Book Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Posted on September 1, 2013 Leave a Comment
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Genre: Fantasy
Series: Stand-alone
Publisher: William Morrow
Date of Publication: June 18, 2013
Author Information: Website | Twitter
Returning to Sussex to attend a funeral, an unnamed middle-aged man visits the site of his childhood home, knowing that the house he grew up in no longer exists. But the farm at the end lane still stands and he is drawn to the pond in the back, a pond which an extraordinary girl named Lettie Hempstock once called an ocean. In this place, the man recalls a series of events in his past, of a dark time which began forty years earlier with the suicide of his family’s lodger in their stolen car.
This was only the second novel I’ve read by Neil Gaiman (I’m not counting his short stories or comics, etc.) but I knew enough to know about his knack for storytelling, and particularly his style of using allusion in doing so. This has made me wary about picking up his stuff, because I tend not to be drawn to stories that are more metaphysical and abstract.
Because fables and mythological motifs often feature so heavily in his work, I’ve come to view a lot of Gaiman’s stories as modern fairy tales. Ocean definitely has that vibe to it; as such, the book’s description as “terrifying” and “menacing” notwithstanding, I found it more whimsical and odd than anything else. While not a negative factor by any means, admittedly I did expect the book to be somewhat more emotionally stirring.
That said, while it’s not typically my kind of book, Ocean packs a pretty good punch, especially given its relatively short length. Gaiman has a way of making me care about his characters if not so much for his themes, and not to mention he also writes beautifully. Very few authors can do what he does to me with his prose, as in the case of this book where he uses such vivid imagery to paint fantastical landscapes and their creatures in my mind’s eye.
Mogsy’s Book Haul – YA Explosion Edition
Posted on August 31, 2013 Leave a Comment
As the title states, my library saw a ton of new YA additions in the last two weeks, thanks to a bunch of amazing sales. But that’s mostly ebooks, so first here are the physical books that have arrived since my last book haul post:
The Greyfriar – received for review. This book was delicious, a fine mix of steampunk, fantasy world-building, adventure and romance. I’ve already devoured and reviewed it, and you can see my thoughts here. And if interested, MyShelfConfessions is currently running a giveaway on the audiobook, and better hurry as it looks like it will only go for a couple more days. By the way, James Marsters is the narrator, yum yum.
Kinslayer – from publisher/giveaway. Glad I didn’t wait to read the first book because now I get to jump into this one right away!
A Study in Silks – won in a giveaway. Doesn’t its description sound fascinating? Steampunk, magic, murder and demons, that sounds good to me! Keep an eye out for my review of this in the coming month!
And now, ahem, on to the huge digital pile. Have I ever mentioned how much I love good ebook deals?
The City’s Son – Jo Fletcher Books brought this book to my attention, as the sequel just came out and I’m seeing a lot of buzz for it. The series looked cool, so I picked this up for $5.95 earlier this month. Any ebook that looks interesting and is ~$5 or less is pretty much an insta-buy, so it was just calling to me.
Blackwood – congratulations to Strange Chemistry, Angry Robot’s YA imprint, for celebrating their first birthday last week! To celebrate, they’ve dropped the prices on a handful of their first titles to $1.99 ($1.39 in some cases, like Blackwood, woot!) and this was a book I picked up…
Katya’s World – …and so was this…
The Assassin’s Curse – …and also this. Sigh!
The Bone Season – I’ve heard some amazing things about this book and its author 21-year-old Samantha Shannon, whom some have already heralded as “the next J.K. Rowling.” Curiosity got the better of me, and $4.99 seems a good price to satisfy it.
Crown of Midnight – sequel to the first book Throne of Glass, which I already have. $5.99 for a book that just came out this week is not bad at all.
The Rise of Renegade X and The Trials of Renegade X – both sent in a e-bundle this week from the author Chelsea Campbell because I pledged in her Kickstarter campaign to publish the second Renegade X book. Really looking forward to reading this YA superhero series!
