Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace by MaryJanice Davidson and Anthony Alongi

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Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace (A Jennifer Scales Novel, Book 1)
Jennifer Scales and the Ancient Furnace (A Jennifer Scales Novel, Book 1)
MaryJanice Davidson

OK, finished this one a week ago. I liked the first book of the Undead series and this series had good reviews on Amazon so I picked it up through paperbackswap.

It didn't really work for me. The protagonist is a teen girl who discovers that her parents never told her that she's half weredragon. And her race has an ancient feud with were-arachnids and beaststalkers. While I could suspend my disbelief with the paranormal aspects of this story, I had a problem with the characters and their interactions. Jennifer often acted like a brat, lashing out at her parents over everything, for example – her dad not being there because of his job.  Jennifer takes out on her mom just because she was there. Okay, teen angst, sure, but more than I have patience for, so when she kept doing it I wasn't enthused. At one point Jennifer said something "insightful" but it backfired, because I thought it was just a backhanded way of telling her mom that she was spineless. 

Meanwhile, her parents alternated between saying nothing and just letting Jennifer rant, and snapping back beyond the point I thought an adult should. Her dad got so annoyed, he just dropped Jennifer off at her grandfather's, said something nasty, doesn't let her know what's going on, and leaves. I was thinking: what kind of parenting is this? I also don't understand why they never told her what she was. The "protecting her" excuse seems very flimsy. The communication in this family is disfunctional! Her parents let Jennifer believe what she wanted without setting her straight and then revealed she was very very wrong and should feel bad (is this supposed to teach her something? Becuase I thought it was passive aggressive on her parents part).  On top of that some of the other people seemed to act out of character (I couldn't really buy the ending and how forgiving somebody was). And finally; there were people who added nothing to the plot at all - I said to myself - why were they there?

I know. I sound ranty. I think I expected more is why. The writing wasn't bad, the world wasn't bad, but I didn't like the characters. I'm past the young adult audience, but sometimes young adult books transcend age groups. This one is just for teens though, not targeted at practically 30 year old me. So I don't think I'll be looking for the rest of this series. I've been disappointed by quite a few young adult books in the past year – am I maturing? Or maybe I need to stop just trying to read everything willy-nilly and think more about if I'll really want to read books before I get them. TBR is huge anyway. It's at 131..still.

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Unshapely Things by Mark Del Franco

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Unshapely Things
Unshapely Things
Mark Del Franco

Cover: I find it interesting how many covers this cover model, Nathan Kamp is on. I think it's over 400, many of them romance novels, and now he's on an urban fantasy. He's everywhere! And yes, I recognize his face now, as I suspect many readers do. Oh and there is a blog that tracks this. Let me find the link…. I see, only on the top of the list when I google his name – here. This fascinates me. Maybe I should add a tag – Nathan Kamp cover, along with my butt-shot cover tag… I like this cover by the way, I think it hints at what the book's about pretty well.

What's going on in this book: Connor Grey is an ex-druid mage. He used to be a big shot in the Guild, catching criminals left and right, and not really treating people he worked with really nicely because he was too caught up with being a rising star. But – a magical injury that blocks most of his power lost him his job, his apartment, and most of his friends, and Connor becomes suddenly and uncomfortably aware of what type of person he was. Now he lives off his pension and a small stipend he receives from the police department for helping them with cases related to fae that the big-shots at The Guild can't be bothered to take. The latest case involves a string of nasty murders against some fairy prostitutes.

Why I got it: This is book of the month over at the league blog, and a new to me author (actually this is his first novel).

What I thought: Well this was a police procedural first of all, except with some unusual types of people as the victims (male fairy prostitutes), the murderer, and the people after him (Connor and his cop friend Murdock). What was most interesting to me was that Connor is going through a rebirth – he's weak and handicapped now and you feel his frustration at not being able to do things he used to do, but he's learning how to deal with this. He's learning how to treat people better as well. Several of the secondary characters point out that he burned bridges when he was powerful, and now he has to rebuild them. This redemption was a strong storyline and something I want to see more of in the next books. Also because of it, I think we have some strong secondary characters that interact with Connor (ex-coworkers, his mentor, his partner Murdock, his flit friend Joe). It seems to me like his fall is an opportunity to get to know these people who are still sticking by him better and we start to see that. I would love to see this continue.

