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Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

Like Armor? Fantasy Novel The Red Knight – Miles Cameron

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If you like armor or sword and sorcery or just fantasy / alternate history novel you’ll enjoy The Red Knight (The Traitor Son Cycle). The novel is billed as book one of The Traitor Son Cycle, with book two recently published.

The Red Knight is the first fantasy by Miles Cameron, who has written historical fiction under a different name. The Red Knight is heavy with medieval combat, armor, knighthood, set in Alba which is somewhat similar to England.  They are at odds with The Wild, a poorly defined bunch of humans and non-humans, many with magic.  The Wild wants to take back their former stronghold, which a religious order now owns and is using as a convent.  It is the Abbess of this convent who hires the Red Knight’s mercenary company for security.

The Red Knight is complicated and long, over 600 pages, with at least 6 main groups of characters and over 50 individually named people. When I finally got to about page 500 I started skimming a little since some of the character groups did not seem germane to the story and did not interest me.

This story sprawls over and could benefit from editing. Do we really need to know the Sossig bands? They are barbarians in conflict with the Kingdom of Alba who played a peripheral role in the story, yet we had a good 50 pages and another 10 or so characters. The drovers and their group also did not seem important and didn’t add much. The last episode where they visit the Wyrm is a set up for sequels, but again, adds little except word count.

Two big improvements would be a list of characters and a map to make it easier to keep track of the people and places. Some characters had the same last names or similar first names that made them hard to keep straight.

Another huge improvement would be to cut down on the armor and weapons descriptions. Over and over and over we get to read about the armor, how costly, how heavy, how time consuming to put on and take off. Rinse and repeat, and then do it all over again. Frankly, I’m not real interested in armor. Tell me once and I’m happy. The author says in his Afterword that he is involved in medieval re-enactments and the novel shows his expertise. But unless you are really interested in swords and bill hooks and gauntlets and and and, you won’t care and you’ll wish he just GOT ON WITH IT.

These are flaws that made reading longer and a bit tedious, but overall the book is good. There were a few surprises.

One odious character was the Galle (aka French?) pompous knight, who said with complete sincerity that his sword was all the justification he needed to exert low, middle and high justice. He killed two squires, burnt an inn and threw the town constable tied up into a stable. Why? Because the innkeeper and the squires’ knight didn’t immediately recognize his innate superiority and give him the best room.

I expected that this creep would take the Lancelot approach and try to win over the Queen, but that never happened.

Another was that the Queen and the Abbess both play prominent roles and are figures of power. And the Red Knight does not win his fair lady.

Besides adding a map and character list, editing out a few groups of characters, telling us only once about each piece of armor and weapon, there are a few other factors that limited my enjoyment.

  • We never learn much about the main character, the Red Knight. We get glimpses, but little background and very limited character development.
  • The world building is sketchy.   Alba is a land that is recovering from a massive fight with The Wild a generation ago. Clearly there should be a lot going on politically and personally, but we don’t see it.
  • There are allusions to political brangles and possibly traitorous vassals, but I’d have liked more meat as that would explain a great deal of the back story.
  • For some reason Alba has a major agricultural fair at the convent, even though it is implied to be out of the way.  That begs the question of why there?  What’s going on behind the scenes that keeps a convent and its territory as the prime destination for millions of gold pieces?
  • We don’t know much about The Wild. Some are monstrous, some are described as “guardians” or “just folks” yet will eat their human enemies alive.
  • The magic system is sketchy.

I enjoyed The Red Knight enough to look for the second book. But if The Fell Sword (Book 2 The Traitor Son Cycle) is another 600 page rehash of armor, weapons and irrelevant characters then I won’t finish it.