Monsters – third book of the Ashes Trilogy and I’m mad to find out how it all ends. Got this one from Netgalley, because I’m an NG addict, and I need help.
Dreams and Shadows – finally for some books that aren’t YA, this one had been on my wishlist for a while and when I saw it for $1.99 last week I quickly snapped it up.
Devil Said Bang – fourth in Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series, whose books periodically go on sale and I pick them up whenever I see them. That’s why I got this when I saw it for $2.99 a couple weeks ago, even though I’ve only just finished reading the second.
Audiobook Review: METAtropolis
Posted on August 30, 2013 1 Comment
Metatropolis by various authors
Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian Future
METAtropolis is a collection of short stories by several science fiction authors who decided that, rather than simply doing a collection of stories based on a specific theme, they would create a world together, and write stories within that world. I really liked this concept, as well as the fact that three of the audiobook narrators are actors from Battlestar Galactica, one of my favourite television shows.
John Scalzi is the editor of the book and introduces each story. He also wrote the only short story within the book that I truly enjoyed. His story, wonderfully narrated by Alessandro Juliani, employed Scalzi’s usual sense of humour and, as he explains, fills the gap in the METAtropolis left by the other authors because it is a story about people who actually live reasonably happily within the major cities. The story somewhat addresses something that really bothered me when I started reading this. I realized that I couldn’t recall any depiction of humanity’s future that doesn’t feature a dystopia where our flaws and hubris have destroyed everything, or a utopia that is too inhuman to be true and must be destroyed. METAtropolis made me realize just how little we think of humanity and our future.
METAtropolis is a typical world where the less fortunate and the disillusioned live outside the gated communities of the rich, thinking up ways to bring anarchy to the lives of the better off. There is no shortage of lecturing the reader in various ways over how human nature has led to this current state of affairs and, outside of Scalzi’s story, we get to be privy to the greed and desperation of not-quite starving people who seek to survive and to balance the scales through overzealous protests.
As I said, I only found Scalzi’s entry to be interesting, with memorable characters and events. As his story takes place within the same world, he didn’t neglect the anarchists in his account, but he did turn their beliefs upside down a bit by not merely making them the downtrodden who must obviously be good in comparison to the rich people who must obviously be bad because of their blissful ignorance.
Overall, a surprisingly disappointing read, with the other stories being rather uninspiring and sometimes annoying in their preachiness. The narrations were mostly good, but not good enough to elevate the stories.
Book Review: Children of Fire by Drew Karpyshyn
Posted on August 29, 2013 2 Comments
Children of Fire by Drew Karpyshyn
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Publisher: Del Rey
Date of Publication: August 27, 2013
Author Info: www.drewkarpyshyn.com
With thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey Books for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Four unique children are born under a portent omen, each touched by Chaos in some way. Initially, the story moves through the lives of all four, leaping through time as they grow and deal with varied situations that shape them towards their destiny. Their paths cross in various ways until they reach adulthood and then dark forces are unleashed…
I’ve played the Bioware games Karpyshyn has been heavily involved in as a writer and I have read one of his Star Wars books, as well as his Mass Effect books. With those, I found that his writing was not as strong as the ideas and characters behind it and concluded that Karpyshyn works best when his ideas and characters can be visually brought to life. Perhaps he’d do a better job with the comic book stories.
However, Children of Fire is Karpyshyn’s first novel of his own creation, and I’m always curious to see what a creator can do when freed from the constraints of an established franchise. So far, I’m very pleased. I don’t feel this book is a strong entry into the epic fantasy genre, however, it has a lot of potential.
Actually, considering how I feel about epic fantasy classics like Eye of the World, Children of Fire is very good. The characters are strong, unique and memorable, and there’s little time wasted on too much exposition. I was worried at first, with the format of travelling through the children’s lives as they aged, but Karpyshyn did a good job of telling only what was needed at each given point in their lives.
