Villagers come to burn a witch out of her house for having stolen a baby from one of the villagers. She manages to escape out the back of her house with the baby and casts a spell to save herself...
A girl is running through the forest. She doesn't know why she's running, or who she is. She stops to try and puzzle it out, but a group of hunting dogs surround her and force her to try and climb a tree to escape. But she isn't strong enough to climb the tree and one of the dogs catches her dress, ripping it, then catches her ankle and bites her leg. This is too much for her, and she falls to the ground and passes out.
When she wakes, she's in a house owned by a female peasant named Avis, her husband, Bromley and their granddaughter, Ravyn. Bromley is the owner of the dogs that brought her down, for which his wife is angry with him. They ask the girl who she is, but she doesn't know, which Avis assumes is the fault of the dog attack. Ravyn, meanwhile, takes it into her head that the girl is a princess, especially when she sees her hands, which are soft and uncallused, but the girl is pretty sure she isn't a princess, and hasn't had people bow to her.
The next day, the girl is able to hobble around, and Avis thinks she may have found her family, the same family as that of the baby that was stolen. Six years earlier, another child was stolen from that family. She would be twelve now, the same age as the girl might be. They call the girl Isabelle and decide she is theirs, even if Isabelle isn't so sure.
Isabelle's family consists of Mady, her husband Frayne, and her sister, Honey. While Mady and Frayne welcome her, Honey is the only one who agrees with Isabelle that she isn't related to them. In fact, she accuses Isabelle of being an imposter who is trying to attatch herself to the family to gain the money and property of Isabelle's namesake, an aunt who inherited great wealth.
But with nowhere else to go, Isabelle decides to stay with them for now, until she can remember who she really is. But when Honey seems to be going out of her way to be nasty to Isabelle and doesn't accept her, Isabelle feels a sense of disquiet. And when Honey apparently starts trying to hurt or kill her... Isabelle wonders why. But can she fend off Honey's attacks and figure out who she really is before she's done away with?
Much of this book's power lies in not knowing who Isabelle (whom the book *calls* Isabelle right from the start) really is. Is she the real Isabelle, torn from her loving family by tragedy and then made to forget who she is? Is she Mady's baby, grown up through the use of a spell? Or is she someone else entirely?
While this is a fairly short book (158 pages, making it more of a novella or novellette than a novel), the tension is well kept up throughout. The book also plays with our conception of the word witch and with the popular image of a witch while turning it inside out and upside down for the story.
The true villain in the piece gets her just deserts, but leavened with a helping of justice, while Isabelle finds out who she really is... but only after having been menaced by the story's villain.
Despite my not liking the story calling the main character "Isabelle" from the start, I did enjoy the book. While it's not a very deep story, it is entertaining, and the mystery of who Isabelle really is keeps readers interested until the true villain is revealed, and finally dealt with. All in all, a fine book that isn't a very long or involved read.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Freefall by Laura Anne Gilman
Guinevere, or Wren, Valere is a retriever, considered the best at what she does. She is also a talent, or a mage, able to use electricity or current, to do things that others would consider impossible. Once Wren was a Lonejack, one of the talented who pretty much stayed to themselves and didn't interact much with others. Her partner, a Null, or normal human who was her agent and sought out jobs for her named Sergei Didier, was the only one besides other Lonejacks who knew what she was and what she could do.
She even ran some jobs for the organization that Sergei worked for, known as the Silence. The Silence was formed to protect normal humans from the monsters and magical things that stalked the earth and brought about harm to humans, both knowingly and unwittingly. But in the time since its founding, the mission of the Silence has changed. From protecting humans, to wiping the magical races, known as the Fatae, off the face of the earth forever.
They would also like to wipe out the use of magic, and it is both of these things which made both Wren and Sergei refuse to work with the Silence any longer. Neither Wren nor any of the other Lonejacks could stand by and watch while the magical races were wiped out. Yes, some of them are inimical to humans, but that's no excuse for genocide! So the Lonejacks and some of the Fatae came together to form the Cosa Nostradamus, with the aim of defending their own and the innocent Fatae from the goons of the Silence.
Tensions mounted on both sides, and culminated in a battle on Brooklyn Bridge. It also broke the collective disbelief of the Nulls in the city that made it so they couldn't see the Fatae in their midst. Another consequence was the breakup of Wren and Sergei, who had become lovers. Another factor in their breakup was his being addicted to the current in her body that she released in small doses when they made love. He lost her trust, and it was worse when he appeared to be supporting the Silence during the Battle of the Bridge. She told him she didn't want to see him ever again.
Now Wren is letting P.B., a demon Fatae who looks like a miniature Polar Bear (hence his name) stay with her. Normally, he'd live on the streets, but with the persecution of the Fatae by Silence goons, he isn't safe any more. He's also pushing her to redecorate her apartment, or decorate, since she hasn't actually done anything since she moved into the place. Even though it's dangerous, Wren has been taking jobs, since she isn't the type who can relax and sit still and not do anything.
But this time, she runs into problems. The job is a trap, and a bunch of Silence goons attack her with the intent to kill her. But after they capture her, one of them decides to rape her, having heard that the jolts of current will be the best orgasm he's ever had. But Wren, pushed to the limit, reaches down inside herself for current to punish the men holding her before they can rape her, she goes too far and touches the old magic that Lonejacks had stopped working with because it was simply far too dangerous. It's also overkill, and instead of zapping them unconscious, she incinerates them.
Gagging, she returns home, and pushed by the almost-rape, she decides to deal with the silence once and for all. But she won't do it by fighting them directly, no. She'll hit them where it hurts and help the lonejacks at the same time: she'll do a retrieval job and retrieve the children that the Silence recruited to become their Focussed Agents, or FocA's. All of the children have talent, but with the current feelings of the Silence for the Talented, they aren't likely to be kept alive much longer.
But even as Wren plans her retrieval and counts on the help of other Lonejacks and even Sergei, her former partner, the Silence isn't sitting on their Laurels. They are planning something big... to take out all the Fatae and Lonejacks living and working in New York City, But first the current leader of the Silence, Duncan, means to take out Andre, Sergei's old boss, who doesn't have such a virulent hatred towards Fatae and wants to return the Silence to its old mission of protecting humanity without completely annihilating the Fatae.
Wren, too, is having problems. Ever since she killed the thugs who were going to rape her, she's known something is terribly wrong with her. She no longer feels like herself, and the current inside her that she sees as snakes doesn't look right. But she's deliberately shut her eyes to the knowledge, hoping ignoring it will make it go away. She's been grumpy and irritable, and no longer cares if she hurts those who work for the Silence.
As the Silence shuts down the Electric Grid to deprive the Talented of their current, Wren takes off on her retrieval without notifying anyone, even P.B.. She's going to retrieve the FocA's even if she has to die in the process... as The Silence is attacking and killing Fatae and Talented all over the city. Can Wren and her friends defeat the Silence without losing everything they have been fighting for? And when Wren realizes she has become Wizzed, or gone crazy from the current, how can she fight her way back to normalcy when no other Talent who's been wizzed has ever returned to their normal self?
This book rocked my world. So far, I've loved every single book in the series, and this one is no exception. Here, Wren is done with the kid gloves. They are off, and the Silence only have themselves to blame, as Wren's escalation of force in dealing with them follows their escalation against the Fatae, the other Talents, and her.
But she isn't the only one to realize that the situation with the Silence is reaching a tipping point where people must decide to fish or cut bait. Sergei, P.B., Andre and the other Talents and Fatae in the city must also decide if they are going to stand against the Silence or let themselves be destroyed, even the most innocent and gentle ones. Of course, the Null humans who are somewhat aware of the situation can't stand by the guidelines and do nothing either. Those being attacked are their friends, their neighbors, their co-workers. It's time for everyone to stand together or fall separately, and how the scattered Lonejacks and Fatae finally come together to fight for their lives, freedom and beliefs is heartening to read.
It was also nice to see Wren and Sergei get back together... finally. Wren may be a crackerjack Retriever and a kleptomaniac, but she can also be stunningly stiff-necked and unwilling to apologize. It may be needed information that gets her to contact Sergei again, but once they are finally interacting again, they quickly fall back into their former relationship, both personal and professional, and their interactions are a delight to read, as both are extremely intelligent and good at what they do.
Now that the Silence is (mostly?) dealt with, it will be interesting to see what is next on the plate for Wren and Sergei, and how their world changes with regard to the Fatae and Wren herself, who handled a staggering amount of current and may be too close to a Pure for her fellow Lonejacks. But we'll see. I'll surely be along for the ride!
She even ran some jobs for the organization that Sergei worked for, known as the Silence. The Silence was formed to protect normal humans from the monsters and magical things that stalked the earth and brought about harm to humans, both knowingly and unwittingly. But in the time since its founding, the mission of the Silence has changed. From protecting humans, to wiping the magical races, known as the Fatae, off the face of the earth forever.
They would also like to wipe out the use of magic, and it is both of these things which made both Wren and Sergei refuse to work with the Silence any longer. Neither Wren nor any of the other Lonejacks could stand by and watch while the magical races were wiped out. Yes, some of them are inimical to humans, but that's no excuse for genocide! So the Lonejacks and some of the Fatae came together to form the Cosa Nostradamus, with the aim of defending their own and the innocent Fatae from the goons of the Silence.
Tensions mounted on both sides, and culminated in a battle on Brooklyn Bridge. It also broke the collective disbelief of the Nulls in the city that made it so they couldn't see the Fatae in their midst. Another consequence was the breakup of Wren and Sergei, who had become lovers. Another factor in their breakup was his being addicted to the current in her body that she released in small doses when they made love. He lost her trust, and it was worse when he appeared to be supporting the Silence during the Battle of the Bridge. She told him she didn't want to see him ever again.
Now Wren is letting P.B., a demon Fatae who looks like a miniature Polar Bear (hence his name) stay with her. Normally, he'd live on the streets, but with the persecution of the Fatae by Silence goons, he isn't safe any more. He's also pushing her to redecorate her apartment, or decorate, since she hasn't actually done anything since she moved into the place. Even though it's dangerous, Wren has been taking jobs, since she isn't the type who can relax and sit still and not do anything.
But this time, she runs into problems. The job is a trap, and a bunch of Silence goons attack her with the intent to kill her. But after they capture her, one of them decides to rape her, having heard that the jolts of current will be the best orgasm he's ever had. But Wren, pushed to the limit, reaches down inside herself for current to punish the men holding her before they can rape her, she goes too far and touches the old magic that Lonejacks had stopped working with because it was simply far too dangerous. It's also overkill, and instead of zapping them unconscious, she incinerates them.
Gagging, she returns home, and pushed by the almost-rape, she decides to deal with the silence once and for all. But she won't do it by fighting them directly, no. She'll hit them where it hurts and help the lonejacks at the same time: she'll do a retrieval job and retrieve the children that the Silence recruited to become their Focussed Agents, or FocA's. All of the children have talent, but with the current feelings of the Silence for the Talented, they aren't likely to be kept alive much longer.
But even as Wren plans her retrieval and counts on the help of other Lonejacks and even Sergei, her former partner, the Silence isn't sitting on their Laurels. They are planning something big... to take out all the Fatae and Lonejacks living and working in New York City, But first the current leader of the Silence, Duncan, means to take out Andre, Sergei's old boss, who doesn't have such a virulent hatred towards Fatae and wants to return the Silence to its old mission of protecting humanity without completely annihilating the Fatae.
Wren, too, is having problems. Ever since she killed the thugs who were going to rape her, she's known something is terribly wrong with her. She no longer feels like herself, and the current inside her that she sees as snakes doesn't look right. But she's deliberately shut her eyes to the knowledge, hoping ignoring it will make it go away. She's been grumpy and irritable, and no longer cares if she hurts those who work for the Silence.
As the Silence shuts down the Electric Grid to deprive the Talented of their current, Wren takes off on her retrieval without notifying anyone, even P.B.. She's going to retrieve the FocA's even if she has to die in the process... as The Silence is attacking and killing Fatae and Talented all over the city. Can Wren and her friends defeat the Silence without losing everything they have been fighting for? And when Wren realizes she has become Wizzed, or gone crazy from the current, how can she fight her way back to normalcy when no other Talent who's been wizzed has ever returned to their normal self?
This book rocked my world. So far, I've loved every single book in the series, and this one is no exception. Here, Wren is done with the kid gloves. They are off, and the Silence only have themselves to blame, as Wren's escalation of force in dealing with them follows their escalation against the Fatae, the other Talents, and her.
But she isn't the only one to realize that the situation with the Silence is reaching a tipping point where people must decide to fish or cut bait. Sergei, P.B., Andre and the other Talents and Fatae in the city must also decide if they are going to stand against the Silence or let themselves be destroyed, even the most innocent and gentle ones. Of course, the Null humans who are somewhat aware of the situation can't stand by the guidelines and do nothing either. Those being attacked are their friends, their neighbors, their co-workers. It's time for everyone to stand together or fall separately, and how the scattered Lonejacks and Fatae finally come together to fight for their lives, freedom and beliefs is heartening to read.
It was also nice to see Wren and Sergei get back together... finally. Wren may be a crackerjack Retriever and a kleptomaniac, but she can also be stunningly stiff-necked and unwilling to apologize. It may be needed information that gets her to contact Sergei again, but once they are finally interacting again, they quickly fall back into their former relationship, both personal and professional, and their interactions are a delight to read, as both are extremely intelligent and good at what they do.
Now that the Silence is (mostly?) dealt with, it will be interesting to see what is next on the plate for Wren and Sergei, and how their world changes with regard to the Fatae and Wren herself, who handled a staggering amount of current and may be too close to a Pure for her fellow Lonejacks. But we'll see. I'll surely be along for the ride!
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Mind the Gap by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon
Jasmine Towne, or Jazz, as she likes to be called, lives alone with her mother in a small house in London. For as long as Jazz can remember, she and her mother have lived under care of the men they called "Uncles". But her mother was afraid of them as much as she relied on their money, and she taught Jazz to be just as paranoid as she was.
One day, Jazz comes home from school and realizes that something about her house has changed. Sneaking her way through the attic of her neighbor's semi-detatched house into her own, she finds her mother with her throat cut, and the words "Jazz Hide Forever" written by her mother in her own blood. Through listening to the conversations of the Uncles waiting in the house, and a woman named Josephine Blackwood, she realizes that Josephine killed her mother, and they are looking for her, to kill her, too.
Jazz flees the house, and with limited money and nowhere to go, enters the Underground, the subway system that services London. Travelling through a forgotten doorway in the Underground Line, she stumbles on a gathering of Ghosts from the Great War, still going about their business as if it was still 1944 and the Blitz still going on. Seeking refuge from the ghosts, she stumbles into an air raid shelter, somehow stocked with great quantities of things: food, clothing, drinks, torches (flashlights) and batteries. When she hears someone coming, she hides in a cupboard holding coats and jackets. But an incautious movement gives her away and she meets the young thieves and their master who call themselves "The United Kingdom", and seeks shelter with them after telling them an abbreviated version of her story.
But while they teach her to steal and deceive along with them, Jazz wants something more: revenge. And when Cadge, a member of the United Kingdom whom Jazz was coming to feel something for, is beaten to death by a man she recognizes as one of the "Uncles", the rest of the United Kingdom, including Harry, the old man who leads them, wants revenge on them as well. In burgling the houses of the men connected with the Mayor who sent his men out to crack down on thievery in London and so killed Cadge, she meets Terence, a thief whose father was a wizard, and who has dedicated his life to finding and rebuilding his father's final creation: a machine that will suck all the old magic and ghosts from London, letting it break free of the past and reinvent itself again for the coming future.
Jazz has stolen one of the final pieces needed to reconstruct the machine, and Terence needs her to return it to him so he can accomplish the task his father gave his life for. Terence says he wants to give Jazz a better life, and indeed, he seems to have a much better life than the one she has had in the United Kingdom. But can she trust anything he says?
But even with the piece she holds, the battery to power the machine is missing, and it seems that everyone: Terrence, Harry, and the group of wizards who are known to Jazz as the Uncles, are looking for it. But with everyone lying to her or not telling her the full story, can Jazz discover the whole truth of who her father was and why the Uncles took care of her and her mother for years, and why they just as abruptly killed her mother and withdrew their protection? Or will she fall victim to their plot to keep the magic forever and use it for their own ends? Can she find the truth amid the lies and deceit?
Wow. This novel really was something else! As soon as I started reading, I was grabbed by the story, and barring only a few toilet breaks and a meal, I read it through from start to finish, almost literally unable to put it down. Jazz's voice is so strong and realistic that even when you realize that the story is as much fantasy as reality, it still feels real, and makes you accept the idea of ghosts, magic and fantastic machines that can pull all the old magic out of London and leave it to start anew.
It's not just Jazz that is a strong character in this book. All the characters are strong, with a delicious edge of realism that makes them seem as if they have a true and real life beyond the pages of the book. Every single one of them, which is plenty rare in any kind of writing, especially fantasy. Although this book could be percieved as YA, since Jazz is only a teenager herself and sex is nonexistent, in practice, it reads more like an adult novel.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fantasy or even those who just like to read. Going far beyond the category of fantasy in its excellence and with writing that sucks you in from the first page, this is a book I will be suggesting to anyone with a love of good writing. Check it out.
One day, Jazz comes home from school and realizes that something about her house has changed. Sneaking her way through the attic of her neighbor's semi-detatched house into her own, she finds her mother with her throat cut, and the words "Jazz Hide Forever" written by her mother in her own blood. Through listening to the conversations of the Uncles waiting in the house, and a woman named Josephine Blackwood, she realizes that Josephine killed her mother, and they are looking for her, to kill her, too.
Jazz flees the house, and with limited money and nowhere to go, enters the Underground, the subway system that services London. Travelling through a forgotten doorway in the Underground Line, she stumbles on a gathering of Ghosts from the Great War, still going about their business as if it was still 1944 and the Blitz still going on. Seeking refuge from the ghosts, she stumbles into an air raid shelter, somehow stocked with great quantities of things: food, clothing, drinks, torches (flashlights) and batteries. When she hears someone coming, she hides in a cupboard holding coats and jackets. But an incautious movement gives her away and she meets the young thieves and their master who call themselves "The United Kingdom", and seeks shelter with them after telling them an abbreviated version of her story.
But while they teach her to steal and deceive along with them, Jazz wants something more: revenge. And when Cadge, a member of the United Kingdom whom Jazz was coming to feel something for, is beaten to death by a man she recognizes as one of the "Uncles", the rest of the United Kingdom, including Harry, the old man who leads them, wants revenge on them as well. In burgling the houses of the men connected with the Mayor who sent his men out to crack down on thievery in London and so killed Cadge, she meets Terence, a thief whose father was a wizard, and who has dedicated his life to finding and rebuilding his father's final creation: a machine that will suck all the old magic and ghosts from London, letting it break free of the past and reinvent itself again for the coming future.
