Toby Daye, Changeling detective and guardian of lost children is in trouble again -- must be a day that ends in a Y.
This time, it's an uneasy ally wh...moreToby Daye, Changeling detective and guardian of lost children is in trouble again -- must be a day that ends in a Y.
This time, it's an uneasy ally who needs her help -- a dalliance almost twenty years ago has produced a changeling child he only just found out about -- and now she's gone missing.
It's the type of case that Toby can't possibly pass up, because it's just not in her to turn her back on a child in danger. Besides, it'll take her mind off the grieving she's been doing.
The usual Toby circle is back: The Luidaeg, May, Jasmine, Danny, Quentin and Raj, the staff from A Local Habitation, Sylvester and Luna, and of course the King of Cats, Tybalt. And they are joined by a few new faces as well.
The story wends its bloody way from San Francisco to Faerie and back again, Toby bleeding and getting in over her head, out again with the help of her friends.
And as is normal operating procedure for Seanan McGuire, the story is carefully threaded with emotion. There are places a reader may find herself crying, laughing, screaming, or wanting to reach into the book and slap the fool out (or sense into) Toby or other characters.
Seanan McGuire, writing in whatever guise, has a gift for writing characters that winnow their way into a reader's heart so throughly that their pains...moreSeanan McGuire, writing in whatever guise, has a gift for writing characters that winnow their way into a reader's heart so throughly that their pains are shared by the reader.
it is twingingly painful when we first meet Liz and discover why she's a cousin. that twinge only becomes worse as it is repeated, even as Liz meets again and again with odd, mysterious cousin Annie. The pain is gaspingly sharp as Liz finally gets her heart's desire, not understanding the price she will pay for this choice. and sharper still as she learns secrets and truths.
This story should be read before One Salt Sea as events in this story will have resonance in the novel.(less)
The book is written with a nod to its brethren in the Newsflesh series: Mahir Gowda, head Newsie of After the End Times has managed to get an exclusiv...moreThe book is written with a nod to its brethren in the Newsflesh series: Mahir Gowda, head Newsie of After the End Times has managed to get an exclusive interview with a survivor of the Kellis-Amberlee outbreak that happened on Preview Night of the San Diego Comic Con 2014. While this book is set in the same 'verse as Feed, Deadline, and Blackout, one does not necessarily have to be familiar with the main three books in this series to enjoy this one.
That I read the novel right after San Diego makes it that much more fiendishly chilling a read. I want to hug every Browncoat and Webcomicker I know because I know several who attend that Con every year, and that makes the read much more vivid; makes it hit that much closer to home.
As usual, Grant (who is better known as Seanan McGuire, author of the October "Toby" Daye series of faerie urban fantasy) writes with the sort of spin that makes a reader care about the characters. Even the dog gets written so you know her personality and care about her as an individual.
While this story, taking place in one of the most Genre Savvy places on earth, means it's full of tropes, a lot of the ones a reader expects to see in a story like this are absent. There's no obnoxious obstructionist who you look forward to seeing get his when it all hits the fan -- it's just a bunch of strangers, thrown together, who are struggling against an adversity they never dreamed they'd face. It's just a bunch of people with regular people motivations, who were looking to geek out for a weekend but had to try to survive.
Mira Grant is One Of Us. She's a geek through and through, proud of every drop of her geek blood. And it shows by the loving touches she applies to certain things in the story.
So yes, she hits it out of the park again. And if you're a fan of San Diego Comic Con and particularly Firefly? It's going to really hit you where you live. (less)
Joe Ledger, his dog Ghost, and the Echo team are back!
The Seven Kings have been shut down, but there is no rest for the wicked, evil never sleeps, pi...moreJoe Ledger, his dog Ghost, and the Echo team are back!
The Seven Kings have been shut down, but there is no rest for the wicked, evil never sleeps, pick your cliche. Either way, Echo Team is sent to Iran on a mission of mercy -- to rescue three college age hikers who were captured and imprisoned as spies.
