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I didn’t realise there was going to be another Raine Benares novel after everything seemed to be all set for a happyeverafter in Book 7, but I’m delighted to find that there is. All the old favourites are back again as Raine, Elf soldier Michael and dark Goblin lord Tam Nathrach try to prevent peace talks between the various kingdoms from being undermined. If Raine thought she’d given up her magical powers when she parted from the soul-sucking stone, the Saghred, she’d better think again.I didn’t realise there was going to be another Raine Benares novel after everything seemed to be all set for a happyeverafter in Book 7, but I’m delighted to find that there is. All the old favourites are back again as Raine, Elf soldier Michael and dark Goblin lord Tam Nathrach try to prevent peace talks between the various kingdoms from being undermined. If Raine thought she’d given up her magical powers when she parted from the soul-sucking stone, the Saghred, she’d better think again.
Julia Quinn has a light touch when it comes to Regency Romance. (And I've been reading a lot of it while I've been writing science fiction.) Her Bridgertons series is laced with humour, and if characters behave in a slightly more modern way that you’d expect from regency characters, I can forgive this because it is, after all, fiction and not a history book on etiquette.This is a Cinderella story. Sophie Becket, born on the wrong side of the blanket, has been cheated out of the inheritance her father, the Earl of Penwood, left for her by her wicked stepmother and two stepsisters. She’s treated like a servant, but when she gets the opportunity to go to a masked ball she grabs it with both hands. There she meets Benedict Bridgerton—the second Bridgerton brother—and he becomes her prince charming. But Sophie’s fortunes take a turn for the worse and three years pass before the couple meet again. Though Sophie immediately recognises Benedict, he doesn’t recognise her and he still has his heart set on the mysterious masked woman from the ball. Another enjoyable romp from Julia Quinn.
This is an interesting take on how to write sex scenes from Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series. I know a lot of writers who would rather write a bloody battle than a sex scene (actually there are some similarities), so some of the advice offered here is interesting. Note that at no time is she prescriptive and her take is this is how she does it – not necessarily the only way to write about sex.Because I'm catching up with my booklog I'm going to review all of the first six Peter Grant books together. I read them together because they were so goof I have to bounce on from one to the next.
11) 10/02/17
Ben Aaronovitch: Rivers of London – Peter Grant #1
(Midnight Riot in the USA)
New mixed race copper in the Met, Peter Grant, has his life turned upside down when he discovers that he can see ghosts and that he has the potential to be a wizard. Also that the Met has its own wizarding department – though no one ever talks about it – run by Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale. Seconded to Nightingale to learn the magical ropes, Peter discovers a world where the gods and goddesses of the Thames and its tributaries are real and interact with humans. This is a smart blend of urban fantasy and police procedural. The main character, Peter Grant, has a great ‘voice’ and his witty observations are crisp and funny. London itself becomes a character, too and there’s a solid sense of place. The supporting characters are well fleshed out, Leslie, the mysteriously silent Molly and her culinary experiments, the enigmatic Beverley Brook, Lady Tyburn and the other River gods and goddesses, Dr Walid the pathologist, Guleed, Seawoll, Stephanopoulos and even Toby the dog I enjoyed this so much that I galloped through all six available Peter Grant books without coming up for air. Highly recommended
12) 12/02/17
Ben Aaronovitch: Moon over Soho – Peter Grant #2
Peter Grant’s Dad is an ex jazzer, so Peter instantly recognises the tune that’s hanging about the corpse in Dr. Walid’s mortuary. Yes, that’s ‘vestigia’ the after-trace of strong magic. So this book hinges on the jazz scene and a strange magically created menagerie, though aside from the current crime, there’s an ongoing plot featuring the Faceless Man and Leslie who is also faceless due to unfortunate consequences in Rivers of London.
