Tag: Tor Books

Review: Black Ice by Susan Krinard

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews
black ice by susan krinardFormat read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: ebook, paperback, mass market paperback
Genre: urban fantasy
Series: Midgard, #2
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: August 12, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Centuries ago, all was lost in the Last Battle when the Norse gods and goddesses went to war. The elves, the giants, and the gods and goddesses themselves were all destroyed, leaving the Valkyrie known as Mist one of the only survivors.

Or so she thought.

The trickster god Loki has reappeared in San Francisco, and he has big plans for modern-day Earth. With few allies and fewer resources—but the eyes of the gods and goddesses of an old world upon her—it’s up to Mist to stop him before history repeats itself.

My Review:

Mist by Susan KrinardBlack Ice is the followup to the first book in this series, Mist (reviewed here). I can definitely say that the title of this latest entry is appropriate, not just because there is literal “black ice” in San Francisco (in June!) but also in the sense of “things are always darkest just before they turn completely black”.

This story is not an upper. The situation starts out grim and keeps getting grimmer. Also Grimm-er, in the sense of myths and fairy tales coming entirely too true.

Mist, the titular heroine from the first book, spends this story fighting off Loki and other enemies while continuing to both gather and lose followers.

Some die, some betray her. Whichever is the worst outcome on any given occasion. There is a lot of nonstop action, but also a sense that little to nothing is going Mist’s way.

Black Ice feels a lot like a “middle book” in a trilogy, in that the plot is on a downstroke.

Mist gains new allies; she finds a couple of her sister valkyries and one of Odin’s ravens (either Huginn or Muninn, we don’t know which) arrives on the scene with its person.

Meanwhile Loki turns out to have a dangerous new ally of his own, and gets his hooks firmly embedded into some of Mist’s own allies. Things are not looking up.

Oh, and her mother comes back. Mist has no idea that her mother Freya is planning to the biggest betrayal of all, because she’s too wrapped up in the more immediate grief at the loss of her would-be lover, Dainn, back to Loki.

It’s too bad that Dainn is not the first (and probably not the last) from her inner circle to turn their coat towards the god who is trying to bring on the end of the world. The contest isn’t even serious to Loki, he’s just playing a very big game.

Mist wants to save the place that she’s come to love, and all the people who follow her. Some will die. Some have already died. All Mist can do is soldier on and hope that their sacrifices will be worth it.

She has no idea that she is in more danger than anyone else.

Escape Rating C+: The story setup is that Loki is the embodiment of evil, but I’m not sure that anyone is playing the good side of the eternal equation unless it’s Mist herself. Freya is not “good” by any human definition, even though she puts on a very good show of being benevolent. It’s pretty obvious that the agenda she is hiding is every bit as (possibly more) self-serving than Loki’s.

And while Freya’s agenda seems obvious to everyone but Mist, I’m less convinced about Loki’s. He’s still (and always) a trickster, but he’s quite capable of doing evil in the name of not so bad. Or at least survival.

Mist spends the whole story being run off her feet from battle to battle. She never catches a break. Also she gets betrayed so many times, and most of the betrayals are obvious up front. I wish she’d get a bigger clue.

The really interesting character this time out is Anna Strangland, accompanied by her raven-disguised-as-a-parrot, Orn. While Orn is obviously more than he appears, we don’t get a clear picture of what he is. (Bets on Huginn or Muninn). But Anna gets dragged out of her everyday life into Ragnarok, and manages not to be overwhelmed and to make a place for herself.

I hope that book 3 moves the story into an upswing. There really needs to be a bright side to look on, and where Black Ice ends, it isn’t even on the horizon.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
full fathom five by max gladstoneFormat read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, paperback
Genre: fantasy
Series: Craft Sequence, #3
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: July 15, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

On the island of Kavekana, Kai builds gods to order, then hands them to others to maintain. Her creations aren’t conscious and lack their own wills and voices, but they accept sacrifices, and protect their worshippers from other gods—perfect vehicles for Craftsmen and Craftswomen operating in the divinely controlled Old World. When Kai sees one of her creations dying and tries to save her, she’s grievously injured—then sidelined from the business entirely, her near-suicidal rescue attempt offered up as proof of her instability. But when Kai gets tired of hearing her boss, her coworkers, and her ex-boyfriend call her crazy, and starts digging into the reasons her creations die, she uncovers a conspiracy of silence and fear—which will crush her, if Kai can’t stop it first.

My Review:

three parts dead by max gladstoneThe lawyer/necromancers are back in this third book of the Craft Sequence, after Three Parts Dead (reviewed here) and Two Serpents Rise (here).

Admittedly, the concept of law as necromancy is one that is too close to the truth not to make for an awesome story, but Full Fathom Five isn’t so much about the contract law as it is about the way that we create deities in our own image, and what happens when we succeed.

Worship is power in the universe of this series, and power is not merely divine power (although it is also that) but all actual power like electricity. It heats homes and lights cities.

But the fascinating thing about the deities in this world is that they can die by losing too much power, either by losing worshippers or much more spectacularly, by getting caught short in the futures market.

If money is power, then in this world, power is also money.

two serpents rise by max gladstoneIn the series, we’ve seen the rise and fall of deities (Three Parts Dead), the near catastrophic loss of a technology based corporation that provides power in the place of any deities (Two Serpents Down) and in Full Fathom Five we see the middle-option; fake deities (literally idols) as a way of putting oneself outside either of the other systems.

Idols are like gods, except they are literally created by humans. Actually sculpted to accept worship and hold contracts, just like real deities. Investing in an idol avoids paying tithes in deity-country and taxes in corporation territory.

But what happens when the idols start waking up and dispensing inspiration and grace? In other words, what happens when a tiny country whose ability to fend off both sides rests on the neutrality of the idols they create, and when those idols cease being neutral?

Kai makes idols. They live, and they sometimes die. But when she tries to save one from certain death, she gets sidelined and sidetracked from investigating what went wrong. Also demoted and displaced.

The contract necromancers are searching into every nook and cranny to discover why one of the idols defaulted on its contracts and went effectively bankrupt.

Meanwhile, both a poet and a street gang have begun worshipping gods who have inspired and saved them, but who no one else knows exists.

Except that someone does, and it’s someone who will do anything to protect the secret, up to killing as many gods and goddesses as it takes to keep anyone else from knowing that their tiny country is no longer neutral in the god wars.

