Graphic Novel Review: Jupiter’s Legacy by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely
Posted on June 7, 2015 5 Comments
Jupiter’s Legacy, Book One by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely
Genre: Superhero
Series: Collecting Jupiter’s Legacy #1-5
Publisher: Image Comics (April 2015)
Author Info: millarworld.tv
Wendy’s Rating: 3.5 of 5
A dream leads Sheldon and his team to an island (headcanon says it’s the island from Lost) where they are bestowed with superhuman abilities. Now called The Utopian, Sheldon brings order to the world with his friends and the growing number of superbeings and their children, but not quite in the way his brother Walter and his son Brandon thinks he should, especially when Utopian refuses to allow the superbeings to become involved in political matters.
Millar wrote one of my favourite Superman stories, Superman: Red Son, where a Superman who really does use all of his powers for good shows just how dangerous benevolence in the hands of a very human god can be. The Utopian/Superman comparisons are obvious–presumably intentionally so. Right down to The Utopian’s insistence on awkward, bumbling alter egos. Millar’s penchant for taking the superhero genre beyond the limitations of Marvel and DC’s canon is evident here, with the added touch of superhero children who don’t care much for their imposed responsibilities or how Utopian treats them. None of the supers care for Utopian’s heavy handed rule so their subsequent mutiny shouldn’t come as a surprise–though I initially felt it was played out too abruptly. I was somewhat disappointed in what then seemed like a glossing over of the resulting new world order, but once the focus firmly shifts to the Utopian’s on-the-run daughter and her family, things really start to get interesting and leave me wanting more.
As I said, this book does not have the limitations of DC and Marvel’s canon universes, so Millar is free to do as he pleases. This means upping the murder-death-kill level of violence (though I appreciate that it is well placed, rather than gratuitous), and the powers displayed seem almost limitless, particularly with Utopian’s offspring.
The series sets up a pending collision as the forces of we-think-we’re-not-evil go up against the forces of sort-of-were-evil-without-realizing-it-but-probably-just-mostly-misunderstood. With the ground work of this Millar’s world established, it was these last few confrontational pages that really drew me in and made me want more and am looking forward to the final five issues of the series. I hope to see what family truly means under these terms and how the innocent people under the ruling party’s thumb are handled. Oh and I’d really love it if we could have a bit more racial diversity in the characters kthx.
Book Review: The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan
Posted on June 6, 2015 14 Comments
A review copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher via Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Stand Alone
Publisher: Crown (May 19, 2015)
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Mogsy’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
I went into The Gracekeepers very carefully. From what I’d heard, it sounded a lot like the kind of literary magical realism which would require an active engagement of the reader’s imagination in order to fill in the gaps, and books like this with their haunting, dreamlike style can either be a huge hit with me or it can fall flat. After completing novel, I think my feelings hover somewhere in between. Overall I enjoyed the story, but also felt there was a lot that kept me from connecting with it fully.
To start, The Gracekeepers takes place in a world where the ocean has flooded most of the earth, so its people have learned to adapt. Those who have taken to the sea and made their permanent homes aboard ships and other vessels are referred to as damplings, while those who have remained on land are known as landlockers. A class disparity exists between these two groups, with damplings regarded as second-class citizens and often looked upon with condescension and suspicion by the more well-to-do landlockers.
The story focuses predominantly on two characters, North and Callanish. North is a young woman who performs with her trained bear companion as part of her act with the traveling circus ship Excalibur. The circus’s captain and ringmaster Jarrow “Red Gold” Stirling has dreams for his son and North to marry and settle on land in a house he’s spent his whole life saving up for, to the displeasure of Avalon, Jarrow’s pregnant wife who wants that house for herself. Meanwhile in another place, Callanish lives a solitary life while dutifully performing her role as a gracekeeper, an undertaker of sorts who lays the dead to rest at the bottom of the ocean. Callanish and North meet in the wake of a great storm after the crew of the Excalibur is forced to make their way to the gracekeeper to seek her services, and the two are drawn to each other immediately.
Kirsty Logan has created something very interesting here, as far as her world and characters go. The writing style evokes an image of a gauzy shroud enveloping everything in the story with a light aura of enchantment, even though there is little to no magic involved. As I had expected, a bit of imagination is required to find your way through the mist, because even though the world is fascinating, world-building itself is decidedly lacking. There’s a positive side to this if you like getting just enough to inspire the mind, especially if you enjoy a little ambiguity and speculation. For instance, could the waterworld of The Gracekeepers be our own in some distant future, or someplace else entirely? What caused the divide between damplings and landlockers? How did the rituals of gracekeeping first come about and what’s the significance behind the use of graces, small birds that are starved to death in order to mark the end of the mourning period? There are many things that don’t get explained, but perhaps they don’t need to be – similar to the way we’re content to accept folk or fairy tales as they are, because there is simply no need to question them critically. And certain aspects of the narrative – like Callendish’s backstory – are better off being vague because we already have all the information we need to know.
