Instead of pouring it out with a pitcher, she needs to learn to portion it out with an eyedropper to use her spells correctly. And while she still may have problems with spells in the future, she has gone a long way towards learning to deal with her problems.

I loved returning to Eff's world and seeing what she will be dealing with in the future. Many problems were set up in this book, and I am sure they will be future story threads in forthcoming books. But I love Eff and the characters she interacts with, all of whom are their own people and rarely do anything as expected of them. We also get to see Hijero-Cathayan magic for the first time, and I'd like to see more of that as well. We may end up seeing it through Lan, although he's been burned on that score.

I found this book wonderful, giving us another chance to experience more of Eff and her world, and to once again meet the people that she interacted with in the last book. I love this series, and hope it goes on quite a bit longer, as I am not yet in the least tired of Eff and her world. Highly recommended.

The Secret Sex Lives of Animals by David Lambert and the Diagram Group

2011-09-16T19:23:00.007-04:00

Most people are well acquainted with human breeding and sex lives, but the sex lives and practices of animals are often not only stranger than we can imagine, but so strange that they inspire disbelief. Snails that fence with their penises? Octopi whose penises break off inside the female and fertilize her eggs for fifteen years? Yes. All that and more.

This book collects true stories of animal copulation and fertilization, from female fish that turn male if the male who mates with them dies (wrasse), to animals whose males actually become part of the female after they bite her (angler fish). There are birds with penises longer than they are (Argentine Lake Duck) and those that mate in midair (Chimmney Swifts), and there are deer that even masturbate by rubbng their velvet-covered antlers through the grass (Male red deer) and there are animals that will even attempt to mate with just sbout anything, including swimming humans (Dolphins). While others can die just from the size of the young they produce, like the Kiwi females, who can die trying to pass their own eggs, which are 1/4 the size they are!

Other animals remain stuck together after mating, like pigs and dogs, while other species of animals have the males looking after the children after they are born (Seahorses, Japanese Cardinal fish, Darwin Frogs), while Surinam Toads and Midwife toads are carried around as eggs by their fathers. Other species, like manatees and seals, have sexual dimorphism- their males are much larger than the female of the species. In other species, like certain Octopi and angler fish, it is the female that is larger.

This book cobbles together just some of the amazing facts about the animals of the animal kingdom. No type of animal is overlooked, not even viruses and how they reproduce by taking over the reproduction abilities of the cell and producing so many copies of themselves that the cell literally explodes, freeing the now numerous viruses, which are free to do the same to another cell.

This book is fully illustrated with pictures of the different animals and the facts about them, from snails "penis fencing" to snails copulating on a long string of slime while hanging from a branch. These pictures are never lurid, but also must be seen to be believed.

Bright and colorful, and not very large, this book delights and informs as you read it. With an abundance of amazing facts and stories, this book is just right for when you want to do a little light reading. Recommended.

Rogue Warrior: Domino Theory by Richard Marcinko and Jim DeFelice

2011-09-15T03:48:00.003-04:00

Richard Marcinko and his fellow Red Cell Warriors have been called to India to protect the Commonwealth Games, a sports contest that is like the Olympics for countries who were once part of the British Empire. Now the Muslims in Pakistan seem to be lashing out against India, hoping to disrupt the games, and Red Cell is called in to try and stop whatever mischief the terrorists plan against the games.

Dick Marcinko is working with India's own special forces, who have been working not only on training, but on establishing their own versions of assault helicopters and transports, based on those used by the Americans and the Soviets. But the raid on the Madrassa results in only two captures of agents/students there, but before they can be fully debriefed, or even questioned, the two men escape. Following a bug put on the escaped agents leads them to a very run-down part of India, and a kid who stole the shirt that the bug was placed on from a boat near the water. Marcinko and his men try to find the escaped terrorists, but they have no luck. They are gone.

