It's difficult to find a good supers book. I was in the mood for one, and looked at and discarded more than 30 before settling on this one. I'm glad IIt's difficult to find a good supers book. I was in the mood for one, and looked at and discarded more than 30 before settling on this one. I'm glad I picked it up; it was well done, with a bit of depth to the main character, and not too trope-ridden given the genre. The supers are not obvious knockoffs of Marvel or DC characters, and a bit of thought has gone into their powers.
It was also better edited than the average superhero novel, though sadly that's a very low bar to clear. An editor is credited; I'm sure she caught a lot (by the nature of editing, the audience never sees what the editor caught), but she missed a lot of omitted vocative commas (the "let's eat Grandma" error), some vocabulary issues (homonyms and mangled expressions), a couple of apostrophe glitches, and a few other assorted minor problems. It wouldn't be hard to clean up to a high standard.
The setting is a dark and gritty city filled with urban blight, corruption, and supervillain-organized crime, in which a group of technically illegal vigilantes known as the Guard try to protect the innocent as best they can. Led by the Batman-esque Raptor (who, unlike Batman, does have superpowers, but like Batman is grim and rigidly disciplined), they put their sidekicks/apprentices through a rigorous training regimen and impose strict rules on them, including keeping them isolated from the wider superhero community.
This is a problem when the senior members of the Guard are ambushed and killed, leaving the sidekicks out of their depth, not knowing how to access key resources or any assistance from other supers, and (thanks to the strict rules of their mentors) not really knowing, or in some cases liking, each other very well at all.
There's a strong theme throughout of the main character, who only has a low level of superpowers, having to choose between sensible safety and doing the right thing, and he goes back and forth between the two choices. His first-person narration is filled with self-deprecating banter inadequately covering over terror; he goes through some very traumatic events on his way to a rousing conclusion (that then has doubt cast on it as an effective setup for a sequel).
The other members of his team, apart from Butterfly, who can go into a robotlike mental state in which she can calculate odds and angles with extreme accuracy, don't get much development. Flare is mostly angry, Peregrine mostly a tool (though the rivalry between him and the narrator, Raven, does shift towards a shaky alliance in the course of the book), and Ballista mostly vulnerable; Butterfly gets an arc, in which she struggles with an issue similar to, but sufficiently different from, the safety versus heroism issue Raven faces. Her robotic mindset is a refuge from the fear and horror she's feeling, but it takes away from her humanity, so neither one is truly safe, and she needs both parts of herself in order to be an effective hero.
There's a sequel, which I will definitely read. It's a decent job of writing, with more emotional depth and subtlety than a lot of supers books, and I enjoyed it....more
Max is basically the epitome of why I hesitate to read books with male protagonists these days. He is an arrogant, ignorant, aimless slacker,Max is basically the epitome of why I hesitate to read books with male protagonists these days. He is an arrogant, ignorant, aimless slacker, completely oblivious to how his life is made easy for him by the work of people he despises (including his parents, whose role in the story consists entirely of their absence). The narrative voice manages to add more ignorance (of the complex role of religion in the development of society and technology; of the religious origin of names like "Veronica" - the AI in the non-religious utopia; of how you need a whole society, not just an intellectual elite, for anything to function), and contempt, notably for fat people, "stupid" people, and religious people - who are equated with stupid people. The descriptions of the space lesbians having amorous interludes are creepily enthusiastic. It's no wonder that he several times depicts people in service professions being rude to the protagonist because of how annoyingly ignorant and boorish he is; most of us have not had that experience, but I wouldn't be surprised if the author had.
Though most (not all) of the sentences are punctuated correctly, if one ignores the interrobangs, far too many of them have words accidentally left out; there is a profusion of dangling modifiers; and the author affects a high-flown vocabulary and several times stumbles over it. "Don", for example, means "put on clothing" (it was originally "do on"); it does not mean to wear clothing. It's used incorrectly four times and, oddly, correctly once. "Visage" means face, not sight. The prose has an unfortunate tendency in a purplish direction, overall, which eventually becomes wearing.
Part of the schtick, which is important early on but loses all relevance later, is that Max shifts universes when he falls asleep. But, as often happens in alternate-world novels, the most arbitrary things about his life, the things that are most likely to change - his very existence, his address, his cat, the identity of his girlfriend, his parents happening to be absent - are exactly the things that remain constant. Events even flow from universe to universe, so he breaks up with his girlfriend in one universe and in the next universe that was also something that happened, even though so much else has changed.
In the end, the multiverse shifting has absolutely no relevance to the plot whatsoever, except that it enables Max to get into space (in an advanced utopian version of the world that changed completely 20,000 years earlier and yet still somehow has Max in it). Space in an alternate universe is astonishingly like contemporary America, but with funnier-looking people and the usual whiz-bang technological furniture space adventures tend to share. It's lacking in imagination; it may be intended as part of the satire, but satire needs to be a bit more... satirical than this.
I promised myself that if the mediocre white guy ended up sleeping with the space lesbians essentially because he was the mediocre white guy, I would ding it another star, but happily that didn't happen. I should probably ding it half a star for the fact that he saved the day in the crucial moment when the otherwise competent women were helpless, and did so by pretending he was sleeping with the space lesbians and making them act like brainless bimbos. So it's two and a half stars, rounded up to three. But I will definitely not be reading another book in the series or another book by this author.
At a high level, this generally worked for me as a story, with exceptions that I'll talk about below. At the level of detailed execution, though, itAt a high level, this generally worked for me as a story, with exceptions that I'll talk about below. At the level of detailed execution, though, it has a lot of room for improvement, hence my three-star rating.
