Dragon Killer
(The Dragon Killer series, Book 1)
Rob May
Rob May, publisher
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: Kalina Moonheart is a woman of many talents: gambler, thief, spy, and - long ago - dragon slayer. In a world where the old gods lay dead and only the Dragon remains to terrorize the populace, that is no small feat, yet Kal is content to live in the shadows. Besides, she keeps plenty busy in the service of her secret patron, Senator Benedict Godsword. Her latest task takes her far from the sprawling city of Amaranthium to the swampy island of Baribu. Rumors of dragon attacks have trickled back to the mainland; as Godsword has a private gold mine nearby, he has a personal stake in the matter. When Kal arrives, however, she finds something far more dangerous and cunning than any scaled beast, a danger poised to challenge the whole of the republic itself.
An eBook-exclusive title.
REVIEW: This book has the potential to be an exciting action-adventure tale in a fantasy world, but undermines itself at several points. Character depth isn't a priority in these tales, with Kal and the others she meets tending to fall into familiar roles. She's a carefree soldier of fortune with a strong moral code (that doesn't preclude the odd petty theft or night on the town), her patron acts as a father figure, her green partner Rafe dreams of elder-day glories and knighthood, and so forth. Even her enemy has the requisite sob story that almost - but not quite - justifies his actions. These givens aside, there's a fair bit of action with a nice, if thin, fantasy veneer, and if some developments seem rather out-of-the-blue and the general course is predictable, well, it's still competent enough given the formula. May also seems a little too fond of the shocker chapter ending that isn't explained until the page is turned. What really undermines the story, though, is how it keeps cutting backwards (and, in one inexplicable incident, forwards) in time, spending far too long explaining the origins of Kal's monicker in a sequence that probably should've been its own short story. These flashbacks are drawn out through the entire story, running alongside the current tale of her investigation of Baribu. Each timeline effectively stalled out the momentum of the other, as I had to hold up at each jump to remember where I was and what was going on. As a freebie download, it wasn't bad, but I'm not interested enough in the world or the characters to continue with this series.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Emperor's Edge (Lindsay Buroker) - My Review
Bitterwood (James Maxey) - My Review
The Princess and the Firedrake (Jim Stinson) - My Review
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Monday, July 14, 2014
Concrete Evidence (Rachel Grant)
Concrete Evidence
(The Evidence series, Book 1)
Rachel Grant
Janus Publishing
Fiction, Romance/Suspense
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: A year ago, trusting the wrong man ruined Erica Kesling's life. An underwater archaeologist desperate for money, devastated when her own mother stole her identity and racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, she foolishly signed on with the treasure hunter Jake Novak... and wound up blackballed on the West Coast for his artifact smuggling venture. Fortunately, the rumors haven't spread as far as the East Coast giant Talon & Drake - and it's here that she may finally have a chance to bring down Jake and clear her own name. Even better, she might bring down some of Jake's customers with him, in addition to doing important work for Talon's Menanichoch tribe. At least, that was the plan, before she got saddled with the world's laziest - and sexiest - intern, Lee Scott.
Lee's ties to the Talon family go way back. When Joseph Talon, Jr. suspected someone of using the company to smuggle artifacts out of war-torn Iraq, he called in a marker and sent Lee in to investigate, posing as a twenty-something playboy slacker. The name Erica Kesling is at the top of his suspect list, but the rot runs deep, and it's Lee's job to quietly root it out before the senior Joe Talon announces his run for presidency. A tall order, but nothing Lee can't handle, if he keeps his cool. The problem is, the moment he meets Erica, the job turns red hot.
Brought together by lies, bound by an unexpected and undeniable passion, how much betrayal can two hearts withstand?
REVIEW: This title promises danger, deceit, and sizzling passion, and it delivers in full. Erica and Lee get caught up in an intricate dance of half-truths, each unknowingly sharing a common goal as they try to ignore the sparks that fly whenever they're in the same room. Though both are wounded souls, they can and do stand on their own two feet, instead of the old idea of a fainting flower waiting to be swept up by a savior who solves all their problems. Most everyone in the cast turns out to have a hidden agenda, playing out in a tautly-written plot incorporating smuggling, money laundering, Native American history (and our country's shameful efforts to eradicate whole cultures), archaeological investigations, war crimes, and murder... not to mention bucketloads of sexual tension. Everything ties together in a thrill-ride of an ending. I enjoyed it more than I expected to, and wouldn't mind reading another title or two in the series, time and budget willing.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Scoundrel for Hire (Adrienne deWolfe) - My Review
Surface Tension (Christine Kling) - My Review
Time Treasure (Sheila Raye) - My Review
(The Evidence series, Book 1)
Rachel Grant
Janus Publishing
Fiction, Romance/Suspense
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: A year ago, trusting the wrong man ruined Erica Kesling's life. An underwater archaeologist desperate for money, devastated when her own mother stole her identity and racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, she foolishly signed on with the treasure hunter Jake Novak... and wound up blackballed on the West Coast for his artifact smuggling venture. Fortunately, the rumors haven't spread as far as the East Coast giant Talon & Drake - and it's here that she may finally have a chance to bring down Jake and clear her own name. Even better, she might bring down some of Jake's customers with him, in addition to doing important work for Talon's Menanichoch tribe. At least, that was the plan, before she got saddled with the world's laziest - and sexiest - intern, Lee Scott.
