Month: September 2011

New York to Dallas

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

Just let me say this up front. I love Eve Dallas and Roarke. I’ve read every single book, and I think every short story.

I have 30 books I’m supposed to review between now and the end of January. I told myself I had plenty of other stuff I should be reading. And I couldn’t stop myself from buying J.D. Robb’s New York to Dallas last night. And finishing it. Last night. I’m amazed I waited two whole days to get the book.

The …In Death series are super books. Both in the sense of “you’ve got to read this book” and in the sense of “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman!”.

Why? Because all the books contain three genres successfully mashed into a single story. Every book, from Naked in Death to the very latest, is a police procedural, and a pretty cozy one at that. A crime is committed, usually a murder. Eve Dallas, a homicide cop, and her team eventually solve the crime. Eve uses the policies and procedures that cops use. She investigates the crime. She follows the law. She interviews witnesses. Forensic evidence is collected and examined. This should sound familiar, it is the staple of every crime show and every mystery novel from Sherlock Holmes to Agatha Christie to Law and Order.

Eve has a team. Every member of her team has a role to play. Feeney is her mentor. Peabody is her plucky young assistant. Mira is the motherly figure. Mavis is the best friend. As readers, we come to care about Eve’s team, her surrogate family. We read the books because we want to know what happens to them as they grow and change.

Then there’s Roarke. The ongoing romantic relationship between Eve and Roarke is an amazing literary accomplishment. Most romantic series “jump the shark” when the primary couple resolves the romantic tension. But not Eve and Roarke. New York to Dallas is the 33rd book in the series, and their relationship is just as hot as it was in Naked in Death, the first book. They know they are lucky, and as readers, we experience it with them. They fight like tigers, sometimes to the point of drawing blood, but it’s still exciting to watch.

And, lest we forget, this series is also futuristic. The year is 2060, not 2011. The world has changed, both for the better and for the worse. Mankind has colonized the Moon and Mars and created off-planet havens. Droids serve as personal servants. But there was a cost for all of this progress–the Urban Wars that occur sometime between our now and Eve’s. The Wars are by no means a distant memory, no more than the tensions of the Vietnam Era are to us.

In New York to Dallas, Eve’s career comes full circle, and that circle intersects with the shadows of her own past. When she was a rookie, she arrested a predatory pedophile named Isaac McQueen. She was observant, and she was lucky. And Eve knew what he was because she’d been the victim of someone just like him. She saved 22 girls from a monster. The monster got life in prison. And Eve was found by Feeney, who recognized that she was meant to be a cop. He transferred her to Homicide Division, and her life began.

Escape Rating A: If you’ve read the rest of the series, read this one now. If you haven’t, and you’ve always meant to, get Naked in Death, and start now.

South Carolina Librarians Rock!

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | About> Librarians> presentations

The South Carolina Collection Development Mini-Conference was an absolute blast! What an amazing event. Three days devoted to collection development, sponsored by the South Carolina State Library. There were 80 attendees every day, and folks were going home at night and letting their colleagues come in, so it wasn’t the same 80 people each day. One day was devoted to ebooks, one to adult collections, and one to kids and teens.

I was very fortunate to present for the adult collections and the teens on genre fiction. And, I was able to attend the day on kids and teens. Wow!

My presentation for the crowd on adult collection development was about genre fiction selection. “The Brave New World of Genre Fiction Selection, the Rap Sheet on the Fiction Vixen, or what the Locus are all these book blogs about?” It was a big title for a pretty big subject. I want to encourage collection development librarians to use book blogs as selection tools.

Why? The bloggers, including yours truly, cover more than just the traditional publishers. We cover a lot of ebook-only titles. Blogs may be the only review source for most ebook-only titles.

Blogs are as much, probably more, labors of love as they are anything else. Many are niche publications. If they cover a subgenre such as steampunk or biopunk or paranormal romance, they cover it more thoroughly than a general review magazine that has to cover the waterfront. And for a patron who wants stuff in their love and only their love, a specialized resource is where it’s at.

