by Kay | Apr 4, 2010 | Reviews |
Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs
Series: Mercy Thompson #2
Published by Orbit
Pages: 336
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Source: Purchased myself
Add to Goodreads
Rating:
Also in this series: Moon Called, River MarkedUnder the rule of science, there are no witch burnings allowed, no water trials or public lynchings. In return, the average law-abiding, solid citizen has little to worry about from the things that go bump in the night. Sometimes I wish I was an average citizen...
Mechanic Mercy Thompson has friends in low places - and in dark ones. And now she owes one of them a favor. Since she can shapeshift at will, she agrees to act as some extra muscle when her vampire friend Stefan goes to deliver a message to another of his kind.
But this new vampire is hardly ordinary - and neither is the demon inside of him...
Thoughts: I absolutely loved Blood Bound. It had everything I could want in a good book – a great plot, a kick-ass heroine, a believable love triangle, and wolves.
But what makes the Mercy series so amazing is Mercy herself. Unlike a lot of protagonists – both male and female – she shows a fair amount of common sense. She doesn’t run in looking for trouble, errs on the side of caution, and refuses to sit around whining about her problems. Not to mention she has a work ethic I would pay good money for. Just because she was almost killed the night before is no excuse for not turning up to work the next day! Seriously. Mercy is one of the few characters whose judgement I trust implicitly.
Blood Bound focusses on the vampires in Briggs’ world – meaning Mystery-Machine-driving!vampire Stefan played a much bigger role than he had in Moon Called. Vampires are never good news in Briggs’ world, and Mercy finds herself thrown into the middle of yet another muddle she desperately wants to avoid. We learn so much about the verse in this book – and Mercy learns an awful lot about herself.
On the romance front, the triangle gets a bit of play while still remaining only a sub-plot. What I was most impressed at was Briggs’ ability to actually make me like Samuel. Even though I had long ago made my mind up that Adam was the one for Mercy, Briggs manages to make me understand Mercy’s hesitation in choosing. For me, this is pretty much a miracle (usually authors who mess with my OTP usually make me want to throw things.) The action in this book would have gotten it a 4.5 stars – but the romantic tension brought it up to the bloody spectacular level!
Bottom line? There is a reason this series is so damn popular. You need to start reading it… now.
by Kay | Feb 24, 2010 | Reviews |
Red-Headed Stepchild by Jaye Wells
Series: Sabina Kane #1
Published by Orbit
Pages: 304
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Source: Purchased myself
Add to Goodreads
Rating:
Also in this series: The Mage in Black, Green-Eyed Demon, Silver-Tongued DevilIn a world where being of mixed blood is a major liability, Sabina doesn't really fit in. And being an assassin - the only profession fit for an outcast - doesn't help matters. But she's never brought her work home. Until now.
Her latest mission is uncomfortably complex and threatens the fragile peace between vampire and mage races. As Sabina scrambles to figure out which side she's on, she uncovers a tangled political web, some nasty facts about her family, and some unexpected new talents. Any of these things could be worryingly life changing, but together they could be fatal...
Sabina Kane: She's down, but she's not out.
Thoughts: I LOVED this book! This is my first five star read this year, and to come from an author I knew nothing about, well, it is a pleasant surprise!
Where to start? Well, RHSC is really pure, action-packed, no-frills urban fantasy. But it is just plain funny! Even though this was a tough book, it was also really hysterical. Jaye Wells has a great sense of humour and here is one scene that I just have to share:
“Why haven’t you exploded yet?” The demon was closer now, only a few feet away. I opened one eye to look at the arrow. Blood bloomed from the site of impact, just over my left breast.
“I—I don’t know.” Holding myself up became difficult as the seconds passed.
“Hmm. I wonder if I should stake you just to be sure.”
“I’d really prefer it if you didn’t,” I said. “I’m sure I’ll ignite any second.”
The book only gets funnier from there. Jaye Wells manages to fit in humour in the most unlikely of places – a lot of it coming from her astounding secondary characters. I was head-over-heels with the demon!cat Giguhl and the mysterious!hot!mage Adam.
The universe is a super complicated one and even though we are tossed straight into the action, it is still an easy verse to get a handle on. She somehow manages to incorporate humour, world-building, appropriate sexual tension, and politics into her faeries, mages, vampires and demons. Wells says she is inspired by Kim Harrison, and while I can see that in her work, I have to say that I much prefer her work over what I have read from Harrison so far.
As for Sabina, well… it took a while for me to warm up to her. She is cold as ice at the beginning of the book, and I wondered if I could like a character who seemed – at least to start with – to be utterly devoid of a concience! But it meant that watching her open up – even a little bit – to new people with different ideas became very satisfying. Although I am still not in love with Sabina, I understand her. I see masses of potential in her and can’t wait for the next book!
by Kay | Jan 2, 2010 | Reviews |
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Series: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #1
Genres: Science Fiction
Source: Purchased myself
Add to Goodreads
Rating: It’s an ordinary Thursday lunchtime for Arthur Dent until his house gets demolished. The Earth follows shortly afterwards to make way for a new hyperspace bypass and his best friend has just announced that he’s an alien. At this moment, they’re hurtling through space with nothing but their towels and an innocuous-looking book inscribed with the big, friendly words: DON’T PANIC.
The weekend has only just begun…
Thoughts: I had been meaning to read this book for a couple of years, but never got around to getting a copy. So when a friend finally just gave me a copy for Christmas, I knew I had no reason to wait.
There are so many things about this book that make it a classic. Besides the humour – which there is plenty of – the social commentary is extraordinarily insightful. As with the case with a lot of science fiction, the universe provides a new venue for us to examine ourselves. Adams did the same thing as most sci-fi writers – he just did it with a hell of a lot more wit.
There are so many quotes in this book that deserve a mention – and half of them you probably know without reading the book. So I thought I would share instead a quote from the letter Adams wrote to his US editor. It does an excellent job at demonstrating the quality of his humour, his ability to see straight through things to the truth, and also sets up the very British-ness of the book:
There are some changes in the script that simply don’t make sense. Arthur Dent is English, the setting is England, and has been in every single manifestation of HHGG ever. […] So why suddenly “Newark” instead of “Rickmansworth”? And “Bloomingdales” instead of “Marks and Spencer”? The fact that Rickmansworth is not within the continent United States doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist! American audiences do not need to feel disturbed by the notion that places do exist outside the US or that people might suddenly refer to them in works of fiction. […] If you feel that referring to “Marks and Spencer” might seriously freak out Americans because they haven’t heard of it […] we could either put warning stickers on the cover (“The text of this book contains references to places and institutions outside the continental United States and may cause offence to people who haven’t heard of them”) or you could, I suppose, put “Harrods”, which most people will have heard of. Or we could even take the appalling risk of just recklessly mentioning things that people won’t have heard of and see if they survive the experience. They probably will – when people are born they haven’t heard of anything or anywhere, but seem to get through the first few years of their lives without ill-effects.
Bottom Line? HHGG is absolutely hysterical. And like the best humour, it has a very truthful ring to it. Also, reading it will let you in on all sorts of jokes that you have been missing all these years!
DON’T PANIC about the boring cover! The new re-release is meant to be a DIY book cover. It is really kinda awesome, as it has a bunch of HHGG stickers to decorate the book with – and whatever you have left over you can paste where you like. Very very cool. (Check out the video!)
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – Don’t Panic DIY Covers from Crush Design on Vimeo.