They do eventually manage to track down the boat, but the men are gone, and no one in the village where the boat was abandoned seems to know anything about the men or what they were doing, or will admit to it, anyway. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Games are about to start, and Trace is undercover in the women's Scottish field hockey team, and Doc is undercover as the team Doctor, and as they work to understand what exactly is going on, and what the terrorists are doing, they find out it is possible that their employers and supposed allies are up to something underhanded, using the Commonwealth Games as a cover, just as the terrorists are doing.

But can Dick Marcinko and his team unravel both plots and bring them to ruination, avoiding being blamed for the theft of Indian Nukes and preventing the death of near-millions at the games, and bring the ones behind both plots to doom? Dick's not alone in this one, and his son will be equally at risk when he tries to do his Dad one better and goes off alone into India to try and winkle out members of the terrorist cell. But, cut off on his own, will he be able to do as well as his Dad, or will he screw the pooch without help? And can everyone make it out of the pressure cooker alive?

I read Richard Marcinko's autobiography of his time in the SEALS, and I was pretty impressed. Yeah, he doesn't like the pussyfooting around that the current armed forces seem to be doing at the present, and he left the SEALS with some bad feelings on both sides, him towards his superiors and theirs towards him. But he's capable of writing a nice, gritty adventure story that seems realistic, even if he does tend towards the satisfying macho fantasy end a great deal (him screwing over Kim Jong Il in one of his books was sheer feel-good fantasy, but it fit in with the tone of the book.

This book takes place in India, a place a lot of writers seem to ignore when it comes to men's adventure (as they used to call it). But India has a large Muslim population, and is right next to Pakistan, where the Taliban is mostly located, so it's in a perfect position to be primed for a terrorist incident. And Marcinko takes advantage of all of this in spades. And while it turns out that not all Indian officials are on the side of the angels, so to speak, he weaves a wonderful tale that brings mental images of India and turns them into very real, living places in the book

I found the story interesting and compelling, and the backgrounds made India and its people come alive. Anyone looking for a good, old-fashioned beatdown on terrorists in book form should look no further than this book. It brings the goods and brings them hard and right. Recommended.

Avengers: Prime by Brian Michael Bendis, Alan Davis and Mark Farmer

2011-09-10T03:16:00.002-04:00

Once, Iron Man, Captain America and Thor were part of the Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes. They considered each other friends and were there for one another. But the Civil War shattered the friendship between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, along with Steve's death and eventual rebirth.. Now, the Avengers are back, in name only, as the shattered friendship between the two causes friction in a team that was once strong and vital to be fractured by the distrust that has arisen between them. Even Thor is not immune to this, as his long absence from the team has caused issues of its own.

But now Odin has been overthrown, and Asgard has been relocated to America, specifically Oklahoma City, and ruined. But even after the Avengers defeated Normal Osborn and gave him some much well-deserved payback, in the aftermath, nothing has changed among the three main Avengers. They spend their time arguing instead of accomplishing anything, and even the other Avengers find themselves stunned by what is happening.

But as the Avengers try to clean up the mess that used to be Asgard on Earth, a portal appears in Heimdall's Observatory, pushing the three squabbling heroes into the Nine Worlds connected by the World Tree, and into the chaos left behind. The Enchantress rules over Midgard, but even she is no match for Hela, the Asgardian God of Death, who has found the Twilight Sword, and with it is looking forward to ruling all nine Realms.

Separated by the portals that brought them to the Nine Realms ruled by Asgard, Tony Stark is deprived of his armor and menaced by a Dragon, while Steve Rogers lands among elves both beautiful and monstrous. Meanwhile, the Enchantress goes after Thor in an attempt to defeat him while Hela stands back until she is forced to confront Thor on her own. But can she rely on her supposed Ally, the Enchantress, and can the three former friends rekindle their friendship and work together to get back to Asgard on Earth and defeat Hela's foul scheme? Or will the Dragon Fafnir and the army of dead, elves and other monstrosities cobbled together by Hela and the Enchantress prove too much for them to overcome in their state of fractured friendship?