However, while there are the bigger and more general mysteries that I can abide going unsolved, I still felt there were some specific details lacking that hurt the overall cohesiveness of the story. There are two factions – the military and the revivalists – that are important to the plot of The Gracekeepers, but they felt like such a poor fit with the rest of the book because the parts they played were slapdash and written in so randomly. Individuals like North and Callendish are characterized very well, but when it comes to actual character relationships, the story loses some of its magic. I wasn’t even that convinced of the bond between North and her bear, her best friend and companion since childhood who apparently wasn’t even given a name. There are more examples which I can’t go into for fear of spoilers, but with regards to the writing style, it’s probably safe to say that the emphasis is on atmosphere – which, to the author’s credit, she creates very well – but there just isn’t enough substance for me. I would have preferred more reasons to engage with the story and to see everything tie together more neatly.
Still, I would happily recommend The Gracekeepers, even if it does come with a couple caveats. It’s quite an ambitious novel, very well-written considering how the author no doubt achieved the haunting, dreamy effect she was going for. Not as solid as I’d hoped, but the story is nonetheless fascinating and beautiful, walking that fine line between melancholy and optimism, and I found the characters genuinely interesting.
Mogsy’s Bookshelf Roundup: New Books & Books I’ve Read
Posted on June 6, 2015 24 Comments
Bookshelf Roundup is a feature I do every two weeks where I talk about the new books I’ve added to my library or received for review, what I plan to read soon, and what I’ve finished reading in the last fortnight.
Received for Review
Please excuse my paltry attempts at artistry; as you can probably tell, I was messing around with the #bookstagram tag on Instagram last week. If you have an account, feel free to look me up (I’m on there sporadically, but I do use it).
Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey – Hardcover, with thanks to Orbit. Most sci-fi series have lost me by this point, but The Expanse is still going strong at book 5. Who’s excited for the SyFy TV series? I am, I am!
Court of Fives by Kate Elliott – Print ARC, with thanks to Little Brown Books for Young Readers. I was invited to read this book by the publisher, and I’m really glad they got in touch because Kate Elliott is awesome and I’m curious about her YA.
Twelve Kings in Sharakhai by Bradley P. Beaulieu – Print ARC, with thanks to the author who contacted The BiblioSanctum to see if I would be interested in reviewing his upcoming book. My answer was ABSOLUTELY! A couple years ago I backed Bradley P. Beaulieu’s The Flames of Shadam Khoreh on Kickstarter, which was the third book of his Lays of Anuskaya so I have all three of those books on my shelf too.
The Gods of Laki by Chris Angus – Paperback, with thanks to Yucca Publishing. This one showed up in the mail from Yucca’s parent publisher Skyhorse – looks like an interesting fantasy adventure-thriller.
Earth Flight by Janet Edwards – Print ARC, with thanks to Pyr. So happy to see this book coming to the US! I loved the first two Earth Girl books.
The Veil by Chloe Neill – Print ARC, with thanks to NAL . I’ve never read any of Chloe Neill’s books before, so the upcoming book of her new series seems like it’ll be a good place to start. Really looking forward to it.
The Good, The Bad and The Smug by Tom Holt – Digital ARC, with thanks to Orbit. I’ve been curious about this comic fantasy. And now that we also know Tom Holt is K.J. Parker, if I haven’t read Parker before, once I read this will it count? Hmm.)
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi – Audiobook with thanks to Audible Studios. I’ve been meaning to read something by Paolo Bacigalupi for ages, so when an opportunity to review the audio of his new book came up, I enthusiastically seized it.
The Undying Legion by Clay Griffith and Susan Griffith – Digital ARC, with thanks to Del Rey via NetGalley. I liked The Shadow Revolution I just had to request the sequel. In case you missed it, The BiblioSanctum also had a Q&A with the authors earlier this week about this series.
Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell – Digital ARC, with thanks to Clarion Books via NetGalley. I know what you’re thinking – the description makes it sound a lot like Cinder. But apart from it being another book about a mechanical Cinderella, I don’t think there are that many similarities. It’s unfortunate that a lot of comparisons are probably going to be made, but I want to give it a fair shot.
Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff – Digital ARC, with thanks to Random House Children’s Books. I’ve never read anything by Amie Kaufman but I have read Jay Kristoff. I think his Lotus War trilogy is excellent, so I have some high expectations to see what they can do together.
Kindle Unlimited
I did something silly a couple weeks ago. By that, I mean I signed up for a free trial of Kindle Unlimited, as if I needed more books on my plate. It didn’t cost anything though, and they have a lot of great stuff in their list of eligible titles that makes it worth it. Even if I don’t decide to keep the KU sub, I was able to get a bunch of sweet Whispersync audiobook deals out of it:
Of the audiobooks I grabbed, End of Days by Susan Ee and The Mermaid’s Sister by Carrie Anne Noble were among my most-wanted. Pines by Blake Crouch was one that intrigued me too, anyone watching the TV show?
Books I’ve Read Since the Last Update
Keep an eye out for my reviews of these books in the coming weeks, and you can see my reviews for these books which are up already: The Fold (5 of 5 stars), Artemis Awakening (2.5 of 5 stars), The Liar’s Key (5 of 5 stars).
