Midnight's Daughter by Karen Chance

Dorina Basarab- Dory, is a Dhampir, the daughter of Mircea Basarab, Dracula's brother. Dhampir tend to have very short and very violent lives because of their tendency to spontaneously erupt in deadly rages that are almost like epileptic fits, and are extremely deadly for anyone or anything that happens to be near them at the time when they go off.

Dorina has survived so long only because she channels her inner rage against evil demons and other vampires, allowing her to make a living from the circumstances of her life. But when she realizes that her roommate, Claire, a Null, has been kidnapped, she tears the world apart looking for the people that might have taken her. Dory not only misses her friend, but she also misses the pot that Claire grows her that allows her to mitigate the frequency and effect of her rages.

That is when she is approached by her father, Mircea, who offers to help Dory find Claire using all the resources of the Vampire Senate if she'll do him one little job- find and kill his brother, Dracula, for him. Now, Dory has reasons, and very good reasons, to hate Dracula herself, but even she might be overmatched by a vampire who is not only very powerful, but insane and doesn't care about being insane.

She agrees, but that isn't the only thing. To help her, Mircea assigns the vampire master named Louis-Cesare to be her partner in this mission, and Dory, who has never worked with anyone before, is seriously pissed at having to put up with the vampire, who is a real stick-in-the-mud, at least as far as she is concerned. But in addition to being a true master Vampire, he's physically as powerful or more than Dory, so despite her best efforts, she can't overpower him and push him around. That also pisses her off, but she manages to contain it.

Louis-Cesare is the Vampiric Childe of Mircea and Dracula's eldest brother, Radu. But despite his being the eldest brother in age, he doesn't come anywhere near to being as powerful or feared as the others, due to a streak of cowardice that first manifested when he and Dracula were imprisoned by the Turks as children. Radu became an enthusiastic convert to the Turks, even becoming the lover of their ruler in the region. But he was only doing it to stay alive. Because of his weakness, Dracula, who never gave in to the Turks, despises Radu and wants to kill him... along with Mircea and Dory.

But when Dory suggests using Radu as bait to trap and kill Dracula, Louis-Cesare protests. He is protective of his sire despite being abandoned by Radu for a long time after he was made, because Radu found that he was imprisoned and being killed daily by a dark mage and rescued him from his prison. However, when they are attacked by Fey at Dory's house, Louis-Cesare rescues her, and she wonders why the Fey are after her.

Attempting to stock up on the weapons that will enable her to have a chance against Dracula, Dory soon finds that the market for those have dried up because of the ongoing war between the Vampires and the Dark Mages. Both sides are desperately stockpiling all the magical weapons they can, driving most of the dealers of them out of business. Dory, having had her own weaponsdealer killed by mages, decides to deal with this by leading an assault on Dracula's own stockpile to get his own weapons to use against him.

Other demons and trolls join up with her, because the demon who was dealing weapons to her, Benny, was well-liked by the magical community. Having been kidnapped by Drac when Benny was killed, Dory has agreed to help Drac assassinate Radu and Mircea, but she really intends no such thing. During the assault, Dory falls victim to a magical trap that forces her to relive her worst moments, but she is saved by Benny's troll wife, who is having her worst day right now. Louis-Cesare also falls victim to the trap and when Dory touches him to try and snap him out of it, she gets a glimpse into his life.

Since she has already been experiencing a bit of romantic tension with Louis-Cesare, it helps her to understand him better. And her intrusion onto an auction run by Dracula's men has her almost rescuing Claire, when Dracula himself takes her roommate to make Dory live up to her promise. Out of this, she also gains a Duergar child who seems to bond with her when she rescues it. But when she goes to Radu's house to "draw him out" for Dracula, she meets a Fae named Caedmon, who seems unusually interested in bedding her.

His fae wine leads to another sharing of memories between her and Louis-Cesare, and with Caedmon as well. Perhaps she is unusually sensitive to it? While Caedmon agrees to help Dory against Drac for Claire's sake, and her own, he incites jealousy in Louis-Cesare, which pushes Dory and Louis-Cesare closer together. But when Drac crashes the party at Radu's vineyard home, can Dory, Radu, Caedmon, Louis-Cesare, Claire and her lover Heidar come together to finally end the threat of Dracula and his black mage friends, or will the only effect be to end Dory's life, along with that of Radu, the two people most hated by Dracula?

I have enjoyed Karen Chance's Cassie Palmer stories, which is about the human Clairvoyant beloved by Mircea, and the short story involving Claire that was published in one of the anthologies I read. Dory is a more problematic heroine than either of the other two characters, often seeming to have a deathwish in the way she taunts, teases and is a bitch to the characters around her. Now, usually, this wouldn't be so bad because we can see into her head, but it's hard to develop any sympathy for her at first because she delights in provoking everyone. Even if she is the viewpoint character.

It's only later, when we get glimpses into her past, that we start to feel sympathy for her and see that the hard attitude she affects is a deliberate cover to keep from feeling hurt when people reject her because of her Dhampir problems. Claire was the first person to accept Dory for herself, and because of it, Dory will do anything to help Claire, as she had never realized that kind of love and acceptance from anyone before. Everyone else seems to want something from her.

Louis-Cesare has the same kind of problem, in that he withdraws from affection because of his own abandonment, but he does it to avoid being hurt. He'd like to withdraw from Dory because of the feelings she raises in him, but at times he can't help himself and reacts to her as he would to a woman he cares for, admires and lusts after.

By the end of the novel, though the hunt for Drac has come to a successful conclusion, Louis-Cesare has withdrawn again, but Dory knows why he has done so, and Mircea wants her to work for him on a more regular basis, which will almost certainly bring her to work with Louis-Cesare again, and given that the Cassie Palmer series was a trilogy, it seems that this series might be one, too. If so, I will definitely be looking forward to more.

Batman: The Black Glove by Grant Morrison, J. H. Williams IIIand Tony S. Daniel

This book collects two Batman stories. One involves when Batman and Robin travel to the island home of a reclusive Billionaire who once brought together a team of crimefighters from different countries. But tensions within the group, along with Batman's joining, made the group self-destruct. Now, the same billionaire, named Jonathan Mayhew, has asked Batman and the others to return to his island again, and Batman comes, taking Robin, who has injured his arm, with him.

On the island, they meet John Sheldrake, "England's Knight", formerly known as the Knight, but he tells them that while there is plenty of food, it seems that Mayhew is missing.

The other heroes and their sidekicks- Man-of-Bats and Little Raven (who wants to be called Raven Red), The Legionary, Dark Ranger, Squire, Wingman, El Sombrero, Gaucho, Musketeer and Eagle. But the island is actually a deathtrap, made by a man who has killed Jonathan Mayhew and now seeks to kill the League of Heroes he tried backing. First, he blows up the planes that the heroes used to reach the island, and then he begins killing them off one by one, starting with The Legionary. Calling himself "The Black Glove", he taunts the heroes to catch him before he can kill them all.

But with the entire island booby-trapped against them, can they find the culprit and unmask them before they all die? And could it be that one of the heroes has sided with the Black Glove to kill the others?

In the second story, Batman discovers that someone is masquerading as him, having been turned into ersatz Batmen as a backup plan should something happen to Batman himself. But when the only remaining backup, known as the Third Man, goes crazy and attacks Comissioner Gordon, can Bruce Wayne defeat the man who was trained to become him, and keep his own secret safe?

I liked this book, which had two very different tales of Batman. Both are about hidden secrets, those of the heroes and those of their foes, as well as the secrets of Jonathan Mayhew in the first story, and that of the former Comissioner in the second. The tales are well-told and make you think that Batman and Robin might well be in actual danger from the situations they are in. Heck, in the second story, Batman has a heart attack, which actually does leave him in danger.

The stories are also about masks, and those who wear them, and how their lives are shaped by them, and the damage they do to those who wear them and the other people around them. In the second story, we see that Bruce's girlfriend has realized that he is always wearing a mask and that they can never be close. During the course of the story, she realizes the truth, when she and Bruce are attacked by thugs, and Bruce takes them on to save them both. But will finding out his secret endanger her?

That's a question we can't know the answer to, as that is where the book ends, but as people who know his secret don't have a great track record for staying alive (except for Alfred the Butler and the kids Bruce trains as Robin, and even they are not immune- witness Jason Todd), it doesn't look very good for Jezebel Jet. And with Talia, the daughter of Ra's al Ghul entering the picture... no, it doesn't look good at all.

Justice League of America: The Tornado's Path by Brad Meltzer and Ed Benes

The Red Tornado, an android superhero, has died again, leaving his wife and child behind. But John Smith, the spirit of the Tornado, is tired of his android body and seeks a human one so that he can have a real life with his wife, Kathy Sutton, and their daughter, Traya. Helped by Deadman, John's Spirit inhabits one of the duplicate bodies of Duplicate Man, now dead. His duplicates have a limited lifespan so when the original was killed, the others went on for a time and then keeled over. Now, by fusing his spirit with the human body, John can be human in truth, not just an android.

Or can he? Kathy and Traya accept him as a human, but someone steals his android body shortly after his spirit enters a human body. As Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman decide who to invite to the newly reconstituted Justice League, Arsenal, Black Canary and the New Green Lantern try to track down the Red Tornado's old body. Doing so brings them into conflict with several surprising enemies, including Anthony Ivo and Solomon Grundy.