Lee's ties to the Talon family go way back. When Joseph Talon, Jr. suspected someone of using the company to smuggle artifacts out of war-torn Iraq, he called in a marker and sent Lee in to investigate, posing as a twenty-something playboy slacker. The name Erica Kesling is at the top of his suspect list, but the rot runs deep, and it's Lee's job to quietly root it out before the senior Joe Talon announces his run for presidency. A tall order, but nothing Lee can't handle, if he keeps his cool. The problem is, the moment he meets Erica, the job turns red hot.
Brought together by lies, bound by an unexpected and undeniable passion, how much betrayal can two hearts withstand?
REVIEW: This title promises danger, deceit, and sizzling passion, and it delivers in full. Erica and Lee get caught up in an intricate dance of half-truths, each unknowingly sharing a common goal as they try to ignore the sparks that fly whenever they're in the same room. Though both are wounded souls, they can and do stand on their own two feet, instead of the old idea of a fainting flower waiting to be swept up by a savior who solves all their problems. Most everyone in the cast turns out to have a hidden agenda, playing out in a tautly-written plot incorporating smuggling, money laundering, Native American history (and our country's shameful efforts to eradicate whole cultures), archaeological investigations, war crimes, and murder... not to mention bucketloads of sexual tension. Everything ties together in a thrill-ride of an ending. I enjoyed it more than I expected to, and wouldn't mind reading another title or two in the series, time and budget willing.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Scoundrel for Hire (Adrienne deWolfe) - My Review
Surface Tension (Christine Kling) - My Review
Time Treasure (Sheila Raye) - My Review
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Valkyrie Rising (Ingrid Paulson)
Valkyrie Rising
Ingrid Paulson
HarperTeen
Fiction, YA Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Ellie lives her life in her older brother Graham's shadow... and, at sixteen, she's starting to chafe under his overprotective attention. At least she'll get away from him for a while this summer, when she visits her grandmother in Norway - him, and his best friend Tucker, whose good-natured teasing has taken on a peculiar edge lately. In Norway, she can just be herself, or so she hopes. But something strange is happening in her grandmother's little town. Boys are disappearing, sometimes in broad daylight. Locals mutter dark rumors about old myths, even going so far as to accuse her grandmother of witchcraft. But the strangest things seem to be happening not around Ellie, but inside her, as a mythic legacy wakes in her very blood. The old gods stir, and the Valkyries - immortal warrior women from the halls of Valhalla - walk the world again in search of worthy heroes. Ellie doesn't want to believe the stories, but she has no choice, as she discovers that she herself is a Valkyrie.
REVIEW: While admittedly not the most original tale, relying on a tried-and-true young adult fantasy formula, it's nevertheless a well-told story with a nice dash of Nordic flavor. Ellie's a typical insecure teen girl, unsure of herself as she crosses the line between girl and woman, a crossing made even more awkward by her peculiar ancestry. Once again, we have a grown-up who chose ignorance over information when raising a potential heroine, though at least in this case it was Ellie's grandmother, whom she only ever saw on holidays, and not the mother who lived with her for sixteen years: since the magic apparently skipped a generation, it's entirely plausible that Grandmother Hilda didn't even realize what Ellie was until the summer's events woke the old blood. The girl has to work out much of what being a Valkyrie is on her own, not helped by the interference of the god Loki or her own conflicting impulses. As for the other characters, they do their jobs, even if they aren't particularly unique. Graham's the golden boy who has to learn how to let his sister grow up, and his best friend Tucker, despite some late-breaking hidden secrets, is the boy next door whose affection takes Ellie (if not the audience) by complete surprise. Action, setbacks, and deceptions abound as the plot snakes its way through a land where myths run as deep as the fjords, winding up with a climax that practically promises a sequel without actually committing to anything. Once again, while I can't say the general story or the characters are anything new, I enjoyed reading it.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Everworld: Search for Senna (K. A. Applegate) - My Review
Rampant (Diana Peterfreund) - My Review
The Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan) - My Review
Ingrid Paulson
HarperTeen
Fiction, YA Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Ellie lives her life in her older brother Graham's shadow... and, at sixteen, she's starting to chafe under his overprotective attention. At least she'll get away from him for a while this summer, when she visits her grandmother in Norway - him, and his best friend Tucker, whose good-natured teasing has taken on a peculiar edge lately. In Norway, she can just be herself, or so she hopes. But something strange is happening in her grandmother's little town. Boys are disappearing, sometimes in broad daylight. Locals mutter dark rumors about old myths, even going so far as to accuse her grandmother of witchcraft. But the strangest things seem to be happening not around Ellie, but inside her, as a mythic legacy wakes in her very blood. The old gods stir, and the Valkyries - immortal warrior women from the halls of Valhalla - walk the world again in search of worthy heroes. Ellie doesn't want to believe the stories, but she has no choice, as she discovers that she herself is a Valkyrie.
