Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Night Life

By Caitlin Kittredge.

Detective Luna Wilder (hee) is a werewolf. More specifically, she's a lone wolf (called Insoli), who doesn't have a pack because the jerk who converted her was trying to rape her at the time. However, it is considered UTTERLY SHAMEFUL for a werewolf to not have a pack, everyone assumes her maker rejected her, and she gets a lot of crap for this. I think it's pretty fucked up to give a lady crap for not wanting to consider a potential rapist her bestie and family.

Luna is diehardedly determined to bust the killer of Ukranian prostitutes, who is slaughtering people in a particularly awful way, and it looks like demons were involved. Suspects include the werewolf potential mate of one of the victims, Dmitri, who Luna finds quite hot (I'm not entirely sure why under the circumstances), and a rich boy hooker killer sort who may or may not be responsible for his own actions here. Unfortunately, the rich boy's daddy has high up friends, so Luna's job is at risk a lot more than I've seen in other books. On her side is her cousin/roommate Sunny, a witch (witchcraft runs on the female side of Luna's family, but she didn't inherit it). Sunny keeps wanting to consult with their grandma, but Grandma seems to hate Luna and vice versa.

On the one hand, I enjoyed Luna's voice, which kept me going in the book farther than I probably would have. On the other hand, there's some stuff where I just wasn't into it, or was confused, or just otherwise not that into it.

1. Luna and Dmitri as a couple: I don't know about them. I didn't feel massively attached to them as a couple or feel like they sparked with each other enough for me to care a whole lot about their relationship. Maybe a little spark, but mostly their relationship dynamic just starts out weird with her suspecting him (and later telling him details of the case even when she flat out states that this could get her fired!), and it seems like they're put together by default for being werewolves more than anything else. Also, for a guy who was supposedly going to be mated with one of the murder victims, he didn't exactly sound like he was ever in love with her. More like, "eh, she's sweet, kinda dumb, and a hooker, and a druggie, but she's from the old hometown" than anything else. This seems very odd and kind of a bloodless relationship for werewolves. As a motivator/backstory, it really doesn't work when the dude only seems to semi-care about the woman he was supposedly going to settle down with.
2. At one point, Luna gets attacked and magically dog-tagged (I'm not sure what else to call it, but they make a big deal about how the bad guys will be Watching Her from now on). She pretty much just ignores this, which seems weird and dangerous to do, especially when you're not going to bother to quit the case.
3. There are a few times where there are random, out of the blue, HAVING NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DANGEROUS SITUATION GOING ON AT THE TIME, references to Luna wishing she was shoe shopping instead of doing the dangerous thing she was doing at the time. At one point she actually plugs the website of her favorite online shoe shopping site, for no remotely good reason at that moment in time. What the hell? Product placement? Also, I am pretty sure that even Carrie Bradshaw would put aside her shoe shopping desires to deal with a dangerous situation first. (Or at least start running in her Choos.)
4. I think Sunny and Luna's witchy family backstory sounds interesting and I would have liked to have heard more about it. It's a missed opportunity there.
5. The "Insoli are trash" stuff that constantly goes on in this book got really old after awhile.
6. Then there's the total sexual harassment and flagrant bigotry that comes from Luna's shitty coworker Bryson, which is so out of the 1950's that you are all, "Come on, who talks like that flat out in the open in the modern era?" Bryson is totally allowed to get away with whatever the hell he wants at work, apparently. What the fuck? And also, girl or not, it just seems weird that a girl with Luna's case-closing record would be treated like such shit all the time even if the cop world is a boy's club.

Frankly, there were so many things about this book that I thought were not great that after awhile I started trying to skim through to the end so that it would just be done already. The tone is good, and the family stuff has potential, but otherwise it just really started to pall on me.

Two stars.

Minion

By L.A. Banks.