Joe is the only one who doesn't make it to a pick up point as planned. And when he stops for coffee en route to his safe house, he is accosted by an Iranian political figure who offers him data on where he might find six nuclear devices -- at least one of which might be on American soil! The chase is on, as Ledger seeks to find the devices, only to stumble on a much nastier truth about the whole convoluted case. Before his day is done, he'll discover a history involving a lifetime conspiracy between Islam and Christianity, and that an old enemy is stirring the pot just for his own amusement.
Mr. Maberry threw me with the Warbride codename. A TEK reference? Really? And Ledger's sense of humor is as inappropriate as always. I was tired of the Armani-- joke before Ledger even got a laugh out of it.
Interesting to see the way certain characters from previous books are still affecting events in this one.
Also nice to see Ghost again, and to see that a new love interest for Ledger has come up.
Of course, of Echo Team, Top and Bunny still are going strong, though the rest of the team unfortunately spins in and out as members are wounded or killed.
Mr. Church is his usual cryptic self. Aunt Sallie is her usual abrasive self, and since Mr. Maberry described her as a dead ringer for Whoopi Goldberg, I have heard her clearly in that voice (though I think it a little lazy writerwise to describe someone as looking just like a celebrity, and I notice it happens most with Mr. Maberry's PoC characters).
And support staff, Bug, Circe, and Rudy continue to make a nice backup for the hero and his team.(less)
Full Disclosure: The author is a longtime personal friend.
Some families have a family business the whole family enthusiastically participates in. And...moreFull Disclosure: The author is a longtime personal friend.
Some families have a family business the whole family enthusiastically participates in. And then there's the Price family. They're such a family, only their family business is cryptozoology -- the study of cryptids -- or, as a cousin puts it "creatures that were not present on the Ark."
Verity is one of the family's youngest generation and she'd really prefer not to follow in the footsteps of her parents. All she wants to do is dance. Ballroom dance, specifically.
So after making something of a name for herself (an assumed name because her family is hunted by a branch of the Church called the Covenant of St. George, which hunts and kills cryptids rather than studying them), she is in New York for a year trying to prove she can make it in the professional dance world -- or giving up and going home to join the family business.
Our heroine is very quirky.
Because she still has to keep track of the city's cryptid population, she has to take a night job -- which means working as a waitress in a sleazy strip club run by a local cryptid.
Then things get worse. One of those Covenant members arrives in New York to audit the city for a purge -- which would mean the Church would use its great resources for a large-scale cryptid hunt. They don't hit it off well when they meet, which is a pretty common trope in the urban fantasy genre. So expecting their friction to lead to attraction is pretty predictable.
What adds spice and interest is the fact that the family is hated by the Covenant because they have more than once seduced a Covenant member to quit and change sides. Will Dominic do the same for Verity's charms? Only time will tell, but Verity's hormones encourage her to show him that the Church's viewpoint is not as cut-and-dried as Dominic was raised to believe.
The story is lively in pace, hilarious and quirky in narrative. As usual, the worldbuilding is mostly impeccable. The Aeslin Mice are completely endearing, and the cryptid community -- regardless of whether they love, hate or are indifferent to Verity -- are all separate personalities, and they come from diverse parts of the world and appear as different races. A rare thing in the usuall all-white world of Urban Fantasy.
Its main weakness is that although this story is supposed to take place in New York, we don't see much of it. McGuire explains it as Verity hates mass transit and taxicabs, so parkours her way around when alone, so there's very little of the flavor of the city to go along with the story.
And Verity tends to act without thinking, which is often against her training and sometimes against common sense -- but she is young, and that's part of the reason she's here for a year. She goes into the sewers looking for clues, dressed only in a pair of track shoes and a regular outfit. Ok, and the knives and the guns.
But still, despite the tropes and their only somewhat predictable outcomes, this is a fun story that I greatly enjoyed. (less)
It's only the first 7 Chapters, but that is enough for me to recollect the movie fondly.
The thing I like best is that aside from being true to the fil...moreIt's only the first 7 Chapters, but that is enough for me to recollect the movie fondly.
The thing I like best is that aside from being true to the film, it fills in a tiny bit more. Salma actually gets more lines.(less)
Dez Fox and her partner JT Hammond are police officers in the town of Stebbins in the county of the same name.