It also contained a lot more mayhem and death of innocents than I usually prefer, though it wasn't like I didn't know that going in.
I picked it up (on a BookBub promotion) in part because a couple of the Amazon reviewers specifically described it as "well edited". I'm afraid they were mistaken. Most (though not all) of the commas and apostrophes are in the right places, true, which puts it ahead of a lot of books, but it's rife with hyphens where no hyphen should be, words missed out of sentences, sentences mangled in revision, verbs not agreeing with their subjects, fumbled idioms, vocabulary errors (like confusions between straight and strait, taught and taut, loathe and loath, wretch and retch, belied and betrayed, synched and cinched, troupe and troop, gate and gait, internment and interment), and a long parade of dangling modifiers. I marked 220 issues (including some that weren't copy editing issues, which I'll discuss below), and I didn't mark every instance of some of them. Even considering that this is three books in one, that's still on the high end for books I review, which is why I've put it on my "seriously needs editing" shelf.
Apart from the copy editing, there were issues with anachronisms, continuity, and things I just didn't believe. There's a suspicious number of large windows for the glass technology of 1736-37, which is when the book is set; there's also a very minor female character called Aubrey, which was a name not used for girls until the 1970s (or for boys in the 18th century, for that matter), and a mention of adrenaline (discovered in the 1890s).
Other problems of background include a mention of a group of lords, "one a member of Parliament, no less". All British lords, properly so called, are members of the House of Lords, and none can be members of the House of Commons, so this is nonsense.
Early on, a woman supposedly freshly arrived from England appears to recognise hemlock trees, which are North American natives. This same woman (the viewpoint character and protagonist) has nothing remotely English about her; both she and her master, also supposedly from London, use the very American phrasing "off of" repeatedly, for example. I was never convinced of her Englishness in any way (and it would have worked just as well for the story if she'd arrived from some other American colony).
There are a few minor continuity problems, but the big one is that two characters set off on a dangerous journey to get a particular magical substance that is locked up in a specific place. However, by the time their journey ends, their purpose in making the journey has changed to enacting the magical ritual for which the substance is needed, and (without having visited the place one of them specifically said it was in) they appear to have had the substance with them all along.
That same journey also gave me some of the biggest examples of things I just didn't believe: a large man in his early 80s able to make it through a gruelling physical trial, and a woman in her late teens able to haul him around physically, including onto a horse. Given that there's magic, and it can do a very wide range of convenient things, they could have used spells to give themselves more strength and endurance (at the risk of injury or exhaustion later on), but they didn't.
There's also the idea that, along with everything else she was studying, plus all the work she did, Kate managed to learn German, a notoriously difficult language, well enough to read a random passage, in less than a year (along with, presumably, a number of other languages; the spells are mostly in languages other than English, and are quoted in full a bit more often than necessary). And, among all the death, that certain characters made their way through a highly dangerous area and didn't die. (A few of them had magical protection, but the soldiers and others with them didn't.)
And, of course, there's the staggering coincidence at the beginning, when someone who should have died somehow doesn't, and ends up meeting exactly the person who can help her, and who she can help, because without this meeting there is no story. It's a bit too obvious a hand of fate/God/the author.
I also didn't completely believe that Kate hid so much from her beloved master, or that she wouldn't prioritise repairing the witch wells above everything once she worked out what they were doing.
So, numerous issues. The heart of the story is sound, though, and what kept me reading through the many glitches was the protagonist, Kate: a determined, highly capable, brave, persevering young woman, though not without her faults. With better editing; more attention to detail, time period, and continuity; and a bit of reworking of the less believable parts, this could be a strong four stars....more
Apart from some scruffy copy editing and a few errors of fact and vocabulary (see my notes), the problem with this one is that it doesn't know what itApart from some scruffy copy editing and a few errors of fact and vocabulary (see my notes), the problem with this one is that it doesn't know what it wants to be.
Oh, it's a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, yes, and a better-than-average one. The parallels are clear, but not overdone. It's set in 1880s New York, not London, but with at least as strong a sense of place as the Conan Doyle stories (Conan Doyle himself appears as a minor offstage character). If anything, the fruits of the author's research are a bit too front and centre sometimes. But what frustrated me is that there's a constant back-and-forth on whether it's supernatural or not.
The narrator, a young woman who (in the inexplicable current fashion for urban fantasy) goes by what sounds like a man's name, is a skeptic, so she comes down on the side of "not supernatural". And most of what happens (not quite all) can be explained away. But then there's an excerpt from the next book at the end, and it seems pretty clear that that one is firmly on the "is supernatural" side.
It's a bit like watching a fan dance, and not (for me) in a good way. I was distracted from the mystery/adventure plot - which is a decent one - by the constant back and forth on whether or not I was also reading a psychic detective story.
So this is mixed, for me. Enjoyable enough, and sound enough at its centre, to keep its fourth star, though I thought about dropping one for the genre coyness and the various mistakes. I might, in the right mood, read the sequel, though it looks like it skews a bit far towards dark fantasy/horror for my usual taste. ...more
I took a long break from reading this to read something else, and only barely decided to come back and finish it.
The first few chapters areI took a long break from reading this to read something else, and only barely decided to come back and finish it.
