subscribeCurse the Dawn by Karen Chance
Monday April 27, 2009
Curse the Dawn is the fourth book in the Cassandra (Cassie) Palmer series by Karen Chance (after Touch the Dark, Claimed by Shadow, and Embrace the Night). The series focuses on clairvoyant-turned-Pythia Cassie Palmer, the world’s foremost clairvoyant (whose powers are intermittent) who can also manipulate time and space (albeit clumsily with hilarious results). The other major characters include smooth and seductive vampire senator Mircea and shoot-first-ask-questions-later battle mage and all-around mystery man, Pritkin. I’ll be very spoiler-lite and talk mostly about the series as a whole, I think.
This is a series I can’t stop reading for the simple reason that the characters are engaging. The plots are very all-over-the-place, the descriptions of scenes and images are often hard to understand or a little clunky, the diction and language are inconsistent and a little annoying, but Chance has done something some well- and tightly-written fantasies have failed to do for me: she has utterly and truly engaged my interest with what happens to her characters, even the most insignificant ones.
Unlike the other series in the genre I’ve read, Chance is willing to do some crazy things to her characters. And I’m not talking “dangerous” things or “complicated” things — I mean crazy crazy things with hilarious results. Like swapping bodies. Like compromising situations involving time travel, famous historical events, and mage conspiracies that turn things on their heads. I really enjoy those moments. This series is much more light-hearted and comedic than the other series, definitely full of self-referential tongue-in-cheek moments that make me giggle. Sometimes a good giggle is a lot more effective to me than a good moment of action or a good dramatic moment. Not saying I don’t get plenty of enjoyment out of series with little humor, but it’s a different kind. If I could satisfy all of my reading tastes and desires with a single book or series, forever, then I wouldn’t be the wide-ranging voracious [fantasy] reader that I am. The Cassie Palmer series fills a gap, satisfies a need/desire for me, and perhaps that’s why I keep reading it. No other series has such a clunky, goofy, naggy, whiney, amusing heroine who interacts with such interesting main male characters. (Pritkin is my personal favorite; I suppose that means I am a Cassie/Pritkin shipper? Dare I say it? I never usually go for the vamp when there’s a choice, and Mircea is no exception. Crazy battle mages for the win!)
Midnight’s Daughter, an off-shoot novel to the Cassie Palmer series, was not a necessary read before Curse the Dawn but because I’d read it, I had a more enriching experience, I think, because the action in that novel sort of bisected this one (off-screen) a bit. Also, Cassie sees a photo — or several — of Dorina, the main character introduced in Midnight’s Daughter, and having read Midnight’s Daughter I understood the ironic context of Cassie seeing the photo. Without that knowledge Cassie’s suspicions and jealousy wouldn’t have been as amusing. But reading that novel wasn’t necessarily necessary to the series, but considering they’re set in the same world at the same time I have a feeling that Chance is shaping things up to coincide between books. There’s a huge conflict she’s building toward and between the two series, she’ll be able to show two different sides of it (the fey side, and the vampire/mage side). I’m also assuming there will be character crossover, as there was already some crossover with Mircea in Midnight’s Daughter.
All in all I enjoyed this book. Books 3 and 4 of this series were much better than 1 and 2; based on that I can’t wait for more. If you enjoy urban fantasy and humor, with a little dash o’ crazy thrown in, this is a fun series for that and you may as well dive right into it, starting with the beginning.
Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews
Friday April 24, 2009
Last week, over a 24 hour period, I devoured Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews. It’s the third in the Kate Daniels urban fantasy series about merc/mage/kickass female hero Kate Daniels (the previous two being Magic Bites and Magic Burns), written in first person, set in a futuristic and magical Atlanta. I’ll try to keep the reaction as spoiler-free as possible.