Jazz has stolen one of the final pieces needed to reconstruct the machine, and Terence needs her to return it to him so he can accomplish the task his father gave his life for. Terence says he wants to give Jazz a better life, and indeed, he seems to have a much better life than the one she has had in the United Kingdom. But can she trust anything he says?
But even with the piece she holds, the battery to power the machine is missing, and it seems that everyone: Terrence, Harry, and the group of wizards who are known to Jazz as the Uncles, are looking for it. But with everyone lying to her or not telling her the full story, can Jazz discover the whole truth of who her father was and why the Uncles took care of her and her mother for years, and why they just as abruptly killed her mother and withdrew their protection? Or will she fall victim to their plot to keep the magic forever and use it for their own ends? Can she find the truth amid the lies and deceit?
Wow. This novel really was something else! As soon as I started reading, I was grabbed by the story, and barring only a few toilet breaks and a meal, I read it through from start to finish, almost literally unable to put it down. Jazz's voice is so strong and realistic that even when you realize that the story is as much fantasy as reality, it still feels real, and makes you accept the idea of ghosts, magic and fantastic machines that can pull all the old magic out of London and leave it to start anew.
It's not just Jazz that is a strong character in this book. All the characters are strong, with a delicious edge of realism that makes them seem as if they have a true and real life beyond the pages of the book. Every single one of them, which is plenty rare in any kind of writing, especially fantasy. Although this book could be percieved as YA, since Jazz is only a teenager herself and sex is nonexistent, in practice, it reads more like an adult novel.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fantasy or even those who just like to read. Going far beyond the category of fantasy in its excellence and with writing that sucks you in from the first page, this is a book I will be suggesting to anyone with a love of good writing. Check it out.
Frostbite: A Vampire Academy Novel by Richelle Mead
Rose Hathaway, the Dhampir protector of her friend Lissa Dragomir, is still dealing with the complications of taking Lissa on the run to protect her from Victor Dashkov. Victor may be dead, and the daughter he convinced to turn Strigoi dead as well, but her two year absence from the Academy isn't without its price.
And now another one is coming due. She must take her Qualifier, a test which determines if a Dhampir is truly ready to be a guardian. Rose is nervous about the test, but ecstatic about sharing the car with her mentor in being a Guardian, Dmitri. What really freaks her out is when she finds that the man who will be giving her qualifier is Arthur Schoenberg, a legend among Dhampirs and chief Guardian of one of the royal families of the Strigoi, the Badicas.
But when they arrive at the house, they realize something is wrong. The Strigoi have attacked the Badicas and slain not only the Moroi vampires, but all their Guardian Dhampirs as well. Dmitri and Rose notify the other Guardians and the Council of the Moroi and stay to see the site cleaned up, but the images and smells she has seen will continue to haunt Rose for a good while.
News of the attack sends shockwaves through the Moroi, and the Council decide to do something about it. First, they send more accomplished Guardians to the school, including Rose's mother Janine, whom Rose hates because she seems to care more about her job than her daughter. Also, she won't tell Rose anything about her father, except that he is Turkish... or was, because Rose doesn't even know if he is still alive. The two strike sparks off each other wherever they go, until, in a sparring match with her mother, Rose gets punched in the face by Janine, leaving her with a tremendous bruise that won't soon heal.
But her life is lightened by meeting Tasha Ozera, a friendly noble Moroi who just happens to be a friend of Dmitri's. But seeing Dmitri drop his "mentor face" with Tasha makes her wildly jealous, as she wishes that she could have that sort of free and easy relationship with the man she loves. Her jealousy really moves into high gear when she realizes that Tasha wants Dmitri to serve as her Guardian, and wants to bear Dhampir children by him. Despite getting some very nice presents from Christmas from Tasha, Rose starts treating her coldly, unable to bear losing Dmitri. Worse is the fact that she gets stuck in Lissa's head several times when Lissa is with her boyfriend Christian, which makes her even more depressed that she can't share that sort of relationship with Dmitri.
Finally, the council reveal their plans to deal with the Moroi attack: They will bring the Moroi and their children together at a Private Ski Resort, well guarded by humans and Guardians, and allow them to visit there, presumably without interference from the Strigoi. Despite her misery, Rose begins to enjoy herself, and has something of a romance with a fellow Dhampir, Mason. She and Lissa have strange encounters with another Moroi Prince, Adrian Ivashkov, with Rose once meeting him in her dreams. She tries to convince herself it's just a dream, but Adrian appears to have had the same dream, and also remembers it clearly.
But the Ski Resort is not as safe as the Council assumes it was, and another Moroi family, the Zeklos, are murdered in their lodge along with their Guardians, and it throws the Moroi into a panic. They convene a meeting at which some members suggest that there aren't enough Dhampir Guardians to keep all the Moroi safe. They suggest ramping up the training of Guardians, and making those Dhampir who have refused to become Guardians so that they can raise their children be forced into Guardian training so that every Moroi has a better chance of being safe. Some Moroi are against this, because a Dhampir not becoming Guardians until they are 18 was meant to give them a semblance of a normal life before they were forced into a life of service. And how dedicated would a Guardian be if they were forced into a life they didn't choose?
Tanya, Dmitri's friend, rises with an idea of her own. She has been without a Guardian for years, but runs a martial arts school and protects herself. Why not teach the Moroi to fight, so that they aren't completely dependent on the Guardians? The other Moroi object strenuously to this idea, but some of the younger ones like the idea, and begin asking Rose how they can use their inborn Moroi magic to fight the Strigoi. Rose helps them as best she can, but when her friend Mason decides to go with some other Dhampir and take on the Strigoi said to be haunting the tunnels under a mall in Portland, Rose and Lissa's lover Christian go to rescue them from themselves.
Mason and the others are disappointed, having found no Strigoi, but Rose finds grafitti that indicates the Strigoi are closer than anyone thinks. Captured by two Strigoi, Isaiah and Elena, Rose finds she must protect Christian and her former Enemy, Mia, while trying to get them all out of it alive. But how can she when Strigoi are even stronger and more powerful than Dhampir?
This was an excellent follow-up to "Vampire Academy", which I read earlier this year. Rose is slowly catching up on all the training she missed, with Dmitri as her mentor, but new responsibilities crash down on her head. We also get to see that Lissa is not the only Moroi with power over the Element of Spirit, even though they are still very very rare.
In this book, Rose faces off against a number of external enemies: Mia, The Strigoi, and her mother, and manages to triumph over or make peace with them all. The writing is crisp and professional, and the story follows Rose as she makes her choices and never makes you think that she's making the wrong choices, save for once or twice. We get to learn more about Rose's mother, and even find some sympathy for her and the choices she made, which she is trying to save her daughter from.
Secrets and more secrets cover the Strigoi and Moroi, and as this series continues, we get to find and learn more about them, and the role of the Dhampir and the Guardians. I will continue to read this series, as I want to find out more, and I enjoy reading about Rose and Lissa and their friends and classmates. I'll definitely read any other books in this series.
And now another one is coming due. She must take her Qualifier, a test which determines if a Dhampir is truly ready to be a guardian. Rose is nervous about the test, but ecstatic about sharing the car with her mentor in being a Guardian, Dmitri. What really freaks her out is when she finds that the man who will be giving her qualifier is Arthur Schoenberg, a legend among Dhampirs and chief Guardian of one of the royal families of the Strigoi, the Badicas.
But when they arrive at the house, they realize something is wrong. The Strigoi have attacked the Badicas and slain not only the Moroi vampires, but all their Guardian Dhampirs as well. Dmitri and Rose notify the other Guardians and the Council of the Moroi and stay to see the site cleaned up, but the images and smells she has seen will continue to haunt Rose for a good while.
News of the attack sends shockwaves through the Moroi, and the Council decide to do something about it. First, they send more accomplished Guardians to the school, including Rose's mother Janine, whom Rose hates because she seems to care more about her job than her daughter. Also, she won't tell Rose anything about her father, except that he is Turkish... or was, because Rose doesn't even know if he is still alive. The two strike sparks off each other wherever they go, until, in a sparring match with her mother, Rose gets punched in the face by Janine, leaving her with a tremendous bruise that won't soon heal.
But her life is lightened by meeting Tasha Ozera, a friendly noble Moroi who just happens to be a friend of Dmitri's. But seeing Dmitri drop his "mentor face" with Tasha makes her wildly jealous, as she wishes that she could have that sort of free and easy relationship with the man she loves. Her jealousy really moves into high gear when she realizes that Tasha wants Dmitri to serve as her Guardian, and wants to bear Dhampir children by him. Despite getting some very nice presents from Christmas from Tasha, Rose starts treating her coldly, unable to bear losing Dmitri. Worse is the fact that she gets stuck in Lissa's head several times when Lissa is with her boyfriend Christian, which makes her even more depressed that she can't share that sort of relationship with Dmitri.
Finally, the council reveal their plans to deal with the Moroi attack: They will bring the Moroi and their children together at a Private Ski Resort, well guarded by humans and Guardians, and allow them to visit there, presumably without interference from the Strigoi. Despite her misery, Rose begins to enjoy herself, and has something of a romance with a fellow Dhampir, Mason. She and Lissa have strange encounters with another Moroi Prince, Adrian Ivashkov, with Rose once meeting him in her dreams. She tries to convince herself it's just a dream, but Adrian appears to have had the same dream, and also remembers it clearly.
But the Ski Resort is not as safe as the Council assumes it was, and another Moroi family, the Zeklos, are murdered in their lodge along with their Guardians, and it throws the Moroi into a panic. They convene a meeting at which some members suggest that there aren't enough Dhampir Guardians to keep all the Moroi safe. They suggest ramping up the training of Guardians, and making those Dhampir who have refused to become Guardians so that they can raise their children be forced into Guardian training so that every Moroi has a better chance of being safe. Some Moroi are against this, because a Dhampir not becoming Guardians until they are 18 was meant to give them a semblance of a normal life before they were forced into a life of service. And how dedicated would a Guardian be if they were forced into a life they didn't choose?
Tanya, Dmitri's friend, rises with an idea of her own. She has been without a Guardian for years, but runs a martial arts school and protects herself. Why not teach the Moroi to fight, so that they aren't completely dependent on the Guardians? The other Moroi object strenuously to this idea, but some of the younger ones like the idea, and begin asking Rose how they can use their inborn Moroi magic to fight the Strigoi. Rose helps them as best she can, but when her friend Mason decides to go with some other Dhampir and take on the Strigoi said to be haunting the tunnels under a mall in Portland, Rose and Lissa's lover Christian go to rescue them from themselves.
Mason and the others are disappointed, having found no Strigoi, but Rose finds grafitti that indicates the Strigoi are closer than anyone thinks. Captured by two Strigoi, Isaiah and Elena, Rose finds she must protect Christian and her former Enemy, Mia, while trying to get them all out of it alive. But how can she when Strigoi are even stronger and more powerful than Dhampir?
This was an excellent follow-up to "Vampire Academy", which I read earlier this year. Rose is slowly catching up on all the training she missed, with Dmitri as her mentor, but new responsibilities crash down on her head. We also get to see that Lissa is not the only Moroi with power over the Element of Spirit, even though they are still very very rare.
In this book, Rose faces off against a number of external enemies: Mia, The Strigoi, and her mother, and manages to triumph over or make peace with them all. The writing is crisp and professional, and the story follows Rose as she makes her choices and never makes you think that she's making the wrong choices, save for once or twice. We get to learn more about Rose's mother, and even find some sympathy for her and the choices she made, which she is trying to save her daughter from.
Secrets and more secrets cover the Strigoi and Moroi, and as this series continues, we get to find and learn more about them, and the role of the Dhampir and the Guardians. I will continue to read this series, as I want to find out more, and I enjoy reading about Rose and Lissa and their friends and classmates. I'll definitely read any other books in this series.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
The Knights of Myth Drannor: Book Three- The Sword Never Sleeps by Ed Greenwood
After their recent heroism and debacle in Cormyr, The Knights are being hurried out of the Kingdom by the Royal Wizard, Vangerdahast. Partly out of pragmatism- he fears that the Knights will become beloved of King Azoun and hang around to cause more chaos that he will have to right, and partly out of nepotism- he wants no one around who is more beloved of the royals than he.
The Knights do not go without compensation, however. One of their own, Doust Sulwood, Priest of Tymora, has been gifted with the Pendant of Ashaba and will become Lord of Shadowdale. However, getting there is going to be a task in and of itself. With Vangerdahast's warning to get them gone from Cormyr still ringing in their ears, the Knights attempt to carry out his wishes, only to find themselves harried in battle practically every step of the way.
Old enemies, new enemies, and forces within the War Wizards themselves keep throwing the Knights into Peril, from the disembodies undead ghosts known as Old Ghost and his former companion Horandoun, to Manshoon, head of the Zhentilar to a group of crazy undead creatures known as Liches, imprisoned in an inescapable hole for the good of the Realm of Cormyr, the Knights struggle to keep themselves alive as they fight the many organizations, families and people that imperil them and their mission to Shadowdale. But with only one wizard in their party, Jhessail Silvertree, how can they even begin to fight against the wizardly might arrayed against them? Can even Vangerdahast save them when he is embroiled in the troubles with the War Wizards, and the Obarkyrs, the royal family? Will he be able to deal with Princess Alusair Nacacia and her desire for independence, autonomy and adventure?
This was an interesting, if somewhat repetitive book to read. It reads like this: the Knights travel and are attacked. They manage to overcome their attackers, but barely, and then wind up in worse straits, which they try to escape by travelling on. Lather, rinse, repeat until the end of the book, when they manage to be teleported near Shadowdale. And you know, I enjoyed the book, but the ending made me ask, "Couldn't this just have been done earlier and saved all the trouble they encountered over the course of the book?"
And the answer is... of course it could have! But then they wouldn't have been as experienced or strong in battle as they are at the end of the book. It also enables them to turn a few people who considered them as foes at the beginning of the book, to be friends by the end.
Of course, other things go on as well. Many War Wizards are slain, either by foes or machinations of their fellow wizards, during the book, and many Zhentarim are slain as well by the actions of Horaundoun and Old Ghost, in the form of the Sword that Never Sleeps, a sword constructed and enspelled by the Zhents with many spells of slaying and flight and sharpness. But the title also refers to the swords of Heroes, which never sleep when Evil is about.
So, a good book, if a repetitive one, and one that leaves you with the feeling of "Was this book really necessary?" at the end. Despite that, I want to read more, and will eagerly look forward to the next book.
The Knights do not go without compensation, however. One of their own, Doust Sulwood, Priest of Tymora, has been gifted with the Pendant of Ashaba and will become Lord of Shadowdale. However, getting there is going to be a task in and of itself. With Vangerdahast's warning to get them gone from Cormyr still ringing in their ears, the Knights attempt to carry out his wishes, only to find themselves harried in battle practically every step of the way.
Old enemies, new enemies, and forces within the War Wizards themselves keep throwing the Knights into Peril, from the disembodies undead ghosts known as Old Ghost and his former companion Horandoun, to Manshoon, head of the Zhentilar to a group of crazy undead creatures known as Liches, imprisoned in an inescapable hole for the good of the Realm of Cormyr, the Knights struggle to keep themselves alive as they fight the many organizations, families and people that imperil them and their mission to Shadowdale. But with only one wizard in their party, Jhessail Silvertree, how can they even begin to fight against the wizardly might arrayed against them? Can even Vangerdahast save them when he is embroiled in the troubles with the War Wizards, and the Obarkyrs, the royal family? Will he be able to deal with Princess Alusair Nacacia and her desire for independence, autonomy and adventure?
This was an interesting, if somewhat repetitive book to read. It reads like this: the Knights travel and are attacked. They manage to overcome their attackers, but barely, and then wind up in worse straits, which they try to escape by travelling on. Lather, rinse, repeat until the end of the book, when they manage to be teleported near Shadowdale. And you know, I enjoyed the book, but the ending made me ask, "Couldn't this just have been done earlier and saved all the trouble they encountered over the course of the book?"
And the answer is... of course it could have! But then they wouldn't have been as experienced or strong in battle as they are at the end of the book. It also enables them to turn a few people who considered them as foes at the beginning of the book, to be friends by the end.
Of course, other things go on as well. Many War Wizards are slain, either by foes or machinations of their fellow wizards, during the book, and many Zhentarim are slain as well by the actions of Horaundoun and Old Ghost, in the form of the Sword that Never Sleeps, a sword constructed and enspelled by the Zhents with many spells of slaying and flight and sharpness. But the title also refers to the swords of Heroes, which never sleep when Evil is about.
So, a good book, if a repetitive one, and one that leaves you with the feeling of "Was this book really necessary?" at the end. Despite that, I want to read more, and will eagerly look forward to the next book.
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Dark Ferryman by Jenna Rhodes
The Vaelinar are elf-like creatures come to Kerith from another world. Kerith had seen its fair share of conflict before their coming, with the God-born Magi warring against each other and being killed and removed from the world by the Gods themselves, who then withdrew from contact with the human-like Dwellers, partly out of anger, and partly out of shame.
Then the Vaelinar came and endured a hundred years of fighting within their clans before finally signing agreements that put them at peace. When the Bolger, another native people, attacked the Dwellers, the Vaelinars came to their defense, and defeated the Bolger, driving them back, but then had to retreat themselves, hard hit by the conflict. After a series of other wars and conflicts, the Vaelinar finally began to make a comeback, but war has come to them again as the items they forged with magic are beginning to fail and whispers of the return of the gods abound.
Rivergrace, an orphan Vaelinar raised by Dwellers, has finally found a place within the Vaelinar ranks, along with her dweller sister, Nutmeg. Rivergrace has also found love with Sevryn, a Vaelinar who was able to bear the demon-infused blade Cerat. The blade is gone and broken, but the man fears that part of the demon remains within him.
The blade also concerns Quendius, a conqueror who once bore the blade. He is deprived of it now, but he saved the shards that remain and will forget them into a new weapon, arrowheads, so that the demon within will drink the blood and soul of whomever they hit. When he is successful in this, he goes to kill Lara, leader of the Vaelinars, their last princess and now Queen, to show off his terrible power and eliminate the Vaelinars from Kerith.
Lara has problems of her own, not only Quendius, but the encroachment of the Bolger tribes under their leader, Abayan Diort. And now it seems that another foe long thought conquered, Lizard-like beings called the Raymy from across the sea, have landed in lands belonging to the Dwellers and the Vaelinars to try and conquer them again. Lara also doesn't trust Rivergrace, seeing as she now has owers over fire as well as water, and resolves to either marry her off to Abayan Diort for peace with the Bolgers or to use her in some other way.
Meanwhile, Rivergrace's sister, Nutmeg, has become the lover and nurse to Lara's brother, Jeredon, who has been nearly crippled. Jeredon loves Nutmeg, but knows he will never be allowed to marry, and barring war, will outlive her. When members of the Vaelinar clan known as the ild Falyn come to join the war, their head shows she can move Jeredon's limbs with the power of her mind, and becomes his lover.