This is the miniseries that was Brian Michael Bendis's last work on the Avenger, bookending stories that began with Avengers Disassembled. And in this, he restores the status quo of the book that he took over years ago, rebuilding the friendshipa and trust that underlay the Avengers team. But even though it has that serious goal, the book comes off as good, lighthearted fun, with plenty of color and almost no grit or gray-brown moody "realism".

Wisecracks flow fast and free, most notably from Iron Man, one in which he's naked and when Cap asks where his armor went, he tells Cap that his new armor is just invisible... And later, when he gets his circa-1980's era armor back (with just enough tools to be able to help him be more than a guy in a tin can), he tells Cap that despite all this armor lacks, he still has roller skates... which he can use if they ever come across a paved road... So, it's not serious at all, despite all the fighting and such that they undergo, it's never taken so seriously that you feel that the characters are in any serious danger of failing to overcome their foes. And even Cap seems to view this side trip like Superhero summer camp, where you go to make friends and have adventures and a good time.

The book and miniseries ends with the heroes back in Oklahoma City/Asgard on Earth, ready once more to start cleaning up the carnage as the rest of the Avengers gape at how their attitudes towards each other have suddenly changed. It's not a necessary book to own, but it's fun to read, and you should either read it from your local library or wait until it comes out in paperback. Fun, but like Cotton Candy- kind of vapid in retrospect. Recommended, but not highly. You may want to read before you buy.

Go Fish: How to win Contempt and Influence People by Mr. Fish

2011-09-09T19:28:00.003-04:00

Mr. Fish is a political cartoonist who draws for the online site Truthdig, Harper's and has drawn for the Village Voice, LA Weekly, Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, Huffington Post and Vanity Fair, among others.

Unlike many political cartoonists, though, nobody's sacred cow is safe from being gored by Mr. Fish- from Christianity to the Right, the Left, the Center, and the Center- Left and Center-Right, no one is safe from his scathing satire. In one he mocks those who seek pacifism, in another he shows how War is no better.

His political cartoons are well done and occasionally disturbing, even crude, with one being Jane (from the old "Dick and Jane" books raising her skirt to reveal a very large, hairy penis with the caption "See Jane's Dick". In between cartoons linked together by topic are his writings, which express deeper, more complex views on life and politics. Even some of his cartoons express disgust with, say, the 2007/2008 Presidential campaign, which got so ridiculously vicious he actually got tired of drawing cartoons about it and retaliated by drawing a picture of himself picking his nose to express what he'd rather be doing.

Very many of his cartoons, even while being satire, are funny. Like the one of a young Cupid at the dinner table pierced full of arrows an him looking over the table at his presumed parents (also drawn with wings) with the caption about Cupid thinking his parents suspected he was masturbating. I appreciated the implied joke of Cupid bringing love with his arrows and masturbation being "self-love". Others are funny in a more disturbing way, like a blood-spattered man with a knife standing over a figure stabbed full of holes saying, "Well, he protested at first, but now look at him. Not a word." to two doubtful figures standing by. Or the one of an orangutan about to shoot itself in the head when it found out it was related to humans.

Not everyone may enjoy Mr. Fish's sense of humor, but part of the thing about political humor and satire is that it's not meant to be funny in a ha-ha kind of way, although it can. This sort of searing humor disquiets as much as it amuses, and sometimes, indeed, many times, the disquiet overcomes the straight up ha-ha humor. In that, Mr. Fish is very talented, because I certainly felt that all throughout the book.

I have no sacred oxen to be gored, but I can understand why this book would appeal to, and at the same time, anger and annoy all sides of the political spectrum- it's because he doles out his razor wit and satire on both sides of the aisle, and nobody but nobody is safe. This sort of humor will best appeal to you if you are able to laugh at yourself and your own political party. Otherwise, you may find the book making you angry.

But these cartoons do make you think, no matter which side you are on. That's because Dwayne Booth (Mr. Fish's real name) stands for truth and the sort of journalistic integrity you rarely see any more. Wether a cartoon makes you angry or makes you laugh, they will always make you think, and that's something this country needs a great deal right now. Highly recommended.