This was my first exposure to the Vampire Huntress series-- yeah, I waited until after the author died to read them. Uh-huh. Anyway, here's the rundown:

Damali Richards is a born vampire slayer-- called a Neteru here-- something that hasn't come along in a thousand years. She's currently 20 years old and once she turns 21 soon, she'll come into her full powers. She hasn't been told by her guardians/vampire-slaying Guardian crew exactly what happens when a Neteru goes through vampire-slaying special puberty quite yet, though, such as having disturbing sexual ah, dreams that unbeknownst to her, are being brought on by the nearest male master vampire. (Part of Neteru puberty equals sexy-to-vampire pheromones.) She's also feeling cranky, craving salty food, hating being penned in all the time of late, and kind of missing her ex-boyfriend Carlos. Once upon a time they were a hot item, but Carlos turned to the dark side of life and Damali knows enough to not go there. Uh, so far, anyway.

Carlos is living the drug dealing rich gangsta life, but still misses Damali. Then various friends and relatives of his start getting killed by vampires* in a nasty, ressurectory sort of way, which leads Damali to want to investigate what's going on. Carlos's interest perks up again, but he's more concerned about tracking down whodunit. He eventually finds out...

On the one hand, the world building is fairly interesting, and I like Damali and her crew as characters. On the other hand, I suspect this book was one of those ones that originally started long and was split into two books, because the ending peters out. There's building up to Damali's birthday, puberty, grand battles, whatnot, that never happens in this one. Hell, around a hundred pages from the end, Damali is dropped entirely from the story in favor of following Carlos's fall. (I should presumably spoiler cut that, but I think you can guess that's where his story is going from this review already.) That's where the book really petered out, I must say. I am a person who LIKES exposition, but the exposition at the end dragged out so goddamned long that even I was like, "Move along, already, what happened to the plot?" and started hoping the book would end soon.

Btw, the edition I read has new material in it from the original publication-- my guess is that this is the material about Damali's biological parents that is thrown in here and there. It's kind of confusing to follow there.

Overall I'm giving it three stars. Potential is good, execution could be somewhat better.

* Special points for dumb have to go to the guy who gets talked into taking off his cross when the girl tells him she can only do kinky things to him if he takes it off. Stupid stupid stupid...

Zoo City

By Lauren Beukes.

Here's the concept behind this book: if you kill someone-- or are responsible for their death-- the evil dark clouds of death come for you, followed by... an animal. Yes, some random animal becomes a Bond Creature with you.  Somehow the animal manages to survive out of its climate--it seems implied that a previously-born animal gets magicked from the jungle or wherever too, rather than just poofed into being--and you feed it like a normal animal. However, you have to stay within range of the animal at all times (sounds like within the same building) or else it's agony. And while you can die while your animal doesn't, if someone kills your animal, you die too. Oh, and coming along with the animal is a magical power-- a mashavi. The animal understands human speech, too.

Our heroine, Zinzi December, was a journalist/junkie whose brother died in the crossfire while he was trying to rescue her. She did three years in jail, detoxed, and now lives with her Sloth (who is adorable) in a slummy neighborhood, "Zoo City." A LOT of people have animals, you see. Zinzi's sober now, has a boyfriend, and since her shavi is being able to find lost objects, does that for money. (She also is forced to do Nigerian e-mail scams by her old dealer who wants her to work off what she owes him.)  But when one of her clients dies before Zinzi can give her ring back, she's recruited by some very weird people working for a creepy record producer to track down a missing person, a 15-year-old twin teen pop star named Song. This is kind of odd because Zinzi has no abilities with regards to missing people-- and oddly enough her talent isn't at all useful when somehow nobody can come up with an object to help her find the kid. This ends up eventually tying in with some dead homeless people, weird e-mails Zinzi gets that seem to be beyond the grave*, and some creeps Zinzi runs into who were after her animal. It's a dark case, no doubt.

I loved the worldbuilding on this one in some respects, especially the intercalary chapters describing the world. I desperately want to see "The Warlord And The Penguin" (the Penguin had its own custom flak jacket!). I also really loved the article about the animalled in prison and how some were allowed to keep their animals--or nor when the prison guards want to torture people. The story about the guy with the Butterfly is a cool one. Apparently the author had some friends write those. I was pretty fascinated by it all.