Have you heard of or read any of the books featured in this week? What looks interesting to you?
June is Audiobook Month!
Posted on June 5, 2015 16 Comments
Credit: Audiobook Publishers Association
June is Audiobook Month as designated by the Audiobook Publishers Association. The APA’s website mentions a few ways for audiobook fans to get involved and spread audiobook awareness. The APA’s mission is as follows, quoted directly from their site:
Formed in 1987, the Audio Publishers Association (APA) is a not-for-profit trade association that advocates the common, collective business interests of audio publishers. The APA consists of audio publishing companies and allied suppliers, distributors, and retailers of spoken word products and allied fields related to the production, distribution and sale of audiobooks.
APA:
Advocacy: Promote policies and activities to create greater awareness and accelerate audiobook industry growth.
Events: Deliver programs and services that serve the common business interests for all members.
Networking: Serve as a networking, educational, and informational forum for members.
Standards: Advocate and guide for high quality production value.
For the month of June, the APA gives some very simple guidelines for supporting audiobooks and getting the word out:
Want to help spread the word about the Audies, APAC, and June is Audiobook Month? Please use the following hashtags in order to direct attention to our season of celebration, education, and community! With your help, we can reach more audiobook lovers and new listeners than ever!
#Audies2015
#APAC2015
#Audiomonth
They’re encouraging posts, interviews that focus on audiobooks, audiobook reviews, and of course sharing across social media to get the word out. Other hashtags that I’ve seen supporting Audiobook Month include #JIAM (which seems to share its tag with a celebrity athlete, but the athlete doesn’t overwhelm the tag), #AudiobookMonth and #ListenLit
My personal history with audiobooks has been rocky until very recently. I’m a fast reader, often finishing thick books in a single day if you leave me to it. Before kids, it wasn’t uncommon for me to read two full novels a day. I started reading early in life, and my love of reading has never ceased since finishing my very first book. My initial problem with listening to audiobooks was that the narrators could never read as fast as I could, which made me impatient. I’d usually end up abandoning the audiobook and just moving on to the actual book to get it finished. I also like the feel of books in my hands. I’m a very big ebook reader too, but I used to have to hold an actual book and flip through pages from time to time even when I got my first Kindle, so audiobooks made me uncomfortable. That’s a habit I still sort of have. I think it’s just a comfort thing. I love the feel of pages between my fingers and that book smell.
Another problem I faced is that I’m fidgety. I don’t just like to sit in one place listening to a story being read to me. Despite this, my husband gifted me with an Audible account in 2009, and it felt like a waste, at first. My credits would pile up. I’d pick up a few books, listen to them for a while, and abandon them for the actual book. However, sometimes, he is wise. He must’ve saw this day coming because something happened.
First, Audible’s speed controls. Those were a godsend when I found them. I don’t normally listen to audiobooks on any speed slower than 2x. In most cases, that’s still slower than I read, but it’s not so slow that I get annoyed. I can actually enjoy the story and the narration, picking out what does and doesn’t work in the narration for me rather than huffing about how slow the narration is going.
Second, I learned that I didn’t have to just sit. I’m really embarrassed it took me so long to realize that. I could listen to my books while I cleaned, while I did laundry, while knitting, while driving, and even while I was doing mundane things in video games that require no brain power–such as exploring the Hinterlands in Dragon Age: Inquisition or roaming the world of The Witcher 3.
Third, Amazon and Audible teamed up to give us Whispersync, which is absolute genius. It allows you to follow along in the ebook as the audiobook is playing. It highlights the words as the story is being read to you. It’s an excellent form of deep immersion and is amazing with books that might prove to be difficult reads if you only listened to the book or only read the book. Now, I’m actually excited about the prospects of audiobooks and joked that I’ve come to appreciate them in my old age. I don’t have the “too many” credits problem on Audible anymore. Now, I have a problem of which books I’m going to use my credits on.
We’re pretty busy women here on this site and have tons of content to share with you, but I will try to focus a bit more on reviewing audiobooks this month and maybe even write an article or two commenting on some new voices I’ve found since our initial post about our favorite narrators.
I’ll end this post with a few audiobook related links for you to check out if you’re so inclined.
Check out our audiobooks tag to see what audiobooks we’ve been reviewing!
Also, we’re participating in the 2015 Audiobook Challege hosted by The Book Nympho and Hot Listens:
Mogsy’s Audio Challenge Post
Tiara’s Audio Challenge Post
1st Quarter Audio Challenge Update
Here are some additional links to audiobook resources that may come in handy, and don’t forget your local library as a resource as well.
Audiobook Resources: Audible | Ambling Books | Downpour | Tantor | Barnes & Noble | Audio Jukebox | ListenUp Audiobooks
If you have an audiobook you’ve really enjoyed, tell me about it in the comments. I’m always looking for new suggestions, and I read any and every genre. So, don’t be afraid to recommend your favorite romances, mysteries, contemporary reads or whatever else you enjoy outside of speculative fiction. As one of my favorite quote goes:
“By way of this unprecedented, unbridled literary promiscuity, I have made some pleasant discoveries.”