Meanwhile, other thread bring in Black Lightning and Vixen. Vixen has the tattoo that allows her to call on the power of other animals stolen from her body, while Black Lightning, formerly deep undercover as a supporter of Lex Luthor, has taken to tracking down disappearing meta-criminals as well as those suddenly able to sneak past detectors that are supposed to detect their powers and keep people safe from them.

But the threads come together in a plan to remove the Red Tornado's Immortality and gift it to someone else. With his new human body not resistant to pain or injury, can John Smith stay alive and find a way to retain his new, fully human body? Or will he fail and finally die? Or can he find a way to survive even the death of his human body, and triumph over the foes who want to obliterate him from the world to once again return?

This was an interesting book. While Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman get a lot of book time, a lot of it is dedicated to their discussions over who should be a part of the newly revamped Justice League. Lots of past members make their appearance, from Oliver Queen, the former Green Arrow, to Captain Marvel, most of them are only in pictures as the Big Three discuss them. Not surprisingly, the new team is made up of the Big Three, along with the characters who actively appear in this book. Another nice nod to the past is the new HQ, which harkens back to the HQ that made its appearance in the old 70's cartoons. More than harkens, actually. "Identical" is a better word to use, although I'm not familliar enough with the old comics to know if there ever was an HQ like that in the comic books rather than the cartoon "Challenge of the Superfriends". At least they didn't throw in the "obligatory comic characters" or Zan, Jayna and Gleep, or Marvin, Wendy and Wonder Dog.

It was kind of sad to see how the Supervillains manipulated John Smith, but as the creators point out, this sort of story rarely ends well. It sort of reinforces a "be yourself" dynamic, as most of the grief comes from the fact that Red Tornado tried to be something he wasn't: human. But even so, he fought to the end and showed that even an artificial human can be a hero, and has a soul or spirit. Which rather confused me. An artifical being has a soul? How, exactly? Although it is pointed out as this is what makes him different from other creations like Platinum or Gold, or any of the other Metal Men. But how he came to have one... that isn't really spelled out.

Regardless, it's a well-told story. Don't sweat the strange parts, and you'll enjoy it more.

Reap the Wild Wind by Julie E. Czerneda

Aryl Sarc is of the Yena clan of the Om'ray, a clan that lives in the swamp, on giant Rastis plants on the planet of Cersi. The plants provide the Yena with their food, and what Aryl wants more than anything is to be a harvester, to be allowed to climb the Rastis and harvest their pods when the M'hir blows.

This year, though, she was passed over as a harvester in place of her closest friend, Bern Teerac, and in her zeal to witness and prove her fitness for the harvest, she climbs the rasta on her own, with her brother Costa, one of the fortunate joined who have reached sexual maturity and mated. But when an alien craft appears in the middle of the Harvest, it is disaster for the Yena clan. All of the harvesters are killed, along with her brother, Costa. Aryl manages, through the psychic power that she has, to save Bern from death by shunting him through an otherspace and onto one of the bridges that crisscross the rasta. Of all the others, only she survives.

The death of the harvesters and the loss of the harvest is only the beginning of the Yena clan's troubles, however. The Yena have long had an agreement with the Tikitik, another race that inhabits the planet of Cersi on which they live. With most of their harvest gone, the Yena Om'ray cannot meet their obligation to the Tikitik, which leads to a disastrous confrontation in which they must trade much of their stored food to meet their obligation to the Tikatik. And the questions asked of Aryl by her mother and the other Yena about how she managed to survive the great disaster, and how she saved Bern reveal Aryl to have a mental talent that would cause her to be banished from the Yena tribe if anyone knew, for the Tikatik will not allow any beyond a small range of psychic powers to survive.

However, Aryl manages to retrieve part of the craft that caused the disaster in the first place, and the Tikitik are anxious to have it, allowing the tribe to get a slightly better deal on the food. But they will still slowly starve from a lack of food unless something is done.

The tribe decides to send ten of its young men out to be Chosen, carrying their genes out to the other tribes to interbreed, and the adults must survive on half-rations, while the children are given full rations to survive.

Meanwhile, in the distant Tuana Om'ray tribe, Enris Mendalor, a skilled metalworker, is given part of an alien machine by the third alien race to inhabit Cersi, the Oud. The Oud want Enris to tell him what the machine is, and Enris cautiously agrees. The Oud tend to live underground, but the Tuana also raise food for them as well as for themselves. But the food the Oud live on is useless to the Tuana, and so they also farm food for themselves. Since farming is more efficient than gathering, the Tuana also have time to pursue other skills, such as metalworking, and they trade the with Oud for their broken metal bits to make blades and other things that they need.

The Tuana clan is doing well and has increased in size, leading to some of their clan becoming Choosers and leaving in search of other clans to marry into. But Enris has problems with women. Or actually one woman in particular, Naryn, a young woman who thinks that her great mental power means she should be allowed anything she wants... including Enris. He manages to outwit her by avoiding her for the most part, and works on the strange thing the Oud gave him. But when Enris would be sent from the tribe as a Chooser, the Oud tell the tribe he is not to go. Enris, who didn't feel it necessary for him to leave, is a bit relieved, and with the addition of Yuhen, a former Yena clan member who became Chosen, to the shop as an extra worker, he is able to discover the device's function.

But a mental attack by Naryn in an effort to force Enris to bind with her leads to Enris leaving the tribe, where he is found by an Oud and forced to accompany them back to their home to explain what the devices do, or did.

Meanwhile, Aryl comes to the attention of the Tikitik, and she is told to go spy on the strangers whose machine made such a disaster of the Harvest. What she discovers opens her world up to destruction, for these strangers are from another world, and while one of them may look like an Om'ray, she cannot feel him as she would a true Om'ray, making him seem like a ghost or a monster to her. But when the expedition to ruins sought by the outworld seekers comes to ruin, Aryl has no choice but to lead this human to her village, which may lead to its destruction by the Tikitik. Can Aryl save her people, or even save herself from the enraged Tikitik? And if she is exiled from her tribe for doing so, where will they go?

Enris, too, has a choice to make. Delivered to the Yena tribe just after the attack by the Tikitik, he has no choice but to accompany Aryl on her travels. But can he survive the deadly swamp the Yena call home?

Wow. This book drops you into the story with a minimum of explanation, but even that minimum is enough to allow you to understand what is going on. Three races inhabit Cersi, the human-like Om'ray, the Tech-based Oud and the Biological-manipulating Tikitik. Each race has its place and isn't allowed to change or grow, especially the Om'ray, who are culled to keep their mental powers in safe and allowed channels by the two other races. But despite these cullings, their mental powers continue to grow and expand with every generation. Aryl can not only tell all the members of the tribe without having to see more than a glimpse of them, but she has a greater range of telepathy with her mother and can seemingly teleport others in extremity as well.

If the Tikitik, the aliens who the Yena live most closely with, knew of all her powers, they would not allow her to live, but Aryl and her mother keep the powers secret, knowing of the Tikitik response should the aliens discover her powers. She isn't the only one who has these powers, which seem to be increasing with each generation of the Om'ray. This isn't the only problem that the Om'ray have, of course, and the loss of their harvest nearly cripples them, and reveals how weak and easily broken the bonds between the three races are. But will the failure of the bonds between the Yena and the Tikitik and the Oud fracture the bonds planet-wide?

That is a question the book doesn't completely answer, but we can begin to see it occuring in the later pages. The races who have traveled to Cersi don't know the damage they have wrought with their machines, even though they meant no harm. But will their attempts to help only cause more fracturing? It seems likely.

The best thing about this book was the three societies it presents to us, each complete and strange. Not that the Om'ray have anything like the monolithic societies of the Oud and Tikitik, but it was interesting to read to see how all three intersected. And since this is the expansion of Julie E. Czerneda's Trade Pact universe, showing how the Om'ray of Cersi became the Clan of the Trade Pact Universe, I can only guess it won't end well for the Om'ray. This book was a fascinating look at cultures under stress, and I'm interested in seeing where this book series goes. But even more than the Om'ray, the struggles of Aryl and Enris are what kept me in this book. Their characters are tested by adversity, and as they seek to do what is best, the forces of Orthodoxy around both of them seek to smash them down into conformity. When that isn't possible, they both attain a sort of exile, becoming choosers. But will this save them or damn them? I'll certainly be there to find out.

Tõnoharu by Lars Martinson

Daniel Wells is an American living in Tõnoharu, Japan, working as a teacher's assistant teacing Japanese kids to speak English. But he's unhappy in his job, even when other people around him think he should be happy: he's well paid and has a job that's light on duties and heavy on free time. But balancing that out, he can't speak Japanese very well and doesn't understand much of what he hears, and he's living alone in a foreign country, in a very small town where he is the only American, and practically the only foreigner.

So even though all his friends at home, who are working jobs where they are slaving like dogs for low pay, think he's insane for thinking about quitting and going back to the states, that's just what Daniel is doing. But his time to renew his contract is coming up, and now he has to seriously think about leaving... or staying.

He remembers his time when he first arrived. The man he was replacing, Wendell, claimed that the reasons why he was leaving the job after a single eight-month contract were personal, but a teacher at another nearby school was also leaving after the same sort of term, and Dan feels that the man lied to him. The teacher from the other town, Constance, seems so much more ready and intelligent than Dan will ever be. He kind of likes her, too, but he's too much of a sad sack to let her know that he's interested in her. Dan knows he's pathetic, but can he ever overcome it and let Constance know how much he likes her, or will he continue to get his heart run over with a road grader.