The slides for the presentation included pictures representing some of the different subgenres, along with breakdowns of the components that make up those niches. A lot of us who read in a genre throw around our own jargon, like steampunk or  cyberpunk or dystopia, and assume that everyone knows what we mean. (Us librarians do that too!) Hunting for images to show not just what cyberpunk looks like, but displaying a formula of what pieces of what genres make it up (Science fiction+ hackers+ artificial intelligence+ post-industrial dystopias+ very hard-boiled detectives) seemed to go over well.

I know the bibliography (webliography?) of recommended bloggers for book reviews I handed out disappeared like snow in July. I could have done a magic trick with that thing.

The kids and teens day on September 14 was absolutely fabulous. Pat Scales, an expert not just on children’s literature but also on intellectual freedom issues (Pat is a member of the National Coalition Against Censorship Council of Advisors) spoke eloquently about ratings systems as censorship tools. The post-lunch panel discussion tackled a broad range of questions, including the debate whether users should find the materials they want in the library or should only be able to find “quality” material. This version of the “give them what they want” conundrum is usually applied to so-called trashy fiction, but is just as applicable to SpongeBob SquarePants. The audience participation on this question was spirited. I think nearly everyone in the audience believed that every patron, no matter what their age, should find both their entertainment and their educational needs met at their local library. If we provide entertainment fiction, then we provide Spongebob.

After the Great Debate, the Talk Tables started. I had a two-table sized group on the endless proliferation of vampire books in teen fiction. “V is for Vampire, W is for Werewolf, Z is for Zombie,” was the title. But I didn’t intend to talk about just the vamps. As one member of the group commented, in every box or cart of teen books, all the books are grey or black, with just a tiny hint of red on the cover. Everything is dark and angsty, whether there are vampires involved or not. It seems as if things are always darkest just before they turn completely black. Even the non-creepy books are dark and gritty. Based on the group discussion, teens may be tired of vampires in particular, but their literature isn’t turning toward sweetness and light any time soon. Just towards a different shade of grey. Or black.

This was a great conference. I really enjoyed the energy. And I truly believe that book blogs are a terrific resource for library collection development, and I would love to have the opportunity to take the show on the road again. Hopefully to a library conference near you!

From Columbia to…Columbia!

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | About> presentations

Reading Reality is going on the road again. On September 13 and September 14 I will be at the South Carolina Collection Development Conference taking place in Columbia, South Carolina.

The entire day tomorrow is devoted to adult collection development. There will be talk tables and a keynote speech in the morning. I’m the afternoon speaker. My topic: “The Brave New World of Genre Fiction Selection, the Rap Sheet on the Fiction Vixen, or what the Locus are all these book blogs about?” I’m going to be encouraging collection development librarians to use book blogs as sources for not just reviews, but as trend spotters, to help them find what readers are looking for. I’ve got a whole list of my favorites. I’ve also got a whole lot of slides to show, not just the increasing importance of genre, but what some of those genres are. Steampunk is just so much cooler when you have a picture!

On Wednesday I’ll be leading one of the table talks. Wednesday is the children’s and teens CD day. A lot of YA literature these days is genre fiction, particularly of the creepy-crawly variety. And that’s where I come in. I’ll be leading a table talk on the “creature features” of YA fiction, titled “V is for Vampire, W is for Werewolf, Z is for Zombie: the continued trend of the dark, weird and scary in teen literature”. It should be a scream.

The official title of the conference is “Collection Development for South Carolina Libraries”, and it is presented and sponsored by the South Carolina State Library. I was incredibly excited when Kathy Sheppard from the SC State Library emailed me last month, right after I got back from Missouri State Library Summer Institute in Columbia, Missouri. The happy coincidence makes for a good omen. And I’m looking forward to thanking Kathy in person for inviting me.

The Return of Captain John Emmett

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller is a haunting story of lost men during a lost time–a story the lost generation of soldiers who only semi-returned from the trench warfare of World War I, and the between-the-wars limbo that was the 1920’s.

Today we call it “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” or PTSD, as if giving things a name makes them easier to live with. In the immediate aftermath of WWI, it was simply called “shell-shock”, as though the shorter name meant it could be dismissed that much more easily.