The first few chapters are unpromising (hence the break and reluctant return). Far from being any kind of "fatechanger," as per the title, the main character, Penn, lacks much agency. She's thrown unexpectedly through time, in what at first seems like it's a contrived mechanism for the sake of the plot with no real explanation behind it (though later on it turns out that the explanation is... pretty much exactly what I thought it would be if there was an explanation). Once back in 1915, she takes, without much resistance, the first and seemingly only option open to her: she becomes a pickpocket in an Oliver-Twist-like gang of youths (disguised as a boy). She doesn't seem to suffer much in the way of moral angst about this, though we have been shown, prior to her trip through time, that she wasn't above a bit of stealing here and there.
Things pick up a bit once she manages to buy her way out of debt to the Fagin of the thieves (who runs a remarkably fair and unrigged system that allows her to do so), and instead chooses to be a newsboy - though she's not welcomed by the other newsboys, and has to prove herself again. She does this, as she did among the thieves, by being much better than them at what they do (and have been doing for a long time). Her foreknowledge of the significance of the newspaper headlines plays some role, but basically she's just that talented at selling newspapers, somewhat inexplicably given what else we see of her.
There's a marked dichotomy in Penn all the way through, in fact. On the one hand, she's helpless and lacking in options, stranded in another time without the medical treatment she needs for her heart condition, with no idea of even where to begin to look to find her way back to her own time. She has absolutely no knack of making friends, and gets herself resented by both groups she joins. On the other hand, she's incredibly good at everything she tries, ends up with a bunch of friends and allies despite herself, and eventually gets handed the way back without having had to work for it in any way (and without even attempting to do so).
This feels to me like double deprotagonization, both through lack of agency in the situation and also through being handed things she either doesn't earn or earns too easily through excessive natural ability. This, combined with some very basic, though not too frequent, copy editing issues, combined to lower my rating to three stars.
I received a review copy via Netgalley. I assume the errors I noticed are in the published version, since the publication date is in the past....more
It's an original premise, and had some promise as a story, but I couldn't persevere with a book so badly edited that it has "yolk" where the authorIt's an original premise, and had some promise as a story, but I couldn't persevere with a book so badly edited that it has "yolk" where the author means "yoke" (and a yoke is actually not something that would be used in the context either), and has the same name spelled two different ways in consecutive sentences....more
An odd mixture of classic stories - mostly darker than I prefer - and modern ones by authors I've never heard of, who (typically for steampunk) need aAn odd mixture of classic stories - mostly darker than I prefer - and modern ones by authors I've never heard of, who (typically for steampunk) need a lot more copy editing than they have received. One in particular constantly writes "where" for "were" and makes a number of other glaring errors. ...more
One of the key questions I ask myself when summing up a book is, "Would I read a sequel?"
It's telling, then, that with the sequel actually included inOne of the key questions I ask myself when summing up a book is, "Would I read a sequel?"
It's telling, then, that with the sequel actually included in the same volume - no effort or expense at all involved in getting it - my answer at the end of the first book is "no".
A bland and trite fantasy world. An unimaginative quest. Incompetent characters with not much depth to them, and three out of the four of them end up having exactly the same trauma (having killed someone). But what really puts me off is the language.
At first inconsistently, but later on most of the time, it's written in what I think of as Vancian prose: excessively ornate, and therefore distancing. People don't just say things; they "utter" and "voice". I don't enjoy that even when Jack Vance does it, and he at least does it competently. Few other people do, and these authors are not among those few. For example, they seem to think that "obviate" means "make obvious," which it certainly does not.
The prose therefore ends up as a clumsy disaster, like a clown in a crowded broom closet.
A better story, better characters, or a better setting might have tempted me to read on, but with all of those mediocre at best, the terrible prose was too much to wade through for a second volume....more
This book has several all-too-common problems, and so despite the fact that it was otherwise generally competent, I'm unlikely to read a sequel.
This book has several all-too-common problems, and so despite the fact that it was otherwise generally competent, I'm unlikely to read a sequel.
First, the problem of people who don't know much science trying to write science fiction. The justification for why someone is travelling around "tuning" atomic clocks is one of the most egregious bits of nonsensical technobabble (combined with mysticism) that I've seen. Also, the author speaks as if constellations are real astronomical groupings of stars physically close to one another, rather than imaginary groupings of stars that happen to be in the same part of Earth's sky (but are often physically far apart).
Then, some of the very common editing issues. It seems that a lot of authors these days don't understand how the past perfect tense works, and there are several dozen examples in this book where it should have been used instead of simple past, but wasn't. There are also occasional excess commas between non-coordinating adjectives (a very common error; the comma usage is otherwise good, and the apostrophes are all correct.) And there are some glaring dangling modifiers, and a few straight-out typos. It's far from the worst I've seen, certainly, but there are so many of them (especially the missing past perfect) that I was constantly brought up short and distracted from the story.
The story itself is OK; the beginning of an extremely slow-burn romance which, in this book, mostly consists of both attracted parties repeatedly noting to themselves the obstacles to acting on the attraction; and a half-hearted mystery plot with many suspects and no detective to speak of, which resolves itself abruptly. There are a couple of decent action sequences towards the end, and we're shown good-hearted characters who in at least some cases have a degree of depth and backstory. It's very far from terrible, but it's not outstanding either.
First book was good, though a bit inclined to tragic death for my taste. Second book, the originally highly principled characters are forced into oneFirst book was good, though a bit inclined to tragic death for my taste. Second book, the originally highly principled characters are forced into one moral compromise after another by (tragic) circumstances, and then start to lose their principles altogether and just give up. Which motivated me to give up on it too, 52% of the way through the boxed set.
