Posts from 2016 :: Page 7

I like whimsy. I loved THE SLOW REGARD OF SILENT THINGS (EBR Review) by Rothfuss and I “heart” almost everything by K.J. Parker (even though he is not a she) and, of course, Mr. Terry Pratchett in small, infrequent doses, so my initial survey of THE LEMONCHOLY LIFE OF ANNIE ASTER seemed promising. Cover art beautiful. Author’s back-story intriguing… Dive in!

Oh no, the first few chapters read like whimsy for the sake of whimsy and I lost interest. The strong characters and promise of a good story brought me back eventually, though, and I’m glad for it. LEMONCHOLY is a very sweet, sometimes sad, fast-paced and ultimately uplifting tale. Yeah, it gets better. Much better.
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This is yet another novella in the numerous offerings that have been dropped recently from the infamous K.J. Parker. I’m a sucker for these kinds of stories from him. (See that? I’m getting better at this whole K.J.-Parker-is-a-guy-thing.) His short fiction is some of my favorite. It’s his writing, I think, that just lends itself to the short form so well. Sharp. Witty. Sarcastic. Always something to entertain and make me laugh.
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Safi and Iseult live in a world of witches. They are “Threadsisters,” tied by bonds of friendship and magic–and mischief. But after spending their youth under the guidance and training by other witches, they are ready to strike out on their own.

Unfortunately, everyone else seems to have plans for them, and none of those plans include the girls being able to make their own choices.
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The kids at Lockwood & Co. are doing just fine. The events in THE SCREAMING STAIRCASE gave them enough notoriety to keep them busy with work and enough money for a comfortable lifestyle–even if it hasn’t made them rich. But being the smallest ghost hunting agency in London makes them a target for agencies like Tittles where Kipps’ team takes the prize from under Lockwood’s nose in the opening chapter. A frustrated Lockwood team grows bold and bets Kipps’ team that if they end up on the same case again, the team who loses the bet must take out a newspaper ad declaring the other the best ghost hunting team in town.

It doesn’t take long before the Lockwood team is put to the test, and it turns out to be their most dangerous case yet.
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The THE BOY WHO WEPT BLOOD is the second book in Den Patrick’s Erebus trilogy. I had a lot of praise for the first one, even going so far as to tell Steve the boss, “It’s a better Locke Lamora.” Sounds like a tall order, huh?

Here’s the honest truth: the second book is not as good as THE BOY WITH THE PORCELAIN BLADE (EBR review). Much like Scott Lynch, Patrick fails to deliver a truly satisfactory second book.  But not all is lost.
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Rivka loves machines, but she’s a girl in a man’s world. She’s moved to the city to be with her grandmother, whose social circle involves the rich and famous. During a social event, Rivka makes a new friend, Tatiana, and as mischievous girls are wont to do, they find themselves somewhere they don’t belong–in this case it’s a basement room. It’s not any basement room, however. Owner of said basement, Mr. Cody, is financing the creation of a chimera from mechanical parts and pieces of recently living gremlins.
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Humans have been traveling the stars for hundreds of years, and use alien technology in order to do it. The alien ship they originally found all those years ago was empty of aliens, but the ship was able to travel faster than light, so humans reverse-engineered the technology. They call the energy the ships use to travel through space “lines,” but there’s a catch: very few humans can actually repair ship lines.

LINESMAN, by the Australian sister-duo S.K. Dunstall, is the first of a new series about main character Ean Lambert, who is trained as a linesman, but whose strange methods make him a second-class citizen among the linesmen. Traditionally trained linesmen use their minds and will to do the repair work, but Ean can hear the lines and sings to them–much to the derision of his peers.
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Back when I first heard that Daniel Abraham had signed a contract to do these books, I was uber excited. I’d absolutely loved his Long Price Quartet and had been anticipating what he would do next. The Dagger and The Coin series has been one of my favorite series to read these last few years, and now that it’s all over… of course I’m looking frantically to find out what this guy is going to do next. As with most series-ending books, I had a tough time reading this one. I wanted it all now, now, now, but at the same time I found myself avoiding it. Letting it sit on the shelf, when I normally would have been busily reading away. This was the end, and I was going to miss this world, these characters, their stories. But, as with death and taxes, all of Mr. Abraham’s stories (at least thus far) have all had a definitive end. And this one was no different.
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THE NAMELESS CITY by Faith Erin Hicks is about a city that has changed hands so many times from invading armies that it has several names–so really has no name. The city is a mix of natives, conquerors, and everything in between; currently it’s held by the Dao. Kaidu has traveled to the city from his rural home so he can train to be a solider in the Dao army, and to be closer to his father who is an advisor to the general.

Upon his arrival Kaidu discovers some important things early on: he doesn’t really like fighting, his father doesn’t have much time for him, and the city’s natives don’t much like their conquerors. On his visit outside the palace to the city he meets a girl who calls herself Rat. Kaidu doesn’t understand her hostility, so is intent on getting her to talk to him. Then she steals the knife his father gave him.
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Vampires are the reason why druids are in short supply in modern days. Druids have a special ability to unbind vampires without even touching them, and as a result, 2000 years ago the vampire Theophilus convinced Rome to hunt them down and wipe them out. Atticus alone survived and has been laying low ever since. But now with Granuaile and Owen effectively tripling the number of druids in the world, they are also on the vampire’s hit list, and Atticus has decided that now is the time to finally fight back and commit a little genocide of his own.

In the meantime, Granuaile is busy finding a way to cloak herself from the prying eyes of Loki, and Owen is beginning to train a new generation of Druids. To find success in their respective quests, our heroes often get side-tracked, but always with their eyes on the prize: preventing Ragnarok.
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