There are some typical fantasy tropes used, such as talismans, chosen ones, dark lords, fellowships and seemingly evil ruling bodies. I liked the latter two items though, because they did not quite follow the conventional ‘rules.’ When the four children cross paths, their interaction is not predictable, and the Order, who seeks out people who wield Chaos magic, does so for a good reason.
I did enjoy the magical aspect of the story. There is a lot of lore behind it and varying opinions on those with magical abilities, but I liked that Karpyshyn doesn’t use the magic as a crutch to easily get his characters out of situations. In fact, the moments when magic is used serves to advance the plot and develop the characters themselves.
Audiobook Review: The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross
Posted on August 29, 2013 Leave a Comment
The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross
Series: Laundry Files
Genre: Science Fiction, Occult
There is a list floating around Tumblr of Bioware voice actors who have narrated audiobooks. Having fallen in love with Fenris’ voice in Dragon Age II, I decided that The Atrocity Archives, read by Gideon Emery, was a necessary listen from Audible. Not that I blindly listen to an audiobook just because I want to hear sexy sweet nothings in my ear all day. The book’s blurb actually sounded interesting – though it certainly helped my enjoyment to believe that the character of Bob Howard looks exactly like Fenris, if Fenris happened to be moonlighting as a snarky IT guy who works for The Laundry.
 |
| Bob. |
Bob Howard is an employee at the Laundry Files, a bureaucratic organization that covertly monitors and deals with occult activities and the connections between other dimensions. He normally spends his day doing typical, mundane IT guy things, such as sorting through the messes Fred from accounting has made of his computer. Once or twice, he’s been sent out into the field, but after an unfortunate incident during an IT/Occult training course, Bob’s actions bring him to the attention of the Counter Possession Unit and leads him into doing a lot more out-of-office work.
I really liked that Bob is not a stereotypical, introverted nerd tossed into field work where he can skillfully display his incompetence in a mock attempt at playing a geeky James Bond. Bob might need to brush up on protocol and procedure, such as what not to do when a gorgeous redheaded scientist is kidnapped, but otherwise, Bob is quite capable of handling himself in the field and is a unique character unto himself.
For the first half, both Emery and the story kept me very entertained. Emery did an excellent job of making sure Bob’s attitude didn’t go over the edge and into the realm of unlikable characters and I loved the way Stross seamlessly worked in the occult aspects, solidly grounding them in reality through science and technology. There were a lot of technical references, but they were delivered with wit and sarcasm to make them amusing, and explained succinctly enough to make them accessible to someone as clueless about such technology as I am.
Unfortunately, this changes in the second half, once the Atrocity Archives are discovered and the plot thickens. At this point, explanations start to take over the story as Stross works in all sorts of details about Hitler’s obsession with the occult. It is all relevant to the plot, but where previous explanations were pithy, amusing and interesting, these were tiresome, interruptive wiki entries that slowed down what should have been the action part of the novel.
Because of this, a series that I initially expected to continue with became disappointing, though not so much so that I wouldn’t allow Fenris to seduce me into reading more books in the series.
Waiting On Wednesday 8/28/13
Posted on August 28, 2013 Leave a Comment
“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!
Autumn Bones by Jacqueline Carey – October 1, 2013 (Roc Books)
The books in Carey’s Kushiel Universe are some of my favorites ever, so I was psyched to read her new urban fantasy series. Autumn Bones is the second book of Agent of Hel.
“Fathered by an incubus, raised by a mortal mother, and liaison to the Pemkowet Police Department, Daisy Johanssen pulled the community together after a summer tragedy befell the resort town she calls home. Things are back to normal—as normal as it gets for a town famous for its supernatural tourism, and presided over by the reclusive Norse goddess Hel.