Dez is damaged goods, as the saying goes -- so messed up by the one after the other deaths of her parents in close succession during her childhood -- that she has grown up to be an Angry Young Woman, numbing her pain with alcohol and unwilling to risk being abandoned again. So much so that she cultivated being an unlikable hardcase who pushed away everyone. Including Billy Trout, the man who loved her enough to put up with the abuse she heaped on him, and the fact that she kept him at arms' length.
Dez is the hero of this book, and the abandonment issues are supposed to make you sympathetic to her, but Maberry did such a good job of making her unlikable that it was very hard to root for her. She has little to no respect for anybody, even knowing it's her abandonment issues making her keep other people at a distance so they can't get close then abandon her again. What finally got me to like her was the fact that she -- rather like Batman -- didn't want another child to feel abandoned again, so she risked everything to save the children she could when the chips were down.
That said, I liked JT a lot. The fatherly guy with the resemblance to Samuel L. Jackson, who wouldn't let Dez get away with mouthing off to him.
I was very surprised to like Billy Trout -- Dez's on-again-off-again boyfriend. Who wanted to marry her until he found her in the arms of another man (mainly because it was a good way to drive Billy off and then claim he abandoned her too).
I very much liked Goat and could see David Krumholtz playing the part. He talked a good skirt-chasing game but was pretty decent underneath it all, despite his auteur tendencies.
Aunt Selma, for all that she was a retired madam was a shadow of her glory days and more tragic for several reasons.
The whole story though, was built on the linchpin of Homer Gibbons.
Gibbons was a serial killer, and after multiple trials had found him guilty in the Death Penalty state of PA, been given a lethal injection.
Unfortunately, there was a mad scientist who was the prison doctor, who wanted Gibbons to suffer for what he'd done, and injected him with something extra. And that caused the zombie plague.
This left a very obvious direction for the story to go, and after all the relationship drama, the POV of Gibbons' first victim, the tragedy of Selma realizing maybe Gibbons wouldn't have turned out the way he did if she'd taken him in -- that's the direction he chose to take the story, and to theoretically end it on a cliffhanger.
Considering the Joe Ledger books, I was a touch disappointed.
But make no mistake, the book was a page turner. Maberry writes compelling characters. You want to know what happens, even if you don't like them. (less)
**spoiler alert** There were several things, mostly external, that kept me from diving in headfirst and completely immersing myself in the thirteenth...more**spoiler alert** There were several things, mostly external, that kept me from diving in headfirst and completely immersing myself in the thirteenth Dresden Files novel.
Firstly? It is book 13 of 20; so the "gee whiz, jeepers, gosh! How's our hero gonna make it out of this one" urgency is absent for me. It just is. With six books to go, it is simply a foregone conclusion that either Harry comes out on top again (for certain values of on top), or the series timehops and the last six books are about things that happened to Harry's dad...or about Harry's other living relative. For me, that distanced me from the action some, as I don't think Butcher wants to be that cheap of a writer, nor to have legions of wrathful fans seriously considering Miserying him. I spent most of the book looking for things i knew had to be there to keep Harry intact until the end of the book and his inevitable restoration [who said all gunshot wounds were fatal?], and waiting to see which of his supporting cast would show up when.
Second, due to recent criticisms of the author, i found myself reading with a less avid fangirl eye, and more of a critical one. He relies heavily on pop culture references. Harrys speech patterns are fairly rigid, and his descriptions vary between "far too little detail" and "almost too much." A firmer editor could even that out a little, though some of it is genuinely that Mr. Butcher is telling these stories first person, and that means we are subjected only to what the character would share with his audience. Makes for a frustrating read when we know Harry is capable of giving the reader more detail, but for whatever reason Harry feels more like wisecracking and making pop culture references and gross jokes.
Lastly and most uncomfortably conflicted reason preventing full immersion? Charges of racism and sexism against the author. I'm of the mind that while some racist element may be present, it is not intentional.
The problematic word "spook" for example. Never once is it used in a context that would imply its definition as a derogatory to describe people of color was intended. The other meanings of the word, "ghost" or "dangerous spy type" are the only usages in the book. That said, those usages are appropriate as applied to the genre of Film Noir meets Fantasy around which these books have been constructed.
