Reviews: The Alexandria Link and Old Man’s War

 

The second of the Cotton Malone series, The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry is a thriller with twists and turns. Cotton’s bookshop is attacked with rockets just before he learns his son has been kidnapped. He’s maneuvered into a race to find  the hidden scrolls and papyrii from the Alexandria Library have been hidden.  Fast paced and entertaining.

 

The first book of the Old Man’s War series, John Scalzi posits the idea of a world where 75 year olds enlist and fight the wars of humanity. Humans are colonizing the galaxy but there are other races doing it too. So, when humans on Earth become old they are offered the opportunity to join the Colonial Defence Forces and fight to protect the colonies. That must mean that the CDF has to rejuvenate them somehow right?  So off they go to war.

A romp across the galaxy with lots of shoot ‘em up action and some interesting forays into alien thinking, and a re-evaluation of just what it means to be human.

Reviews:

 

Scourge of the Betrayer (Bloodsounder's Arc) by Jeff Salyards

What the heck is the Veil, why did the gods leave, what the devil is Braylar up to?
A scribe is hired by a group of infamous men led by a 'Black Noose' to record their actions as directed by their King. LIttle did the scribe know what he was getting into. And what few answers he might actually be given.
I enjoyed the characterizations, and the dialog, and the action. I was disappointed that the book itself offered no real resolution. I'll have to read the follow on in hopes of that. Still, a good read that left me wanting more. ( )

 

 

The Crossing Places (Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths

Atmospheric and intelligent, The Crossing Places is about character and setting, The mystery is tied up with the setting deftly and altho I figured out most of the mystery fairly early on, I was unsure about much of it, enough to want to hurry through the book to find out how it all fit together.
Will definitely continue the series! ( )

Review: Dissolution by C.J. Sansom

A hunchback lawyer is sent to a small monastery in rural England at the behest of the infamous Thomas Cromwell. A man sent earlier to try to get the monastery to agree to disband has been murdered. Shardlake is sent to find the murderer and find a way to force the dissolution of the monastery, as part of the ‘reforms’ during Henry VIII’s reign.

Shardlake arrives as a believing reformer, never questioning the methods or people Cromwell has doing his bidding. By the time he leaves, his eyes have been opened, the mystery has been solved and Shardlake is unsure of his future, as well of that of England.

Sansom paints the world of Tudor England with a winter colored brush. The misery is apparent as is the fear and confusion amongst the people of the time.

Highly recommended. First of a series.

Two Short Reviews

A Clubbable Woman - Reginald Hill This was an audio book. The first of the Dalziel and Pascoe series. Okay, nothing particularly special. Dalziel is, as ever, annoying...

 

Stardust - Neil Gaiman Fairy tale that is cute and engaging. Differed from the movie significantly - and I confess I thought the movie better!

Review: Sacrilege by S.J. Parris

Giordano Bruno: Heretic. On the run from the Inquisition. Italian and thusly doubly suspicious in defensive and conspiracy ridden England in the age of Elizabeth.  After all, he must be a papist, despite his excommunication.  And, well, he agrees with that Pole Copernicus and consorts with the likes of John Dee, so he’s a magician too. Oh, and he’s in search of the mysterious lost book of Hermes Trismegistus.

What the majority of people don’t know, is Bruno is also an agent for Sir Francis Walsingham, Principal Secretary to Elizabeth 1. And the go to guy when someone is found murdered.  He’s also Walsingham’s spy inside the French Embassy, since he’s staying there because his patron, King Henri of France has given him asylum from Rome.

At the moment though, Bruno wants to go travel to Canterbury.  He’s been asked by a young woman he knows for help.  Her husband has been murdered, and she had met Bruno in Oxford, so she begs him to clear her name and find the real killer.

What Bruno doesn’t know yet, is that this seemingly simple murder investigation will lead to yet more Catholic conspiracies to oust Elizabeth and place Mary on the throne, bringing England back into the Catholic fold.

Wonderful characterizations, complex and realistically drawn settings, bring the world of the 1580s to life. The mystery itself is intriguing and multilayered. Several times I thought for sure I’d figured it out. I was wrong!