Could do with another editing pass; mostly typing fumbles, dangling modifiers and vocabulary misuse. ...more
A promising start to a series which advertises itself as "Victorian urban fantasy"; it's not that steampunky, though there is a steam-poweredA promising start to a series which advertises itself as "Victorian urban fantasy"; it's not that steampunky, though there is a steam-powered motorcycle, but if you love steampunk this may also appeal to you.
The characters are vivid and individual enough that I didn't feel I'd read it all before. The editing, while certainly not flawless, is mostly decent.
There is one trope that I particularly dislike in this type of book (PNR, urban fantasy, steampunk, or period adventure romance, take your pick): the heroine gets captured by the villain and has to be rescued by the hero. That trope occurs here, but it's subverted just enough that the authors (for me) get away with it; for one thing, she wasn't captured because she did something idiotic, and she remains as effectual as one reasonably could while in that situation.
While there are hints of romance, there's nothing overt yet, so I imagine there'll be a relatively slow burn through the rest of the series, and while that's a visible thread, it isn't front and centre. The A plot is definitely thwarting the plans of the villain and defeating the werewolves, and it's done with a combination of good fight scenes, clever magic, bravery, and determination on the part of the characters. The main characters change and develop, and in general it's a well-crafted book.
The next one is a bit expensive for my blood, so I will put it on my Await Ebook Price Drop wishlist and wait. They're good, but they're not so amazing I'll pay twice what I usually do. ...more
So many, many coordinate commas that don't belong (and more than a few typos, vocabulary stumbles, and other punctuation errors).
So much suffering.
So many, many coordinate commas that don't belong (and more than a few typos, vocabulary stumbles, and other punctuation errors).
For both of the above reasons, I enjoyed this less than the first book in the series. It's still good - we still have a motivated protagonist in a dynamic situation, with plenty of skill, determination, and a strong desire to contain a powerful threat to innocents. Amra is a great character, and I'd watch her do her laundry, let alone take on dysfunctional gods and monsters.
I'll perhaps be a little slower to pick up book 3, though, given the amount of torture the author puts her through in this one. Certainly I want to see a character struggle, but as a matter of personal taste, I don't want to see her suffer for suffering's sake, or just to demonstrate how very dark the world is....more
A classic sword-and-sorcery tale of thieves and wizards, but with a touch more idealism than the sometimes nihilist genre often displays. The titularA classic sword-and-sorcery tale of thieves and wizards, but with a touch more idealism than the sometimes nihilist genre often displays. The titular thief, despite a disadvantaged background, a hard life, and a generally pragmatic outlook, manages to hold onto some principles; she doesn't kill unless she absolutely has to (and only those who really deserve it), she doesn't steal from anyone who has less than her, friendship means a lot to her, and she never gives up.
I have had this sitting on my Kindle for a long time, put off by the starting premise: the main character's friend is horribly murdered. When I got past that, though, the book presented me with a motivated character in a dynamic situation - a well-realised character who I could admire, despite her criminality - and that swept me all the way to the end.
I jounced over some typos on the way, but they weren't enough to dent my enjoyment much. I almost immediately picked up the sequel....more
I picked this up primarily because of one of the authors, D.K. Mok, with whom I was in another anthology a couple of years back. I enjoyed her storyI picked this up primarily because of one of the authors, D.K. Mok, with whom I was in another anthology a couple of years back. I enjoyed her story in that collection, and also her novel, and expected that I'd enjoy this (which I did). Two of the other contributors are members of a writers' forum I participate in.
Like most anthologies, it turned out to be a mixed bag, though I liked most of the stories. The stories show a strong editorial hand in their selection, mostly being quite similar in tone and feel, though diverse in other respects.
I could wish that the copy editing had been as strong. Letters in the desert are referred to as "an acre tall'; an acre is a measure of area, not length. There are hyphens where they don't belong, and some missing where they do belong. There are common homonym errors (loathe/loath, horde/hoard, discrete/discreet) and a couple of less common ones (tulle for tuille, perspective for prospect). One author doesn't know how to use apostrophes with plural nouns (or, really, at all), and isn't corrected. And there are the usual common errors of unrequired coordinate commas, missing vocative commas, missing past perfect tense, and "may" instead of "might" in past tense narration scattered across various stories. Some are very good, others quite bad, depending on the skill of the author. (I should point out that I've seen the exact same issue in high-profile, professionally edited anthologies featuring award-winning authors.)
A character has "a plain face, but a handsome one"; which is it? Another character is given the wrong name. A band puts out a CD, many years in the future. There are several cases in which the amount of energy available from alternative sources, or storeable in a small space, is off by orders of magnitude, or gives the impression of being a perpetual motion machine.
So, plenty of issues with the editing, and some with the science. What about the stories?
On the whole, the stories don't have a lot of plot to them, in part because so much space is given to exposition. It's a difficult problem to avoid, given the premise; it plagued better-known writers than these in the anthology Hieroglyph, which also failed (as this one, mostly, does not) to be consistently upbeat in its vision of the future, despite stating that as a specific goal.
These are mostly what I think of as "worthy" stories, good-hearted attempts to envisage positive societies. This can mean that they're lacking in tension sometimes. One in particular, "Amber Waves," seems to set out to take away any tension inherent in the premise; every possible threat (and there are several significant ones) is quickly minimized, and the most disastrous of all turns out to be just what the characters needed. It was the least successful of the stories for me, as a result, lacking both tension and plot despite having the materials for both in ample supply.
Several of the pieces, being more explorations of ideas than plotted stories, use romance (or romantic elements) to provide some shape and a feeling of completion. This isn't a bad ploy; the romance plot is probably the best known plot in the world, so much so that, as with a familiar fairy story, you can reference a couple of elements of it and have the audience fill in the rest for themselves. Sometimes the romance is sweet and positive, as with "Under the Northern Lights"; sometimes, though, men are a problem, most notably in "Camping with City Boy".
