Happy Hour of the Damned by Mark Henry

Posted on January 15, 2008 by janicu

Mark Henry

My stupid laptop died with a fan error. I believe this makes it.. mmm 8 times I've had a laptop die. And each time, my reaction gets smaller. I barely even blinked this time (I have backups burned. Highly recommend backing up your things. Let this be a lesson). I find using this backup desktop annoying though. I can't pick this up and carry it around.

I wanted to post this review with a picture of my ARC and cover flat but yeah, the laptop death means I'll have to do that later. They look so pretty together. The cover is in a matte finish, I love that. This book comes out in trade paperback format on March 2008.

I won this book and the author is on my livejournal friendslist, so I was a bit nervous when I first saw it. I would feel weird if I didn't like this book. I wouldn't be able to lie about things I didn't like. So when I started reading, I was smiling – this book is awesome! I don't think I've read anything like it, mostly because of the main character.

The book reads like a memoir told from the first person viewpoint of a snarky-as-hell, newly-undead, fashionista socialite named Amanda Feral. An advertising executive with a tendancy to mock every single person she meets (if not out loud, in her head), she and her friends spend their time in one nightclub or another drinking and gossiping in Seattle. It's a pretty superficial existence, but fascinating to read about and picture – the nightlife of the undead in Seattle from the viewpoint of a newcomer like Amanda is chock-full of revelations. One in ten Seattle resident could be a werewolf, zombie, vampire, shapeshifter, god, demon or other, but humans take no notice as the supernaturals (including Amanda), prey on their numbers.

Amanda feasts on runaways and homeless people in a gorey way – unhinging her jaw and eating them in a few bites. There's talk of blood spatter and intestines. The woman is brazenly un-P.C. She barely feels guilt for her kills or methods of luring people in, it's like a fun game most of the time, and I'm pretty sure she has something offensive to say about every subset of the population she encounters. And yet, she's so up-front and over the top about everything she ends up being quite funny and likeable. I thought that if the two ladies of Absolutely Fabulous became zombies, this is the type of book you'd get out of it. This book just did dark humor really well. My two favorite things:

1. Amanda has OCD and has a thing for lists, and she peppers her story with footnotes, which are just asides for things she's saying in the narration. My favorite one is number 50 on page 101. Not sure the numbering is going to be the same in the final so let's say second one on chapter 9:

"In high school – nasty old barnaby Ridge – I had been a lonely girl." The footnote for this sentence begins - "If this comes as a surprise, then you have overlooked the fact that I am a total bitch."

I laughed.

2. The crux of the plot – Amanda receives a text from a friend saying "help!". But Amanda despairs about her group's usefulness. "How are we going to help? Not a caring nurturer in the bunch". A gay vampire and two socialite zombies, they freak out despite their supernatural powers. When they discover that their friend is missing, they immediately seek the comfort of food and its a couple of days before Amanda starts looking into things. I'm not sure they're meant to be the bravest bunch, but they're the most.. something.

The story meandered around a bit, I think a testimony to Amanda's nature. I liked the unpredictability. There were little side stories told by Amanda's friends about their beginings, which Amanda titles the Inconderate Interludes of the Bitter and Pathetic, and ~~helpful~~ random insets from Amanda regarding DJ playlists and alcoholic drink recipes. And there's doubling back to add a confession or get back to the point.

You never know what is going to happen. I think the writer had fun and threw a couple of things in there to waylay the reader. Some big things and some subtle things. I'm wondering what was going on with the weather in Seattle (Raining for two months. Is that Seattle in-joke? I feel like I missed something vital). Anyway. I had an amusing and unique ride. And. There is a second book. Road Trip of the Living Dead! My italics for emphasis.

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The Taste of Night by Vicki Pettersson

Posted on January 11, 2008 by janicu

The Taste of Night (Sign of the Zodiac, Book 2)

Vicki Pettersson

I put the top five books I wanted to read in my suitcase when I went on vacation and it seems like I made good choices. The writing in all the books was at a certain level of goodness – I don't have complaints that with any of them (Wolf Who Rules, Taste of Night, Beyond Varallan, Dead Girls Dance, and The Devil's Right Hand (which I'm still reading)). Just an observation. So all my reviews for these books are not going to be ranty in that regard. Though I did say I was a bit disappointed in the plot of Wolf Who Rules. Plot is different.