If you love historical fiction that can seem to put you there, you’ll love the Giordano Bruno series. And the series only gets better.

Review–Still Life by Louise Penny

 

Still Life was interesting, and the characters delightfully drawn. However, I found the writing to be a bit of a mishmash. Too many changes of POV, sometimes confusing ones. I thought the premise a bit forced and was really really annoyed by the female Agent.
The town of Three Pines was terrific though, so I might have to revisit the series to see if it gets better. ( )

Review–A Dance With Dragons–George R R Martin

My Review on Library Thing

Additionally, I pretty much hated Dany in this book. I so wanted to smack her.  As usual, the ones who work the hardest to do the right thing, the smart thing, the honorable thing, are punished for it.  Betrayals and stupid stupid cowardice abound.  As does cruelty, terror, misery and magic. 

Best book of the series so far, IMO.

Review: The Black Company– Glen Cook

 

The tale is told through the eyes of the company’s physician and Annalist.  He’s fairly new to the company, and has limited knowledge of some of his more ancient colleagues.  He reads and analyzes the history of the Company and attempts to order, in his mind, and in the annals, the story of his own service with the last free mercenary company as they struggle through a war-torn landscape where defeat is far more common than any sort of victory.

Croaker is an astute observer of both his friends and his enemies and struggles, as he writes,to understand motivations and philosophies for those he comes to know. But his colleagues are not men who willingly share their inner thoughts and fears, he has only their actions to use as a measure of these men.

We join the mercenaries as they are involved in supporting ‘The Lady’ against ‘The Rebel’ and are in a long and soul-deadening retreat, as her forces are being assaulted by a far larger and more motivated force attempting to drive her from power.  The Black Company is the only group involved who are mercenaries, and are not sworn to fight for one side or the other.

Much of the book involves Croaker trying to make sense of what morality and loyalty involve in light of their situation, and as he sees it, it is mostly to his fellow soldiers and few friends, as well as living up to your word and your contract, no matter what horrors you find yourself facing, even when you realize you are fighting for Evil, or are you?  Not knowing who is in the right, who is just, who is the lesser Evil, Croaker swallows his doubts and fears and just does what he’s told, to the best of his ability.

The characters in the piece are complex and interesting, and you never do really get their entire story, particularly not the two newest members of the mercenaries, Raven and a girl he saves from murder and mayhem, Darling.

But through Raven, somehow, Croaker ends up singled out by ‘the Lady’ who is a sorcerer and who is frightening even to battle-hardened men. He tries to understand why and how she chooses him and finds himself far more afraid of her, than he is of a terrifying battlefield.

This is not the sort of book that will appeal to a lot of readers. It is grim and gritty and there are no heroes and no clear winners. But the book held my interest and got me thinking of warfare and its effects on not only the landscape and the civilians but also on the soldiers themselves and their own efforts to justify actions that oftentimes seem inhumane and senseless.

4 out of 5 stars.

Red Seas Under Red Skies - Review

Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

 

here

First part was difficult to read, as noted in review, but afterwards, well, what can I say but PIRATES!  Arrrrrr!

Review–Game of Thrones Ep 1 (part 2)

Con’t:

Pentos: there we see Viserys admitting he is selling his sister Dany for an army. Khal Drogo rides up supposedly to approve of Dany (or not).  The Khal does not speak the common tongue so he says nothing.

Here is where I’ll say something about the women in A Song of Ice and Fire.  Yes, it is true, women are treated horribly as a class, as they were in the Middle Ages.  Here, women of the upper classes are used to cement bonds between differing houses, to ensure pacts and otherwise ordered to marry whom their father instructs them. For Dany, it’s worse. Her father is long since dead, and she and Viserys have been in exile. All she knows is that she was raised by Viserys and she only knows what he’s told her. She has no concept that what he’s telling her might not be true or common or whatever. Also, the Targayren family wed brother to sister to keep the blood lines true (just as European upper classes tended to wed within the family – altho not generally brother to sister).  When Viserys threatens her when she shows reluctance he says, “Do you want to wake the dragon?” This is a direct threat that he will punish her physically and she knows it. That is why she is so meek. Viserys is brutal and has a short temper. She’s reacting as any woman in an abusive relationship must. Let him have his way or pay the price. That Dany stands up to Viserys at all to say she doesn’t want to be Khal Drogo’s queen is rather remarkable considering her wretched abusive brother.