Anna Lyndsey, Girl in the Dark
Happy reading!
Book Review: The Liar’s Key by Mark Lawrence
Posted on June 5, 2015 21 Comments
A review copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
The Liar’s Key by Mark Lawrence
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Book 2 of The Red Queen’s War
Publisher: Ace (June 2, 2015)
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Mogsy’s Rating: 5 of 5 stars
It’s official; The Liar’s Key is probably my favorite work by Mark Lawrence to date, surpassing even my love for the entire Broken Empire trilogy. It’s also stronger than its predecessor Prince of Fools, which I rated highly as well, but I was never able to shake the feeling that the first book of Prince Jalan’s adventures was still missing a little something – it didn’t read as fluidly as it could have, perhaps. However, The Liar’s Key charges out the gate at full speed and never once does it falter. Chalk it up to the story finding its stride in the second book, but I found this one went a lot more smoothly.
The story picks up again in the port town of Trond, where Jalan and the two Vikings Snorri and Tuttugu have spent the winter after their harrowing journey to the Black Fort. But as the ice retreats, Snorri grows restless to be on the move again, driven by his personal mission to bring his slain wife and children back to the world of the living. He holds Loki’s Key, a magical key said to have the power to open any lock – even the one on death’s door.
But such a powerful item attracts its fair share of attention. Others seek Loki’s Key, including the Dead King, agent of the Lady Blue who has sent her assassins, necromancers and armies of undead to dog Jalan and his companions every step of the way in her war against the Red Queen, Jalan’s indomitable grandmother. In this field full of power players, Jalan and Snorri suspect that the two of them are merely lowly pawns on a game board, yet they do what they must, even if it means heading knowingly into danger.
Consequently, I watched as the story barreled forth with both the inevitability and heart-stopping rush of a runaway tank. I could not peel my eyes away. As our adventurers travel south towards their goal, they pick up two more companions – a witch named Kara and an orphan boy named Hennan – to complete their party and join the quest. Their motivations range from ambition to loyalty, with the exception of Jalan, who was unwillingly bound to Snorri’s fate since the very beginning (even as he keeps telling himself he’s only along for the ride to escape massive gambling debts and the legions of angry brothers, fathers, and husbands of the women he’s bedded back home).
Many reviewers have contrasted Jalan to Jorg Ancrath, the protagonist of Mark Lawrence’s Broken Empire trilogy, stating that the two of them are completely different. That’s because they really are, but in this book, I began to see some similarities, not least of all is that fact they are actually both quite disgusting and despicable human beings, just in different ways. That didn’t stop me from enjoying Jalan’s character though, embracing him in a way that I never managed with Jorg. Prince of Fools was an aptly named first novel because Jal is a fool indeed, albeit a very charming, lovable one. He’s the best kind of protagonist; for all his unsportsmanlike behaviors, Jalan’s internal dialogue provides an endless amount of entertainment. This series maintains its much lighter, more humorous tone because of it.
At first, I was convinced that Jal wasn’t going to change, that he would remain the kind of rakish, dandy self-serving cad who would throw a woman into the path of an angry horde or use a child as a human shield (both of which he considered doing in the course of this story. Seriously, I never want to find myself in a position where I’d have to depend on someone like him to have my back). But Lawrence is a master of characterization. We do get to see growth in Jalan, a gradual and thoughtful journey that sees him maturing and growing more courageous (well, to a point, of course – this is Jal we’re talking about). We witness a change in Snorri at the same time as well, though he’s lost a bit of his fire in his case, burdened by what happened to his family and the knowledge of what he must do. I found a great irony in this, since the Viking is the light-sworn one where Jalan is the dark, and yet we see the prince become enlightened while the Viking retreats into his gloom. Regardless of how I took to these changes, I was amazed to see how incredibly well these two characters evolved, and yet they still continue to play off each other very well. Bringing Tuttugu, Kara and Hennan into the fold did nothing to throw off the momentum, and instead added a boatload of new and exciting dynamics.
The Liar’s Key is the kind of sequel every reader dreams about. The story is riveting and superbly well-constructed, just one reason why Mark Lawrence’s writing is such a force to be reckoned with. A pure blend of dark magic and adventure, this book launches Jalan’s saga to a whole new level. It unlocks a whole slew of secrets from his past, raising the stakes for everyone involved. Perhaps my only quibble is the ending and how fast we blew through it, but that’s not even really a true quibble because even now I suspect I only felt this way because I was enjoying myself so much I didn’t want it to be over. I have to say I felt that cruel cliffhanger like a punch in the gut, but now I simply cannot wait until the third book comes out.