Rivergrace and Nutmeg alone and fearing they will never be allowed to be with the men they love, head for the library on their own, trailed by Quendius' henchman, Narskap, whom Rivergrace is stunned to learn, is her father, back before he was twisted by Quendius' magic. From her mother, and the goddess she carried within her, Rivergrace inherited her powers over water, and from her father, powers over fire. But now the goddess is insisting that Rivergrace give back something of her powers, and Rivergrace knows she has nothing of the goddesses. Or does she?
Nutmeg, meanwhile, searches the library for any tales of Dwellers and Vaelinars marrying, but is confounded. Is there any hope for her or her sister when Rivergrace is accused of treason and treachery by Lara, and put on trial for her life? Even if she escapes, how can she escape the war that is coming to the Vaelinars, in which her own life, and that of Sevryn, are in danger?
This was a confusing book, primarily because it's the second in the series and I didn't read the first. Therefore, most of the time, I had no clear idea of what was going on or why I should care. By the end, I did care for Rivergrace, Nutmeg and Sevryn, but not so much about the other Vaelinars.
The book was full of good and interesting ideas, and interesting characters, but I didn't feel enough for them to seek out the first book or to read any sequels. I was seduced by the cover, but the story simply didn't hold up for me.
Then the Vaelinar came and endured a hundred years of fighting within their clans before finally signing agreements that put them at peace. When the Bolger, another native people, attacked the Dwellers, the Vaelinars came to their defense, and defeated the Bolger, driving them back, but then had to retreat themselves, hard hit by the conflict. After a series of other wars and conflicts, the Vaelinar finally began to make a comeback, but war has come to them again as the items they forged with magic are beginning to fail and whispers of the return of the gods abound.
Rivergrace, an orphan Vaelinar raised by Dwellers, has finally found a place within the Vaelinar ranks, along with her dweller sister, Nutmeg. Rivergrace has also found love with Sevryn, a Vaelinar who was able to bear the demon-infused blade Cerat. The blade is gone and broken, but the man fears that part of the demon remains within him.
The blade also concerns Quendius, a conqueror who once bore the blade. He is deprived of it now, but he saved the shards that remain and will forget them into a new weapon, arrowheads, so that the demon within will drink the blood and soul of whomever they hit. When he is successful in this, he goes to kill Lara, leader of the Vaelinars, their last princess and now Queen, to show off his terrible power and eliminate the Vaelinars from Kerith.
Lara has problems of her own, not only Quendius, but the encroachment of the Bolger tribes under their leader, Abayan Diort. And now it seems that another foe long thought conquered, Lizard-like beings called the Raymy from across the sea, have landed in lands belonging to the Dwellers and the Vaelinars to try and conquer them again. Lara also doesn't trust Rivergrace, seeing as she now has owers over fire as well as water, and resolves to either marry her off to Abayan Diort for peace with the Bolgers or to use her in some other way.
Meanwhile, Rivergrace's sister, Nutmeg, has become the lover and nurse to Lara's brother, Jeredon, who has been nearly crippled. Jeredon loves Nutmeg, but knows he will never be allowed to marry, and barring war, will outlive her. When members of the Vaelinar clan known as the ild Falyn come to join the war, their head shows she can move Jeredon's limbs with the power of her mind, and becomes his lover.
Rivergrace and Nutmeg alone and fearing they will never be allowed to be with the men they love, head for the library on their own, trailed by Quendius' henchman, Narskap, whom Rivergrace is stunned to learn, is her father, back before he was twisted by Quendius' magic. From her mother, and the goddess she carried within her, Rivergrace inherited her powers over water, and from her father, powers over fire. But now the goddess is insisting that Rivergrace give back something of her powers, and Rivergrace knows she has nothing of the goddesses. Or does she?
Nutmeg, meanwhile, searches the library for any tales of Dwellers and Vaelinars marrying, but is confounded. Is there any hope for her or her sister when Rivergrace is accused of treason and treachery by Lara, and put on trial for her life? Even if she escapes, how can she escape the war that is coming to the Vaelinars, in which her own life, and that of Sevryn, are in danger?
This was a confusing book, primarily because it's the second in the series and I didn't read the first. Therefore, most of the time, I had no clear idea of what was going on or why I should care. By the end, I did care for Rivergrace, Nutmeg and Sevryn, but not so much about the other Vaelinars.
The book was full of good and interesting ideas, and interesting characters, but I didn't feel enough for them to seek out the first book or to read any sequels. I was seduced by the cover, but the story simply didn't hold up for me.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Black Jack, Volume 1 by Osamu Tezuka
Black Jack is a famous man, an unlicensed surgeon nonetheless capable of performing feats of amazing medical brilliance. This volume collects 12 stories about Black Jack into one book.
The first story introduces Black Jack. "Is there a Doctor?" shows us how a rich man's son, black in soul, crashes his car, nearly killing himself. The crash is witnessed by a nearby boy, and the rich man shows us where his son got his sense of entitlement. When he contacts Black Jack, the only man who can save his son, he is told that someone must give up their life to ensure his son's survival. The old man can live with that, and sets up the young male witness, prosecuting him for causing the crash and ensuring he is found guilty and sentenced to die, with his body parts being used to save the rich man's son. But Black Jack fools the man and merely makes the other boy look like the man's son a bit, and then giving his fee to the boy so he and his mother can escape the rich man.
In "The First Storm of Spring", a girl who got a cornea transplant from Black Jack keeps seeing a handsome young man through that eye. Black Jack is stumped by this, until he finds that the cornea for the transplant came from a murdered girl, and that her killer is still at large. By now, the girl has fallen in love with the image and tracks him down... and he turns out to be the murdered girl's killer, whose image was implanted on her cornea by the last sight of her murderer. Luckily, Black Jack saves her before the man can strangle her for knowing his secret, but she is heartbroken.
In "Teratoid Cystoma", Black Jack is asked to operate on a woman with a Teratoid Cystoma. In this case, a twin that was absorbed into the woman's body. No one else can do it, because the twin has mental powers that confound the doctors trying to remove it. She confounds Black Jack, too, until he promises not to kill her, and since she has no skin, puts her in a doll-like synthetic body. Her sister repudiates her, so Pinoko stays with Black Jack.
In "The Face Sore", Black Jack operates to remove the face sore from a man, who he later finds out is a serial killer. Now, these things are monsters from Japanese folk lore, so when Black Jack finds out who the man is, he tracks him down again, and the man thanks him... when he had the face sore, he didn't feel like killing anyone, but now he feels much better! In fact, the doctor will be his next victim! But the face sore incredibly appears again and tells Black Jack it was trying to prevent the man from killing anyone, and when the man tries to push Black Jack off a cliff, the Face Sore makes him miss, killing his host. But before he dies, the face sore thanks the doctor.
In "Sometimes Like Pearls", Black Jack recieves a strange gift from his mentor, a scalpel encased in a thick, bone-like sheath. When he travels to see Jotaro Honma, we discover he saved Black Jack's life as a boy after he fell and was terribly injured. However, he left a scalpel inside Black Jack and was too much of a coward to admit it. He worried for his life and career, since the scalpel was near the spine and could cut the spinal cord at any time. But when he finally opened him up again to retrieve it, he found Black Jack's body had covered it in calcium to protect him. Now Doctor Honma is dying and he wanted to confess the truth to Black Jack. Black Jack tries to save his mentor, who dies on the table, showing that even doctors aren't God.
In "Confluence", Black Jack's friend and Colleague Kei Kisaragi, a doctor on a cruise ship, returns to Japan and lets him know. Black Jack takes a picture album to give to him, full of Pictures of Black Jack and a woman, which enrages Pinoko, who wants Black Jack to herself. Pinoko runs off, forcing Black Jack to look for her, and then returns to Kisaragi to quiz him about his sister, Megumi. We find out that the sister was originally scared of Black Jack, but fell in love with him when she realized that he was leaving her an extra umbrella when it rained. They were both medical students together, and he also saved her from attackers. However, she found out she had advanced uterine cancer, and Black Jack saved her by operating and removing her uterus and ovaries. But with their loss, she would no longer look or be female... And Black Jack returns to collar Pinoko. After he puts her in the car, he returns to Kisaragi to give him the pictures of himself as a woman. (Kei and Megumi, in Japanese, are two readings of the same characters).
In "The Painting is Dead", Go Gan, a painter on a small pacific island, is caught in a nuclear bomb test. What he witnesses haunts him, even as the radiation poisoning makes him unable to paint. Black Jack saves him, and enables him to paint again, but Go Gan, in trying to recapture what he witnessed, is not able to. Disappointed in the painting, he gives it to Black Jack. But when the radiation catches up to him again, he knows he will die and asks for the painting back to complete it. He manages to do so before he dies, leaving a haunting image of a nuclear explosion (but which, artistically, looks like "Starry Night" superimposed on dead bodies).
In "Star, Magnitude Six", a large hospital has just lost its director, and the two men with the longest records at the hospital are fighting over the post. There is another man with an equally long record, but no one backs him because he has always been pushed into the background by other doctors. A chance encounter with Black Jack awakens Black Jack to the man's competence. When a man injured at the fireworks he and Pinoko were watching is offered to Black Jack to treat, he asks for way too much money, and suggests the third doctor, who is the only one left after the other two have been let go for bribing and threatening others to vote for them. Because of the success of his surgery, the third doctor's rise to the seat of Director is assured.
In "Black Queen", a young, brilliant female doctor is called "The female Black Jack" by her colleagues. She finds this mildly insulting, and when she gets to meet Black Jack herself, she almost insults him as well, calling herself "The Black Queen". But when the man she loves is badly injured, she finds her emotions too caught up to operate on him. Black Jack saves the man while pretending to be her, just in time for Christmas. She finds this to be the best Christmas present of all.
In "U-18 Knew", the robotic director of an American Hospital has a fault, and after discovering of Black Jack from its patients, declares that it is sick and that only Black Jack may operate on it, which annoys the woman who built it, so the computer puts the patients it cares for at risk and declares it will kill them all unless Black Jack comes. He does, and manages to save the computer, even from the woman and the technicians who want to dismantle it while the power is off. But the computer reveals that it knew about this when it finally comes back on, and decides to retire instead, as there is no guarantee that the same circuit won't blow again. Once again, the US must rely on human doctors.
In "The Legs of an Ant", a young boy recovering from Polio decides to walk the same route as the boy in a book by Jotaro Honma, who used it to practice walking. This boy is doing it to raise awareness of Polio, and he is going to do it by himself. But he notices Black Jack dogging his footsteps, which annoys and irks him. When he encounters a forest fire, Black Jack offers him a lift, which he scorns, so Black Jack tells him he can crawl. This angers him more, until he realizes that smoke rises, so crawling is actually safest. When Bikers attack him and steal his wallet and money, Black Jack gets it back and leaves it in the road for the boy to find. And when the boy is about to climb a mountain, he tells him to use the money to buy a blanket or sleeping bag... because there used to be a tree to sleep under, but now it is gone. Black Jack was the boy in the book, whose limbs were ripped to shreds in an accident, and was saved by Doctor Honma. When the boy gets to the place to sleep, he finds a blanket left by Black Jack, and makes it to the end of his road.
In "Two Loves" a famous Sushi chef is hit by a car. Black Jack saves him, but cannot save the Chef's arms. The driver, to make amends for the accident, becomes the chef's new hands and gradually learns to make Sushi like the chef did. This culminates in both of them making sushi for the Chef's nearly blind mother. But then the former driver is hit and killed, and his wife asks Black Jack to give his hands to Taki, the sushi chef. Black Jack warns her that such a surgery will be expensive... but he'll take his pay in sushi. He manages to do it, and the driver's wife asks to come and see her husband's hands at work. Taki tells her she can come by any time. At the end, she and Black Jack enjoy sushi together.
This was an interesting book of stories, and I enjoyed reading about Black Jack's successes and failures, from Pinoko to Jotaro Honma. Each story was different and interesting in its own way, with characters who fairly exuded character even though we only got to meet them a few pages earlier. Strength of characterization is just one of Osamu Tezuka's strengths, and it's used to good effect here. Black Jack, although we see most of him in the volume, is more of a cipher, even though we spend the most time with him in the novel, simply because there isn't much character to be found in doing surgery, since most of the focus is on the patient.
But we do learn a good deal about his past, and his kindness. Even though he can sometimes come across as heartless, cold and aloof, Black Jack has a kind heart, and even though he charges large fees, he is willing to forgo them to help people. He sympathizes with people whose histories are like himself, and he feels responsible for the people he saves with his surgeries. Oh yes, and he is still in love with Megumi, even though they can't be together because she isolates herself to keep from remembering her past.
Of course, the art isn't very realistic. Some characters look almost normal, while others are drawn in broad caricature. Generally, the sympathetic characters are the normal-looking ones, while the villainous or the bystanders are more caricaturized, but this isn't always the case.
And that's enough for one volume. I am eagerly looking forward to reading more. I hope they release the next volume soon.
The first story introduces Black Jack. "Is there a Doctor?" shows us how a rich man's son, black in soul, crashes his car, nearly killing himself. The crash is witnessed by a nearby boy, and the rich man shows us where his son got his sense of entitlement. When he contacts Black Jack, the only man who can save his son, he is told that someone must give up their life to ensure his son's survival. The old man can live with that, and sets up the young male witness, prosecuting him for causing the crash and ensuring he is found guilty and sentenced to die, with his body parts being used to save the rich man's son. But Black Jack fools the man and merely makes the other boy look like the man's son a bit, and then giving his fee to the boy so he and his mother can escape the rich man.
In "The First Storm of Spring", a girl who got a cornea transplant from Black Jack keeps seeing a handsome young man through that eye. Black Jack is stumped by this, until he finds that the cornea for the transplant came from a murdered girl, and that her killer is still at large. By now, the girl has fallen in love with the image and tracks him down... and he turns out to be the murdered girl's killer, whose image was implanted on her cornea by the last sight of her murderer. Luckily, Black Jack saves her before the man can strangle her for knowing his secret, but she is heartbroken.
In "Teratoid Cystoma", Black Jack is asked to operate on a woman with a Teratoid Cystoma. In this case, a twin that was absorbed into the woman's body. No one else can do it, because the twin has mental powers that confound the doctors trying to remove it. She confounds Black Jack, too, until he promises not to kill her, and since she has no skin, puts her in a doll-like synthetic body. Her sister repudiates her, so Pinoko stays with Black Jack.
In "The Face Sore", Black Jack operates to remove the face sore from a man, who he later finds out is a serial killer. Now, these things are monsters from Japanese folk lore, so when Black Jack finds out who the man is, he tracks him down again, and the man thanks him... when he had the face sore, he didn't feel like killing anyone, but now he feels much better! In fact, the doctor will be his next victim! But the face sore incredibly appears again and tells Black Jack it was trying to prevent the man from killing anyone, and when the man tries to push Black Jack off a cliff, the Face Sore makes him miss, killing his host. But before he dies, the face sore thanks the doctor.
In "Sometimes Like Pearls", Black Jack recieves a strange gift from his mentor, a scalpel encased in a thick, bone-like sheath. When he travels to see Jotaro Honma, we discover he saved Black Jack's life as a boy after he fell and was terribly injured. However, he left a scalpel inside Black Jack and was too much of a coward to admit it. He worried for his life and career, since the scalpel was near the spine and could cut the spinal cord at any time. But when he finally opened him up again to retrieve it, he found Black Jack's body had covered it in calcium to protect him. Now Doctor Honma is dying and he wanted to confess the truth to Black Jack. Black Jack tries to save his mentor, who dies on the table, showing that even doctors aren't God.
In "Confluence", Black Jack's friend and Colleague Kei Kisaragi, a doctor on a cruise ship, returns to Japan and lets him know. Black Jack takes a picture album to give to him, full of Pictures of Black Jack and a woman, which enrages Pinoko, who wants Black Jack to herself. Pinoko runs off, forcing Black Jack to look for her, and then returns to Kisaragi to quiz him about his sister, Megumi. We find out that the sister was originally scared of Black Jack, but fell in love with him when she realized that he was leaving her an extra umbrella when it rained. They were both medical students together, and he also saved her from attackers. However, she found out she had advanced uterine cancer, and Black Jack saved her by operating and removing her uterus and ovaries. But with their loss, she would no longer look or be female... And Black Jack returns to collar Pinoko. After he puts her in the car, he returns to Kisaragi to give him the pictures of himself as a woman. (Kei and Megumi, in Japanese, are two readings of the same characters).
In "The Painting is Dead", Go Gan, a painter on a small pacific island, is caught in a nuclear bomb test. What he witnesses haunts him, even as the radiation poisoning makes him unable to paint. Black Jack saves him, and enables him to paint again, but Go Gan, in trying to recapture what he witnessed, is not able to. Disappointed in the painting, he gives it to Black Jack. But when the radiation catches up to him again, he knows he will die and asks for the painting back to complete it. He manages to do so before he dies, leaving a haunting image of a nuclear explosion (but which, artistically, looks like "Starry Night" superimposed on dead bodies).
In "Star, Magnitude Six", a large hospital has just lost its director, and the two men with the longest records at the hospital are fighting over the post. There is another man with an equally long record, but no one backs him because he has always been pushed into the background by other doctors. A chance encounter with Black Jack awakens Black Jack to the man's competence. When a man injured at the fireworks he and Pinoko were watching is offered to Black Jack to treat, he asks for way too much money, and suggests the third doctor, who is the only one left after the other two have been let go for bribing and threatening others to vote for them. Because of the success of his surgery, the third doctor's rise to the seat of Director is assured.
In "Black Queen", a young, brilliant female doctor is called "The female Black Jack" by her colleagues. She finds this mildly insulting, and when she gets to meet Black Jack herself, she almost insults him as well, calling herself "The Black Queen". But when the man she loves is badly injured, she finds her emotions too caught up to operate on him. Black Jack saves the man while pretending to be her, just in time for Christmas. She finds this to be the best Christmas present of all.
In "U-18 Knew", the robotic director of an American Hospital has a fault, and after discovering of Black Jack from its patients, declares that it is sick and that only Black Jack may operate on it, which annoys the woman who built it, so the computer puts the patients it cares for at risk and declares it will kill them all unless Black Jack comes. He does, and manages to save the computer, even from the woman and the technicians who want to dismantle it while the power is off. But the computer reveals that it knew about this when it finally comes back on, and decides to retire instead, as there is no guarantee that the same circuit won't blow again. Once again, the US must rely on human doctors.
In "The Legs of an Ant", a young boy recovering from Polio decides to walk the same route as the boy in a book by Jotaro Honma, who used it to practice walking. This boy is doing it to raise awareness of Polio, and he is going to do it by himself. But he notices Black Jack dogging his footsteps, which annoys and irks him. When he encounters a forest fire, Black Jack offers him a lift, which he scorns, so Black Jack tells him he can crawl. This angers him more, until he realizes that smoke rises, so crawling is actually safest. When Bikers attack him and steal his wallet and money, Black Jack gets it back and leaves it in the road for the boy to find. And when the boy is about to climb a mountain, he tells him to use the money to buy a blanket or sleeping bag... because there used to be a tree to sleep under, but now it is gone. Black Jack was the boy in the book, whose limbs were ripped to shreds in an accident, and was saved by Doctor Honma. When the boy gets to the place to sleep, he finds a blanket left by Black Jack, and makes it to the end of his road.