The other thing I liked is the strong sense of the place that everything happens. A gritty Boston that I had no problems visualizing (even though I don't find Boston this dark in real life!). Alleyways and bars and slums in a section friendly to the fae called The Weird, where tourists like to go and gawk at the locals. I could see it clearly in my mind reading this book.

And now my complaint! There is so much focus on Connor and it IS from his point of view that we see very little of the villian of this piece. In the end I saw a glimpse of who he was and what he was trying to do, but it was confusing and fleeting compared to how well Connor was drawn. I think there was some opportunity to really show a compelling picture of this bad guy but there wasn't really enough time. Everyone else was very well written and two dimensional, maybe this is why I even noticed, but I think it would have made this book stronger. So much was focussed on Connor and his past that the rest of it – finding the bad guy, wasn't in the forefront, and this made the pacing slower for me. I can see this as being a good foundation of what's to come though.

Book 2 is Unquiet Dreams and it came out in January 2008. There's a little hint of whats to come from book 1 so I'd like to see how things go with Connor.

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Star of the Morning by Lynn Kurland

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Star of the Morning: A Novel of the Nine Kingdoms
Star of the Morning: A Novel of the Nine Kingdoms
Lynn Kurland

This is a fantasy novel by an author who usually writes romance. I hear she has some popular time travel romances out. I think I was curious to read this because I liked her voice in the The Queen in Winter anthology. There's a little half-teasing tilt to it, especially when the characters banter with one another.

So this is a straight fantasy, with a little romance (not really in your face). Adhémar, king of Neroche has suddenly lost his magic powers, his magical sword doesn't work anymore, and he's very put out by it. His youngest brother Miach, who is also the archmage, suggests that he travel to the most unlikely place to find someone who can wield the sword. At the same time, a mercenary named Morgan who has been asked to bring a magical dagger to the king. They cross paths but Adhémar can't reveal his identity or the reason for his quest and Miach can't reveal why she's going towards the palace or that's where she's headed. Miach pops in to check on his brother and starts tagging along because he's interested in Morgan even though he's supposed to be monitoring the kingdom's borders. There's some light banter between the brothers (king – grumpy, archmage – deflecting grumpiness with practiced ease), and also humor from Morgan's belief that the king is a huge jackass who should keep his mouth shut. She proclaims this any chance she gets. The conflict here is that Morgan loathes magic but Miach is a mage so he worries about what she thinks when she finds out. At the same time Morgan is very troubled by her quest and about learning that she has an affinity for magic.

The book started out amusing – I really liked the beginning, but after a while it went into the usual fantasy quest route and I started to lose interest. There wasn't anything very urgent or compelling going on that would keep me glued to the page, the pacing was quite relaxed. Perhaps too relaxed. I almost walked away from this book even though I only had 50 pages left, I just wanted to skim the end and had to make myself read it (and that's where more interesting things started to happen). I'd recommend this for readers who don't generally read fantasy and want something light and wholesome to read. I also had the random thought that this story lends itself to being easy to read out loud. I was thinking – "I bet my grandmother could read this out and it would be ok, because this book has nothing really dirty in it". Maybe some cursing and graphic violence would give it some pizzaz, but I don't think that's the author's thing, and it wouldn't fit into the rest of the story anyway. Oh well – it wasn't a bad read, but to me, a bit tame after what else I've been reading lately. This is the first book of a trilogy; the second book is The Mage's Daughter and continues this story.

P.S. My fiance didn't like this cover. Hmmph! I ignored him. The only thing I have to say about the cover is – she should be wearing pants. She's supposed to be a mercenary.

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Google Reader

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I don't know who uses the google reader that reads this blog, but it is the most wonderous fabulous thing ever. ALSO – weird thing about it – if you subscribe to janicu.vox.com it truncates the feed, while if you subscribe to janicu.livejournal.com, it does not. Just a tip.