Canyons of Night by Jayne Castle

2011-09-03T02:28:00.001-04:00

Rainshadow is a small island off the coast of Harmony, home to a bunch of people who are more independent and rugged than most of the people on Harmony. It is also home to a piece of the Island known as the Preserve- a wild and untamed area of forest that is home to strange psi-forces that confuse almost anyone who enters it. The dangerous reputation of the Preserve makes most people stay far away, as people in the past have gotten lost and died without ever finding their way out of the trees, but for some people, it's only more of a draw, which is why the preserve is surrounded with a stout psi-fence.

Charlotte Enright is a native of Rainshadow who goes out to see the beauty of the preserve for herself. but when three mainlander men decide that they can have her with no price having to be paid, she finds herself in over her head. Luckily, she is saved by Slade Attridge, a hunter talent who works in the preserve and whose talent allows him to make his way through the preserve without being misled or dying. And, in return for her bad experience, he takes her inside the fence and guides her to a place in the preserve to experience it for herself- if only for a short time.

Charlotte, who's had a crush on Slade for just about as long as she's known him, returns the favor by giving him a Black Amber knife from her own possessions. She doesn't tell him how to open it, but lets him find out that secret on his own. She does tune it for him, using her rainbow powers, to work more perfectly with his aura or rainbow. Slade is about to leave the island to work with Harmony's version of the FBI, and as far as he is concerned, he won't be back, ever.

Fifteen years later, Slade returns to the island to become its chief of Police. Despite a long career with the FBPI, he was recently involved in a case that turned very bad for him. He was dosed with a psi-active drug that somehow affected his Hunter-talent. Now, every time he tries to use it, he feels a strange psi-storm at the edge of his talent, and he's gone from a level 9 hunter talent down to a 7. He hates the feeling of losing his power, and is afraid that he will soon lose *all* his psi-talent. Even so, he isn't planning to stay on Rainshadow for long. He's using his new job as a stepping-stone to start an agency of his own, a detective-style agency. But he needs the police job to try and expand his contacts.

Also back on Rainshadow is Charlotte Enright. Once just a helper in her Aunt's Antiquities store, she's made a name for herself on the mainland by selling Psi-active antiquities. But with her aunt's death, she gave up her own store in Frequency to come back to the island, selling some of her stock and taking the rest to her aunt's store. But almost as soon as she comes back, someone breaks into her store, and she gets to meet Slade Attridge again, and she realizes that her crush on him has never really gone away.

She's been unlucky in finding a match, as her talent of rainbow-reading is considered to be not very useful, and because it is such a rare talent, the people at ArcaneMatch haven't found anyone who is a good candidate for her. There was one man who expressed an interest in her, but she was not at all interested when her reading of his rainbow indicated he was probably a psychopath. Now, she can't stop checking out the rainbows of those around her on a regular basis, which often tells her more about the person than she wanted to know- or is good for their relationship.

Being that she and Slade are some of the few unattached people on the island, the rest of the Rainshadowers have a vested interest in trying to create a romance between the two of them. Very few police chiefs stay on the island for long, and they hope that if Slade and Charlotte fall in love, it will make Slade stay rather than leaving in six months time. But as Slade and Charlotte fumble their way towards a relationship with each other, it is complicated by Rex, Slade's dust bunny, who loves to steal things from Charlotte's shop, Devin, a boy growing up under his grandmother's thumb who has a definite penchant for falling into trouble both on his own and with others, and a dead man turning up in Charlotte's shop with links to Hot Antiquities dealers back in Frequency City, not to mention the Preserve itself, which is becoming a truly scary place with Psi that seems to run darker by the day, and Slade's own talent, which he fears is failing him, but which might be becoming something very different indeed! Arcane doesn't like people with two powers, and Charlotte and Slade are both Arcane. Can he discover his new, enhanced power without bringing Arcane down on his head, and can he save Charlotte from the people who want to kill her to get something they are sure she owns out of her shop? And will both of them stay on Rainshadow after Slade's six months are up?