Listens to Wind aka "Injun Joe" is a passing mention by Harry in this book, and i have never been certain whether the Native American character allowed the nickname ironically, or given the longevity of wizardkind, he was intended to dawn upon the reader as the inspiration for the Twain character. One cannot be certain in stories where the world is so much like the real one, but different in subtly powerful ways.
Carlos Ramirez also gets a passing mention. Martha Washington does not, this time. Both are characters of color and among the most powerful allies Dresden has.
There is one scene in the book wherein Harry goes into gang territory, and briefly reflects on the colors worn on one's body and one's skin. The impression i came away with was that Harry wasnt happy about racial tensions in the area, but could not dwell on them due to his current situation and the danger to his friends and to Chicago.
I do notice though, that Mr. Butcher has sprinkled people of color as background characters. Fitz' gang seemed multiethnic to me, though Fitz was the only one who got much real description. Mr. Butcher is also careful not to populate his bad guys and mooks with people of color.
So my original thoughts remain. The Wizard has other stuff on his mind and race is pretty much backburnered as a mortal issue when big supernatural games are being played on the field of Chicago. So the writer writes him that way.
Just as, while a bit classless, the often romantically hapless Dresden tends to ogle women, often in the same breath as acknowledging them as formidable in other ways, up to and including being superior to him in hand to hand combat, firearms, politics, martial arts, and different schools of magic.
Harry's characterization remains typical. He is still the wisecracking smartass beanpole whose modus operandi is "smash first, think later...maybe."
Butcher spun the rest of magimundane Chicago on its ear, though, and that, for Harry and his friends is where the story finds its heart. We get to see Harry cope or fail to cope with being completely out of his element, in a sitch where his bash and smash stylistic was useless. We get to see him forced to take things slowly and more, we see him forced to think since his usual implements of violence are no longer viable. This results in a lot of him dwelling gloomily and ruminating morosely about his regrets and choices. We see him mourning for lost chances. But we also see Harry seeing how the world copes without him, and to his surprise what a difference his presence made. More than once i was reminded of "It's A Wonderful Life".
Getting Marcone and Gard out of town was a little contrived to me for a man as control freak as John... and given the villain chosen, I am not so sure he wouldve been a major factor anyway.
There were subtle clues that Harry lived...Mab's presence well toward summer. The pine needles. The weather changing as the story progressed...Some of Molly's reactions, lain like breadcrumbs, making no sense until the end.
We also get to see how some of the supernatural and mundane in the know coped -- both with Harry's death and the hole he left which the White Council didnt see fit to fill.
Murphy went all Dark Action Girl, to borrow a term. Bitter, angry, guilty and in denial, but still able to bridle those less noble emotions and use them to serve and protect, even without her badge. Probably losing it she couldve handled....just not losing it and her best friend and potential paramour on the same day.
Molly....a tragedy on multiple levels. Young and fragile, determined to prove her mettle, and doing so with heart, if not a lot of style or common sense. And her part in events...doubly painful! But we saw her grow tougher and stronger.
Always good to see Butters again...he and Lindquist, both self aware enough to know they werent really cut from hero cloth, but full of decency enough to step up when needed. Harry gained a new respect for both men...mortals he had written off as mostly out of their depth.
New characters: we got Fitz, potentially, and teenage Daniel Carpenter. We got Childs and some Vikings working for Marcone. Too soon to say how i feel about any of them, mostly. Daniel seems to be taking on the brash angry smash guy role now, which means we probably will see more of the new, thinky Harry.
Butcher also had a lot of fun writing the mindscapes. The fun side of thinking is imagining...and between Harrys memories, Bob's personality under Butters, and Molly's mindscape he got to take us readers on a wild ride which included a literal flight of fancy.
There are scant few cliffhangers to be had, but the ones there are are enough to make me wish the new book was weeks away rather than a year. What was the outcome of the battle of the Bobs?
The author also took care to close loops left hanging open by the last book. Mouse is accounted for, as is Maggie. We discover what became of Thomas.
If you have loved the Borderlands series since the beginning, then you know what I think.