This graphic novel was actually rather depressing to read, but that's a condition of the story, in which a guy who is pretty ignorant about Japan goes there to help teach English and never thinks about how much he's going to miss understanding other people's conversations or not being an alien (foreign born, not the kind from outer space) in a land which is nothing like the one he came from.

Constance, the other teacher's helper, becomes more of a lifeline to Dan than he realizes. So when he is unable to express to her how much he likes her, he is especially defeated, which just makes his feeling of general malaise worse. By the end of the book, he hasn't decided whether or not to renew his job, but since this is only the first book, and he seems to stay in Japan in the second, it becomes rather obvious which he will choose. Or maybe that's still exploring the first eight months of his contract, it's impossible to tell at this point, but asking a question in one volume and taking multiple volumes to get back to that point doesn't seem to be the smartest thing, storywise. So again, who can tell?

Despite my general feeling of dissatisfaction with this book (that merely reflects the feelings of the protagonist, it's not a very long story, so if I see another volume, I am likely to pick it up and read it also. The feelings of Dan come across so very clearly that it's almost like living them yourself. But it brings out the feelings of sympathizing with him, and at the same time wanting to kick his butt and tell him to grow up! Learning to deal with those feelings is part of growing up, but this situation is only a little more extreme than most. This book is brilliant in getting you to mirror what Dan is feeling, but because those feelings are depressing, it's not a comfortable sensation.

Pale Death: a Lee Nez Novel by David and Aimee Thurlo

Lee Nez is a 90-something Navajo who still looks like he's in his mid-20's. He isn't a superman or on some special diet. He's a half vampire, and now he works for the Tribal Police under the name of Leo Hawk. Very few people know his secret, and one of them is Diane Lopez, an FBI agent working out of the office in Shiprock.

The site of a slaughter of three people, one of them an old friend of Diane named Lynette Alderete. All three bodies were run down and then staked. But why would anyone do that? Backtracking on where the three fled from, however, leads to a lab that masquerades as a air-testing facility. The door is boobytrapped to electrocute the first person that jerks it open, and inside... well, inside is very strange. Multiple lights that have the same spectrum as the sun, and can be adjusted to emit different sorts of light, and a cell used to imprison a single prisoner. Could it be that the government had captured a vampire and was doing tests on him, her or it?

It not only could be, but it is. The government somehow found out that vampires exist, or unique individuals with incredible healing abilities and a strange weakness for sunlight (apparently no one in the government wants to use the "V" word and risk ridicule), and they set out to trap one and study it in the hopes of using its healing abilities for science.

Only their subject didn't volunteer to be part of any tests, and the treatment was little better than endless torture committed over and over and over again. Now that the Vampire, Stewart Tanner, has escaped, he's got a grudge the size of China and is going to revenge himself on everyone he see as being part of the government that did those things to him in the first place. Having revenged himself on the employees who were doing the testing on him, now he's going after anyone who works for the government: cops, judges, even the Navajo Tribal Police. As Tanner leaves a trail of death and carnage behind, Lee and Diane must track him down before anyone else can die, for those who have learned the secrets of Vampires could find out Lee's secret, and make him Subject Gamma.

Tanner was tagged as "Subject Beta", which implies there was someone else before him that the government subjected to such treatment. But even as Lee and Diane struggle to take out Tanner, they must find out who was behind the Lab, and neutralize that threat as well. For until the man the Nabajos are calling "Pale Death" is caught, no one can rest easy.

Lee Nez is an interesting Character, partly turned into a vampire, but rescued from needing (but not craving) blood by a Navajo shaman who sung his spirit as far back into balance as he could, Lee can tolerate the sunlight provided he covers his skin with clothes and sunblock, and instead of drinking blood, he eats like a teenager with two hollow legs. But he still has to be careful: any rip in his clothing, or his sunblock wearing off, and he could still go up like a match.

I don't have much experience with Navajos as characters, except in the Tony Hillerman detective novels starring Leaphorn and Chee, but Lee Nez seems to be a less stoic sort of character than the Navajo we meet in those novels. No, he doesn't yell when he gets hurt, but he does have a sense of humor, and seems more "white" in spirit than Navajo. I'm sorry that I can't put in in any better words than that. It's more an indefinable feeling than something I can point to concretely in the story. Perhaps it's that he seems less Navajo because I expect a Navajo character to be thinking of things like sings and cultural festivals. Lee, because of his half-vampire status, is the ultimate outsider, even to his own people.

This book seemed less to me about detective work than about trailing a very bloody spree killer at his work. Yes, detective work does get done, but more of the book seemed to be taken up with firefights, sneak attacks, killings and their aftermath rather than legwork, although a fair bit of that goes on, too. The fights are generally more exciting than the detective stuff, which may have also played a part in my perception.

In the end, I did enjoy this book, but I can't say I was surprised at who the real villain behind the whole thing was. But the book did leave me without a sense of closure, as the real villain, though he may be in the hospital, is not going to be prosecuted. At best, he'll lose his funding. The vampire, Stewart Tanner, is almost certainly dead, but Lee and Diane are checking the site anyway just in case he might have made it out. It's sort of a non-ending ending and doesn't feel very satisfying to the reader, who wants to see some justice done. Tanner, for all his bloody murders and terrifying attacks, does gain a lot of sympathy, despite being a vampire needing blood and apparently not too particular about where it comes from. After all, he would have continued being the owner of a popular late-night restaurant owner and cook if he had never been kidnapped in the first place. So, despite it all, the ending was lacking any kind of real closure.

I enjoyed everything but the ending, so I do plan on picking up any sequels that may be published, but the ending is something of a turn-off, so I'll have to be careful to recommend the series over this particular book.

The Guiness Book of Records 1492- The World 500 Years Ago Edited by Deborah Manley

The Guiness Book of World Records has a long and strange history, originally being published by the famous Guiness Brewing Company as a way to settle bar bets. But in the years since its inception, it has become far more than that, a way to measure human achievement, among other things, in a fairly definitive way.

In 1992, the company chose to look back at the world as it was 500 years ago, doing the same sort of things it does today, measuring human achievement in many areas, from buildings to sports, to war and to man himself, collecting records of the longest, tallest, oldest and most skilled from that time.

Many of the achievements are apocryphal or were unable to be accurately measured, but are fascinating nonetheless, from the "Most deformed looking animal" (the giraffe, at least according to one European Observer, who was only able to describe it by equating parts of its physique to those of other animals, thus calling it "deformed looking" as the animals whose parts he was listing didn't really look like the parts of the giraffe), to the most valuable metal (gold, of course), to the most skilled swordsmen (from Japan, naturally).

By reading this book, you are able to look back into the past and see the heights of human achievement then, and how far we have come, at least in some areas. I, for one, don't think we have come all that far when you see that wars and battles are still going on, and motivated by many of the same conflicts that caused wars back in 1492. All that has really changed are the weapons we use.

In any case, this is a fascinating book that can show students how limited the world was back then. There was no such thing as travel by car or instant messaging. Messages took weeks to arrive, if not months, and travel was long, dangerous and could be deadly. Diseases were likely to kill you and not as easily survivable as the ones we have today. Influenza was deadly, people generally didn't wash (Cleanliness being next to godliness back then meant if you bathed too often, you were guilty of the sin of Pride, of trying to be like God.) And even the food often wasn't very good. If you were poor, meat was something you might get once a year, if you were lucky. Otherwise you ate grains and vegetables. Better for you, yes, but often boiled to a mushy paste, and your teeth would be a horror. All dentists could do was pull them when they got infected. And it was without anesthesia.

That's another thing this book brings out... how lucky most of us are to live now, with generally clean, abundant food, a generally nutritionally balanced diet and modern medicine and anesthesia. Still, it's worth a visit to the past, and this book is a good way to arrange it. Recommended for people who want to know what the other people of 1492 were up to beyond just Columbus and the Kings.

Chalice by Robin McKinley

Marisol was a beekeeper who could hear the Earthlines under the demense of Willowlands, and since the rise of the master, they have been groaning in pain, pushed to the limit by the master's uncaring attitude. So when he and his Chalice, the person who seals the Master's covenants to the land, die in a fire fueled by wine and uncaring, the former Master's brother must return from the Temple of Fire, where he was given over to be a disciple. Unfortunately, the high rank he attained in the temple has made him something other than human, but his strong connection to the land ensures that he will return and try to save the home he once loved of the tragedy of installing a new ruling family.

Marisol, meanwhile, had to deal with her beehives overflowing with honey and the increase in numbers of the large bees that provide her with the best honey in the demense, and two goats who now overflow with milk. These all point to her new role in Willowlands, that of the new Chalice. But powers like hers haven't been seen before. Most Chalices have powers over water or wine. Even milk and blood are not unheard of, but Marisol's power is over honey, and no one is really sure what that means for the future of Willowlands.

When the Heir finally returns to becomes Lord, he accidentally burns Marisol's hand, which she attempts to conceal, having known that a Lord who purposefully hurts his Chalice is to be killed. Though Marisol is afraid of the new lord, she also feels that he is the best chance to save the Willowlands. But as everyone tiptoes around this new, strange, almost inhuman figure, Marisol finds herself growing closer than anyone to him: he heals the burn he accidentally gave her when he arrived, since it will not heal on its own, and being that they are the two newest entrants to the circle which rules the Willowlands, are are in no way used to the powers and responsibilities they hold, they decide to help each other as much as they can to save the land they both love.

