Posted by fitz in Books on Sep 02
Welcome back!
Hello there!
Chicago has wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden. Denver has Kitty Norville, alpha wolf in a pack of werewolves. And now New York City has jewelry designer Garet James. One of these things is not like the others… A jewelry designer? How does that work?
It’s no secret that I am extremely enthusiastic about the latest surge in urban fantasy fiction being published. Sometimes my world seems far too antiseptic, purged of the everyday magic I wish was everywhere. To solve this problem, I retreat into fictional worlds where real magic exists on the streets of today’s urban jungle.
Lee Carroll is a pseudonym for the duo of Carol Goodman (Arcadia Falls, The Night Villa) and her husband – poet and hedge fund manager Lee Slonimsky. The couple live in New York and you can tell from the way they handle NYC as the setting for the book that they love where they live. NYC in the pages of Black Swan Rising comes to life in expected and completely unexpected ways.
Garet James doesn’t see herself as an artist. She takes signet rings, typically bearing the coat of arms of the family of the original wearer, and makes medallions out of them. As a result, she’s always on the lookout for new rings she can use in her own work.
One day she gets caught in a downpour in the city and stumbles into a strange antiques shop. The strange shopkeeper, John Dee, after revealing that he knows of her jewelry, asks if she would look at opening an old silver box. The box just happens to be sealed with a symbol of a swan exactly like the signet ring given to her by her mother before she died. She agrees to take it home to work on it and bring it home the next day. Unfortunately, like Pandora – once the box is open, her world changes dramatically…
Garet and her father own an art gallery that’s been down on its luck in recent years. When thieves break in to steal three paintings, the box, and shoot her father, it’s just the beginning of her troubles. A 400 year old vampires and the King of Faeries help her find her way to stopping the diabolical plans of John Dee before Garet’s beloved city and then the world suffer the consequences…
Black Swan Rising starts at a simmer and rises to a boil. If I have one complaint, it’s that as you move through the book picking up speed, the second half of the book is crammed to the gills with wall to wall action. But that’s a very minor complaint, considering that I hope the next book in the series will continue to tell the story of Garet, the vampire Will Hughes, and the tale of the declining world of the fae barely holding on in an industrialized world…
Throughout the book, I was impressed by the use of passages to describe difficult concepts such as auras and elemental transformation. The hand of the poet was definitely at work as the writing duo show how those with positive, healing or helping auras can affect those around them with a touch or simply by being in the same area…
After a nurse with a healthy green glow got on the train, she gave her seat to an angry man with a red aura… “I saw the angry red glow subside to a pale pink. The woman who’d given up her seat still had the green glow around her, but now it shone brighter and extended farther out around her. It touched the elderly woman with the headache, turning her mustard yellow into a clear daffodil gold. The girl who’d started out with the yellow aura sang a line from a song on her iPod, which made the old man with the gray aura laugh out loud. Colors rippled down the car, turning brighter and clearer, as if that one act – the woman in the scrubs touching the sick man’s arm and giving him her seat – was a pebble cast into the water radiating out into widening circles…”
It’s those scenes that ripple throughout this book and story from beginning to end.
If you’re a fan of urban fantasy or simply want to read a well-written story, check out Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll… It’s an enjoyable ride that left me wanting more.
This article first appeared at BlogCritics.org here.
–Fitz
p.s. Pick up this and other great urban fantasy books at Barnes & Noble below!
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Posted by fitz in Books, Opinion on Aug 26
Hey guys…
Most of you know I’m pretty apolitical. If it smells of politics, I’m typically walking the other way. But recently, a few things have ticked me off.
If you don’t want to read further about my minor political and education rant, you might as well stop now… [Hopping on my soap box...]
I’m pretty liberal. And not religious at all. If anything I’m probably an agnostic with atheist leanings. But I believe firmly in the power of humankind to do amazing things for both good, selfish, and evil reasons. My hope is that we as a whole balance out so we’re not tilting to the wrong side, whatever that may be.
So that’s me. You’re entitled to your opinions and beliefs so long as I am also afforded that consideration. 
Today I saw that there’s a new political humor book for kids called Democrats are Dumb, A Children’s Guide. The press release states that the book “harmlessly and humorously works on detonating the left-wing landmines the Democratic Party has left lying around in its attempt to indoctrinate us and our children in ‘Socialist Think.’”