Escape Rating A: I think there is a pattern in these stories, at least so far. When humans create or reject their own gods, what different ways might that happen. This one is not so much about the literal creation of idols, as it first appears, but what happens when worship creates a new god and upsets the old world order.

People don’t like change, and will go to great lengths to protect the status quo.

Kai pokes her nose into this investigation because she can’t reconcile what happened to what is supposed to happen. And every time someone tries to tell her that her memory is wrong, or that she must still be recovering, she can’t get past that voice in her head that says she remembers events correctly.

Her work is what she has, and she needs to figure out how she could have been so mistaken. Of course, she isn’t.

The street gang, a bunch of kids, is telling themselves stories about the “Blue Lady”, but their storytelling is a form of worship. They have found a god, or she has found them, and she is protecting and helping them.

Unfortunately, her attention means that someone really is out to get them.

And a lost poet was given 6 months of grace and inspiration by the goddess, and can’t find his way back again now that she’s gone.

Kai keeps finding links between the idol who died, and this goddess who doesn’t exist. The deeper she probes, the more she discovers that her world is bigger and darker than she thought.

And friendship is the greatest saving grace of all.

Just as in the other parts of this series, each glimpse into this world shows a different facet, and the case is complicated with both magic and the depths of human (and divine) nature.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Dual Review: Artemis Awakening by Jane Lindskold

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews> Draconismoi
artemis awakening by Jane lindskoldFormat read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, audiobook
Genre: Science fiction
Series: Artemis Awakened, #1
Length: 305 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: May 27, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

The distant world Artemis is a pleasure planet created out of bare rock by a technologically advanced human empire that provided its richest citizens with a veritable Eden to play in. All tech was concealed and the animals (and the humans brought to live there) were bioengineered to help the guests enjoy their stay…but there was always the possibility of danger so that visitors could brag that they had “bested” the environment.

The Empire was shattered in a horrific war; centuries later humanity has lost much of the advanced technology and Artemis is a fable told to children. Until young archeologist Griffin Dane finds intriguing hints that send him on a quest to find the lost world. Stranded on Artemis after crashing his ship, he encounters the Huntress Adara and her psych-linked companion, the puma Sand Shadow. Their journey with her will lead Dane to discover the planet’s secrets…and perhaps provide a key to give unimagined power back to mankind.

Cass: So where should we start? The Good, The Bad, or the What the Fuck?!

Marlene: I think the WTF comes at the end.

Good first, then bad, then OMGWTF.

Cass: Alright then, onwards to the awesome! Artemis Awakening has some spectacular world-building. I loved the entire concept of a pleasure resort planet (which, let’s face it, rich folk would totally build), and the amount of work they put into making it the best vacation ever. Can’t have nasty insects ruining our fun times! Or diving guides that needed to breathe underwater! Or locals who have any kind of ambition or interest in technology/offworld societies.

It was incredibly well thought out, and also terrifying to realize how deep they went in building their little pleasure palace. So much so that the behavioral modifications were still in place 500 years later.

Marlene: Westworld meets Risa, but with perfectly engineered people and animals instead of androids that can go haywire. Except wait, that happened too.

But seriously, the amount of time, effort, money, science, etc., that has to have gone into building Artemis is both fascinating for what it says about the original Empire and extremely well done on the part of the author. Everything was designed to provide the perfect vacation experience for any wealthy and well-connected member of the upper crust.

It made me wonder if part of the reason that the empire imploded was because they were spending too much money on the wrong things, and not taking care of business. I also wonder if this perfect pleasure planet included sex workers (or people programmed to be) but that wasn’t in evidence.

Cass: Actually, I’d disagree with you there. In the beginning when Adara (our protagonist) was trying to decide how to behave with the first extraterrestrial visitor in 500 years, she was thinking about how they were known to fuck around with the locals. AND the comments made by her pseudo-love interest (which I have opinions on), where he explained that he felt compelled to defer to any attraction Griffin may have felt towards her…..

I’d say the breeding for compliance and happy servitude definitely spilled over into a form of prostitution – though not something these Rich Swine would think of as actual sexual slavery.

Marlene: I don’t think the locals were programmed to say “no” to the “seegnur”, either. But in all of Adara’s thoughts about it, she felt that it would be either taking advantage of her, or not what she wanted for herself. Rich Swine wouldn’t care, and would tell themselves that it was alright. But I wonder if there was an adaptation for brothel-workers?

Cass: Super-immunity to STIs? Mental control over fertility? Vibrating cocks? Seems like those would be adaptations that wouldn’t get you shunned.

Which was another thing I loved about the world-building! How the people of Artemis had divided up into classes based on their modifications (or lack thereof) that they kept to even in Adara’s time – and how a farming family would freak out when their kid sprouted claws or gills, no matter how useful the trait could be to have around.

Marlene: The idea that the behavior modifications would still be breeding true, to the point where the entire society still followed the rules laid down by the “seegnur” was awesomely scary.

Cass: At first it was irritating me. I was sitting here thinking “Adara is a take charge kind of woman, why wouldn’t she rebel against these kinds of ridiculous constraints.” But then we started seeing so many indications that people really couldn’t move beyond a need to serve. Which, of course, led many adapted children open to being horrifically abused and taken advantage of by The Old One Who Is Young Without The Benefit of Plastic Surgery.

Marlene: We can’t start talking about The Old One Who Is Young Without Learning a Damn Thing without talking about the story and the characters.

Griffin Dane crashes on Artemis, and discovers that none of his backup systems work and he’s stranded on what he thinks is a primitive planet with no way of contacting “civilization”. And he’s rescued by a woman with a puma. He thinks he’s landed in savage heaven, especially after she saves his bacon.

Cass: A puma with HANDS. Everyone stop and think for a moment about the terror of a world in which cats have opposable thumbs. The lack of which is pretty much the only thing currently saving us from feline domination.

Marlene: Nothing is saving us from feline domination. Trust me on this. However, their lack of opposable thumbs does mean that they think we are useful, so they have refrained from wiping us off the planet. As soon as they figure out how to open their own cans, we’re done for.

(M: My husband is curled up in the corner in a fetal ball gibbering about cats with hands) (C: Excellent. I knew that bit would strike terror into the hearts of all who know cats)

Cass: Essentially, Griffin is your typical absent-minded professor type, totally unprepared for the realities of Artemis, and we learn about the world through his eyes – and also how Adara sees him. Along the way we meet up with Adara’s pseudo-boyfriend (A GODDAMN LOVE TRIANGLE APPROACHES), and The Old One Who Is A Young Asshole. (Spoiler alert! He’s an asshole.)