So the Zodiac series is about superheroes amongst us. In every city there are 12 people representing the 12 characters in the Western Zodiac (Sagittarius, Taurus, Libra and so on) on the side of Light, and 12 on the side of Dark. In book 1 Joanna Archer finds out that she belongs to the Las Vegas Zodiac troop. In book 2 she knows more about this new world, but has a lot more to grasp. There are a lot of rules involved here, for example:

1) These people are all born at midnight on the day of their star sign

2) Power is passed down generationally on the mother's side, and only one person can occupy a slot in the Zodiac.

3) There are three life stages, the first two are human and the third happens on the eve of their 25th birthday when they become superhuman and able to smell emotions and each others unique scents (so there is a lot of chemical scent changing happening and plastic surgery to hide identities).

4) Everyone gets a special sign on their bodies, a glyph, which glow when their enemies are near.

So some of these rules require suspension of disbelief. For me the most questionable was the comic book angle. In the Zodiac series there are people who psychically receive what's going with the battle of Light vs. Dark and write comic books of what's going on (and their promoting of the story creates belief in humans which gives the signs their power), Light can't read the comic books of the Dark and vice versa, and that this goes on in every major city with a population large enough for this. I thought about this for a while and decided if you can't see it as a graphic novel in prose-form there may be problems for you and this series.The comic book store was a little odd, but I think including it did make me associate the book with being a written graphic novel (Frank Miller's graphic novels come to mind). And I also think that the whole Zodiac system is centered around "belief" – I started to notice it was a strong force in the story, after all the leader of the Dark Zodiac, the Tulpa, was created out of thin air from the belief of a human who spent 15 years thinking him into existence.. wonder what this means? Hmm.

When I reviewed The Scent of Shadows, the first book in the Zodiac series, I said that this is a really angsty, tear you apart story. Mostly because there was a lot of characters watching people they loved die and not being able to stop it and a brutal rape is recounted. Book 2 had this to a much lesser extent. There is still angst though, and the deaths and rape are mentioned a few more times (I wasn't a fan of this aspect of the story. The rape. Though it's an integral part of the plot and Joanna's motivation). In my review of book 1 I mentioned having to put the book down to process the emotions. The main character, Joanna has issues – she's still very much ruled by vengence and what happened to her in the past, and in this book you see the frustration that the troop has with her. Her issues stop her from thinking things through and from being a team player. I felt that sometimes she was just unlikeable – particularly when she interacted with her troop and had an attitude. Like her treatment of Chandra (I thought these two were over this by the end of book 1, but on it goes), or her yelling at Tekla. Is this an illustration of Joanna's Dark side?

After reading this book I'm still not sure where the story is going to go. It's so complicated and everyone has their own hidden agendas. I'm sure that there are more things we don't know yet as a reader about the world too. Also the books are dark, and the heroine isn't untouched by that. I need to digest and process what I read in these first two before I can continue onward with the story. Which may be a while – I'm sure when book 3 comes out or what it will be called.

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Beyond Varallan by S. L. Viehl

Posted on January 9, 2008 by janicu

Beyond Varallan (Stardoc II)

S. L. Viehl

I'm not sure if my mind is all here today. We got back to New York last night and the cat was so happy (after first crying loudly in a long accusatory manner), that he kept me up all night with his loud purring to himself. I am NOT exaggerating when I say I had about an hour of sleep. And I couldn't kick him out of the room when he'd been left alone for 2.5 weeks so I just let him be. Now you get to see me complain about it instead.

Anyway, the review for book 2 of the Stardoc series. I reviewed book 1, Stardoc, here. Without spoilage, the series is about Cherijo Grey Veil, a talented human surgeon fleeing the reach of her powerful father who has plans for her and wants her back with him. She travels away from her homeworld of Terra to other planets to escape but her father still keeps trying to get her, enlisting mercenaries and governments to help him and threatening her friends and allies. Meanwhile Cherijo makes friends, learns about other species, deals with complicated relationships, and saves lives with her medical expertise and brilliant mind. There are 7 books in this series out so far, and Viehl blogs that book 8, Omega Games comes out in August 2008 (that link has yet another link to an excerpt of book 8 which contains spoilers. I haven't read that except yet. Don't tell me anything if you do). She also blogs that she sees the series ending in 10 books and if she doesn't end up selling the 10th, final book she will probably put it up as an e-book.