Before I get going, let me say that I’m all for political humor. We need it. Politics is absurd under the best of circumstances and we need to keep some perspective.
But… and you felt there was a “but” there, didn’t you… Kids need to form their own opinions based on the history they learn in school and based on observations of the world around them. If they become conservative, liberal, or independent-minded, more power to them. But we shouldn’t urge them to do more than think for themselves.
This kind of Dr. Seuss rhyming sing-song for kids who don’t yet have political opinions of their own is like giving them a loaded gun… One quoted rhyme says…
“Khrushchev said, ‘.without firing a shot.’
To elect more Democrats was a Communist plot.”
I think we could just as easily write a book making fun of the Conservative right wing that is pushing us towards religious intolerance and scientific ignorance depending on who you listen to.
Let’s let our kids be kids. Keep politics out of the equation until they have the facts about history, government by the people for the people as laid out in the U.S. Constitution, and can form opinions of their own in coherent sentences.
I fear that planting sing-song political land mines in their minds too early will backfire like so many other indoctrination techniques wanted by those wanting to influence our youth. Let them think for themselves.
Please avoid “political primers” for kids like Democrats are Dumb.
I’ll get off my soap box now…
–Fitz
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Posted by fitz in Books, Television on Aug 25
Hi all…
Douglas Adams is one of my heroes. When he passed away in 2001, it was like losing Jim Henson in 1990 – these great people left us far too soon. In Adams’ case, he left us with the number 42, a resounding “so long and thanks for all the fish,” and a couch stuck impossibly in an apartment staircase. These were but a few of his gifts.
Dirk Gently‘s Holistic Detective Agency and Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul were two of the non-Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy related titles he produce during his career. Both of them (and all of the Hitchhiker’s titles) have stuck with me over the years in ways I couldn’t have fathomed in the beginning…
The Electric Monk from Dirk Gently will forever be my labor saving device. Not having time for faith of my own, I would love to purchase one of these robots for my own purposes. Or, as Adams put it:
“Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.”
I could use this ability today so I wouldn’t have to keep believing that everything will work out on its own accord.
At any rate… where was I? Oh yes…
The BBC it seems is creating a television program based on Dirk Gently and I can’t wait to see it here across the pond. Hopefully BBC America will see fit to share this new program with those of us in the U.S. Until then, we will have to content ourselves with the noise generated turning the pages of our lovingly worn, yellowed page copies of Dirk Gently as we read them to tide us over.
This news comes from Bleeding Cool!
–Fitz
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Posted by fitz in Books, Contest on Aug 20
On behalf of Tor Books, I have a copy of Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal to send to one lucky winner!
Unfortunately, because of my limited shipping budget, I can only offer this to United States residents… But all you have to do is leave a comment below and I’ll contact the winner via e-mail on September 20, 2010.
Good luck!
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Posted by fitz in Books, Movies on Aug 19
Hi all…
Before I can talk about the book Terminator Salvation: Trial By Fire by Timothy Zahn, which follows upon the events of the 2009 movie Terminator Salvation, I need to provide a bit of background.
Arnold Schwarzenegger truly was a machine in 1984 when James Cameron’s movie Terminator burst onto the scene. He played a cyborg assassin from the future sent to the past to stop John Connor from being born. To do that, he needs to kill Connor’s mother, Sarah (Linda Hamilton) before he could be born. Of course, the Terminator wasn’t the only thing sent back in time. Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) was also sent back by the John Connor of the future to prevent this from happening. These three characters – John, Sarah, and Kyle – are intrinsically tied across time throughout the entire series.
Putting aside the dangers of time travel and altering the future by affecting the past, Terminator was a science fiction phenomenon that inspired two other movies further exploring the potential of world domination by machines – Terminator 2: Judgement Day (T2) in 1991, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (T3) in 2003. Though I would like to forget T3, the first two were amazing films with special effects and ideas that really pushed science fiction films to become more technologically adept.
I saw Terminator Salvation in May 2009 and seem to be firmly in the minority when it comes to thinking the movie didn’t suck. Personally, I liked the film and feel it held true to the spirit of the original three films. Unlike the first three Terminator films, which started in the “present” of 1984 and headed toward the inevitable “Judgement Day” when the machines take over, Terminator Salvation picked up in 2018 after the machines had already taken over.
