- miko || 巫女 -

Apparently I fill out book reviews quarterly?

The Whisper of Legends by Barbara Fradkin: This is an Inspector Green novel, but it wasn't my favourite in the series. Instead of the usual Ottawa setting, this is a fish-out-of-water cop in the wilderness of BC book... not really what I want from this series. Green spends most of it sadly incompetent as a city-boy and without much of a mystery to solve until right near the end.

The Fall Guy by Barbara Fradkin: I must have stuck this one on my list thinking it was a normal novel in a different series by this author, but it's actually a "quick reads" short story. The main character is a somewhat bumbling carpenter who - as with most cozies - gets implicated in a death and has to figure out what happened so he doesn't get sued (rather than jailed, which would be the more standard one). It was meh, if it hadn't been so short I probably wouldn't have finished it. It did improve somewhat, but there just isn't enough book for it to feel like it had more than sketched caricatures rather than fleshed characters.

Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews: This is part of a long running series that I normally really enjoy... but it's now suffering from the fact that the characters are too powerful in their home positions and normal circumstances, so to get some tension, this one takes Kate and Curran to Europe to deal with packs there. Plus, Kate's past that she's generally been hiding from (but not distractingly so) in the other books comes to the forefront. Darker than the earlier books in the series, though still enjoyable enough. Turns out I'm just not that keen on the big climactic battles as series start to wrap up.

A Slip of the Keyboard by Terry Pratchett: Didn't finish this collection of short essays. It suffered from too much of the same - it's just a bunch of pretty similar bits that Pratchett wrote for various publications and conventions over the years. There were probably a few things you could glean, but it's certainly not something I could sit and read through... and honestly, it was only going to dull my enjoyment of his fiction knowing his thoughts on the writing process. Probably best that I stopped.

Unbound by Jim C. Hines: The latest in the libriomancer series was... okay. Isaac is without his powers in this one, and honestly not that interesting because of it. His ridiculous team up buddies were kinda fun, and the book moves along quickly enough, but I didn't love the bad guy dynamic and I find that when the character is working on a puzzle that's unsolvable by the reader to be a little unexciting.

Chew [3] by John Layman: I continue to enjoy this comic book series. FDA agent who can see the history of things he eats, and his competent girlfriend who can describe foods so strongly that people taste them? Ridiculous and amusing.

The Doomsday Equation by Matt Richtel: Here's an unusual one - I didn't like the main character, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of this book! He's a jerk of a Silicon Valley techie who is super wrapped up in himself and his software that predicts conflict... which fails when he field tests it. When it predicts a nuclear war he doesn't know if the software is still broken or if something terrible is coming, cue odd techno-nerd thriller from there. Enjoyable because he was believable enough and didn't need to be sympathetic for the story to work.

Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear: This book is set in a steampunk historical west coast (Seattle/Portland/etc) city and features a main character who is a prostitute and all her coworkers, fighting against the (inevitably corrupt) mayor. I liked it! It gets a bit overly magical at the end (the tech is not believable), but I liked the writing and the characters.

Johnny Hiro by Fred Chao: A comic book about a young guy making a living in a town that is home to ninja gangs, dinosaurs, etc. Completely absurd but played relatively straight, this was a fun one with an appropriate art style.

Kop by Warren Hammond: In a future colony world where the economy has collapsed, a corrupt cop works to keep his corrupt chief in power. The setting of this one is pretty interesting - the colony world is very poor, but still has periodic interaction with rich offworlders/earthers... so while most of it is pretty low tech, there's a wide range on occasion. The main character isn't a particularly smart or good person, but he grows on you. I'm planning to keep on with the series.

Magic Breaks by Ilona Andrews: I think this is the Kate Daniels book where half of it is about her husband's ex-wife trying to ruin their marriage? If so, I didn't enjoy that. There's rare glimpses of the intelligence I expect from Kate and Curran (they do talk about what his ex-wife is doing, rather than being pissed off at each other all the time per her machinations), but it was a tiring read. Oh, and big-bad continues to be big and bad as the main story line, I guess.

Man of La Mancha [CD]: Apropos of nothing, I like the music from Man of La Mancha although my knowledge of the play and Don Quixote is meager.