Hunted, Book Six in Iron Druid Chronicles, Kevin Hearne Fantasy Book Review

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Finally the most recent book in Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicals, Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six), came to my library. I’ve been waiting for it. The Iron Druid stories are not my favorite fantasy series by a long shot – there is something just missing that’s subtle but important – but I enjoyed the books enough to want to know how Atticus, Granuaile and Oberon would wrap things up, avoid the Olympians and head off Ragnarok.  You can read my prior reviews here:  Iron Druid Chronicles Series by Kevin Hearne

Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six) is still missing something. It marked the first time that Atticus reflected on the truly horrible choices he made that caused the Norse, Roman and Greek pantheons to all want him dead. That was an important step because it was frustrating to read a character making dumb choice after immoral choice after really dumb choice book after book. Those choices did not make sense for character who had lived 2100 years by lying low and avoiding trouble.

Hunted doesn’t feel like a complete story. It gets Atticus and crew squared away with the Greeks and Romans – or most of them – and we see evidence that he’s on great terms with Odin, the Norse godlet that previously sought his blood. But we don’t see a conclusion, more ongoing magic and trouble while Atticus, Granuaile and Oberon run for their lives from Romania to England. There is a section at the end that feels almost like a throwaway subplot where Atticus nearly gets nailed by a manticore. It’s a set up for seventh book where we’ll learn who of the Tuatha Dé Danann has it in for him.

My library’s edition included the novella Two Ravens and One Crow which explained how Atticus ended up good buddies with Odin. That was good because my first reaction reading the good cheer between the groups was huh? It’s been a few months since I read the last one, but surely I would remember who had Atticus on their Kill List.

Previous novels featured the dog Oberon and developed him as a character.  Hunted tells the story from Granuaile’s point of view but we don’t really learn anything more about her other than she loves being a druid and loves the connection to the earth. Atticus worries that she’s developing a bit of self-righteous violence and we see that, but it’s only hinted at and left as possible future conflict. Hunted does not develop the characters or the story line all that much. It wraps up some sub plots, especially with the extra novella, but it only touches on the whole vampire/Lief conflict. The book has more magic than some of the earlier ones, but it’s just that, magic, sort of poof! and good things happen.

In hindsight, I particularly enjoyed the earlier novels where Atticus took a proactive role, pushing the narrative, while in Hunted he is reactive. He reacts to the Olympian threat by running; he manages to magically heal himself after being shot; he escapes the manticore.

It just isn’t enough.  I will read the seventh book when it comes out, but if this were the first book I had read in the series it would have been the only book I read.

The Circle of Sorcerers, Mages of Bloodmyr Fantasy, Brian Kittrel

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About all I can say about The Circle of Sorcerers: A Mages of Bloodmyr Novel: Book #1 is that I managed to read it in a couple of hours.  My Nook said it had 629 pages, but each page was only one Nook screen; I’d guess this would be 300 pages in a real book.  It was a fast read but not a good read.

There wasn’t anything really wrong with this, just there wasn’t anything very good either. The world building was mediocre; characters were bland and dull; plot was interesting but sketchy.

The main characters are 16 year old men from a small village.  The hero Laedron is off to learn to be a sorcerer under the tutelage of Ismeralda. The backdrop to the story is a religious controversy that spills into war. Ismeralda is murdered by leaders of the Heraldan church, Laedron escapes and joins a militant order of mages and knights. He meets up again with his friends from his village who coincidentally also are in the same order and they are assigned to assassinate one of the church leaders.

The plot has promise but it never really works out and I could not get interested enough to care about the characters. The odd thing was Kittrel only sketched the plot and back story, but spent paragraphs describing the food they ate. I almost stopped reading after the first two page description of Leadron’s mom’s cooking. It felt like the author got paid by the word and it was easier to describe food than characters, setting or plot.

I got this after seeing many highly complimentary reviews on Barnes and Noble and Amazon.  In fact both sites have this at a 4 star rating. I would give this a 3, decent, not great. It was free of those obnoxious grammatical and spelling errors we see in so many free or low cost E books, and had been edited. The biggest disappointment was to get to page 629 and realize the book just stops. It is apparently the first of a trilogy (of course, what else). I don’t intend to read the other two books.