Skynet, an artificially intelligent computer system, started a nuclear war to destroy or enslave humanity to better protect it. The Resistance is a loose federation of quasi-military groups around the world hoping to destroy the machines and free mankind. The machines are pretty good at plotting to destroy the Resistance too.
[Spoilers ahead if you haven't seen Terminator Salvation yet.]
At the beginning of the film, John Connor (Christian Bale, Batman Begins) isn’t quite the all mighty Resistance leader he is when he sends Kyle Reese back in time in the first movie. But he’s rising through the ranks. After a successful attack on a Skynet base, he stumbles upon evidence of new type of Terminator incorporating human tissue. Along the way, they also discover a group of human prisoners used for some sort of experimentation. After John and his team leave with the rescued prisoners, one more form rises from the rubble – Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington, Avatar)…
Wright stumbles through the remains of Los Angeles and runs into a young Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin, Star Trek) and his quiet companion Star (Jadgrace Berry). They save Wright from the attack of a T-600 Terminator only to get taken prisoner a bit later. Marcus finds a downed Resistance pilot – Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood, TV’s Burn Notice and Human Target) and the two set off for Connor’s base…
Through the course of the movie, we discover that Wright himself is unknowingly one of this new type of Terminator. Skynet is testing the new model as an infiltration unit that can get inside Resistance cells and with a command from the central computer destroy anything and everything around him. It would be devastating for Skynet to have that kind of capability. No one could be trusted and the Resistance would fall apart.
At the end of the film, the Resistance and Wright attack a Skynet base to try and free Reese and some of the other prisoners before a massive attack on the base can be initiated by the Resistance high command. Though they free the prisoners, Connor gets injured and the high command is destroyed, leaving Connor in charge. To save Connor’s life, Wright gives up his own supercharged heart to be transplanted into Connor’s body.
[End spoilers]
Ultimately it’s a great exploration of what makes us human. Are we simply parts of a big machine or more than that? Can a Terminator still have humanity?
So back to the book now… Connor is still recovering from surgery, but he and his lieutenants are directing Resistance members to kill as many “live” Terminators at the Skynet base as they can and collect as many working or repairable guns and ammunition as they can for the inevitable counter-attack from Skynet.
Connor’s second in command, Barnes (Common in Terminator Salvation) and Blair are on a secondary mission to find Barnes’ brother and give him a proper burial. Reese has been sent out to collect ammunition with a team and Star has stayed behind in camp to help with repairing weapons, which she has turned out to have a gift for.
While Barnes & Blair are away, they discover a data cable leading into the mountains above the ruined base. Thinking it might be a secondary base, they follow the cable until they lose it in the trees, but find a group of people staying in the town of Baker’s Hollow. Led by Mayor Daniel Preston and his daughter Hope, the townspeople have struggled to keep a low profile and simply keep their population of 80+ safe, fed, and out of harm’s way.
Meanwhile, Kyle and his team have stumbled upon a hole covered by a partially intact Terminator. When one of the team gets stuck and they find a number of alert and intact machines below, it leads them in a perilous game of cat and mouse as they try to figure out what the machines are up to and how they can get out safely to get more backup.
Though I’ve not read anything by Timothy Zahn before, his name has appeared on my radar many times in the last 30 years. He’s written fiction in the Star Wars universe, as well as numerous novels of his own – the Cobra Series, the Conquerors Trilogy, the Blackcollar Series, and many others.
I found the book to be an extremely quick read once I got back into the Terminator mindset. It was fascinating to look at Baker’s Hollow as a pocket untouched by the machines so far. The people there were simply trying to hold on to some sense of normalcy in a world torn apart by war and doing a pretty good job of holding things together. Its residents fell back to a simpler way of life – hunting, gathering, and trying to keep sheltered from the elements.
But once outsiders arrive in town, things start to fall apart…
If you want to learn more about the world of Terminator Salvation, I’d encourage you to pick up Terminator Salvation: Trial by Fire. It’s a fast, enjoyable read that fills in a few of the blanks and shows more about how Kyle Reese becomes the man we know from the original Terminator movie. Look for the book in bookstores now!
This article first appeared at BlogCritics.org here.
–Fitz
p.s. Look for these great books at Barnes & Noble.
