Various Thoughts

I wanted to wait until I had three books to post about… but any longer and I’ll forget the general impression of these two.

The Captive Flame is the first book in Richard Lee Byers’ new Brotherhood of the Griffon trilogy set in the Forgotten Realms. It revisits a key character or two from his Haunted Lands series. It’s somewhat interesting thanks to its focus on the dragonborn, but there really isn’t anything that makes it truly stand out against the various other Forgotten Realms novels. Hopefully the next book in the series will remedy that… perhaps by giving Brimstone a larger part to play.

Kelley Armstrong‘s most recent Women of the Otherworld novel, Waking the Witch, jumps the time frame up a few more years and focuses on Savannah. Since none of the earlier novels focused on her, this entry injects a breath of fresh air to the series. There is one fairly large problem however. The ending… or rather… the lack of one. It ends on a cliffhanger following the loss of Savannah’s magical abilities, which is a one-two punch of randomness.

The third novel in Jes Battis‘ OSI series, Inhuman Resources, loses some of the grounding in reality the series had. Its plotline has a more contrived air to it. Lucian is too perfect, Tess’ housing situation feels too perfect, and the climax of the story comes effectively out of nowhere. Sabine? A Manticore? The Alchemist created an alchemical concoction to free his source of power? Why?

Lyn Benedict‘s series of Shadows Inquiries novels begins with Sins & Shadows, though it reads as if it were the second due to the repeated referencing of Syvlie’s friend’s death at the hands of cultists. The feeling of stepping into something half-informed aside, events proceed smoothly without feeling forced and the various characterizations are believable. This cannot be said of its follow-up Ghost & Echoes; the second in the series. The plotline here is somewhat jumbled and neither the Zoe nor Demalion tie-in seem natural in the slightest. What’s the point of killing him in the first place if you’re just going to bring him immediately back? And is there really a need for a witch version of Sylvie to be running around?

While Rob Thurman‘s Chimera shares some of the same qualities as the Cal Leandros series, that’s more or less unavoidable. In some ways it’s almost like a window showing what that series would have been like had the brothers been running the entire time instead of holed up in New York. Anyways, there aren’t many books that focus on the Russian Mob in the Urban Fantasy genre which certainly helps this stand out. The only real complaint I have with it is the ‘twist’ at the very end. All of the various pieces of evidence focused on throughout the story suddenly become illogically synced coincidences.

Stormwalker reminds me of the Delilah Street series. This is not a good thing. Allyson James‘ new series has quite a few believability problems and one-note characters. There are three central issues here that are more annoying than most; Mick has no personality and only talks of protecting Janet or having sex, there is always a lightning storm around when Janet’s in trouble, and events proceed scene to scene like a scripted play. Out of those three the one that is most annoying by far is the lightning storm issue. There are not five-minute lightning storms every damn day in the desert.

Amazon.com dropped the ball with A Flash of Hex, the second of Jes Battis‘ OSI novels. I only found out about it when Inhuman Resources (the third book) was suggested a week or two ago. I don’t remember what I thought of the first beyond not actively disliking it, but this one is quite good. There’s a sense of reality, believable situations and characters, to it missing from most Urban Fantasy series. That’s not to say there aren’t blatant contrivances… as there are… but they’re easy enough to marginalize.

Daemon’s Mark is the fifth book in Caitlin Kittredge‘s Nocturne City series. First and foremost, the summary on the back of the novel appears to have been copied from Witch Craft. That aside, there aren’t all that many problems with it. Luna continues her slow progression toward becoming a likable character, while the supernatural abilities of the universe’s various denizens continue to take a backseat to standard dangers such as guns, tranquilizers, and reinforced steel cages.

Nalini Singh‘s latest Psy-Changeling novel, Bonds of Justice, surprisingly enough mixes up the standard order of events somewhat. All the previous novels had one half of its future couple ‘hot’ and aggressively pursue the relationship while the other would be ’cold’ and try to avoid the relationship. This one has both parties pursuing each other with equal fervor more or less from the beginning. As for the background plotline featuring the Psy’s fracturing society… it continue apace, with sides having been drawn among the councilors.

Neuropath is a thriller by R. Scott Bakker I picked up on a whim when I ordered The Judging Eye. Now, normally I don’t read thrillers and so had no idea what to expect. Even if I did… I probably would have been surprised that the book is more philosophical dissertation than novel. The characters are just arguments (or perhaps proofs) and the setting is merely window dressing.

Generally speaking this wouldn’t be a problem since philosophy can provoke interesting discussions. It didn’t work out that way in this case because I already viewed its ‘radical viewpoint’ as self-evident reality. Probably because I’m a sociopath. Regardless, reading it was akin to reading about how the grass is green and sky is blue; not particularly interesting.

There was, however, one point I found myself disagreeing with. A comparison is made between the brain and a computer, which is accurate enough for the most part. The problem comes when it’s inferred that because you understand the brain’s programming language you can accurately predict how it will respond to various stimuli. That is not necessarily true. While I haven’t worked with many different types of programming languages, the ones I have all included at least one "Random" function. A command that would return a random value from between a set of defined boundaries.