REVIEW: While admittedly not the most original tale, relying on a tried-and-true young adult fantasy formula, it's nevertheless a well-told story with a nice dash of Nordic flavor. Ellie's a typical insecure teen girl, unsure of herself as she crosses the line between girl and woman, a crossing made even more awkward by her peculiar ancestry. Once again, we have a grown-up who chose ignorance over information when raising a potential heroine, though at least in this case it was Ellie's grandmother, whom she only ever saw on holidays, and not the mother who lived with her for sixteen years: since the magic apparently skipped a generation, it's entirely plausible that Grandmother Hilda didn't even realize what Ellie was until the summer's events woke the old blood. The girl has to work out much of what being a Valkyrie is on her own, not helped by the interference of the god Loki or her own conflicting impulses. As for the other characters, they do their jobs, even if they aren't particularly unique. Graham's the golden boy who has to learn how to let his sister grow up, and his best friend Tucker, despite some late-breaking hidden secrets, is the boy next door whose affection takes Ellie (if not the audience) by complete surprise. Action, setbacks, and deceptions abound as the plot snakes its way through a land where myths run as deep as the fjords, winding up with a climax that practically promises a sequel without actually committing to anything. Once again, while I can't say the general story or the characters are anything new, I enjoyed reading it.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Everworld: Search for Senna (K. A. Applegate) - My Review
Rampant (Diana Peterfreund) - My Review
The Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan) - My Review
Sunday, July 6, 2014
The Godling Club (Stephen Penner)
The Godling Club
Stephen Penner
Ring of Fire Publishing
Fiction, YA Fantasy
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: On her fourteenth birthday, Jeni Tanaka finally has a chance to join the coolest clique in school, if she can impress them with her party. That means telling her best-friend-since-forever Kyle to show up an hour late (not that she doesn't like him, but he's about a zero point five on the popularity meter), and giving her own mother the brush-off (even when she's being all goopy about some strange gift she means to give her daughter at the exact moment she was born), but this is too important for sentimentality: her social life, and therefore her future, is at stake. Then, on the very cusp of success, everything falls apart. Some unknown force attacks her, sending her into a seizure (and chasing away her one chance at coolness) as she struggles to fight it off. Then a strange boy shows up, introducing himself as the "godling" Tommy Bluehorse. He tells that her mother's been kidnapped, and that the force was actually the spirit of a Japanese creation goddess seeking a new host - turning Jeni herself into a godling like Tommy. By rejecting the deity, Jeni has inadvertently destroyed the balance between creation and destruction; using her mother, the goddess's former host, an evil man aims to exploit this unbalance for untold power. Jeni, her uncool friend Kyle, and the mysterious Tommy race to stop him, but they may already be too late... especially when everyone else has a god's power to draw on and Jeni has nothing but herself.