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Posted by fitz in Childrens, DVD, Movies on Aug 13
Hi all…
I don’t know many people (myself included) who didn’t run into a few problems in school growing up. Whether it was bullies, mean (or boring) teachers, “friends”, or anything else (the list was long in my case), it was never the ideal experience for anybody. Well, at least anybody I know personally anyway. There were always those “perfect” kids who could do no wrong, but I suspect karma rectified that situation with them later in life.
Based on the best-selling novel by Jeff Kinney, the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid provides a glimpse into Greg Heffley‘s (Zachary Gordon) life as he enters middle school. He’s joined by his best friend and well meaning but clueless kid Rowley (Robert Capron) and together they try to navigate the complex waters of middle school. Of course, it’s not easy.
Greg has an older teenage brother Rodrick (Devon Bostick) who’s the drummer in the band Loded Diaper. Rodrick does everything he can to make his younger sibling’s life heck, including not bathing and sticking Greg’s face in his armpit. Rodrick is more than a bully in the house however, he’s also a source of amusement. Like when Rowley sees Rodrick wearing eyeliner and dressed for a gig with his band when Rowley says – “Wow. You’re lucky. My mom doesn’t let me play with makeup any more.”
Greg’s parents are well-meaning, but very strange. His mom (Rachael Harris) means well and tries to let her kids learn from their mistakes. At one point, she goes with Greg to a dance… And I can’t say that I remember a Mom & Son dance during my school career, but I’m pretty sure I would have been mortified at that age as well. Greg’s dad (Steven Zahn) tries to keep his boys masculine and prove that he can protect his family and house. To do this at one point in the movie, he goes so far as to splash kids he thinks are going to teepee their house on Halloween.
At school, things aren’t much better for Greg. He thinks he has all the answers to become a popular kid, but all of his schemes backfire. And by the end, Rowley is popular and has disowned Greg because of all the mean things that happen. Angie (Chloe Moretz, Kick-ass, upcoming Let Me In) is the school journalist who encourages Greg to think for himself and stop trying to be popular – but of course he doesn’t listen until the end.
Ultimately the story is about navigating one of those inevitable phases most of us go through of finding our way in the world. Each time the context changes, whether it’s changing schools or changing jobs, we have to figure out how to make things work again. With Kinney’s novel for source material and Thor Freudenthal’s (Hotel for Dogs) direction, I think the film worked pretty well illustrating the pitfalls of treating school like a popularity contest.
Though the film didn’t do great at the box office, it made more than $60 million at the box office with a budget of around $15 million (according to Box Office Mojo). That seems to be enough for a sequel to be in the works for March 2011 if everything works out.
“The Cheesiest Edition” package of Diary of a Wimpy Kid includes the Blu-ray, a DVD of the movie, and a DVD with a digital version on it. Also included in the packaging are a few pages from Rowley’s “Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid”, which are just as endearing and clueless as Rowley is in the film.
On the Blu-ray and DVD for the movie are included some amusing and gross extras… Feature commentary with director Freudenthal and scriptwriter Gabe Sachs was interesting, but the Deleted Diary Pages were at times both disturbing and endearing. Though you might dismiss them as deleted scenes, the way they’re presented seems to me that they are much more than that.
“Fregley‘s Scavenger Hunt” was… sick and wrong on multiple levels. Fregley (Grayson Russell) describes the various things he’s found around school where you might not think to look. For example, one of his “treasures” is a piece of fudge under a girls’ desk. He put it in his pocket. And when he merged the fudge with three fries he found under a tree and invented “fudge fries”. I knew Fregley was weird, but I had no idea…
Another favorite of ours in the film was Chirag Gupta (Karan Brar) – the only kid in class smaller than Greg. In “Chirag’s Trail of Tears” you learn his secrets to dealing with bullies… Most of his approach depends on hiding in lockers, beneath the bleachers, behind the big kid in gym, and so on. Of course, hiding doesn’t always work – thus the “trail of tears” where he explains in gruesome detail the events he’d rather not remember.
But “Rowley’s Lost Zoo-wee Mama Cartoons” was probably my favorite of the 10 deleted scenes. It’s not as much a deleted scene as simply a collection of pictures of some of Rowley’s “Zoo-wee Mama” cartoons that were published in the school paper. You only catch a glimpse of the cartoons during the film, so it’s nice to see them included as extras. They’re actually pretty cute – mostly dealing with something bad happening to a character asking a question in the first panel and having something bad happen to that character in the last panel.