The logistics of it are interesting since you can't go very far without your animal, which announces to all and sundry that you're a killer. Good luck job hunting with that. Zinzi is semi-lucky in her ability to hide Sloth, who goes around on her back normally but can be hidden in a hoodie or a bag if need be. Other folks are not so lucky-- pity the poor bastard with a freaking Bear as his.** I liked the relationship between Zinzi and Sloth and how they look out for each other-- particularly how Sloth attempts to keep her on the straight. I also enjoyed her relationship with her boyfriend Benoit and his Mongoose, though for reasons beyond their control the relationship needs to end.

The actual case is pretty dark and twisty and odd-- I may not be entirely sure still what went on in all respects around the middle since the magic aspects of it are a wee bit confusing-- but in the end, it works and comes together.

However, the worldbuilding, while fascinating, also never quite explains the logic behind people ending up with animals/mashavis. Which is to say that when I heard a summary of the plot, I thought, "I don't get it. Getting a pet animal is a PUNISHMENT?!" I still don't get it, really. Like everyone else who ever read His Dark Materials, I want to be all, "Hey, I wanna animal! Too bad I'd have to kill someone for one. Hell, that's kind of incentive to kill..." (Though the folks who have one know they're going to be taken away by the black clouds of evil when they die, so they might disagree.) If you kill someone, you get a cool pet AND a magic power. Hello, that sounds like a bonus to me. Yeah, sure, there's the social stigma*** of everyone around you knowing you killed someone and probably not being able to hide it unless you can manage never to leave the house**, but otherwise you've got a lifelong new pet friend that's on your side AND a magical power that you can use to make a living. It seems like feeling guilty over someone's death-- the guilt + murder seems to be what gives you a shavi-- gives you a lot of life bonuses there, to the point where it seems like a reward more than anything else. Now, on the one hand, I think that's great for folks like Zinzi and Benoit and everyone else with an animal that has reformed/improved (mostly)... on the other hand, when you give powers and animals to bad people.... yeah. So I guess overall I don't freaking know WHAT to make of this as a plot idea. Is it punishment? Is it a saving grace to someone who needs it? Beats me.

(Note: this is an interesting read theorizing about the story.)

But it is a darned good book and I was hooked on it from the getgo, despite being puzzled at the heart of it and some details at times. I don't know whether or not to hope for a sequel someday (one might work and one might not, I'm unsure yet curious), but it might be cool. So, four stars.

Some spoilery bits will be clarified below the spoiler cut, just so's you know.

The Jennifer Morgue

By Charles Stross.

Bob Howard is a computer geek-type who works for the Laundry, Britain's secret department that works on dealing with occult intelligence. (Er...this is hard to explain, as are many things in this world.) While his girlfriend Mo is off doing secret training, Bob gets dragooned into a particularly weird case involving a billionaire trying to unleash some kind of eldritch horror from the ocean's depths onto the world.* However, he's not briefed on a hell of a lot for this case, and when anyone tries, they're using Microsoft PowerPoint, which makes Bob very bored and sleepy.**

He is almost immediately roped into working with another agent, Ramona Random. Ramona is American, nonhuman, possessed by a soul-sucking succubus demon (against her will, and to her credit, she seems to only feed on assholes), and she's forced to work for the creepy Black Chamber agency. But beyond that, she's not so bad. Anyway, when I say "working with," oh dear god. What that really translates into is that Bob and Ramona are forced to be "destiny entangled," a magical enchantment that lets them communicate mentally, see/use each other's bodies to some degree, ties their life forces together... and the longer this goes on, the more likely that they may be permanently entangled. This does not go over well with Bob's girlfriend Mo, who eventually plans on coming to the rescue with her killer violin of death.

Bob's being kept ignorant is a deliberate move, as he's been chosen for both his competence and how he's been kept in the dark ("in the mushroom box"). Because the evil billionaire has put a geas on the whole enterprise in which only a James Bondian-type could possibly foil his evil villain plan... Bob's a computer geek who doesn't like tuxes or martinis, but at least he's English, so there's a loophole...