Wicked [CD]: However, with the exception of the song "popular", which is fun, I don't like the music from Wicked. So dense. So repetitive. Maybe I'd be more inclined to it if I saw the musical, but I'm guessing I've got enough bias at this point that it'd be hard to turn enjoy.

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan: This is a book that is... hm... pride and prejudice with dragons, I suppose. I liked it a lot! The book is written as a memoir from the now old Lady Trent, describing her early life and obsession with learning about dragons. I enjoyed her scientific approach (very field naturalist) and even enjoyed the regency styling of the historical period. I'll be getting out more in the series - looking forward to seeing how she evolves into her older self through the stories.

Planetary [2] by Warren Ellis: Planetary continues to be a kinda weird comic book about super powered individuals. I enjoy it while I'm reading it but haven't developed any meaningful connection to the characters. The artwork is pretty good.

The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis: I wasn't sure I'd enjoy this book much. It's about a last-ditch candidacy run by a party insider for a candidate that doesn't want to be elected to parliament at all... so of course, a huge scandal breaks on the incumbent and this guy gets elected instead. It was marketed as being a funny look inside Canadian politics, but it came across more as a lefty-fantasy about unseating Jim Flaherty with a down-to-earth left wing professor who would turn parliament on its head, for the assumed-better. That said, I enjoyed it well enough for what it was - the characters were quirky and the climax amusing.

Legacy by Jeanne C. Stein: Oh dear, this series fell on its face. Weird "sexy" scenes, stupid issues that would have been solved by better communication, introduction of more supernatural things kinda pointlessly... not good. Plus, nothing of her doing her bounty hunter job, which was what made this series interesting. I'll not continue with this one, there's much better urban fantasy to be had.

My Fair Lady [CD]: I like the music from My Fair Lady well enough. Not as much as our band conductor, though!

Unsympathetic Magic by Laura Resnick: The library didn't have the second book in the Esther Diamond series, so I've skipped ahead to the third. This one was our aspiring actress getting caught up in a voodoo plot... not as good as the first one, but generally still an amusing romp. Would have liked more of the knowledgeable wizard friend and for the book not to have had such a ridiculous cover. Although it did stop a guy from continuing to talk to me on the bus when he asked what I was reading and I flipped it over...

Deadout by Jonathan McGoran: This is the second book in a series of weird eco-thrillers, the first of which I didn't like until the twist turned out not to be as preachy as I'd feared. For this second one, I didn't have that weighing on me, so I just played along as the author unspooled a weird story set in Martha's Vineyard with genetically modified bees and colony collapse and all that fun stuff. The main character is still dumb as a bag of bricks, so things just sort of happen around him while he gets in fights with random people. This one was straightforward and predictable as far as the evildoers' plot goes, which was a tad disappointing since the other one actually surprised me. I think continuing with this character is a mistake, though, and the stories would probably have been better as standalones. Now it just seems like weird eco-crises follow him around.

Valour and Vanity by Mary Robinette Kowal: This is somewhere in the series that is regency-with-magic where people can fold light to make images. The main characters are now happily married and doing well for themselves, which of course means they need to be attacked by pirates and be without their resources for most of the book. If you didn't get the sarcasm in text form, I promise it was there in my head. Then, later, the book turns into a heist story abruptly. There are a few novel uses of the magic, but that's about all there is to recommend this one. Earlier in the series was more satisfying.

More getting-vague recollections of books I've read!

Lock In by John Scalzi: This standalone novel was not at all what I expected - the press I'd seen about it was focused on the hook: that the world had an epidemic disease that caused a percentage of people to be unable to control their bodies but still mentally there. In actual fact, the book is set long enough after that (the main character is one of the "locked in", but has a robot body to use) that it wasn't the focal point. Instead, it's a mystery novel with some interesting political fallout from the epidemic. I quite enjoyed it, and it's worth a shot even if Scalzi's more traditional sci fi never interested you.

Bones Never Lie by Kathy Reichs: Not my favourite novel in the series. Child murders from the past (was I supposed to remember this from a previous book?), by a serial killer, with the subplot being the break down of her romantic lead? Pretty much a downer. Didn't feel like there was a lot of forensics of interest either, the lead was more just swept along in a normal police investigation.

Raging Heat by Richard Castle: Another in the Castle tie-in series of novels. Fun, and despite a ridiculous opening (the body falling through the glass roof of a museum), a solid enough mystery. Still curious who the writer(s) are.