The second-best-known plot is the mystery, and there's one of those, too: "Grover: Case #CO9 920, 'The Most Dangerous Blend'". As mysteries go, it's OK, neither not the most plausible nor, sadly, the least plausible I've read in terms of the killer's motivation.
There are a couple of heistish stories, as well, like "Riot of the Wind and Sun," in which a small desert town strives to attract enough attention to itself to gain much-needed resources, and (unsurprisingly) "Midsummer Night's Heist," about, and also by, an Italian subversive art collective which foils fascists.
A theme of many of the stories is a future with constrained resources, having to simplify lifestyles, do without, improvise, find ways around shortages and lacks. Often, this involves smaller, more loosely connected communities doing their best to get along. Several pieces deal with the kind of conflicts that small communities with constrained resources must face; "Watch Out, Red Crusher!" shows us a community that's ultimately unable to deal positively with deviance, which disappointed me, while both "Women of White Water" and "The Call of the Wold" show us older women offering their conflict-resolution and problem-solving skills to isolated groups of people. There's a nice phrase in the latter story: "The mantle of leadership was XXL and he was an extra-small".
Overall, though, this collection shows us a humanity that can step up to face its many problems, which I find commendable. While often short on plot, and needing better copy editing in places, the stories were mostly both enjoyable and thought-provoking for me....more
Genuinely funny, in a bumbling British loser-who-knows-he's-a-loser kind of way. Content warning for plenty of contextual swearing.
Scruffy around theGenuinely funny, in a bumbling British loser-who-knows-he's-a-loser kind of way. Content warning for plenty of contextual swearing.
Scruffy around the edges as far as editing is concerned; the commas, hyphens, and especially apostrophes need a good tune-up, but I only spotted one homonym error (birth/berth).
This is urban fantasy with a strong British flavour, a high body count (to which the protagonist is not indifferent), and an action-packed plot. It uses the old amnesia trope, but does a decent job with it.
Part of a series which in turn is part of a larger world; I would read another if I was in the right mood. ...more
Let's be clear upfront: this is not a book that intends to be taken seriously. It's fluff. It's cotton candy: bright pink (nothing wrong with that), sweet, insubstantial, and not intended to satiate. It's written quickly to be read quickly, and it needs a good proofread (which I doubt it will ever get), not least to sort out the horrible mess that the author has made with missing and misplaced quotation marks. It's full of cliches, down to and including the first-person narrator checking out her reflection, and getting the Power just when she needs it at a moment of crisis. Fortunate coincidences abound on every side. The heroine gets handed basically everything she wants, with little or no effort to earn it.
It is, in short, a wish-fulfilment fantasy - or perhaps we should say a witch-fulfilment fantasy.
And this, in itself, tells me a lot. More of that after this brief summary.
The heroine is a self-described "basic white girl". Her backstory is: Family all deceased, series of jobs she hates, series of failed relationships, lots of student debt. She is explicitly extremely ordinary and completely undistinguished.
As the story begins, she has fortunately inherited a New Age shop from a relative she didn't know she had, but is losing customers because she's not New Agey enough for their expectations.
By another stroke of luck or fate, she stumbles through a portal into a world where she's quite possibly the Chosen One, but definitely a powerful (if completely untrained) witch. This portal opens every seven years, very few people pass through, and there's no TV on the other side, but somehow slang and fashion are right up to the minute (in other words, there's no attempt at thinking through the extremely light worldbuilding).
Everyone (with one significant exception) wants to be nice to her. Just for showing up, she's set up with a profitable business, a place to live (which she gets to redecorate), a new wardrobe, magic high heels that don't hurt or cause her to trip, a magic handbag that isn't heavy no matter what she puts in it, a makeover, and a new instant best friend (a fairy princess who, despite her outgoing nature, doesn't appear to have any existing friends to complicate matters); she's also surrounded by a plethora of hot single men. Also, her cat can talk to her now, and will live as long as she does. I have to admit I'd like that one myself.
See what I mean about wish fulfillment?
There's one complication: when she stumbled through the portal, she fell over a dead body, and she's a suspect in the murder. But only one person seriously suspects her. Sure, he's the local cop, but everyone knows he's an idiot, and they don't take much notice of him. It does, however, mean that she wants to clear her name by finding the actual murderer, something the cop is probably not capable of doing.
I thought about flagging some of what follows with spoiler tags, but to be honest, if anything in this book surprises you you probably aren't old enough to be reading it.
Any serious attempt to solve the mystery takes a back seat for a long time to being heaped with various kinds of gifts, which the heroine "deserves" after "all she's been through". When we do at last return to the mystery-solving in earnest, the heroine comes up with a plan which, while not exactly bad, is as transparent as a well-washed window, and is intended to get her suspect (the only person who hasn't been nice to her) out of the way so that she can search for clues. "It will be as easy as pie!" she says, then, "Spoiler alert: It was not as easy as pie."
Well, actually, spoiler alert, it was. Sure, her initial attempt to search the premises was thwarted, but she then (in a strong echo of how she came through the portal in the first place) discovers by pure luck an alternative way in, which also explains how the crime was committed, and she's able to find clear evidence almost immediately. Plus the suspect, who's crazy but not a complete idiot, has seen through the well-washed window and comes back and confesses. So as far as a mystery plot goes, it's more of a gesture in the direction of one than it is actually one.