This is a tricksy plot. I'll admit that I probably don't understand a lot of the details of it. I'm not sure if you're supposed to be able to understand the details of all of it, even. Maybe not? I got the general gist of the plot (stop the evil undersea thing from rising), at least, so there's something. The adventures of Bob and Ramona (who I definitely felt sympathy for, given her circumstances) are interesting, and I enjoyed the twists and turns of it, especially how the James Bond-ness is used. Plus there's a violin of death. Muahahahah to that.

Quote from the book that I have to share:

"How boring, just another billionaire necromancer cruising the Caribbean in his thinly disguised guided missile destroyer, plotting total world domination."
"You think you're joking? He monologued at me. With PowerPoint."

I'll admit that it's kind of confusing, but overall I got the drift and was pretty entertained, so I'll give it 3 3/4 stars.

There's a few extras to this: a short story called "Pimpf" in which Bob gets a gamer intern, who naturally gets into trouble gaming. It was not my favorite Laundry story ever. There's also a section from the author about Ian Fleming, and it has an interview with Blofeld. I liked that better.

*Note: as a Jennifer, must my name always be used in creepy titles? Naturally, someone in the story named it that in the 70's...

** Eventually you figure out that this is probably deliberate.
Another thought: in a world with all this awesome secret technology, people are still using Microsoft Power Point?

 

Warrior

By Marie Brennan.

Mirage is a Hunter by profession. She and her friend Eclipse get a job investigating the murder of a witch. This isn't normally the sort of thing Mirage would do-- as a natural redhead, people have been thinking she's a witch for years and boy, is she tired of it-- but oddly enough, she's willing to take this job. However, it turns out that this job is relevant to her personally...

Miryo is a witch, who's finally coming into her powers at age 25. She passes her witch test...but then something goes wrong. That's when she finds out that when a witch is born, a non-magical doppelganger of her is created-- and that doppelganger has to die in order for a witch's powers to work correctly without exploding and killing her/anybody in the vicinity. However Miryo's doppelganger managed to survive, the top witches tell her that she needs to murder her doppelganger in order to have her magic work. Miryo never wanted to be a killer in the first place and isn't comfortable with this, but goes to seek out her double anyway.

Happily for me, that scenario isn't drawn out too much. When they meet, Miryo can't bring herself to do it. And Mirage is all, "Yeah, I couldn't kill me either." So the two of them form an alliance to try to figure out some other way to solve their problem without resorting to murder. They try various experiments, but so far nothing's worked. And apparently the top witches are REALLY against them trying anything other than the solution that's been "working" for ages. (I especially liked the twist as to how this situation came about.)

I liked this story-- despite being doubles, the two ladies come across as different yet similar personalities well enough, and I liked the plotting of it. It almost seems like the solution worked out coincidentally easy to me, but given the worldbuilding that doesn't seem out of character. I enjoyed it. Four stars.

Hunting Ground

By Patricia Briggs.

Previous book here.

As the American werewolves prepare to out themselves in America, a conference is called among the head werewolves of different countries to reassure them and things like that. In lieu of the Marrok attending, Charles and Anna go instead. Some Alphas are friendly, some are not-- the most dominant werewolf in Europe is a flat out serial killer that nobody can stop. However, vampires-- using some werewolf tactics-- start attacking Anna and other conference-goers, and the Grey Lord fae acting as referee for the whole mess is ... well, suspicious. It's up to the dynamic duo over here to investigate the situation. And it's a fairly interesting case, with a horrifying twist at one point. However, to say more would be spoiling.

Like the previous book, I'm giving this one three and a half stars. The case is interesting, though most of the characters aren't as lively as I'd prefer, and the few that are standout, well... have their own issues in the plot.

Naamah's Blessing

By Jacqueline Carey.

Previous book here. Again, entire review goes below the spoiler cut.

On The Prowl

By Patricia Briggs, Eileen Wilks, Karen Chance, and Sunny.