13) 14/02/17
Ben Aaronovitch: Whispers Underground – Peter Grant #3
A dead American art student in the underground seems like a fairly mundane mystery but when the murder weapon is a shard of strange pottery. There’s something slightly off happening, which is why the Met’s magical department is called in. Peter goes exploring underground (too far underground in one instance) and we meet a new character, Jaget Kumar a member of the transport police and explorer of hidden London. And Leslie is back—wearing a mask because of her facial disfigurement—but back.
14) 16/02/17
Ben Aaronovitch: Broken Homes – Peter Grant #4
More Mayhem for Peter Grant and Leslie following a grisly murder which ends up with them going undercover in a tower block with impossible architecture. The Faceless Man, developing as the big bad over the whole series, is here but unseen… until the very end when there’s a dramatic escape and interesting plot twist that I didn’t see coming.
15) 18/02/17
Ben Aaronovitch: Foxglove Summer – Peter Grant #5
London has always been a major character on the Peter Grant books, but this time Peter is out of his city and his comfort zone when sent to Herefordshire to assist with aspects of the disappearance of two girls that don’t quite fit ‘normality’. Ptere’s girlfriend Beveley Brook, the goddess of a small London river that feeds into the Thames, is even more in evidence in this one.
16) 20/02/17
Ben Aaronovitch: The Hanging Tree – Peter Grant #6
The Hanging Tree was the Tyburn gallows, and Lady Tyburn, the goddess of that particular river has never been kindly disposed towards Peter, but she calls in a favour that’s been hanging over his head since Whispers Underground. Her teenage daughter has been at a party in an exclusive Mayfair apartment where someone dies of a drug overdose and Lady Ty wants Peter to get her off when she’s implicated. It’s not all that simple, of course. The Faceless Man is back, and Leslie is back – with a face.
I love all these books and read them quickly, one after the other. Especially good is Peter’s cheeky voice, often with added pop-culture references, but quickly snapping to attention when things get serious,. Nightingale as the mentor is very old school British but the rest of the cast of characters run the gamut of inclusivity. As you would expect in multi-cultural London the characters are multi-ethnic, too, from Peter himself who is mixed race to Guleed and Kumar. And it doesn’t stop there. There are half fae and a housekeeper who has more teeth than seems strictly necessary and a strange culinary relationship with offal. The orverarching story ark is a puzzle to be solved and I’m looking forward to the next one in the series.
11) 10/02/17Ben Aaronovitch: Rivers of London – Peter Grant #1
(Midnight Riot in the USA)
New mixed race copper in the Met, Peter Grant, has his life turned upside down when he discovers that he can see ghosts and that he has the potential to be a wizard. Also that the Met has its own wizarding department – though no one ever talks about it – run by Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale. Seconded to Nightingale to learn the magical ropes, Peter discovers a world where the gods and goddesses of the Thames and its tributaries are real and interact with humans. This is a smart blend of urban fantasy and police procedural. The main character, Peter Grant, has a great ‘voice’ and his witty observations are crisp and funny. London itself becomes a character, too and there’s a solid sense of place. The supporting characters are well fleshed out, Leslie, the mysteriously silent Molly and her culinary experiments, the enigmatic Beverley Brook, Lady Tyburn and the other River gods and goddesses, Dr Walid the pathologist, Guleed, Seawoll, Stephanopoulos and even Toby the dog I enjoyed this so much that I galloped through all six available Peter Grant books without coming up for air. Highly recommended
12) 12/02/17Ben Aaronovitch: Moon over Soho – Peter Grant #2
Peter Grant’s Dad is an ex jazzer, so Peter instantly recognises the tune that’s hanging about the corpse in Dr. Walid’s mortuary. Yes, that’s ‘vestigia’ the after-trace of strong magic. So this book hinges on the jazz scene and a strange magically created menagerie, though aside from the current crime, there’s an ongoing plot featuring the Faceless Man and Leslie who is also faceless due to unfortunate consequences in Rivers of London.