In "Two Loves" a famous Sushi chef is hit by a car. Black Jack saves him, but cannot save the Chef's arms. The driver, to make amends for the accident, becomes the chef's new hands and gradually learns to make Sushi like the chef did. This culminates in both of them making sushi for the Chef's nearly blind mother. But then the former driver is hit and killed, and his wife asks Black Jack to give his hands to Taki, the sushi chef. Black Jack warns her that such a surgery will be expensive... but he'll take his pay in sushi. He manages to do it, and the driver's wife asks to come and see her husband's hands at work. Taki tells her she can come by any time. At the end, she and Black Jack enjoy sushi together.
This was an interesting book of stories, and I enjoyed reading about Black Jack's successes and failures, from Pinoko to Jotaro Honma. Each story was different and interesting in its own way, with characters who fairly exuded character even though we only got to meet them a few pages earlier. Strength of characterization is just one of Osamu Tezuka's strengths, and it's used to good effect here. Black Jack, although we see most of him in the volume, is more of a cipher, even though we spend the most time with him in the novel, simply because there isn't much character to be found in doing surgery, since most of the focus is on the patient.
But we do learn a good deal about his past, and his kindness. Even though he can sometimes come across as heartless, cold and aloof, Black Jack has a kind heart, and even though he charges large fees, he is willing to forgo them to help people. He sympathizes with people whose histories are like himself, and he feels responsible for the people he saves with his surgeries. Oh yes, and he is still in love with Megumi, even though they can't be together because she isolates herself to keep from remembering her past.
Of course, the art isn't very realistic. Some characters look almost normal, while others are drawn in broad caricature. Generally, the sympathetic characters are the normal-looking ones, while the villainous or the bystanders are more caricaturized, but this isn't always the case.
And that's enough for one volume. I am eagerly looking forward to reading more. I hope they release the next volume soon.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Sword in Sheath by Andre Norton
The war is now over, but for two members of it, Lawrence Kane and Sam Marusaki, they are set on a special task of tracking down an American flyer who disappeared in the South Pacific near the end of the war, after being shot down. He was last sighted over Indonesia, which is vast, with many islands too small to be on maps. Finding him there will be a thankless task, but since a rich relative of the downed fighter plane is paying for him to be found, they are being paid fairly well for her service.
They travel to Indonesia and arrange for passage to some of the smaller islands on the boat of a Dutch Captain named Van Bleeker. Van Bleeker is attempting to rebuild his shipping lines after they were disrupted by the war. He doesn't have a lot of money, but if he can find natives and others willing to trade with him, he can survive.
But someone apparently doesn't want the men to succeed. Shortly after arranging passage on Captain Van Bleeker's ship, someone searches and trashes their hotel room. They quickly board, only to discover that someone has laid an unusual native curse on the ship, apparently without anyone on board seeing anything. After covering up the cursed item and planning to get it taken care of by a shaman at their next port of call, a costly endeavor, Lawrence and Sam meet the captain's other passenger: Lorens Van Norreys, still recovering from his time in a Nazi concentration camp, but determined to rebuild the House of Norreys as a dealer in gems and fine jewelry. But more than that, Lorens and Lawrence know each other, as Lawrence Kane was Lorens' American Pen Pal from "The Sword is Drawn". However, Lawrence believed his friend was dead after he was thrown into the concentration camp, and is overjoyed to see that he is alive.
Strange incidents continue to befall them as they conduct their personal missions. Lorens has a meeting with a famous crook and gem merchant of the islands: Abdul Hakroum, who has long been thought retired but re-emerged at the end of the war to pursue the possibilities opened up by the withdrawal of the Japanese forces and the resulting chaos. Hakroum offers Lorens a necklace of fantastic mixed gems known as a Nararatna, which he wants to sell to Lorens, but Lorens declines. After the meeting, he explains that without provenance, it could kill the House of Norreys if they were caught selling gems or a necklace that belonged to someone else. But Lorens also had a meeting with a local merchant, and has gotten an utterly magnificent opalized fossil skeleton, which he agreed to sell on behalf of the merchant, splitting the profits with him.
They soon find that the fisherman who they hired as a guide is also the man who sold the Nararatna to Hakroum, and he claims it came from an island known as "The Forbidden Place", a tale from the South Seas of an Island filled with Treasure. Those who go to seek it, it is said, never return. But the fisherman also has several pearls on him whose color and luster are completely unseen before, which means they have found a new pearl bed. Convincing the fisherman to lead them there, they also discover that a plane engine is sunk into the coral so deeply that it cannot be removed. Could American flyers have crashed here, flyers such as the one they are searching for?
Exploration of the Island shows, however, that not *all* the Japanese troops are gone from the island, nor all the Nazi's, either. Caught in a fight between the Japanese, the Nazis, natives and grounded fliers, Lorens, Lawrence, Sam, Captain Van Bleeker, and the crew of his ship will find themselves fighting for their lives to get out alive and with the objects of their personal missions. But when Hakroum shows up, will he side with the Japanese and Nazis, or with the Americans and the Dutch?
This was another interesting book, in which we finally get to meet Lorens' American Pen Pal, Lawrence. Even though their names are similar, Lorens being the Dutch version of "Lawrence", we never get the two mixed up, even when they are working together. More than just the difference in names, the difference in attitude and character between the two sets them apart. But they are friends, even though they have never met, and get to share a glorious adventure together.
Even though their motivations are startlingly different, they both find the ending to their respective quests on the same small island. Together, they must come together with Captain Van Bleeker and an American Agent who also works for their boss, and fight against the Nazis and Japanese that still patrol and live on the Forbidden Island. In fact, it seems like everyone in the book, Hakroum included, all have something to gain from the island, and while at the end everyone comes together and is satisfied (showing that even criminal masterminds have a heart, I suppose), everyone also manages to profit.
I enjoyed reading the book, although it was less about Lorens alone; he became one of an ensemble cast in this book, where the two previous books were about his struggles alone against the Nazis/Axis forces. It lent quite a different air to the book, but it was not unwelcome. Being that this was the last book about Lorens Van Norreys (at least, as far as I am aware), it was a good ending to the series. Would I recommend this book? Well, for someone not afraid or turned off by reading what is now old-fashioned in writing style, I would. But it can also be a bit dreary to read for someone not used to the writing style of the 40's and 50's.
They travel to Indonesia and arrange for passage to some of the smaller islands on the boat of a Dutch Captain named Van Bleeker. Van Bleeker is attempting to rebuild his shipping lines after they were disrupted by the war. He doesn't have a lot of money, but if he can find natives and others willing to trade with him, he can survive.
But someone apparently doesn't want the men to succeed. Shortly after arranging passage on Captain Van Bleeker's ship, someone searches and trashes their hotel room. They quickly board, only to discover that someone has laid an unusual native curse on the ship, apparently without anyone on board seeing anything. After covering up the cursed item and planning to get it taken care of by a shaman at their next port of call, a costly endeavor, Lawrence and Sam meet the captain's other passenger: Lorens Van Norreys, still recovering from his time in a Nazi concentration camp, but determined to rebuild the House of Norreys as a dealer in gems and fine jewelry. But more than that, Lorens and Lawrence know each other, as Lawrence Kane was Lorens' American Pen Pal from "The Sword is Drawn". However, Lawrence believed his friend was dead after he was thrown into the concentration camp, and is overjoyed to see that he is alive.
Strange incidents continue to befall them as they conduct their personal missions. Lorens has a meeting with a famous crook and gem merchant of the islands: Abdul Hakroum, who has long been thought retired but re-emerged at the end of the war to pursue the possibilities opened up by the withdrawal of the Japanese forces and the resulting chaos. Hakroum offers Lorens a necklace of fantastic mixed gems known as a Nararatna, which he wants to sell to Lorens, but Lorens declines. After the meeting, he explains that without provenance, it could kill the House of Norreys if they were caught selling gems or a necklace that belonged to someone else. But Lorens also had a meeting with a local merchant, and has gotten an utterly magnificent opalized fossil skeleton, which he agreed to sell on behalf of the merchant, splitting the profits with him.
They soon find that the fisherman who they hired as a guide is also the man who sold the Nararatna to Hakroum, and he claims it came from an island known as "The Forbidden Place", a tale from the South Seas of an Island filled with Treasure. Those who go to seek it, it is said, never return. But the fisherman also has several pearls on him whose color and luster are completely unseen before, which means they have found a new pearl bed. Convincing the fisherman to lead them there, they also discover that a plane engine is sunk into the coral so deeply that it cannot be removed. Could American flyers have crashed here, flyers such as the one they are searching for?
Exploration of the Island shows, however, that not *all* the Japanese troops are gone from the island, nor all the Nazi's, either. Caught in a fight between the Japanese, the Nazis, natives and grounded fliers, Lorens, Lawrence, Sam, Captain Van Bleeker, and the crew of his ship will find themselves fighting for their lives to get out alive and with the objects of their personal missions. But when Hakroum shows up, will he side with the Japanese and Nazis, or with the Americans and the Dutch?
This was another interesting book, in which we finally get to meet Lorens' American Pen Pal, Lawrence. Even though their names are similar, Lorens being the Dutch version of "Lawrence", we never get the two mixed up, even when they are working together. More than just the difference in names, the difference in attitude and character between the two sets them apart. But they are friends, even though they have never met, and get to share a glorious adventure together.
Even though their motivations are startlingly different, they both find the ending to their respective quests on the same small island. Together, they must come together with Captain Van Bleeker and an American Agent who also works for their boss, and fight against the Nazis and Japanese that still patrol and live on the Forbidden Island. In fact, it seems like everyone in the book, Hakroum included, all have something to gain from the island, and while at the end everyone comes together and is satisfied (showing that even criminal masterminds have a heart, I suppose), everyone also manages to profit.
I enjoyed reading the book, although it was less about Lorens alone; he became one of an ensemble cast in this book, where the two previous books were about his struggles alone against the Nazis/Axis forces. It lent quite a different air to the book, but it was not unwelcome. Being that this was the last book about Lorens Van Norreys (at least, as far as I am aware), it was a good ending to the series. Would I recommend this book? Well, for someone not afraid or turned off by reading what is now old-fashioned in writing style, I would. But it can also be a bit dreary to read for someone not used to the writing style of the 40's and 50's.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The Sword is Drawn by Andre Norton
It's 1940, and Nazi Germany is invading the Netherlands. The House of Norreys, merchants of gems and uniquely created jewelry, is having to deal with the problem of the Nazis, who will seize the business for their own interests. To forestall this, Joris Van Norreys, the current head of the house, has been slowly selling off and divesting himself of the business, in secret, and with the moneys thus generated placed where they will not fall into Nazi hands or be suborned for their use.
As for Lorens Van Norreys, his grandson and heir, Joris has let it be known that he does not trust the young man, and made sure that all those who deal with the house of Norreys know the Lorens should not be considered the heir or allowed into any part of the family business. But in private, Joris meets with him and tells him what he has done. There remains only one order of business: Hiding the famous "Flowers of Orange", a gaudy necklace that is the closest thing the Netherlands has to crown jewels. Joris has purchased a safe that opens using a word instead of numbers, and once opened, cannot be opened again until a period of two years have passed, or the safe fills with acid and destroys its contents. This, he hopes, will keep the jewels safe until Lorens can retrieve them.
Lorens, though, wants to fight for Holland, and is impatient with his grandfather. But Joris promises to allow him to fight... not for the Netherlands, but against the Nazi threat elsewhere, with money from the House of Norreys, but only if he agrees to his grandfather's plan. Lorens does agree, and hides the jewels before the Nazi occupiers make their way to the house. The Nazis have the assistance of one of the clerks of the House of Norreys, but he is saved when a crippled Nazi bomber strikes the house, klling the Nazis within and setting it on fire. Lorens leave with Klass, Joris' last remaining servant, knowing that his grandfather died before the Nazis even arrived.
From there, he is smuggled across the channel to England, and goes to Java, then known as the Dutch East Indies, to work for his cousin Piet in his air service. But with the Japanese entering the war, they conquer Java, and he is forced to flee for Australia, but is injured when the plane he is on is shot down, and he becomes essentially crippled for the rest of the story.
Further on, he travels to America, where he enrolls in a course to help him overcome his physical difficulties and encounters stories of a relative named Van Oster, who is seeking him. But he has bigger fish to fry. It is coming on two years since he opened the safe, and he must ensure he returns to the Netherlands and the safe to retrieve "The Flowers of Orange", But with the Nazis aware of the location of the Flowers, and the workings of the safe, how can he sneak in and get the Flowers without them interfering? Especially when it turns out that "Van Oster" is working on the side of the Nazis?
This is vintage Andre Norton, originally written in 1944 and supposedly written by a man (Her real name was Mary Alice Norton, but she adopted the Pseudo-male moniker because Adventure and Sci-Fi stories written by women would not have been purchased back then). Romance is nowhere in the cards for our hero, even when he encounters an American woman of Duch Descent and spends a lot of time with her. The hero is only 18 at the start of the novel, so it's not like this would seem unlikely... But in true adventure stories of that era, it was meant for men to read, and men aren't interested in romance, unless it meant SEX. And Andre Norton doesn't do sex.
On the whole, Lorens Van Norreys appears rather cold and bloodless if we judge him by the standards of today's heroes. He's more a calculating type, even in the midst of battle. The closest he comes to an emotional outburst is when he's upset about being crippled, and is promptly told to suck it up by his cousin (not in such pithy terms, of course, this is 1944!), because, well, he could be dead.
The ending of the book is a bit of a puzzler, as we're not quite sure if the Nazis got the Flowers of Orange or not, but Lorens is free and returns to England, while having discovered that his cousin Van Oster is the traitor all the Dutch resistance is looking for, even if the woman closest to the traitor doesn't believe him.
So, not bad for a straight adventure book of this era. Next in the series is "At Sword's Points" and the last is "Sword in Sheath". I read the first long ago, and I just finished reading the second, so it will be next.
Two last interesting things about this book: first, it won an award from the Netherlands government for its portrayal of how the Dutch went to war with the Nazis and how they lived and fought under the occupation, and second, it also brings to light a little known program called the Cleveland Press World Friends Club, where schoolchildren from the Greater Cleveland area wrote to other children around the world and intended to create goodwill and an understanding of how children lived in other places. Each part of the story is bookended in supposed letters written by Lorens to his friend, Lawrence, who lives in America and was part of this program with Lorens.
As for Lorens Van Norreys, his grandson and heir, Joris has let it be known that he does not trust the young man, and made sure that all those who deal with the house of Norreys know the Lorens should not be considered the heir or allowed into any part of the family business. But in private, Joris meets with him and tells him what he has done. There remains only one order of business: Hiding the famous "Flowers of Orange", a gaudy necklace that is the closest thing the Netherlands has to crown jewels. Joris has purchased a safe that opens using a word instead of numbers, and once opened, cannot be opened again until a period of two years have passed, or the safe fills with acid and destroys its contents. This, he hopes, will keep the jewels safe until Lorens can retrieve them.
Lorens, though, wants to fight for Holland, and is impatient with his grandfather. But Joris promises to allow him to fight... not for the Netherlands, but against the Nazi threat elsewhere, with money from the House of Norreys, but only if he agrees to his grandfather's plan. Lorens does agree, and hides the jewels before the Nazi occupiers make their way to the house. The Nazis have the assistance of one of the clerks of the House of Norreys, but he is saved when a crippled Nazi bomber strikes the house, klling the Nazis within and setting it on fire. Lorens leave with Klass, Joris' last remaining servant, knowing that his grandfather died before the Nazis even arrived.
From there, he is smuggled across the channel to England, and goes to Java, then known as the Dutch East Indies, to work for his cousin Piet in his air service. But with the Japanese entering the war, they conquer Java, and he is forced to flee for Australia, but is injured when the plane he is on is shot down, and he becomes essentially crippled for the rest of the story.
Further on, he travels to America, where he enrolls in a course to help him overcome his physical difficulties and encounters stories of a relative named Van Oster, who is seeking him. But he has bigger fish to fry. It is coming on two years since he opened the safe, and he must ensure he returns to the Netherlands and the safe to retrieve "The Flowers of Orange", But with the Nazis aware of the location of the Flowers, and the workings of the safe, how can he sneak in and get the Flowers without them interfering? Especially when it turns out that "Van Oster" is working on the side of the Nazis?
This is vintage Andre Norton, originally written in 1944 and supposedly written by a man (Her real name was Mary Alice Norton, but she adopted the Pseudo-male moniker because Adventure and Sci-Fi stories written by women would not have been purchased back then). Romance is nowhere in the cards for our hero, even when he encounters an American woman of Duch Descent and spends a lot of time with her. The hero is only 18 at the start of the novel, so it's not like this would seem unlikely... But in true adventure stories of that era, it was meant for men to read, and men aren't interested in romance, unless it meant SEX. And Andre Norton doesn't do sex.
On the whole, Lorens Van Norreys appears rather cold and bloodless if we judge him by the standards of today's heroes. He's more a calculating type, even in the midst of battle. The closest he comes to an emotional outburst is when he's upset about being crippled, and is promptly told to suck it up by his cousin (not in such pithy terms, of course, this is 1944!), because, well, he could be dead.
The ending of the book is a bit of a puzzler, as we're not quite sure if the Nazis got the Flowers of Orange or not, but Lorens is free and returns to England, while having discovered that his cousin Van Oster is the traitor all the Dutch resistance is looking for, even if the woman closest to the traitor doesn't believe him.
So, not bad for a straight adventure book of this era. Next in the series is "At Sword's Points" and the last is "Sword in Sheath". I read the first long ago, and I just finished reading the second, so it will be next.
Two last interesting things about this book: first, it won an award from the Netherlands government for its portrayal of how the Dutch went to war with the Nazis and how they lived and fought under the occupation, and second, it also brings to light a little known program called the Cleveland Press World Friends Club, where schoolchildren from the Greater Cleveland area wrote to other children around the world and intended to create goodwill and an understanding of how children lived in other places. Each part of the story is bookended in supposed letters written by Lorens to his friend, Lawrence, who lives in America and was part of this program with Lorens.
Angel's Pain by Maggie Shayne
Briar is a young woman who is also a vampire. She never asked to be made a vampire. It only came after a life of being used and degraded by every man she knew. To her, life is a series of transactions. No one does something out of the goodness of their hearts- they always want something from you in return.
So how, she wonders, has she been roped into life with the other young vampires with Reaper as their leader? She doesn't really like any of them, not even Crisa, the young, crazy-headed vampire whom she reluctantly donated blood to to keep her alive. Now, she's subject to the same headaches Crisa gets through the link that was made when they shared blood. Even the best efforts of Ilyana and Roxy, the two humans who can help Crisa with her headaches through their use of Reiki, can't do more than dim the pain.