More of The Red Queen’s War on The BiblioSanctum:
Review of Prince of Fools (Book 1)
Book Review: The Fold by Peter Clines
Posted on June 4, 2015 15 Comments
A review copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Genre: Science Fiction, Horror
Series: Stand Alone
Publisher: Crown (June 2, 2015)
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Mogsy’s Rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Fold is an amazing book. I couldn’t put it down, which is not something I normally write in reviews because it sounds so much like a cliché. In this case, however, it’s absolutely true and no exaggeration. This book even caused a moment of blustering indignation at one point, because it was 4:30 in the morning but it still wasn’t letting me close it up and get some sleep. And that is the story of how I finished this almost 400-page book in a little more than a day.
Needless to say, I was already feeling beyond excited when I first learned that Peter Clines was going to have a new book out this summer. I’m a big fan of the author and his genre-mashing stories and writing style, after having read his novel 14 and gobbling up every book in his Ex-Heroes series as they are released. So when The Fold finally landed in my grubby little hands, I could hardly wait to get started. What does it have in store for me, I wondered, if it wasn’t another Ex novel about the zombie apocalypse versus superheroes?
Well, my excitement only grew when I started reading and discovered that The Fold is actually kind of a “side-quel” to 14. And while the novel’s protagonist Leland “Mike” Erikson might not be a superhuman, with his powerful eidetic memory and the ability to perfectly recall anything he has ever heard or seen in his life, he may as well be. This part is really cool: Mike visually pictures all his memories as bits and pieces in his head, carried by a swarm of ants all constantly seething with information and interpretation. The ants allow him to take in the sights and sounds, and organizes them with his thoughts. He can put together graphs and statistics, even overlay them in 3D representation if he wants, all in a blink of an eye. Captain America or any movie that’s ever been made can be instantly replayed in his head whenever it pleases him, as long as he’s seen it before. Man, what I wouldn’t give to have a gift like his.
But then, there are the downsides. Mike can never forget anything, which includes bad memories. Traumatic experiences stay with him forever and with awful clarity, like they only happened five second ago. Between that and the overwhelming, all-consuming way his ants seethe and swarm when he lets them out to do their thing, I can understand why the guy just wanted to fade into obscurity and teach high school English in the-middle-of-nowhere, Maine. It’s a safe place without any great challenges to tempt the ants. It’s a place where he can just be normal.
All that changes one day, when his best friend Reggie drops in on him with a job offer, one that he knew Mike could never refuse. Out in the California desert, a team of DARPA scientists have figured out a way to transport matter in a mode that is effectively as good as teleportation. By “folding” across dimensions, their invention called the Albuquerque Door makes the difference between point A and point B almost negligible, so that the subject can simply travel across that distance with a single step. The Door works. And it’s safe. Those are facts no one can dispute. However, the scientists are refusing to go public with it for some inexplicable reason. On top of that, Reggie can’t shake the hunch that something about the project just feels wrong, so he sends Mike out there to scout things out and report back to him before the government approves funding for another year.
What follows is riveting and unique genre-mashing experience, taken to a whole new level. After all, that is what Peter Clines does best. The Fold starts off reading like a Michael Crichton novel, with 100% more pop culture and geek references. Despite its nature as a sci-fi thriller-suspense mystery, the book is surprisingly easy to enjoy without the reader feeling inundated with heavy science and tech terms – an impressive feat, considering how so much of the premise deals with topics like quantum physics or cosmological theory. Information was doled out in unobtrusive ways which often meshed neatly with the plot, like during the course of a funding review, or in casual conversations between characters over drinks at a bar.
Though the writing style isn’t anything special, the smooth flow of the prose almost makes reading this book like watching a movie. Mike is like a modern Sherlock Holmes, gathering clues with his photographic memory to build a framework of evidence to bring back to Reggie and DARPA. There’s always an air of suspense just hanging over your head, especially in the beginning when you don’t know what’s going on, and the scientists’ strange attitude towards Mike can’t be explained away by simple hostility. Even when nothing much is happening in a scene you can still feel the increasing tension and expectancy, which makes it really hard to stop (in case you’re wondering, this is how yours truly got in trouble and ended up being awake even five hours past her bedtime).
There’s a marked difference in the second half of the book, when the story take a turn for the creepy before arguably veering into horror territory. If you’ve read 14, you’ll have some idea of what I’m talking about. It actually surprised me how pleased I was to see the green cockroaches in The Fold, as that was the first hint that the two books were connected. In fact, The Fold reads a lot like 14; the two books share more than just the same world, as they are also similar in tone, style, as well as structure (though ultimately I think Clines handles the themes and pacing much better here). And just like my review of 14, I can’t really go into the second half of The Fold without giving too much away, though I will say everything reaches critical mass in a significant, explosive way.
The Fold is hands down my favorite Peter Clines book to date. It’s got everything – mystery and suspense, humor and horror, science fiction and the paranormal – all perfectly blended together with a bizarre twisty ending that will keep you saying, “Just one more page…” A fun and enjoyable read all around.