But when it seems that the Seneschal and others on the council are ready to sell the new Master to his overlord to have a more human-looking Master, can Marisol find a way to save the Willowlands in one of the parchments she has been reading so desperately? Or will her own inexperience lead to the downfall of the Willowlands and all she holds dear?

This story was amazing. It sucked me right in from the very first page and never let up. It was so good and engrossing that it only took me about an hour or so to read the whole thing. You are so caught up in Marisol's worries, perceptions and point of view that you completely identify with her and the problems that she is facing, from the mundane (overflowing milk from her nanny-goats and overflowing honey from her hives) to the more political (she talks with the overlord-decreed heir to the Willowlands for hours, leading people to think she accepts him, when she was only too polite and unsure of her power to tell him to get lost).

As well as the strictly fantasy story of the transfer of power between the land and the man who is its Master, it is a story of love and tenderness between Marisol and the Master, who goes nameless for most of the story. The interweaving of these two threads left me breathless and the hope that someday, I'll be able to write this well.

This story is a triumph, and I will be recommending it to everyone I know who loves good stories. Once you start, you'll have an impossible time putting it down. Definitely worth the read.

Shades of Dark by Linnea Sinclair

Chasidah Bergman, Chaz to her friends, used to be a decorated officer of the sixth fleet. But her encounter with Gabriel Ross Sullivan opened her eyes to a much darker, wider universe, in which she and the fleet were being manipulated by two men close to the Emperor's Throne.

Now she is a fugitive, having been court-martialed and thrown in jail to die, only to be rescued by Sully, who is not only a monk and a mercenary, but a telepath as well, a Kyi-Ragkiril, feared by most other humans under the epithet "Mind-fucker". But Chaz doesn't fear him. In fact, she is in love with him, and has entered into a Ky'saran link with him, becoming something very much like the other part of him, and he the other part of her.

But he isn't the only Ragkiril on board, as a blind Stolorth, the race who all have mind-powers, and who are the ones who gifted much of the terminology of mind-powers to the humans and the galaxy at large is on board, a blind monk named Ren. Ren has very few powers and is more like an empath than an actual telepath. According to the usual rules of his people, he should have been killed shortly after his blindness became apparent, but was saved to become a harmless monk. Though he isn't able to mind-scan anyone, he serves as a blind for Sully to hide his powers behind, letting people think Ren is the Kyi-Ragkiril rather than himself.

As they travel through space in Sully's ship, seeking to bring down the two men most responaible for the crisis afflicting the Empire, Tage and Hayden Burke (Who happens to be Sully's cousin), they find a problem of their own on board. At least one of Sully's crew has sold them out to the forces who would bring them down, and it is imperative that they find the spy before he or she can cause them any further problems, and on top of that, the two conspirators have cooked up a plan to draw Chaz out of hiding by using her own brother, who she had only recently made her peace with, against her by charging him with treason for helping her.

Things are made worse when her ex-husband, Phillip Guthrie, sends her a message saying that her father has decided to save Thad, her brother, by throwing Chaz to the dogs, and urging him to cooperate with the government forces. But as the situation unfolds, Thad and Burke seize their chance to take power, dissolving the council of Admirals and trying to arrest or imprison any military officer who will not back them as traitors to the Empire.

Meanwhile, Chaz and Sully try to bring down the two conspirator's secret weapon, genetically engineered super soldiers who are little better than killing machines, and who are birthed out of the bodies of female aliens called Takans. Since birthing these creatures, called Jukors, kills the Takans, Tage and Burke have been kidnapping the Takan women, which caused a backlash among the Takan men, who have been killing human women when their own have been found mutilated and dead.

To find the ship that is producing the Jukors, Chaz and Sully will have to accept the aid of another Stolorth, a Kyi-Ragkiril named Del. But Chaz knows that Del will be trouble, and his half-seductive, half-teasing manner around her rubs her in all the wrong ways. But in addition to guiding them to the Lab ship, he is also teaching Sully how to use his Kyi-Ragkiril powers. But can Chaz put up with him long enough to have Sully learn what he needs to know, or will Del's continual stepping over the line cause enough conflict to break the ship apart? And when Sully's secret finally comes out, will the crew that Sully has lied to about his powers, continue to support him as they have before? Or will this be the final break that causes them all to leave? And most importantly, can they find the ship making Jukors and capture it intact with enough evidence to convince people that they were right about Tage and Burke?

Again, since I didn't realize that this book was part of a series, I went in and was immediately dropped into the middle of a story that felt at least partly over, and with a long history. However, it wasn't hard to catch up through the memories of Chaz and Sully, and the voice of the narrator.

Chaz is the main viewpoint character for the book, it's written in first person perspective. We live inside Chaz, whose emotions and feelings we really get to see and experience, and she can sometimes tell what Sully is thinking or feeling through the link that they share.

This book is Science Fiction with a strong element of Romance, at least in the sense that Chaz and Sully are in an exclusive relationship and spend quite a bit of time making love, Unlike some sex scenes, though, having sex tends to energize both of them, a side affect of their mental link and Sully's powers. The tension both inside and outside of the relationship is finely done. Just when things seem to be going great in their personal relationship, outside stuff intrudes, and vice-versa, although the stress in both areas is slowly ramped up the deeper one gets into the novel, right up until the very end.

While the novel ends on a downbeat note, with Sully blinded, either permanently, or temporarily and their link damaged, there is hope that these two will show up again later in the series, as the next book is more about Phillip Guthrie, Chaz's ex-husband, and will also include a strong romantic element (i.e. a romance).

I liked this book. It wasn't one of the best I've ever read, but it was solid and the story held together well. If I recommended it, it would be as part of the series, and I'd say to read the other books before this one, as the heavy slogging to understand what was going on at the beginning of the novel was rather hard work for someone coming into the book as the first part of the series they were reading.

One Silent Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Strykerius, better known as Stryker, is a Daimonite, a race that lives on the blood of others. For thousands of years, he's fought against humanity because of his immortal father, the God Apollo, cursing his offspring to die when they are twenty-seven because they killed one of Apollo's many mortal wives and children.

Even though Stryker had nothing to do with the crime, he was tarred with the same brush as the other Apollites. But through an alliance with Acheron's goddess mother Apollymi, he learned he could save himself by drinking the blood of other humans. And so he has, although it has doomed him to an existence where he can only go out in the darkness, as daylight is fatal to Daimonites.

To protect the humans from the Daimonites, the goddess Artemis created hunters to hunt down and kill the Daimonites. Known as Dark-Hunters, they are led by Acheron, Apollymi's divine son, whom she vowed to destroy the world for and whom she cannot meet lest the earth and all existence die. To kill the humans who she blamed for Acheron's death, she allied herself with Stryker and allowed him to use her divine bolthole to house him and his Daimonites. She also gets someone to talk to and pass the time with that she doesn't have to kill, but that's just another perk. She is unable to kill Stryker, even if she wants to, because she mingled their blood, tying his life to hers. should she die, or Stryker die, the other will die as well.

Now, though, Stryker has come up with his most ambitious plan yet to kill all the humans. He brought War, the incarnation, back to life after millennia imprisoned in Tartarus. His orders to War was to kill Acheron and Nick Gautier, both longtime thorns in his side. War agrees, but immediately runs into Trouble when Ash is saved by his allies and Nick Gautier turns out to be a Malachai demon, the last of his kind, and the only one who can defeat War, because the Malachai were bred for that purpose: to kill powers.

The only thing that can defeat Malachi demons are Sephiroth demons. And there is only one of those left alive also. But to save Acheron, whom she loves with a twisted sort of love, the Goddess Artemis sends out the only woman with a chance of defeating Stryker, and who hates him more than anything else: his ex-wife Zephyra. They were married once, in ancient Greece, when she was the daughter of a poor fisherman, and he was posing as a young nobleman. She loved him with everything in her heart, and then his father, Apollo, made him leave Zephyra and marry a young noblewoman. And he left, which she has never forgiven him for.

Now that Strykerius knows that War will turn on him, and use Zephyra and their daughter Medea against him, he must regain the love of the woman he left before War kills him and sets out to destroy the world. But when War goes after Zephyra and her daughter instead of him, he must do what he thought impossible and ally with Nick Gautier and Acheron to leash War and return him to his prison in Tartarus. But will Stryker be able to leash his rage against the both of them before they can take out War? Or will War's associate Ker, with her ability to use the spirits of the dead, use her abilities and erode the fragile trust between the three before they can do what other deities found impossible, and take War down?

This was an unusual novel for the Dark-Hunters, in that Stryker is their enemy, and therefore probably shouldn't be given a happy ending of his own, with a woman he loves. But that is pretty much what he gets, as Zephyra, despite her protestations of hating him and wanting to kill him, has never really stopped loving him, and as soon as he sucks up to her enough about his being truly sorry for having left her, she jumps back in his bed lickety-split.

Of course, it isn't really that easy, but Stryker is truly sorry for what he did. He only left her to prevent Apollo's goon squad from raping or raping and then killing her. She never knew about the threat Apollo made, and felt upset at what she felt was Stryker lying to her. But when she sees all the items of hers that he kept all through his life, she realizes that he was telling the truth, and forgives him eventually.