Captain John Emmett returned from his war, whole in body, but not in spirit. He coped badly with the war, and even worse with the peace. His family institutionalized him after he attacked another veteran. When he escaped from the sanitarium, he committed suicide and left no note. His sister, thinking that he was improving, and certain that there must have been something more to her brother’s death, enlists one of his old school friends to investigate the circumstances of Emmett’s suicide.

Laurence Bartram came home from his war as shell-shocked as Emmett, but didn’t quite reach the institutional stage. He returned from his war a widower, his wife having died in childbirth on the day that his unit made it last assault. Wracked with guilt, he has been unable to restart a new life in peacetime. Mary Emmett’s request to investigate her brother’s death gives him a new purpose.

Bartram discoveries uncover mystery upon mystery. At first he believes he is looking into an unfortunate, but ultimately simple, suicide. It would not have been uncommon. But as he delves deeper, his investigations lead from peacetime back to the war he left behind. And from suicide to murder.

In peacetime it was called shell-shock. In wartime, it was called cowardice. On the front lines, an officer convicted of cowardice in the face of the enemy was court martialed and shot. In the British Army only three officers faced such firing squads during WWI. Emmett was the officer in charge of one, and he botched it. The war is over and all the men from that squad are being picked off, one by one. Those that survived the war, someone is making sure that they don’t survive the peace.

Escape Rating B+: After a slow start, this one grabbed me at the end and didn’t let go. Now I can’t stop thinking about it. The mixture of real history with fiction makes the story compelling. Also the touch of “real fiction”. One of the characters is reading Agatha Christie, and commenting on the similarities. But the pathos is in the characters of Emmett, Mary Emmett and Bartram. War is hell. Those young men had no idea what they were in for, and even less what to do when they got out. Combined with the incredible networking influence of the “Old School Ties”, both literal and figurative, and what happened to someone who didn’t have them. The historical notes at the end put the story in context. For fiction, this is too real. And war is still hell.

The Pirate King

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

Investigating possible evildoers while filming a silent movie about a movie about a comic opera. It should have been a farce. But in Laurie R. King’s The Pirate King, it’s Holmes and Russell, so it’s an absolutely marvelous froth instead.

Mary Russell does not particularly want to spend a fortnight (that’s two weeks to us Americans) cooped up in Sussex with her brother-in-law Mycroft. In their last meeting (The God of the Hive) Russell discovered that some of Mycroft’s actions on the part of the government were even shadier than she had thought. And Russell, being Russell, didn’t cavil at letting Mycroft know exactly what she thought. This does not contribute to family harmony, even in the Holmes family.

Inspector Lestrade needs someone to infiltrate a film company that seems to have a run of bad luck. Fflytte Films makes a film about gunrunning, and suddenly there’s a rash of illegal firearms everywhere. Fflytte makes a movie about rum-running, and there’s bathtub gin all over the place (1924–Prohibition, remember?) When the producer’s assistant goes missing, Lestrade wants someone who can type to substitute, so he can get a man on the inside. Russell “volunteers” to get away from the Holmes brothers’ family reunion.

Fflytte Films leaves London for Morocco by way of Lisbon to film a movie about a film company making a movie about the making of a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. Which is in Wales. But Fflytte Films would never do anything so boring as to film in Wales. Or so boring as to use anything like the real story of the opera. Instead of 4 daughters, the Major General of famous song has 13 daughters. And then, there are the pirates. Since there are 13 daughters, there need to be 13 pirates. And because Fflytte Films is famous for its realism, Randolph Fflytte recruits real pirates, along with a real, honest-to-goodness (or badness) Pirate King.

Escape Rating A+: I stayed up until 1 am to finish this book. This was the lighter side of Holmes and Russell, and was a welcome antidote to the darker doings of The Language of Bees and The God of the Hive. The Pirate King is a lark. Some serious events happen, but there is a happily ever after in this one. Even though it turns out that all of the events were manipulated by Mycroft from the beginning, it is worth it just for the image of Holmes playing an actor playing the Major General courting Russell under the eyes of the entire film cast and crew. Priceless!

