Category: Book Review

Book Review: The Good Fight 2: Villains

Erin Penn

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The Good Fight 2: Villains, an anthology from the Pen and Cape Society

The second anthology from the authors of the Pen & Cape Society contains eleven all-new tales from the wrong side of the law. The proceeds of this collection will benefit long-time comic book author James Hudnall, who has fallen upon hard times, losing a foot to diabetes and becoming homeless. Bad things can happen to anyone, and the Pen & Cape Society will help where it can. They may write about villains, but they’re a pretty heroic bunch. The anthology includes stories by Nick Ahlhelm, Scott Bachmann, Mike Baron, Drew Hayes, Ian Thomas Healy, Hydrargentium, T. Mike McCurley, Landon Porter, R.J. Ross, Cheyanne Young, and Jim Zoetewey.

 

MY REVIEW

Oh my did the second anthology blow the first of The Good Fight anthologies from Pen and Cape Society away. But then Villains always make the Hero – and these Villains make you shiver in your cape.

“Frankie” (Scott Bachmann) stunned me. I ended with a “Wow” when I finished reading it and needed to walk away a moment. This was from the same man who produced the cute “Bedtime Story” in the first anthology. Coolest/creepiest superpower ever – how does one even begin to discover it … and then continue to use it to replace … everything. Face, eyes, … shudder.

“Goon #3” by Drew Hayes, who wrote the incredible “Out Of Mind” short story in the first anthology, hits it out of the park again. His protagonists are so identifiable.

“I am SKYSTEP” by RJ Ross is from his YA “Cape High Series” and is the first one to really engage me. The relationship between Skystep and the superheroes around her can only be described as “it’s complicated”. Even more complicated than Batman and Catwoman.

“Stripped Down Blues” by Mike Baron (not in the first anthology) … oh my, total … yeah, villains. This could have found a home in a number of different genres. Stick around for the ending.

“Lemonade”, “Here Come the Pain”, etc. Not a single story in this anthology fails to knock it out of the ballpark and past the moon.

Buy it – plus all proceeds go to a great cause. I loved Alpha Flight!

Book Review: Dresden – Ghost Story and Cold Days

Erin Penn

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Ghost Story by Jim Butcher
When we last left the mighty wizard detective Harry Dresden, he wasn’t doing well. In fact, he had been murdered by an unknown assassin.

But being dead doesn’t stop him when his friends are in danger. Except now he has nobody, and no magic to help him. And there are also several dark spirits roaming the Chicago shadows who owe Harry some payback of their own.

To save his friends-and his own soul-Harry will have to pull off the ultimate trick without any magic…

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Cold Days by Jim Butcher
After being murdered by a mystery assailant, navigating his way through the realm between life and death, and being brought back to the mortal world, Harry realizes that maybe death wasn’t all that bad. Because he is no longer Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard.

He is now Harry Dresden, Winter Knight to Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness. After Harry had no choice but to swear his fealty, Mab wasn’t about to let something as petty as death steal away the prize she had sought for so long. And now, her word is his command, no matter what she wants him to do, no matter where she wants him to go, and no matter who she wants him to kill.

Guess which Mab wants first?

Of course, it won’t be an ordinary, everyday assassination. Mab wants her newest minion to pull off the impossible: kill an immortal. No problem there, right? And to make matters worse, there exists a growing threat to an unfathomable source of magic that could land Harry in the sort of trouble that will make death look like a holiday.

Beset by enemies new and old, Harry must gather his friends and allies, prevent the annihilation of countless innocents, and find a way out of his eternal subservience before his newfound powers claim the only thing he has left to call his own…His soul.

***

A Quick Aside
So I decide to publish book reviews about a couple recent Harry Dresden books and while looking up the links I discover a Kickstarter campaign for a Dresden Cooperative Card Game. If this is something you might be interested in, please pop on over to the Kickstarter site and see what it is all about. A happy coincidence which I hope brings some great fun to people.

KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN FOR A DRESDEN CARD GAME – HAPPENING UNTIL MAY 19, 2016 AT 5:00 EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/evilhat/the-dresden-files-cooperative-card-game

***

MY REVIEW – Ghost Story (Book #13)

Life got busy and I stopped reading Harry Dresden for a while, partially because the stories felt repetitive.

AND THEN HE DIED. OMG!