Unlike Acheron, though, we never get to see much of Stryker's former life, so we are basically mostly told their backstory and don't get to experience it much. For that reason, I never really felt for Stryker and didn't care whether or not he and Zephyra ever got back together.

It's not a bad book. Don't get me wrong on that score. But it's certainly not as gripping as her earlier book Acheron, nor as emotionally engaging. I honestly felt I couldn't care less about the protagonists, and only cared about them insofar as taking care of War, the loose cannon that Stryker unleashed in the first pages of the book. Sherrilyn Kenyon's best book it's not. In fact, it felt a lot like filler to me. But the glimpses of Acheron and Nick Gautier made the book into something I was glad I'd read. So, buy it not for Stryker, but the other characters.

Dark Curse, A Carpathian Novel by Christine Feehan

Lara Calladine is of the Dragonseeker line of the Carpathian race. But she also carries the blood of mages in her body. When she was young, her mother and father were captured by her grandfather, Xavier, and tortured and drunk from for the old man's amusement. The treatment killed her mother, and drove her father insane. Xavier took over her father's body and used it to perform horrible deeds to both Lara and other people.

The only thing that kept Lara sane through all of this was her two aunts, who had been transformed into Dragons by Xavier's magic and kept imprisoned within the ice. They mind-spoke with Lara, telling her stories of her people, training her to use the magic she was born with and giving her someone to turn to when Xavier or her father, Razvan, beat or brutalized her. When she was eight, though, her aunts finally helped her to flee the caverns of ice, far away from her father and grandfather.

Now, she has returned, trying to find the caverns she fled from as a child. With two male human friends of hers, she finds the cavern, but is attacked by trees that turn into snakes and bite one of her friends, injecting him with tiny parasites that fill his blood. She helps him as much as she can, but they return to town to get more help for her friend, where she meets Nicolas De La Cruz, a Carpathian Hunter who is almost ready to turn vampire. But when he attempts to drink Lara's blood, he realizes that she is his lifemate, and although she reacts very badly to his attack, he becomes determined to help her, and to have her obey his dictates.

Lara can't believe his arrogance, but reluctantly agrees to have him help when he summons Mikhail, the Carpathian Prince. When the situation is beyond his help, they both summon Gregori, the Carpathians' greatest healer. But his silver eyes bring back bad memories to Lara, and she nearly attacks him when she gets a glimpse of his eyes. Nicolas helps subdue her and takes her to a cavern of his people where she can relax while Gregori heals her friend.

But when Nicolas won't let her go, and uses his much-greater strength to make her obey him, Lara has no choice but to stay with him. She then sttempts to take her life back in the only way possible for her: suicide, and nearly succeeds. Nicolas realizes how wrong he has been, and pleads with her to come back to him while feeding her his blood. But in her suicide attempt, her soul has been drawn into her own past, and to bring her back, Nicolas must follow her and suffer along with her younger self to bring her back to her present body.

What he learns in her past enrages him for what she has suffered, and leads him to a greater understanding of the woman he is coming to love deeply. He can ease the scars she carries on her body, but can he win her love when all he has done so far is hurt her even more? Now that he finally realizes why she hates being bitten and fed from so much and why the sight of silver eyes upsets her, Nicolas must help Lara seek resolution from her past, and to save her aunts from Xavier's living death.

But first, Lara must help the Carpathians discover what is causing their women to miscarry and their children to die. And to do that, she needs the help of her aunt, Natalya, another scion of the Dragonseeker line who thinks she holds no power as a mage. But can Lara help Natalya to claim her mage power even as they fight against the Dreadful creations that Xavier unleashed? And later, can the two of them and their lifemates defeat Xavier's traps and creations to rescue Lara's aunts from their frozen hell and learn the truth about her father, Razvan?

This was an interesting entry into the Carpathians series. Lara is part Carpathian, but has strong mage abilities. To survive, she relied less on her Carpathian abilities and more on those from her mage ancestry, to the point at which we are introduced to her in the story, she seems to have almost forgotten about her powers as a Carpathian.

On the contrary, Nicolas is more of the typical "Alpha Male as bastard" type heroine. He thinks he alone knows best and pushes Lara around in a typical Alpha male fashion. It's obvious he won't beat her or mistreat her, but he thinks that he alone should run their relationship and make the decisions. And he does love her, but his arrogance and unwillingness to listen to her made me want to slap him silly. Because he's so much larger and stronger than Lara, and he has some mage powers in the bargain, it seems that he holds all the cards and therefore has all the power.

This realization forces Lara to try and kill herself rather than be made prisoner to his will. When he first expresses remorse and regret for what he did to her and how he treated her, I didn't believe him, even though the shock of realizing the woman you were trying to protect and keep safe would kill herself rather than stay with him had to be immense. No, it was only afterwards, when Nicolas had to experience some small part of the hell that Lara grew up in, and was unable to use his powers to shield her in her memories that I started to forgive him a little.

Realizing that he, with all his powers and arrogance, was unable to save her from her own childhood memories was the kind of humbling experience his character needed to pull his head out of his asshole. And the actions of Lara in saving two female Carpathians from Xavier's extremeophile creations designed to cause them to abort their children gave her a power that all of those powerful male hunter Carpathians lacked.

In short, their power levels were equalized and they began to work together rather than at cross-purposes, which eventually allowed them to meet and love each other as equals, something which is desperately needed in these sorts of stories. It can be hard to read when one person in a relationship has all the power and dominates. It's an unequal relationship That is the opposite of romance instead of its fulfillment. Partners can be strong in different areas, but they must have narly equal strength or there is no partnership, just a borderline abusive relationship.

In the end, I did come to like the book, but the starting part is hard to read, and Nicolas had a hard row to hoe to get me to feel anything positive for him. It is not a book I'll want to read over and over to relive the romance, but I was glad to have read it. I won't recommend this one, but I won't steer people away from it, either.

Stars and Planets by Ian Ridpath and Will Tirion

Ian Ridpath must be the real "Go To" guy for Astronomy, as this is the second book by him about Astronomy that I have read where he is one of the major authors or the author.

This book, however, is much less about the universe and is instead about the title: stars and Planets, with some other sky objects as well. Or, as the cover claims "The Most Complete Guide to the Stars, Planets, Galaxies and the Solar System".

The book starts with stars. The sky is full of them, and to many or most people, the stars seem to create pictures in the sky. For thousands of years, people have named these pictures in the sky, and many of these names are still in use today. Orion, for one, commemorates the story of a Greek Hunter beloved by Artemis who was placed in the sky along with his two hunting dogs: Canis Major and Canis Minor. Those aren't the only objects in the sky associated with Orion. Scorpius, the Scorpion constellation, was the creature who killed Orion, and was, according to the Greeks placed in the sky so that Orion would not have to see it. When it is rising, Orion is setting, and vice versa.

Most of the Northern Constellations were named by the Greeks, from Ursa Major, the great Bear, to Ursa Minor, the Little Bear whose final star is closest to the north Pole. Polaris, the Pole Star. But that hasn't always been the case. Due to the wobble of the earth on its axis, the Pole Star Shifts over thousands of years. Once, it was near Thuban in the constellation Draconis. Someday it will be near Aldebaran.

This precession effect is not limited to the Pole Star. Not only is the Earth moving, but so are the stars in the sky. What we see as fixed constellations are actually many stars moving unrelated to each other. So, eventually, our familliar constellations will no longer be recognizable.

But stars aren't all that is there in the sky. Other objects abound, such as nebulae, galaxies, globular clusters of stars, nova and supernova remnants, and other strange and wonderful sights dot the night sky, if you only know where to look and what to look for. And this book aids in that, showing all the objects in the skies in and near constellations. All 88 constellations are covered, complete with the stars that make up the constellation and all interesting nearby objects. It also includes what sort of viewing device you can see them with, from naked-eye through binoculars to small and large telescopes.

After the listing of the constellations (which is full of amazing pictures and information), the book then leads us to an exploration of our own solar system, starting with our own moon. Each planet is covered in detail, along with its sattellites and this book even is up to date with the downgrading of the double small planet of Pluto and Charon to the class of TNO's or Trans-Neptunian Objects.

And that's just a tiny overview of some of the information you will find in this book. I have just one thing to say about Ian Ridpath: he gives good book. If you have a question about the stars, the constellations or the planets, this book will most likely provide you with the answers. There's even a section on telescopes and how they work, along with the different kind of mounts available for them and how the images look when viewed through the different kinds of telescopes.

Anyone who is interested in the stars or the planets will greatly enjoy this book, and I highly recommend it for anyone going out to do some star-watching or looking for planets in the night sky. It's an invaluable resource for anyone wanting to learn about the sky.

Quofum by Alan Dean Foster

Four Scientists, a military captain, and a technician are sent to the unusual planet of Quofum, a planet that seems to appear and disappear with some regularity. The scientists are there to survey the planet and its many and varied lifeforms while the Captain runs the base and the technician keeps it working.

The scientists soon find Quofum to be an enigma, as Evolution runs so rampant on the planet as to seem ridiculous. Just within easy reach of the camp they have set up are four very different sentient races and innumerable life forms that should not have been able to evolve together.