But when Crisa has a vision along with her headache, she sees a young boy who she knows she must protect. Even the voice in her head wants her to help the boy.
That's because the voice belongs to Derrick Dwyer, member of the CIA and controller of the chip that was implanted in Crisa's brain. The Chip is slowly deteriorating, releasing toxins that cause Crisa's headaches, but while it exists, he can see through her eyes and even control her, to some extent, with pain. But when he is ambushed and kidnapped by the vampire Gregor, the means for controlling Crisa falls into his hands. And while Derrick planned to remove the chip before the toxins could kill Crisa, Gregor has no such plans. Instead, he plans to use Crisa to eliminate Reaper and the thorn in his side: the band of vampires he heads. But first he plans to eliminate the other vampires by drawing them out to investigate attacks made by the drones- physically powerful humans with the Belladonna Antigen that were put on Steroids and lobotomized before being turned and cloned.
Crisa, meanwhile, has taken off on her own to reach the boy, and Briar and Reaper go in pursuit. Along the way, Reaper must deal with his incredible attraction to Briar and his guilt over the death of his wife, dead at his hands through her accidental use of his trigger word- something that enables him to go berserk and be a killer if he hears it. He doesn't know the word that can bring him out of his rage, but he knows it exists, and he wants Derry Dwyer on his own for that reason.
On their way north to get Crisa, Reaper and Briar argue and fight, and she nearly drains him to shut him up. But she forgot that drinking that much of his blood will link them together- even deeper than how she and Crisa are linked. And though Reaper loves Briar and his one sexual experience with her was the best he ever had, he wants something more than just sex. He wants an actual relationship.
But can Briar, emotionally damaged by all the abusive men in her life, give that sort of commitment to Reaper? When he touches her, she feels something, but when he refuses to have the "zipless fuck" that she's comfortable giving, she realizes that Reaper isn't like any other man she's known. Can she get past the emotional baggage she's been carrying all her life and simply allow herself to love and care for Reaper? It will take a confrontation with her sire, Gregor, who Briar both hates and fears, and Matthias, Ilyana's son and the boy Crisa is looking for, before they can have anything resembling a normal relationship.
This was a hard book for me to like, since at the start both characters share a very hard edge that's so sharp it can turn and cut you with no warning. Briar comes off as unlikeable and as a hard-edged bitch who cares only for herself and no one else. But it isn't long before we see that she's deluding herself if that is who she thinks she is. She puts up a good facade of not caring, even to herself, but she can't just abandon Crisa when she takes off in search of the boy the other woman is looking for.
Reaper is a bit more of an enigma at first. He's understandably exasperated at Briar's attitude, but as he starts to open up, we can see he's not without emotional wounds of his own. An agent for the CIA, he was trained to kill and programmed to go Berserk upon hearing a certain word. Somehow, his wife used it on him, and he killed her in a berserk frenzy... or so he thinks. When Briar doubts that his wife actually died, that he was used by her and the CIA to put him on a string of guilt so that he would keep working for them forever, readers are expected to find that off-putting about Briar. Of course, she turns out to be right, making Reaper, for all his CIA training, seem incredibly naive.
Regardless of all the building of a relationship between Reaper and Briar, it doesn't actually come until almost the very ending of the book, when Briar realizes how much she cares for Reaper and the others by staying behind and trying to distract Gregor so that the others can get away and save Crisa. But by this time, it becomes very hard to believe that Briar turns around so suddenly from a tortured figure of her past to become someone who can love and laugh so easily, I was not convinced. I think that by leaving Briar's transformation until so late in the story, the ending seemed a lot less convincing. It seemed more that it occurred by Author fiat rather than being integral to the character.
So, while not being my favorite Maggie Shayne Vampire novel, I would still continue to read her books. I just hope she can do better in the future.
So how, she wonders, has she been roped into life with the other young vampires with Reaper as their leader? She doesn't really like any of them, not even Crisa, the young, crazy-headed vampire whom she reluctantly donated blood to to keep her alive. Now, she's subject to the same headaches Crisa gets through the link that was made when they shared blood. Even the best efforts of Ilyana and Roxy, the two humans who can help Crisa with her headaches through their use of Reiki, can't do more than dim the pain.
But when Crisa has a vision along with her headache, she sees a young boy who she knows she must protect. Even the voice in her head wants her to help the boy.
That's because the voice belongs to Derrick Dwyer, member of the CIA and controller of the chip that was implanted in Crisa's brain. The Chip is slowly deteriorating, releasing toxins that cause Crisa's headaches, but while it exists, he can see through her eyes and even control her, to some extent, with pain. But when he is ambushed and kidnapped by the vampire Gregor, the means for controlling Crisa falls into his hands. And while Derrick planned to remove the chip before the toxins could kill Crisa, Gregor has no such plans. Instead, he plans to use Crisa to eliminate Reaper and the thorn in his side: the band of vampires he heads. But first he plans to eliminate the other vampires by drawing them out to investigate attacks made by the drones- physically powerful humans with the Belladonna Antigen that were put on Steroids and lobotomized before being turned and cloned.
Crisa, meanwhile, has taken off on her own to reach the boy, and Briar and Reaper go in pursuit. Along the way, Reaper must deal with his incredible attraction to Briar and his guilt over the death of his wife, dead at his hands through her accidental use of his trigger word- something that enables him to go berserk and be a killer if he hears it. He doesn't know the word that can bring him out of his rage, but he knows it exists, and he wants Derry Dwyer on his own for that reason.
On their way north to get Crisa, Reaper and Briar argue and fight, and she nearly drains him to shut him up. But she forgot that drinking that much of his blood will link them together- even deeper than how she and Crisa are linked. And though Reaper loves Briar and his one sexual experience with her was the best he ever had, he wants something more than just sex. He wants an actual relationship.
But can Briar, emotionally damaged by all the abusive men in her life, give that sort of commitment to Reaper? When he touches her, she feels something, but when he refuses to have the "zipless fuck" that she's comfortable giving, she realizes that Reaper isn't like any other man she's known. Can she get past the emotional baggage she's been carrying all her life and simply allow herself to love and care for Reaper? It will take a confrontation with her sire, Gregor, who Briar both hates and fears, and Matthias, Ilyana's son and the boy Crisa is looking for, before they can have anything resembling a normal relationship.
This was a hard book for me to like, since at the start both characters share a very hard edge that's so sharp it can turn and cut you with no warning. Briar comes off as unlikeable and as a hard-edged bitch who cares only for herself and no one else. But it isn't long before we see that she's deluding herself if that is who she thinks she is. She puts up a good facade of not caring, even to herself, but she can't just abandon Crisa when she takes off in search of the boy the other woman is looking for.
Reaper is a bit more of an enigma at first. He's understandably exasperated at Briar's attitude, but as he starts to open up, we can see he's not without emotional wounds of his own. An agent for the CIA, he was trained to kill and programmed to go Berserk upon hearing a certain word. Somehow, his wife used it on him, and he killed her in a berserk frenzy... or so he thinks. When Briar doubts that his wife actually died, that he was used by her and the CIA to put him on a string of guilt so that he would keep working for them forever, readers are expected to find that off-putting about Briar. Of course, she turns out to be right, making Reaper, for all his CIA training, seem incredibly naive.
Regardless of all the building of a relationship between Reaper and Briar, it doesn't actually come until almost the very ending of the book, when Briar realizes how much she cares for Reaper and the others by staying behind and trying to distract Gregor so that the others can get away and save Crisa. But by this time, it becomes very hard to believe that Briar turns around so suddenly from a tortured figure of her past to become someone who can love and laugh so easily, I was not convinced. I think that by leaving Briar's transformation until so late in the story, the ending seemed a lot less convincing. It seemed more that it occurred by Author fiat rather than being integral to the character.
So, while not being my favorite Maggie Shayne Vampire novel, I would still continue to read her books. I just hope she can do better in the future.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Cast in Fury by Michelle Sagara
Kaylin Neya is a Corporal of the Hawks, one of the three branches of guardsmen who patrol Elantra, the city of the Dragon Emperor. Kaylin was born in the fiefs, the parts of the city barely controlled by the fief Lords, who usually spend more time running crime than looking out after those in the fiefs. But she and her friend Severn got out. Kaylin by being adopted by Marrin a Leonine woman who raises many of the city's foundlings and orphans. And when she became old enough, she became a city guard.
Kaylin is human, but different. When she was 12, magical sigils appeared on her skin, for no reason that she could determine. She has magical power, but she doesn't want to do magic. The best she can do is heal, which is rare, but she uses her power as a midwife, saving children and mothers from death. Recently, however, the dragons ruling the city have realized the power she holds, and put her under the tutelage of one of their own: Lord Sanabalis, Head of the Guild of Mages. Despite being able to heal, she has a hard time using her power for even the simplest of other tasks. Partly because she is unused to using her power that way, and partly because she really doesn't want to do anything but heal. To keep her power contained, however, she must wear a special bracelet that limits the power she can access.
In the past few months, Kaylin has fought off a rogue Dragon, rescued a Tha'alanni child, been to court, and been sucked into a part of the city that predates Elantra, which recognized her somehow. She also witnessed the Tha'alani, who are used in the city as mind-readers by the court and the Emperor, and hated and feared as a result, try to stop a tidal wave that could have destroyed the entire city. In doing so, she lost her fear of them, but that isn't true for the rest of the city.
In fact, the sight of so many Tha'alani before the tidal wave has made people think that the Tha'alani tried to destroy the city, and people are keeping watch over the enclave where the Tha'alani live with weapons, ready to destroy what they hate and fear.
The Emperor has realized this, and comissioned the Imperial Playwright, Richard Rennick, to write a play that will mitigate the hate and fear the Tha'alani are experiencing, and hopefully cause the humans around them to understand them better. He did so, but the Tha'alani found the play distasteful, considering it to be a lie. So now Kaylin and her Partner Severn have been seconded to the Imperial Palace and Rennick in hopes of him writing a play that will have the same effect, but which will not infuriate the people the Emperor is hoping to save.
At the same time, though, trouble hits the Halls of the Law where Kaylin serves. Her superior, a Leontine named Marcus, is charged with killing another Leontine and replaced by Mallory, a Hawk with a stick up his butt who wants to make the Hawks run smoothly. But he does so by enforcing regulations and informs Kaylin that if she doesn't follow regulations, she will be kicked out of the force. But Kaylin cares less about that than in saving Marcus. She travels to the part of the city where he lives, and talks to his first wife and Matriarch of the Pridlea where he lives. She also talks with his other wives, and discovers that one of them has a sister who Kaylin midwifed through her first birth.
But there is a problem there. Marcus's wife, Sarabe, has a difficulty in her background because of the color of her fur. She and her sister should have been killed at birth, but escaped that because their parents loved them. But when they were older, their parents died, and now they had nowhere to turn for shelter. Marcus took in Sarabe, but her sister Marai, made her own choice. Marcus eventually took Sarabe to wife, and when Marai became pregnant, she contacted the Pridlea, and Marcus gave her Kaylin's name as a midwife for her child. When the baby was born, Kaylin was there and became a sort of mother to the child by licking the birthing fluids from its eyelids. Under Leontine Law, doing so makes her a mother to the child.
But because the Baby was male, by Leontine Law, he will have to be slain. And therein lies the problem. The Leontines don't want to tell Kaylin why the color of the baby's fur makes it subject to death under Leontine Law. Sarabe has children, but hers are all female, which, apparently makes her safe somehow. Kaylin asks about Marcus's mood, hoping to prove him innocent of the murder of which he is accused, but they know nothing. She and Severn go to see Marcus and get to speak to him, but he is closemouthed about the fight that led to the murder, although he does say that he is guilty, which devastates Kaylin. She cannot believe the man she knows is guilty of cold-blooded murder. Or even murder in a fight.
They spend the day with Rennick in the Tha'alani compound, where Kaylin heals four Tha'alani who were attacked by the townsfolk out of fear and hatred, and that night, Kaylin and Severn visit Sarabe's sister, Marai. When they do, though, they are attacked by a night-black lioness and nearly killed by Leontine Mage. Since Leontines are very proud about the fact that they don't have mages, Kaylin wonders about this. The fire the mage blasted them with burns down the building, but Kaylin and Severn save each other and help Marai save her son. But it soon becomes clear that Malin was the animal who attacked them, and she is close-mouthed about why, although she maintains it was to save her son. They bring Malin to Marcus' Pridlea, where the other Leontines take her in, even her son.
The next day, Kaylin asks Lord Sanabalis to help them investigate the possible mage, and he agrees, and they travel to the Leontine part of the city, where he speaks to all the Leontine around in a strange tongue that Kaylin almost understands and finds herself disobeying his orders and climbing out of the carriage to be near him and hear this language. After a long time, he is done, and says he was telling the Leontine how they were created, and that they needed to hear it.
Caught between the two tasks: helping save the Tha'alani and saving Marcus and Marai and Marai's son, Kaylin can hardly rest, and when it turns out that the Outcaste Dragon who she fought before may have had a hand in Marcus' problems, she can't stop until she has saved the innocent and punished the guilty. But does she have enough magic in her to rewrite history and make a better situation for Marai's child, and can she save him if the Dragon Emperor decides to get involved?
I found this book fascinating, and trying to summarize it was hard, especially with all the information that was uncovered and everything that went on in the book. So much happens and so many secrets are revealed that a shocking turn of events seems to occur with every chapter.
But while we begin to understand more about the races of Elantra, Kaylin seems to become more of a mystery with each book. Her powers, such as they are seem to respond to the situations she gets herself in, and yet, once the situation is over, they mostly go away. In this volume, she speaks in fluent Elder Tongue at one point, but after the crisis is past, she needs help to speak it and understand what she is speaking. And the tattoos on her body have something to do with it... because after she spoke long in the tongue, her tattoos glowed blue and were hot to the touch. And when they stopped glowing and cooled, she was back to being unable to understand much of it.
In a way, it is interesting and frustrating to have a heroine whose past and abilities are such a mystery. Interesting, because it keeps you reading, and frustrating because the information about her and her abilities is doled out in veritable crumbs and you occasionally want something substantial to sink your teeth into.
While this book isn't about Kaylin so much, it gives far more information on the Leontines and their background as a race, and also a great deal of information about their culture. Each book in the series, except for maybe the first, has delved into one of the races that live in Elantra. With a great number of races calling Elantra home, this promises many more books to come and more things to learn about Kaylin Neya. Because each race is covered in detail, they come across as complete and interesting rather than just "races shown in the Cantina sequence". Each race feels as though they are real and have life in more than just a series of books.
It's this kind of reality that draws me to this series, the sense that Elantra is an actual city somewhere keeps me coming back and deeply enjoying what I read. I've recommended this series before, and I will continue to recommend it. It's just too good not to.
Kaylin is human, but different. When she was 12, magical sigils appeared on her skin, for no reason that she could determine. She has magical power, but she doesn't want to do magic. The best she can do is heal, which is rare, but she uses her power as a midwife, saving children and mothers from death. Recently, however, the dragons ruling the city have realized the power she holds, and put her under the tutelage of one of their own: Lord Sanabalis, Head of the Guild of Mages. Despite being able to heal, she has a hard time using her power for even the simplest of other tasks. Partly because she is unused to using her power that way, and partly because she really doesn't want to do anything but heal. To keep her power contained, however, she must wear a special bracelet that limits the power she can access.
In the past few months, Kaylin has fought off a rogue Dragon, rescued a Tha'alanni child, been to court, and been sucked into a part of the city that predates Elantra, which recognized her somehow. She also witnessed the Tha'alani, who are used in the city as mind-readers by the court and the Emperor, and hated and feared as a result, try to stop a tidal wave that could have destroyed the entire city. In doing so, she lost her fear of them, but that isn't true for the rest of the city.
In fact, the sight of so many Tha'alani before the tidal wave has made people think that the Tha'alani tried to destroy the city, and people are keeping watch over the enclave where the Tha'alani live with weapons, ready to destroy what they hate and fear.
The Emperor has realized this, and comissioned the Imperial Playwright, Richard Rennick, to write a play that will mitigate the hate and fear the Tha'alani are experiencing, and hopefully cause the humans around them to understand them better. He did so, but the Tha'alani found the play distasteful, considering it to be a lie. So now Kaylin and her Partner Severn have been seconded to the Imperial Palace and Rennick in hopes of him writing a play that will have the same effect, but which will not infuriate the people the Emperor is hoping to save.
At the same time, though, trouble hits the Halls of the Law where Kaylin serves. Her superior, a Leontine named Marcus, is charged with killing another Leontine and replaced by Mallory, a Hawk with a stick up his butt who wants to make the Hawks run smoothly. But he does so by enforcing regulations and informs Kaylin that if she doesn't follow regulations, she will be kicked out of the force. But Kaylin cares less about that than in saving Marcus. She travels to the part of the city where he lives, and talks to his first wife and Matriarch of the Pridlea where he lives. She also talks with his other wives, and discovers that one of them has a sister who Kaylin midwifed through her first birth.
But there is a problem there. Marcus's wife, Sarabe, has a difficulty in her background because of the color of her fur. She and her sister should have been killed at birth, but escaped that because their parents loved them. But when they were older, their parents died, and now they had nowhere to turn for shelter. Marcus took in Sarabe, but her sister Marai, made her own choice. Marcus eventually took Sarabe to wife, and when Marai became pregnant, she contacted the Pridlea, and Marcus gave her Kaylin's name as a midwife for her child. When the baby was born, Kaylin was there and became a sort of mother to the child by licking the birthing fluids from its eyelids. Under Leontine Law, doing so makes her a mother to the child.
But because the Baby was male, by Leontine Law, he will have to be slain. And therein lies the problem. The Leontines don't want to tell Kaylin why the color of the baby's fur makes it subject to death under Leontine Law. Sarabe has children, but hers are all female, which, apparently makes her safe somehow. Kaylin asks about Marcus's mood, hoping to prove him innocent of the murder of which he is accused, but they know nothing. She and Severn go to see Marcus and get to speak to him, but he is closemouthed about the fight that led to the murder, although he does say that he is guilty, which devastates Kaylin. She cannot believe the man she knows is guilty of cold-blooded murder. Or even murder in a fight.
They spend the day with Rennick in the Tha'alani compound, where Kaylin heals four Tha'alani who were attacked by the townsfolk out of fear and hatred, and that night, Kaylin and Severn visit Sarabe's sister, Marai. When they do, though, they are attacked by a night-black lioness and nearly killed by Leontine Mage. Since Leontines are very proud about the fact that they don't have mages, Kaylin wonders about this. The fire the mage blasted them with burns down the building, but Kaylin and Severn save each other and help Marai save her son. But it soon becomes clear that Malin was the animal who attacked them, and she is close-mouthed about why, although she maintains it was to save her son. They bring Malin to Marcus' Pridlea, where the other Leontines take her in, even her son.