13) 14/02/17Ben Aaronovitch: Whispers Underground – Peter Grant #3
A dead American art student in the underground seems like a fairly mundane mystery but when the murder weapon is a shard of strange pottery. There’s something slightly off happening, which is why the Met’s magical department is called in. Peter goes exploring underground (too far underground in one instance) and we meet a new character, Jaget Kumar a member of the transport police and explorer of hidden London. And Leslie is back—wearing a mask because of her facial disfigurement—but back.
14) 16/02/17Ben Aaronovitch: Broken Homes – Peter Grant #4
More Mayhem for Peter Grant and Leslie following a grisly murder which ends up with them going undercover in a tower block with impossible architecture. The Faceless Man, developing as the big bad over the whole series, is here but unseen… until the very end when there’s a dramatic escape and interesting plot twist that I didn’t see coming.
15) 18/02/17Ben Aaronovitch: Foxglove Summer – Peter Grant #5
London has always been a major character on the Peter Grant books, but this time Peter is out of his city and his comfort zone when sent to Herefordshire to assist with aspects of the disappearance of two girls that don’t quite fit ‘normality’. Ptere’s girlfriend Beveley Brook, the goddess of a small London river that feeds into the Thames, is even more in evidence in this one.
16) 20/02/17Ben Aaronovitch: The Hanging Tree – Peter Grant #6
The Hanging Tree was the Tyburn gallows, and Lady Tyburn, the goddess of that particular river has never been kindly disposed towards Peter, but she calls in a favour that’s been hanging over his head since Whispers Underground. Her teenage daughter has been at a party in an exclusive Mayfair apartment where someone dies of a drug overdose and Lady Ty wants Peter to get her off when she’s implicated. It’s not all that simple, of course. The Faceless Man is back, and Leslie is back – with a face.
I love all these books and read them quickly, one after the other. Especially good is Peter’s cheeky voice, often with added pop-culture references, but quickly snapping to attention when things get serious,. Nightingale as the mentor is very old school British but the rest of the cast of characters run the gamut of inclusivity. As you would expect in multi-cultural London the characters are multi-ethnic, too, from Peter himself who is mixed race to Guleed and Kumar. And it doesn’t stop there. There are half fae and a housekeeper who has more teeth than seems strictly necessary and a strange culinary relationship with offal. The orverarching story ark is a puzzle to be solved and I’m looking forward to the next one in the series.
Mackenna Fraser is a seer working for ‘Supernatural Protection and Investigations’ (SPI) investigating things that go bump in the night. Working with her far more experienced partner Ian Byrne she’s still a newcomer. She’s not supposed to take on monsters, simply identify them and let Ian and the team do the rest. So when she gets involved in the hunt for a serial killer that tears the head and one arm off its victims, she’s at a bit of a disadvantage. I loved Lisa Shearin’s Raine Benares books. I’m less convinced about the SPI files, maybe because I prefer a straight fantasy setting to urban fantasy - especially urban fantasy set so firmly in America. It’s good. It’s readable. It just didn’t grab me like the Benares books.Dropped off the Face of the Earth
Mar. 12th, 2017 02:30 pmNo, I haven't--dropped off the face of the earth, I mean. I've been writing, and I'm just in the throes of finishing 'Nimbus' with the deadline rushing towards me like an oncoming train.. I will catch up with my booklogs and my film logs, just as soon as I've written The End, but in the meantime, these are the books that I need to log:
- Julia Quinn: And Offer from a Gentleman (Bridgertons #3)
- Lisa Shearin: Wedding Bells, Magic Spells (Raine Benares)
- Lisa Shearin: Treasure and Treason (A Raine Benares World novel)
- Nnedi Okorafor: Binti
- Nnedi Okorafor: Binti - Home
- Lisa Shearin: The Grendel Affair
- Ben Aaronovitch: Rivers of London (Peter Grant #1)
- Ben Aaronovitch: Moon Over Soho (Peter Grant #2)
- Ben Aaronovitch: Whispers Underground (Peter Grant #3)
- Ben Aaronovitch: Broken Homes (Peter Grant #4)
- Ben Aaronovitch: Foxglove Summer (Peter Grant #5)
- Ben Aaronovitch: The Hanging Tree (Peter Grant #6)
- Diana Gabaldon: I give you My Body