Better Days and other stories (Serenity volume 2)

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

Bottom line, it would be a better day if the Serenity were still flying. And while I’m wishing, I want Wash to still be her pilot, and the Shepherd to still be in the back, keeping his secrets and reading his book. Not to mention keeping that hair of his under control. If you watched the show, you know exactly what I mean.

In the meantime, we all keep the dream alive as best we can.

The graphic short story collection from Dark Horse Books, Better Days and other stories (Serenity, volume 2), is part of keeping that dream alive. This new, hardcover edition includes the story Better Days, which was originally published in 2008, plus three newer stories, The Other Half, Downtime, and the bittersweet Float Out.

All the stories except Float Out take place before the events of the movie Serenity, which is nostalgic but slightly confusing at this point. It’s great to see Wash and the Shepherd again, but I know they’re gone.

Better Days is one of the two best stories in the book. It’s about a job that both goes very, very well, and very, very badly. Which, come to think about it, seems pretty typical for our heroes. At the outset, they open a cache that contains way more money than they expected, and the crew of the Serenity is temporarily rich beyond their wildest dreams. Part of the story is telling each other what those dreams are, or living them while spending some of that lovely money.

The other part of the story is the bad luck part. They stole a weapon, and the Alliance wants it back. And Mal and Zoe, because somebody believes that Mal was a terrorist at the end of the war. As usual, the Alliance soldier is off the reservation, and he also has the wrong Browncoat in his sights. Also, as usual, Mal is too stubborn to admit that. The relationships between the crew were captured really well, including some laugh out loud bits.

Float Out is a different kind of story. Three of Wash’s old frenemies are sitting around telling stories about him, planning to drink to his memory. The stories are funny, and very typical Wash incidents–his questionable charm, his even more questionable fashion sense, his insane love of plastic dinosaurs, and his willingness to do absolutely anything to save his friends. Zoe saunters in at the last minute and provides the drinks for the toast. “Wash hated champagne.” I’m sure he did. The drink Zoe brings is a “quick drunk, but lots of fun.” Sounds like Wash, doesn’t it?

The two stories in the middle didn’t stick with me, but these two did. Better Days because Mal didn’t have any dreams of what he would do with all that cash–his dream is flying Serenity with his crew, keeping his “family” together, and he knows it. Being rich hurts his dreams, it doesn’t help them. Float Out was a good-bye kiss to Wash, and it was fine one.

Escape Rating A: I escaped back to the Serenity for a little while. Enough said.

Lucky Girl

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews

Jessica Devlin doesn’t really feel like a lucky girl. Four months ago, she came home late one night to find her fiance banging one of the receptionists from his office. His nasty comment that she couldn’t blame him since she wasn’t home and that she was lousy in bed led not just to the direct demise of their engagement but also to the continuing death spiral of Jess’ ego. Unfortunately, she’s spent the past four months drowning her sorrows in Ben & Jerry’s.

Her cousin is getting married in England, and Jess is the maid of honor.  Her final dress fitting doesn’t go well. Four months repeated applications of Mr. Ben and Mr. Jerry haunt the fitting room. But she is still going on her first vacation in two years, her first trip back to England since the death of her beloved grandfather.

It’s clear that Jess has some unfinished business in England with a handsome stranger she met, a man she fantasizes about as “Spy Man”. Nick Mondinello looks rather like a younger version of Pierce Brosnan, the actor who played James Bond a couple of times. Jess assumes that any man that gorgeous won’t want anything to do with her slightly overweight and rather out-of-shape self. Especially since when they met two years ago, she threw up in a planter and then sobbed on his shoulder.

But Nick turns out to be the best man at her cousin’s wedding. And he is very interested in Jess.

Jess thinks this is all too good to be true, that it can’t possibly last, and that Nick can’t possibly want her. But Jess has also made a pact with herself to grab a whole new life while she’s on vacation, to finally be the heroine of her own story. And she’s only going to be in England for two weeks. If “Spy Guy” wants to have a two-week fling, who is she to turn him down?

Lucky Girl, by Cate Lord is a light, fun read. One of the elements I loved was Jess’ near-obsession with the “Plucky Penguin” collectibles, and that Nick collected them too. The concept of the TV show about the spy penguin and his girlfriend was cute and funny, but also a part of the story.