If you haven't, and this is your first time across the border...moreIf you have loved the Borderlands series since the beginning, then you know what I think.
If you haven't, and this is your first time across the border?
Then you're lucky. You'll get to meet Wolfboy, Orient, and Farrel Din, and Screaming Lord Neville. And you'll get to meet the new faces who made their way to the crazy town between the Human world and the Realm where the Truebloods come from.
The stories vary from whimsical: Welcome to Bordertown to the romantic and heartbreaking A Tangle of Green Men, to silly yet still powerful vignettes like the songs from Steven Brust and Neil Gaiman.
The characters are so well written that one can identify with them even when one's experiences and orientation vary from that of the characters.
Seanan McGuire, writing as Mira Grant, has a gift for making you care about her characters -- even the ones in her short storie...moreShort. Sweet. Chilling.
Seanan McGuire, writing as Mira Grant, has a gift for making you care about her characters -- even the ones in her short stories.
Tight continuity is always a sticking point for me. Partly because I read so much I can lose threads between books if I don't get a chance to reread....moreTight continuity is always a sticking point for me. Partly because I read so much I can lose threads between books if I don't get a chance to reread. But Seanan McGuire's continuity is so tight you couldn't snag it on anything if you tried. The callbacks to her previous Toby novels:
Rosemary And Rue A Local Habitation An Artificial Night
are all there. People she's met. Friends old and new. Enemies old and new. Intricate little dances of politics, and even more intricate little dances of romance.
Add to that Toby grows in every story, someetimes in unexpected ways. And the noir flair of the hard-boiled, hardcase, hard-headed detective who won't stay down even when that's the smarter thing to do because people need her? And you have Late Eclipses, the fourth Toby Daye story, and the best one to date. In which an old enemy shows up to take revenge just for the Evulz.
McGuire has that awesome knack for pacing. The story gets going and moves at an interesting pace, each person fulfilling whatever role is appropriate. She even takes the plot breaker out of the story without it seeming contrived, forced, or cheesy, then brings the same character back when her presence is no longer fracturing to the plot. But best of all, her stories read like a roller coaster ride. The first 150-175 pages are the slow, rattling-creak, groaning grinding ride as the chain pulls the coaster up toward the top of the highest peak. Then you turn the page, there's only a page or two to catch your breath, and THEN IT IS ON!
You can only hold on for dear life, turning the pages with desperate speed, eyes dashing and flashing against the words, struggling to retain them all so as not to miss one of the many lush (and necessary) details in the excellent worldbuilding; all the while cursing yourself for not being able to read and turn the pages even faster because as wild as the ride is getting, you just can't put the book down and you have to see how it turns out. How is Toby gonna get out of this one? How is Toby gonna defeat the big bad? How is Toby gonna survive it all?
And add to that, the love triangle continues to twirl back and forth between her two rival would-be paramours. I know who I've picked, but it's a gifted writer who can make me go "awwww," even when the one I don't want to see as the one she chooses does something moopy and sweet for Toby. I now undestand the Twi-hards "Team Edward!" "Team Jacob!" stuff.
And it's a gifted writer who can take me from raging at characters for their idiotic, emotional, misguided wrath to crying for them as they finally have had enough time and growth to realize their wrath was idiotic and misguided.
Cheering and crying at 4 am with a respiratory infection is not recommended, so hope you're healthy when you sit down to read this one.
I am always gentler on first outings, and this is a first outing.
The two main complaints I have about the book?
Could've used a bit more firm editing...moreI am always gentler on first outings, and this is a first outing.
The two main complaints I have about the book?
Could've used a bit more firm editing hand for simple things. As mentioned in the status updates, the toilet tank is not a gross, nasty thing. The water in the tank goes into the bowl, and the bowl is where all the waste goes. Small detail, but jarring.
A little firmer editing hand for the narrative. Not the first person present tense. I'm used to first person narrative by now even if it has yet to be something I prefer; and the present tense is a bold choice. But the constant descriptions of Vera's bangs, Vera's curls, Vera's wiggle dresses, Vera's heels -- they grated a little because of how often they turned up.
The rest of my feelings on the book are all glowing praise.