And the movies:
- Star Wars Rogue One (again)
- The Great Wall
- Logan
Tags:
In a near future Nigeria the city of Rosewater has grown up around a strange biodome, Utopicity, with life-enhancing powers (thought there's a creepy flipside to the 'cures' that happen when the dome opens). Kaaro is a 'sensitive', by day providing psychic security for a bank, but, when called for, an operative of the government's secret Section 45. He's actually one of their most senior psychics, but there's still an adversarial element to his relationship with his bosses and Kaaro has never quite outgrown the echoes of his youth when he spent most of the time using his talents to steal. He doesn't like working for the government. He especially doesn't like having to interrogate prisoners, using his talents.When his fellow sensitives begin dying, Kaaro is motivated to investigate before he becomes the next victim - always circling back to Utopicity. This isn't a linear story. We get flashbacks to Kaaro's less than admirable past and Kaaro acts as our tour guide to the xenosphere and a greater understanding of what it is. There's a gritty realism, and Kaaro is no hero, but he tells it like it is.
Extremely well-written, this is essentially an alien invasion story, or possibly an aftermath story. They're here. They're staying, and they don't give a flying f**k what humans think about it. We gradually come to understand as Kaaro does.
Brendan Merrick, lately of His Majesty's Navy and now an American Privateer fighting King George's shipping, has designed the perfect tops'l schooner and arrives in town to have her built at the Ashton shipyard, unfortunately in a somewhat soggy condition, having been washed overboard from his own ship which is subsequently wrecked. Misunderstandings notwithstanding, he meets Ashton's daughter, Mira, She's a hellion, brought up in a household of noisy, argumentative men, who runs a riding school and to sails on her brother's privateer as a gunner when she can sneak past their father. (Unsurprisingly the riding school doesn’t appear to have regular customers.)Yes, this is a romance so you can already see the ending looming on the horizon, and that's fine, but before then Merrick and Mira have adventures on sea and land -- she managing to fool Merrick into thinking she's a strange little sun-allergic gunner (with her hat pulled down over her face) on board his newly built schooner. There's a lot to like here--the research into ships and sailing seems particularly sound -- but there several occasions when I bounced out of the story needing a reality check. For someone who is supposed to be an excellent horsewoman, Mira managed to have a lot of out-of-control accidents/incidents, and shows next to no patience when teaching a nervous pupil. Merrick himself doesn't know how to ride, which is next to impossible as he's the son of reasonably well-off parents. He'd have been put on a pony as soon as he could walk. When horses (and carriages) are the only mode of transport, you learn how to use them or you do an awful lot of foot-slogging. Merrick must be as blind as a bat not to have rumbled Mira's disguise -- though all his sailors connive against him to keep her secret. And the Ashton family arguments escalate out of nothing at all. At least if people are going to start screaming at each other, give them a logical reason. Mira judgmentally jumps to a wrong conclusion at one point and I really didn't like her for it.
Merrick is a decent character, though I find it surprising that the son of an admiral and a committed Royal Navy officer would so easily turn himself into a privateer to fight against his king and country. His argument is with one particular Navy officer, not with the whole damn navy. And how did his crew manage to follow him to the Americas? Getting off a British fighting ship is not so easy. Ms Harmon glosses over the mechanics of that. Merrick starts off on the wrong end of a rival officer's pistol and is plunged overboard. Then, suddenly, he's reinvented as an American privateer and his crew has defected, too.
Merrick's sister is a somewhat confused and confusing character. She's depicted as not particularly likeable, but I think we're supposed to like her. There's a villain - an English naval captain, whose enmity for Merrick stems from a promotion Merrick got while still in the Royal Navy. He's very one-dimensional (evil through and through).