“Ghost Story” was amazing to come back to after my hiatus from the series, and I may need to go back and reread some of my Dresden and pick up the novels I have missed. All my favorite characters, but changed because the connecting tissue of Dresden was expunged with his death.

But … wizards are bad at staying dead – Dresden never knew when to shut up and stop interfering and a little thing like no longer breathing is not going to keep a lifetime of habits, including saving the world, from continuing.

***

MY REVIEW – Cold Days (Book #14)

Happy Birthday Dresden, welcome back from the Dead, by the way you need to save the world today.

Another Harry Dresden knock-down, drag-out roller coaster ride. Cold Days start in the Winter court and you *might* think you can figure out the good guys form the bad, but attributing good and bad to fairies is never advisable and by the end of the book the reveals totally change the perspective on what, why, and whom does stuff in the fairy portion of the Dresden universe.

This book is a game-changer in the Harry Dresden world, and I am interested to see how the new knowledge about why fairies do the things they do will affect Dresden in his role as Winter Knight – but also in his role as a human being. Because even though good and bad don’t matter to soulless fairies, Dresden has meet angels and demons and his very-human soul is on-the-line while he saves the world in future books.

Book Review: Steel’s Edge

Erin Penn

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Steel’s Edge by Ilona Andrews
Charlotte de Ney is as noble as they come, a blueblood straight out of the Weird. But even though she possesses rare magical healing abilities, her life has brought her nothing but pain. After her marriage crumbles, she flees to the Edge to build a new home for herself. Until Richard Mar is brought to her for treatment, and Charlotte’s life is turned upside down once again.

Richard is a swordsman without peer, future head of his large and rambunctious Edger clan—and he’s on a clandestine quest to wipe out slavers trafficking humans in the Weird. So when his presence leads his very dangerous enemies to Charlotte, she vows to help Richard destroy them. The slavers’ operation, however, goes deeper than Richard knows, and even working together, Charlotte and Richard may not survive…

 

MY REVIEW
An awesome contemporary romantic “urban” fantasy. Last of the four book series, the manuscript can be stand-alone or enjoyed at the end of a long reading marathon. At this time I have only read books one and four.

Ilona Andrews, a husband and wife team, write banter like they took notes during a few of Benedict and Beatrice (Much to do About Nothing by Shakespeare) private arguments. Sexy, funny, witty. The men of the series are warriors and the women stand by their side with their special abilities, kicking ass and maybe even scarier than the male loves; Charlotte, the heroine of Steel’s Edge, certainly is the more dangerous of the two. All the heroes and heroines are strong people.

And the worldbuilding is delicious. It isn’t so much political intrigue as sociological intrigue. Unless you know how to move through the society, you got problems. In the first book it was trying to fit in with the isolated Edgers, and in the fourth book maneuvering through the challenge of a three-hundred-year old aristocratic society – it isn’t a Victorian novel on manners, but picking the right color gown can mean the difference of getting in to see the person you need to assassinate.

Steel’s Edge is clearly a three-act book – the first on the Edge dragging Charlotte out of her hidey hole back into the land of the living and personal hurt, the second an unholy absolutely amazing preparation for and then battle at a slaver’s town, and finally going after the big slave bosses who move at the very top of society. In each act Charlotte’s and Richard’s relationship develop further and the stakes get higher.

I loved meeting up with the children from Book 1 – George and Jack – again in Book 4. They have grown older, now full teenagers and on the cusp of adulthood. And I may forgive the Andrews the first major death of the book … if they write two more romances set in the Edge. I want to see who George, Jack, and even Sophie end up with.

Book Review: Nolander

Erin Penn

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Nolander by Becca Mills

Beth Ryder knows she’s different. In a tiny rural town, being an orphaned and perpetually single amateur photographer crippled by panic disorder is pretty much guaranteed to make you stick out like a sore thumb.
But Beth doesn’t understand just how different she really is.

One day, strange things start cropping up in her photos. Things that don’t look human. Impossible things. Monstrosities. Beth thinks her hateful sister-in-law, Justine, has tampered with her pictures to play a cruel joke, but rather than admitting or denying it, Justine up and vanishes, leaving the family in disarray.

Beth’s search for Justine plunges her into a world she never knew existed, one filled with ancient and terrifying creatures. Both enemies and allies await her there—a disturbingly sexy boss, a sentient wolf with diamond fur, body-snatching dinosaur-birds. Separating the allies from the enemies is no easy chore, but in this strange new world, allies are a necessity. A plot is afoot, and Beth—whose abilities no one seems able to explain—may well hold the key to solving it.