The next day, Kaylin asks Lord Sanabalis to help them investigate the possible mage, and he agrees, and they travel to the Leontine part of the city, where he speaks to all the Leontine around in a strange tongue that Kaylin almost understands and finds herself disobeying his orders and climbing out of the carriage to be near him and hear this language. After a long time, he is done, and says he was telling the Leontine how they were created, and that they needed to hear it.
Caught between the two tasks: helping save the Tha'alani and saving Marcus and Marai and Marai's son, Kaylin can hardly rest, and when it turns out that the Outcaste Dragon who she fought before may have had a hand in Marcus' problems, she can't stop until she has saved the innocent and punished the guilty. But does she have enough magic in her to rewrite history and make a better situation for Marai's child, and can she save him if the Dragon Emperor decides to get involved?
I found this book fascinating, and trying to summarize it was hard, especially with all the information that was uncovered and everything that went on in the book. So much happens and so many secrets are revealed that a shocking turn of events seems to occur with every chapter.
But while we begin to understand more about the races of Elantra, Kaylin seems to become more of a mystery with each book. Her powers, such as they are seem to respond to the situations she gets herself in, and yet, once the situation is over, they mostly go away. In this volume, she speaks in fluent Elder Tongue at one point, but after the crisis is past, she needs help to speak it and understand what she is speaking. And the tattoos on her body have something to do with it... because after she spoke long in the tongue, her tattoos glowed blue and were hot to the touch. And when they stopped glowing and cooled, she was back to being unable to understand much of it.
In a way, it is interesting and frustrating to have a heroine whose past and abilities are such a mystery. Interesting, because it keeps you reading, and frustrating because the information about her and her abilities is doled out in veritable crumbs and you occasionally want something substantial to sink your teeth into.
While this book isn't about Kaylin so much, it gives far more information on the Leontines and their background as a race, and also a great deal of information about their culture. Each book in the series, except for maybe the first, has delved into one of the races that live in Elantra. With a great number of races calling Elantra home, this promises many more books to come and more things to learn about Kaylin Neya. Because each race is covered in detail, they come across as complete and interesting rather than just "races shown in the Cantina sequence". Each race feels as though they are real and have life in more than just a series of books.
It's this kind of reality that draws me to this series, the sense that Elantra is an actual city somewhere keeps me coming back and deeply enjoying what I read. I've recommended this series before, and I will continue to recommend it. It's just too good not to.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Pet Peeve by Piers Anthony
Goody Goblin is a most un-goblinlike goblin. He's clean, he's neat, he's polite, and he's gentlemanly. Which makes him very much like a female goblin, but the female goblins prefer more goblinesque goblins, making Goody a very lonely goblin. He did find a female Goblin to love, but she was cursed to have a very short life, so while they fell in love and had children together, both children had very normal goblin outlooks on life. Thus, Goody is alone once again.
But now a stranger has given him the finger, making him angry. But when he realizes that there is no way to be rid of it, except by giving it to another, he decides to go to see the Great Magician, and pay for his answer by giving a year of service. This isn't the first time he's gone this route... the last time he went was to find out how to attract a goblin female when he wasn't very goblin-like, but the advice didn't help very much.
On the way to the castle, Goody must overcome three challenges, and finds them fairly easy. He is met by one of the Magician's wives and they hear his tale of woe. Rose of Roogna offers one of her roses, and he picks a gray one, the rose of grief, since he is still grieving for Go-Go Goblin, his deceased wife. She tells him that when he meets a woman who can take the rose without harm, he will have found another woman to love. He isn't sure he wants this, but decides he must.
Then he is escorted to the Good Magician Humphrey, who tells Goody to give the finger to Humphrey's Daughter-in-Law, Wira, who is blind and therefore cannot be affected by it. He does, but instead of serving for a year, the Good Magician tells him he must find a most disagreeable animal a home: the Pet Peeve, a bird who makes enemies wherever he goes by saying the nastiest things he can think of in the voices of those around him, causing quarrels and trouble wherever he goes. Humphey is asking Goody because of his temperament: No one else on Xanth can be around the bird for very long without wanting to kill it. But because Goody is so inoffensive, he must have a bodyguard. Enter Hannah Barbarian, who will protect him and the bird from any external threat. But they must find the Peeve a good home where he will be happy, a tall order.
Goody and Hannah set off to find the Peeve a home, but have no luck getting rid of him in the Region of Madness, which is where they assume anyone who would want such a bird would live. Along the way, they encounter two dragons who trade them information for a robot builder from one of Princess Iris's moons, the Moon of Robots. They agree, and travel there, where they trade information about their past lives to the robots in exchange for the plans for a robot builder.
When they return home, they help the dragons put together the items they will need to make the robot builder. It's tiny, but it works, and they each leave, happy and satisfied. But the machine is still working as they leave, and when they reach Castle Zombie, they realize that the robots are constructing more robots and are overrunning the land in the search of building materials to make more of themselves.
To stop the holocaust they have unwittingly created, they must inform King Trent and become diplomats to the other races to bring them together to stop the robots before they overrun the whole of Xanth and push out all the other plants, creatures, humans and animals. In doing so, Goody meets his perfect match, Gwenny Gobliness, raised by Elves and Centaurs to want respect and kindness from her mate. And she can only be married to a chief or son of a Chief, as she herself is a Chieftess of her clan. Can Gwenny and Goody overcome the barriers keeping them apart even as they struggle against the army of robots overrunning the land of Xanth?
I liked this book, which, while focussing a great deal on love and sex (as many of Piers Anthony's books do), doesn't have that whole distasteful "underage sex and romance" story underpinning it, like "Two to the Fifth" did. Goody Goblin is a good guy who might be looking for love, but not too hard, because he's still in mourning for his old wife.
The love story, such as it is, starts late, as if it was more of an afterthought than anything else. Even Hannah Barbarian gets a love story, such as it is, with a robot reprogrammed to have a conscience. But the best thing about this particular love story is that it's sweet without being randy, although it certainly does get into that later on. It's basically very much like the early Xanth books, in all the best ways.
This being a Xanth Book, of course, puns abound, and those not into puns, or those who run screaming from puns had best beware, as this book is full of them. Now, I tend to be a punslinger in real life, but some of these puns even made me wince. So, be warned, but those who enjoy puns, invertebrate punsters and incorrigable punsters, will find plenty to enjoy here. And being an invertebrate punster myself (spinelessly unable to resist making a pun, so slug me!), of course, I enjoyed it.
But now a stranger has given him the finger, making him angry. But when he realizes that there is no way to be rid of it, except by giving it to another, he decides to go to see the Great Magician, and pay for his answer by giving a year of service. This isn't the first time he's gone this route... the last time he went was to find out how to attract a goblin female when he wasn't very goblin-like, but the advice didn't help very much.
On the way to the castle, Goody must overcome three challenges, and finds them fairly easy. He is met by one of the Magician's wives and they hear his tale of woe. Rose of Roogna offers one of her roses, and he picks a gray one, the rose of grief, since he is still grieving for Go-Go Goblin, his deceased wife. She tells him that when he meets a woman who can take the rose without harm, he will have found another woman to love. He isn't sure he wants this, but decides he must.
Then he is escorted to the Good Magician Humphrey, who tells Goody to give the finger to Humphrey's Daughter-in-Law, Wira, who is blind and therefore cannot be affected by it. He does, but instead of serving for a year, the Good Magician tells him he must find a most disagreeable animal a home: the Pet Peeve, a bird who makes enemies wherever he goes by saying the nastiest things he can think of in the voices of those around him, causing quarrels and trouble wherever he goes. Humphey is asking Goody because of his temperament: No one else on Xanth can be around the bird for very long without wanting to kill it. But because Goody is so inoffensive, he must have a bodyguard. Enter Hannah Barbarian, who will protect him and the bird from any external threat. But they must find the Peeve a good home where he will be happy, a tall order.
Goody and Hannah set off to find the Peeve a home, but have no luck getting rid of him in the Region of Madness, which is where they assume anyone who would want such a bird would live. Along the way, they encounter two dragons who trade them information for a robot builder from one of Princess Iris's moons, the Moon of Robots. They agree, and travel there, where they trade information about their past lives to the robots in exchange for the plans for a robot builder.
When they return home, they help the dragons put together the items they will need to make the robot builder. It's tiny, but it works, and they each leave, happy and satisfied. But the machine is still working as they leave, and when they reach Castle Zombie, they realize that the robots are constructing more robots and are overrunning the land in the search of building materials to make more of themselves.
To stop the holocaust they have unwittingly created, they must inform King Trent and become diplomats to the other races to bring them together to stop the robots before they overrun the whole of Xanth and push out all the other plants, creatures, humans and animals. In doing so, Goody meets his perfect match, Gwenny Gobliness, raised by Elves and Centaurs to want respect and kindness from her mate. And she can only be married to a chief or son of a Chief, as she herself is a Chieftess of her clan. Can Gwenny and Goody overcome the barriers keeping them apart even as they struggle against the army of robots overrunning the land of Xanth?
I liked this book, which, while focussing a great deal on love and sex (as many of Piers Anthony's books do), doesn't have that whole distasteful "underage sex and romance" story underpinning it, like "Two to the Fifth" did. Goody Goblin is a good guy who might be looking for love, but not too hard, because he's still in mourning for his old wife.
The love story, such as it is, starts late, as if it was more of an afterthought than anything else. Even Hannah Barbarian gets a love story, such as it is, with a robot reprogrammed to have a conscience. But the best thing about this particular love story is that it's sweet without being randy, although it certainly does get into that later on. It's basically very much like the early Xanth books, in all the best ways.
This being a Xanth Book, of course, puns abound, and those not into puns, or those who run screaming from puns had best beware, as this book is full of them. Now, I tend to be a punslinger in real life, but some of these puns even made me wince. So, be warned, but those who enjoy puns, invertebrate punsters and incorrigable punsters, will find plenty to enjoy here. And being an invertebrate punster myself (spinelessly unable to resist making a pun, so slug me!), of course, I enjoyed it.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Blood Ties by Tanya Huff
The Blood Books center around three characters- Victory or Vicki Nelson, ex-cop turned PI whose eyes are slowly going bad from retinitis pigmentosa, Mike Celluci, her former partner and former lover, still a cop, who can't give up loving Vicki no matter how hard he tries and Henry Fitzroy, a romance novelist who just happens to be a vampire, and the illegitimate son of Henry VIII.
In the first book, Vicki met Henry when she was on the trail of a diabolist, a man who was summoning demons. But he wasn't the real problem. It was the extremely powerful demon who his summoned demons were attempting to bring to the human world that was the problem. Vicki found herself attracted to Henry and became his lover, something Mike resented, but she found that letting Henry drink from her drew out the process of her disease, and made her keep her sight just a little longer.
In the end, after a number of adventures together, Vicki was dying, and Henry saved her by turning her into a vampire like him. But two vampires cannot remain in one city together, they are simply too territorial: the older and stronger will kill the weaker, or the weaker will flee. But in one final case together, they found out that occasionally, the lust to kill can be converted into a different kind of lust entirely, and managed to survive working together in the same city. Henry moved to Vancouver, and Vicki stayed in Toronto.
This book is a collection of short stories written by Tanya Huff involving all three characters. The first, "This Town Ain't Big Enough" shows how Vicki, a newly made vampire and definite low woman on the totem pole, defends her place in town when an older and stronger female vampire decides to move in and take over.
"What Manner of Man?" Has Henry helping a man in the British Government discover a French spy working among the nobles of the ton to gather secrets during the Napoleonic War.
"The Cards Also Say" has Vicki working with the Rom, or Gypsies, to capture a man who is stalking her, and presents a danger to both her and the Gypsies.
"The Vengeful Spirit of Lake Neapeakea" involves Vicki protecting a truly repellent real estate agent from a supposed monster living in Lake Neapeakea. While Vicki assumes that the people living around the lake are more to blame than some supposed monster living beneath it, the man she is supposed to protect has an absolute genius for pissing off everyone around him... and doesn't seem to care.
"Someone to Share the Night" involves Henry's search for a girlfriend, and what happens when he suspects that one of the women who answered his ad is not as innocent as she painted herself to be.
"Another Fine Nest" has Vicki going after giant cockroaches living in the subway stations under Toronto.
"Scleratus" shows us how Henry dealt with the men and the Inquisition who killed the woman he truly loved, Ginevra Treschi, and also, how he was turned aside from an eternity of nothing but vengeance by having to clean up a situation he had helped create.
"Critical Analysis" shows Vicki's case involving an author who has been targeted by someone for death... but nobody seems to have done anything to the author but himself. Could be somehow be hurting himself and not knowing about it?
"So This is Christmas" is the story of "A Christmas Carol", with Vicki as the Scrooge Character, having a dream on Christmas Day (because she sleeps during the day).
The Final two chapters are about writing the story "Stone Cold" for the Lifetime Channel version of her stories, and the final script she handed in, which was not quite the version finally shown on the screen. In the end, they kept six lines out of what she wrote, which allowed her to be credited as the writer of the episode.
I really enjoyed this book, because I started reading the "Blood" books when they first came out (eons and eons ago...). I liked the characters and their interactions and relationships, and the idea that a vampire made a living as a romance author. It's been done again since then, but I remember smiling so hard my face hurt when I first read the books. It was wonderful to read all these short stories and remember my experiences of reading the original books.
The stories in this book are wonderful, expanding and sometimes explaining the things that happened in the stories. I especially enjoyed reading the stories involving Henry and his past, before he met Vicki, not so much the stories about when Vicki is a vampire, as I preferred Henry to Mike Celluci. But, to each their own, and any fan of the original books or of Tanya Huff's work will enjoy these books, no question about it.
The last two chapters I found the most fascinating. as well as a bit disheartening. Only six sentences survived out of an entire script? And yet that qualifies you to be credited as a writer? Being a writer myself, I'm not sure how I feel about that. It does make me sad, though.
In the first book, Vicki met Henry when she was on the trail of a diabolist, a man who was summoning demons. But he wasn't the real problem. It was the extremely powerful demon who his summoned demons were attempting to bring to the human world that was the problem. Vicki found herself attracted to Henry and became his lover, something Mike resented, but she found that letting Henry drink from her drew out the process of her disease, and made her keep her sight just a little longer.
In the end, after a number of adventures together, Vicki was dying, and Henry saved her by turning her into a vampire like him. But two vampires cannot remain in one city together, they are simply too territorial: the older and stronger will kill the weaker, or the weaker will flee. But in one final case together, they found out that occasionally, the lust to kill can be converted into a different kind of lust entirely, and managed to survive working together in the same city. Henry moved to Vancouver, and Vicki stayed in Toronto.
This book is a collection of short stories written by Tanya Huff involving all three characters. The first, "This Town Ain't Big Enough" shows how Vicki, a newly made vampire and definite low woman on the totem pole, defends her place in town when an older and stronger female vampire decides to move in and take over.
"What Manner of Man?" Has Henry helping a man in the British Government discover a French spy working among the nobles of the ton to gather secrets during the Napoleonic War.
"The Cards Also Say" has Vicki working with the Rom, or Gypsies, to capture a man who is stalking her, and presents a danger to both her and the Gypsies.
"The Vengeful Spirit of Lake Neapeakea" involves Vicki protecting a truly repellent real estate agent from a supposed monster living in Lake Neapeakea. While Vicki assumes that the people living around the lake are more to blame than some supposed monster living beneath it, the man she is supposed to protect has an absolute genius for pissing off everyone around him... and doesn't seem to care.
"Someone to Share the Night" involves Henry's search for a girlfriend, and what happens when he suspects that one of the women who answered his ad is not as innocent as she painted herself to be.
"Another Fine Nest" has Vicki going after giant cockroaches living in the subway stations under Toronto.
"Scleratus" shows us how Henry dealt with the men and the Inquisition who killed the woman he truly loved, Ginevra Treschi, and also, how he was turned aside from an eternity of nothing but vengeance by having to clean up a situation he had helped create.
"Critical Analysis" shows Vicki's case involving an author who has been targeted by someone for death... but nobody seems to have done anything to the author but himself. Could be somehow be hurting himself and not knowing about it?
"So This is Christmas" is the story of "A Christmas Carol", with Vicki as the Scrooge Character, having a dream on Christmas Day (because she sleeps during the day).
The Final two chapters are about writing the story "Stone Cold" for the Lifetime Channel version of her stories, and the final script she handed in, which was not quite the version finally shown on the screen. In the end, they kept six lines out of what she wrote, which allowed her to be credited as the writer of the episode.
I really enjoyed this book, because I started reading the "Blood" books when they first came out (eons and eons ago...). I liked the characters and their interactions and relationships, and the idea that a vampire made a living as a romance author. It's been done again since then, but I remember smiling so hard my face hurt when I first read the books. It was wonderful to read all these short stories and remember my experiences of reading the original books.
The stories in this book are wonderful, expanding and sometimes explaining the things that happened in the stories. I especially enjoyed reading the stories involving Henry and his past, before he met Vicki, not so much the stories about when Vicki is a vampire, as I preferred Henry to Mike Celluci. But, to each their own, and any fan of the original books or of Tanya Huff's work will enjoy these books, no question about it.
The last two chapters I found the most fascinating. as well as a bit disheartening. Only six sentences survived out of an entire script? And yet that qualifies you to be credited as a writer? Being a writer myself, I'm not sure how I feel about that. It does make me sad, though.
New Rules by Bill Maher
This book, subtitled "Polite Musings from a Timid Observer" should come with the exclamation "NOT!" attached at the end. Because Bill Maher, his career as a talk show host in "Politically Incorrect" aside, is and was a stand-up comic, and the book is sprinkled with observations that are definitely Politically Incorrect, from pointing out that it's not racist not to hire black people as part of your state government when your state doesn't actually have any black people living in it, to musings on the shortcomings of Paris Hilton, like that she only has one expression and that she is totally fixated on herself, if the shots from her camera phone is any indication.
The book is laid out in 26 chapters, A-Z. Most of the new rules are given headings that correspond to the chapter letter, but the last entry in each chapter is usually longer than the rest and unconnected to the chapter's letter heading. Each New Rule is preceeded by the heading, so chapter A will have headings such as A Perfect Cliché, A Suit and Battery, AARP Yours, Abigail Van Buried, Abu Grab-Ass, Alter Boys and Ad Nauseam. Some have pictures to illustrate the points. All are funny, though someone easily offended won't find them funny in the least, and cynics may only be incited into a derisive laugh.
This is Bill Maher all over: Offensive to some, but unrelentingly funny to others, I enjoyed the book, although it's not everyone's cup of tea. I'd only recommend this book to someone I knew had a sense of humor similar to mine. Someone else might be offended rather than amused, or even left cold.
