The Demon and the City, by Liz Williams

pros: great idea; interesting characters and plot; Chinese culture and mixture with Indian pantheon; Zhu Irzh; the badger/tea pot; the guild of dowsers; Mhara; Robin Yuan; the forgotten temple; the ultimate fate of the angry dowser and his goddess

cons: very violent; the demon’s lover is just unlikable, although a bit sympathetic; too much mayhem and collateral damage; reality is very dark and ugly; what happened to the second celestial being?

misc: Singapore 3; meridians; Chi and feng shui lines; viral drugs; wealthy society vs. working and poor; earthquakes; Celestial boat; Celestials; Jade Emperor; demoted goddess; Bad Dog City; Chinese afterlife; Detective Inspector Chen; Sergeant Ma; exorcists; sorcerors; black pill; devas; Hell money

ISBN 1597800473; 256pp; pub. 2007
Amazon link

Alpha, by Catherine Asaro

pros: interesting story idea; interesting characters, especially Alpha; dogfight; Jamie (grandaughter); future technologies, esp. nanomedicine

cons: sometimes stilted writing style; contrived plot at times, esp. attacks on the general’s life and Charon’s return; doubt about Sunrise Alley; ending was coy; androids and machine intelligences are more interesting than people or plot; doesn’t discuss what seems like an obvious problem – if you get your neural pathways transferred to an android’s body, don’t you still die? The immortal android is just a copy of the original. If you don’t die, which one is the real you?

misc: General; prodigy; self-determination; self-programming; love; courage; F-42; Banshee; fighter pilot; mesh; nanotechnology; android; robot army; nanomedicines; cardiac arrest; angina; aging; evolution of artificial intelligence; sequel to Sunrise Alley

ISBN 1416520813; 288pp; pub. 2006
Amazon link