Unbeknownst to the scientists, the Captain is in debt to a criminal organization and has decided not to repay the debt. In fact, he has told people he was doing this and his words led to some consternation on the part of the criminal organization. His boasts made them look like fools, and they would not put up with that. So they hired an assassin to kill the Captain and make it look like an accident. But to keep up the pretense, the other scientists would have to die. The Tech is actually an assassin slipped into the crew, and he plans to leave the scientists alive on the planet and take the ship they arrived in.

However, they discover the Captain before the tech-cum-assassin can leave. A failed attack on the assassin leads to the death of one of the scientists, and the other three flee. The tech leaves, but finds that Quofum has disappeared again, leaving him stranded in unfamilliar space that is not anywhere in the known universe.

Back on the planet the scientists become depressed, but decide to keep up their researches anyway for the edification of any future expeditions to the planet. As they work hard to catalog the many life forms and sentient species, the two humans and one Thranx eventually stumble onto the makers of Quofum. But will what they find there enable them to escape, or eventually lead to their deaths?

I was predisposed to like Quofum, which is set in Alan Dean Foster's Commonwealth Universe, the same place inhabited by the long-standing character of Flinx, more properly Phillip Lynx, and his pet Alaspian Minidragon, Pip. But despite mentioning Flinx on the dust jacket copy, he never actually appears in the story, nor is his name mentioned. It's possible that a future novel will feature the characters of the scientists in this story meeting with Flinx, but to mention him here as if he will actually appear or even be mentioned somehow is misleading at best and an ouright lie at worst.

Now, I don't know who's at fault for the Dust Jacket snafu: Alan Dean Foster himself or one of the people who works for the publishing company. I realize that ADF is in all probability writing the sequel to Quofum where the three scientists actually meet Flinx and Pip, but that doesn't make it right to write a blurb that makes it seem like he's going to be part of the story you are reading or appear in this book when he's not and he won't. Did I mention I really dislike a book that lies to me about what is going on in the blurb? Well, now you know.

Aside from that, the book is rather interesting, and the descriptions of the Planet Quofum are intense and amazing. On its own, without any mention of Flinx, I probably would have liked this book, although the ending really doesn't resolve anything, and the book feels horribly unfinished because of that. But with the misinformation on the Dust Jacket, I ended up really disliking it. It reads like it needed to be edited within an inch of its life, and wasn't.

My take is give this one a miss. You aren't really missing anything in this novel that a quick recap in the next won't fix. The entire plot of the novel could be summed up in one short paragraph and ends up being a big waste of time.

A Christmas Grace by Anne Perry

Emily Radley, Thomas Pitt's sister-in-law, is called on by Pitt to travel to Connemara, Ireland to visit her aunt, who moved away from the family when she married an Irishman who was Catholic over her brother, Emily and Charlotte's father's objections. She even changed her beliefs for him, from Church of England to Roman Catholic. Now, with her husband long dead and winter setting in, she is alone and dying in Connemara.

Thomas asks Emily to go to Connemara on Charlotte's behalf, as Charlotte is ill with Bronchitis and cannot go. Emily is in mind to refuse, but her husband, the common born MP, persuades her to go, knowing she will always regret it if she doesn't. Finally, she does go, although her spirit shrinks at being apart from her beloved husband and two small children at Christmas time.

Arriving in the small seaside village in Connemara where Susannah lives, Emily is awed by the beauty she sees all around her. But she is aware of a pall that hangs over the village, which is alluded to by Father Tyndale, the village priest. But what could cause such problems in a lovely village filled with warm and welcoming people?

A boat capsized on the water and a lone male survivor provide her with an answer. The young man who survives, David, raises hackles all over town. It seems that David reminds the village of another young man who was also shipwrecked here, someone whose gentle questions raised a great deal of anger and ire, enough for someone to kill him. Father Tyndale is most distressed by the crime, for he knows everyone in town, and he didn't believe anyone capable of murder. So the fact that someone in the village killed him makes him question his own judgement and faith.

And Susanna is troubled by this as well, as her husband appears to have ferreted out the secret of the killer but not told anyone, even her. More than just the tragedy of the murder, secret suspicions have poisoned the villagers against one another as they wonder who the murderer is. And with the only man who knew the secret dead, the truth must be dragged out again to set the people at rest and save the lovely village. But is Emily up to the task of discovering the murderer, and of surviving the peril it might put her in?

Unlike most of the murder mysteries Anne Perry usually writes, this book, like most of the Christmas series, takes place in a small town with a limited number of characters and a mystery that is almost straightforward. The mystery is solved by the main character not with acts of detection and derring-do, but with a knowledge of people and a great deal of talking and asking questions. It's almost a cozy mystery series, like those that Agatha Christie used to write.

Characterization is all in this series, and there is no one better to do it than Anne Perry, who is a past master of characterization, In the words, actions and manner of the characters, you get a great deal of information, from what makes them uncomfortable to some secrets they may be hiding. Understanding those secrets, and the motivations in them that drive people to kill, is what drives the mystery.

This series is the perfect antidote to long, involved mysteries with a cast of hundreds and much to-ing and fro-ing before the mystery is solved. The book has a small number of pages and an equally pared-down list of characters, but the sense of adventure and mystery is just as large as the bigger books. These are calm mysteries, where there will be no violent confrontation or shootout with the police. The only anxiety revolves around how the mystery will be solved, and who will be the murderer.

If you enjoy a short mystery you can read in a day or so, with a wonderful sense of place that will make you seem to be inhabiting the location where the story takes place and characters so real they practically lift themselves off the page, this is definitely a series you'll want to look into, especially if you like the other series that Anne Perry writes, as all of these involve characters other than the main characters from those books. This series is a triumph, and this book will leave you feeling both content and contemplative.

Rogue Warrior: Dictator's Ransom by Richard Marcinko and Jim De Felice

Richard Marcinko is an ex-Navy SEAL turned author, and if we are to believe his books, runs a international security company where he is still used by the US government on various missions against hostile foreign countries, powers and organizations. But as this book is marketed as fiction rather than non-fiction, you do the math.

In the story, Marcinko is approached by Kim Jong Il to come to North Korea to meet him for dinner, as the "Glorious Leader" is a big fan of Richard Marcinko and his Rogue Warrior books. But Richard Marcinko isn't a big fan of Kim Jong Il and he declines forcefully, twice.

When the CIA wants him to take the job, he declines again. He's not interested. But when his friend, a former CIA man who now runs the agency, asks him personally, he reconsiders, especially when he learns that instead of the two nukes North Korea is reputed to have, they actually have six, and that in addition to having dinner with Glorious Leader, the CIA wants Dick Marcinko to find out where Kim Jong Il has stashed the nukes and put a radio beacon on them so that their hiding place can be found and bombed by the military. Marcinko relents and decides to go.

He takes only one other person woman, his second in command, Trace Dahlgren, the woman who usually trains recruits for Red Cell, Marcinko's security company. She goes in hopes of meeting her lover, a flight instructor named Polorski, in Japan after the dinner with Kim Jong Il in North Korea. But the Glorious Leader has other ideas for Mr. Marcinko. In addition to wining and dining him, he wants Marcinko to find one of his many children, in this case, one of his illegitimate sons, Yong Shin Jong. He doesn't say why, but Marcinko has the idea that Yong Shin Jong is currently the favorite to succeed the Glorious Leader when King Jong Il finally kicks the bucket and goes the way of the dodo.

Marcinko is kicked out of the country and given two weeks to find Yong Shin Jong by General Sun, one of Kim Jong Il's people, and told that Yong Shin Jong is in China at last report. Surely the great Rogue Warrior can find him from there? He does, but is followed by one of King Jong Il's people, a woman named Lim Cho who has a history with Yong Shin Jong.

Marcinko eventually tracks down the young Korean man to a house in China where he seems to be imprisoned. As he and Trace make plans to free and rescue him, they bring in operators from Red Cell who are currently in the area to help, including Doc Tremblay and Trace's lover Polorski, who can fly almost everything. But during the rescue, they find out that the Chinese are protecting Yong Shin Jong, not imprisoning him, that Lim Cho wants to kill him, and that Polorski isn't the kind of straight shooter that everyone, including Trace Dahlgren, thought he was, and that he works for the Russian Mafiya. He steals Yong Shin Jong away for the Mafiya and wants to set up a trade with various elements in Korea to trade Yong for a nuke.

Needless to say, nobody wants such a trade to happen, and now Dick must find Polorski and his Russian Mafiya friends and get Yong Shin Jong back before the trade can happen. And he and trace would also like to deliver a "Fuck You Very Much" message to Polarski, and he must deliver on his promise to find the North Korean Nukes for his friend before he can finally head home to Rogue Manor. But knowing Dick Marcinko, it isn't going to be that easy. It never is.

I have enjoyed reading past Rogue Warrior books, and this one was no exception. Dick Marcinko is dirty-minded, with a talent for guns, intrigue and sneakiness. Kim Jong Il thinks he can out-Marcinko Marcinko, only to find it is much, much harder than it looks. We don't learn at the end if Glorious Leader no longer finds Marcinko so much to his liking, but it's very probable.

In addition to the usual canvassing, shooting and scooting, Marcinko must deal with a betrayal among his forces, and a betrayer he must track down before something worse can happen. By the end, though, there is a happy ending. The nukes are found (and eventually destroyed), Polarski is dead, and while Kim Jong Il is alive, the loss of the nukes he'd constructed and held in reserve sends him to the bargaining table in earnest.