REVIEW: A lightweight fantasy adventure, The Godling Club leans too heavily on silliness and cliches, to the point where I could almost hear the dippy TV movie soundtrack as I read. Jeni starts out unlikeably obsessed with coolness, a shallow introduction that made it hard for me to care about her. Her best friend, Kyle, comes straight from the stock bin of Goofy Sidekicks, though in many ways he's more useful throughout the book than Jeni herself is. Then again, Kyle isn't the only stock character or situation she encounters. The whole crisis that kicks off the plot could've been avoided with a simple heart-to-heart with her mom some time before the last minute - or even an upbringing that honored her Japanese ancestry, leaving hints in her subconscious - yet somehow everyone blames Jeni for defending herself from a psychic attack she didn't see coming. (Yeah, she's a shallow and selfish kid, but frankly her mother bears a fair share of the blame for the fiasco. The woman had fourteen years to say something, after all.) But it's part of the formula for this kind of story that adults don't tell kids things they need to know until it's too late. The group circles the globe, contacting godlings from various cultures... of which, inexplicably, there are only twenty-four, hosting twelve creation and twelve destruction deities, despite the myriad cultures on Earth from which to choose. Along the way, personalities clash, stale attempts at humor abound, and enemies pop up at the most convenient times, complicated by the possibility of traitors in their midst. Through most of it, Jeni's fairly oblivious, ignorant of cultures and the powers of the various godlings she encounters... making it a bit hard to swallow when she suddenly grows a backbone and steps up to square off against the bad guys. By then, at least, the momentum had picked up and some of the silliness had died down. In the end, while I can't say I was wholly satisfied with the tale, it just barely managed to squeak by with a flat Okay rating... though it was right on the line.
You Might Also Enjoy:
City of the Beasts (Isabel Allende) - My Review
The Jaguar Princess (Clare Bell) - My Review
Coyote's Daughter (Corie Weaver) - My Review
Stephen Penner
Ring of Fire Publishing
Fiction, YA Fantasy
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: On her fourteenth birthday, Jeni Tanaka finally has a chance to join the coolest clique in school, if she can impress them with her party. That means telling her best-friend-since-forever Kyle to show up an hour late (not that she doesn't like him, but he's about a zero point five on the popularity meter), and giving her own mother the brush-off (even when she's being all goopy about some strange gift she means to give her daughter at the exact moment she was born), but this is too important for sentimentality: her social life, and therefore her future, is at stake. Then, on the very cusp of success, everything falls apart. Some unknown force attacks her, sending her into a seizure (and chasing away her one chance at coolness) as she struggles to fight it off. Then a strange boy shows up, introducing himself as the "godling" Tommy Bluehorse. He tells that her mother's been kidnapped, and that the force was actually the spirit of a Japanese creation goddess seeking a new host - turning Jeni herself into a godling like Tommy. By rejecting the deity, Jeni has inadvertently destroyed the balance between creation and destruction; using her mother, the goddess's former host, an evil man aims to exploit this unbalance for untold power. Jeni, her uncool friend Kyle, and the mysterious Tommy race to stop him, but they may already be too late... especially when everyone else has a god's power to draw on and Jeni has nothing but herself.
REVIEW: A lightweight fantasy adventure, The Godling Club leans too heavily on silliness and cliches, to the point where I could almost hear the dippy TV movie soundtrack as I read. Jeni starts out unlikeably obsessed with coolness, a shallow introduction that made it hard for me to care about her. Her best friend, Kyle, comes straight from the stock bin of Goofy Sidekicks, though in many ways he's more useful throughout the book than Jeni herself is. Then again, Kyle isn't the only stock character or situation she encounters. The whole crisis that kicks off the plot could've been avoided with a simple heart-to-heart with her mom some time before the last minute - or even an upbringing that honored her Japanese ancestry, leaving hints in her subconscious - yet somehow everyone blames Jeni for defending herself from a psychic attack she didn't see coming. (Yeah, she's a shallow and selfish kid, but frankly her mother bears a fair share of the blame for the fiasco. The woman had fourteen years to say something, after all.) But it's part of the formula for this kind of story that adults don't tell kids things they need to know until it's too late. The group circles the globe, contacting godlings from various cultures... of which, inexplicably, there are only twenty-four, hosting twelve creation and twelve destruction deities, despite the myriad cultures on Earth from which to choose. Along the way, personalities clash, stale attempts at humor abound, and enemies pop up at the most convenient times, complicated by the possibility of traitors in their midst. Through most of it, Jeni's fairly oblivious, ignorant of cultures and the powers of the various godlings she encounters... making it a bit hard to swallow when she suddenly grows a backbone and steps up to square off against the bad guys. By then, at least, the momentum had picked up and some of the silliness had died down. In the end, while I can't say I was wholly satisfied with the tale, it just barely managed to squeak by with a flat Okay rating... though it was right on the line.