This book is third in the "Looking Glass" trilogy, but really, this book didn't have many links to the other two books in the series. At least, not as many as Quicksilver did. The other two heroines in the series had glass reader powers, and the only real link I could find between Charlotte and the glass readers was her pendant, which was made of glass and allowed her to amplify and channel her powers better. Oh, and the glass curiosities of Mrs. Bridewell also make a reappearance, but for most of the book, we don't know that's the point of what the bad guys are looking for.

Other not so good points were that the romance seems rushed, and there are entirely too many secondary characters vying for space with the main leads. On top of that, one of the major mysteries of the book is left unsolved to set up another trilogy that is coming. It's done so heavy-handedly that its like "Ooh, strange and bad things are happening in the preserve. What could possibly be causing this?- TO BE CONTINUED IN THE NEXT TRILOGY!" It really made me feel a little sick, because it undercut this story by doing it like that. If they'd waited until the end to set it up, it would have come off more naturally and not made this ending seem so brutally abrupt on that score. She could have spent that time setting up the Preserve situation devoting more time and energy to the romance between Slade and Charlotte, which could have done wonders for their story.

I like Slade and Charlotte, but they didn't seem to have the chemistry of some of her other hero and heroine pairs. I never got the feeling that they were all that attracted to each other, and when the sex happens, it's more warm than actually hot. Adding the fact that Charlotte gets panic attacks rather than turned on when her talent goes too hot, and what could have been hot sexy times meant that the two characters had to approach it more slowly- which could have been hot, but instead sometimes feels as though the sex got kicked in the teeth rather then having a slow buildup.

That being said, I still enjoyed most of the secondary characters, and the Rainwild is slowly growing on me, but the whole blatant telegraphing of "SEQUEL GOES HERE!" just made me annoyed. Slade and Charlotte could have become some more of her beloved characters for me, but too much meddling and outright bad choices kind of ruined the book for me. It doesn't feel like the third book in the glasslight trilogy to me- more like the unofficial first in the Rainwilds Quadrology. This one is only slightly recommended, and I'd recommend avoiding this one entirely unless you are a completionist.

Dead Center: Behind the Scenes at the World's Largest Medical Examiner's Office by Shiya Ribowsky and Tom Shachtman

2011-09-02T14:06:00.003-04:00

Shiya Ribowsky, the former director of Special Projects for the New York City Examiner's Office, tells of how he came to work at the Medical Examiner's Office, and how he handled things before, during and after 9/11, until he quit being Director of Special Projects, and his life beyond.

Starting as an Orthodox Jew, Shiya's parents became part of the Frum movement, and Shiya grew up mostly in that world. But early on in his teens, he became more and more interested in hard science and less interested in religion, something that would eventually lead to him leaving the Frum world. But he trained as a Physician's Assistant, something his prior schooling and upbringing hadn't well prepared him for, due to it being more slanted towards religion.

Hut life as a PA was both exciting and stressful, and in the wake of study for a law degree, he found an opening as an MLI-I, a medico-legal investigator, level one. Working as an MLI was an eye-opener. The work was disgusting and often disturbing, but Shiya found himself loving the job and being very, very good at it.

So good, he found himself rising up in the ranks. But shortly before he could ascend to the position of director, 9/11 happened, and the Medical Examiner's Office had to deal with the corpses recovered from the World Trade Center site, and notifying the families, and identifying the pieces of bodies that weren't whole.

But as the days turned into weeks, and into months and years, the work went on, but Shiya found the needs of the job changing, and new procedures that Shiya and others helped develop, were put in place. By the time most of the remains were identified, and those left, likely never would be, the position he'd wanted had been filled by one of his contemporaries for 2 years, and was likely not leaving, and Shiya himself was almost too caught up in the concerns of the 9/11 families he had been helping. But what was left for him to do?