I gather this is one of Harmon's early stories. This is supposed to be updated from the 1992 edition, but I think it shows the need for an astute editor. As it is, it's a bit of lighthearted fluffy romance which you mustn't think about too much. (And it has a terrible generic cover.)
I've seen all of the Cadfael TV shows, of course, so Derek Jacobi is my default Cadfael and it’s gard to get that image and voice out of my head when reading what came before. This is the first book in the series that I've read, though I'm familiar with the story, of course. Cadfael, Welshman and late adopter of the Benedictine habit is a man happy in his own skin, content with tending the abbey's vegetable garden and brewing healing potions from herbs. He's the nearest thing to a medieval forensic scientist and because he spent close to fifty years in the world before retiring to the cloister, he has a wider knowledge than most of the brothers in Shrewsbury.The abbey is short of funds and it seems that if they can acquire suitable relics as the focus for pilgrimage, then their finances and their standing might both take a turn for the better. When one of the young monks has a vision, an expedition to find and recover the bones of Saint Winifred from the small Welsh Village of Gwytherin includes Brother Cadfael, a native Welsh speaker.
The villagers haven't exactly looked after the Saint's resting place but they are still reluctant to allow some English 'foreigners' to dig her up and take her away. When the leader of the opposition id shot with an arrow and the wrong man is blamed for it, Cadfael begins a quiet investigation which not only catches the killer, but smooths the path of true love - twice.
The three witches of Lychford are challenged once again when a ghost child finds its way into Lizzie’s church. What does it want? When Lizzie realises that it’s the ghost of a child still happily living in Lychford she enlists the help of her two witchy friends, Judith Mawson and Autumn, the local witchcraft shop owner, to track down the significance of the apparition. They’re on a deadline. Christmas is coming and unless they can do something about a magical incursion it may never arrive. Each one of them faces a personal challenge. This is the second of Paul Cornell’s Lychford novellas and the characters continue to develop. Lovely.
Having adored Weeks' Night Angel series I was surprised that it took me a while to get into this. I put it on one side, almost stopped reading, and then came back to it after a couple of months. Reasons for putting it aside included not being able to feel much empathy for the main characters... but that changed as the book progressed. .OK, from the beginning. This is a world of magic and the magic system is complex and well thought out. Drafters use light to draft coloured luxin that can have different properties, temporary or permanent. Most drafters can handle one colour, some can handle two, but Gavin Guile is the Prism, who can handle all the colours at once, which makes him tremendously powerful. He's nominally the 'emperor' figure, but not quite as grand as he eschews sitting in his ivory tower for being a hands-on prism, sorting out problems in the satrapies. The Chromeria - the governing guild which rules the drafters from training to their 'freeing' - is presided over by 'The White' and between them the White and the Prism are the head honchos of the magical fraternity. Unfortunately the more a drafter drafts, the closer he or she gets to going bonkers and turning into a colour wight. Before they get to that stage drafters are expected to volunteer to be 'freed'.
We pick up the story some fifteen years after a war between Gavin and his brother Dazen (the False Prism's War) which laid waste to a fair amount of real estate (and people), but Gavin is trying to put things right and turn things around. He doesn't have much time left. A prism doesn't usually last more than 21 years and he's had 16 already. He has goals for his final years (but we aren't party to them).
It turns out that in the heat of battle (well, maybe not during the battle, but you get what i mean) Gavin fathered a son and is now introduced to his 15 year old bastard, Kip, a potential drafter. There's something slightly awry (but we don't find out what until later in the book and no spoilers) however Gavin duly accepts Kip and sends him to be trained at the Chromeria as his... nephew.
It's a sprawling plot involving an uprising and a battle. There's tension between Gavin and Karris (his ex fiancee) who is also a super-soldier. Kip's point of view is on the point of being amusing as we get insights from his fifteen year old viewpoint. There's a reveal part way through the book that suddenly makes Gavin's character much more complex.