More of Peter Clines on the BiblioSanctum:
Review of 14 | Review of Ex-Communication (Ex-Heroes Book 3) | Review of Ex-Purgatory (Ex-Heroes Book 4)
Tough Traveling: Disguises
Posted on June 4, 2015 25 Comments
The Thursday feature “Tough Traveling” is the brainchild of Nathan of Review Barn, who has come up with the excellent idea of making a new list each week based on the most common tropes in fantasy, as seen in (and inspired by) The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynn Jones. Nathan has invited anyone who is interested to come play along, so be sure to check out the first link for more information.
This week’s tour topic is: Disguises
Hiding in plain site? Put on a disguise. Often used to sneak into the evil lair. For best results brain a guard and steal his; no one is tracking these things.
Wendy’s Picks:
Talon by Julie Kagawa
How do you hide a dragon in plain sight? You let them take on human form, of course. Ember and Dante hill are just gorgeous 16 year olds, hanging out at the beach for the summer with friends, right? Nope! They are actually young dragons, stationed there to learn how to blend in with society. Conveeenient!
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
You know who are really great at disguises? Gods. Like all the gods in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. And poor, naive Shadow, gets to meet just about all of them as he travels the United States.
Mystique (X-Men) and Voodoo (formerly WildC.A.T.S.)
Disguises? Well that’s pretty easy to cover when shapeshifting is your mutant power.
Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
How do you lure the great Steelheart into a trap? By pretending to be an even more epic Epic than he is, complete with all the technology necessary to mimic super powers.
Lots of people with mutant powers stroll around Northcott’s future, and many of them are willing to face death in the Arena for a chance at some big cash. Matthew Moxon is one of them. Or rather, he’s pretending to be, because he really, really needs that money…
The Wizards’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind
Sneak into the lair of the deadly Mord Sith, a group of women who have been conditioned to a life of pain and misandry, you say? The Seeker of Truth and the Mother Confessor are up to the task!
The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells
Moon is an orphan with no clue about his origins. He’s spent his life hiding his shapeshifting abilities from the various cultures he settles with, especially since his true form resembles that of a feared enemy.
When a group of adventurers wind up dead at the local bar, the usual suspects of non-playable characters decide to forego their typical roles and take up the quests the dead adventures have left behind.
And finally:
Tiara’s Picks:
Myles (The Storm Siren Trilogy by Mary Weber)
Myles is the handsomest creepster you’ll probably ever meet. He’s one of the magical beings in Weber’s series whose ability is mind manipulation. One of his favorite tricks is using those abilities to disguise himself and others, often making himself appear as trusted allies to others in order to get access to information, move around in places he shouldn’t be, and of course, to get in close to people… One character even complains about him making her look like a teenaged boy after he tells her to stop gawking at herself as a boy. LOL!
Jezebel Jet (Batman R.I.P. by Grant Morrison)
Jezebel’s is a former model and now the leader of an African country. While these are her true professions, she uses them to the best of her ability to get close to Batman as a undercover agent for the Black Glove who tasks her with making him fall in love with her. This does and doesn’t work out for her in the end. He does reveal an insane amount of secrets to her including his Bat persona and takes her back to the Bat Cave, but this is Batman we’re talking about. He’s not the called the world’s greatest detective for nothing.
Bob Arctor (A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick)
In PKD’s dystopian story, Bob Arctor, a cop, is tasked with finding out who supplies a deadly narcotic known as Substance D (also called Death) that has some very disturbing affects on the brain. How does Bob plan to find the source? Well, he’s going undercover as a drug user. To say that’s an interesting experience is an understatement.
YOU’RE HIGH!
Count Olaf (A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket)
Count Olaf is the distant cousin of the Baudelaire children who becomes their caretaker after their parents die. He wants their inheritance. However, he’s foiled and the children are taken from him, and he begins a very dogged chase to get them back by assuming many disguises to ruin every opportunity they have at happiness.
Cullen (The Stranded by Mike Carey)
Cullen starts this book as a “sleeper,” a humanoid alien refugee with powers whose memories have been manipulated so he forgets who he is. His powers allow him to absorb the feelings, persona, and powers of others to disguise his presence, a power that he’s inadvertently continued to use even as a sleeper, which makes him difficult to find in a crowd or remember when the bad guys come looking for him and other sleepers. However, since he works as an investment banker while he’s “sleep,” his inadvertent use of his powers help him to connect to people and make them believe they have things in common, that he’s one of them, which makes him an excellent banker to his colleagues’ chagrin. (Note: This comic is hard to find.)
The Fables (Fables by Bill Willingham)
In Fables, fairy tale land is real, but has been taken over by an entity known as Adversary. The Fables, which includes names such as the Big Bad Wolf, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, flee to modern day New York. Those who don’t normally look human have to pay to keep up a glamour. Otherwise, they’re shipped off to what’s known as The Farm. The Fables are policed in part by Bigby Wolf (The Big Bad Wolf) who has mostly atoned for his past, but can sometimes be pushed to reveal his true form.
This is only his partial true form. His true form is a wolf.