But as this story is about fathers and sons, in addition to Kim Jong Il and his own father, and his illegitimate son Yong Shin Jong, Dick Marcinko must come to terms with the fact that one of his new employees may just be his own son. But while Dick is oblivious to the fact that this may be his son for 99% of the novel, his son may not be as ignorant. At one point, the putative son calls Marcinko "Dad", although it may have been meant sarcastically, so in the end, we are left not knowing.

I haven't read a great deal of the so-called "Men's Adventure"-type stories in a long time. I was really into them in the 1980's, when I was into Mack Bolan and the Stony Man spinoff series Able Team and Phoenix Force, along with the S.O.B.'s (Soldiers of Barrabbas), and then later on Blade and the Endworld series by David Robbins. But I still like them. I say so-called "Men's Adventure" because I happen to be female and I like reading them. The Rogue Warrior books are all in that style, and if you read and enjoy these kinds of books, you will too.

.hack//G.U.+ Volume 3 by Tatsuya Hamazaki and Yuzuka Morita

Haseo knows now that defeating Tri-Edge won't bring back the Lost Ones, so he tries to understand the nature of the Legacy Bearers and the Morganna Factor that they carry. It seems that somehow the game itself manufactured them for an unknown reason. They weren't keyed in by any human operator or administrator. But what could the system have meant the Morganna factors to do?

Pi doesn't know, but she intends to bring the system back so the players can log out of the world once more. Restoring the game, however, only puts Pi and Haseo in the teeth of a trap set by the AIDA. Atoli appears, corrupted by the AIDA into a huge, clawed wasp-woman. Haseo doesn't want to fight her, but when she hurts him, he realizes he doesn't have a choice and uses Skeith against her.

As he does, he sees into her life: a girl who was tormented and used by everyone around her. She even tried to commit suicide because of the emptiness inside her. Haseo empathizes with how she feels since he felt the same way towards his friend Shino. He wanted to save her and failed. As he and Atoli talk, she gradually assumes her former appearance, but she is bleeding.

However, Haseo's defeat of the guardian restores the game to the correct server, and Atoli, Pi and Haseo reappear in a town. However, he realizes that even if half a day seemed to pass inside the AIDA server, no time has passed in the real world. So the AIDA can play with the perception of time by players. But is that all it is? Pi doesn't seem to think so.

However, in the meantime, Kuhn has fallen, and his Epitaph has been stolen. His avatar bears the marks of Tri-Edge, but those who witnessed his fall say he was slain by a monster, the likes of which they had never seen before. Soon, however, attacks on Yata and Pi reveal the true face of Tri-Edge, Ovan! But with the person behind the attacks revealed, can Haseo bring himself to fight his old friend and mentor, even if Ovan reveals that he's the one responsible for Shino being a Lost One?

Is Ovan's comatose sister real, or a product of the AIDA which has taken him over, toying with his mind and perceptions? Or is she like Atoli, an AI charged with maintaining the world? Or something else? But can Haseo stop Ovan, or will his interference bring about the end that Ovan seeks?

This book, unlike the second, had at least some fighting in it, even if a great deal of the book was taken up with metaphysical blather. But at least it isn't mostly talking heads this time, so I can deal. Of course, any .hack story is more about god and metaphysics than it is about a MMO-type game, so with every variation we get the talk about how "The World" is run by some weird metaphysic that arose out of the coding of the game's original ideas posited in an unpublished short story by a female writer that the game was based on.

Which of course leads to the idea that the game itself is some kind of God or Prime mover or goddess or deity, with the ability to alter itself. In a way, the conflict between the AIDA and the Morganna factors resonates a bit like a fight between Angels and the Devil's possessed creatures. Think about it. The AIDA lies, misleads and plays with the perceptions, and whispers into the minds of those who have fallen to it. Sounds very like the Western conception of Satan and how he manipulates people, doesn't it?

While it has a lot of interesting ideas, the whole of the manga is overly talky, with talking replacing a lot of action, especially in the second and third parts of the series. The second volume is the worst in this aspect, but the third devotes a good portion of its length to talking as well. While it's nice, it's not really all that entertaining.

The .hack series tends to promote talk over fighting action, and this particular series is no exception, and is probably the worst in this regard in all the .hack manga I have read. If metaphysics and talking heads in the guise of an MMORPG is your thing, you'll enjoy this series. But fans of action and less elevated subjects will have to look elsewhere for an enjoyable manga. This won't do it for you, and you'll feel frustrated by the story, not entertained.

CodeSpell by Kelly McCullough

Ravirn is a Power in the Greek Pantheon who used to be a member of the House of Fates, the offspring of the three Fates: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Ravirn is an unparalelled hacker and has discovered that his father was Raven, a power now dead. Ravirn decided to claim his father's portfolio and became head of house Raven, as well as a lover and girlfriend, Cerise.

But a confrontation with the God Hades blew Ravirn into the stuff of chaos. He should have been killed, but somehow managed to reform his body out of the stuff of Chaos. By doing so, he gained many new powers, including eyes that glow red. This doesn't sit well with Cerise, though, as she is disturbed by Ravirn's growing ties to Chaos.

Ravirn is invited to a godly party by Zeus, who wants him to represent House Raven. At the party, Ravirn is approached by Tisiphone, one of the Furies who is attracted to Ravirn, and Ravirn is attracted right back, but won't do anything and feels guilty because he already has Cerise by his side. He also meets Thalia, his paternal Grandmother and she thoroughly approves of him, which makes him happier about the choices he has made in his life so far.

But far more disturbing is encounter with Ravirn's cousin, Dairn, who shows an uncanny increase in his hacking skills, as strong or stronger now than even those of Ravirn. Soon, though it becomes clear that Dairn, who has always hated Ravirn, is no longer himself. He's been possessed by Nemesis, the original goddess of Revenge and Vengeance. Since Nemesis is literally the opposing force of whatever Ravirn can do, Dairn shows an increase in hacking skills that can outdo Ravirn.

Ravirn manages to escape his cousin, but not for long, and Cerise is approached by Clotho, the head of her house, for help with Fatecore, the computer that controls much of the multiverses. Whereas in the past, the Fates would spin the threads of people's lives, with so many in the multiverse, it has grown beyond the ability of the three goddesses to control on their own, even with the help of their houses and offspring. So fate is now controlled by a huge computer. Once it was controlled by Persephone's spirit, but she, with Ravirn's help, managed to escape, and Shara, Cerise's Computer imp, took her place, along with the Spirit of Necessity, who once controlled the Furies. Cerise wants to free Shara, but doesn't know how. When Clotho asks Cerise to help them stabilize Fatecore, she cannot help but agree, as to have the computer break down would doom the universe.

Ravirn, left on his own, is chased by Nemesis, but eludes her with the help of Eris, the Goddess of Discord, who is disposed to help him because Ravirn is now tied to Chaos like she is. After trying to elude Nemesis for a few weeks, Ravirn realizes that Cerise is using her knowledge of his hacking against him, and his own computer imp Melchior. When he calls her to see if she is returning to him, he realizes that she isn't being used against him, she used her knowledge of his style in full cognizance of what she was doing. They decide to go their separate ways, and Ravirn's heart is broken.

Soon after, Ravirn meets Tisiphone again, and this time they become lovers. She and the other Furies want him to free Shara and Necessity from Fatecore, and it becomes clear that if he can do, he will also be able to drive the spirit of Nemesis out of Dairn and free himself of her hatred and attacks. But can Ravirn rebuild Melchior in time and use his Quantum Computing Power to free Shara and Necessity from where they are imprisoned in Fatecore? And can he undo the damage to Fatecore that is making it slowly fail? Or will Dairn and Nemesis kill him before he can do undo their link? And since repairing Fatecore will make Ravirn temporarily master of the Universe, can he resist the urge to remake it in his own image as he repairs the computer?

This was an interesting and unusual book that mingled modern and perhaps even slightly futuristic computing skills with the ancient Greek Gods. It could have been handled sloppily and create a disconnect between the two, but McCullough makes it work by writing each believably. For instance, to blend in with the new Millennium, the Greek Gods have now become Pantheon, Inc. But Zeus, CEO and President, requires all visitors to Olympus still wear Classic Greek dress. Chitons for women and men, or even just a loincloth, if you're unlucky.

But you don't have to be up on all hacker terminology or even advanced computer technology to understand what is going on in the computer realm, as basic explanations are given by the author through Ravirn, and anyone who's read cyberpunk will easily figure out what is going on. But even if you haven't, you will soon be at home in the story. Ravirn is sarcastic and his voice in the story is part of the attraction of reading it. Even when he's in trouble, he tends to keep his wits about him and drop sarcastic comments, although he does meet a few people in the story who scare him witless.

His two allies, Tisiphone and Eris, however, are a delight to read and when the three of them work together, it's a beautiful, if chaotic, thing to watch. Though most people are attracted to order, this book can make you see how a touch of chaos makes things interesting and lively. But chaos or order, whichever you favor, you'll enjoy reading this book, which is smart, funny and exciting to read. Anyone who is into computers in any capacity will find even more to enjoy and I recommend it. However, it's not the first in the series, which may present a problem in getting into the story for those who haven't read the first two books (which I hadn't). But even if you haven't read them, it's an exciting ride, and one well worth taking.