I have about 50 or so subscriptions, (mostly book blogs) over there, and I figured out that you can share the interesting things you see in whatever blogs you are reading – so I did that. They also have a widget thingy which you can add to your blog, so I'm putting it up on the sidebar – will have things I think are interesting plus contests and giveaways that people are hosting in the blogosphere. No one can resist winning something 🙂 Now let's see if posting the widget here will do ANYTHING, otherwise look at the sidebar to the left at my vox screen. LJ won't let me put any javascript up for security reasons so I just have a link to my shared items instead.  If you see a big grey thing below, it didn't work.

 

http://a5.vox-data.com/6a00cd96f8411f4cd500e398e081b50005-html
Janicu’s shared items

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The Amazing Staircase

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Via Apartment Therapy - I saw this staircase the other day and was left in utter awe. The only problem is that I might trip from distraction going up and down these stairs and break my neck. The post about this and more about what the architects said about this project is here. Another staircase bookshelf is here, and combining a staircase with drawers is here.

 

Amazing staircase 1
Amazing staircase 1

 

Amazing Staircase 2
Amazing Staircase 2

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Keeping It Real by Justina Robson

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Keeping It Real (Quantum Gravity, Book 1)
Keeping It Real (Quantum Gravity, Book 1)
Justina Robson

First of all – this book is a trade paperback and… I HAVE to say this – it smells good! The paper is a nice quality, it does not have that newspaper smell of mass market paperbacks, instead it brings to my mind the smell of a nice new textbook (in a good way). I could get high on the smell. And the book feels heavy, meaning the paper is dense. I was quite pleased with the experience of reading because of this. I would not mind it at all if more publishers paid attention to things like paper if they are going to charge $15+ for a trade paperback.

Anyway, moving on to the actual words on the pages. The book begins with a short summary under the heading of "Common Knowledge" that describes what has been going on in the world. A quantum bomb that exploded in 2015 has changed the world as we know it, opening up five other parallel realities to ours. When I read the first page which described the bomb and altering matter, I was a bit bored. It was pretty late at night and I was sleepy, and I was suspicious that this was a prologue in disguise. Many people skip those things. I never do, but I did put the book down. A while later I read past page 1, and things got interesting.  I recommend that you DO NOT skip the Common Knowledge section, it explains much about the parallel worlds (Alfheim - populated by elves, Zoomenon – world of the Elements, Demonia – filled with demons, Thanatopia – realm of Death, and Otopia – world of Faerie). By the time the story starts the information there will be useful.

The basic premise is that Lila Black, a special agent with a body that is mostly machine, has been tasked to protect the lead singer of The No Shows – an elf named Zal. Zal is unusual amongst his kind and has made a strange choice to be "slumming" down on Earth. Someone from Alfheim, who disapproves of Zal's lifestyle is sending him death threats. Half of the book takes place on Earth and the other on Alfheim, but I don't think I can even begin to start describing it. It was so much fun to read! How do I explain why!? First of all – this was not done in a fluffy silly way – when I tried to explain it to someone: "There were elves, and one of them is a rock star-",  I got a face. It's not like that at all. The characters are compelling. Lila is a woman who has guns popping out of her body and rides a black motorbike, but she's very confused about how she feels about elves – they almost killed her and that's what made her this way. She has difficulties with accepting what she looks like now. And Zal is a bit of a mystery at first, an elf who has chosen to defy his people and "go native" in another world, exiled because of his choices. His character is rather complex and undefinable. There were a couple of other very interesting characters I wish I could get into but I can't without giving away big chunks of plot. Speaking of the the plot, it unlike anything else I've read, unpredicable, full of action and thrills. There are a lot of pop culture references and jokes (other reviews say many funny LoTR references, which totally went past me, I haven't read those books since I was 14), but you don't need to get them to enjoy the story. The only thing I'd complain about is that there were times in the story where, especially dealing with elves, I felt like they understood something about what was going on that I did not (why did they do that now?). Maybe this lends itself to the whole clash of cultures between human and elf, or maybe I just need to reread those parts. I felt like Robson was an intellectual writing something fun instead of something with a serious agenda. And I'm glad, because I loved it.