Chip is a bit of a slacker, working as a security guard on the night shift, but when he demands a desk for his empty room and discovers the lost notebook of Nikola Tesla in a locked drawer everything changes. Chip and his friend Pete decide to test out the Interdimensional Transfer Apparatus that Tesla set up in the hotel room where he lived. Having figured out the portal into the multiverse – they forget to mark the way back home and the adventure begins. Humour is so subjective and I suspect I’d find this funnier if I were a leftpondian. It’s not laugh out loud, but it’s quirky in a ‘Hey, dude, where’s my flying car?’ kind of way. There are times when Chip’s voice gets a bit wearing and the comedy is a bit thin, but Tesla saves the day in more ways than one. If you’re a Bill and Ted fan, you’ll like this.
Book blurb reads: Polly Newton has one single-minded dream, to be a starship pilot and travel the galaxy. Her mother, the director of the Mars Colony, derails Polly's plans when she sends Polly and her genius twin brother, Charles, to Galileo Academy on Earth—the one planet Polly has no desire to visit. Ever.This is a traditional school story (YA) with a difference. Raised on Mars in low gravity the Newtons have immense trouble adapting to Earth gravity, and since they have spent their lives in a closed environment, just stepping put under an open sky without protective clothing and a breather mask is scary in the extreme. The school they are sent to thinks itself to be super-elite where all the kids of 'people who are somebody' are sent, so their classmates are snobby and elitist, looking down on the non-earthers, because - hey - there has to be someone to look down on if you want to feel superior. Polly doesn't fit in, and doesn't have much desire to fit in, while Charles - too clever for his own good - seems to manage just fine.
But then a series of accidents involving high profile kids starts to happen. Polly, Charles and a few of their trusted classmates try to get to the bottom of it. Charles is the brain, but Polly is the heart.
Featuring a battle-weary Doctor as depicted by John Hurt, i.e. the War Doctor, who only had a very brief outing on TV in Day of the Doctor. I expected more from this because the blurb promises: ‘Searching for answers the Doctor meets 'Cinder', a young Dalek hunter. Their struggles to discover the Dalek plan take them from the ruins of Moldox to the halls of Gallifrey, and set in motion a chain of events that will change everything. And everyone.’ Like many spin off books it has to leave the main character more or less reset for the next book, so there's action, but no insight into the War Doctor's final act, which was what I thought I was going to get. This reminds me why I tend not to read franchise books. The authors don't get free rein to go where (if it were an independent book) the characters need to go. Well written as far as it goes.
Aquilla Knox is still unmarried after five London seasons, largely because she’s developed a way of deterring prospective husbands. She doesn’t want to marry - she’s seen what marriage can be – but a fifth season in London gives her the chance to get away from home. Edward Bishop, Earl of Sutton, is in need of a wife, but no one has yet fulfilled his list of requirements. He needs someone who can keep a secret. To be honest neither secret is desperately painful, but the two prospective partners are kept dancing around each other in an amusing way.The cover is boring (so similar to so many others), but though it's fluffy, some of the dialogue carries the story well.
The sixth adventure for Camden’s mage-on-the-edge. Alex Verus is horribly aware that his old master, dark mage Richard Drakh, has returned. He and his group of friends (Anne, Luna and Variam) have been working under cover for Talisid to try and expose Richard’s plans, but they haven’t made much headway. There’s a lot of mage-politicking going on in this book. The Council (light mages) don’t trust Alex, so he’s stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place, To protect himself and his crew Alex volunteers his services to Caldera and the Keepers (who police magicians) but soon finds out that even the simplest of investigations can go south in a heartbeat. What seems to be a routine enquiry is connected to a larger enquiry… and it all leads back to Richard Drakh (though he stays completely veiled in this book, but the potential threat is ever present). This is a good addition to the series. The tension is ramping up. Alex has choices, but no good ones. Does he choose ‘bad’ or ‘worse’? I’ve already got the next one in the series loaded up on my Kindle.