Dancing with Demons by Peter Tremayne

Sister Fidelma of Cashel is a royal Princess of the Kingdom of Cashel in Ireland. The King is her brother, Colgú, and Fidelma has renounced her part in the succession to become a religuese, sort of like a nun. But she is also trained as a lawyer, and a very high rank of lawyer, known as an Anruth, able to argue before Kings and other high classes.

Fidelma was once a solitary advocate, but she met Brother Eadulf, a Saxon monk, on her first case, and they worked together to solve a crime. They enjoyed working together and worked quite well, and Eadulf began assisting Fidelma in her cases. In time, they grew close, and they ended up marrying, as in the Irish Church, clerics marrying is not seen as a crime or even anything out of the ordinary. Together, they have a son, Alchú.

As the novel opens, Fidelma and Eadulf have been working separate cases in different parts of the Kingdom, and they are both coming home and looking forward to spending time together with their son. But the murder of the High King of Ireland, Sechnussach, demands an investigation, and as the Chief Brehon of Ireland is considered to be too close to the Middle Kingdom of Tara to investigate the murder without bias, he asks Fidelma to take his place, both for her rank, her legal knowledge and her fine mind.

She and Eadulf go to investigate the murder, but as the murderer turned his knife on himself when cornered by the High King's Guards, the investigation is more towards why he was murdered rather than how. The investigation was commanded by Sechnussach's former Tanaist, or second in line to the throne, Cenn Faelad. He will remain Tanaist and not ruler until the investigation is finished, but if there is to be no chaos in the country, the investigation must be completed as quickly as possible... in two weeks at the outside.

Fidelma and Eadulf accept the charge, to discover why the High King was murdered, but encounter lies and cover-ups everywhere they turn. The guards, who claimed to be in the kitchen to check out a noise, were actually there to get a warm drink. The gate guard who let the murderer into the compound, was ordered to do so by the eldest of the High King's daughters, who is mooning over a lover. Could it be the murderer was her lover? But she doesn't seem very upset by his death.

As the investigation lengthens, the mysteries surrounding Sechnussach's death deepen. What was the mysterious heavy disk delivered to Sechnussach in the dead of night, and why did the murderer speak of Crón, or "Blame" before he died?

Fidelma decides to take the investigation north, to the area that the murderer was chief of, to investigate what may have led him to try and murder the High King. But what they find there is dark magic and foul sacrifice of those of Christianity. When Eadulf is captured by those behind the murder and the raiding, can Fidelma unravel the mystery and save her husband's life while bringing the true murderer to justice?

Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma books are always interesting to read, peppered with tidbits of what life was really like in the 7th century in Ireland, and the conflicts, crises and information that makes the stories seem real in a viceral way. Mixing interesting characters, intriguing mysteries and abundant historical tidbits combine to make a story I just can't keep myself away from.

Fidelma can come off as rather cold, but her passions aren't not there, just buried deep beneath her logical surface. Her ability to keep her head in trying circumstances and with difficult witnesses. Also, her high birth and rank as an advoate allows her to give as good as she gets when it comes to those trying to stand on birth or position to give her grief. She is personally brave and stands unflinching in the face of danger, yet she isn't a fighter, needing guards from among her brother's guards to keep her safe from physical harm.

And she does love Eadulf and her son Alchú deeply. Her passions are there, just more deeply buried behind her logical mind than most. And though the plot here is very twisted and being covered up by various people who are not working together. And those who are conspirators are actually working at cross-purposes, which adds to the arcane intricacies of the plot. If you like mysteries, and you like history, this book will be a must-read for you. I can't recommend it more highly.

Valor's Trial by Tanya Huff

When Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr was lifted off Crucible with her team, they had discovered an alien race that is composed of molecule-size components was somewhere out there in space and had the ability to mind-wipe those it came in contact with and even take over their minds. With its discovery, the Confederation hoped to find out more about it, but was unable to discover much.

Now recovered from the wounds she took on Crucible, Torin hooked back up with her old comrades on Ventris Station and was sent out to a new war Zone, where the Older Races were looking to make a beachhead against the Younger Races, like the Confederation, they are fighting. But when a doomsday weapon wielded by the Older Races turns Torin's position and 30 miles of the planet's surface into a shiny glass-like material, everyone in the Confederation is sure she is dead.

Everyone, that is, except the man she loves, and who loves her: salvage Captain Craig Ryder. Unable to accept what everyone else sees as the truth, except for Torin's own father, Craig sets out to find the woman he loves with some old friends along for the ride.

Meanwhile, Torin wakes to find herself in an underground prison where even the will of captured Marines seems to have broken, rendering them little better than animals. And worst of all is the man in charge of the section she landed in the section she landed in, a man whose name is Harnett and who rules this section of the prison more like a dictator than an officer. But even when Torin defeats Harnett and restores military order to the section of the prison that Harnett ruled, can Torin overcome what is sapping everyone's will to find a way out and back to safety?

Or will she be stuck for life on this hellhole, a life that can so quickly become a death? And since everyone knows that the "Others" take no prisoners, can Torin discover who has imprisoned the Confed marines, *and* the members of the old races before they succumb to whatever has sapped the will of the other marines?

It took me a short bit to get into the novel, but once I did, I really enjoyed it. Tanya Huff's writing grabs you by the throat and jerks you into the story and then you are pulled along for the ride without letup.

And it's a great story. Not great for the characters, of course, but it's rough, gritty SF with a strong military flavor. While Torin may only be a Gunnery Sergeant, she is a strong and effective one, but has definitely been having thoughts about leaving the military and settling down with Craig. While circumstances end up so that she isn't able to think about him during the story, the reverse is not also true. Craig Ryder thinks about her a lot, and his search for answers. while not quite as interesting as Torin's escape from Prison Hell Underground, it holds up its own action quite well. It just doesn't seem as interesting as Torin's escape.

This was a very good novel and while it may be the end of the series, it's a fine volume. I honestly though the previous volume, Honor's Trial was better, but this one was almost as good, and you really felt for both characters during their journey. I can't wait to see if there are more, but I feel there will be as this is billed only as the fourth volume and not the final volume in the series. Good stuff.

Ask A Ninja Presents The Ninja Handbook: This Book Looks Forward to Killing You Soon by Douglas Sarine and Kent Nichols

Ask a Ninja, one of the regular question answerers in the pages of the Onion, has put together a book about how to be a Ninja. Of course, there is only one way to become a Ninja: to be born a ninja and spend your life in brutal training. But even for the non-ninja clan born, there is hope! Ask a Ninja tells how the pathetic, sucky loser known as you, can be as close to a real ninja as it is possible to be.

But it certainly isn't easy to pass through the different stages. The first, where everyone not a ninja is, is non-ninja, and where most people reside all their lives. The first step on the way is Nonja, where you begin to train and learn how to kill. Included are a list of Beginning Training Items for Ninja Wanna-bes, such as The Knife Monkey, a rabid rhesus monkey in a lightweight suit adorned with switchblades that you let loose in your home and try to catch without contracting rabies or being killed.

The next step is Ninja-ish. Here, you being to learn a Ninja's sneakier moves, including how to use flattery to disarm your opponent, how to lead your targets wildly astray before killing them, and making up your own catchphrase.

Thirdly, you go on to being Ninja-like. This is where you train your senses so that you can see and experience what is really there, and learn of a special ninja sense, smaste, somewhere between smell and taste and how to live in an eternal everpresent now. Don't look to the future, don't regret the past. Live now. Also, learn to feel actual regret for what you have done by abusing your close friends unmercifully, then write them a heartfelt letter of regret afterwards.

If you survive being Ninja-Like, you pass on to the stage called "Whoooooo!", where you learn how and when to kill and how to do so in silence. You also begin to learn the true arts of invisibility and what Ninjas really do with their time beyond assassinating people- defend the world and the universe from threats that most humans cannot see or percieve. You also begin to meet Ninjas who embody certain Ninja-type traits, like Master of Weaponry, Complete Silence, Surveillance and Complete Hot-cha sexiness. You also learn how and when to use Smoke Bombs.

The Last and Highest Step you can achieve is I.T.A.N. or "Is That A Ninja", said not by the rubes who are only merely human, but said by other Ninja. Actual Ninja, of course. Here, you are able to almost compete with real ninja, and can compete for Ninja Merit Badges (all in black, and which are sewn to your body rather than your uniform). Here is the ultimate test. Will you make it? Or Fail and Die Horribly?

The book ends with lists of Ninja skills and other things for Ninja to practice, including how to sharpen your weapons so that they are laser-sharp, and how to remain alive while doing so. There are also Opininjas, or Opinions by various Ninjas on various subjects, from Pirates to Japan, scattered throughout the book. With plenty of graphics and advice from choosing a clan name to the 10 worst ninja films ever made, this book is packed with all things Ninja. Do *you* have what it takes?

Okay, this book is satire, of course, but unless you read it in very short doses, the whole ninja shtick gets real old real fast. Yes, it's amusing in short doses, but not laugh-out-loud funny, and while the drawings of various foes are great, a lot of this seems padded.

Unless you are a complete Ninja fanatic, buying this book is a waste of time and not much fun in the bargain unless you plan to read it in little bits over a month or more. Too much faster than that, and the jokes get old, flat and stale. Save your money or read it at the library.