As to the other women who at first seem meek and open to manipulation, I say only WAIT!  This is where they begin their journeys. Nearly every one of them, will grow and discover the need for  independence of action and thought and they will accept the challenges.

Illyrio Mopatis, the magister who sets up the sale of Dany to Khal Drogo so Viserys can win his throne back, is, of course, lying through his teeth. Yes, there are a few factions in Westeros who might back a return of the Targaryens, but the common people are trampled on by everyone and really could care less which family is in power. All they want is peace and to be left alone. Illyrio, btw, is rather mysterious. Keep an eye on him.

Winterfell:

Here we see Sansa delighted to discover she’s to be wed to the future king, Joffrey who she thinks handsome. She’s the sort of girl who believes in fantasy princes and suddenly discovers her life is headed EXACTLY where she wants it to go.  Alas, she’ll find out soon enough things are not always what they seem.

Jon greets Benjen Stark, Ned’s younger brother who is the First Ranger at the Wall. Jon pleads to go with him. He realizes that if Ned leaves, he will not be welcome to stay at Winterfell, as Catelyn despises him.  He has to choose something, go somewhere where even a bastard might be accepted.

Jon then speaks with Tyrion who offers Jon words of wisdom in a most, uhm, unsettling way. Typical of Tryion.

“Have you bled yet.”  The question Cersei asks. She asks it because it is when a girl first bleeds she is then considered a woman. Quite normal in a Medieval society. Amazingly some who watched found the question  shocking and red more into it than I think was intended. For this society it is a perfectly understandable question.

A raven arrives then, with a message from Cat’s sister Lyssa Aryn who was married to the Hand who is seen dead at the beginning of the main storyline. Lyssa believes the Lannisters poisoned her husband and has fled to the stronghold of her husband’s family with her only son and heir to the Aryn lands and powers.

Cat believes it immediately, Ned is skeptical.  But it is another reason for Ned to accept the position of King’s Hand, as he wants to know for certain who, if anyone, killed his childhood friend.

Pentos:

Dothraki wedding. Dany is clearly terrified. This society is nothing at all like she’s used to. For one thing, everything is done in the open with no privacy and no sense of shame. Everything of consequence is done under the stars.  As for the wedding itself, Illyrio says it all. A wedding without three deaths at least is considered a very dull affair.

Here Jorah Mormont is introduced. He’s fled Westeros and is in an exile for his own reasons, which he will admit to in a future episode.  We’ll also meet his father quite soon, who is in another sort of exile.

Here is the first hint of magic, too. Dany, as a wedding gift, is given three dragons eggs.  This is significant because the sigil of the Targaryen House is a three headed dragon. And there are stories and prophecies which point to ‘the three heads of the dragon’ as returning to Westeros.

At this point, dragons are believed to have been extinct for three or four centuries. The last ones were used by the Targaryens to overcome a rebellion against the Iron Throne.

Khal Drogo gives Dany a white horse as a wedding gift. She’ll refer to it as her Silver.

The scene of Drogo and Dany’s wedding night is stunning and upsetting. She’s been told he’s a barbarian and believes it and she sees the events in that light. And since he cannot speak to her not having the common tongue, he can’t claim otherwise.

Winterfell:

We meet ‘the Hound’ the scarred fellow talking with Tyrion. He’s Joff’s bodyguard and will do whatever Joff tells him. Watch out for him.

Most of the males in the visiting party ride off from Winterfell to do some hunting for wild boar. Bran, despite having promised his mother to stop climbing, heads up to do his favorite thing. He spies two people having sex and is caught. What happens next is horrifying if not surprising. Their lives are at risk so they protect themselves.  Their secrets MUST be protected as there is no question as to what Robert would do. Bran must pay the price.