As a wish-fulfillment fantasy, though, it's remarkably comprehensive, and that's what I found interesting.
Leaving aside the magical parts, apparently the dreams of a 30-something basic white girl include being given a lot of nice stuff that makes her life comfortable and enjoyable, but which she doesn't really have to work for (because she deserves it); having a fun friend to go out with and lots of attractive men to talk about with said friend; and... here's the significant bit... having a man around who she's sexually attracted to, but who will stay with her, protect her, provide emotional support for her, sleep in the same bed with his arm around her, and will not push her to have sex (because it's against his principles). This is in distinct contrast with a male wish-fulfillment fantasy I started to read a while back; it just assumed that the attractive woman would naturally have sex with the hero. That's only one of the reasons I didn't finish it. There is a man in this book who thinks that way; he's literally a wolf (at least part of the time), and is depicted as a disgusting creeper. I'd say "Men, take note," but any men who are reading a review of a book like this have probably already figured that one out.
I'm in two minds about the whole lack of effort and struggle for the main character. On the one hand, by most rules of writing, this is bad writing and should be boring, but then, most rules of writing are laid down by men. Is it a bug, or - given that this is, after all, a wish-fulfillment fantasy - a feature? What tips me in the direction of "feature" is the thought that many people in general, and women in particular, are experiencing life in the United States at the moment as an unavailing and never-ending struggle, so the very lack of struggle is part of the wish-fulfillment fantasy.
I'm still marking it down to three stars, mind you. It's so utterly expected, so full of cliches, so clearly dashed off quickly to serve a market - in short, so basic - that, in my mind, it doesn't earn four stars, even though it's enjoyable enough for what it is. But it doesn't need to be a great book to give a degree of insight into the concerns of its target audience, and that is what I mostly gained from it....more
It wasn't until I looked this up on Goodreads, partway through reading it, that I realized it had originally come out in the 1980s and had beenIt wasn't until I looked this up on Goodreads, partway through reading it, that I realized it had originally come out in the 1980s and had been reissued as an ebook. That made sense of the fact that there were weird glitches in some of the word spacing, while the overall copy editing (apart from the fairly common confusion of "discrete" with "discreet") was good, better than the cover would have led me to expect.
The story itself is well done, too. It's reminiscent of Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, and somewhat of Jack Vance, mainly because of the precise diction of some of the characters, though fortunately they are not the alienated, amoral bastards that Vance writes. Instead, they are "vaguely disreputable" (the sobriquet of one of them), but mostly striving to do the right thing, even if they're not always completely sure what that is. One of them spends a couple of paragraphs musing about it. Lovable rogues, in other words, or at least laudable rogues. Chaotic good, if you want to talk D&D alignments.
There are three main characters, one of them (for narrative reasons which eventually become clear) a first-person narrator, and the other two observed in omniscient third person. The first is a noir-style detective, and the other two are a doctor (among other things) and a wizard whose life goal is to understand magic enough to undermine the gods. They start out separate and eventually come together; this is a difficult approach to pull off, because it risks the reader being jerked out of one story just as they're getting invested and dumped into another story that they don't yet care about. The author, for my money, manages it well.
There are moments of wry humour, moments of high drama, and a good deal (perhaps in places a touch too much) of the magical equivalent of technobabble. Lots of things go boom and crash; there's quite a body count, though mostly in the background, and the characters register it as regrettable rather than just dismissing it as the way life is. It's capably done, and I enjoyed it.
I'd read the rest of the series, if they were priced a bit more attractively. ...more
The setting of this book is neither dystopian nor purely utopian, but it is a worthy world: one in which people are generally well-intentioned andThe setting of this book is neither dystopian nor purely utopian, but it is a worthy world: one in which people are generally well-intentioned and helpful, where almost everyone unequivocally condemns violence, where the whole society is built around working at honest trades. There's no ruling class, as such; the guildmasters fill that role, and they rise in their trades rather than being hereditary rulers. Everyone belongs to a guild - not necessarily their parents' guild; though that's often the case, anyone can apprentice to almost any trade that appeals to them.
One of those guilds is the Wizards' Guild, although in D&D terms they're not wizards, but clerics, empowered by the divine Mother. They can heal, open "windows" which allow them to see through time and space within limits (and hence establish the truth of disputed events in court, like having universal CCTV), and move objects with a form of telekinesis. They are unique in being specifically called to their guild by the Mother, rather than choosing it. And each one has a familiar, an animal they must work with and without whom they have no power, in order to keep them humble.
Built upon this background is a well-told, compelling story of a young apprentice fuller who, through his poorly-thought-through typically-early-teenage actions, ends up as an assistant to a journeyman wizard. As the wizard travels round the country districts on a circuit in order to qualify as a master, they encounter bandits and other people who are not fully aligned with the worthy society, as well as natural disasters and other major challenges. In the process, the journeyman's faith is tested, the apprentice learns a lot (including by making significant mistakes, because his good heart and sense of adventure aren't yet sufficiently tempered by wisdom), and important things change for the society as a whole, setting up for the next book to be quite different. Though the society is worthy and most of the characters good-hearted, there's no lack of conflict or challenge here.
While there were a good many apostrophe glitches and a few typos, this is otherwise well-edited, and certainly very capable from a storytelling perspective. I'll be bearing this series in mind when I'm next in the mood for something noblebright. ...more
The third of this trilogy (though the final line leaves the door open for a fourth in the series) adds a new genre. So far we've seen fairy-taleThe third of this trilogy (though the final line leaves the door open for a fourth in the series) adds a new genre. So far we've seen fairy-tale comedy of manners/horror and steampunk mad science mystery; now we get shifter dystopian with a prophecy/Chosen One. I don't usually read dystopian, so I'm not familiar with the tropes, but this isn't a very tropey author in any case.