I think we’re really started to edge over into the bad, so let me just say, that much like the world-building, the author did a fantastic job with the characters. With one exception that I will harp on at length. Later.

Marlene: The dreaded love triangle, which almost becomes a quadrangle (or a pentagon if you count the puma) doesn’t actually come to fruition. So points for not totally going there.

Cass: The puma had the right idea. Three-way. I suspect they might go that way in the next installment after some spoilery things that manifested between Adara’s almost boyfriend and her extraterrestrial meet-cute.

But other than that, there was no point in even bringing it up. Wah, Adara’s indecisive, wah, the menfolk can’t tell if she’s into them, wah, wah wah. Just fuck them and move on or shut up about it already! There are so many more important things going on.

Marlene: One last wah. Wah Adara’s heart was broken by her asshole ex, who, based on the songs that he wrote about her, is seriously psychopathic. He’s one sick dude.

Cass: The songs and his post-Adara career choices. I was kind of trying to block that part out. I’m sure in the next installment he’ll make an appearance right around the time she’s actually going to get some with one of the other guys.

Marlene: I expect him to kidnap her at some point in a later installment and try to enact one of those songs. (shudder)

However, in spite of her poor taste when she was young and stupid, I like Adara. She’s intelligent and strong, and doesn’t fall into bed with either of the two dudes sniffing around her as a cure for her angst. Also she distrusted The Old One Who Is a Sociopath when she was 8, and she doesn’t like him any better now.

Cass: I loved Adara analyzing The Old One Who is a Men’s Rights Activist’s reactions to her and figuring out that he was a misogynist who knew he had no hope of controlling a child (or woman) who could grow claws at will. Hah! In fact, I kind of wished he hadn’t been smart enough to figure that out – because Adara could have demonstrated for him.

Marlene: The “facility” that The Old One Who is a Torturer had created reminded me of the human/Cylon breeding facilities on Battlestar Galactica. And OMG that was sick then and it’s sick now.

Cass: I’d say this one trumped the horror of BSG because we got a vivid-full-color description of how The Old One Who is a Butcherer handled his “failures.”

Marlene: I think we’ve reached the point where we need to talk directly about The Old One Who We Hate So Much.

Cass: The Old One Who Is Young:

  • Is inexplicably young despite being centuries old and NO ONE, not even Griffin, ever fucking questions how this is possible.
  • Is inexplicably able to commit atrocities with impunity and command people who hate him.
  • Is a cardboard cut-out villain. (Unlike Adara’s ex, who though uber-creepy, at least appears to be acting in character.)

Basically all those good things we talked about earlier? The world-building? The characters? All fall apart with our villain. He makes no sense in the context of the world, he isn’t given any kind of motivation, and nobody even attempts to figure out WTF is with all the WTFery.

Marlene: The Old One Who is the Villainiest Villain of Them All is too much of a “bucket of all evil”. What the hell is he? An adaptation that went wrong? A “seegnur” who got left behind? (Probably not, but I did wonder for a while). An incredibly organized serial killer? (Well yes, he is definitely that)

Cass: We should just call him “He Who Must Not Be Named” and be done with it.

Marlene: Voldemort with a touch of Sauron, in the body of Jack the Ripper or Sweeney Todd.

Cass: I was thinking Voldemort trapped in Young Voldemort’s body as raised by post Red-Wedding Walder Frey. A Senile “Seegnur” who had nothing to do for centuries than think up atrocities to top those in the history books. (You had to have noticed they talked about a Red Wedding in the beginning of the book? I was totally laughing when I realized I could start counting ASOIF references).

Marlene: I had not thought of the possibilities for ASOIF bingo, but you’re right. OMG.

Cass: We could call him…. Seegdemort Frey? I always envisioned Hogwarts as a creepy breeding facility anyways. Artemis Awakening’s villain is Harry Potter Meets Game of Thrones. Yes, I know I just broke all your brains, but that is because IT MAKES NO GODDAMN SENSE.

Marlene: All high schools have the possibility of being creepy breeding facilities if you squint.

Cass: Yeah, but Hogwarts specifically divided them up by specific traits. For breeding purposes. The Sorting Hat is only looking at genetic compatibility and potential offspring….

Or are we getting a little off base?

Marlene: I just think we’re in danger of being longer than the original book we started with!

Cass: Well, we can’t really explain The Old One Who Wants To Be A Frey When He’s All Growed Up without getting into spoiler territory….so…..

Escape Grade: B+. Yeah there was a lot of omgwtfbbq at the end, but the beginning was awesome, and I’ll totally pick up the sequel to see what happens when Artemis starts taking an active interest in events.

Marlene: Escape Rating B+: The villain was a bit too much the Nazi version of Snidely Whiplash, but the characters and the worldbuilding were extremely awesome at the beginning. Especially Sand Shadow the puma, as much as she worries me about the evolution of cat-kind. I enjoyed Adara’s not falling into bedroll with either of the two dudes on offer, and I want to see her come into her own. And I sincerely hope that the next book in the series (which I will definitely pick up) tells us more about The Old One Who is a Nazi and where he came from and how he got that way. And hopefully we see his complete comeuppance.

Cass: Hey, look at that! We agree. Most unusual.

Marlene: We get closer to the same page when there’s no mushy stuff.

Cass: Well, no mushy love stuff, there were plenty of mushy… other stuff… and such in this book.

Marlene: We agree on gore, just not on kissy-face.

Cass: I’m still pulling for the three way in book 2. Sand Shadow is clearly the dominant character. They should follow her suggestions.

Marlene: Definitely Sand Shadow for the win!

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Unlocked by John Scalzi

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
unlocked by John ScalziFormat read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Formats available: ebook, hardcover
Genre: science fiction
Length: 63 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: May 7, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

A new near-future science fiction novella by John Scalzi, one of the most popular authors in modern SF. Unlocked traces the medical history behind a virus that will sweep the globe and affect the majority of the world’s population, setting the stage for Lock In, the next major novel by John Scalzi.

My Review:

Even for a novella, the publisher’s blurb for Unlocked is not just short, but also not terribly descriptive. And it doesn’t come close to doing this marvelous introduction to Lock In any kind of justice.

Unlocked carries a more descriptive subtitle: An Oral History of Haden’s Syndrome. That’s almost descriptive enough.