I didn’t get some of the parts about Jess’ job at the magazine. Jess worked in Orlando, and it was a beauty magazine, so the name of the magazine was O Tart? O please! And then there was that secondary story about Jess’ work being sabotaged that was just not fully resolved. Who did it? We never know for sure, and neither does Jess. That still bothers me. There’s an assumption, but it’s not a complete answer. Jess’ angst over the missing stories, and needing to write substitute stories, and getting her cousins and Nick involved with the creation of those stories was a fairly major plot point. Not finding the villain for certain, even if Jess couldn’t prove it, made it feel like the story was a tiny bit unfinished.

Escape Rating C: Worth finishing the story, but I wanted all the ends wrapped up.

Stone Cold Seduction

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

When first we meet our heroine, Elleodora Fredricks, she is in the process of burgling her sperm donor’s office building. As the story opens, Elle only thinks the jerk is spawn of Satan. By the time the book ends, Elle realizes he might actually be a demon. Or the next nearest thing.

Stone Cold Seduction by Jess Macallan opens with a kick-ass female Robin Hood clinging to the side of a high-rise in a catsuit. If our heroine had only thought her evil dad was just the usual corporate variety of evil, this would have been an interesting enough premise. But…

Elle has some serious memory issues, because Dear-Old-Dad isn’t just your typical corporate badass. Dad is the King of the Shadow Elves, and Elle feels like Alice tripping down the proverbial rabbit hole as all of her friends start revealing everything King Dad, AKA “the sperm donor” has deleted from her memory. It’s one of his powers that she has also been made to forget.

But now, Dad is after her, along with his goon squad. And so are all the other powers in his “Shadow World”. Because Elle hasn’t been stealing mere baubles like she thought she was. She’s been stealing something much more important. She’s been stealing “soul gems”, an item, and a concept, she didn’t even know existed a few days ago.

And her friends, her “crew” who have been helping her? They’re not who they seem either. Her best friend Teryl turns out to be an oracle. And the new man in her life, Jax? He answered an ad for a stockroom clerk at her store. But he’s really a gargoyle. Now he says he’s her fated mate.

And what’s this fate thing all about? Elle isn’t sure she believes in this destiny thing. A few days ago, she was happy running her custom perfume store, trying to right some of the wrongs her dad did. Now, not just her life but also her entire universe has turned upside down.

And in the middle of it all, a man from her past returns. And guess what? Not only is MacLean a phoenix, but he is also her fated mate.  What’s a girl to do?

Verdict: I really liked the Elle who was clinging to that building. The catburglar Elle was fantastic! But the more Elle finds out about herself and her lineage, the more she retreats into her 17-year old self, and that person is in a really bad place. I want to see Elle get her mojo back, and that’s not going to happen until the next book.

Because this is a series (Stone Cold Seduction is the first book of Set in Stone) I will say I liked Elle enough to want to see what she does next. At the end, I could see that she was starting to get her own back. Good on her.

At the end, Elle got to see her fate, and she has not one, but two fated mates, and it is her choice which one to pick. I’m looking forward to watching her make both men grovel in the next book!

Escape Rating: B in anticipation of Elle getting her groove back in the next book.

Hold Me

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews

Betsy Horvath’s Hold Me is the story of an undercover FBI agent who accidentally involves a civilian in his work, only to discover that she has been part of his life all along.

Katie McCabe’s life had been going pretty much nowhere since she broke up with her fiance. Breaking up with him had been the absolute right thing to do, since she caught him screwing his boss at work on his desk late one night. Beating them both with a handy broom handle might not have been Katie’s best idea. Totally deserved, but not her best idea.

Lucas Vasco is an undercover FBI agent, and his cover has just been blown. He knew that breaking into the mobster’s empty office this particular evening wasn’t his best idea, but the guy and his goons were supposed to away all night. Diving for the window seemed like his only way out.

Luc’s window dive put him on the street as Katie was driving by, six months after her infamous break-up. Her life was still a mess. Her career had sunk after the broom beating, and her car was barely functioning and in need of serious repairs. Then an FBI agent being chased by gunmen jumps into her car, says he’s one of the good guys and asks her to drive, fast. Then the gunmen start shooting at her.