Brains, like computers, could very easily have certain responses tied to those "Random" functions depending upon their logical syntax. So while you would be able to predict that one of several actions could occur, you could not predict precisely which one.

The first book in the follow-up trilogy to R. Scott Bakker’s Prince of Nothing series is cut from much of the same cloth. It too follows a march across the world while focusing on particular characters whom toil in parallel story arcs that will more likely than not all converge at series’ end. Esmenet and Achamian return as first-person characters and are joined by some new faces; Sorwheel (Prince-cum-King of the final city Kellhus conquerors on the way to Golgotterath), Kelmomas (Esmenet and Kellhus’ youngest son), Nannaferi (the head of a fertility cult bent on Kellhus’ destruction), and Mimara (Esmenet’s long-lost daughter with the titular ‘Judging Eye’).

There are four currently competing plotlines. The main one has Kellhus leading a crusade deep into the Northern Reaches to wipe out the Consult, Sorwheel serving as the reader’s eyes. Secondary is Achamian’s quest through Sranc-infested lands to reach Ishuäl and discover what the Dûnyain truly are. It is told though both Achamian and Mimara’s eyes. Next is Esmenet trying to hold Kellhus’ empire together in his absence against the aggression of the Cult of Yatwer, seen though both Esmenet’s eyes and peripherally through Kelmomas’. Finally is the attention on Kelmomas’ murderous proclivities and to a lesser extent the various complications each of Kellhus’ children have.

The eighth Morganville Vampires installment, Kiss of Death, moves the story out of Morganville for a change as the main characters take a roadtrip to Dallas so that Michael can do some live recording for a record label. The trip ends up filled with hazardous situations and they all end up back in Morganville short Morley’s group of vampires. So, now, I think that wraps up all loose ends except for the memory-erasing barrier around the town having been destroyed.

Deathwish and Roadkill are books four and five of Rob Thurman‘s Cal Leandros series. The former deals with the eradication of the last twenty or so surviving Auphe; tying up their storyline and revealing a bit of Promise’s backstory. The latter serves to reintroduce Rafferty and has most of the main characters going on a roadtrip to catch a deadly gypsy plague-bearer who threatens the end of the world; it concludes Rafferty’s story, advances the Cal/Delilah and Robin/Ishiah romances, and puts a cap on Cal’s gating ability.

The fourth book in Ilona Andrews‘ Kate Daniels series ups the ante a bit further, facing Kate off against her aunt and having her secret heritage become quite a bit less secret. While there is still Hugh and Roland himself remaining, with Erra down it’s difficult to imagine the battles getting much more epic in scale. I’m wondering if Andrews has a specific endgame in mind for the series, like Lilith Saintcrow’s Dante Valentine series, or if she plans to extend it indefinitely. I’m leaning toward the former due to the way the Babylonian myths have been integrated and their connections to Kate slowly revealed.

Web of Lies is Jennifer Estep‘s second Elemental Assassin novel and shares all the qualities of the first while advancing both storyline and character development. The main difference is that Gin’s star-crossed romance with the detective appears to have been concluded in a more final manner. The increase in Gin’s power level isn’t as off-putting as it could be thanks to the way she only uses elemental magic as a last resort. That could, of course, change in the future as the stage has been set to pit her against the Fire Elemental from her past.

Embers is Laura Bickle’s debut novel. It may or may not be the first in a series. The novel takes place in modern Detroit and is fairly unique in having its investigative protagonist mainly be a firefighter instead of a cop. It reminds me a bit of Diana Rowland‘s Kara Gillian series in general outline; both have protagonists in law-enforcement who have hidden mystical abilities who have to suddenly deal with their mystical and mundane lives colliding. The only issue I had with it was the periodic brooding about spirituality and forgiveness.

Dying Bites and Death Blows are the first two books in D. D. Barant‘s Bloodhound Files series. Despite their campy vampire-foreshadowing names there isn’t much focus on vampires in them; besides the protagonist, who is just a regular human, most of focus is on the lycanthrope characters. Bites introduces a ludicrous premise in a surprisingly rational manner, while Blows sort-of undoes much of the credibility it worked to create. The first novel is fairly serious and does its best to keep things just this side of suspension of disbelief, the second rips most of that to shreds by importing a few elements from Vicki Pettersson’s Sign of the Zodiac series. Hopefully, the third book bears more of a resemblance to the first.

Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series (Slave to Sensation, Visions of Heat, Caressed by Ice, Mine to Possess, Hostage to Pleasure, Branded by Fire, & Blaze of Memory) is something of a combination of Larissa Ione’s Demonica series and Eileen Wilks’ World of the Lupi.

All the novels’ relationships play out, essentially, exactly the same and there is very little variety in Singh’s character archetypes. And yet… I find myself liking the series anyway. Perhaps it’s because, even though ‘light’ pretty much always wins where it matters, there is plenty of ‘dark’ laced throughout. The overarching storyline of a society going to hell taking place in the background also serves as an interesting and ever-changing counter point to the predictable male/female dynamic.

I’ll probably continue to follow the series until the (nearly identical) relationship dynamics completely crowd out the insurrectionist backstory. Sort of like how I approached Keri Arthur’s Riley Jenson books.