The extremely slow burn of the romance subplot continues, but is not resolved. In fact, the potential couple are in different places for much of the book.
There's plenty going on here: high stakes, characters new and old struggling for their own varied agendas, multiple clashing factions, and a race-supremacist villain (there's a nice bit about how, being mediocre, he has to slant the playing field in order to make himself superior). As with the earlier two books, I couldn't figure out in advance how all these threads would eventually come together into a satisfactory ending, but in this case I felt that they didn't completely come together. The ending felt abrupt, and a bit of a cheat; part of it was handed to the characters by someone they couldn't control or predict, rather than being earned by them directly.
It's a pity, because it was a good ride up to that point. That minor stumble isn't quite enough to drop it down to three stars, but, along with a few other small glitches and (in the pre-publication copy I got from Netgalley) an abundance of copy editing issues, the ending made this my least favourite of the three books. ...more
The interesting thing about this series is that it's one continuous story, but each of the books is in a different genre. Each book is complete inThe interesting thing about this series is that it's one continuous story, but each of the books is in a different genre. Each book is complete in itself-no cliffhangers-but you wouldn't want to jump in partway through; each one sets up the next. (I received all three books together from Netgalley for review).
This one is steampunk, and if I didn't know better I'd blame the Steampunk Curse for the many copy editing issues on display. It is possible to have a well-edited steampunk book; it's just extremely rare, and this one is jam-packed with incorrect applications of the coordinate comma rule, along with some typos (mostly words left out of sentences), several misplaced apostrophes, and a couple of homonym errors (discretely/discreetly, site/sight). It's a pity, because it's another well-told story, this time of travelers in a steampunkish city who must battle corrupt and hypocritical authorities to bring about justice and solve an intriguing mystery.
The first book was relatively simple, almost all from the viewpoint of Ascot, the central character. This introduces a couple of other viewpoints, most interestingly the zany Rags-n-Bones. I was a little worried that the characters would fail to develop and remain just a collection of a few traits and a couple of tics, but each of them gains more depth, most of them gain more backstory, and they work more as an ensemble cast and less as a hero with a bunch of sidekicks (as in the first book).
I happily progressed to the third book, which turns out to be a dystopian, with shifters. ...more
I received a copy of this book, along with the two sequels, from Netgalley for purposes of review.
A fun story which both celebrates and underminesI received a copy of this book, along with the two sequels, from Netgalley for purposes of review.
A fun story which both celebrates and undermines the fairy-tale genre, with a half-human, half-do-not-say-vampire-we-don't-use-the-V-word going out from Shadowvale, where her people live, into the wider world to live her own life. Equipped with a book of fairy tales, she finds that real life is a bit more complicated-and, indeed, the plot has an impressive number of twists. In all three books, I found myself unable to imagine how everything in the plot could possibly be tied up, almost up to the point when it was.
Ascot, the main character, possesses intelligence, determination, a good heart, and some unlikely but appealing allies, and manages to use them to the best advantage. Both she and the book combine brains and heart.
I was very happy to have the second book on hand so that I could carry on reading. ...more
This is the third book I've read by this author, and, unusually, I read them one after another. (The two Ruses books were the first two.) That arguesThis is the third book I've read by this author, and, unusually, I read them one after another. (The two Ruses books were the first two.) That argues that I enjoy her writing, and indeed I do.
It also makes me aware of patterns, though. The fact that all the characters hum when they're ambivalent about something. The habit of putting in an unnecessary comma after "Then" when it's the first word in a sentence. Spelling "altogether" as "all together". The occasional incorrect choice of vocabulary words (such as "courtesan" for "courtier" here - those are two very different occupations, or so one would hope). And two much larger flaws: passive main characters, and arrogant, annoying love interests.
It's a sound rule of thumb in writing that the viewpoint character should be the one who has the most at stake, the one who's most motivated and driven to solve the story problem, the one who's working hardest and sacrificing most, and often the one who's most competent to bring about a resolution. In all three of these books, though, the viewpoint character is not these things. They're resistant to taking action, not just at first, but almost throughout; they often have to be bullied into action by the arrogant, annoying love interest - and also, in the case of this book, by the talking animal sidekick, who is smarter and more capable than the theoretical hero, and for most of the book has more at stake.
The arrogant, annoying love interest is a trope of the romance genre, and one I've never liked. It's hard to identify with a character who's attracted to someone who I, in real life, would find extremely irritating and not especially attractive. It's also harder to identify with a character who's passive and not the one who takes decisive, effective action at key moments in the story.
I don't mind books that are written to a formula if it's a formula I like. If the formula has elements I don't like, it's usually a problem.
And yet I do enjoy these books. What would usually be fatal flaws are still drawbacks, to be sure, but not dealbreakers. I think this is because the books mostly read smoothly; the main characters, while often passive, are genuinely good-hearted; and there's a good amount of tension that ebbs and flows as it should.
I don't know that I'll read any more of these for a while. But this is an author I probably will come back to when I'm in the right mood....more
While this still makes it to four stars for being entertaining and enjoyable, it didn't impress me as much as the first in the series. (I bought theWhile this still makes it to four stars for being entertaining and enjoyable, it didn't impress me as much as the first in the series. (I bought the second as soon as I finished the first, which is not something I do all the time.)