Unlocked isn’t precisely a narrative, it’s more like a collection of narratives around a single event. By presenting the story as snippets from oral interviews, it gives the reader the kind of “you are there” perspective that doesn’t usually happen in fiction. It brings the reader to the center of the story, as though we were watching it as it happened, or as if it were part of our shared consciousness.

Which it is for the people involved.

The individuals don’t stand out, but what emerges is the history of how the world dealt, or would deal, with a global pandemic in the age of mass transportation and mass media, where the survivors and their families could become, not just “poster children”, but symbols for all those who suffered and are suffering.

Even after some of them have discovered that Hadens may be the best thing that ever happened to them.

There are historic parallels for this kind of disease, the 1918 Flu Pandemic and the Black Death are examples.There have been instances where the loss was so pervasive that it touched every family, the U.S. Civil War being a prime example there. But with Haden’s Syndrome, the author has created a leveling disease that cuts across all boundaries, and everyone sees the effects on the daily news.

Escape Rating A-: This is hard to rate. While I was reading, I myself was “locked in” to the narrative. It rang true as the way that things might happen, given the circumstances. It also brought me back to the questions about “the needs of the many”, and how society would handle it when the relatively small percentage affected adds up to huge absolute numbers. What would we do?

The mistakes made, and the successes discovered, followed a kind of logical progression that kept me going from one personal account to another, watching the picture unfold.

lock in by john scalziUnlocked does an absolutely terrific job of setting up the background for Lock In (which yes, I have an ARC of and could not resist after Unlocked).

Unlocked presents an all-too-real possibility and stretches it into a future that is scarily easy to envision. If you are waiting with bated breath for Lock In, read Unlocked first. It makes reading Lock In a much richer experience.

And it’s GOOD!

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Ophelia Prophecy by Sharon Lynn Fisher

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
ophelia prophecy by sharon lynn fisherFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: science fiction romance
Length: 320 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: April 1, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Our world is no longer our own. We engineered a race of superior fighters — the Manti, mutant humans with insect-like abilities. Twenty-five years ago they all but destroyed us. In Sanctuary, some of us survive. Eking out our existence. Clinging to the past.

Some of us intend to do more than survive.
* * *
Asha and Pax — strangers and enemies — find themselves stranded together on the border of the last human city, neither with a memory of how they got there.

Asha is an archivist working to preserve humanity’s most valuable resource — information — viewed as the only means of resurrecting their society.

Pax is Manti, his Scarab ship a menacing presence in the skies over Sanctuary, keeping the last dregs of humanity in check.

Neither of them is really what they seem, and what humanity believes about the Manti is a lie.

With their hearts and fates on a collision course, they must unlock each other’s secrets and forge a bond of trust before a rekindled conflict pushes their two races into repeating the mistakes of the past.

My Review:

Cassandra was right, but no one listened to her. In The Ophelia Prophecy, a lot of people have an interest in making Ophelia’s predictions come true, whether they should or not.

This is definitely science fiction, but of the genetic engineering/biopunk/dystopian type, rather than the space opera version. We don’t travel off-planet, just into a not-too-distant future where the humans have been the authors of their own destruction, something that is certainly not implausible.

In this future, the desire to create “better, stronger, faster” soldiers to use against other humans led to a scientific breakthrough; the ability to splice insect and animal DNA into human DNA in order to create hybrid supersoldiers.

While it sounds like the “not-so-mad scientists” experimented with everything under the sun, by the time the story starts, the dominant hybrids are the Manti; human/insect hybrids. The Manti are not just dominant among hybrids, they have also reduced the “pure human” population to a small handful, using both semi-conventional warfare and bio-terrorism.

There’s an element of “Romeo and Juliet” meets “Frankenstein” in The Ophelia Prophecy. We start the story with a human woman and a Manti soldier in the Badlands outside the last human Sanctuary, waking up from unconsciousness with neither of them remembering exactly how they got there.

All they each know is that the other is supposed to be the enemy. But if it were that simple, there wouldn’t be a story.

Asha is hunting for her lost father. She believes that the Manti kidnapped him, for purposes unknown. And she’s half right.

Paxton is searching for a purpose. His father is the political leader of the Manti government, but the 25 years of unquestioned Manti supremacy have turned him into an autocrat. Pax is looking for a better way.

Instead, they find each other. Pax’ mission is to take Asha back to Manti HQ in Granada, to discover what she knows about how they ended up together in the first place. While at first she is his unwilling prisoner, the more they interact the more they discover in common. And the more that Asha learns about the true state of her world.

Nothing is as it seems. Not for Asha, and, it turns out, not for Pax.

Escape Rating B+: I wanted this to be longer. Or for there to be another book. There is so much more to be discovered in this world, and the place the story ends has the feeling of a new beginning, or the start of another chapter.

Pax and Asha start out on opposite sides. He’s the Manti Prince, and she’s the daughter of a member of the human governing council. What they have in common in that neither of them is content with their society’s version of the status quo. They each want answers.

We see this world through Asha’s eyes. She starts out unhappy with the conditions in Sanctuary, but believing in the version of the world that she has been told. Except that she studies the beginning of the war in the Archives, and things don’t seem to quite add up. Because they don’t.

The more Asha sees of the world beyond Sanctuary, the more her perspective changes. The more she learns, the more we learn. She discovers that not all humans are her allies, and not all Manti are her enemies, through some very hard lessons.

What she discovers is that Pax may be the only one she can rely on, but it’s a lesson that she figures out by trial and error. They are often in conflict because he takes away many of her choices, so she goes down the opposite path just to feel like she is choosing for herself.

The romance is downplayed. There’s an element of fated-mate syndrome, but one that both parties fight as long as possible. Pax because he doesn’t want to be a slave to his biology, and Asha because she has a primary mission to find her father, and becoming too involved with Pax will not get her where she needs to go.

The bits we see of Manti society are fascinating. The politics are cut-throat, and every bit as intimately deadly as The Game of Thrones. I wish we could see more!

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan

Posted on by Cass | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
TropicSerpentsFormat read: eARC (and hardcover)
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, audiobook.
Genre: Historical Fantasy, Dragons
Series: Memoirs of Lady Trent #2
Length: 331 pages
Publisher: Tor
Date Released: March 4, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Book Depository.

Attentive readers of Lady Trent’s earlier memoir, A Natural History of Dragons, are already familiar with how a bookish and determined young woman named Isabella first set out on the historic course that would one day lead her to becoming the world’s premier dragon naturalist. Now, in this remarkably candid second volume, Lady Trent looks back at the next stage of her illustrious (and occasionally scandalous) career.