::end of episode::

Let me add that the VAST majority of this first episode is entirely true to the book, to the law if not always true to the letter of it. Naturally some things have been left out. It’s a HUGE book, after all. But I am delighted to see this as it sets up subsequent events perfectly.

As far as I’m concerned, the series is faithful, well done, and stunning in its understanding and use of the source material. I like all the casting choices so far. I adore Arya and Jon is suitably angsty and conflicted here. Jaime is perfect IMHO.

This is by far the slowest part of the book, so I’m not surprised some folks find this episode a bit dragging. But there is a LOT to introduce and so much is built up on the events here. Please just hang in there and know it is uphill from here all the way.

Review: Among Thieves - Douglas Hulick

I received this as an ER book. Among Thieves was an engrossing and fun read. 

Hulick creates a complex and well-formed world and then concentrates on the affairs of the Kin, a guild of thieves. Drothe is a 'nose' someone who collects information and passes that information on to the various gang bosses. It's a dangerous profession, especially when you stick that nose into something you don't understand.

There's mystery and mayhem, and twists and turns galore, as Drothe tries to figure out why suddenly there seems to be a target painted on his back. Just what particular bit of intel is it that is so dangerous he has Dark Princes, Upright Men and, apparently, the Emperor's enforcers on his tail?

Well written, well paced and recommended! (  )

Midnight Riot - Ben Aaronovitch - Review

 

A fun read in an interestingly created version of modern London. Peter Grant is a rookie London cop who happens to see a ghost shortly after a murder. Peter intercepts the ghost and interviews him. Needless to say he's reluctant to admit how he got information on the murderer, but he's also a bit of a smartass so when one fellow asks him who he was talking to he makes it sound like a joke and mouths off that he's interviewed a ghost. The fellow reacts far differently than Peter expected, and thus begins Peter's sudden apprenticeship to DCI Thomas Nightingale, a special sort of detective in a special branch of the Met, oh, and as a practitioner of magic.

Interesting characters, and the mystery has enough twists to surprise. And I loved the whole concept of 'The Rivers of London.' Too bad the US publisher didn't keep that name for the book.

I look forward to reading 'Moon Over Soho'.

(I won this book through a DelReySpectra contest) (  )

A 4 Star romp begins where Changeless left off. Alexia is preggers and her husband doesn't believe it's his.  Alexia, not one to sit around feeling bad, decides to invade Europe rather than sit around until Connell comes to his senses. He is a werewolf after all.


Everyone needs a Floote. And it wouldn't hurt to be rescued by Channing Channing of the Chesterfield Channings, either. And Alexia does need rescuing this time. She gets herself into quite a pickle - why, she can't even get a decent up of TEA! Oh, those damn Templars! Although she does discover pesto.

A spirited romp across Europe ends up with our heroine as prisoner in the catacombs of Florence. And where you may ask is Connell? Stuck in London, dealing with vampiric uprisings and disappearances, a brand new werewolf and Ivy Tunstell ne Hisslepenny. No wonder he's in a bad mood.  Also, he knows he's going to have to grovel; and soon.

 What's a girl to do? She's been pretending to be a boy so she could serve on the Darwinist British Airship Leviathan. And poor Daryn is scrambling to keep her secret, but things keep getting in the way!  One, most notably, being the escaped prince of Austria-Hungary who is aboard and is struggling to keep his own secrets.

Between the two of them, well, mayhem ensues. Look out Istanbul, you're in their crosshairs.

Another great read from Scott Westerfeld!  4 1/2 out of 5 stars

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin - Review

            4 1/2 of 5 stars

Yiene, whose mother abdicated her claim to the throne, is suddenly recalled to the capital by her grandfather and informed he's naming her heir. Yiene, knowing he already has two heirs designated - her cousins - is immediately suspicious. And well she should be. For from the moment she arrives she finds herself embroiled in palace intrigue.

Bad enough that the humans are plotting and jockeying for positions of power, but so are the bound gods the king and his family have control over. Yiene finds herself allying with one god, and incredibly sexually aroused by the most dangerous of them.