Firstly, the book was excellent. I love this entire series. It’s different from a lot of the other series in the genre for a few reasons, but the main one is the world. It’s set in a slightly futuristic time in a world where magic and technology intermingle and often cancel each other out (well, when it comes to magic canceling out tech, really) and the world is built up so well, you’re utterly and unquestioningly drawn in. That rich world layers the present action with a lot of depth, as well as allowing a huge backstory to unfold in a skillful way that doesn’t feel too clunky — in part because of how slowly and deliberately it’s revealed. (Any story can have a backstory this richly developed but the trick is in the way it’s revealed and therefore absorbed by the reader. If it’s all thrown out immediately, or infodumped in the middle/end, it’s hard to process.) That and the entire series so far is very well-paced. There’s a very comfortable unfurling of overarching series plot going on across all of the books that I am really enjoying as well as each book’s individual plot. And each book does have a distinct individual arc, which both complicates and helps to enhance the series plot. As much as I really want to know what will happen… it’ll keep. I’m enjoying everything as it’s been written. Yes, I want to know some things, but enough has been said, implied, and foreshadowed that I am quite happy to keep reading. (Twitch. I keep telling myself that I can wait patiently, anyway.)
I also love this series compared to many others for two other major reasons: the first is Kate herself (a true female hero if there ever was one) and the fact that there is no distracting, drama-ridden love triangle or ridiculous battle over the “many men” who love Kate. Nope. It’s straightforward and singular and I love that. The love plot for each book is simple, pointed, and clear, with as little drama as possible — which fits Kate. She’s not one for drama, and her love life (whatever there is of it) shouldn’t be made into the tug-of-war some authors make for their female main characters. (I am thinking of two series in particular; if you read the genre you probably know which I mean.) She just doesn’t have the time nor the energy to care too much about it and if it were any other way than the way it is, I wouldn’t enjoy the series half as much.
More specifically in Magic Strikes I enjoyed the interaction between Kate and Curran (as always, their witty interplay and chemistry is wonderfully amusing) and the structure of the tournament idea. The whole underground fighting idea has been done but it was used here in an entirely new and interesting way in keeping with this world and its style, and I enjoyed that. I really enjoyed getting to see a different/deeper side of Saiman, and getting to see the developing relationship between Raphael and Andrea (lovelovelove her!), especially as it compares to (and is totally different from) Kate and Curran’s. Getting to know more about Kate was exhilarating, as was seeing the promise of battles to come through well-placed hints and some obvious comments.
I’m thrilled at the way this series is shaping into something subtly grander and more epic than I’d initially anticipated. It’s growing into an epic urban fantasy series and I love that. And it’s not losing its voice or sense of characters, either, as it grows into a larger and more epic framework, which is so vital.
I can’t wait for the next installment in the Kate Daniels series, as well as the new book set in a new world that’s coming out, On the Edge. Keep them coming!
Midnight’s Daughter by Karen Chance
Sunday February 1, 2009
If you’ve read the Cassandra Palmer series, definitely check out Midnight’s Daughter.
I’ve read the Cassandra Palmer series to date — three books, the fourth is coming out in April 2009 — and when launching into this novel, I was glad I had. Karen Chance definitely made me feel as if I needed to have not only read all three of those books but also the short story in the anthology On the Prowl (which I have read), too, to really get an appreciation for the story’s situation. That said, that’s not necessarily a bad thing on her part — plenty of authors love confusing me with that sort of thing, so she’s not alone! — but I still felt a little annoyed because it didn’t really mention that anywhere on the book before I’d started reading it. So yes, having read those helps, but in retrospect they weren’t entirely necessary, as her vampires and the magic system is fairly basic and works off of a lot of canon lore (her vampires have all the usual strengths & weaknesses, plus levels of mastery that yield interesting results).
Basically, Midnight’s Daughter was all right, but then again, I’m the first to admit I’m both easy going about saying I enjoy a ton of books while having ridiculously high standards for books that go that next step from enjoyment to adoration. (Or obsession.) I wasn’t obsessed with this book, but you know, that’s quite all right. I didn’t race through it — honestly, some of her language tripped me up a little and I had to reread things to be sure I was getting the meaning, and still wasn’t entirely sure I’d gotten it — but I definitely was grabbed by the plot and characters. Louis-Cesare is Mmm, of course — I was wondering if he’d get his own book when he featured so prominently in the Cassandra Palmer books – and Dory was a fun character, if a little abrasive with a voice that didn’t really match her character. (Would a 500 year old half-vampire — dhampir – really speak like that? Really? Oh, first person narration when it’s not quite there.) But I sort of loved Radu (teehee) and the whole thing with the “Dracula” family? The brothers, Dory’s place in it, the history, I have to admit, it kept me interested.