Comic Stack – 06/03/15
Posted on June 3, 2015 2 Comments
The Displaced #1 by Rick Troula (writer, illustrator)
Publisher: Chaos Factory Comics (November 27, 2013)
Genre: Fantasy, Mythology, Action-Adventure
I am going to be completely honest with you guys about today’s comic. I have no earthly idea how I ended up with this comic, but after reading it, I’m not sorry that it found its way to me. While browsing through my stack of digital comics, I saw this one many times, but I’d passed it by just as many times. I wasn’t drawn to it as something I immediately needed to read, but the description sounded interesting enough that I knew I’d get around to it eventually. I don’t know what made this week different, but I decided to give it a read just to see the story behind this comic. I don’t have anything bad to say about this other than it’s too damn short. I think I was sort of holding my breath by the end of it.
The Displaced starts with a tale, a biblical legend of sorts that conjures up shades of Cain and Abel (the biblical story of the first murder committed by one brother against another brother), about something called “the wildling amulet.” The story goes that the first men of Zarconia, the wildlings, worshiped their gods to the point of fanaticism. Like any good religious fanatics, their fervor resulted in violence, especially when people tried to introduce new religious ideas. The comic says killing comes easy for the wildlings. However, the story cautions that it’s never easy to kill one’s own and this displeased the gods.
From this crime, the wildling amulet comes into fruition forged from the blood of those slain. The amulet is considered a living thing that stayed hidden nurturing its dark power until it was ready to be found. Then, it continued to feed on people’s strength, corrupting those who held it, until the gods “shattered” the world, which reminds me of how the biblical floods supposedly created continents and oceans, but the amulet was soon found again by men and used throughout the years by its wielder to seize power until the owner couldn’t control it. Finally, one woman finds the amulet and uses it to conquer the lands with her war maidens.
However, the power of the amulet is unable to corrupt her, and she has it locked away with very strong dark magic. The shaman who created the amulet hid away from civilization because men didn’t forget the amulet. However, the shaman is eventually found and killed by an ambitious young merchant, a merchant who spends most of his years trying to free the amulet without success. This is the point where the story stops being a parable and shows us the merchant as an old, bitter man being attacked by a group of men. What do they want?
Of course, a fight starts and we meet our main trio. We have some kind of battlemage type dude that creates weapons with magic. I love battlemages. They are my absolute favorite because they combine two things I love–magic and brawling. I don’t know this guy’s name, so I will dub him Sorcerer Supreme. He looks like Dr. Strange a little and he uses magic. Perfect name for him.
We also have our handsome archer dude, popping in from out of nowhere and shooting all the things. I don’t know his name, either, so I’m going to call him Robin of the Hood.
Finally, we have our tank. Where the hell would we be without our tank? Another nameless soul, so I’m going to call him Frank the Tank. Friendly reminder: Never disrespect the tank.
The scuffle ends with a lot of injured (and dead?) men, but the Sorcerer Supreme, Robin, and Frank make off with the wildling amulet while sparing the merchant’s life. Who are these guys really? The comic doesn’t tell us yet. What do they want with the amulet? The book doesn’t tell us that either. In fact, we only get a few additional pages about the group before the comic ends, which means I scrambled in search of the next one because this was a really compelling story.
I loved the combination of history telling, action, and mysteriousness this managed to blend together. The parable type telling at beginning of the book gave a brief, but totally understandable, history of the amulet. The story made an impact even with its brevity. It gave me just enough of a peek to know that this amulet’s power is dangerous and terrifying. That leaves me with this question: “What the hell do these guys want with this amulet?”
Waiting on Wednesday 06/03/15
Posted on June 3, 2015 24 Comments
“Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that lets us feature upcoming releases that we can’t wait to get our hands on!
Mogsy’s Pick:
One Good Dragon Deserves Another by Rachel Aaron: August 1, 2015 (Aaron/Bach, LLC)
Thank you to Danya @ Fine Print for passing along the news about this book earlier this week. I had an amazing time listening to the audiobook of Nice Dragons Finish Last a few months ago, and I was thrilled to see that the sequel finally has a cover and blurb! One Good Dragon Deserves Another is set to be released on August 1 and I seriously hope that an audiobook version will also be available, and that it will follow close behind. Still, the narrator made the first book such a delight; if they keep the same voice actor I think it would be worth waiting for.
“After barely escaping the machinations of his terrifying mother, two all knowing seers, and countless bloodthirsty siblings, the last thing Julius wants to see is another dragon. Unfortunately for him, the only thing more dangerous than being a useless Heartstriker is being a useful one, and now that he’s got an in with the Three Sisters, Julius has become a key pawn in Bethesda the Heartstriker’s gamble to put her clan on top.
Refusal to play along with his mother’s plans means death, but there’s more going on than even Bethesda knows, and with Estella back in the game with a vengeance, Heartstriker futures disappearing, and Algonquin’s dragon hunter closing in, the stakes are higher than even a seer can calculate. But when his most powerful family members start dropping like flies, it falls to Julius to defend the clan that never respected him and prove that, sometimes, the world’s worst dragon is the best one to have on your side.”
Tiara’s Pick
Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older: June 30, 2015 (Arthur A. Levine Books)
Admittedly, I need still need to read Half-Resurrection Blues. I’m getting there. So many books, so little time. However, I think I’m a bit more excited to read this one than that one.
