Demon Hunts by C.E. Murphy

Demon Hunts by C.E. Murphy

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I liked reading a snowy, cold mystery in the middle of a record-breaking heat-wave. Joanne displays a lot of maturity and is even more likable in this one. And let's hear it for awesome septuagenarians! Can't say too much without being spoilery, but we get to meet some interesting characters face-to-face.

minor spoilage
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Team M vs. Team C ?

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Cold Magic by Kate Elliott

Cold Magic by Kate Elliott

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Ever think about the good press the Romans STILL get, even today? That was the offhand comment that so luckily got me a chance to read an advanced copy of Kate Elliott's fantastic new novel, Cold Magic.

It's 1837 England in an ice-locked world where the Romans were battled to a standstill by the Phoenicians, and over time Europe had dissolved into small principalities. The real power resides in the Cold Mages, the magically gifted descendants of West African refugees and Celtic druids. But the Industrial Revolution is at hand, emphasis on "Revolution."

Catherine and Beatrice, or Cat and Bee, as they call each other, are devoted and inseparable cousins. They are genteel, if somewhat impoverished, young Phoenician ladies attending academy lectures on aerostatics on the all-girls balcony while teasing each other about the cute guy in the main hall. They keep secrets, but never from each other, and they can face anything together. Until Cat is suddenly taken away and finds herself first a prisoner, then a fugitive, in a terrible race to save herself and Bee from factions that are using them as battle pieces in an ugly conflict about to spark.

I love this book. It's about magic, romance, friendship, family, and loyalty, and history turned on it's head. It's about "Lies The Romans Told" and the Napoleon that might have been. I stayed up until 1 am to find out what happens, and now I am going back over alt-history details and looking them up on the web. And checking the map on the front against modern maps thinking "why is it named that ... oh, clever!" It's a great story set in a rich, fascinating world and I hope everyone gets a chance to read it when it hits the bookstore shelves in September.

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Black Magic Sanction by Rachel Morgan

Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrison


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
3.5 stars rounded up. It's been a while since I read the last book of this series (which happens to be one of my favorites), and I wasn't sure if I would remember everything relevant to this book. The author does a good job of reminding without too much info-dumping, and the story is fast-paced and engrossing.

I took a half star off because I found the moment when Rachel was dithering over a major spell very annoying. I know it's supposed to show her moral center and all that, but I was on Ceri's side reading it. I took a whole star off because I don't really know what Rachel wants anymore; we know what she thinks she wants, but I don't feel that ultimate character want. She is spending too much time in the crossroads and needs to make a decision on what she is ... or as a reader I will start to lose interest. Just worried about that.

Minor spoilers from here on:
I really enjoyed the Al/Rachel interactions - talk about chemistry! I am a Rachel/Ivy shipper, and that had no movement in this book, and I was prepared to hate flavor-of-the-month Pierce, but I got to like him. Of course I think he is eventually doomed. I am very curious about what will happen next with Jenks.

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Snake Agent by Liz Williams

Snake Agent by Liz Williams


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wacky in a very good way.
I'm too lazy to write a full review but I really enjoyed it. If you get a chance, check it out.

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Green by Jay Lake

Green by Jay Lake


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
For some reason the cover + title had me convinced this was SF, and I had to read several chapters before I conceded that it was fantasy.
This was well-written, on the literary side. The world-building was excellent. The first part reads rather like a version of Memoirs of a Geisha, but then sort of turns into Assassin's Apprentice.  And it has a protagonist lifted from a dusty Asian-like paddy. It's got some feminist sensibilities. It sounds like a book I ought to love. But for some reason I don't. I suppose that on the whole I didn't warm to the main character, who is written as morally ambiguous AND in the first person. I think that is a tricky combination to pull off, and the author didn't quite make it for me.

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The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I was torn between 4 & 5 stars and rated up, because I usually hate dystopian settings and yet the author managed to overcome my bias.
The dystopian setting for Windup Girl is all-too plausible, and drives the plot, but the author wisely focuses on the characters' individual stories and motivations to make it real.

Anderson Lake is the primary character and he is an Iowa "calorie man", an agent of one of the powerful agricultural companies whose genetically modified seeds and plagues have devastated the world. He is working undercover to try to get to the Thai government's secret seed bank.

Emiko is a discarded "windup" - a genetically manufactured non-person designed to be a slavish toy for rich Japanese men. Stranded in Thailand, she is constantly in danger of being mulched by white shirts who regard her kind as a symbol of the evil of genetic tampering.

Hock Seng is a yellow-card Chinese-Malaya refugee of ethnic cleansing by "green headband" Muslim Malays.

Jaidee Rojjanasukthai is captain of the white shirts, the Environment Ministry's enforcement police. A muay thai champion, he fights a losing battle against invasive plagues and government corruption.

About those characters: at first I was mad at the story because it seemed to use the common stereotype of superior white man moving in world of shifty and corrupt brown/yellow people. The the story subverts the stereotypes.

Despite the dark themes, three things made me appreciate this novel. First was the South East Asian setting, well-done and written with authenticity. Second were the cool ideas(like storing energy in batteries). Thirdly and most of all, was the sensibility. This is a story of virtue subverting vengeance, conscience overcoming corruption.

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Dance of the Assassins by Herve Jubert

Dance of the Assassins by Herve Jubert


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed this. Jubert writes with a fine sense of the absurd that never overwhelms the underlying story. It's set in a future where crime has been rendered almost obsolete by DNA tracers, and witches are on the unofficial payroll of the CID. A murder is discovered in one of the theme-park historic cities, where tracers are banned, and unlikely partners Roberta Morgenstein and rookie rich kid Clement Martineau are on the case.

Morgenstein is a joy to read about.

She was somewhere between forty-five and fifty-five, with a good life behind her, a life full of excellent meals, delicious liqueurs, and marshmallows. Not enough exercise. Well, none at all, except what came naturally. Roberta's love of comfort and a certain preference for making as little effort as possible had done nothing for her figure. Still, she'd come to terms with it.

What an unlikely heroine! But she moves through the story with dead-pan panache, competently foiling satan-worshipping villains and patiently fishing her puppy-like partner out of trouble while never passing up a shopping opportunity.

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2010 book count: 48

According to goodreads, I have read 48 books so far this year.
I am not so sure I logged all of them, though I have been trying to.

Discovering Amelia Peabody

I read the first Amelia Peabody mystery last night, Crocodile on the Sandbank.
Simply delightful. I think when I came to this part, on page 7 ...

    After an interval he came bounding back with his eyes gleaming. Nothing delights these gentry so much as misfortune; I was therefore not surprised when he reported that the "turisti" were gathered around a young English lady who had fallen down dead upon the ground.
    "How do you know that she is English?" I inquired.

... I realized that I had fallen in love with Ms. Peabody.