Patricia Briggs never fails to entertain. This is the 6th book in the Mercy Thompson series, and it is still as fast paced and action packed as the others.
In this book, Mercy and Adam get married (LOVED the surprise wedding scene), and on their honeymoon they get coerced into fighting a Native American lake monster. In this book, it's mostly just Mercy and Adam. You get to be there as Mercy discovers new things about her Native American heritage, and about her father.
This was just a fun book to read. Definitely better than most things on TV these days.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan
This book is too short. At what I would have considered the important halfway point of the story, it ends. It's billed as a trilogy but it certainly doesn't have to be. From what I've read, there's not enough plot for it to go that long.
I read this book at my friend's suggestion. It is a young adult novel, so the pace and "trilogy" attribution might be for their benefit. And there is a distinct "woe is me, i'm so woe" in the main character's characterization, which I've come to identify as part of the teen genre.
Overall, the story's not bad. There are a lot of good ideas going, and interesting characters. But I would have to wait for the next two books to come out to see if its weird length is justified. This novel is about Nastaya, or Nasty. She is an immortal and has lived a very long and debauched life. At the beginning of the story, she witnesses her friend commit a heinous crime and she comes to her senses and tries to escape the life she's led. She runs away to a small commune in Massachusetts for "wayward immortals" and learns to live her life anew. The book ends when she discovers what she really wants... to be her original self again - the girl she was born as, instead of the different characters she's personified over the last half millennia. That is where I would have thought of as the halfway point of the story. She has made personal growth, and so the plot can begin. But no, it stops. So annoying.
In my mind, book 1 would continue with her sleeping with her viking god/arch nemesis, and as she figures out what her relationship with Reyn is, Incy will find her with the help of Nell and they will duke it out. She will win, of course, and Incy will either die or run off with his tail between his legs and plot his next move. In book 2, she and Reyn move out of the commune and live a new life together in the world but they are followed by Incy or other power mongering immortals. In book 3, the two of them will grow world weary and spend some time apart, and inevitably they come together again back at the commune, and decide to start a commune of their own in Iceland to bring proper closure to their long history together. Of course, that is just how I would write it. No idea what the author intends.
I read this book at my friend's suggestion. It is a young adult novel, so the pace and "trilogy" attribution might be for their benefit. And there is a distinct "woe is me, i'm so woe" in the main character's characterization, which I've come to identify as part of the teen genre.
Overall, the story's not bad. There are a lot of good ideas going, and interesting characters. But I would have to wait for the next two books to come out to see if its weird length is justified. This novel is about Nastaya, or Nasty. She is an immortal and has lived a very long and debauched life. At the beginning of the story, she witnesses her friend commit a heinous crime and she comes to her senses and tries to escape the life she's led. She runs away to a small commune in Massachusetts for "wayward immortals" and learns to live her life anew. The book ends when she discovers what she really wants... to be her original self again - the girl she was born as, instead of the different characters she's personified over the last half millennia. That is where I would have thought of as the halfway point of the story. She has made personal growth, and so the plot can begin. But no, it stops. So annoying.
In my mind, book 1 would continue with her sleeping with her viking god/arch nemesis, and as she figures out what her relationship with Reyn is, Incy will find her with the help of Nell and they will duke it out. She will win, of course, and Incy will either die or run off with his tail between his legs and plot his next move. In book 2, she and Reyn move out of the commune and live a new life together in the world but they are followed by Incy or other power mongering immortals. In book 3, the two of them will grow world weary and spend some time apart, and inevitably they come together again back at the commune, and decide to start a commune of their own in Iceland to bring proper closure to their long history together. Of course, that is just how I would write it. No idea what the author intends.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells
I bought this book a long time ago, in the discount section of the local literary megastore... back in my teen days when reading about necromancers was cool and vampires were only in Anne Rice novels.
This book was really good. A well written standard horror detective story, but told in a different point of view. The characters are extremely interesting and compelling but the beginning was hard to follow. It starts in media res, so much so that I felt like there ought to be at least two books before this one. But I did some research, and this is supposed to be a standalone novel. All the other novels set in the same realm are not related to this storyline or are 100 years off this timeline.
The main character, Nicholas, is so complex that it seems weird that there is only this one book about him. He is the son of a disgraced aristocratic family. When his father died, his mother ran away from his paternal family and eked out a living in the city but soon died of natural circumstances. He fell into petty crime and was arrested. By luck, he was adopted by an academic philanthropist. His adopted father was doing experiments that combined sorcery with natural philosophy in the hopes of creating a device that allowed normal people to do sorcery. However, his device never quite worked the way it was intended to, and was framed for practicing necromacy and executed. Nicholas then grows up and creates a criminal mastermind alter ego to enact revenge on the man who framed his adopted father and caused his death. ALL of that should have been its own novel, but we don't get to read about it... just bits and pieces as Nicholas gripes about his feelings of injustice in the world.
This story is set in a version of 17th Century Vienna, where magic is alive and the fay invaded 100 years ago but still cause fear in the general populace. Necromacy is an executable offense.
The plot starts with Nicholas and his crew performing a heist. In the middle of their heist, they are interrupted by a creature that tries to steal something else in the same house. Curious, and to make sure this creature doesn't come after them, they start to investigate this creature... in the process, they find a revived dead necromancer, zombies, and golems. With so much danger, Nicholas feels compelled to save the city from this new monster than continue with his criminal activities.
I really liked the story, and almost wish I read it earlier. But I don't think I could have handled the disappointment of knowing that this was the only book about Nicholas.
This book was really good. A well written standard horror detective story, but told in a different point of view. The characters are extremely interesting and compelling but the beginning was hard to follow. It starts in media res, so much so that I felt like there ought to be at least two books before this one. But I did some research, and this is supposed to be a standalone novel. All the other novels set in the same realm are not related to this storyline or are 100 years off this timeline.
The main character, Nicholas, is so complex that it seems weird that there is only this one book about him. He is the son of a disgraced aristocratic family. When his father died, his mother ran away from his paternal family and eked out a living in the city but soon died of natural circumstances. He fell into petty crime and was arrested. By luck, he was adopted by an academic philanthropist. His adopted father was doing experiments that combined sorcery with natural philosophy in the hopes of creating a device that allowed normal people to do sorcery. However, his device never quite worked the way it was intended to, and was framed for practicing necromacy and executed. Nicholas then grows up and creates a criminal mastermind alter ego to enact revenge on the man who framed his adopted father and caused his death. ALL of that should have been its own novel, but we don't get to read about it... just bits and pieces as Nicholas gripes about his feelings of injustice in the world.
This story is set in a version of 17th Century Vienna, where magic is alive and the fay invaded 100 years ago but still cause fear in the general populace. Necromacy is an executable offense.
The plot starts with Nicholas and his crew performing a heist. In the middle of their heist, they are interrupted by a creature that tries to steal something else in the same house. Curious, and to make sure this creature doesn't come after them, they start to investigate this creature... in the process, they find a revived dead necromancer, zombies, and golems. With so much danger, Nicholas feels compelled to save the city from this new monster than continue with his criminal activities.
I really liked the story, and almost wish I read it earlier. But I don't think I could have handled the disappointment of knowing that this was the only book about Nicholas.
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