Review–Man With A Load of Mischief–Martha Grimes

This is a re-read for me, of a really well-loved cozy. I'd forgotten how much I LIKE Richard Jury. A detective with some issues, but still a nice guy. Not the most difficult mystery to solve, but a nice Christmas-y read.

And of course this is where we meet Melrose Plant another nice guy. They make a fun team and the rest of the series is just as entertaining.

Review–Ghosts of Manhattan–George Mann

An unpretentious thriller with a steampunk vibe. It’s reminiscent of pulp thrillers and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. A fun read, but no deep thinking is required.

Thoughts on Steven Erikson’s House of Chains

Finally completed [House of Chains] by Steven Erikson, the fourth (or fifth) of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

I haven't written my review yet, I need to let it gel a bit first. And I'm horrible at writing reviews. But I do have a few thoughts on this and the rest of the series I'd like to put down.

First, Erikson juggles people and plots and simultaneous actions in disparate locations. Thinking about how he does it compared to say, George RR Martin, I was struck by how different the approaches are, yet how well both methods work. While GRRM uses chapters with different POVs throughout his Ice and Fire series, Erikson sticks with the 3rd person subjective, not quite godlike viewpoint. Erikson will switch focus multiple times in a chapter, whereas GRRM for instance, sticks with one setting and one viewpoint per chapter. The difference becomes huge as Erikson begins to weave the different threads together finally revealing to us how all of it fits together. For me, to get a full understanding of the breadth and inter-connectedness of the action, I think Erikson's works better. GRRM's, however, is wonderful at presenting actions and events in a manner skewed to the person who's POV is paramount. We see from multiple people, the same event, and understand how it is interpreted, misunderstood, lost in translation, as it were.

As for [House of Chains] itself, wow. Many threads which I knew were all related (because I trust the author, not because I was able to guess how all things fit) into a totally unexpected whole. And better yet, Erikson's characters grow and change. The main character whom I hated in the first 1/3 of the book, grows incredibly and changes as his experiences expand. It's quite wonderful (and as I'm comparing this with GRRM, think of Jaimie Lannister's growth and change).

The final scenes were not at all what I expected, not at all what seemed to be coming together. Like GRRM, you really don't know what the heck is going to happen, and for both authors individual characters have a way of 'misbehaving' and not doing at all what one (even the gods) expect.

And I adore Cotillion, much to my astonishment.

As usual, bittersweet endings, but some wonderful revelations, which will, naturally, keep me reading the series eagerly.