This book examines the life and times of Shiya Ribowksy as he came to work for the Office of the Medical Examiner, and his job and decisions in what happened on 9/11 and in the years afterwards. Some of what happened to him was growth, but in another way, it also locked him into a mindset that would make it impossible for him to continue in his job after the job of dealing with 9/11 was mostly done. Because he identified too much with the victims and the families of the victims, that became his whole focus, and when the job was done, he couldn't return to the job he was doing beforehand, nor could he move up in his chosen profession.

But the true meat of the book is about 9/11, and how the office of the Medical Examiner changed in response to what needed to be done. But it wasn't without resentment. Towards the end of his employment, he heard the sentiment that people hated 9/11, because so much of the medical examiner's office was directed at dealing with that, instead of other crimes that needed attention. And Shiya understood the sentiment, but at the same time, he couldn't change because of how the job and office changed him in the course of his changing them to respond to the crisis. The crisis was the making of his time there, and at the same time, the end of his time there. It lent a sad ending to the book that really wasn't warranted for all he had done.

This book is a fascinating read. Although it's concerned with some of the minutia of dealing with the crisis that 9/11 precipitated on the Medical Examiner's Office and the people who worked therein, it never bores or drags, and remains taut and interesting throughout. Highly recommended, especially to people who enjoy CSI, NCIS and other medical/investigation dramas and shows.

Insanewiches: 101 Ways to Think Outside the Lunchbox by Adrian Fiorino

2011-09-01T22:46:00.003-04:00

Lots of books and blogs have been devoted to the Bento Box, Japanese lunch where the items inside are arranged to look pretty, funny or just downright beautiful. But what about sandwiches? Aren't sandwiches just boring- two hunks of bread with some form of filling inside? Wouldn't it be great if the humble sandwich could be just as interesting, funny or beautiful as the Bento Box?

Well, now it can! Adrian Fiorino, founder of "insanewiches. com" has published a book on how to make your own sandwiches pretty, funny, insane or all of the above, with everything from the red, white and blue bread on the French Toast Flagwich, the hamburger sticking out its tongue on the Pumpkinburger, or the PB, J and CC on a Granola Bar on the PBJCC Granogie. This cookbook offers everything from breakfast chuckles to chocolate laces and covered desert sandwiches, over the top belly busters, light and small nibblewiches (Including one sandwich made of thinly-sliced cucumber with a thicker slice of cherry tomato between, washed down with a thimbleful of club soda- you did say you wanted to eat light, didn't you?) to the amusingly named "Up Shittake Creek" sandwich.

This book is full of sandwiches to amaze the eyes, the stomach, and your friends. Rounding out the book are sandwiches made to look like various people and things to celebrate various holidays (the tie-shaped Dadwich or the Stadium-like Insanewich Field) and a chapter of desertwiches, like the Banana Splitwich, the Beam me up Scotty (With Irish Creme Liqueur poured over the whole thing) or the Lemon Sorbwich, made with Lemon cake and Lemon Sorbet.

For every meal and every possible special occasion, you can find a sandwich that fits the bill, from the KFC inspired Quadruple Down to the chocolate-heavy Chocobaconator. No matter what sort of sandwich or ingredient floats your boat, or what sort of design you find interesting, chances are, you'll find something to fill that need or hunger somewhere in this book. You may even find something that you never realized you would like, or the image alone could make you want to try- that will happen a lot with this book!

And even if you don't like the fillings on the sandwiches, there is still plenty of room to make the sandwiches your own by changing up the ingredients used to make them, or just to use the decorating ideas to make great-looking sandwiches of your own (or even decorations. I actually enjoyed the "Blair Witch" decorations used in one sandwich and the instructions on how to make them, and the same idea and ingredients could be used to make many other things as well. The ideas the book gives you are endless, not just in what to make, but how to branch out into doing other things with the same ideas.

This is a great book, filled with plenty of ideas and stuff to do. It's the kind of book that will end up putting ideas in your head, not just of sandwiches to make, put how to use the ideas and techniques presented in the book to come up with insanewiches of your own,i or just new ideas to decorate your own sandwiches. Stuck in a rut of crusts on/crusts off? Let this book expand your pool of ideas! Highly recommended.