In this book, Cherijo is on the Sunlace, a ship controlled by the Jorenians, who have adopted her into their family. Characters from book 1 are with Cherijo – Reever (whose intentions are always hard to deciper), as well as her friends Alunthri and Dhreen. Along with Cherijo's usual critical medical emergencies and trying to get along with other staff members who may not like her, there is a much bigger problem – a murderer on the ship who begins to target Cherijo in disturbing ways and this is the focus of most of the plot.

My thoughts (in lazy bullet form again):

I'm not very into this book's cover. No one looks like I think they look like (the coloring looks off from what I pictured when I read the book) except vaguely Cherijo. But you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, even though I do peer at them and think things to myself.
This is the second book where Cherijo has more than one man interested in her.. I would start to think Mary Sue except Cherijo's hardly perfect. Even though she's supposedly pretty and smart, she has a huge stubborn streak. In this book this stubborn streak was extreme – in some parts I felt it bordered on uh.. bitchy. I also understood the individual reasons each of them courted her – they both had a unique connection with Cherijo that they didn't have with anyone else. But since this is a series – the relationship stuff is going to evolve over several books. I think it's going to be complicated. Should be interesting. Not sure if I will scream by the end of it or if it will be fun to anticipate what's going to happen through the prolonged torture. We shall see.
This is also the second book where Cherijo has to deal with problems personality-wise with her coworkers. I thought it was still interesting that it resolved itself very differently from her problems in book 1.
You think you won't see certain characters ever again but then they pop back into the story in unexpected ways.
Even though this is science fiction, its not hard sci fi. I think I like the space opera, actiony, not very hard sci-fi stuff. If you don't like hard sci -fi, you may like this - there isn't jargon here that trips up the writing and makes it hard to get into. Viehl has a more straightforward writing style.
I don't know if I blogged about this or if I just commented about this, but so far in the three books I've read from Viehl I've started to expect a certain constantly good wrap-up to her books. She has a way of making things complicated and then writing herself out of the knots. It's very comforting that even though this is a series, it feels like each book has a relatively satisfying ending. I say that even though after book 2's ending and wrap-up there IS a setup for book 3 and a cliffhanger, but at least it's published already and you won't be waiting for months/years. It wasn't a life-death cliffhanger to make me climb walls but it was quite zing-y and made me look forward to book 3.
Verdict – quite a satisfying to read series. I'll be still reading them.

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Bookmans

Posted on January 7, 2008 by janicu

My Christmas present from my brother was a 40 dollar gift certificate to Bookmans. Which is an Arizona only (alas!) store that sells used books, used dvds, cds, and other used stuff like games and knick-knacks. But mostly books. The price of a used paperback is about $3.50 – 4, trade paperback is about $7. So I ended up buying 10 books with the 40 and my haul was:

Finders Keepers by Linnea Sinclair – saw some favorable reviews of this. Never read this author

Holidays are Hell by Lynsay Sands, Kim Harrison, Marjorie M. Liu, Vicki Pettersson – read the Dates from Hell anthology which I mainly liked so picked this up

Cagebird and Burndive by Karin Lowachee – books 2 and 3 of a series. Warchild (book 1) blew me away.

Storm Front (Dresden Files, Bk 1) and Grave Peril (Dresden Files, Bk 3) by Jim Butcher – Never read this author, but read an excerpt of a Dresden Files book online and liked it. Also feel like I'm the only one who hasn't read the Dresden files.

Furies of Calderon (Codex Alera, Bk 1) by Jim Butcher – ditto on above re: this author.

Urban Shaman by C. E. Murphy – been meaning to try out these books ever since I read a story by this author in the Winter Moon anthology.