Nolander is the first novel in the fantasy series Emanations. The second novel, Solatium, and a short story, Theriac, are also available.

 

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Solatium (Book 2 of Emanations) by Becca Mills

Beth Ryder’s dangerously sexy and seemingly all-powerful boss has disappeared, leaving an increasingly desperate group of Nolanders — and one inept Second — in charge of policing other-worldly activity across much of North America. What better time for a legendary monster to emerge from the Second Emanation and make New York City its hunting ground? But little does Beth know that dealing with the voracious Thirsting Ground will pale in comparison to a shocking betrayal that threatens to destroy her new life among the Nolanders.

***

MY REVIEW – Nolander (Book 1)
Anyone that has read my reviews know that I am a world-creationist lover. Give me a new world, solid and levels deep and I am in heaven.

The world of Nolander delivers, a new magic/psonic system, a new alternate reality system, and all wonderful.

Plus the book defies convention – New Adult about a girl, but no romance, is it urban fantasy or alternate reality or sci fi or fantasy – doesn’t matter. What matters is this book a very, very good – just shy of perfection.

Characters either had too much hidden or were too predictable, a lighter hand is needed there to match the complications of the world. (And having read the next book of the series, the author’s skill with character creation does get better.)

***

MY REVIEW – Solatium (Book 2)

Book 2 of the series (book 1 is free, as is the short story) and the world-building just keeps getting better. The character building does as well, and the plot, and the complications. For fairly new readers this may be the best book you have ever read (for those of us who have been gobbling books for decades, this is a surprising gem).

I believe these worlds – the way each splits off the First Emanation provides millions of years of dinosaurs throughout the Second Emanations – so I believe the biology and geography of the alternate universes. I believe the sociology – on the First Emanation, the biggest and strongest kept going until eventually systems of humans were shown to work better and safer and were more beneficial (even for the biggest and strongest). The problem in the Second Emanations are the Powers are not only bigger and stronger, they are also nearly all either half-mad, all-bored or both and learning the benefits of a parliament or republic system doesn’t work for them.

Then Beth, the new girl, maybe a power, is added to the mix.

***
… and then the series ends. (sad face) Becca Mills released all these stories in 2014 but recently updated Nolander at the end of 2015. Maybe she will be working on more soon!

Book Review: The Mussorgsky Riddle

Erin Penn

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The Mussorgsky Riddle by Darin Kennedy

Psychic Mira Tejedor possesses unique talents that enable her to find anything and anyone, but now she must find a comatose boy wandering lost inside the labyrinth of his own mind. Thirteen-year-old Anthony Faircloth hasn’t spoken a word in almost a month and with each passing day, his near catatonic state worsens. No doctor, test, or scan can tell Anthony’s distraught mother what has happened to her already troubled son. In desperation, she turns to Mira for answers, hoping her unique abilities might succeed where science has failed.

At their first encounter, Mira is pulled into Anthony’s mind and finds the child’s psyche shattered into the various movements of Modest Mussorgsky’s classical music suite, Pictures at an Exhibition. As she navigates this magical dreamscape drawn from Anthony’s twin loves of Russian composers and classical mythology, Mira must contend with gnomes, troubadours, and witches in her search for the truth behind Anthony’s mysterious malady.

The real world, however, holds its own dangers. The onset of Anthony’s condition coincides with the disappearance of his older brother’s girlfriend, a missing persons case that threatens to tear the city apart. Mira discovers that in order to save Anthony, she will have to catch a murderer who will stop at nothing to keep the secrets contained in Anthony’s unique mind from ever seeing the light.

 

MY REVIEW
I am a worldbuilding whore. I want a world as layered as an orchestral movement, as nuanced as a master painting, one that twists and turns and takes you away from the here and now to another world. One you can touch, hear, smell, feel. The Mussorgsky Riddle is one of these books.

Falling into the imprecise category of Urban Fantasy or maybe Paranormal Suspense, the story follows a psychic as she journeys through the mind of a boy trying to find the identity of a killer. But is so much more than that.

The complicated parallel Mr. Kennedy made between Pictures at an Exhibition, both the music and the original inspiring paintings is amazing. And this was just his Debut Novel; if his next is half as good, he has a reader for life.

He is presently in edits of the second book, this one centered around a ballet.