Not only has Daisy now gained respect as Hel’s enforcer, she’s dating Sinclair Palmer, a nice, seemingly normal human guy. Not too shabby for the daughter of a demon. Unfortunately, Sinclair has a secret. And it’s a big one.
He’s descended from Obeah sorcerers and they want him back. If he doesn’t return to Jamaica to take up his rightful role in the family, they’ll unleash spirit magic that could have dire consequences for the town. It’s Daisy’s job to stop it, and she’s going to need a lot of help. But time is running out, the dead are growing restless, and one mistake could cost Daisy everything.”
“Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after…”
Book Review: Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff
Posted on August 27, 2013 Leave a Comment
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy, Steampunk
Series: Book 1 of The Lotus War
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Date of Publication: September 18, 2012
Author Information: Website | Twitter
This was a refreshing read that stood out from all the steampunk I’ve been chomping through lately. I used to think this sub-genre and setting wasn’t for me, but that was probably before I realized how few steampunk books I’ve read actually incorporate that “steampunkness” so fully and completely as this book does. And it’s not just about the cool airships and armor and the wicked chainsaw katanas either (though all those things are indeed cool and wicked). The steampunk aspect is ubiquitous and feels like a living, breathing part of the story, going beyond descriptions of the mechanisms to actually touch upon the relationship it has with the whole society and industry.
But enough about the steampunk, because as brilliant as that is, it’s only one of the many reasons why I loved this book. I think the kicker is the feudal Japanese-inspired world as well as the author’s version on its myths and legends. In the center stage of Stormdancer is the arashitora, a “storm tiger” or griffin, which the characters Yukiko and the members of her father’s hunting team are tasked to capture for Shima’s megalomaniacal Shogun. However, the expedition is disrupted by a great tempest before they could bring one home, leaving Yukiko stranded and alone with one of the mythological creatures, and a furious one at that.
At is heart, the story is mainly about the friendship that develops between Yukiko and the arashitora Buruu, an unlikely pair who learns to trust and love one another after facing challenges together. While that’s not exactly breaking new ground, I still have to say there were a few surprises in the plot that kept things interesting. Once again, it’s the world that really pulled me in, and along with that the anticipation of seeing how the characters will prevail against the Shogun and his Lotus Guild. For a novel targeted at young adults, I am more than impressed with the whole package.
I suppose the only thing that gave me pause was the prose. I am torn when it comes to this, because so much of the writing was given to the world building, and surely no one can accuse the author of skimping on the descriptive details. In general, however, I found the prose needed getting used to, and also could have done with less embellishment.
Still, the book’s penchant to expound on everything was also both its strongest and weakest point. It may be the reason for its slow-ish start, but also gave life to in my opinion the best and most amazing scene in the whole book, which was the initial hunt in the storm at about a quarter of the way in. There’s pretty much no way you can read those vivid chapters and not be hooked afterward! All in all, a great book, and nothing’s going to keep me away from the next one.
Book Review: The Greyfriar by Clay Griffith and Susan Griffith
Posted on August 26, 2013 1 Comment
The Greyfriar by Clay Griffith and Susan Griffith
Genre: Fantasy, Steampunk
Series: Book 1 of Vampire Empire
Publisher: Pyr
Date of Publication: November 2, 2010
Author Information: Website
Note: I received a review copy of this book compliments of the publisher, in exchange for my honest opinions. Thanks, Pyr/Prometheus Books!
Vampires and steampunk! The former, obviously, is a topic that’s been wildly popular for years and years. The latter, as well, has been a sub-genre gaining more traction in the science fiction and fantasy world lately, hence it was only a matter of time that I would finally stumble across a book which unites both concepts in the foundation for its story! What did strike me as a pleasant surprise, however, was finding a book that does this so well!