Keeper!

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Behind on posting …

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I'm going to review Justina Robson's Keeping It Real and Mark Del Franco's Unshapely Things soon. I was going to post about them last last week, but something else came up (I got engaged), and then it felt weird writing about anything else. Problem was, I couldn't just post about the engagement online until I'd told people I know. Makes sense in my mind..

Anyway, back to the usual.

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Hmmm

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What Be Your Nerd Type?

Your Result: Literature Nerd
 

Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works.

It's okay. I understand.
Science/Math Nerd
 
Artistic Nerd
 
Gamer/Computer Nerd
 
Anime Nerd
 
Social Nerd
 
Musician
 
Drama Nerd
 
What'>http://www.gotoquiz.com/what_be_your_nerd_type">What Be Your Nerd Type?
Quizzes'>http://www.gotoquiz.com/">Quizzes for MySpace

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Staying Dead by Laura Anne Gilman

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Staying Dead (Retrievers, Book 1)
Staying Dead (Retrievers, Book 1)
Laura Anne Gilman

My dad saw me buy this book and said something like "Staying Dead? I thought the problem is staying alive?". And laughed to himself. Anyway.. Imagine me rolling my eyes.

Here's another new to me author, though I think I've read books that Laura Anne Gilman edited. It's an urban fantasy set in New York City, and I believe its the first in a series, but there is actually a short story that comes before this one. I think the sequence is:

1) Staying Dead

2) Curse the Dark

3) Bring it On

4) Burning Bridges

5) Free Fall (2008)

This is a series of adventures about Wren and her partner Sergei. Wren is a Talent (aka someone who can manipulate energy) and a thief who does jobs retrieving objects for people. Sergei is an art-dealer who takes care of the business side of Wren's job. The clients contact Sergei, Wren uses her Talent and they both work together to track down the object. I believe that there is some background missing from this book but enough hints about it throughout for you to pick up that Sergei and Wren met 10 years ago when Sergei was fleeing from a mage, got into a car accident, and Wren saved him. After that adventure they decided to go into business together, and Sergei feels like part of his job is to protect Wren although she's the one with the special powers. There is also some backstory on Sergei's past (like why he was being hunted by a mage) that isn't revealed until midbook as well.

The book starts with Wren beginning a job. The client is missing the cornerstone of their building and Wren has been tasked to find it. The book goes straight into the story as if the reader has had some background from some prequel story. While I liked being considered smart enough to figure it out, and I did figure it out, I still wish that I knew their backstory earlier on in the book. I'm afraid that not knowing for as long as I was made the book boring at first. I thought the first couple of pages started off promising but then not really being filled in after that started to grate on me.  It was after I picked the book up again and kept reading and got about 150 pages in that the book finally picked up. By then I understood who I was reading about.

The world was interesting – we have people of Talent like Wren, the Nulls who have none, and the fatae (sort of fae people, like men with stag horns, angels, and demons that look like the Yeti). There is also different groups – the Council which governs most magic users, lonejacks (those that have left the Council's rule), hategroups that target the fatae and Talent, and a secret society called the Silence. On top of that there is this job that Wren has – more difficult than she originally expected, with more people involved than she originally realized. But to me the most interesting part of the book was Wren and Sergei. It reminds me of Moonlighting, Remington Steele and The X-Files. Two people partnered together who you know are both secretly in love with the other but who deny it to themselves the whole time. Sergei and Wren are so comfortable together. They can sleep in the same bed or undress in front of the other. And they are so used to their routines – they eat the same meals at the same restaurant at the same table, and they both know to brew tea for each other before the other asks. Yet Wren hides her crush and Sergei is overprotective. I don't think I've read a book with a partnership so in tune and comfortable with each other (yet blind) in a really long time. In the end that was probably the best part of the book. Overall it ended up feeling OK – I wasn't on my seat, but I liked the characters and I'm still interested to see where it goes.

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