Staying Dead (Retrievers, Bk 1) by Laura Anne Gilman – another author I haven't read but have been meaning to try.

The Hero Strikes Back by Moira Moore – read this but wanted to own it.

Now we're off to Goodwill for my sister's Christmas present. The girl likes thrift stores. Let's see if there are any books there.

The TBR is @119. Wee!

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Wolf Who Rules by Wen Spencer

Posted on January 6, 2008 by janicu

Wolf Who Rules

Wen Spencer

This is book 2 of The Tinker Series by Wen Spencer. I think it this is it - only 2 books in the series, but I could see it continuing, so I'm actually not sure if this is the last book. I can't figure it out from Wen Spencer's website.

I really liked Tinker so I was really looking forward for Wolf Who Rules to come out in paperback. Tinker is a young female genius who lives in an interdimensional Pittsburgh. Her father created a gate which transports the whole city to Earth once a month for supplies (a day called Shutdown), while the rest of the time it is in Elfland. In book 1 Tinker saves Windwolf (aka Wolf Who Rules Wind), viceroy of the elves and gets tangled up in elf culture and in fighting off their enemies. I loved the world and the ideas used to explain elves and japanese folklore like oni and tengu. I did notice some Mary-Sue aspects to Tinker (smart, so many men are in love with her, she doesn't realise her own beauty .. blah), but some flaws did help her from becoming a complete Mary-Sue: she is only 18 and completely clueless about relationships with men and her own hormones, and she is capable of acting before thinking despite her genius. These traits continue in the second book.

In Wolf Who Rules we continue right where Tinker leaves off, and I found I had forgotten certain parts of Tinker – like who certain people were again and what certain japanese words meant in Spencer's world. For the most part I managed to pick it up but there are a couple of things I'm still confused about but I don't have my copy of Tinker to go look it up on vacation.

To add to that confusion, Tinker herself is confused and not feeling like her normal self – she has dreams like Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz and wanders around feeling out of sorts for most of this book. There was one action-y bit at the beginning of the book, then there is this waiting/set up feeling for a good 250 pages before Tinker gets in gear and charges forward to do what she does best (save the world) again.

I guess that the book is named Wolf Who Rules because this book is more about his elf world than Tinker's human one and much of the book has Tinker having to flail about in this new culture and find her way really quickly and without much instruction. Wolf Who Rules Wind actually says this about her and what she is going through and while he tries to help he doesn't have the time to be with her constantly because he's busy with elven politics.

Unfortunately in the end I felt shocked because I was actually disappointed in this book compared to Tinker. Which is a big deal because I love this author and I love her plots and amazing ideas (ok interdimensional Pittsburgh? elves? oni? spaceships?), but I felt like I expected Tinker to be take charge like she was in book 1 that seeing her out of sorts for what felt like much too long in book 2 just made the story drag. Wolf Who Rules was still full of some interesting concepts that blew my mind, so worldbuilding was still wonderful but the plot was off for me. I think trying to get the plot to fit in with an Alice in Wonderland-ish dream and a Wizard of Oz-ish dream just didn't work. Unbelievable! So far I've read 5 books by this author that are in a league of their own so me being disappointed is weird. I will still will keep buying from this author though. And I'm still keeping this book since I'm a fan of Tinker and this is the continuation of that. Maybe one day I'll reread them one after another and see if I like part 2 better then.

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Happy New Year

Posted on January 1, 2008 by janicu

I love my family but this visit to see them made me sick as a dog. Stupid germs. Snot everywhere. At this moment I'm hopped up on Dayquil, cuddling a box of Kleenex, wearing a winter jacket and in bed. The laptop helps with warmth. This vacation was all fun and games till now. I've been relaxing in AZ and soon I will be in Vegas. Hopefully the cold will be gone by then.

Anyway. Last year my New Years resolution was to read 100 books. I think I read 103 or 104 in 2006, but in 2007 I only read 99. Sigh – so close! But number 99 was down to the wire – my dad was banging on my door to get my butt to the dining room and drink some apple cider at 11:58 but I was on the last page of Vicki Pettersson's The Taste of Night, book 2 of her Zodiac series and last book of 2007 for me. So I was waving frantically with one hand for him to leave and saying "OK!!!" and holding the book in the other. Hmm, only 99 books – I think I didn't make it because 1) I seem to be watching more TV this year. TV seems to be getting better. 2) I had more weeks towards the end of the year where I just wasn't in the mood to read. Just a week ago I was @ 95 books so I read 4 books in a week just for this deadline. Let's see if I can make 100 in 2008.