The book is laid out in 26 chapters, A-Z. Most of the new rules are given headings that correspond to the chapter letter, but the last entry in each chapter is usually longer than the rest and unconnected to the chapter's letter heading. Each New Rule is preceeded by the heading, so chapter A will have headings such as A Perfect Cliché, A Suit and Battery, AARP Yours, Abigail Van Buried, Abu Grab-Ass, Alter Boys and Ad Nauseam. Some have pictures to illustrate the points. All are funny, though someone easily offended won't find them funny in the least, and cynics may only be incited into a derisive laugh.
This is Bill Maher all over: Offensive to some, but unrelentingly funny to others, I enjoyed the book, although it's not everyone's cup of tea. I'd only recommend this book to someone I knew had a sense of humor similar to mine. Someone else might be offended rather than amused, or even left cold.
Halo Graphic Novel by Various
This graphic novel is based on the Halo series of Games by Bungie. None are about the man character, John 117, but about other characters and other parts of the story.
The first story in the book, "The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor", tells of a covenant Elite Spec Ops commander called to aid the Covenant of a ship called the Infinite Succor. The Covenant suspect that the humans have attacked and nearly taken over the ship. But when he boards, he discovers that it isn't the humans, but the Flood that have boarded the ship, although some of them have infected human bodies as hosts.
The Spec Ops commander wants to simply blow the ship up to wipe out the infection of Flood, but he is denied permission and discovers that the Infinite Succor carries a Legate on board who will not release the ship until he can find a way to discover if the SOC is free of the Flood Infection. Once he does, he must find a way to rescue the Legate and destroy the ship before the Flood can break free. But can he do this by himself and still get the Legate to safety?
The Second Story is called "Armor Testing" and shows how the Earth forces field test armor meant for the Spartan units. But is such testing more dangerous to the tester, or to the people attacking it, or to those monitoring the test? At the end, we find that the armor will be going to John-117.
The Third story is called "Breaking Quarantine" and involves Sergeant Avery Johnson, trapped alone in an artifact infected by the flood. He has two choices, die there, or somehow fight his way out. But can he do so totally on his own? This story is dinstinguished by being totally without words.
The Final story is "Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa" and while the city is utterly deserted in the game, this story shows it before it was deserted, and why the people fled.
For a graphic novel, it's not a bad set of stories, but if you haven't played the games, like me, the stories appear a bit disjointed and not good matches for each other. Each is completely different in style, graphic design and storytelling, which is because each is done by a completely different writer and artist. But it makes the changes in storyline and art style seem jarring, as if each new story is a shock to the eyes.
However, if you aren't a fan of the games, or even if you are, unless you are a raving completist, this book is not going to be high on your list of stuff to buy as a game tie-in. It doesn't add much, and you can definitely get by without it. I see no reason to recommend it, as I didn't even find the stories all that interesting.
The first story in the book, "The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor", tells of a covenant Elite Spec Ops commander called to aid the Covenant of a ship called the Infinite Succor. The Covenant suspect that the humans have attacked and nearly taken over the ship. But when he boards, he discovers that it isn't the humans, but the Flood that have boarded the ship, although some of them have infected human bodies as hosts.
The Spec Ops commander wants to simply blow the ship up to wipe out the infection of Flood, but he is denied permission and discovers that the Infinite Succor carries a Legate on board who will not release the ship until he can find a way to discover if the SOC is free of the Flood Infection. Once he does, he must find a way to rescue the Legate and destroy the ship before the Flood can break free. But can he do this by himself and still get the Legate to safety?
The Second Story is called "Armor Testing" and shows how the Earth forces field test armor meant for the Spartan units. But is such testing more dangerous to the tester, or to the people attacking it, or to those monitoring the test? At the end, we find that the armor will be going to John-117.
The Third story is called "Breaking Quarantine" and involves Sergeant Avery Johnson, trapped alone in an artifact infected by the flood. He has two choices, die there, or somehow fight his way out. But can he do so totally on his own? This story is dinstinguished by being totally without words.
The Final story is "Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa" and while the city is utterly deserted in the game, this story shows it before it was deserted, and why the people fled.
For a graphic novel, it's not a bad set of stories, but if you haven't played the games, like me, the stories appear a bit disjointed and not good matches for each other. Each is completely different in style, graphic design and storytelling, which is because each is done by a completely different writer and artist. But it makes the changes in storyline and art style seem jarring, as if each new story is a shock to the eyes.
However, if you aren't a fan of the games, or even if you are, unless you are a raving completist, this book is not going to be high on your list of stuff to buy as a game tie-in. It doesn't add much, and you can definitely get by without it. I see no reason to recommend it, as I didn't even find the stories all that interesting.
Peach Fuzz, Volume 3 By Lindsay Cibos and Jared Hodges
Peach, the Ferret pet of Amanda, is being especially destructive lately, mainly because she is tired of being alone and wants a handsome Prince as a mate. Not only is she gnawing at the bars of her cage, but trying to dig through the carpet in search of her freedom.
At school, Amanda's friend Mimi suggests a solution: getting another ferret for Peach to be friends with. Mimi's turtles died, so her mother got her three baby ferrets as pets instead, and they are very happy playing with each other. Perhaps Peach just needs a friend or two?
When Amanda gets home, she finds out that her mother has discovered the hole Peach made in the rug, but her solution, getting Peach declawed, was nixed by the vets. Apparently, getting ferrets declawed is like cutting off their fingers. Still, even Amanda's mother can't stand the look of Peach alone in her cage, so she reluctantly accedes to Amanda's request to get another Ferret.
At the pet store, Amanda wants a ferret that doesn't look like Peach at all, and picks out a "Fancy Ferret". The Pet Store Guy also says that the new ferret is a boy, and Amanda happily thinks of Peach and her new Ferret having babies. But the Pet Store Guy also says that the New Ferret is "Fixed", which perplexes Amanda. Are other Ferrets sold broken? She wonders. And what is a "broken" ferret anyway? She is rather grossed out by the litter boxes in the store, which are filled with Green Poop from the ferrets, which she assumes is due to bad food.
On the way home, Amanda and her mother name the new Ferret "Prince Edwin", from her mother's new romance novel. But while Peach is initially thrilled at the sight of her new Prince, on closer looks, he's rather awkward and clumsy and kind of stupid. Peach is upset and decides not to have anything to do with him, making him sleep across the room from her.
Amanda decides to take Peach to visit Mimi and her ferrets, and to stay the night, but her mother doesn't like Mimi's family, thinking them strange. But eventually, Amanda persuades her mother to let her go, and they visit Mim's family, who are mushroom worshippers. In the meantime, one of Mimi's ferrets died when her father accidentally sat on it, so now she only has two ferrets, both Albino.
Peach finds them strange and uncanny, like ghosts, and sneezes when meeting them. Mimi's ferrets are real gloom and doom types, but the next day, Amanda thinks that if Mimi's dead ferret is "broken", they should take it to the pet store where it can be "fixed". Needless to say, the Pet Store Guy is shocked, and Amanda's mother arrives to take her home. Along the way, she explains what an animal being "Fixed" means, and Amanda thinks that this means that neither Edwin nor Peach will die, and that's an okay trade for not having babies.
When they get home, Peach isn't feeling well, and a few days later, Edwin hurts himself and must be taken to the vet. In the meantime, Mimi calls and says her ferrets got sick after the visit by Peach. Amanda, who has been worried about Peach, finds her ill when she gets get home, and must take Peach to the vet as well. As Prince Edwin and Amanda nurse Peach through her illness, Peach becomes reconciled to living with both of them, And when she is well, makes plans to rebuild her kingdom.
This was a cute manga series, with a nice story as well as plenty of tips for buying, living with and having a ferret as a pet. Any young girl wanting a ferret as a pet will find a lot of good tips about pet ferrets, including discipline, feeding and watering, and now, veterinary care.
And it's no surprise, since the writer of the series, herself keeps ferrets as pets and knows a great deal about them, even if the ferret who Prince Edwin was based on, Elf, has sadly passed away from lymphoma.
This series is also cute in that it shows life from a ferret's eye point of view as well as that of the ferret's owner, Amanda. For instance, Peach doesn't know that Amanda's hands are part of her, but thinks of them as monsters, called "The Handra". Similarly, Amanda's stuffed toys are also monsters, but since they don't move on their own, Peach thinks of them as slaves in her kingdom.
This is a cute series with some great advice for ferret owners, but it's not a very deep story. Cute, but shallow. Still, for a girl crazy about owning Ferrets, this would be a good choice. For anyone else, you won't miss anything by not buying or reading it.
At school, Amanda's friend Mimi suggests a solution: getting another ferret for Peach to be friends with. Mimi's turtles died, so her mother got her three baby ferrets as pets instead, and they are very happy playing with each other. Perhaps Peach just needs a friend or two?
When Amanda gets home, she finds out that her mother has discovered the hole Peach made in the rug, but her solution, getting Peach declawed, was nixed by the vets. Apparently, getting ferrets declawed is like cutting off their fingers. Still, even Amanda's mother can't stand the look of Peach alone in her cage, so she reluctantly accedes to Amanda's request to get another Ferret.
At the pet store, Amanda wants a ferret that doesn't look like Peach at all, and picks out a "Fancy Ferret". The Pet Store Guy also says that the new ferret is a boy, and Amanda happily thinks of Peach and her new Ferret having babies. But the Pet Store Guy also says that the New Ferret is "Fixed", which perplexes Amanda. Are other Ferrets sold broken? She wonders. And what is a "broken" ferret anyway? She is rather grossed out by the litter boxes in the store, which are filled with Green Poop from the ferrets, which she assumes is due to bad food.
On the way home, Amanda and her mother name the new Ferret "Prince Edwin", from her mother's new romance novel. But while Peach is initially thrilled at the sight of her new Prince, on closer looks, he's rather awkward and clumsy and kind of stupid. Peach is upset and decides not to have anything to do with him, making him sleep across the room from her.
Amanda decides to take Peach to visit Mimi and her ferrets, and to stay the night, but her mother doesn't like Mimi's family, thinking them strange. But eventually, Amanda persuades her mother to let her go, and they visit Mim's family, who are mushroom worshippers. In the meantime, one of Mimi's ferrets died when her father accidentally sat on it, so now she only has two ferrets, both Albino.
Peach finds them strange and uncanny, like ghosts, and sneezes when meeting them. Mimi's ferrets are real gloom and doom types, but the next day, Amanda thinks that if Mimi's dead ferret is "broken", they should take it to the pet store where it can be "fixed". Needless to say, the Pet Store Guy is shocked, and Amanda's mother arrives to take her home. Along the way, she explains what an animal being "Fixed" means, and Amanda thinks that this means that neither Edwin nor Peach will die, and that's an okay trade for not having babies.
When they get home, Peach isn't feeling well, and a few days later, Edwin hurts himself and must be taken to the vet. In the meantime, Mimi calls and says her ferrets got sick after the visit by Peach. Amanda, who has been worried about Peach, finds her ill when she gets get home, and must take Peach to the vet as well. As Prince Edwin and Amanda nurse Peach through her illness, Peach becomes reconciled to living with both of them, And when she is well, makes plans to rebuild her kingdom.
This was a cute manga series, with a nice story as well as plenty of tips for buying, living with and having a ferret as a pet. Any young girl wanting a ferret as a pet will find a lot of good tips about pet ferrets, including discipline, feeding and watering, and now, veterinary care.
And it's no surprise, since the writer of the series, herself keeps ferrets as pets and knows a great deal about them, even if the ferret who Prince Edwin was based on, Elf, has sadly passed away from lymphoma.
This series is also cute in that it shows life from a ferret's eye point of view as well as that of the ferret's owner, Amanda. For instance, Peach doesn't know that Amanda's hands are part of her, but thinks of them as monsters, called "The Handra". Similarly, Amanda's stuffed toys are also monsters, but since they don't move on their own, Peach thinks of them as slaves in her kingdom.
This is a cute series with some great advice for ferret owners, but it's not a very deep story. Cute, but shallow. Still, for a girl crazy about owning Ferrets, this would be a good choice. For anyone else, you won't miss anything by not buying or reading it.
Friday, November 07, 2008
Dog Days by John Levitt
Mason is a magician, but not a stage magician, a practitioner. He used to work as an enforcer, keeping the magicians with small talents and limited morals from using their powers to fleece others. But then he gave it up to play Jazz and be his own boss. Now, his only reminder of the old days is his Ifrit, Louie, who has taken the form of a dog.
But one night on his way home, Mason is attacked by things that look like slugs, but have acid. He defeats them, and the next night, again on his way home, is sucked into a magical trap that resembles another world, but entirely without people... even Louie is missing. While in this world, though, Mason is approached by wolves, who lead him to the beach and dig up a strange gemstone for him. The gemstone stays with him even as he breaks out of the trap and back into the real world.
The next morning, he goes to see Victor, the leader of the enforcers he used to work for, and brings the gem with him. Victor says that the gems are, literally, priceless. But neither he nor any other of the practicioners have any idea what they are. But what they can do is boost the power of any practicioner who gets a hold of one. But since no one knows where they come from or where to get them, perhaps Mason should take a look into tracking this down, using his shadier contacts.
Mason does just that and finds the true seamy underside of magic: people who will pay anything for the gem he found, practicioners who battle each other for kicks and a temporary magical boost, and practicioners who have suddenly lost their ifrit companions. But in his investigations, Mason has really pissed someone off, and a practicioner named Christoph shows up one night in his apartment to try and buy him off with more of the gemstones everyone has been looking for. When Louie goes for Christoph, however, Christoph attacks Louie and freezes him in place, which angers Mason so much that he attacks Christoph with a bat, and has to seek out a healer to save his friend.
This focuses Mason on Christoph as someone who is in on where the gems are coming from, and when Louie goes missing, and Mason and his friend Campbell must find him, and in consequence discover exactly what the gems are: Ifrit eyes. But when Christoph challenges Mason to an all or nothing fight, how can Mason, so outclassed with the high state of Christoph's powers, ever hope to defeat him? Even with Victor and Mason's Mentor Eli on his side, how can he hope to win?
This was an unusual book that I ended up liking a great deal. Ostensibly the story of a guy and his dog, or a magician and his Ifrit, it delves deeply into the character of Mason and offers teasing tidbits of what Louie, Mason's Ifrit, is capable of. But those teasing tidbits are *all* we get. Even at the end of the novel, when it is revealed that Christoph was after Mason to get a hold of Louie and take his eyes, because Louie is something special as an Ifrit, we don't get a clue as to what makes him special except that he is a finder, and has a magical ability to "Find" things.
Why that makes him different from ordinary Ifrits isn't explained or examined, and since Louie is the only Ifrit we ever get to see in more than a passing way, we don't really have a clue, even by the end of the book, exactly why he's so special. I mean, I think I have a clue, given that Mason's special talent as a practicioner seems to be imprrovisational magic, but we don't know.
On the other hand, John Levitt is working on a sequel, so perhaps we'll see more about Louie and find out what makes him so special as an Ifrit. I certainly hope so, as I liked both characters and want to see more.
But one night on his way home, Mason is attacked by things that look like slugs, but have acid. He defeats them, and the next night, again on his way home, is sucked into a magical trap that resembles another world, but entirely without people... even Louie is missing. While in this world, though, Mason is approached by wolves, who lead him to the beach and dig up a strange gemstone for him. The gemstone stays with him even as he breaks out of the trap and back into the real world.
The next morning, he goes to see Victor, the leader of the enforcers he used to work for, and brings the gem with him. Victor says that the gems are, literally, priceless. But neither he nor any other of the practicioners have any idea what they are. But what they can do is boost the power of any practicioner who gets a hold of one. But since no one knows where they come from or where to get them, perhaps Mason should take a look into tracking this down, using his shadier contacts.
Mason does just that and finds the true seamy underside of magic: people who will pay anything for the gem he found, practicioners who battle each other for kicks and a temporary magical boost, and practicioners who have suddenly lost their ifrit companions. But in his investigations, Mason has really pissed someone off, and a practicioner named Christoph shows up one night in his apartment to try and buy him off with more of the gemstones everyone has been looking for. When Louie goes for Christoph, however, Christoph attacks Louie and freezes him in place, which angers Mason so much that he attacks Christoph with a bat, and has to seek out a healer to save his friend.
This focuses Mason on Christoph as someone who is in on where the gems are coming from, and when Louie goes missing, and Mason and his friend Campbell must find him, and in consequence discover exactly what the gems are: Ifrit eyes. But when Christoph challenges Mason to an all or nothing fight, how can Mason, so outclassed with the high state of Christoph's powers, ever hope to defeat him? Even with Victor and Mason's Mentor Eli on his side, how can he hope to win?
This was an unusual book that I ended up liking a great deal. Ostensibly the story of a guy and his dog, or a magician and his Ifrit, it delves deeply into the character of Mason and offers teasing tidbits of what Louie, Mason's Ifrit, is capable of. But those teasing tidbits are *all* we get. Even at the end of the novel, when it is revealed that Christoph was after Mason to get a hold of Louie and take his eyes, because Louie is something special as an Ifrit, we don't get a clue as to what makes him special except that he is a finder, and has a magical ability to "Find" things.
Why that makes him different from ordinary Ifrits isn't explained or examined, and since Louie is the only Ifrit we ever get to see in more than a passing way, we don't really have a clue, even by the end of the book, exactly why he's so special. I mean, I think I have a clue, given that Mason's special talent as a practicioner seems to be imprrovisational magic, but we don't know.
On the other hand, John Levitt is working on a sequel, so perhaps we'll see more about Louie and find out what makes him so special as an Ifrit. I certainly hope so, as I liked both characters and want to see more.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Lick of Frost by Laurell K. Hamilton
Meredith, or Merry, Gentry is the niece of Queen Andais, the Queen of Air and Darkness, ruler of the Unseelie Fae. She and her brutal cousin, Prince Cel, are struggling to succeed Andais as ruler of the Unseelie Fae. To do so, though, one of them must prove themselves fertile, either by getting pregnant (Merry) or impregnating another Fae (Cel).
Three of Merry's guards have been called into a lawyer's office to testify for supposedly having raped a female Seelie Fae of the Royal Court. However, none of them are guilty, and Merry knows this. She's wondering why her uncle Taranis, King of Light, would go so far as to try and have her guards accused of rape. What could he possibly want from her?
The lawyers question her and her guards in the presence of Ambassador Stevens, the United States' Ambassador to the Fae. But Merry doesn't know him very well, because he has never been to the Unseelie Court, only the Seelie Court. And it soon becomes obvious why when the Ambassador seems to become unwell and accuses Meredith and her guards of being monsters. The culprit for the change seems to be a watch given to the Ambassador by King Taranis, but being exposed to her and her guards as monsters is tearing away the Ambassador's sanity. The lawyers call help for him, and then call King Taranis, who seems to want Merry for some reason. When her guards remove her to keep Taranis from ensorcelling her with his magic, Taranis lashes out, injuring them.
But Taranis, too, is dragged away from the mirror by his own guards, and one of the Seelie Fay of the Court, Sir Hugh, tells Merry that King Taranis is not well, and that he and many of the other seelie would offer her the throne if they could.