A Diamond in My Pocket, Lorena Angell, YA Fantasy, First In A Series

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I have been reading a lot but not writing reviews; it’s time to get back into blogging.  One way I find new authors is from the “people who liked this also bought” links at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.  Another is from the site BookBub.  They send a daily newsletter with books in your preferred genre that are free or heavily discounted.  Since I like books and don’t want to spend a fortune, this is a good thing.

Today’s book, A Diamond In My Pocket (The Unaltered), came from BookBub. It was free and frankly, I am glad I didn’t pay anything for it.

There isn’t anything wrong with A Diamond In My Pocket (The Unaltered), it just isn’t very good. It features 16 year old Calli Courtnae who suddenly can run like the wind. She develops even more powers after being entrusted with a magical diamond to carry in secret to deliver to the Death Clan.

I think you can see the problem right there. “Powers”, “magic diamonds”, “Death Clan”. I don’t have a problem with ideas like this – after all fantasy is my favorite genre and we know fantasy novels are full of nutty sounding stuff. But the constant repetition about “powers” got tiresome. Couple that with a typical 16 year old girl’s normal worries about cute guys and you have a book that teens will love and we adults, sadly, not so much.

A Diamond In My Pocket (The Unaltered) has over 4 1/2 stars on Amazon and is #3000 in the Free Kindle section. I’m not sure quite why it is so popular. It’s reasonably well written, without terrible grammar that plagues so many free E books. The plot is interesting and the characters are so-so. I read it to the end and was reasonably entertained, but it left too many strings hanging and is obviously set up for a sequel.

Mostly I just got tired of the “powers” stuff and how Courtney could peek in someone’s head and see their future. Courtney tried different decisions in her head until she found an outcome she liked. Gee, that’s handy. Yoda said it best: “Difficult to see is the future, always in motion.” Courtney had no problem at all. Not only could she see the future but she could play around with it, make a different decision in her head, and see a different future. That got silly.

I’d give it 3 stars for the dangling strings and over-the-top “powers”.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane Neil Gaiman Dark Fantasy Fiction

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The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel has gotten almost overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and readers. And rightly so. It is a good story, well written, interesting characters. The narrator is a seven year old boy caught in a frightening, bewildering series of events begun when his parents’ border, an Australian opal miner, commits suicide. The boy wakes up choking on a shilling and others in his neighborhood experience stangeness all related to money.

The boy visits the neighbors at the end of the lane, an eleven year old girl, her mother and grandmother. The girl takes him with her to remove the “flea”, a supernatural creature, that is causing the problems. She thinks she bound the flea to its current location but in fact it sent a piece of itself into the boy.

The boy’s mother hires a new housekeeper, Ursala Monkton, whom the boy recognizes immediately as the flea. The creature wants to make everyone happy, at least at first, but fears the boy and influences the father to nearly drown him in the tub.

Summary, The Good and Not So Good

I got caught up in this and enjoyed it very much while reading the story, but once done it raised nagging questions. The story is sold as a novel but in fact is more a novella; with plenty of white space it is 178 pages, That caused several flaws.

  • The Hempstock ladies were never explained.  The story alludes to them being older than the big bang and immortal, but what they actually are and why they live as they do is never explained.  That’s not uncommon in fantasies where we really don’t want a detailed, technical explanation of every magical element, but it left me wondering what they were for.  A longer book would have given more opportunity to explain.
  • The ending was strange.  The boy revisits his old home after a funeral and wanders down to the Hempstock farm where he remembers the entire story.  Grandma Hempstock tells him he has been there before but as he leaves the memories fade immediately.  We never learn who the funeral was for, nor why the character cannot remember anything once he leaves the farm.
  • Ursala Monkton had immense power, yet was controlled by the Lettie Hempstock and destroyed by the hunger birds.  Yet neither Lettie nor her mother could control the hunger birds when they attacked the boy.
  • The boy gets a cat that becomes his dearest companion yet cannot remember what happened to her.  Nor does he even remember her until he begins to remember that summer he was seven.  If you love a cat you remember it.

These are minor points.  You would expect unexplained characters and events in a short story, not so much in a novel.  Yet the book did not strike me as one that would have benefited had Gaiman written more.  This fit his style and allowed the mood to swing from somber to fearful to contentment.