You Might Also Enjoy:
City of the Beasts (Isabel Allende) - My Review
The Jaguar Princess (Clare Bell) - My Review
Coyote's Daughter (Corie Weaver) - My Review
Foundation (Isaac Asimov)
Foundation
(The Foundation series: The Foundation trilogy, Book 1)
Isaac Asimov
Del Rey
Fiction, Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: For twelve thousand years, the Galaxy has lived in peace and prosperity as a unified Empire... and all but a few ignore the signs of rot and stagnation at the very heart. The people turn inward, resting comfortably on the achievements of the past without pushing towards a better future. The visionary Hari Seldon, with his controversial psychohistory project, uses mathematics and probability to predict the future - and it is grim, indeed. When the Empire collapses, many thousands of years of interstellar barbarism await before the first glimmers of hope reappear. The wheels of human history turn vast and slow, and while they may not be stopped, they might be nudged. While the fall is certain, the intervening years of darkness might be condensed to a mere millennium. This begins the story of the Foundation, a steadfast collection of scientists and believers on the galactic rim struggling to fulfill Seldon's directives in the midst of threat, war, and treachery.
REVIEW: First conceived during World War II, this seminal series by one of the genre's most notable (and prolific) writers takes on fresh significance in the twenty-first century, with reports of actual computer programs similar to Asimov's psychohistory successfully predicting world events. The idea behind the story remains compelling: no matter how dark things get, or how grim the future looks, Benevolent Science (and White Men, not to mention nuclear power that seems to have near-miraculous abilities without today's toxic waste) will eventually save us. My jaded twenty-first century self has a little trouble with that - especially given recent court rulings that place "sincerely-held" beliefs as sacrosanct beyond the science that proves them wrong - but it must've been nice to believe, especially with a war displaying humanity's worst aspects rattling on Asimov's very doorstep.
Ultimately, this is a book about ideas. While there are brief bursts of action, most of the warfare and bloodshed takes place elsewhere. The characters tend to be interchangeable names acting out roles in Seldon's grand plan, with the good guys and the bad guys fairly easy to distinguish. Women exist to be housewives, mistresses, or - in the case of the only named female - vain and power-hungry shrews, and ethnic minorities evidently never made it into space at all. But such were the times when Asimov wrote it. Considering that this was largely a political chess game played out between grandmasters on an interstellar tale, told largely in dialog exchanged over desks, it held my interest better than I'd expected it to, with fairly accessible writing and short chapters. I don't know that I'm interested enough to follow the series any further, though.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Dune (Frank Herbert) - My Review
Trading in Danger (Elizabeth Moon) - My Review
Arcana Universalis: Terminus (Chris J. Randolph) - My Review
(The Foundation series: The Foundation trilogy, Book 1)
Isaac Asimov
Del Rey
Fiction, Sci-Fi
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: For twelve thousand years, the Galaxy has lived in peace and prosperity as a unified Empire... and all but a few ignore the signs of rot and stagnation at the very heart. The people turn inward, resting comfortably on the achievements of the past without pushing towards a better future. The visionary Hari Seldon, with his controversial psychohistory project, uses mathematics and probability to predict the future - and it is grim, indeed. When the Empire collapses, many thousands of years of interstellar barbarism await before the first glimmers of hope reappear. The wheels of human history turn vast and slow, and while they may not be stopped, they might be nudged. While the fall is certain, the intervening years of darkness might be condensed to a mere millennium. This begins the story of the Foundation, a steadfast collection of scientists and believers on the galactic rim struggling to fulfill Seldon's directives in the midst of threat, war, and treachery.
REVIEW: First conceived during World War II, this seminal series by one of the genre's most notable (and prolific) writers takes on fresh significance in the twenty-first century, with reports of actual computer programs similar to Asimov's psychohistory successfully predicting world events. The idea behind the story remains compelling: no matter how dark things get, or how grim the future looks, Benevolent Science (and White Men, not to mention nuclear power that seems to have near-miraculous abilities without today's toxic waste) will eventually save us. My jaded twenty-first century self has a little trouble with that - especially given recent court rulings that place "sincerely-held" beliefs as sacrosanct beyond the science that proves them wrong - but it must've been nice to believe, especially with a war displaying humanity's worst aspects rattling on Asimov's very doorstep.
Ultimately, this is a book about ideas. While there are brief bursts of action, most of the warfare and bloodshed takes place elsewhere. The characters tend to be interchangeable names acting out roles in Seldon's grand plan, with the good guys and the bad guys fairly easy to distinguish. Women exist to be housewives, mistresses, or - in the case of the only named female - vain and power-hungry shrews, and ethnic minorities evidently never made it into space at all. But such were the times when Asimov wrote it. Considering that this was largely a political chess game played out between grandmasters on an interstellar tale, told largely in dialog exchanged over desks, it held my interest better than I'd expected it to, with fairly accessible writing and short chapters. I don't know that I'm interested enough to follow the series any further, though.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Dune (Frank Herbert) - My Review
Trading in Danger (Elizabeth Moon) - My Review
Arcana Universalis: Terminus (Chris J. Randolph) - My Review
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