First, the stakes in this book didn't seem nearly as high. In the first book, the kingdom's fate hung in the balance, but here it's mostly social stakes and some dangerous, but fairly easily defeated, attackers. Now, social stakes can feel just as urgent, in the right hands, but here I found myself thinking about the peasants who were being taxed so that all these flighty aristocrats could have extravagant parties, and thinking they were being ripped off.
Secondly, the main character wasn't nearly as strong. Viola, in the first book, is competent, sensible, determined, independent-minded, and willing to sacrifice herself in the right cause. Flora, in this book, while intelligent and sensible, is several times accused (with some justification) of being a bit spineless and just going along with things, and never actually commits that strongly to her duties; she always wants to give up and go back to her quiet country existence, even right near the end.
And third, the copy editing, which was decent with a few issues in the first book, is much shakier in this one. Lots of homonym errors and other vocabulary problems, plus a good many typos. The author can't make up her mind whether the street where the lords live is "Lords' Row" (which it should be) or "Lord's Row," and at one point has both on the same page. I've reported these to Amazon, and hopefully they'll be fixed soon.
All in all, though, enjoyable, and I've bought a third book by the same author, which is an important measure, for me, of how well a book has worked for me. ...more
Another sound book, like the first in the series. The copy editing needed more work (I reported 27 corrections to Amazon, not even counting the excessAnother sound book, like the first in the series. The copy editing needed more work (I reported 27 corrections to Amazon, not even counting the excess coordinate commas - hopefully they'll soon be fixed); but the story itself was well told, and I appreciated the main character's determination, intelligence, and moral stance. She puts herself in a near-impossible situation rather than kill someone who she considered an honorable person who was only doing his job....more
The story was only average, and couldn't hold onto my attention when I was constantly noticing issues with the copy editing. Mainly coordinate commasThe story was only average, and couldn't hold onto my attention when I was constantly noticing issues with the copy editing. Mainly coordinate commas where they shouldn't be, and missing commas before terms of address, but also the occasional absent past perfect, quite a few typos, and the odd homonym. ...more
A fun and entertaining story. The main character starts out as a more-or-less amiable loser who's struggling with a bad situation largely of his ownA fun and entertaining story. The main character starts out as a more-or-less amiable loser who's struggling with a bad situation largely of his own manufacture, but he is making some attempt not to make matters worse by getting involved (again) with organised crime.
As the story progresses, he steps up and acts increasingly unselfishly, using his one skill (he's a hot-shot pilot) and a number of powerful pieces of experimental technology obtained from a psychotic inventor to pull off highly unlikely, but entertaining escapes and escapades.
Unfortunately, the author doesn't know the coordinate comma rule, has a habit of dropping small words (like "a", "the", and "to") out of sentences or of swapping one for another (he/the), makes several common homonym errors (discrete/discreet, breech/breach, sensor/censor), and sometimes uses an exclamation point and a question mark in the same sentence. I found the frequency of these errors, and a few others, distracting. His worst, and most disconcerting, habit is to use "he" not to refer to the last person mentioned, as is usual, but to the other person in the conversation, which happened several times and disoriented me for a moment each time.
Otherwise, this was an amusing space opera/thriller that reminded me of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat books, in a good way. Nothing in it bears very close examination as science, but if you just go along with it, it's enjoyable.
Note for pet lovers: at the point where you might be tempted to give up on the book, don't. Read on a little further....more
Never quite caught fire for me, and I'm not entirely sure why.
It's probably not just the many homonym errors and the multiple dangling modifiers,Never quite caught fire for me, and I'm not entirely sure why.
It's probably not just the many homonym errors and the multiple dangling modifiers, though one of the latter gives us blue eyes that are more than five and a half feet tall, and the prose also includes such gems as an empty chair which sat empty; red-hot heat; and an item worn from years of wear. This despite an editor being credited. Even the several instances of present-tense verbs in past-tense narration - not just the very common "may" instead of "might", but "will" instead of "would", and another I don't recall just now - shouldn't have been distracting enough to keep me from investing in the characters, but I never did. I didn't believe their incipient romance, I didn't feel the tension about whether they would succeed in saving the kingdom, and I yawned when they won.
I didn't believe in the female soldier, either. It was clear she faced prejudice, yes, but there didn't seem to be enough backstory to account for her being permitted to enter the army and become part of the elite guard. She was good, but not amazingly good. (view spoiler)[More, her training of the princess never really ended up mattering, which was a disappointment; she herself turned out to be a reincarnated man; and, in the end, a man had to turn up out of nowhere in order to save the day and bring stability to the kingdom. The women came off looking pretty ineffectual, in fact. (hide spoiler)]
The main group of villains, the original historical villain, and the heroine's sword had names that were far too similar to each other.
Those villains consisted of a bunch of nameless mooks and a moustache twirler; the McGuffin was your standard bit of evil jewelery; and in general it felt like a grab bag of unexamined tropes.
Despite the almost-cliffhanging mysteries raised at the very end, I have no interest in reading a sequel....more
The author is clearly in love with the semicolon, which is a wonderful punctuation mark. Unfortunately, almost all the cases in which she uses itThe author is clearly in love with the semicolon, which is a wonderful punctuation mark. Unfortunately, almost all the cases in which she uses it should actually be commas.
The prose is otherwise competent, but stiff and formal, and the minor characters mostly consist of a single quirk - and often seem to be there only so that a more important character has someone to talk to.
The resolution seems hurried, and even lampshades the fact. It's therefore shorter than I was expecting.
It's far from being a bad book, but it has plenty of room for improvement. ...more
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