Ms. Matarese takes superhero tropes, turns them sideways, upside-down, and inside out. Then she adds a dash of pop culture references, a clever pun or two, and mixes well with interesting characters on the ordinary and extraordinary side of the supheroes-and-normals divide.
I admit to having started out being disappointed because I thought Heroine Addiction was a book about superheroes. It's really not. It's really a book about a young woman deciding she is who she is, and she is who she wants to be. It's really a book about relationships, love, family, dysfunctional relationships, and friends. It just happens to take place in a world where there are superheroes.
The superhero tropes take the typical Love Triangle trope and tweak it hard. Then the fact that the other person in the triangle is same sex also tweaks the trope harder still. And the options that can be taken for handling one's disapproval of another person's lifestyle are of course wider in a world full of superhumans and superheroics.
Vera is funny and sarcastic, and despite the constant harping on her hair and sense of style, very sympathetic.
Hazel is somebody who is tough on the outside, soft on the inside.
Travis is hilarious, cowboy swagger covering a sharp mind and a sweet spirit.
Troy is oddly charming, despite how pathetic he is, all spindly and awkward, dropping pens and scribbling in his notebooks.u
Morris is charming, and I really, really wish we'd gotten to know more about him. We get hints: he's kind of Elfin, he wears a bowler, he's kind of snooty, and he's a genius that would make MacGyver look like he belongs in a Special Ed class.
Tea and Strumpets is a place I'd go to sit and eat, people watch and write.
Everett Noble is almost a mystery since we only get to hear what Vera tells us about him.
Ivy Noble is not hateable as I'd have expected her to be.
And the villain came as a surprise to me.
The diversity of race (there's a black coroner, a hijab-wearing Indian superheroine, and at least a couple Asian heroes) is marvelous, as is the diversity of lifestyle. It's handled respectfully and tastefully. Another bold choice is that Ms. Matarese does not shy away from the homophobic reactions of the people who are not on board.
So definitely worth a read, and I'd say I'd definitely love to see a little more in this 'verse again sometime soon.
Id have to give 44 a middle of the road. It wasnt bad, but it didnt live up to its full potential to be really good.
To the credit of the author and h...moreId have to give 44 a middle of the road. It wasnt bad, but it didnt live up to its full potential to be really good.
To the credit of the author and her proofreaders, there were far fewer spelling and grammatical errors in this book as compared to most of the other free ebooks i have read. That alone is a big plus.
It was an engaging enough read, but comes apart like wet tissue paper if you apply fridge logic to it. But on the other hand, it feels organic and real -- What seventeen year old girl, already burdened with recovery from an ice drowning and the resultant loss of her athletic abilities would also leap to tackle the mystery of why her best friends were all suddenly angry and hateful to her? So on the one hand: why didnt the heroine talk to her estranged friend? It wouldve given away the shock too soon. But on the other, Abby had amnesia, nightmares, and apparently prophetic dreams to contend with, as well as trying to get her grades back up, and dealing with people who thought her gifted or evil due to her near death experience.
We are told the story from the viewpoint of Abigail Craig, the aforementioned survivor of ice drowning. Sinclair did at least a good bit of research here and it shows. The post trauma symptoms, brain damage, loss of strength, amnesia, nightmares, and difficulty grasping her changed life are all pretty accurate, and did a good job building a gray, black and white world that paints a dreary visual when paired with the backdrop of Oregon in winter.
Abby and her best friend Jesse are the only two really developed characters in the story, though, and that's really a pity. I wouldve liked to have known more backstory about Abby's elder sister Kate, and how she came to date grubby, dirty (and quite possibly homeless) artist Matt. How could he bake muffins? Afford a cellphone if his art didnt sell and all he did was couch surf and panhandle for change?
I would have loved more detail on ambitious reporter Kate, determined to hit a big story and end up on CNN. It would have been interesting to see her struggle between her ambitions and her protective feelings toward her only remaining family.
Abby's doctors could have used some more development as well. How did the ER doc fall for Kate, and what made her turn from Matt to reciprocate. again, the organc justification explains it away. Abby can see it happening, but her sister wont talk about it and Abby has other things on her mind.