She's horrified at how everyone is treated, but mostly at how the gods are treated.  The gods, defeated in a War with the God of Itempas, are bound forever and enslaved,  to be used and abused by Yiene's family. But they've got a plan to end their slavery and she discovers she's at the center of that plan.

It's hard to review this book, as the plots are intricate and spoilers would result, so I'll stick with the basics rather than the plot.

Characterization is wonderful. Description is wonderful. The book gripped me from almost the first page and I found myself drawn in and swept up in Yeine's discovery of the horrors of the capital city Sky, the confusion Yiene feels as she discovers the city's secrets, the gods' secrets and the horrors her family have and still are perpetrating.

Can she survive this place?  Does she even want to?

A wonderfully exciting and memorable book.

Read for The Women of Fantasy Challenge  

Yay. Book two for the year finished. Well worth reading and I'll have to read the rest of the Quartet now.

Review:  (posted at LibraryThing)

What a fun yarn! Good storytelling, great characterizations and an interesting world.

I initially had some issues with POV changes that seemed too abrupt and happened more often than I'd like and I also found transitions from current events to stream-of-consciousness flashbacks a bit jarring at a few points, but otherwise I enjoyed it very much..

I liked the cultural reactionary themes, particularly with respect to humans altering their bodies for differing environments and lifestyles. I can sooooo see that happening.

Also,she explores the militarization of space controversy which again I can see as a major issue if we ever do decide to come up with the resources to explore beyond our planet, especially where one powerful country might try to take control of the project for its own political and militaristic agenda.

There were some interesting twists that complicated the storyline and I found myself rooting for most of the main characters.

Highly recommended for those interested in space exploration and the issues surrounding the Earth's political climate with regard to expenditure of scarce resources for such a challenge.(  )

Anti-heroes abound in The Blade Itself . But then, when the world is a place full of violence, where the Inquisition is used to torture anyone into confessing to anything, what exactly is a 'hero' anyway?

Joe Abercrombie creates a bloody and violent world, sadly, a totally believable one. Magic is there, but understated and not well understood. The privileged use and abuse the masses, and are astonished when revolution raises its head.

The characters are all flawed, and worn down and scarred by their lives, all but one self-centered privileged fellow who, despite himself, seems about to finally open his eyes to see what is going on around him. He won't like it.

Reminiscent of George RR Martin's series, A Song of Ice and Fire, you just never know who will step up or who will fall apart. Nor, are you likely to know exactly what is going on any time soon.

Highly recommended. (  )

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Hated it. Yes, the writing is great. But honestly, it is everything I despise about the Romance genre (however it ends and whether or not it as a HEA ending).

The heroine is a dolt, the hero is a lout and sex addles everyone.

It was like reading an entire Game of Thrones size tome of nothing but Sansa Stark chapters. Me, I want Arya!

Review:  The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman  3 1/2 out of 5 stars.


This was an Early Reviewer book. The Half-Made World paints a gritty and grim picture of a world where our worst traits come to life in the form of demons . It's a world whose landscape is marred by the war being fought between Line - Engines which have minds, needs and desires of their own - and Gun - whose Agents are made supernaturally strong and long-lived and enslaved in order to dedicate their lives to stopping the Line from taking over the world.

We are introduced to  this war through the eyes of someone who grew up and lived in the 'civilized' or fully-made part of the world. She, on a whim, decides to go westward because she's found her life staid and dull. And she sees an opportunity to learn from those broken in minds by the fearsome weapons of the Line.

The world-building in Half-Made World is terrific. The Reader is drawn into the created reality and immersed in it fully.  It's believable, in that it portrays the realities of the miseries wrought by men (or demons) determined to war until the bitter end.

My only complaint is that I thought the characterization was light. We're never allowed to care enough about any of the major characters. It's as if we are only observers watching their struggle, and never allowed to understand them enough to make an emotional connection to them.  This seems purposeful,  But as someone who needs that emotional connection to a protagonist, I thought it limiting.

Even so, I found the book compelling. I wanted to solve the mysteries of this world and of its demons. I wanted to traipse through the unmade portion of the world to its wild and unknown end. Mostly, I wanted to discover the mystery of the one weapon, or thought, or idea that might, possibly, bring an end to war.