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Elizabeth Barnabus, also sometimes known as Edwin in her manly disguise, is wanted for capital crimes back in England. Leaving her lover, an agent of the dreaded Patent Office, far behind, She travels across America into the wilds of the Oregon Territory in search of the brother, the real Edwin, she barely remembers. Politics and prophesy mesh as Elizabeth finds Edwin embroiled in court intreague with a king who believes he's destined to conquer the world – and he has the weapons to do it. The fate of the Gas Lit empire, and Elizabeth and Edwin, could hand on one daring conjuring trick. This looks like the end of the second Elizabeth Barnabus trilogy. I recommend you start at the beginning with the Bullet Catcher's Daughter. Well worth reading.Nov. 9th, 2019
Elizabeth Barnabus, also sometimes known as Edwin in her manly disguise, is wanted for capital crimes back in England. Leaving her lover, an agent of the dreaded Patent Office, far behind, She travels across America into the wilds of the Oregon Territory in search of the brother, the real Edwin, she barely remembers. Politics and prophesy mesh as Elizabeth finds Edwin embroiled in court intreague with a king who believes he's destined to conquer the world – and he has the weapons to do it. The fate of the Gas Lit empire, and Elizabeth and Edwin, could hand on one daring conjuring trick. This looks like the end of the second Elizabeth Barnabus trilogy. I recommend you start at the beginning with the Bullet Catcher's Daughter. Well worth reading.
This is a spin-off from Ms Taylor's St Mary's books, featuring Max, Leon, Markham, and a whole cast of wacky historians, where the Time Police are often cast in the role of heavy-handed, jack-booted villains. This time we get to see them as individuals as Max and Leon's son, Matthew reaches the age where he can (and does) choose to enrol as a trainee in the TP, along with two friends, Jane, who has nowhere else to go, and Luke who is sent by his very rich father to teach him a lesson. Like his mother, Matthew tends to have his own ideas about things, which gets him into trouble (of course). If only he can get through (i.e. survive) basic training he's destined to work with the Time Map, but first he has to survive, and it's a real possibility that he won't. Matthew's a bit of an oddity and he doesn't make friends easily, though he's brilliant at making enemies. Things are changing in the Time Police, but there are still a few hard-heads who long for the old days of jump-in, shoot first, don't ask questions either now or later, and jump out again.
Classy urban fantasy set in (mostly) London with central character Alex Verus, a diviner with a very specific magical talent. He's not as powerful as a war mage, so he has to be clever. He's embroiled in politics now, a member of the Light Council, though most light mages think he's batting for the other side since he was trained by a powerful Dark Mage, Richard Drakh, who is currently waging war on the council. Trapped between the Council, who want to investigate him, and Richard, Alex will need a new strategy if he's to stay alive and protect his friends and his lover, Anne. Alex has to make some hard decisions. The trouble is, he doesn't really like either side. I grab these books as soon as they are published. Excellent stuff.
The final book about spellslinger Kellen and his snarky, eyeball-eating squirrel-cat, Reichis. Kellen has settled down as the Daroman Queen's tutor of cards (and her protector), but there are rumours of war. Everything comes together for Kellen who finally has to confront his family, his people and his own innate talent, which is certainly no match for his father's – so that's going to be a problem when it comes to the crunch. This draws together strands from the whole six book series. There's the return of all our favourite characters from previous books, including Ferius. I highly recommend this series and also de Castell's Greatcoats Quartet.
This is a shared world book, but you don't need to have ready any of the others. Karen always has her own particular style. She has oceans of respect for soldiers and she really lets it show, but she also gets under the skin of her characters, building compete characters from military types, much as she did in her Star Wars Imperial Commando books, and her Going Grey soon-to-be-trilogy (both highly recommended). Earth is partly wasteland. Biological warfare has cause die-back, a virulent engineered disease which has turned large parts of America and Europe into a wasteland and made Britain into and island sanctuary and Asia into a superpower determined to wipe out die-back at all costs, even if it means nuking infected land. There's no more United States and no more government, just a few isolated places trying to get by. The little farming town of Kill Line is an isolated enclave, growing enough to feed itself and Ainatio, the research station on its border, supposedly looking for a cure for die back. Recently arrived is a small camp of military types and the refugees they've saved from a city, led by Chris Montello, determined not to leave anyone behind. The co-exist peacefully with Kill Line and trade services for food. In these precarious times, it' about as good as it gets. But Ainatio isn't only researching die-back. They are reaching the culmination of a long term project to colonise a distant planet. Though the project is run by humans, it's masterminded by Solomon, an ethical AI, whose mission is to save the best of humanity and take them to the stars. The main problem is that, apart form a dozen department heads, the 1500 or so staff, don't know about the secret project. The ship taking 100 servicemen and women (in cryo) to Nomad base – which was reported lost 40 years ago – is almost there and Ainatio's current director intends to take all her staff there as well. The only problem is that she hasn't told them yet. Well, that's not the only problem. Solomon has his own ideas as to who the 'best' folks to save are. And those Pacific types have noticed a nasty case of die back in the area which means nukes. This is the first in the Nomad sequence. What's happening on Earth is interspersed with what's happening on Nomad Base. It looks as though there's going to be plenty to keep us interested in future books. Some great characters in here, including Solomon himself. Highly recommended.
Yet another short companion tale to the Grisha novels. This one is a Ravkan folk tale about a magical river (the Little Knife of the title) and a poor Grisha with power over water, who wants to marry Yeva, a rich Duke's daughter so beautiful that she captivates anyone who sees her, usually to their detriment. It doesn't work out the way you might expect. It has a moral and a twist. A slight tale, well told, but don't expect anything like Leigh Bardugo's Grisha novels.Movie of the Week: Ad Astra
Nov. 9th, 2019 07:57 pm
Brad Pitt in Spaaaace. I've seen reviews that criticised this as a movie full of talking heads and no action. In a sense there is a lot of that but it wasn't boring. Brad Pitt plays an astronaut going on a mission to search for his long lost father, an astronaut who supposedly died a generation earlier. But did he? It's about two different kinds of space, the space 'out there' and the space a missing parent leaves in the heart of a child. maybe that's where Roy's android-like detachment originated. Tommy Lee Jones plays Dad, so I guess that answers the dad he question.Movie of the Week: Terminator Dark Fate
Nov. 9th, 2019 08:12 pm
I've seen mixed reviews, and I haven't always been a fan of Terminator movies, but I enjoyed this. Why? Well, largely because Linda Hamilton is baaack - and she's a badass. Once again, a Terminator has been sent back to kill a young Latina, Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes). Dark Fate seems to ignore the later Terminator movies and starts from the end of Terminator 2, but some years later. Skynet never happened, but a new threat has arisen. John Connor is dead and his mother has become an expert Terminator terminator, though in doing so she'a a wanted woman in most of the USA. Grace (Mackenzie Davis) is not a Terminator, she's an enhanced human sent back to protect the Terminator's target, Dani. Arnie appears part way through the film, living a quiet life in a cabin in the woods with a family (not exactly his family, but an acquired one). He's becoming more humanised, and he's OLD, which is great on one level because Arnie looks better now than he did as a thirty-something muscle-bound hunk... though... do Terminators age or is it a trick? He's certainly mellowed, but Sarah Connor has a bone to pick. It's great to see a woman in her sixties playing the action hero thirty five years on from Terminator 1. Yay for Linda Hamilton