When the cops show up, they’re certain it’s all Katie’s fault because of the broom handle incident. The FBI shows up and vouch for their agent. But the mobster now knows who Katie is, and he’s just off his rocker at getting his name on the police blotter, even if no charges are filed. Katie didn’t witness anything, so she can’t go into Witness Protection. But since the mobster is a nutjob, she needs some serious protection. Luc takes her home with him.

Luc doesn’t just want to protect Katie from the bad guys, he wants to protect her forever. But Luc isn’t just an undercover agent, it’s his whole life that is undercover. He has a lot of secrets about his past that he needs to reveal to Katie before they have any chance at a happily ever after.

Verdict: I picked this up because the description reminded me of an old TV show, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and I loved that show. That story was about a spy who accidentally involves a civilian and falls in love with her.  Hold Me starts out a little like that, but keeps adding more layers. First, FBI agent drafts civilian. Then he has to protect her. After that, her mother gets kidnapped by the mobsters. Everyone goes to Atlantic City for a big showdown in the casinos. and a second showdown back home with the FBI mole. And his foster sister is also her foster sister.  That last bit may have been one layer too many on the cake. This was a good story and these were great characters without foster care added on. The side story of Katie’s parents’ marriage falling apart was heart wrenching but made enough of a counterpoint to the main story.

Escape Rating: C: Worth finishing at lunch the next day, but the subplot pile-on was too much to keep me up into the wee hours waiting for the pile to crash.

And they say no one reads the classics anymore

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | ebooks> reading

They say no one reads the classics anymore. But they’d be wrong. At least as it applies to ebooks. Or so say the checkout statistics for the Project Gutenberg titles available from OverDrive.

In a recent blog post, OverDrive listed their top 25 circulating titles from Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg digitizes books and other media that are out of copyright in the United States and makes them available for free download.

It’s the list of the “biggest hits” that fascinates.

Obviously, sex still sells. Always and forever. Even when no one actually has to buy anything. The number one book on the list is the Kama Sutra. An ereader or a tablet computer is even better than a brown paper wrapper for hiding what a person is reading. The Kama Sutra is referred to so often, in literature and elsewhere, as the original sex manual, that curiousity alone would prompt many people to idly search for it. And if they could borrow it without anyone else being the wiser, many would be tempted to delve into a copy.

Love still makes the world go ’round. Two classic love stories made the list: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. And just to show that all is fair in love and war, The Art of War by Sun Tzu is also part of the top 25.

The titles that make up this list represent every genre of fiction. Inspector Poirot’s first case, otherwise known as The Mysterious Affair at Styles, barely makes the list at number 23. But The Secret Adversary, Dame Agatha Christie’s first work starring Tommy and Tuppence, weighed in at number 10. And, one of my personal favorites, the world’s first consulting detective Sherlock Holmes is the second most popular book on the list. Considering that The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes includes the case of A Scandal in Bohemia, where Holmes was bested by “The Woman”, otherwise known as Irene Adler, perhaps we are still on the topics of love and war after all.

For any folks wondering about science fiction, fantasy and/or horror, the answer is yes, they are well represented, not just in numbers, but also by some of the greats. H.G. Wells’ journey in The Time Machine, Bram Stoker’s discovery of the nosferatu in Dracula, and Edgar Rice Burroughs sword and planet fantasy of The Princess of Mars.

Yes, the usual suspects are also on the list. The titles that we all know are assigned for classes like Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and the Count of Monte Cristo. But people are also taking advantage of the ability to have the entire works of Shakespeare or the Bible (Old and New Testaments) or War and Peace available on their ereader of choice, without having to lug the totality around.

The point is that these aren’t classics because of some esoteric quality they have. They are classics because they are still read.  There is one book on the list I personally wouldn’t touch with someone else’s barge-pole, because it’s not my taste–someone take James Joyce’s Ulysses, please! But most of the books on the list wear their years well.

I’ve never read any of the Tommy and Tuppence books by Agatha Christie. Maybe it’s time to start.