I have to say that though the Blu-ray quality is excellent, it’s a bit of overkill in this case and there weren’t any additional features on the Blu-ray that weren’t also on the DVD. So the benefits of Blu-ray, beyond better picture quality and providing a little additional downloadable content, was minimal.
That said, we really enjoyed the film as a family. We missed it at the theater and were looking forward to seeing it on DVD. Now that it’s available, I’d recommend it to anyone looking for family-friendly fare to watch together. Look for Diary of a Wimpy Kid at your favorite rental or retail counter.
This article first appeared at BlogCritics.org here.
–Fitz
p.s. Pick up the movie and books from Barnes & Noble!
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Posted by fitz in Books on Aug 12
Hi again…
Prior to reading her latest novel, Discord’s Apple, I have to admit I’d not read anything by Carrie Vaughn. As much as I love urban fantasy, somehow I’d missed her series about a werewolf named Kitty entirely. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Vaughn is a Colorado author (based in Boulder) who has set Kitty up in Denver. So how did I miss this?
Well, much like the “Dresden Files” series by Jim Butcher, thankfully I didn’t have to start all the way at the beginning to get into this series. Kitty Goes to War is the eighth book in the series and the first published by Tor books. The previous seven are published by Grand Central Publishing. Lucky for me, Amazon doesn’t really care who publishes them and will send me the first seven books in the series before too long…
Back to this book though… Kitty Norville is the alpha dog of a pack of werewolves based in Denver. She hosts “The Midnight Hour,” a radio talk show she uses to talk to her small (but dedicated and growing) audience about paranormal events in general. Unfortunately she is getting sued after running a series of shows about weird things happening at Speedy Mart convenience stores across the country. Is the owner, Harold Franklin, really up to something nefarious or is it just a series of coincidences? The fact that Franklin is suing the show for libel tends to hint that he has something to hide…
In addition to the weirdness with Speedy Mart, Kitty gets called in to help with three Army soldiers back from Afghanistan having some serious trouble readjusting to civilian life after their leader dies in the field. Though Kitty wants to help, her pack is a bit less inclined to let trained killers into the fold. Can Kitty convince the military and the soldiers that they want to control their wolf halves? Or will they continue to run wild until the military has to use a more permanent solution?
Being from just north of Denver and now living in Colorado Springs myself, I was happy to find that the streets I knew and remembered were included in the book as Kitty and her friends navigated up and down the Front Range of Colorado. It was actually kind of cool to be able to picture the locations described in the book based on places in the real world.
Vaughn has a very easy to read style that flows amazingly well and makes for a quick, satisfying read. I couldn’t help but see some similarities with the sarcasm and humor to Butcher’s style, but I honestly can’t imagine Dresden the wizard for hire hosting a radio show. Wizards and technology don’t mix well in Dresden’s world – but that doesn’t seem to be a problem in Vaughn’s.
It was easy to slip into this book and empathize with Kitty’s struggles to not only keep control of her werewolf pack, but keep their respect while she tried to help the soldiers find a clear path through the paranormal world. I also found it very interesting that the story centered around a group of soldiers who fought in the war in Afghanistan coming home only to be mistreated by the system that sent them in the first place. The story really drives home the point that we need to do more to support the men and women fighting the good fight on the other side of the world and help them come home safely and securely.
Something tells me I’ll be reading more about Kitty’s trials as a werewolf in the near future. Kitty Goes to War may be my first foray into Vaughn’s paranormal world of werewolves, but it certainly won’t be my last.
For more information about Carrie Vaughn and her books, be sure to check out her website at CarrieVaughn.com.
This article first appeared at BlogCritics.org here.
–Fitz
p.s. Check out this and other great books from Barnes & Noble below!
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Posted by fitz in Books on Aug 09
Hey all…
What do you get when you cross Near Earth Objects (NEOs), two ex-military tactical and scientific experts, Las Vegas criminal organizations, an amazingly successful assassin, and a talking machine intelligence named FRED? You get one heck of a wild ride written by a real-life rocket scientist who also just happened to fly more than 15,000 hours for the Air Force and NASA. If you like amazing details, likeable characters, and thrillers by Robin Cook or Michael Crichton, you have to check out Specific Impulse by Charles Justiz.