Traitor's Blade by Sebastien de Castell: Aw, I wanted to be able to recommend this one, I really did. I enjoyed most of it - the stories of three down-and-out traveling judges (well, basically) in olden times with amusingly modern language (not anachronistic, per se, but very current phrasing), swordfights, etc. But then the author deus ex'd (literally - suddenly direct intervention of gods/saints, what? and also figuratively - "all the things you were doing, I had planned from the start!") the whole damn thing in the end, and it was very disappointing.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie: A young adult novel, including illustrations (the narrator likes to draw comics), about growing up on the res. It's a light read, halfheartedly amusing with some sad truths.

Enders by Lissa Price: Wasn't as keen on this one as on the first novel (Starters). Maybe I spent too long between them, but I didn't feel terribly connected to the character's woes, and the twist felt hollow and uninteresting to me because of it.

Small Favor by Jim Butcher: This was possibly the best Dresden Files book I remember reading. Nothing about it repulsed me, it was simply enjoyable to read.

Beautiful Lie the Dead by Barbara Fradkin: Another in the local mystery series. I liked it - the inspector's home life wasn't weird or angsty and the mystery was solid (if a bit cringe-worthy in conclusion).

I continue to keep busy with work + costuming efforts at home, so here's the belated quick reviews of what I've read since last month.

Shaded Vision by Yasmine Galenorn

The series continues. This one was focussed on the were-sister and was generally pretty pleasant to read... it's fading rapidly, but I do remember thinking that the core of this one was a commentary on hate crimes. It wasn't subtle at all.

Defending Battered Women on Trial by Elizabeth A. Sheehy

I didn't read all of this one, just the one chapter about a local case. Beyond the details of the case, it also talked a fair bit about the very negative portrayal in media and the aggressive tone of the police and prosecution. An unsettling read.

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

This was a well written fantasy novel with the most god damned inconsistent and illogical magic system I've ever read. It was like the magic system was made up by an 8 year old and then the book was written by an adult. Perhaps that's really how it was. Anyway, it was a good enough read, but I found it really off-putting when near the end one of the characters started expounding on the magic system as if it was scientific and well-studied and made any damn sense.

Also, calling it "BioChroma" when nothing else is inner-capped like that made me think it was a brand name every time it came up.

Cinder by Melissa Meyer

So good!

Seriously, I know a lot of the time when I write about things I'm pretty down on the flaws, but I really liked this one. It's a young adult novel that's a sci-fi Cinderella story - the Cinderella character is a cyborg and mechanic, and she is clever and interesting, as are the other characters. I'm very much looking forward to picking up the next in the series... although it stands alone okay, it doesn't have a happily-ever-after ending and the sci-fi intrigue looks to be excellent.

Quick thoughts on the recent books I've read: less complete than usual because I left it too long and my memory is fading.

The Dark Horse by Craig Johnson

Enjoyable mystery; the twist was a tad predictable. Outside of the usual physical boundaries (not in the county, but in another small local town). A bit blasé about an innocent's death, which was somewhat unusual.

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

Not a set of characters that I like - this was about Moist aka the guy from the books about the post office and the bank and the mint. Disappointing how God-like Vetinari is written (it was always like this a bit, but it grated on me), and the lack of characters I do like despite it being mostly set in Ankh-Morpork. Vimes was there but not particularly enjoyably.

Princess of Glass by Jessica Day George

Good enough for a young adult novel. Still bugs me that all the new princesses are victims - I actually would have liked Cinderella to be the jerk she was initially presented as. But I guess in a fluff series, I can't really expect that. At least the main character (a princess from the first book) was generally quite pleasant and heroic.

The Jennifer Morgue is the second-ish book in the Laundry Files series by Charles Stross. I previously reviewed the first one and quite enjoyed it... this one, less so. By the by, I'm tagging by author at the bottom of posts now to make it easier to hop back to old related reviews. Not quite as classy as finding the link and adding it in the post itself, but it's something.

The central conceit in this book is that it's supposed to play out like a Bond film - they're under a magical geas that forces it to. Although I didn't mind the "twist" (spoiler: turns out the nerdy main character is not a good Bond type), Bond tropes aren't a thing I really enjoy at all, and there was too much of that and too little of the math-summons-monsters interest of the previous book. It's hard not to feel like this book is a skeezy wish fulfillment story for most of it, although it did pick up a bit at the end.