Three years after her fateful journeys through the forbidding mountains of Vystrana, Mrs. Camherst defies family and convention to embark on an expedition to the war-torn continent of Eriga, home of such exotic draconian species as the grass-dwelling snakes of the savannah, arboreal tree snakes, and, most elusive of all, the legendary swamp-wyrms of the tropics.

The expedition is not an easy one. Accompanied by both an old associate and a runaway heiress, Isabella must brave oppressive heat, merciless fevers, palace intrigues, gossip, and other hazards in order to satisfy her boundless fascination with all things draconian, even if it means venturing deep into the forbidden jungle known as the Green Hell . . . where her courage, resourcefulness, and scientific curiosity will be tested as never before.

My Review:

I previously declared A Natural History of Dragons to be the literary embodiment of draconic perfection, and gave it 15/5 stars. As you can imagine I was a wee bit excited for The Tropic of Serpents. 

As always I am rather less eloquent when I love something, since I would really rather just wave the book around demanding that everyone READ NOW READ DRAGONS RAWR READ!!!! I believe this failing is a byproduct of my profession. I spend so much of my life writing legal pleadings about horrible things that never should have happened, that I continuously suffer from writer’s block when it’s time to be positive. Alas, I shall do my best….

It’s been three years since the events of A Natural History of Dragons, and our intrepid Isabella has grown up a bit. My one major problem with her character last time around was that she was so feminist, and yet so utterly clueless regarding her own privilege as a titled heterosexual married white person. With a few years’ seasoning as a widow, she’s finally opened her eyes to the inherit injustices in both the classist and imperialist natures of her society.

One of my favorite scenes in the book involved Isabella having a heart-to-heart chat with Tom Wilker (the aspiring naturalist she clashed heads with in Book 1 – she was always looking down on his lower-class roots, while he disdained her for her gender), where they honestly assessed the advantages and disadvantages of their respective class and gender lines, and made plans to unite against the oppression of the 1%. For science!

It was amazing, and I look forward to seeing these two defying conventions and pissing off the upperclass with their brilliance and adventures throughout the series.

SuffragetteIn sum, Isabella’s experiences have matured her beyond the dragon-obsessed teenager into a truly brilliant naturalist. She’s applying her observational and deductive skills to her own life, and finally gaining awareness that though she is devoted to science, her position as a Lady Scientist makes her a politically-divise figure and social rebel.

Our Dragon-Studying-Scooby-Gang is just as engaging as the future Lady Trent. You will come to deeply love Tom (now that he’s pulled the stick out of his ass), and Natalie, the young socialite Isabella is proving to be a horrible influence on. (Though, to be fair, Natalie is an equally terrible influence on Isabella. It’s Natalie-the-theoretical-physicist whose passion is inventing air travel.) My fascination with their adventures was such that I worried about them even when faced with Amazing Draconic Discoveries.

Da Vinci's Sketches - created without benefit of dragons.
Da Vinci’s Sketches – created without benefit of dragons.

Which leads me to the DRAGONS! We learned a ton about dragons in this book. Breeding cycles. Habitats. The Care and Feeding of. Potentials for Militarization. Stay-up-all-night-reading levels of excitement, and I cannot wait to read about the fall-out in the next book!

Which leads me to my primary disappointment. (Come on, you didn’t think I’d find something flawless, did you?) What the bloody hell was with the illustrations?! Todd Lockwood does amazing work, but, come ON. I don’t care what Natalie or Ankumata look like. I am disinterested in elephants or city skylines. Give. Me. More. Dragons! Every sketch wasted on something not at least tangentially draconic was a throbbing eyesore I cannot get past.

Escape Rating: A+. For reasons I cannot quite explain, I did not love A Tropic of Serpents as passionately as A Natural History of Dragons. It is still, by far, one of the best dragon books out there, and I am already drooling with anticipation over the next installment – so you’d all damn well better go out there and buy as many copies as your budgets can justify  – but I don’t quite feel the need to break Reading Reality’s grading scale. This time. I have every expectation that I’ll be breaking out the Greek Alphabet when grading future installments. Particularly in light of this little teaser:

As I have not yet finished composing my memoirs, I cannot say with certainty that this, the second volume in the series, will be the most gossip-ridden of them all. That honour may belong to a later period in my life, before my second marriage, when my interactions with my future husband were grist for a very energetic mill both at home and abroad. I am still considering how much of that I will share. But this volume will be a fair contender, as it was during these years that I found myself accused of fornication, high treason, and status as the worst mother in all of Scirland. It is rather more than most women manage in their lives, and I own that I take a perverse sort of pride in the achievement.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
two serpents rise by max gladstoneFormat read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Steampunk
Series: Craft Sequence #2
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: October 29, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Shadow demons plague the city reservoir, and Red King Consolidated has sent in Caleb Altemoc — casual gambler and professional risk manager — to cleanse the water for the sixteen million people of Dresediel Lex. At the scene of the crime, Caleb finds an alluring and clever cliff runner, crazy Mal, who easily outpaces him.

But Caleb has more than the demon infestation, Mal, or job security to worry about when he discovers that his father — the last priest of the old gods and leader of the True Quechal terrorists — has broken into his home and is wanted in connection to the attacks on the water supply.

From the beginning, Caleb and Mal are bound by lust, Craft, and chance, as both play a dangerous game where gods and people are pawns. They sleep on water, they dance in fire… and all the while the Twin Serpents slumbering beneath the earth are stirring, and they are hungry.

My Review:

When I decided that I just had to read something I wanted to read, instead of the next thing on my schedule, I turned back to Max Gladstone’s incredible Craft Sequence. The first book, Three Parts Dead, was utterly marvelous (see review) and I couldn’t resist diving back into his world.

It’s a world where the gods are real, and they can be worshiped, killed, chained, or sometimes all of the above. The power that they wield is the equivalent of mega-power companies with soul-binding contracts. You really do give a bit of your soul when you worship.

three parts dead by max gladstoneBut gods that are manifest can also be fought. In Three Parts Dead, the story was about the internecine warfare that ensued when a god died. Or was killed.

In Two Serpents Rise, the action moves from a city whose god is openly worshipped, to a place that overthrew its gods and set science-based magic up in its place.