My journey started with the first few chapters of the book that are available on Justiz’ website – CharlesJustiz.com. By the end of chapter 4, I was hooked enough that I knew I needed to read more. Those first chapters introduce you to scientist Carin Gonzales, former submarine commander Jake Sabio, and assassin with an agenda Antonio Crubari. Gonzales and Sabio manage to survive a strange explosion over the huge meteor crater near Winslow, Arizona… an explosion that mysteriously led to the deaths of everyone else at the crater at the time…
Things only get stranger for Carin and Jake from there as they start manifesting new abilities such as the ability to slow down combat and see minute details or even being able to smell minute traces of chemicals in the air around them that normal people would never notice. Add to that the head of a covert action squad with ties to Las Vegas crime and a poor FBI agent and his team who always seem to be a step behind and you’d have a strong science-based thriller already.
But Justiz doesn’t stop there. By the end of the book, there’s a third member of the Carin/Jake team named FRED who just happens to be a sentient computer who can help them out of numerous jams and a NEO that just might be more than it appears to be. All of these threads weave to a spectacular climax that’s only major flaw is that this is the first book of a planned trilogy and dang if the next book isn’t out yet!
Since Michael Crichton passed away, there have been no new science-based thriller writers who have really stepped up to wow me. Justiz not only has a grasp of how to make complex topics such as determining where the object that explodes above the crater came from or how the Doppler shift works…
The Doppler shift was the way you could tell when a train went by. The frequency of the sound suddenly shifts much lower, but Jake had it all wrong. Carin was shaking her head. “There’s no way the Doppler could have shifted. You’ll only hear a Doppler shift in the first place if some object changes in motion relative to you. This thing was coming at us the whole time, so the Doppler can’t even shift once, much less twice…”
Justiz also has a great grasp of working humor into his writing. The exchanges between Carin and Jake are full of sarcasm and many of the characters the pair run into, including the computer, add to the wry amusement scattered throughout. I absolutely loved Chief Tuckman, the police chief in a tiny Idaho town with an airstrip. The main pair help out Tuckman realize he’s in love with the diner owner at the airstrip. And you may be thinking “what’s romance got to do with a thriller”? But believe me when I say it works and provides a bit of comic relief along the way.
Somehow Specific Impulse manages to weave a compelling story with plausible science and great characters you can relate to, leaving you wanting more by the end. If you like science-based thrillers, be sure to check out Charles Justiz’ Specific Impulse. I wasn’t sure I was going to like the book, but now I know I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next one in the trilogy!
This article first appeared at BlogCritics.org here.
–Fitz
p.s. Be sure to pick up a copy of these great books at Barnes & Noble!
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Posted by fitz in Books on Aug 02
Hey there…
There’s nothing like the feeling I get when I discover a new writer. It’s like opening a door to a brave new world. Sometimes I have to admit I don’t like what I find on the other side. But then there are those rare moments when I get there and don’t want to leave. Discord’s Apple from Carrie Vaughn drew me in from the opening chapter and didn’t let me go until I finished the book just a few hours later.
This is the story of Evie Walker, a successful comic book writer from Los Angeles, and her trip home to Hope’s Fort, Colorado, to help her father Frank face his own mortality. It’s also the story of Alex, a stranger who has truly seen it all who is looking for something he can’t seem to find. Together, Evie, Frank, and Alex face new challenges as the mysteries around them deepen and things really hit the fan.
Let me start by saying that, though I love Colorado authors, I’d never read anything by Vaughn. She lives in Boulder, Colorado, which is only a couple of hours away from me in Colorado Springs. And evidently she’s been writing about a werewolf named Kitty for a while now in a series of urban fantasy novels – the latest of which is called Kitty Goes to War. So how have I managed to miss her?
Discord’s Apple was paced amazingly well. From the subtle beginnings of Evie’s drive into the tiny town of Hope’s Fort to the way she slides characters from myth and legend into play alongside the heroes of the comic book Eagle Eye Commandos, the plot builds and beckons the reader ever forward and back from present to past and back again.
But not since reading Dan Simmons‘ books Illium and Olympos, which managed to weave the Trojan War and Greek gods together with a far flung science fiction, have I seen those stories made relevant. Vaugn masterfully tangles the tale of Sinon, the liar who encouraged Troy to open its gates, with a different spin on the Greek gods that grants Sinon the curse of immortality.
