Category :: Review :: Page 66

I’ve been meaning to try out James Enge’s work for some time now. I’ve seen some high praise (there is a blurb by Lev ‘effin Grossman on the cover for instance) and so my expectations were high when I cracked open A GUILE OF DRAGONS (Amazon). This novel is a prequel to Enge’s Ambrose series and I saw that as a perfect opportunity for a beginner to jump in. As a book filling in some background detail for a beloved series fans may be satisfied. For those yet to be initiated this may not be the best entry point.
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Unfortunately for A.M. Dellamonica, here at EBR we don’t have an ecofantasy label. So if you search for more ecofantasy on the site you may have trouble sorting it from all the other fantasy out there. By labeling it ecofantasy Dellamonic is screaming to you her political leanings, but fortunately they don’t get in the way of telling a fascinating story.

BLUE MAGIC (Amazon) is the second book in a duet. I didn’t have trouble getting into the story despite not having read book one, INDIGO SPRINGS (Amazon). Dellamonica brings us up to date quickly without burdening the novel with tedious infodumps. If anything, Dellamonica seems incapable of writing a word more than is necessary.
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For a guy who scoffs at the urban fantasy genre I sure have been reading a lot of it lately. Doyce Testerman’s HIDDEN THINGS (EBR Review) for instance. Now I have to add Chuck Wendig to the list of authors that I need to keep an eye on. BLACKBIRDS (Amazon) is a dark, profane, blistering read that takes an unromantic premise and makes it even more coarse and filthy than you’d suspect possible.

Miriam Black surrounds herself with death. Should her skin make contact with your own she will get a psychic vision detailing your exact time and manner of death. For years she fought to save lives but there is no stopping fate and now she subsists as a vulture, surviving off the remnants of those who pass away. That is, until she meets a truck driver and sees his demise, a horrible murder. But before his death he calls out a name, her name. Now Miriam will try anything in her power to circumvent the natural order.
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This is my first James Herbert novel. As most of you know, I’m trying to round out my Horror reading. People have been telling me over and over that James Herbert is the guy. Since Herbert had a new novel coming out, I thought that this was a good time jump in.

ASH (Amazon) follows the story of paranormal investigator, David Ash. Now, prior to this novel, Ash was also in the Herbert novels HAUNTED and THE GHOSTS OF SLEATH. To Herbert’s credit, I never once had trouble with feeling lost. ASH begins with the investigator taking a job to investigate some mysterious happenings at Comraich Castle–including the crucifixion of a man who was alone inside a locked room. Everything about the contract is shady, but the pay is astounding.
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This past April I visited New Orleans for the first time. As a tourist I saw all the sites: the French Quarter, walked Magazine Street, St. Louis Cemetery #1. One morning I took a walking tour hosted by a local, and he talked about the history of New Orleans and its inhabitants. We all had a good time. Then he talked about hurricane Katrina and everyone went quiet. He had lived it and survived to tell the tale.

So did Suzanne Johnson, and while ROYAL STREET (Amazon) is your typical Urban Fantasy, she handles the Katrina angle with the reverence it deserves, thereby adding with fascinating detail a compelling setting.
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It’s too soon to be declaring any book as the best of the year in any category. But! It can be said that THE DIVINERS by Libba Bray (Amazon) is pos-i-tutely one of the most enjoyable and promising of 2012. This is an urban fantasy, historical fiction, mystery epic that accessible to young adults while still managing to be entertaining to an older audience. Finding the rare gem like this is the very reason I read.

Evie O’Neill has been shipped off to live with her uncle in New York City. The exile is intended to be a punishment but Evie sees only opportunity in the bright lights of the Big Apple. The city is full of potential and Evie’s uncle is only concerned with managing the The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult – jokingly referred to as “The Museum of Creepy Crawlies.” Life is good until the police seek Uncle Will’s assistance with solving a series of occult-based murders. Evie has a very unique and unnatural gift that may enable her to help catch the crazed killer…if the killer doesn’t catch her first.
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Ephraim is your typical high school socially awkward guy. He doesn’t much like school. He’s got a goofy best friend, but not many other friends. There’s a pretty girl he likes who doesn’t know he exists. There’s the bully who picks on him. Unfortunately his dad left years ago and his mom is a drunk. He really can’t imagine life worse than it is now.

But that all changes when a quarter shows up in his his locker with the note: “Make a wish and flip the coin to make it come true.” Only nothing goes as Ephraim plans.
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I think I’ve mentioned before how I like to see authorial “progress” from one book to the next. Seeing them get better in at least one aspect of their craft with each progressive offering to the reading masses gives me hope that there will, someday, be more authors that I love to read. In general, I think that most authors fall into this category. It’s hardly ever that I find one that seems to have regressed further from the goal that I think each of them should strive for: greatness in storytelling. As I’m sure you can guess by now, this book is one of those.

LANCE OF EARTH AND SKY (Amazon) is the second in the planned Chaos Knight trilogy and continues the story of Vidarian Rulorat and the empire of Alorea. Mostly, however, this is a story about the empire, as Vidarian factors so little in what actually happens.
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Over the last couple of years, Adrian Tchaikovsky has become one of my favorite authors. Very few authors actually take their setting and story and move it forward technologically. In Tchaikovsky’s Shadows of the Apt series, we get exactly that, along with huge amounts of character progression, thrilling large-scale battles, and intense small-scale fights.

THE SEA WATCH (Amazon) is the sixth book in this projected 10-book story. I guess the best way to describe it is by saying THE SEA WATCH, in a way, is the Shadows of the Apt series’ 20,000 leagues under the sea. The results overall are great, but that doesn’t mean the novel is absent some missteps.
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Anyone out there like movies that are based on actual historical events? I think there’s something to be said for them, but in general I find that regardless of how much I love them, the endings always end up being particularly less that I had anticipated. This book was totally like that. Steve’s going to love this, because this time around, I totally agree with his overall opinion of Ms. Parker’s latest offering, SHARPS (Amazon): full of unfulfilled promises. I do still disagree that this description applies to the Engineer Trilogy, but in this case, he’s totally spot-on.

SHARPS is another stand-alone from the veritable K.J. Parker, an author whom the reading public still knows so little about. It’s another book about war, and what people are willing to do to get what they want. It’s another book full of sarcasm, and multi-hued characters. It’s another book of swords and mayhem. And if she didn’t write it so dang well, I probably wouldn’t have liked it as much as I did.

But I did. Cause, boy, was it fun.
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