Reviews :: Book Genre :: Urban Fantasy :: Page 15

Dear Jim Butcher: we apologize for doubting you. Seriously.

You all may remember last year when we reviewed TURN COAT (EBR Review). In short, we were pissed. It just wasn’t that good. In fact it was one of the books we hated most last year. We had decided to swear off reading Butcher forever. Steve even sold his Dresden Files collection. It was a sad day. Luckily that anger faded, and we decided that we should read Butcher’s latest Dresden Files novel, CHANGES (Amazon).
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With THE DEVIL’S ALPHABET (Amazon), Daryl Gregory does something really cool. He presents a book that has all the trappings of an Urban Fantasy, which hides what it truly is. A character study. This book tickled, in particular, Nick’s sociology fancy. Steve found it a little bit less exciting.

THE DEVIL’S ALPHABET is about Pax, a young man from Switchcreek, Tennessee, that returns to his hometown to attend a funeral of a former best friend, who’s death is shrouded in mystery. Switchcreek, before Pax had left, had been a victim of a bizarre “disease” that warped the DNA and bodies of it’s inhabitants. It turned regular people into the tall, muscular, slumping Argos, the short, fat, grey, Vintage producing Charlies, and the bald, self-propagating Betas. Some were left untouched, as Pax was, and some people were just killed by the transformation of their bodies. Very cool ideas are written on these pages.
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How about a requested review from one of our readers, Dan Burton. See, we really do listen to your requests.

MONSTER HUNTER INTERNATIONAL (Amazon), on the surface, seems to fit the need that most of us have for mindless, gunfire-laden fiction. We all need it at times. Larry Correia, the author, gives us all the ingredients that a book of this style might typically have, yet somehow makes them more than the sum of their parts. In all honesty, we were surprised by how much we enjoyed this novel, and how much we are now looking forward to the sequel.
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While at World Fantasy I had the pleasure to meet, and speak to Mark Teppo. One of our friends, Kat Richardson, kept telling Steve and I that we had to meet him. She couldn’t say enough good things about him and his writing. So the search for the man began. After finally finding him, Steve and I both agreed that he was one of the coolest people at the convention, and we couldn’t wait to read LIGHTBREAKER (Amazon) his book. Conveniently, it was given to us for free while at the convention.

OK, confession time. (Admit it, you got nervous for a moment when I said that, didn’t you?) LIGHTBREAKER was published by Night Shade Books in 2008, and the sequel, HEARTLAND (Amazon) was published in 2009, so I’m a little bit behind the times on this. Other than the obvious fact that I got the book for free, I am reviewing LIGHTBREAKER, instead of it’s sequel, because it is the beginning of a fairly new series and I thought it would be a better place to start. Hey, I don’t need to explain myself to you. I do what I want.
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There are beliefs, of sorts, in the writing business. A good author can take the most cliché, horrible idea, and make it work. A bad author, however, could have the most amazing idea, and make it seem second-rate drivel. SANDMAN SLIM, by Richard Kadrey, takes a little of both of those. Poorly written, clichéd drivel. Awesome huh? (Yes, that was sarcasm.)

There is a blatant attempt in this novel to have a Harry Dresden-style character be super dark and gritty. The main PoV, James Stark (a magician, of course), was sent to Hell by his “friends.” He fought demons “Downtown,” (as the character calls it) Gladiator style for eleven years, and then managed to escape. This is where the book picks up–Stark waking up in a graveyard in L.A. after escaping Hell. Stark wants revenge on the people that sent him down to Hell. Oh, and there is a war between Heaven and Hell that Stark is in the middle of (GASP!). Were there enough clichéd archetypes and motifs in that paragraph for you? That’s just scratching the surface. Oh, and the title? It comes in randomly a little over half-way through the book.
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Yes, we have read the full Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. Short stories included. Call it a not-so-secret guilty pleasure. The fact of the matter is that Harris makes us laugh, and we enjoy it when an author intentionally makes us laugh through comedy rather than the alternative…

DEAD AND GONE (Amazon), is the latest entry into the Sookie Stackhouse series about a girl (Sookie) who can read minds, and vampires who have come out of the coffin (Harris’ pun, not ours) and have announced themselves to the world. You may not have read the books, but we can almost be positive that you have at least heard of the HBO series, True Blood. It’s the adaptation of the novels. Unlike our recent discussion about Dexter, True Blood has yet to come close to surpassing the novels in terms of quality. The comedy that makes Harris’ novels so enjoyable is all but omitted from the TV show.

Anyways. The book. DEAD AND GONE.
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We have another special treat for you all today. One of the absolute highlights of WorldCon 2008 was our encounter with (actually repeated encounters with…she may have been stalking us) Faith Hunter. She is one of the most down-to-earth, witty, and genuinely warm people we have met. So of course we wanted to keep in touch. When our website went live one of the first things we wanted to do was set up an interview. So, here it is. Enjoy.
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Remember when we said we found a few new series? This is another one of them. And it came with our friend, Tom Lloyd’s recommendation. We know right? How could we NOT start this series up?!

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW by Mike Carey (Amazon) is an Urban Fantasy that you will mostly likely find shelved in the horror section of your local bookstore. It is about an exorcist, Felix Castor, who is looking to get out of the game, but predictably takes one last job. That job is a haunting of a museum in London. Obviously, things go to hell in a hand-basket. Quite literally actually. Demon’s and all that.
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GHOST OCEAN by S.M Peters (Amazon) is an Urban Fantasy that, to put it simply, rocked our socks off. S.M. Peters is the author of the awesome WHITECHAPEL GODS (Amazon) which you may remember Nick recommended in the 102 class of the University of Fantasy here (If you paid attention and were a good student, that is). We already knew he was a very creative and imaginative author, and were not surprised in the least with the way GHOST OCEAN held our attention.

Te Evangeline, the main character of the book, is more than she seems (it’s all we can do not to make a Transformers reference here… oh wait, did that count anyway?), and so is the city she lives in. The city of St. Ives is home to a multitude of supernatural creatures and an eclectic crew of very unique individuals that keep them in check. The story is, at once, about the mysterious pasts of these team members and the present exploits of a creature that had been imprisoned and is now broken free.
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Let us just start, right from the get go, by saying that DARK TIME: Mortal Path by Dakota Banks (Amazon) is NOT written for guys like us. In fact we would go so far as to say its not written for guys at all. So we feel an obligation for some leeway in the way we review it. Don’t worry, we will still do it in style, as you have come to expect from us.

DARK TIME is an entry into the current trend of Urban Fantasy with a touch of eroticism and a strong female lead. It follows closely in the footsteps of the likes of Laurell K. Hamilton and Faith Hunter. Is this a bad thing? Well our feelings our mixed on that score. It doesn’t stray from that tried and true formula very much, if at all, which is somewhat disappointing. However, that means that what content there is works (for the most part, as we will demonstrate later).
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