The TBR is at about 110 right now but I bought a couple of books on the vacation – one of the Jasper Fforde Thursday Next books and one Kelley Armstrong Women of the Otherworld book. But I probably won't read those for a while since they are further down the series than I'm at.

One shining point of light today – I won an ARC of Mark Henry's Happy Hour of the Damned. Someone reviewed it and called him "the Jasper Fforde of Paranormal." and the main character of the book "'Queen Betsy' zombie style " so it sounds like a lot of fun and I want to read it as soon as I can get my hands on it. It comes out in March so hopefully I will have read and reviewed it by then!

OK I go to drink more liquids. Later I can write about some of the books I read the past week.

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A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole

Posted on December 19, 2007 by janicu

A Hunger Like No Other (The Immortals After Dark Series, Book 1)

Kresley Cole

I won this book sometime around the beginning of 2007 but after reading 100 pages in I put it down for about 6 months. Since I'm trying to read 100 books this year I picked it up again this week and finished it off.

The cover screams "vampire" novel but the two protagonists are a Lykan (werewolf) and a Valkyrie/vampire halfbreed. And she's the one half vampire. Yes, slightly confusing cover. Anyway, the werewolf Lachlain has been imprisoned by the vampire horde for 150 years, chained to a rock burning to death over and over (he's immortal and keeps reviving), so he's close to insanity when he smells Emmaline and recognizes her as his mate. This discovery propels him into escaping by gnawing off his own leg. Then he follows her scent, but when he finds her and sees she's vampire (his sworn enemy) he treats her very badly, kidnapping her and scaring her. Emmaline has actually never met a vampire before, she was raised by the Valkyries – fierce warrior women who channel electricity, and she's very sheltered – at 70 she's the youngest of them.

My thoughts in lazy bullet form:

As the first book of the series there is a lot of series setup stuff. There were some shifts to show what Emmaline's aunts were up to and references to certain players who I think will probably either get their own books or show up later. This set up felt like it was unnecessary to the story but I did like reading about Emma's aunts.
I did like the world of the "Lore" – with the Vampire Horde as the bad guys, a faction of rebel vamps, the Lykae clan, the Valkyrie and lots of fighting and old hatreds amongst them. I especially liked the Valkyrie – this was a fresh concept. Warrior maidens who cried for courage in their dying breath and whose cries were answered by old Norse gods, they gain sustinence from electricity and love to shop.
Lachlain was Scottish and his dialog was driving me crazy – no' , aye, ken, tae, lass.
There were a few of those "one true love" pairings here. The Lykae have their Mate and the vampires have their Brides. I'm not a fan of this destiny thing. It feels like a cheating – a deus ex machina instead of really giving me the reader a good reason why two people should be together.
Emma had a very modern dialog in contrast but I liked it much better. I laughed a couple of times from her remarks, and from a couple of her aunts (Nix and Regin in particular).
Lachlain acts like a big fat jerk and I don't think Emma made him pay enough for it. Actually I couldn't see the attraction after the first half of the book and what he does. I think this disbelief made me put the book down in the first place.

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The Hunter’s Moon by O. R. Melling

Posted on December 19, 2007 by janicu

The Chronicles of Faerie: The Hunter's Moon (Chronicles of Faerie)

O.R. Melling

This is a young adult novel was recommended as being along the same lines as Holly Black's Faerie series, so I went to look for it. Findabhair and Gwenhyvar (Gwen) are two cousins (one Irish, one American) who want to believe in Faerie and to have adventures. Gwen visits Fin one summer and they plan to tour Ireland together, centering around famous Faerie related places, but soon after their tour begins Finabhair is stolen by the Faerie, leaving Gwen to seek her. Gwen pretty much gets guided by helpful strangers to chase her cousin, the king of Faerie, and his court across Ireland.