This is a collection of four novellas:

1. "Alpha and Omega."  Anna is a Chicago werewolf who, upon realizing that her pack leader is actually selling people, calls the Marrok (head werewolf) for help. He sends his son/pack executioner Charles to investigate the situation. Charles has the hots for Anna-- or at least his inner wolf does-- right off the bat. He also realizes that (a) she's an Omega wolf (kind of a human/wolfy walking tranquilizer), (b) has little to no idea of how an actual pack is supposed to work, (c) her pack is really fucked up, and oh, missing members, and what happened to the other women? This leads to (d) Charles figuring out the reasons why Anna's pack is so fucked up. They also get interested in each other on the way. It's sweet. By itself I'd give it three and a half stars. This one got turned into a book, which I reviewed over here.

2. "Inhuman." Kai has a weird psychic gift she's never quite figured out-- it's kinda like telepathy, but not (more about picking up feelings rather than thoughts), and it can be decidedly intrusive in a worrying fashion, so she tries to keep a hold on herself. She also has a massive crush on her friend Nathan, the "inhuman" of the title. He's a fellow who hunts down bad guy by nature, and he figures out that the serial killer in the neighborhood is a magical chameleon...and then it turns out that the chameleon turned into (very obviously) Kai before picking up her next victim. And Kai was asleep at the time and has no good alibi. Nathan takes Kai away to keep her from getting arrested...and then things get complicated. And very interesting. I enjoyed this story a lot-- the characters are sweet and made me go "Aww" a fair lot-- and it had a fair chunk of twists and turns at the end of it that made me think I'd find more stories from this world to be interesting. By itself I'd give it four stars.

3. "Buying Trouble" by Karen Chance. I recently reviewed Midnight's Daughter, where I commented that I'd rather read the story of what the hell was going on with Claire in this book than the squabbling fighting that was going on in the novel. Well, sure enough, even though "Buying Trouble" is shorter, it was far more interesting. Claire is a magical null who works at a magical auction house, making sure that none of the wares explode before they're bought and paid for. Then she finds out that (a) her boss's jerkass son has decided to sell HER that night, and (b) her jerkass cousin wants to buy her and sell her to those who would kill her to make a magical bomb. She's also freaked out by seeing fairies there, as her jerkass father tried to sell her to fairies back in the day. But one very nice and hot one, Heidar, rescues her and they go off to Faerie, trying to avoid enemies. And much to her shock, Claire has more to her than she ever knew of. By itself  I'd give it three and a half stars (could be a wee bit stronger).

4. "Mona Lisa Betwining" by Sunny. I reviewed the first one in this series awhile back, but haven't felt terribly compelled to go back to it. Mostly I just found this short story repetitive and dull. Constant talk about what a Queen she is, constant talk about the Monere, and constant talk about which of Mona Lisa's various boyfriends she's going to boink or whether or not she acquires a new boyfriend to boink. I'm sure you won't be surprised to find out the answer to this last one. I would just like to point out for sheer fucking irony that the back of the book says that Mona Lisa is "destined to be alone." MY ASS SHE IS. If you already have several boyfriends, you are not alone, even if you're still mourning the death of your favorite one. Anyway, it was pretty much the same as reading a Merry Gentry book, had no plot but the sexing, and I didn't care. By itself I'd give it two stars.

Overall, I'll give the book 3 and a half stars. It's not too bad, only one clunker in the mix, and that last bit depends on if you are more into porny books than I am.

Without Reservations

By Alice Steinbach.

Back in the 90's, Alice Steinbach was a newspaper reporter/columnist in Baltimore, with two grown children and nothing to hold her back. Wanting to rediscover her old enthusiastic, adventurous self, she arranged to take off most of a year to spend time in Europe. Yes, she did "Eat, Pray, Love" before Liz Gilbert did. She even met a man, though (a) she met hers early on, and (b) they seem to be a repeated travel fling thing (they meet up repeatedly during the book and even afterwards) than a case of trying to figure out who moves to who's country. She spends time in Paris, England, and Italy, makes a lot of temporarily good friends, takes a class, survives an assault on the streets of Rome, learns to go with the flow, and otherwise enjoys life on the road so much that according to the interview with the author at the end, she quit her job and traveled some more after that.

