Dragonhaven, by Robin McKinley
pros: well-written; well-developed idea of what if dragons were real and how it would work out realistically; details of National Park, Native Americans’ role, and legends; believable characters and situations; complete story in one book; the dragons’ names; hero has hispanic last name but is not a stereotype, it’s just his name
cons: dragged a little; ending felt rushed; conflict details felt choppy but this may be result of first-person POV; annoying little girl was a true brat; what happened to the mother remained a mystery
misc: caves; burns; fate; walkie-talkies; radios; feds; poachers; tour busses; Smokehill National Park; Jake Mendoza; Lois (the baby dragon)
ISBN 0399246754; 272pp; pub. 2007
Amazon link
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
Chimera, by Will Shetterly
pros: Well-written futuristic detective novel; Chase “Max” Maxwell; the Infinite pocket; Zoe Domingo (jaguar chimera); good plot, good action, believable situations; Mycroft; futuristic details; world with chimera everywhere; Max251’s hospital stays; the future’s version of recycling; in retrospect, Max’s reactions to Kris Doyle’s taste and smell during their lovemaking marathon; Max’s self-image as a “knight in grimy white armor”
cons: hard to tell if Zoe was very smart or if she was just impulsive; chimera rights and AI rights completely replace issues of civil rights for other minorities but their status never gets explained super androids role in police and high society isn’t as well-explained as it should have been; a megalomaniac like Chain probably wouldn’t have liked having so many copies of himself floating around since he wouldn’t be able to centrally control them all; final showdown was a too explosively violent for their survival to be believable, but it was cool
misc: AIs; gene-splicing; indentured servitude; Little Angels; gambling; Crittertown; riot
ISBN 031287543; 285pp; pub. 2001
Amazon link
Sunrise Alley, by Catherine Asaro
pros: fast-paced; interesting premise and situations that illustrate dilemma; futuristic technology; likable AI entities; questions of age differences; Turner’s story; from Baen’s free library
cons: a bit too much detail in sexual interactions between Turner and Samantha; weak romance – it seemed contrived to drive the point of humanity of an AI/EI; apparent omnipotence of Charon (bad guy) was convenient, his failures were also very convenient; overall the story felt rushed
misc: electronically augmented clothing; orbital jets; underground community of machine intelligences, androids, and robots; military
ISBN 1416520791; 448 pages; pub. 2006
Amazon link
Bedlam Boys, by Ellen Guon
pros: familiar characters, tells us about Kayla’s beginning as a healer; from Baen’s free library; prequel to Bedlam’s bard series with Mercedes Lackey; Elizabet and her grandmother; the ogress and Elizabet’s explanation that follows
cons: portrayal of gang members seemed naive; Kayla had some very foolish moments; Kayla seems to forget her previously tight friends very easily
misc: Chicano gangs; LA; crystal figurines; ghosts; foster care/system
ISBN 0671721771; 304pp; pub 1993
Amazon link
The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss
pros: well-written; interesting characters; interesting world; Auri; Denna; Kvothe; Sim and Wil; Ben; the trials at the Arcanum are very realistic and characters are well-written
cons: a bit too wordy; not enough action; I would have preferred more information on what it’s really all about; the whole world seems to be against Kvothe; a little too deliberately mysterious
ISBN 075640407X; 896pp; pub. 2007
The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch
pros: very funny, fast-paced; Locke’s early exploits; Chains; great characters; truly hateful bad guys; lots of gray areas; still lots of mystery even after it’s done; this works as an adventure, mystery, or fantasy; fate of the Berangias twins; the sharks; the con; the Spider and the Salvoras
cons: we never meet Sabetha; fate of the twins and Bug; the net worth of Locke and Jean at the end
misc: Capa Raza; Grey King; Thiefmaker; bondmage; Falconer; the contrarequialla; shifting revels; Midnighters; Gentlemen Bastards
ISBN 055358894X; 752pp; pub. 2007
The Prophet of Lamath, by Robert Don Hughes
pros: good satire; stupid kings and courts get their comeuppance; Pelman and the Power; people actually learn lessons and get wiser, even public figures; the world and its problems; the dragon; the monastery elder and the bear cave; Ezri, the sailor; the naval “battle”; the way the siege ends
cons: Serphimera; could have been longer; Rosha and Bronwynn’s romance is a little forced; the dragon’s fate; the slavery; the merchants were too uniformly unlikable and evil
misc: two-headed dragon; blue-robes; the Power; powershaper; Tohn; Dorlyth; Chaomonous; Ngandib-Mar; Maris; Vicia-Heinox; Divisionists; “The dragon is divided”
ISBN 0345011112; Pub. 1989
Bloodsucking Fiends, by Christopher Moore
pros: fast-paced; silly fun; adult viewpoint; quirky characters; the cliché of the small-town gullible hero twisted with the aspiring young author, in a different situation; the Wongs/flower gag; laundromat scene and witness accounts; the night crew at Safeway; the Emperor; Tommy’s actions at the end
cons: what happens to the turtles; Jody isn’t very likable; more dark and sarcastic than fun; Jody’s mother was just a sad stereotype
misc: turkey bowling; graveyard shift; yacht; San Francisco; laundromat; Elijah Ben Sapir; redhead; Indiana; C. Thomas Flood; SOMA; South of Market; loft; metalworkers
ISBN 0060735414; 304pp; pub. 2004