Having gotten used to Karen Chance’s style, I can’t say I wasn’t expecting the way a lot of this book was going to unfold. Her unpredictable plots are predictable in a strange and amusing way. I like the way she’s imagined the Fey (proper creepy/pretty Fey, yes! None of this cutesy crap) and I definitely am a fan of any series that has battle mages and people who are half-things and therefore have to deal with crazy family or genetic issues that result. (More Claire! More Claire!) Plus, I have to admire a writer who just plows forward with world-building and drops detail without getting heavy-handed with the explanation — she doesn’t really explain about magic or they Fey the way she might, the way other authors have, and I like that. She left the end open enough for a sequel or sequels and I admit, I’ll check them out.
So yes, Midnight’s Daughter was quirky, fun, random, and it definitely helps to have read Karen Chance’s other books, but it was still enjoyable.
Underground by Kat Richardson
Sunday January 11, 2009
This evening I finished Underground by Kat Richardson, the most recent in her Greywalker series, an urban fantay series about private investigator Harper Blaine whose two-minute death resulted in her being able to see the Grey, the foggy in-between world of magic, ghosts, and the paranormal. The books read more like straight up mysteries, like detective fiction, rather than fantasy. Richardson has a knack for making the fantastic sound very, very real and Harper’s no-nonsense attitude helps lend that cast to the world (it’s first person and Harper is a very clinical narrator).
If you don’t normally read fantasy but you like mysteries, I’d recommend this series because it certainly doesn’t read like Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files or Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson books, for instance, both of which are very fantastic in terms of the amount of fantasy elements and lore involved, the amount of actual magic that happens, etc. The Greywalker series leans more toward ghosts and thus has a decidedly historical and retrospective bent to it, because ghosts usually bring up issues of the past and/or crime, both of which themes play influentially large roles in each book of the Greywalker series. The lore that actually does pop up is historical, ethnic, or scientific in substantiation, which is really unusual. I enjoy it.
An example of this more technical lean to the urban fantasy elements, from Underground itself, comes in the form of a point one character makes to another about mid-book regarding the improbability of the existence of werewolves:
Everything I’ve seen tells me that magic tends to respect the laws of physics — kind of freaky physics, but lawful physics. For total form-shifting to happen in less than, say, a couple of days, max, it would have to break conservation of mass, conservation of energy, and the laws of thermodynamics at the very least. If shape-shifting does exist, then it’s an illusion, not an actual form change — unless it happens very slowly, which doesn’t seem to be the case. If someone were to change from human to wolf he’d have to make a whole lot of physical changes very rapidly, shedding or gaining mass and using up a ton of energy. There just isn’t enough elasticity in the system to allow it — he’d burst into flames from the heat of the energetic change alone.
I’m a dork; I like that sort of explanation.
I liked the book. I think I liked it better than Poltergeist, book two, which was decidedly strange. This one was decidedly strange, too, though. Harper Blaine’s world of the paranormal in Seattle, WA is so interesting and I have to admit, it sucks me in regardless of how weird or technical Richardson gets. She also had a lot of Indian legend/myth stuff in this one, as well as a lot about Seattle and its history (well, the last two had that too) and I enjoy that. Her descriptions, though, strike me as either lyrical or not explicit enough, which is fine, but sometimes when she describes Seattle I get lost because she’s going just a step short of a whole staircase, and I can’t see the image she’s drawing for me. I have never been to the west coast of the United States so it’s really hard for me to visualize Seattle, for instance, which I haven’t seen a ton of in movies or TV (unlike Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Las Vegas, for instance). When she takes for granted that I know things, I get miffed; if she were setting this book in a fictional series, she’d have to be more thorough, but I guess she can get away with assuming we know what things look like. I tend to prefer an author build the world of the story regardless of how well known the book is. Take New York City and make it your own, for instance, don’t just assume we all know what it generally looks like. It’s the slant of the narrative voice on that description that makes it pop from the page into my mind’s eye, and sometimes Harper’s voice just didn’t do it for me.
Yes for the plot surprises (or not so surprises?) though. Yes for the minor character development. Yes for her love life’s shift. (The book isn’t romance so it handles the love life in a really good way — classy and realistically without distracting from the main plot or sacrificing character.)