The Moon Maze Game by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes

2011-08-31T23:07:00.002-04:00

Cowles Industries is one of the premiere entertainment venues on the planet, running live-action roleplaying games complete with costumes, holograms and sets that put most Hollywood movies to shame. Partnered with the IFGS, the International Fantasy Gaming Society, they run games that, in addition to being run for the players of the game, are also simulcast to entertainment venues all over the planet. And now, they have pulled off the biggest coup in the history of gaming- their latest game will be played on the Moon itself, in one of the habitats that has been constructed both on and below the surface.

But Cowles industries and the fans and other players of the IFGS are not the only ones looking forward to the Moon Maze game. This time, an actual celebrity, Prince Ali Kikaya of the African nation of Kikaya, is taking part in the game. And two expatriates of Kikaya have received word of his coming, and are making plans to capture him and use his abduction to overthrow Ali's father, once democratically elected to be ruler of his people, only to betray them all by declaring himself King and making Ali his heir.

But Ali isn't going into the game alone- Scotty Griffin, the son of Alex Griffin, former head of Security at Dream Park, will be coming along as Ali's bodyguard. Scotty once lived on the Moon Colony with his wife, Kendra, until a horrible accident nearly killed him and left him with several phobias, including the sight of the stars. His resulting problems broke his marriage apart, but Kendra still lives on the Moon Colony and is the Administrator there. Returning to the Moon is going to make Scotty have to really face his fears, and the emotional turmoil from his broken marriage.

Also going to the Moon for the game is the Game Master, Xavier. He's a weird and eccentric man who is happy that two former friends are among the gamers chosen for the game. Alexandra Chan and Wayne Gibson. But not because he will be happy to see them again- Xavier has always blamed Wayne for reporting his cheating on his thesis, and Alexandra for choosing a relationship with Wayne over one with him. They had once bonded over their love for games, but Xavier is intending to use this game to destroy them both as gamers and to have his cheerful revenge on both of them.

But when a group of professional kidnappers act in the early stage of the game to seize Ali and shut off the dome in which the game is being run to use as his prison until they can transport him back to earth to use him as a pawn in a play against his father, the kidnappers make their first mistake by imprisoning the gamers as well, along with a Moon Colony native hired to play a guide NPC named Darla, someone who helped construct the dome that they have been playing in. Now, the gamers are in a real adventure, one being played for keeps, and it is going to take all their bravery and wits to prevail against the kidnappers.

Defeating game foes and thugs is usually a snap for the gamers-but the kidnappers, known as Neutral Moresnot, aren't running to a script, and their weapons are for real. Can Scotty keep Ali safe, and can Wayne lead the group into triumphing over foes that are more ruthless than any they have faced before? And can they trust Xavier, who wanted the entire group to fail, to work with them and help them succeed in the most ruthless game of their entire lives?

I started reading the Dream Park books back when the first one was released. It was right up my alley, as I was an avid roleplayer of Dungeons and Dragons, and I loved everything about it. That continued with the Barsoom Project, the California Voodoo Game and even the Role-Playing Game version of the Game. I love the world that both authors have built, and how they have skillfully interwoven mysteries into each of the novels.

But while other books have interwoven the game and the mystery, in this book, the mystery itself (the kidnapping and hostage situation) becomes the game that the players must play, and the backdrops for the game become both obstacles that they must work together to pass, and opportunities to turn the tables on their attackers and take them down while making their way to an exit and unttapping it so that allies can enter the dome to help defeat the kidnappers. The related mysteries of who is helping the attackers and working to ferret out the connections that made the entire attack possible are interwoven into the plot and make the cuts away from the gamers equally tense in their own way.

I really enjoyed this book, which grabbed my attention from the start and never let it go. the book's tension made me never want to put it down once I started it, which was hard, since I started reading it at work. I had only intended to read the beginning, but that didn't work out very well for me. I blasted through this book in only about two to three hours and was entertained every step of the way. The narrative kept pulling me along right to the end, and as the book escalated in danger, it kept me on the edge of my seat in every sense of the word.