While the writing was really lovely and magical, especially in describing the scenery, the story felt predictable – a quest story, sort of mirroring fairytales of snatched princesses and the brave journeyer who uses their resourcefulness to save them. It started to get repetitious – Gwen catching up with Fin, then losing her again, then following her again to the next site. The characters themselves were also a little flat. I found myself bored several times and putting the book down. What I felt redeemed this book were those beautiful descriptions (especially of Faerie) I mentioned and all the references to Irish myth. You could tell the author knew what she was writing about. Here's an example of a passage when Gwen is asked to dance with the fairies:

"Parting leaf from twig and eyelid from slumber, anyone and everything was awake in the night. To life we wake from the long forgotten dream, the beautiful mystery. The taste of existence is a drop of honey on the tongue. So very sweet and very old, we have gone to seed and run wild in the wind. It ws a dance of stars and flowers and souls. Gwen stepped into the chain to become part of the whole. How long she danced she couldn't know. Time branched like a tree and each bud was eternity. She could feel the world dissolve into myth."

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Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter

Posted on December 16, 2007 by janicu

Me and Mr. Darcy: A Novel

Alexandra Potter

Emily is the manager of a New York City bookstore who after a string of bad dates is fed up with unchivalrous men. She decides no one can hold a candle to Pride and Prejudice's Mr Darcy and is in no mood to join her best friend in a trip Cancun where the plan is to meet men and party. To avoid this unappetizing trip, Emily hurriedly books a tour of Jane Austen country instead. Arriving in London and joining the tour, Emily finds herself surrounded by elderly ladies and one surly male journalist who is writing an article about Mr. Darcy, and through hallucination or magical circumstance (it's never quite explained), Emily also meets the actual Mr. Darcy. In truth she meets him in more ways than one.

I think that this is a contemporary romance/chick lit novel which would probably appeal to people who are fans of Pride and Prejudice (who aren't sick of re-tellings/ sequels/ spin-offs) and who are not expecting to find something like a re-write of a classic, but rather a fun homage. If you love that book (/movies/miniseries) you might get a kick out of the way Me and Mr Darcy parallels the story told there and also with the crossovers where Emily actually meets Mr. Darcy. I liked it. I felt like a P&P nerd for reading it and being amused. There are a few pop cultural references and references linked to the recent Pride and Prejudice movie and the Colin Firth version of the mini series, so more reason to be a P&P nut and then read this. Not that this was not a fun lighthearted novel without liking P&P – but it helps. This book also made me want to go on a nice bus tour of the English countryside and to go stop at museums and old mansions. The scenery and tourist destinations described here felt very realistically portrayed. Also the timeline of this book happening for a week around Christmas and New Years makes this a book to read now to start gearing up for a nice holiday, particularly if you happen to be going somewhere outside the country.

An aside: I'm looking forward to vacation… Probably 3-4 more days of work! I'm still trying to decide what to do with the one extra vacation day I got because management sent a note last week giving my department the 2nd of January off. Yaaaaay!

Stats for today: My TBR is @ 110. I've read 93 books this year. The goal was 100, so I have 2 weeks to read 7 books. I don't know if I will do it.

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Some interesting links

Posted on December 11, 2007 by janicu

Just a few links to thinks from other book blogs that I saw today and thought were interesting.

On online reviews:

A link to sfsignal – "How have online book reviews affected the publishing world?" – different opinions from the sf community. I noticed a lot of comments along the lines of "blog reviews aren't as in depth and professional as offline reviews". I'm thinking – isn't that sort of the point? Anyway… I shall make interested murmurs. This book blog is definitely not professional.

Results of the "Ethics in book reviewing survey". Looks like I agree with the majority of these results. "76.5 percent think it's never ethical to review a book without reading the whole thing." – I'm ok with reviewing and saying "I could not finish" and saying why.

On series:

http://a4.vox-data.com/6a00cd96f8411f4cd500e398c6fa840005-html

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books contributor Sarah is on romancenovel.tv explaining why some series drive her crazy. I think she explains it better than I have been able to when I get into my series/pet peeves rants. I hope this embedding thingy worked.

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