What’s weird is this book fits into the category of books for me that I can put down and walk away from comfortably. It’s not a thwwwp book by any stretch, though the last five or so chapters were thwwwp-ish, mostly because I’d given the book that much by then so I had to know what happened. But I’m reading it and sometimes I’m thinking, “Why? What is the element that keeps me reading?” General curiosity, I think. Not overwhelming need-to-know curiosity. Chalice was like that, too, usually, and so have the last few Dresden Files books. But what’s weird is that I no longer mind in the way I think I would have been annoyed about a few years ago. I enjoy books so long as I like them and they hold my attention and interest above all other distractions — they don’t need to suck me in. (Though of course I love a book that does that.)
I’ll pick up the next in the series when it comes out, no doubt. Now on to Small Favor by Jim Butcher.
From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris
Wednesday September 10, 2008
I just finished From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris, the most recent installment in her Southern Vampire Series about Sookie Stackhouse. The book itself was very interesting. Harris is at the point in the series where she can — and did — spend an entire book on already existing plotlines. Drawing them out, concluding them, adding new twists to perpetuate some, picking up some old ones to dust off and reinvigorate… it’s not often a series has the ability to do that. But it was good, even if it didn’t follow the typical format of a Sookie Stackhouse (or plain old urban fantasy adventure) novel. It’s also a relief in a way that she didn’t clog the book with a whole huge new plot (though there was a decently large new plot that was satisfying) and then sideline the already sidelined subplots again. I’m glad they got dealt with.
It’s interesting in another way too; now that the series is an HBO television series (True Blood), it’ll be interesting to see where HBO takes it. They can, with very subtle editing, probably do the entire series as written and do well with it. (Hurricane Katrina comes into it and is important to the plot in a peripheral way, but they can probably work around that.) Or, they may choose to take the characters and run with them into new territory. But it’ll be some time before they’ll have some serious decisions to make. For one, the series deviates from small-towns and vampires to larger issues and more supernatural types, and unless that’s handled in the manner with which they have started handling the supernatural stuff (with tact and seriousness) then it could be easily botched. But I doubt HBO will do the series wrong. I wonder how long they think it might last? Until the actors’ paychecks and lives no longer make it seem realistic to keep going? Because there are eight books so far and if season one of the series is maybe one or two books….
Anyway in other news I was really productive today and I look forward to more productivity tomorrow! Yay! I also need to hit up the library and return the large stack of books I’ve read lately and pick up Renegade’s Magic by Robin Hobb to start Reading Attempt #2. (#1 ended with me returning it because I couldn’t get into it easily and it came due. I was devouring other series at the time, too, which contributed to that.) I wonder how Hobb will end that trilogy…
The end of my summer reading…
Tuesday September 9, 2008
It’s been a while since I’ve really written and there’s no simple explanation for it. I just haven’t remembered. But that’s not to say that things haven’t been happening or I haven’t been reading. Actually in the intervening time between since when I last really wrote and now I finished King’s Shield, I read the MacCarrick brothers trilogy by Kresley Cole (If you Dare, If you Desire, If you Deceive), read Dream-Chaser and Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon, and even watched the premiere of HBO’s True Blood, based on Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Series novels. All of which were excellent.