Red King Consolidated provides clean water to the desert city of Dresediel Lex. It’s not just a name, there really is a King in Red. But he’s not human anymore. Sixty years ago he led the forces that threw down the gods of the city. Now he’s a Craft practitioner who gave up his flesh to live forever. The King in Red is a skeleton in a red robe, held together by the magic of his will.

And part of his will is to be the sole provider of clean water for the entire city. To that end, he subsumes his last competitor, Heartstone. And sets off chaos.

The hero of the story is Caleb Altemoc. He begins as a mid-level administrator for RKC with a penchant for gambling and a different kind of skeleton in his family closet. His father is the last living priest of the old gods who thinks that RKC and the King in Red are anathema. He’s a terrorist moving heaven and earth to get the old gods back.

Even though they required human sacrifice.

Caleb and his father don’t exactly get along.

When Caleb investigates an attack on the water supply that looks like his father’s work, Caleb finds a woman who has no business being on the scene. He thinks she’s a danger-seeking bystander being used by the terrorists.

It’s not until the final consolidation of RKC and Heartstone that Caleb discovers that the woman who fascinates him is also an executive of the other company. He still thinks she’s innocent, especially when they both get tapped to investigate more sabotage.

As the tale unfolds, we discover that everyone is being used; by their companies, by their gods, by their leaders.

Especially Caleb.

Escape Rating A: Although the publisher summary for this book emphasizes the romance between Caleb and Mal, the female executive for Heartstone, their relationship feels like more of an infatuation, more of a tease than the motivation it might have been.

And that’s a good thing. A number of the red herrings and false starts that make the solution of the underlying mystery so fascinating result from Caleb and Mal’s distraction of each other. They are each set upon a path, but they can’t stop veering off course to save or damn each other.

A much more important and foundational relationship in the story is Caleb’s friendship with Teo. Teo is the person who is there for Caleb at every turning point in his life and in the story, because they are best friends and not because there is any romantic possibility.

Another building block for this chapter in the Craft Sequence is that old saying: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” Everyone who gets too close to the old gods tips over the edge into insanity, and that includes Caleb’s father Temoc.

In the end, the story turns on Caleb making a huge gamble, a gamble he’s able to envision precisely because he is not an absolutist in either the religious or the quasi-scientific Craft camps. He sees both sides, and persists in trying to find a way to compromise the absolutes.

Caleb’s journey is the one that we follow; he travels from safe, mid-level manager to a mover of worlds, while trying to solve a mystery that too many people want to use to destroy an entire city.

full fathom five by max gladstoneCaleb, and this world of the Craft Sequence, are amazing, absorbing and utterly fascinating. I can’t wait for book three, Full Fathom Five.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Dual Review: Dreams of the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews> C Reviews> Draconismoi> Dual Review
dreams of the golden age by carrie vaughnFormat read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genre: Superhero romance, Urban Fantasy
Series: Golden Age #2
Length: 318 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: January 7, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Like every teen, Anna has secrets. Unlike every teen, Anna has a telepath for a father and Commerce City’s most powerful businessperson for a mother. She’s also the granddaughter of the city’s two most famous superheroes, the former leaders of the legendary Olympiad, and the company car drops her off at the gate of her exclusive high school every morning. Privacy is one luxury she doesn’t have.

Hiding her burgeoning superpowers from her parents is hard enough; how’s she supposed to keep them from finding out that her friends have powers, too? Or that she and the others are meeting late at night, honing their skills and dreaming of becoming Commerce City’s next great team of masked vigilantes?

Like every mother, Celia worries about her daughter. Unlike every mother, Celia has the means to send Anna to the best schools and keep a close watch on her, every second of every day. At least Celia doesn’t have to worry about Anna becoming a target for every gang with masks and an agenda, like Celia was at Anna’s age.

As far as Celia knows, Anna isn’t anything other than a normal teen. Still, just in case, Celia has secretly awarded scholarships at Anna’s private high school to the descendants of the city’s other superpowered humans. Maybe, just maybe, these teens could one day fill the gap left by the dissolution of The Olympiad…

Our Review:

Cass: After the Golden Age was better.

Sidney-Harris-MiracleMarlene: (refers Cass to Sidney Harris cartoon). Not that I don’t agree with you. After the Golden Age was better. But I think we need to be a little more explicit in our reasons. (and for anyone who is wondering, no, Sidney Harris is not a relative. And DAMN)

Cass: FINE. I can work with that. If you insist.

The primary issue with Dreams of the Golden Age was Anna. As a protagonist she left me utterly cold. I do not mind teenage narrators, so it wasn’t an issue of youth. She was just so damn boring. I didn’t care about her powers, or her typical teenage drama. For example, after a (SARCASTIC SPOILER ALERT) very bad thing happens, she immediately jumps tracks to talk prom. Seriously? There aren’t more important issues for you to deal with right now?!

More Celia and Arthur! The whole book should have been about them.

Marlene: I’m with you on Anna. So much of Anna’s angst is about her power being such a boring kind of power. It’s not showy, and it’s not offensive. It’s not even defensive. The problem is that her endless internal whinging about how dull a power she got dealt also gets boring.

Celia and Arthur? Now there’s a fascinating story. Also Celia and Mark, for that matter. Celia is dealing with so much very real and heart-rending “stuff” during the whole book. If it had been all her again, I’d have been much happier.

Cass: Absolutely! Anna’s “wah wah my powers are terrible” just made me want to reach into the book and slap her. Really? Your mother and sister have no powers at all. Remember how your mom spent her teenage years being abducted and held hostage? Maybe use your brain and figure out how to capitalize on what you’ve got. Which is so much more than 99.99% of the boring humans out there get.

I really wanted more of Celia and Arthur. I just skimmed through the Anna Chapters looking for references to them. Celia’s troubles were so much more engaging than Anna’s, I couldn’t even figure out how Carrie could stand to write Anna’s perspective alongside Celia’s.

After the Golden Age by Carrie VaughnHell, even stories about how they dealt with all the trauma from After The Golden Age would have been better. Also, will no one EVER acknowledge the serious PTSD Celia has to be rocking due to her horrific childhood?

Marlene: In Dreams of the Golden Age, so much of what felt like the “true” story rested on Celia. And Celia’s story was a bigger and stronger story than anything focused on Anna’s point of view. Anna’s perspective was just too small. I think one of the differences between After and Dreams is that in After, Celia was an adult. She still had tons of trauma that she had to get over (and probably never got therapy for) but she had some perspective on the scope of the events taking place that was beyond her headspace. Even if some of that perspective might have been her version of the mutation.

