Tag: Fantasy (Urban)

Flash: Climate Companions

Erin Penn

Image provided by FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Ice strolled down the little used road looking for a place to rest. Behind it, frost tinged the trees while meandering, touching a leaf there, a twig here. Snow followed close behind, just a dusting, but enough to bring fog outside for a dim day.

Lynnsie rocked on her porch watching the approach. Behind the four friends, ice, frost, snow, and fog, nasty weather patterns were ganging up to chase their kinder winter cousins down, changing the gray canopy to black, except where lighting streaked a temporary bleached curl of clouds.

The road to her place was long, and she didn’t have much in the way of neighbors. Nature and weather chatted with her and kept her company most days, helping her drink lemonade during the summer and hot tea during the winter.

Today, though, she waited for what the storms would bring. With still a few hours until the tempest blew in, all agitated from being shoved up to Canada by the jet stream and dragged back to the moist south once good and cold from the polar shield, she enjoyed the quiet of the winter children playing.

Ice stopped at the bench by her front steps, coating them and the sidewalk with a slippery layer. Shy frost quickly nipped at her nose in affection before running back to its stronger cousins. Snow stayed at the edges of the lawn, not liking the warm spring in her backyard, while fog raced past everyone, giving her an insubstantial wave, to jump into the natural spa.

(words 255; first published 6/17/2018)

Book Review: Thieftaker (Thieftaker Chronicles, #1)

Erin Penn

Book Cover from Amazon

Thieftaker by D.B. Jackson

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON

Boston, 1765: In D.B. Jackson’s Thieftaker, revolution is brewing as the British Crown imposes increasingly onerous taxes on the colonies, and intrigue swirls around firebrands like Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty. But for Ethan Kaille, a thieftaker who makes his living by conjuring spells that help him solve crimes, politics is for others…until he is asked to recover a necklace worn by the murdered daughter of a prominent family.

Suddenly, he faces another conjurer of enormous power, someone unknown, who is part of a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of power in the turbulent colony. His adversary has already killed—and not for his own gain, but in the service of his powerful masters, people for whom others are mere pawns in a game of politics and power. Ethan is in way over his head, and he knows it. Already a man with a dark past, he can ill afford to fail, lest his livelihood be forfeit. But he can’t stop now, for his magic has marked him, so he must fight the odds, even though he seems hopelessly overmatched, his doom seeming certain at the spectral hands of one he cannot even see.

 

MY REVIEW

Harry Dresden meets Revolutionary War Boston

I have a new author to add to my faves – D.B. Jackson. The worldbuilding in Thieftaker is superb. Normally I avoid “alternate histories” – the tweaks never follow out to logical conclusions.

Example: The American Revolution inspired the French Revolution. Keep America loyal to British Rule so no American Revolution and jump forward 200 years … what happened in France and does the emperor still rule there and how does that affect France during WWII … do they accept occupation or fight? All of history feeds off itself; you can’t change just one thing.

But this book is not an alternate history, Thieftaker is an urban fantasy set in historical time. Ethan Kaille could be Harry Dresden, if the Chicago wizard lived in Boston just before the revolutionary war.

The characters are real, from the flawed hero to the merchants rivals on the warf. The arguments are urgent from the dreamers driving the country to the brink of revolution to the honest (and not-so-honest) people who just want to make a living and fear changes to the status quo. The scenes are authentic from the riots in the cobblestone street to the country manors of the Crown government. D.B. Jackson does an outstanding job blending his academic background as a historian with his occupation of fantasy author. A reader can immerse in fictional history.

Is the main character likeable? Not always, but I always rooted for him – even when he was being unlikeable. Can’t buy a good tea without paying England her tax, can’t have a good detective without him also being a Dick when interrogating suspects. And that is also part of the excellent worldbuilding.

If you like urban fantasy via detectives, pick up this book.

Author Spotlight: James R. Tuck

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

I’ve read mostly James R. Tuck‘s Deacon Chalk series, which is in his unrelenting Dark Urban fantasy style. Having a female cowriter for Robin Hood Demon’s Bane curtailed it not a whit. 

Whether short story or full novel, Mr. Tuck creates a testosterone-driven roller coaster ride . Non-stop action beginning to end, with nothing wasted – even the slow build up the hill for the next fall into oblivion. The author promises gritty, violent mayhem and delivers.

In person at conventions, he is thoughtful and informative. If you want well-written books without much in the way of pesky emotions, look him up.