So to begin, King’s Shield was marvelous. Absolutely stunningly good. I devoured it and loved every moment. I can’t wait until it comes out in paperback so I can add it to the permanent collection. (I’d buy it now but I am finicky about series all being in the same format… same with Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera. I bought all of the ones currently in paperback because I love them but I can’t buy Captain’s Fury until it comes out in paperback and I also can’t buy Princep’s Fury the moment it comes out because I need them all to match… Oh, OCD.) Back to King’s Shield, I can’t believe it was so good. Series, especially epic fantasy series, tend to drag on forever. The Wheel of Time, the Sword of Truth… each book moved at a snail’s pace, introducing more subplots rather than resolving the main plot and original subplots it introduced at the start. As one reviewer said about this series, Sherwood Smith dares to resolve subplots. And major plots! But all along she’s throwing things in and stirring the pot and biding her time until WHAM! New plot, new stuff, same characters, shivery thrills all around. I can’t wait for the fourth book now… but it’s going to be so different from the other books. Not that it’s an offshoot but really, it’s going to be interesting to see where all of the plots she “ended” or temporarily resolved will play out in the fourth book as more stuff happens. Because this world is too rich for it to be over yet. Or anytime soon. But with books this good I’m always going to want more…
I read Kresley Cole’s trilogy in and around my classic devouring of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s books. Kresley Cole is so talented compared to Sherrilyn Kenyon. And that talent is evident in so many aspects of her writing. Kenyon has a taste for fantasy and the ability to write but her fiction at this point feels so serialized and predictable (not that I don’t devour them) whereas Kresley Cole throws genuinely strange and amazingly unique characters together and runs with them. She really does make her male heroes sexy but flawed, whereas Kenyon just says they’re flawed, shows them as being mean but perfect, then runs with their inevitable character change. (Except for Acheron. I’ll get there.) Cole’s books are also really love stories and heroic adventures that just happen to have some raunchy scenes. Kenyon’s books are, well, blatant in a sort of almost rude and glaring way at times. Yes, he’s attracted to her right off but do we need the visual of an instant bulge in the pants? Cole goes deeper. Why is he attracted? How so? What particulars? Is it that sneaky smile she makes that shows she’s up to no good, when despite all appearances she looks all prim and proper? It’s adorable and really well-done. Sigh. Maybe it’s because of the recent juxaposition of these novels that I’ve seen their contrasts so vividly. If I haven’t read a Kenyon book in a while it seems great. If I haven’t read a Cole book in a while, any real honesty and intimacy between characters can seem to take forever. (She builds it up, generally, slowly.) But together it seemed so obvious that I prefer Cole’s books.
The MacCarrick brothers books additionally were astounding as much as for their historical settings and the depth to which Cole had clearly researched and built up their individually unique worlds (1850s Andorra, Paris, London, Scotland…), and she really made me feel comfortable in those worlds. Her characters too were vibrantly different. Whereas with Kenyon, except for Tabitha in the Dark-Hunter series, pretty much every main character woman is identical to anyone else. They have so much of the same characteristics they don’t really feel different. Artemis is really well characterized but she’s also not so much a main character as a canonical staple. Acheron, though, is different… so consistent and so incredibly real… until the second half of his book. Then he becomes so much like Zarek and Kyrian and all of her “best” heroes that I’m constantly surprised it’s Acheron we’re talking about. In that regard it was somewhat disappointing. (Also, the “modern” part of the book felt rushed and forced compared to the beautiful, gripping, emotionally raw first part. That part was truly well-done and will stay with me.)
That all being said though, I still enjoyed Dream-Chaser and Acheron. I’m still going to read the subsequent books. She’s got the knack of addicting me. Now while I won’t actually buy these books (though I’m debating getting Acheron when it comes to paperback because it really was unusually good for a Kenyon book, and the first half of it was extraordinary and the latter… while imperfect still was as good or better than a typical Dark-Hunter series book) I still enjoy them. And I am glad I do. I might be high-minded but I really do enjoy a good serialized read now and again.
Oh, and regarding the post I posted while in the middle of Acheron, I was right about the choice of love interest for the modern part. I’d sort of had a whoppingly large suspicion when I read the book in which she was introduced though I was a bit skeptical at first because of who she is. I’d thought for a while it had to be someone else until that got debunked enough for me to bet that if she chose that woman I’d stop reading those books forever. So I am glad Kenyon chose whom she did.
True Blood. Ah, HBO. You never can disappoint me. I don’t think it’s possible. That show was amazing. The way they showed Sookie’s telepathy — as a constant source of distraction and irritation — versus the silence around Bill as a sublime relief… it’s so good. They also foreshadowed or just plain old introduced every major character in the first book (or two) and I’m so excited. All of the characters seem awesome and well-cast, and except for Tara Thornton (whom they changed, a lot) the series is true to the books. Really accurately so. Thus I am so excited. If that was only episode one… If you haven’t seen it, watch it… if you don’t have HBO, rent it when it comes to DVD or ask someone to tape it. Really. It’s so good!
Also, Mad Men was and continues to be excellent this season. I’m looking forward to the Emmys!
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