Merry doesn't agree and ends the call, then accompanies her guards to the hospital, where they are treated. As soon as they return home, she calls Queen Andais by mirror to tell her of the offer from the Seelie Fae. Andais, however, has already heard and is enraged by the news. She has taken out her wrath on another Guard that was formerly Merry's- Crystall. Merry tells Andais she did not accept the offer, and her aunt does not believe her, until Merry swears the most potent oath the Fey can make. Then, she tells Merry that she, Andais, is close to hating Merry because of how she seems more Seelie than unSeelie. And that Andais's guards seem to want Merry to rule more than Andais or Cel.
Merry hasn't been feeling well, and this isn't putting her in a good mood. She thinks she's caught a cold, and compared to her guards and the men she loves, including Frost and Darkness, she will grow old and die, being merely mortal, while they stay young and beautiful forever. When she shares this fear with Frost, however, he tells her he will love her even when she is old and gray, for that is how he came to be.
For he was once Jack Frost, but fell in love with a peasant girl who had Faerie Sight. When she and her mother fell on hard times, he brought them food and wood. And when they were accused of being witches, he saved them, although her mother died, and he beseeched the goddess for a fully human form, and ended up marrying the girl and loving her all her life. It was love that formed him, more so than magic. Merry feels better and has sex with him, only to find Andais peeking in on them.
She and Merry talk some more, and then Merry must leave to prepare for having sex with two Redcaps who want to lie with her for the power she will bring them. And since she owes them a favor, and they will use their powers for her, she agrees. With them comes contingent of Redcaps, one of whom Merry knows. But she doesn't even have to touch them to bring their powers to the fore, and those of the Redcaps as well. But Frost, the man she loves, becomes a white Stag, fated to be sacrificed.
Afterwards, she goes outside to rest, and is kidnapped by her Uncle Taranis, who hits her so hard he gives her a concussion. He brings her back to the Seelie faerie mound, where she discovers that she is not sick, she is pregnant, with twins, and that each of her babies has three separate fathers. But can she deal with Taranis, now completely insane and wanting to marry her and proclaim himself father of her children, and can she keep her wits together and let the world know what has been happening to her, even as she grieves over the loss of her love, her Killing Frost?
Laurell K. Hamilton has recieved a lot of flack lately for writing more about sex than actual plots or romance, but in this series, I don't find all the sex distasteful or too much, because in the context of the characters of the book, it all fits the characters. Sex, to the fae, is affection and caring, and even just about sex, sometimes. This attitude towards sex is evident in the scene where Merry is being quizzed about her guards and their sexual habits. First, she sees nothing wrong with talking about sex, and isn't embarrassed to discuss it, and 2) she feels no shame in discussing the intimate details of her sex life with people who are, to her, strangers.
Plus, she *is* trying to get pregnant, so having lots of men in and out of her bed is not only acceptable, but something she needs to do: have lots and lots of sex and get pregnant, But sex also ties the men to her with bonds of obligation and affection. She is the only sexual outlet they have, except for masturbation, which she allows them, but Andais did not. The fact that she doesn't abuse them during sex, as Andais did, only makes them love her more.
And of course, now that Merry has won the race for the Unseelie throne, she's also lost the man she loves, Frost, to the magic she's brought back to the Fae. And by the end, she's won it. She's pregnant. She knows she won. But was it worth it, to lose the man she loved, her killing Frost? Mercy certainly doesn't seem to think so. Her daughter will never know her father, and Mercy can only feel sadness.
Reading this series takes Mercy through a gamut of emotions, from joy and exaltation to loss and sadness and fear, but I have enjoyed reading the series from the beginning. Although there is an element of "Sex adding powers to her repetoire", it's more the other way around here. Except for one instance, Mercy doesn't get powers from having sex, she gives them to others. I find this series fascinating and fun to read, and I'll recommend it to others. Yes, a lot of it is bound up in sex, but here, it comes with the territory.
Three of Merry's guards have been called into a lawyer's office to testify for supposedly having raped a female Seelie Fae of the Royal Court. However, none of them are guilty, and Merry knows this. She's wondering why her uncle Taranis, King of Light, would go so far as to try and have her guards accused of rape. What could he possibly want from her?
The lawyers question her and her guards in the presence of Ambassador Stevens, the United States' Ambassador to the Fae. But Merry doesn't know him very well, because he has never been to the Unseelie Court, only the Seelie Court. And it soon becomes obvious why when the Ambassador seems to become unwell and accuses Meredith and her guards of being monsters. The culprit for the change seems to be a watch given to the Ambassador by King Taranis, but being exposed to her and her guards as monsters is tearing away the Ambassador's sanity. The lawyers call help for him, and then call King Taranis, who seems to want Merry for some reason. When her guards remove her to keep Taranis from ensorcelling her with his magic, Taranis lashes out, injuring them.
But Taranis, too, is dragged away from the mirror by his own guards, and one of the Seelie Fay of the Court, Sir Hugh, tells Merry that King Taranis is not well, and that he and many of the other seelie would offer her the throne if they could.
Merry doesn't agree and ends the call, then accompanies her guards to the hospital, where they are treated. As soon as they return home, she calls Queen Andais by mirror to tell her of the offer from the Seelie Fae. Andais, however, has already heard and is enraged by the news. She has taken out her wrath on another Guard that was formerly Merry's- Crystall. Merry tells Andais she did not accept the offer, and her aunt does not believe her, until Merry swears the most potent oath the Fey can make. Then, she tells Merry that she, Andais, is close to hating Merry because of how she seems more Seelie than unSeelie. And that Andais's guards seem to want Merry to rule more than Andais or Cel.
Merry hasn't been feeling well, and this isn't putting her in a good mood. She thinks she's caught a cold, and compared to her guards and the men she loves, including Frost and Darkness, she will grow old and die, being merely mortal, while they stay young and beautiful forever. When she shares this fear with Frost, however, he tells her he will love her even when she is old and gray, for that is how he came to be.
For he was once Jack Frost, but fell in love with a peasant girl who had Faerie Sight. When she and her mother fell on hard times, he brought them food and wood. And when they were accused of being witches, he saved them, although her mother died, and he beseeched the goddess for a fully human form, and ended up marrying the girl and loving her all her life. It was love that formed him, more so than magic. Merry feels better and has sex with him, only to find Andais peeking in on them.
She and Merry talk some more, and then Merry must leave to prepare for having sex with two Redcaps who want to lie with her for the power she will bring them. And since she owes them a favor, and they will use their powers for her, she agrees. With them comes contingent of Redcaps, one of whom Merry knows. But she doesn't even have to touch them to bring their powers to the fore, and those of the Redcaps as well. But Frost, the man she loves, becomes a white Stag, fated to be sacrificed.
Afterwards, she goes outside to rest, and is kidnapped by her Uncle Taranis, who hits her so hard he gives her a concussion. He brings her back to the Seelie faerie mound, where she discovers that she is not sick, she is pregnant, with twins, and that each of her babies has three separate fathers. But can she deal with Taranis, now completely insane and wanting to marry her and proclaim himself father of her children, and can she keep her wits together and let the world know what has been happening to her, even as she grieves over the loss of her love, her Killing Frost?
Laurell K. Hamilton has recieved a lot of flack lately for writing more about sex than actual plots or romance, but in this series, I don't find all the sex distasteful or too much, because in the context of the characters of the book, it all fits the characters. Sex, to the fae, is affection and caring, and even just about sex, sometimes. This attitude towards sex is evident in the scene where Merry is being quizzed about her guards and their sexual habits. First, she sees nothing wrong with talking about sex, and isn't embarrassed to discuss it, and 2) she feels no shame in discussing the intimate details of her sex life with people who are, to her, strangers.
Plus, she *is* trying to get pregnant, so having lots of men in and out of her bed is not only acceptable, but something she needs to do: have lots and lots of sex and get pregnant, But sex also ties the men to her with bonds of obligation and affection. She is the only sexual outlet they have, except for masturbation, which she allows them, but Andais did not. The fact that she doesn't abuse them during sex, as Andais did, only makes them love her more.
And of course, now that Merry has won the race for the Unseelie throne, she's also lost the man she loves, Frost, to the magic she's brought back to the Fae. And by the end, she's won it. She's pregnant. She knows she won. But was it worth it, to lose the man she loved, her killing Frost? Mercy certainly doesn't seem to think so. Her daughter will never know her father, and Mercy can only feel sadness.
Reading this series takes Mercy through a gamut of emotions, from joy and exaltation to loss and sadness and fear, but I have enjoyed reading the series from the beginning. Although there is an element of "Sex adding powers to her repetoire", it's more the other way around here. Except for one instance, Mercy doesn't get powers from having sex, she gives them to others. I find this series fascinating and fun to read, and I'll recommend it to others. Yes, a lot of it is bound up in sex, but here, it comes with the territory.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Dorothea, Volume 2 by Cuvie
Dorothea has been accepted into the Landsknecht as an infantryman, at the fee of 6 Gulders. Gyurk is still attempting to shield her from the realities of war, given his pledge to her grandmother to try and keep her safe. But with a battle coming up can he keep her safe while not dying himself?
In her first battle, Dorothea kills a man, and finds a crucifix on his body. The men they are fighting against are religious separatists, which makes them Anathema to the Vatican and the local church. Dorothea picks up the unusual crucifix, but is affected by having killed her first man in battle.
When she comes upon a woman about to be raped, she rescues her and returns her to her family, only to find that the man she killed was the woman's husband, and when the woman finds the crucifix on Dorothea, she turns on her, blaming Dorothea (rightly) for her husband's death. Finding all this out makes Dorothea exhausted, confused and shell-shocked. She stumbles away from the woman's farmhouse, only to see it be set on fire by some of the Landsknechts, burning the woman, her mother, and her children alive inside. She tries to stop her fellow soldiers, but they overpower her, and she is rescued by Gyurk, who tells her that this is what he didn't want her to see or experience, that war damages you inside, and he didn't want it to happen to her.
He also tells Dorothea that to avoid being accused of being a witch, she should make friends with her fellow soldiers. The more of them that are on her side, the better. She does so, and discovers that the religious separatists that they were fighting were burning women, and women like her especially, as witches. But when the commander asks her to pretend to actually be a witch to draw the other separatists out of hiding and into a battle, Gyurk doesn't want her to take the risk. Can Dorothea face up to her fears and take on the role? Or will she refuse, risking an ambush by the enemy forces?
This second book expands on the promise of the first as Dorothea faces off in her first actual battle and must deal with the bad and evil acts that many soldiers perform. She's shocked by the difference between sparring a battle and actually fighting one and killing someone.
So far, my feeling about the series has not materialized into actuality, but it looks like this series will be ongoing into the future, and I am already looking forward to reading the next one.
In her first battle, Dorothea kills a man, and finds a crucifix on his body. The men they are fighting against are religious separatists, which makes them Anathema to the Vatican and the local church. Dorothea picks up the unusual crucifix, but is affected by having killed her first man in battle.
When she comes upon a woman about to be raped, she rescues her and returns her to her family, only to find that the man she killed was the woman's husband, and when the woman finds the crucifix on Dorothea, she turns on her, blaming Dorothea (rightly) for her husband's death. Finding all this out makes Dorothea exhausted, confused and shell-shocked. She stumbles away from the woman's farmhouse, only to see it be set on fire by some of the Landsknechts, burning the woman, her mother, and her children alive inside. She tries to stop her fellow soldiers, but they overpower her, and she is rescued by Gyurk, who tells her that this is what he didn't want her to see or experience, that war damages you inside, and he didn't want it to happen to her.
He also tells Dorothea that to avoid being accused of being a witch, she should make friends with her fellow soldiers. The more of them that are on her side, the better. She does so, and discovers that the religious separatists that they were fighting were burning women, and women like her especially, as witches. But when the commander asks her to pretend to actually be a witch to draw the other separatists out of hiding and into a battle, Gyurk doesn't want her to take the risk. Can Dorothea face up to her fears and take on the role? Or will she refuse, risking an ambush by the enemy forces?
This second book expands on the promise of the first as Dorothea faces off in her first actual battle and must deal with the bad and evil acts that many soldiers perform. She's shocked by the difference between sparring a battle and actually fighting one and killing someone.
So far, my feeling about the series has not materialized into actuality, but it looks like this series will be ongoing into the future, and I am already looking forward to reading the next one.
Dorothea Volume 1 by Cuvie
Dorothea Essenbach is an albino, one of the "white Children" that other towns and countries scorn, but who are protected in the small town of Naulders in what will someday become Germany. Naulders considers the children to be lucky, but elsewhere they are thought to be witches or children of the devil, unlucky and cursed. They live together in the "White House", but with the Vatican agreeing that such children are cursed, it doesn't seem that the "White House" or its children, will be long for this world.
Dorothea is the heir to not only ownership of the "White House" through her grandmother, Frau Schanzgard, but also to the post of seer. She is frustrated by her lack of seeing ability and by being stuck In Naulders when she so dearly wishes to see the world. But when Mercenaries acting as Bandits attack the White House for the riches they believe it to contain, Dorothea, who has been training with the sword and other weapons, goes after them to save her grandmother and the other children who live there. Despite her prowess, and after killing a number of the mercenaries, she is captured and about to be raped when she is saved by the return of her childhood friend Gyurk. Together, they slay the remaining bandits and Dorothea, suffering from the effects of too much sun exposure, passes out.
When she revives, she is back inside in her room, but she is angry at Gyurk for not returning home for the past two years. She also gets the impression that Gyurk looks down on her and her ability to fight. But one thing is clear: Naulders and the White House are at risk in the war that is currently sweeping the land, and Dorothea wishes to go out and fight for Naulders and the children that the White House protects. Gyurk tries to talk her out of it, and Dorothea becomes angry about Gyurk disrespecting her skill. She challenges him to a duel and wins, and he confesses that he just wants to protect her innocence, which is at risk if she goes to war. She will also need s letter allowing her to fight, and Dorothea knows that they can get one from Princess Else, the daughter of the ruler of Naulders and another "White Child". She was raised with Dorothea and Gyurk in the White House, but her father took her back into his home, and now keeps her indoors all day, but whether to protect her or to keep others from finding out that she is his child is unknown.
Else is upset that Gyurk will soon be leaving with Dorothea. Now both her friends will have abandoned her, and she will have no visits to look forward to, but eventually, she agrees to provide the letter. But when Dorothea and Gyurk are seen in her chamber, it almost puts her in the hands of the Vatican, who are sure that this is due to witchcraft. In the end, Else is able to give Dorothea her letter, and then Dorothea and Gyurk go to the Landknecht mercenary company to win Dorothea her place.
Due to the number of women claiming to be able to fight and leaving after being given their first wages, she will have to fight to win her place in the company... to a knight who she insulted when he assumed she was a camp follower! Can Dorothea defeat the man and win a place in the company, all after Gyurk has warned her not to stand out?
This is an unusual manga, in that it doesn't take place in Japan, but in feudal-era Germany, when Germany was a patchwork quilt of little princedoms and fiefs, each at war with the others over land, money and power. Add in the fact that the Pope and the Vatican held a great deal of influence over this land and these tiny kingdoms, and you have an explosive situation for Dorothea to be in.
And yet, despite the unreality of a woman, and an albino woman, being able to train and go to war as a Landknecht in such a time, the story actually makes you believe that it was possible for just such an event to happen. And even more so, to cheer her on.
This is a slim volume, and the story is well laid out, but I have a strong suspicion as to where at least some of the story is to go: 1) Dorothea is the heir to a long line of seers. She doesn't have the ability now, but will gain it at some point along the way- probably at either a most inconvenient time (In the midst of a fight or battle) or at a most convenient time (When they are about to ride into an ambush, thus saving the company) and 2) Dorothea will eventually be unsuccessful in changing the wider world's perception of Albinos, but will end up saving herself and the children of the White House.
Time will tell, but I'll be looking forward to it.
Dorothea is the heir to not only ownership of the "White House" through her grandmother, Frau Schanzgard, but also to the post of seer. She is frustrated by her lack of seeing ability and by being stuck In Naulders when she so dearly wishes to see the world. But when Mercenaries acting as Bandits attack the White House for the riches they believe it to contain, Dorothea, who has been training with the sword and other weapons, goes after them to save her grandmother and the other children who live there. Despite her prowess, and after killing a number of the mercenaries, she is captured and about to be raped when she is saved by the return of her childhood friend Gyurk. Together, they slay the remaining bandits and Dorothea, suffering from the effects of too much sun exposure, passes out.
When she revives, she is back inside in her room, but she is angry at Gyurk for not returning home for the past two years. She also gets the impression that Gyurk looks down on her and her ability to fight. But one thing is clear: Naulders and the White House are at risk in the war that is currently sweeping the land, and Dorothea wishes to go out and fight for Naulders and the children that the White House protects. Gyurk tries to talk her out of it, and Dorothea becomes angry about Gyurk disrespecting her skill. She challenges him to a duel and wins, and he confesses that he just wants to protect her innocence, which is at risk if she goes to war. She will also need s letter allowing her to fight, and Dorothea knows that they can get one from Princess Else, the daughter of the ruler of Naulders and another "White Child". She was raised with Dorothea and Gyurk in the White House, but her father took her back into his home, and now keeps her indoors all day, but whether to protect her or to keep others from finding out that she is his child is unknown.
Else is upset that Gyurk will soon be leaving with Dorothea. Now both her friends will have abandoned her, and she will have no visits to look forward to, but eventually, she agrees to provide the letter. But when Dorothea and Gyurk are seen in her chamber, it almost puts her in the hands of the Vatican, who are sure that this is due to witchcraft. In the end, Else is able to give Dorothea her letter, and then Dorothea and Gyurk go to the Landknecht mercenary company to win Dorothea her place.
Due to the number of women claiming to be able to fight and leaving after being given their first wages, she will have to fight to win her place in the company... to a knight who she insulted when he assumed she was a camp follower! Can Dorothea defeat the man and win a place in the company, all after Gyurk has warned her not to stand out?
This is an unusual manga, in that it doesn't take place in Japan, but in feudal-era Germany, when Germany was a patchwork quilt of little princedoms and fiefs, each at war with the others over land, money and power. Add in the fact that the Pope and the Vatican held a great deal of influence over this land and these tiny kingdoms, and you have an explosive situation for Dorothea to be in.
And yet, despite the unreality of a woman, and an albino woman, being able to train and go to war as a Landknecht in such a time, the story actually makes you believe that it was possible for just such an event to happen. And even more so, to cheer her on.
This is a slim volume, and the story is well laid out, but I have a strong suspicion as to where at least some of the story is to go: 1) Dorothea is the heir to a long line of seers. She doesn't have the ability now, but will gain it at some point along the way- probably at either a most inconvenient time (In the midst of a fight or battle) or at a most convenient time (When they are about to ride into an ambush, thus saving the company) and 2) Dorothea will eventually be unsuccessful in changing the wider world's perception of Albinos, but will end up saving herself and the children of the White House.
Time will tell, but I'll be looking forward to it.
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