I recently saw someone comment that Stross is hit or miss - worth reading if someone recommends a book specifically, but don't try to read his whole catalog. I think I'm in agreement and won't be continuing with this series.

This is the fourth book in the Walt Longmire series. I'm quite a bit behind since I'd accidentally got on the waiting list at the library on an original copy of the book: they've since been re-released with the TV series branding so more copies are available, but if you were on the other list, you didn't get offered them. It's worth checking if you've been waiting for a series.

Anyway. This book is the usual suspects in a murder investigation set in Wyoming... with a secondary plot of flashbacks to the main character's time in Vietnam. I don't know really anything about the Vietnam war except for the use of Agent Orange (shudder), so I can't speak to realism or anything, but it didn't cast it as a heroic fight or anything, which seems legitimate. It was perhaps a bit unfortunate, writing wise, that I would get more interested in one story or the other and wanted to skip forward to continue it.

I'm quite enjoying this series. As always, it's a bit odd reading them and watching the (halfway unrelated) television series at the same time... I like the show in both mediums, but you really do have to keep them a bit compartmentalized since they don't follow the same paths.

Broken Homes is the fourth of the Rivers of London (aka Midnight Riot) series - a British urban fantasy (cops + magic) series that I've strongly recommended in the past.

I really enjoyed this book right up to the last chapter. I'm writing this a bit late, so the details are starting to fade for me, but it was an enjoyable story with characters I know and like. I'd say it was a little less a mystery than some of the previous ones (but again, fuzzy memories) and more just an unfolding story.

But... it didn't resolve the way I like a book to resolve. I know that's me, and it's coupled with "but... there isn't another one out yet", so if you're not as concerned about that perhaps it wouldn't spoil your enjoyment of the book. Technically, the main story does end, but unsatisfyingly - i.e., the good guys don't really get make any gains at the end of it, so it feels more like "oh, the bad guys plan is progressing. THE END."

The next one is to be released in September 2014 and will perhaps provide some redemption.

I read this book because it was available free as an ebook, but I can't really recommend it. It's a coming of age / discovery of magic novel with a backdrop of gang violence and... elves. Uh. Honestly, I feel like if it had gone with just the gangs + magic, I probably would have liked it more. The whole book never quite fit together in my mind.

Point of interest, it is a lot more ethnically diverse than the average novel, so I guess it has that going for it. And I did finish it, even if I felt it was somewhat lackluster. The hook, such as it is, is a teenage runaway discovering that she has the ability to heal people. Gangs want her, elves inexplicably want her, and some random lady from social services also happens to be a magic user who wants to help her. It's... something.

Frozen Sun is the third of the Nathan Active mysteries, set in Alaska. I read the previous one and thought it was okay. This one is better - I didn't want to put it down (it's not a long book, mind) until the mystery was resolved, so that was great.

Here's the oddity, though: by the time I finished the book, I felt very... unsettled. There's a period where the lead is pretty certain that someone he's attracted to is a murderer, and I didn't feel like the handling of that was very good. I felt uncomfortable with the fact that he seemed oddly cool with it, and then it didn't feel fully resolved in the end except in the sense that you could feel pretty certain that he didn't care.

Just... weird. I liked the mystery, but didn't love the way the character went.

Princess of the Midnight Ball is a retelling of the fairytale "The Twelve Dancing Princesses". I'm not familiar with the original tale, and I didn't look it up before reading the book (though I did just read the wikipedia page now).

This was a enjoyable young adult novel. It's not particularly special - in fact, I assumed it was pretty true to the original story because it didn't seem to go outside of what I'd expected - but it's well written and has likeable characters. I'm personally a bit disappointed in any retelling where the princess(es) don't save themselves these days... while one of the princesses does make an effort at one time, the story isn't really about them - it's about the male protagonist.

Having now read what the original tale is like, the author did change it so that the princesses weren't actually malicious (they're cursed instead - faerie tale rather than fairytale, if that makes sense). While that means you're cheering for everyone except the curser, I now can't help but feel like I would have been more excited to have read one where the princesses turned out to be the villains.