I'm attempting to read a few books on inspirational travel in preparation for a class on the topic, and this certainly fit the bill. It's not the world's most memorable memoir to me (Alice strikes me as a pleasant, genteel woman, but not a spectacular personality), but it's pleasant enough and gets its point across. If you need to think about making changes in your life via the use of travel, and how one adapts to a new environment and new people, this isn't a bad read on the topic.

Three stars.

Fired Up

By Jayne Ann Krentz.

(I think this is a sequel to Running Hot. Seems to take place fairly soon after it, anyway.)

Once upon a time, there was a crazy psychic alchemist named Nicholas Winters who designed some strange lamp (the "Burning Lamp") that...well, when some woman who's good at using dreamlight operates it, it does... something.

Okay, before I continue with this review: You know, I appreciate how Jayne Krentz/Castle/Quick writes about psychic powers. I appreciate that she does her best to come up with new psychic powers that aren't the old standards, to liven things up. However, sometimes it just gets plain weird. And in this case, I just plain do not understand "dreamlight," and dreamlight is THE ENTIRE PURPOSE AND PLOT (other than the romance bits and the bad guy bits) of the book. As far as I can tell, it seems to somewhat operate as an aura power, or at least someone with a dreamlight talent can see some kind of psychic fingerprints/energy on objects enough to be a good PI/appraiser/tracker downer and examiner of objects. Which is what our heroine, Chloe Harper, does for a living. She can do some kind of weird dream energy manipulation stuff. It makes her unable to sleep in the same room as anyone else.* She's clearly eligible to work the Burning Lamp-- the process of which I did not comprehend at all as to what the hell she was doing, by the way. And other than that, I just didn't get what the hell was going on with the dreamlight stuff. It made no sense to me. Maybe I'm a blockhead, which is possible, but I just didn't get how it worked all the way or what she was doing or how the plot machinations were going with this. So that'll influence this review.

Anyway, back to the plot: ol' Nick and his girlfriend Eleanor used the lamp to give Nick a couple more psychic powers than he normally had before things got ugly, and while he was at it, Nick put some kind of curse into his gene pool in which periodically, descendants of his would (a) develop two extra talents at age 36, (b) go crazy unless they find some woman to work the lamp and fix them somehow, or else (c) the descendant would go nutters and start killing everyone in the Jones family (the Joneses and Winters were rivals way back in the day). In the 2000's or so, the curse has kicked in on Jack Winters, and thus he engaged dreamlight-using PI Chloe to find the lamp, which disappeared during a move, and then to do whatever to fix him up so he doesn't go batty. (This is a book in a trilogy of Winters descendants who have this problem.) Chloe is an excellent candidate for this because her family is a bunch of psychic criminals/cons and thus have avoided joining the Arcane Society, currently being run by Fallon Jones, i.e. The Guy Who Will Have To Put His Old Pal Jack Down If He Goes Nutters. Apparently everyone can only have one power at a time and people with more tend to go crazy and have to be killed, so Jack is very concerned about this.

Finding the lamp is ridiculously easy, and Chloe figures out how to do...whatever with it. (Turns out that the lamp makes you horny, baby...well, it's a romance.) However, the creepy rival Nightshade organization mentioned in Running Hot is interested in abducting Jack, Chloe and the lamp for experimentation, which leads them to work with Fallon Jones in dealing with the situation. This ups the plot stakes by a good deal, which is a good move given the strangeness of the given plot. Though I'll admit that I still don't understand everything there either.

Jack and Chloe are nice enough folks, but not massively memorable to me in the long run. It was a pleasant enough book overall to read, but for me, it was also pretty confusing. I'm giving it three stars.

* Oh, and btw, "I can never get married or settle down with a man because I can't literally sleep in the same bed as him" is pretty freaking lame on the scale of Reasons Why A Romance Heroine Can't Get Involved With A Dude. Yeah, yeah, this is obviously there to show that Jack is The Right Man because he can sleep over, but any remotely rational person will think, "Uh, some dudes won't mind you going to a separate bedroom. Why not find one of them?"