Flash: Death Wish Part 2 – Nothing Fits

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Rating: Mature (Language)

The shower’s water and my blood were fighting each other as they ran down the drain. Water trying to follow natural forces and move one way, and my very unnatural blood running counter to how the world should work. The red froth gave me something to stare at in the shower other than my friend’s shampoo and his kids’ bath toys. I wished I still had tears to cry.

Rod’s was the nearest place I could think of.  Hell, it was the only place I could think of that they wouldn’t know.

I don’t know why the Philadelphia Court attacked. I certainly had no fucking clue why they would be angry enough to hire hunters as cleanup. Shit, I am only five … well four – five in at the equinox … and not even my creator shared anything with me.

I should have run somewhere else. Then Rodrigo would still be alive. His kids would still have their dad.

… and I wouldn’t be saddled with a death wish.

I could hear the bitch cackle. And I deserve every snide remark my creator would give me, if she had survived the attack. Which she hadn’t.

I tried to erase the picture of her head flying towards me as I was frozen by fear. But … shit … having a lover’s head hit you square in the chest does reactive the run-like-hell reflex.

I had been taught to calm prey down first. Control them. Get them to the point their only desire to please me. I had blanked Rodrigo’s memory of my feeding off of him plenty of times. Why not tonight?

Instead I talked to him! Hell, I apologized! What was I doing?

And now I got a death wish.

I twisted the nob and the water stopped. The pink foam would eventually make its way down the drain.

Rod’s towels were more thread then cloth, but they worked well enough even if none of them matched. It’s not like the water wanted to stick to me.

I moved quietly down the hall to his bedroom. Maybe something would fit me. He had over six inches and fifty pounds of muscle on me, not counting about twenty pounds of comfortable, as my mom put it.

I had been turned when I was eighteen; happy graduation – hoped you enjoyed your summer, because it is the last one you are going to get. Still hadn’t got my full growth.

Hated them. I was taught not to turn anyone before twenty-five. Just easier for the Made to blend long-term. The only reason anyone gave me for the early turn came from Al who said they needed a daywalker. If he wasn’t just tormenting me, then they broke their own rules to make me. I figured I was minion then toast, and nothing they did to me showed different. Going out in daylight HURTS … but then so did staying in the Court. Working Elias’ gas station actually was a reward in my book, even though it was far beneath the rest.

In the end, the daylight saved me. The younger you are, the less the sun affects you. Nature isn’t completely out to get you. An hour past dawn in July, and I could still run outside and keep running for a good long time. 

To my friend’s home. Well, hovel … I looked around the large closet where he had put a mattress. But whatever … he had a place. Better than me at the moment with everything from the Court gone.

The one bedroom was dedicated to his kids. Damn, he loved them. Talked about them constantly at work. Feared for them, leaving them home alone at night while they slept, keeping them feed, wondering if child services would come.

The few shirts and pants hanging over the mattress were all too large. And idea nibbled at me on how to hide and deal with the death wish.

 … The death wish

Why couldn’t have I played with him until his only thought was to please me? I’ve done it before. Then the death wish ends up being having mind-blowing sex, and that is really easy to do since people can get really off when they die. But I was so hungry and hurt.

I heard my creator’s laugh again. No excuse. She had taught me on my first kill just what being caught up in a death wish gets you. Sip – never kill except on the anniversary – and then only after getting the prey prepared. I’ve killed only five times, two in training and three anniversaries.

I pulled on one of the faded Mr. Mart shirts. Behind me I heard movement. For a second I was paralyzed again. They found me.

Then a slight mew of a child’s sigh and I realized what was happening. The children. It was about ten, so Rod’s after-work nap would be soon ending for what he called the ”las guerras de comida”.

I cracked open the hall door to look at the triplets. Two identical boys and one angelic girl just beginning to stretch and twist out of dreamland.

And I knew.

I had to do it. I began to pull Rodrigo’s form about me. I had until my anniversary in September to wear it. Looking like him would let me hide in plain sight. The others would not expect me to take care of three kids. But function follows form, and memories and actions would pop up while I wore his shell. I should be able to do this. I already knew his job.

I shrugged my shoulders and the shirt settled on my new frame. I strode back to grab some pants.

So this is what tall feels like. Very cool.

… I would also have time to figure out why the hell a sane man rather have a vampire take his kids than their own mother.

(words 985 – first published 11/28/2012; republished new blog format 12/17/2017)