Somehow she also manages to mix in the tales of Longinus, Arthur, and the glass slippers of Cinderella while bringing in elements of the warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark where a nameless government employee stashed the Ark of the Covenant. Add to that a sprinkle of a world where the balance of power has tipped enough to make everyone paranoid…
However, at no time in the novel did I feel that any of these elements was ever out of control. Somehow she tames these tornadoes, each of which has their own Oz attached, and pulls them into a coherent tapestry of plot, character, and story. I don’t know how she did it. I only know that I really enjoyed it and want to know what happens next!
So if you’re looking for a book for summer reading, be sure to add Discord’s Apple by Carrie Vaughn to your list. It’s a fun ride. Now I have to go back and see what all the fuss is about this werewolf named Kitty…
For more information about Vaughn, be sure to check out her website at CarrieVaugn.com and look for her books published by TOR/FORGE!
This review first appeared at BlogCritics.org here.
–Fitz
p.s. Pick up this and other Carrie Vaughn books below!
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Posted by fitz in Books on Jul 28
Hi there!
What is the difference between seeing the world at fifteen and seeing it at twenty-two? As a teenager, you may wish to be perceived as an adult, but once you are an adult you no longer have the innocence of your teenage years. So how does that work when you have the composure of an older soul in the body of a younger person?
The Season of Risks is the third in Susan Hubbard’s series of “Ethical Vampire” novels documenting the path of young Ariella Montero, a half-vampire struggling to understand her place in the world. As much a coming-of-age story as anything, Hubbard weaves the tricks of memory, facing the consequences of impulsive decisions, and the fragility of love, friendship, and family into a compelling world that somehow manages to avoid the pitfalls of your usual vampire series.
Hubbard, a professor of English at the University of Central Florida, has proven that a novel can be entertaining and literary at the same time. Her gift for language is reflected on every page with her fluid descriptions of places, thoughts, and feelings that never seem to get bogged down by cliche or overly flowery prose. And yet she still manages to present complex stories with intriguing characters without mixing High School Musical and the supernatural.
In The Society of S, we were introduced to then thirteen-year old Ariella and her father Raphael in New York as Ari discovered that she’s not your average home schooled teenager. She is in fact a half-vampire, born of her vampire father and her human mother, who disappeared soon after she was born. As if that wasn’t enough, her friend Katherine was tragically killed. By the end of the book, she’s gone on a Jack Keroac-inspired road trip to find her mother and come to grips with the new world she finds herself in.
Then in The Year of Disappearances, she reconnected with her mother and her friends Dashay and Bennett on a ranch in Homosassa Springs, Florida. Along the way, she met some new friends and ends up starting college at Hillhouse, a private liberal arts school in Georgia her mother had attended. Much like in the first book, death and mystery seemed to follow poor Ari as she continued to explore life as a vampire in a human world.
Now in The Season of Risks she is older and wiser, with a few more experiences under her belt. Beginning her second year of college, Ari is not only dealing with the deaths of her friends the previous year but possible romantic feelings for Neil Cameron, a Presidential candidate who happens to be a vampire.
The difference in ages between the potential lovers raises some sticky ethical issues for Ari and Cameron, trying to keep their budding relationship a secret from prying eyes. But when Ari hears about a medicine that may age her forward a few years to bridge the gap, a love affair becomes more of a possibility. Would aging herself from fifteen to twenty-two be enough to let them be together?
Though Ari would have liked to discuss the treatment with her parents and friends, she knows they would quickly shoot the idea down as unsafe. Plus, her parents have moved to Ireland to continue her father’s research into vampiric DNA and her friend Dashay is putting things back together on their ranch in Homosassa Springs, Florida. And her friends at college probably wouldn’t understand either, except for possibly Sloan, a new art student who’d taken an interest in Ari.
Hubbard shakes things up towards the end with a great twist that caught me by surprise and pushes the story through to the end. Many questions arise and most are answered by the conclusion. But I think this world still has many stories to tell about the world of vampires.
Like the first two books of the series, this one was a fast read. Thanks to the amazing writing and engaging story, it took me three sittings to complete. And, like when I finished The Year of Disappearances I was already looking forward to the next book, which is always a good sign!
If you are looking for an alternative to Twilight, I’d strongly encourage you to check out Susan Hubbard’s series. These books present vampires without all the shirtless flexing. Look for The Society of S, The Year of Disappearances, and The Season of Risks on bookshelves now!
This article first appeared at BlogCritics.org here.
–Fitz
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