Anna doesn’t feel mature enough to carry the story.

Cass: I didn’t think the problem was with Anna’s lack of maturity – I really blame the problem on the writing. Showcasing Anna’s perspective could have provided a very interesting counterpoint to Celia’s decisions to keep things from her children, or how Celia and Arthur’s parenting was so clearly superior to what Celia was subjected to.

The problem was that Anna’s chapters read like someone had studied teenagers by watching The WB and the Cartoon Network without ever interacting with real young people. Just because kids are hormonal doesn’t make them useless, stupid, or oblivious to the world around them. Anna’s limited perspective would have made more sense for a child much younger. Someone who was say, 10 or 12.

However, I did really enjoy the glimpses we got of what it was like living in a City of Superheroes/Villians. From both the idiotic child and elite businesswoman perspectives.

Marlene: It may be that I just plain didn’t like Anna. There were times when her younger sister Bethy seemed to have a more sensible head on her shoulders, powers or no powers.

There are plenty of totally immature adults, and mature teenagers in real life as well as fiction. Anna’s perspective just didn’t work for me in the same way that Celia’s did in the first book.

It still felt like Celia was the real central character in this story. It was her plan to arrange for all the children and grandchildren of the original experiment to get into Elmwood Academy one way or another and for her to see if the Olympiad recreated itself by, what, spontaneous generation?

She’s still obeying her own mutation, and giving her all, and it very nearly is absolutely everything she has, to see that Commerce City flourishes.

And the poor woman manages to get kidnapped. Again.

Cass: We’re definitely in agreement. Celia was the true protagonist and star of the show. I admit that I started laughing when she got kidnapped. You’d think after so many years, people would learn.

I hope that if the author returns to Commerce City, she sticks with the real movers and shakers (namely, Celia and Arthur) rather than forcing us to spend too much time with what is properly the supporting cast.

I did love Celia’s long term plans to regenerate the Olympiad. It was great to see her acknowledged for her intelligence, something that I felt most people overlooked in After the Golden Age. Brilliance may not be as flashy as setting shit on fire with your mind, but I’d rather have a Celia in my city than the (old or new) Olympiad any day.

Escape Rating C: This is hard. I want to give Anna an F, and Celia an A. So I’ll split the difference.

I would not recommend anyone read Dreams unless they’ve already read After. Too much of the plot and character development depends on knowledge of what took place in the first book.

Marlene: Let’s get past the “Up with Celia, Down with Anna” rant to talk about the overall story just a minute. And for that, I need to quote Battlestar Galactica. “All this has happened before, and all this will happen again,” with a dose of Euripides by way of Star Trek, “Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”
The plot in Dreams has a ton of recycled elements from After, starting with using the daughter’s perspective, which is why we got so much Anna shoved at us.

But the crisis is kind of the same; a secret attempt to take over Commerce City’s halls of power, hidden behind a smokescreen. The smokescreens are different, but the baseline concept feels the same. Celia’s kidnapping is just the icing on that cake.

Cass: Excellent point! “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (Though I’m loving the Cylon reference, it’s not working for me, since they have thousands upon thousands of years to repeat their mistakes. This is only one generation!)

Would it kill a supervillain to crack a book on occasion? Maybe not fail at taking over the city the exact same way their predecessors did?

Marlene: The Cylons are quoting J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan. A historical footnote that perturbs me no end.

It would also be a terrific thing if all the supervillains didn’t have the same parent-child rivalries, but that’s not necessarily something they could prevent by cracking open a book. Sometimes the apple does fall pretty far from the parent tree. And in a really good way.

Cass: I forgive it in this case – if only because the genesis of Commerce City Powers stems from a very limited genetic pool – it’s not uncommon for relatives to have the same mommy/daddy issues.

Marlene: This is my case of not forgiving the writing as much. It makes sense that families have similar dynamics, although we don’t know that the supervillain family in After is the same as the supervillain family in Dreams. It’s only speculation. And since family dynamics are nurture as much as nature, and there was no contact that we know of, that stretches it even further for me.

Also it’s part of the cascade of repeats. Daughter perspective, supervillain has same plot to take over Commerce City, and supervillain family has the same kind of parent/child breakaway issues.

But the grand scenes at the climax where all the supers, old and new, got together and used their powers could have been part of a climactic battle for an Avengers franchise movie.

Escape Rating B: In spite of having too much Anna and not enough Celia, the parts of Celia (and Arthur) that I got were awesome. I loved the bits about “getting the band back together”. Celia’s angst was real and heartfelt, I could feel her being pulled in every direction and never sure if she was doing the right thing.

Like Cass, I would love to see the “stories in the middle”; how Celia and Arthur managed to heal after the big mess of After the Golden Age. Or a future now that Celia is going to have to let go a little bit. And poor Mark, he’s an unsung hero in all of this. And someday, Bethy is going to be awesome.

Cass: My grade stays the same! In case anyone was wondering. There was just not enough awesome despite all the potential. (Bethy is counted amongst all the potential.)

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
three parts dead by max gladstoneFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Steampunk
Series: Craft Sequence #1
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: October 2, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

A god has died, and it’s up to Tara, first-year associate in the international necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao, to bring Him back to life before His city falls apart.

Her client is Kos, recently deceased fire god of the city of Alt Coulumb. Without Him, the metropolis’s steam generators will shut down, its trains will cease running, and its four million citizens will riot.

Tara’s job: resurrect Kos before chaos sets in. Her only help: Abelard, a chain-smoking priest of the dead god, who’s having an understandable crisis of faith.

When Tara and Abelard discover that Kos was murdered, they have to make a case in Alt Coulumb’s courts—and their quest for the truth endangers their partnership, their lives, and Alt Coulumb’s slim hope of survival.

Set in a phenomenally built world in which justice is a collective force bestowed on a few, craftsmen fly on lightning bolts, and gargoyles can rule cities, Three Parts Dead introduces readers to an ethical landscape in which the line between right and wrong blurs.

My Review:

One of the foundational concepts of this story is that practicing law is roughly equivalent to practicing necromancy. That what we would call a law firm this universe would consider to be a partnership in a craft firm, where the Craft involved is the Craft of resurrecting the dead. Contract law is all about siphoning living energy from people.

On the other hand, that IS what a lot of people think lawyers do in this world, too.

Another construct underpinning this world is the idea of a world where gods are created and/or maintained by the worship of their followers. (This is an idea that Neil Gaiman took to an entirely different conclusion in American Gods.)