This is an excellent book that will appeal to those who love all sorts of Roleplaying Games, books set in the universes of RolePlaying Games, people who love videogames and people who just love tense thriller/mysteries and a near-future setting. One of the best books I have read this year, if not the best, handled with a light, deft touch that makes everything even better. Highly recommended.

Ghost Story by Jim Butcher

2011-08-30T07:07:00.001-04:00

Harry Dresden had just gotten his daughter back, and killed all the Red Court vampires who were behind her abduction. But just when it seemed as though his life might be his own again, he was shot and died in front of the boat that was going to be his new home, after his apartment had been torched, But is death the end for Harry?

Harry ends up in the afterlife, ready to move on, but it seems life isn't done with him yet. He winds up in a nearly-deserted, twisted echo of Chicago, and is informed that if he doesn't find out exactly who killed him, three of his friends are fated to die in a nasty and horrible way. And Harry, ready to rest as he is, finds that he still can't bear to leave his friends behind like that, and so he reluctantly agrees to go back and save his friends. But since he's dead, and his body is missing, Harry will have to go back as a Ghost- immaterial, formless and unable to be seen or sensed by any of his friends.

And that isn't the only shock that Harry gets. It seems that while only a short time has passed subjectively for him in the afterlife, six months have gone by on Earth, and Chicago has gone to crap in that time. While his friend Murph is trying to keep the city safe from a pantheon of supernatural menaces, helped by Harry's werewolf friends, and Harry's apprentice, Molly, has been taking on too much and nearly turning herself inside out to become a menace feared by the other Supernatural menaces just so she can protect people. But that's not really Molly's strength, and she is becoming more and more cut-off from her friends, family and former allies because of her obsessive need to try to fulfill Harry's role.

And this is one magical cataclysm that Harry is very much responsible for. Because when he killed the entire Red Court by a family curse that started with their newest full member (his ex-girlfriend, Susan), he also created a power vacuum where they once were, and now the supernatural menaces fighting over their former place in the world is creating turmoil that even the normal humans can sense.

And that's not all that Harry has to worry about. For among the dead spirits that haunt Chicago are those that would just love to get their hands on him and take him down... and in his ghostly form, Harry has no magic to fight with. None at all. But, as he finds, there are compensations for being a ghost. The question is, can Harry repair the situation that he created through his own ignorance without any access to his magic or the friends he usually relies on? What happened to his body, and what will happen to him if he does manage to solve the problem? Will Harry somehow be granted a whole new life, or will he decide to go on to whatever afterlife really awaits him? The outcome is by no means certain, but can ghostly Harry prevail?

I honestly thought that the last book was somehow going to be the end of the series, but when Ghost Story was announced, I was very happy, because I loves me some Harry Dresden. But I have to hand it to Butcher, he pulled off a great story where I wasn't sure there could even be a story. It was amazing to see how much had changed in the relatively short time since Harry had been away, making this story, in effect, something of an "It's a Wonderful Life" for Harry, as he sees how his presence has changed and enriched Chicago.

But never let it be said that the afterlife is dull. Despite being dead and bodiless, Harry finds ways to interact with all his old friends, and even finds a way to kill other evil spirits gunning for him. He also gets some compensatory powers of being able to walk through walls and teleport short distances. But even though the book starts out slow, the ending of the book speeds up to Harry's more usual to deal with speeds, and you can see why the slow beginning made it a much better book in the end. I was also surprised on two fronts: who really killed Harry (and why), and the source of the unnatural cold that is gripping Chicago, even when it should be the end of Spring by the calendar.

This is not a good first book to read for the series, since so many of its characters are introduced in earlier books in the series. It's also not the usual "Hits the ground at Grand Prix speeds and never stops" pacing the books usually enjoy, but I feel there will be a definite change in tone in the series to come, given the ending of this book. It makes me want to read even more now, and I am sure Harry's fans will feel the same. Highly recommended.