“Sierra Santiago was looking forward to a fun summer of making art, hanging out with her friends, and skating around Brooklyn. But then a weird zombie guy crashes the first party of the season. Sierra’s near-comatose abuelo begins to say “No importa” over and over. And when the graffiti murals in Bed-Stuy start to weep…. Well, something stranger than the usual New York mayhem is going on.
Sierra soon discovers a supernatural order called the Shadowshapers, who connect with spirits via paintings, music, and stories. Her grandfather once shared the order’s secrets with an anthropologist, Dr. Jonathan Wick, who turned the Caribbean magic to his own foul ends. Now Wick wants to become the ultimate Shadowshaper by killing all the others, one by one. With the help of her friends and the hot graffiti artist Robbie, Sierra must dodge Wick’s supernatural creations, harness her own Shadowshaping abilities, and save her family’s past, present, and future.”
Book Review: Siren’s Fury by Mary Weber
Posted on June 2, 2015 5 Comments
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Series: Book #2 of The Storm Siren Trilogy
Publisher: Thomas Nelson/Harper Collins (June 2, 2015)
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Tiara’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Full Disclosure: A review copy of this book was provided to me by Thomas Nelson via Netgalley. I would like to thank the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for providing me this opportunity. All opinions expressed from here forward are my own.
In Storm Siren, we met Nym, a young girl with the ability to control the elements who has spent most of her life as a slave carted from owner to owner. She finally finds some purpose in life when she’s bought by her fifteenth owner who wants to make her a weapon of war between the warring kingdoms of Faelen (Nym’s home country) and Bron. Siren’s Fury follows the aftermath of Nym’s training and the climatic battle that ensued toward the end, which proved to be full of surprises, even if one surprise seemed fairly obvious given something that was said in the beginning of the book.
The war has ended (for now), but there are things festering beneath the surface, casting a stunning illusion of safety and peace for the two kingdoms. Nym finds herself again at a crossroads while fighting a seemingly uphill battle to secure what they’ve fought so hard for, for the peace many have died for. Allegiances are tested. Allies become enemies, and people once thought potential enemies turn into friends–or at the very least tenuous allies in some cases.
Admittedly, after being let down quite a bit by the last book, I refused to go into this one with high expectations as I did with the last book. I managed to enjoy this one quite a bit more than I did the first book, though. I don’t know if I can blame my lowered expectations on that or not, but I really think this book managed to outperform its predecessor. In the beginning, I thought I was going to continue to have a hard time connecting with Nym, but she grows as a character throughout this book. She doesn’t become this complete sage who’s been through a war she’s still fighting, but she does learn how to temper her some of her actions while still having plenty of scenes that show everything is still a learning process for her.
She still manages to do some really questionable things throughout the book as she tries to figure out how she’s meant to help, learning it’s not easy to know what’s the right thing to do at times. Okay, I’ll admit that Nym still did a load of stupid stuff that irked the hell out of me, but I tried to be forgiving given her circumstances by putting a seventeen year old me in her place. What would I do if I’d been faced with these decisions? How do you know what’s right or wrong when everything seems right and wrong?
Some of the characters came into play that I didn’t really get to see much of in the last book such as Princess Rasha the Luminescent that Nym was a little afraid of in the first book. I was really happy to learn more about how the Luminescent powers worked through Rasha. This book added a little more nuance to powers. The last book described their powers as allowing them to see on a spectrum that shows them how determined a person is on a set course. The more determined they are, the easier the person is to predict. However, even when they’re mostly sure of how a person will act, there’s still some room for error that Rasha acknowledges. One example is when she mentions that she’s “95% sure” about something but that doesn’t rule out the other 5% actually coming to fruition.
I am appreciative that this book wasn’t as heavy handed on the romance as the first. Instead we focus more on court politics, which as I mentioned in my last review, is not exactly Nym’s forte. This book is teeming with deceit, secrets, half-truths, and lies. Because of the new circumstances surrounding this book, the romance is very downplayed and segued in better with the story. So, readers are treated with more story that focuses on the powers and people of the lands than having to deal with page after page of “he loves me, he loves me not.”
It still lacks in some respect to explore many avenues, but it excels in finding a better medium between investing readers in the story of Nym and these people. The writing was more fluid and pieced itself together more while combining the intrigue and action into the story with more finesse. Weber definitely went places with the exploration of her characters this round, and one character I didn’t much care for in the first book really shined in their role in this book.
While I still had some issues with this book, it still felt more complete for me than the first book because there was more meat to the story than the constant romantic struggle. The romantic feelings still spurred many of Nym’s actions, but it was allowed to be more than a book where the story is secondary to the characters’ romantic feelings. This book ends on a cliffhanger much like the last. It isn’t nearly as dramatic, but it still begs readers to hang on to find out what will be thrown Nym’s way in the final book.
More reviews of this series: Storm Siren (reviewed by me), Storm Siren (reviewed by Mogsy)
The BiblioSanctum 