Still,as mentioned,the book was engaging enough a read, and the clues clever enough that I was caught by surprise by the pair of ending twists. That alone should give the book an extra half star, as predictability thwarting is always good.
Lastly, i liked the author choosing to build atmosphere with the music choices. Less so with the insider view of Bend; I felt like I needed Google maps open as i read to really grasp the casual familiarity of Abby's careless local namechecks.
Still, even though I am a good bit older than the targeted demographic, I was a voracious reader as a kid, and more meat on the bones of this story, and more substance to the subplots would only have made a better meal for the mind.(less)
**spoiler alert** Three and a half, more properly.
Let me begin with the things that irked me, then I can get on with the parts I liked.
Memak'tori was...more**spoiler alert** Three and a half, more properly.
Let me begin with the things that irked me, then I can get on with the parts I liked.
Memak'tori was made out to be way more significant than it really was. Bit of a red herring, I suppose.
Irksome: Mr. Henderson has a right fetish for the semicolon. Overused and really annoying; messed up my reading pace.
Irksome: The narration. For the first few chapters, there was this "If X had done/not done Y..." at the end of every chapters. I am grateful Mr. Henderson abandoned that after a while.
Irksome: Everybody in the book seemed to have the shoulder angels and devils, except it was more like shoulder personality-fragments a la Fairly Oddparents, each referring to themselves as "we" when speaking to the main psyche driving the character.
Irksome: The author tried to inject people of color into the book, and that is all well and good, but the only non-Caucasians he did inject were black (Dix the guard and Judith the HR woman), and he had them all speaking in a near-ebonics dialect...and they worked in the BROOKLYN MUSEUM. Dix made a comment about Piers being white, and Judith a comment about Piers being not black. Sigh. At least they weren't immediately killed or made criminals, I suppose.
Irksome: Bridget. Supposed to be smart and plucky. And she is. But not especially smart. Not as smart as the men. And not especially plucky. But omigod, could we get any more descriptions of how gorgeous and beautiful and pretty and attractive she is? And could Mr. Henderson describe her in any other way than "the redhead" or "Bridget"?
Seemed like about 100 pages in the middle were the author not being entirely certain where he wanted to go. Piers dealing with/stalling/mickeying the police/FBI. Bridget discovering the clucking gossip hens in HR, then making a delighted discovery about the dream stone. The old cop grieving his partner. The FBI guy and the Professor having a testosterone contest before the story finally got on with the plot. It was supposed to be cute, and some of it was; but it was also kinda tedious.
Piers tendency to speak like a 1950s Englishman, referring to his male compatriots as "Old man," etc, and then lapsing on purpose into a Brooklyn accent right out of an old movie.
Okay, onto the things I liked.
Piers Knight himself reminds me a little of the Doctor. (Doctor Who?) He has this tendency to play meek little milksop of an intellectual when he's really rather sharp. And I do so love the idea of a museum curator being a guy with magic abilities because of all the ancient artifacts he's come into contact with.
While Bridget wasn't necessarily as smart as the men, she was about as plucky as they were. There were moments when even the men had to struggle not to pass out or run from fear same as her. Nice evening out of the gender renderings, there.
I liked the little atmospheric tweaks, of good restaurants, and the Empire State Building, especially as it is a magic antenna.
I liked the cleverness of Major General Mark Harris and Martin Klein when faced with something they had no way to have been prepared for.
The author planted little things for the author to think about too.
Judith noted that every time they get a new employee, if she's female, they have a pool for how long it takes said woman to ask how old Piers is. At age 43, by the HR records, he doesn't look the part. My guess is that he's immortal, and has been doing the whole "I portray my own son/grandson/great grandson" schtick. Especially given how he keeps referring to himself as "the elderly", and his ability to switch accents and attitudes whenever possible.
It wasn't a perfect book, but it's a first book in a series, and it left enough going on for me to be curious what will happen next.
Way, way, way better than the first one. Worth reading for sure. Still could use a touch of a stronger hand from an editor, but the characterization i...moreWay, way, way better than the first one. Worth reading for sure. Still could use a touch of a stronger hand from an editor, but the characterization is stronger, the storytelling is stronger, and the funny and the pop culture references hold it all together nicely.
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