The Greyfriar is set in an alternate history in which humans and vampires have been locked in a bitter conflict for more than a century. In 1870, the blood drinkers rose up to conquer the northern lands, driving the humans towards warmer climes. Now, the young princess Adele of Equatoria is to wed the famed vampire hunter senator of the American Republic, their marriage to be the start of an alliance to take back their lands. But shortly before the wedding, an ambush on the princess’ airship throws all plans into turmoil. Adele’s way home now involves a partnership with the Greyfriar, a semi-legendary figure who has become a symbol of humanity’s fight against the vampires.
Notice I say “partnership with” and not “dependency upon”, because as princesses go, Adele is far from your dainty damsel in distress and she can most certainly hold her own. In this book, both the main protagonist and also the enemy vampire warchief are female characters you would not be wise to cross, as each woman has about them a commanding presence in their own way. With Adele, I loved her for her independence, intelligence, fighting skills, as well as for her protectiveness and love for her little brother. All the characters here are pretty well written, but it’s extra nice having a heroine I genuinely like and enjoy reading about.
Still, while I’m steadfastly rooting for Adele, it’s hard not to be drawn to the vampires as well, with their fascinating empire, politics, family conspiracies and infighting among their peerage. The vampires in this book are atypical enough not to bore me, with their strange biological quirks allowing their bodies to be lighter and to “float” in the air, and it amuses me to no end how disdainful they are of human myths like the ones claiming vampires to be their own dead risen to life. Their culture is well defined, like everything else in this book’s world.
My favorite part, though, is the thread of romance woven through the second half of the book! Admittedly, as much as I enjoy love stories, romance in these types of books usually make me balk — like, seriously, why spoil a perfectly awesome action-adventure tale by forcing a contrived and cringe-worthy romantic side plot just for the sake of having it? And yet…I found that the love story in this book could not have been more natural and just completely appropriate, like it belongs. I don’t know what it is, but perhaps the fact that the authors are a married couple who have been writing and publishing together for years has something to do with this, because the attraction between Adele and Greyfriar felt passionate, gradual, sweet, real and — most importantly — earned. None of that insta-love nonsense.
Plus, not to worry if romance isn’t your cup of tea; as I’ve said, the romance is not the dominant focus and does not by any means overtake the entire story, and I liked how there were just as many if not more action-oriented battles and fight scenes in this book. In fact, my only wish is that the novel was better paced and balanced. After a very bombastic introduction, it wasn’t until halfway through the book that my enthusiasm spiked again, but once it did, you can be sure I was completely enamored. I read the second half all in one sitting, and loved every minute of it.
Wendy’s Book Haul: Fan Expo 2013 Edition
Posted on August 26, 2013 Leave a Comment
I’m just back from this year’s Fan Expo Canada (see my full report here!) where I picked up a few goodies, including Arena Mode, by Blake Northcott, whom we recently featured in our 10 Authors That Deserve More Buzz. I also got to spend a few minutes with Ms. Northcott and grab an autograph and pic and discuss future plans for the project. She had the covers of the next two books in the planned trilogy on display and they were breathtaking!
 |
| Blake Northcott and Wendy B at Fan Expo Canada |
I dropped by my old comic book dealer, Labyrinth Books. Note that I use the word “dealer” in the truest drug addiction sense of the word, because the owner was skilled at finding all the right comics and paraphernalia to keep me coming back for more. Now he has a huge collection of art books, including concept art for many of my favourite games, such as Remember Me and Mass Effect. I obeyed my bank account though and only succumbed to Dragon Age: The World of Thedas, because it was not only an art book, but an encyclopedia dedicated to the game’s lore. I am happy to immerse myself in the lore as my cautious excitement builds for the third installment of the series, Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Finally, the Chronicles of the Shadow War series wasn’t purchased at the convention, but it arrived shortly before it and definitely fits the theme the convention promotes. A mention of Chris Claremont somewhere sparked sudden nostalgia, reminding me of the first book in this series, Shadow Moon, which I read a long time ago during my I Love George Lucas and X-Men era. I decided I needed to finish reading the series.
The BiblioSanctum 