The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers
pros: well-written; fun to read; interesting characters; twisty plot; the character Jacky; the ending; Coleridge in the dungeons; special shoes for villains and chains on the feet for the good guys; some of the names; some very creepy bad guys, especially the clown
cons: the bad guys were a little spread out; Brendan’s doppleganger/ka dopeyness didn’t fit with the explanations of what happens to a ka and his ultimate fate is also inconsistent but convenient; I didn’t fully understand where the “master” came from, he just seemed like a convenient arch-enemy
misc: misfiring gun; ear loss; London in 1800s; Egypt; British and French occupation of Egypt; time travel; time as an ice flow over weeds in a river; gypsies; a wooden monkey; motorcycle crash; soul-shifting; hairy apemen; spells/sorcery gone awry; werewolf isn’t really a werewolf but a sorcerer sort of turned into a dog who keeps growing long hair all over his body and he shifts bodies about once a week because of the hair; Brendan Doyle; William Ashbless; poetry and poets; Punch and Judy show; Dr. Romany; Lord Byron
ISBN 0441004016; 400pp; pub. 1997
Shapechangers, by Jennifer Roberson
pros: interesting idea; female lead stands up for herself; Carillon matures; the animal lir
cons: female lead is more headstrong and stubborn than strong; reads too much like an old gothic romance; council-sanctioned rape and forcing pregnancy on captives to increase a race is disgusting and ruined the whole book and series for me
misc: Cheysuli; hawk; wolf; crofter’s daughter; half-breed; Old Ones
ISBN 0886771404; 224pp; pub. 1984
Amazon link
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling
*********************************
SPOILER WARNING!
*********************************
pros: it’s more of Harry; it’s resolution, finally; doesn’t coddle the reader – bad things happen; Snape, after all; Neville; Ron; the final resolution wasn’t exactly what I was expecting; the house elves; mobilized Hogwarts
cons: the very last part could have been left out and story would have been more powerful for me; so many deaths; the Malfoys don’t get destroyed; the wrong heroes get most of the glory; Dobby’s fate; how did Neville get the sword?
ISBN 0545010225; 2007
Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner
pros: the prose; Richard and Alec’s romance/relationship is twisted but interesting; well-drawn decadence; excellent characterizations; swordsmen as professional duelists acting for nobility isn’t new, but point of view of swordsmen and their life is more detailed than usual; not so much an antihero as antiheroic
cons: homosexual romance, although beautifully written, was too much for my tastes and distracted from the story – it would have been enough to establish their particular preferences, that this world accepts same sex relationships as totally mundane, and that Richard does apparently care about someone; intrigue, drama, and violence are a major part of story; fascination with violence and blood presented as a sexually desirable trait; some predictability
ISBN 368pp; pub. 2003 (paperback edition)
Messiah Node, by Lyda Morehouse
pros: continuation of an excellent series; tends to tie previous 2 stories together; threat of impending apocaplyse feels real and drives plot very well; AI as a messiah; Maizombies; angel characters; dragon AI developments; good ending; more of Mouse and Page
cons: not many; Michael is still annoying; would have liked to see more of angel Gabriel and Dee; ended too soon
ISBN 0451459296; 352pp; pub. 2003
Fallen Host, by Lyda Morehouse
pros: continuation of an excellent series; AI is one of the main characters; different spin on Lucifer as a fallen angel and his relationship with God; different spin on Inquisitors; consistent development on idea of organized, established religions as goverment; great heroine; angel characters; Mai and her polka band, Yakuza, the mob; street society in general
cons: characters from previous story are only bit players; Lucifer is a little overdone; I’d like to have seen more of the other angels and Mecca; certain characters die; Page and the dragon AI tend to upstage everyone else
ISBN 045145879; 352 pp; pub. 2002
Archangel Protocol, by Lyda Morehouse
pros: fast-paced, exciting story; unusual spin on familiar angel idea; likable characters; interesting world and premise (Medusa bomb, glass city, mutated humans); Mouse’s AI; use of AI as a character; virtual angels; LINK society and unLINKed computing and people; excellent, unusual series; each title in series has different viewpoint
cons: Michael was a little annoying; didn’t like the ending; religions as evil or bad guy; unsatisfying resolution to virtual angels threat; Out of print
ISBN 0451458273; 352 pp; 2001
Bloodring, by Faith Hunter
pros: fast-paced; likable characters; interesting premise; well-visualized; good blend of fantasy and science (more fantasy than hard science)
cons: obviously a set-up for a series; relationships are established but not developed very well; cliff-hanger ending; heroine’s dilemma/danger seemed weakly developed, there was a lot undefined or possibly inconsistent details; mage heat idea seemed silly and contrived to me
Nine Layers of Sky, by Liz Williams
pros: romance worked; use of angst wasn’t overdone; bad guys were sufficiently creepy; interesting ideas and play on Russian folklore/mythology; very descriptive
cons: sketchy details; I’d have liked to see more about the bogotyr and at least a little more about the parallel world and the colonel
ISBN 0553584995, 448 pages, pub. 2003
Click to Subscribe