So we have the “legal” question of what happens when a god dies with contracts outstanding. And since Kos Everburning is a god, he always has outstanding contracts. After all, he was supposed to live forever. And he will. The question is who will control his resurrection; his worshippers or the opposing forces who have bought up those contracts that are about to default.

Into this very hot mess the author thrusts two characters in search of a purpose; the Craftswoman Tara, who must figure out who is behind Kos’ death before the spiral of destruction consumes her, and the very junior engineer-priest Abelard, who had the misfortune to be the first to discover that his god was dead.

Neither Tara nor Abelard are in positions of power or authority. Tara is less than a junior associate of her Craft firm; her employment is probationary. Abelard is the most junior priest in the order, and the god he worships died on his watch. If things go badly, the resurrected Kos may not even care for his people.

But Tara is intelligent and most importantly, persevering. As the chain of dead bodies and attempted assassinations gets longer and longer, Tara and Abelard doggedly conduct an investigation whose object is increasingly familiar even as the methods they pursue become more imbued with Craft and magic.

Who had the means, the motive and the opportunity to kill this god? Who needs to kill to keep this secret? And even more basic, and more important, who benefits most from the death of Kos?

Escape Rating A: Now I understand why people raved about this book–raved to the point where the author was nominated for the Campbell Award in 2013. The worldbuilding is absolutely phenomenal. Just the combination of contract law and necromancy is equal parts stunning and sly.

Tara and Abelard make an interesting pair of “detectives”. Tara is the one with the training, but she spends much of the story doubting herself and her ability not merely to solve the case, but simply to do her job well enough to remain employed. She constantly second-guesses herself. Part of her doubt isn’t about ability, it’s about figuring out where she wants to be.

Abelard is fascinating because he never loses faith. He knows his god is dead–after all, he’s seen the body. And yet, he still believes, and because of that belief he keeps going no matter how badly things seem to be going.

Although it is relatively easy to figure out who the ‘bad guy” is, his motives are not so easy to discern. The game he is playing has been very long and extremely convoluted. His henchpeople are not easily discovered. And even though I guessed who, the why, the what and the how, kept me flicking pages furiously at the end.

For anyone who enjoys complicated plots and intricate mysteries woven into their complex worldbuilding, Three Parts Dead is the start of a spellbinding series.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
After the Golden Age by Carrie VaughnFormat read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: Hardcover, paperback, ebook
Genre: urban fantasy, superhero romance
Series: Golden Age #1
Length: 304 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: April 12, 2011
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

It’s not easy being a superhero’s daughter….

Carrie Vaughn has captured legions of fans with her wildly popular Kitty Norville novels. Now she uses her extraordinary wit and imagination to tell a sensational new story about superhuman heroes—and the people who have to live with them.

Most people dream of having superheroes for parents, but not Celia West. The only daughter of Captain Olympus and Spark, the world’s greatest champions, she has no powers of her own, and the most exciting thing she’s ever done is win a silver medal in a high school swim meet. Meanwhile, she’s the favorite hostage of every crime boss and supervillain in Comemrce City. She doesn’t have a code name, but if she did, it would probably be Bait Girl, the Captive Wonder.

Rejecting her famous family and its legacy, Celia has worked hard to create a life for herself beyond the shadow of their capes, becoming a skilled forensic accountant. But when her parents’ archenemy, the Destructor, faces justice in the “Trial of the Century,” Celia finds herself sucked back into the more-than-mortal world of Captain Olympus—and forced to confront a secret that she hoped would stay buried forever.

My Review:

Why did I wait so long to read this?

That’s not a coherent review, but it was my first thought. I poured through this in an afternoon, barely stopping for breath or meals. After the Golden Age is awesome stuff.

It’s a superhero story. But really, it’s a post-superhero story. It’s the origin and the aftermath all rolled into one glorious exploding KA-POW!

It also reminded me a little bit of The Incredibles. What do the superheroes do when they aren’t out there fighting crime? How would they raise a non-superpowered child?

How would you feel if you were the mundane child of the Fantastic Four? If everyone around you had a secret identity, and you were just “original recipe human”?

It’s pretty easy to walk in Celia West’s shoes, and feel that every day would be a major blow to her self-confidence. If most people either emulate their parents or choose lives in reaction against them, well, without superpowers Celia’s choices were limited. Emulation was out.

She chose reaction. Instead of a spandex uniform, she became a forensic accountant, a job most people consider the most boring option on the planet. Of course, that was after a teenage rebellion where she tried the path of evil. For two whole months.

After having been kidnapped. Again. Celia gets kidnapped a lot. It happens so often she’s a bit bored by the whole thing.

As an adult, Celia has tried to create a life that doesn’t reflect the glow of her parents’ super-shininess, no matter many assumptions people make about how wonderful it must have been to grow up in the Olympiads’ inner circle, or how often people try to use her to get close to her famous parents.

But then her boss asks her to bring her accounting skills to bear on the latest “trial of the century”. (There’s always a trial of the century, haven’t you noticed?) The world’s greatest supervillain, The Destructor, has finally been called to account for his misdeeds, not for his heinous destruction, but for his financial chicanery. (This is classic, Al Capone was finally convicted for tax evasion)

But The Destructor is a combination of Kryptonite and Achilles’ Heel for both Celia and The Olympiad. As Celia unravels the winding trail of his black ops’ funding, she finds an origin story she never expected to uncover. And with it, the birth of a conspiracy theory that will bring down the foundation of everything that the good people of Commerce City have ever believed in.

But she will also discover the truth about herself.

Escape Rating A+: After the Golden Age is about the creation and destruction of legends. We find it so easy to put people up on pedestals, and even easier to pull them down. While it’s amazing how quickly the population is manipulated to turn on their heroes, it’s also easy to understand. We’ve seen it happen in real life.

Celia West is the main point of view character, a normal person in a family of supers. She is still recovering, almost atoning, from one act of teenage rebellion. She has had to define her own self-worth from a perspective where nearly everyone, including her own parents, has always judged her as “less-than” because she isn’t super.

So many people have tried to use her to get close to her family; she’s accustomed to it. But when her boss does it, her research deconstructs the legend. Her process of discovery is meticulous without ever being dull, and it occurs on two layers. For each scrap of history she uncovers, she also finds reaches a bit more of her own truth.

After the Golden Age reads like myth creation. And like the best myths, it feels true.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.