I read through a few of the reviews on Amazon and noticed that the negative ones either found the book boring or felt cheated by the extreme short length.  I did not find it boring and the length probably fit the story and Gaiman’s style better than a full-fledged novel.

Overall I found The Ocean at the End of the Lane excellent, one of the more enjoyable books by Neil Gaiman that I have read.  Although the main characters are children this is not a children’s book.  Teens would enjoy it but it is written for adults.    Five stars.

Two to Avoid: Greyson’s Grove and Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle YA Fantasy Novels

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I read two YA fantasy novels this week that just did not work for me.

Greyson’s Grove

In fact, let’s be accurate.  I gave up on the first one, Greyson’s Grove, after 200 pages.  I only got that far because I got fascinated with how obtuse the heroine was.  I had a small bet with myself as to how long it would take  her to realize her crush / secret boyfriend was really another elf.   She was surrounded by clues but unable to put together that basic fact?

Greyson’s Grove’s biggest problem was the umpteen bazillion pages spent being a teenager.  About the only cliche Greyson didn’t hit was worrying about her weight.

Most of the online reviews are favorable, and if you are a teen or tween girl you’ll probably love it.

I bought Greyson’s Grove after reading a short sample on Barnes and Noble.  The sample was interesting, with a might-be-fun premise, intriguing setting and characters.  Plus (honesty time) I had just gotten two B&N gift cards for my birthday and wanted to buy something. This was a waste of $2.99.

Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle

The other book would be fun if you were 10 or so. The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle is written in the first person with cute characters and what might be a fun plot. The illustrations are interesting and I especially liked the feisty-looking young lady on the cover.

Alas. I’m not 10, or even under 20 and this was terminally cute. I stopped reading it after about 15 pages. If I were in a different mood I might like it as a light diversion but I’m not feeling that mindless today.

 

Quicksilver by Amanda Quick Paranormal Romance Victorian England Jayne Krentz

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As the title says, Quicksilver: Book Two of the Looking Glass Trilogy (An Arcane Society Novel), is the sequel to the excellent contemporary romance In Too Deep. A few points make this a most unusual sequel.

    1. There is no continuity in the characters.  The two leads Virginia and Owen have a tenuous connection to Jones and Jones and the Arcane Society.  Virginia mistrusts Arcane as she feels they view people like her who make their living via their paranormal skills as frauds.  Jones and Jones contracted Owen to solve the murders of two glass readers.
    2. The author writes under different names, Jayne Ann Krentz for In Too Deep and Amanda Quick for Quicksilver
    3. Quicksilver is set in Victorian England, some 130 years before In Too Deep.  Quicksilver included a short teaser for the third book, Canyons of Night which is by Jayne Castle and set several hundred years in the future and on a different planet.  (I have read several of Jayne Castle’s science fiction/paranormal romances and enjoyed every one).

Certainly an unusual combination for a sequel!  It’s actually the second book that includes paranormal weapons made by Millicent Brightwater.  The “quicksilver” is a mirror that makes a cameo appearance at the very end of In Too Deep and then used for attempted murder in Quicksilver.

Overall

I liked Quicksilver and will continue to read books by Jayne Ann Krentz (and her other two names Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle), but I think she is an author best read in small doses, say a couple books now and then a couple more in a month or two.  I find this is true for most authors in fact.

The dialogue felt real, you could feel the gloom in the setting, and the characters’ motivations and feelings were plausible.  I didn’t care for these characters or the Victorian setting nearly as much as the contemporary In Too Deep.  The limitations that Victorian women worked under (and through) were real, but tiresome to read about.  It would have been interesting to read more about the credulous clients and those who found the paranormal – whether real or fraudulent – so popular.

The plot had a few eye-rolling moments, especially the set up at the end with the two villains.

Overall 4 Stars.

Here is my review of the earlier In Too Deep:

In Too Deep: Looking Glass Trilogy, Arcane Society, Jayne Ann Krentz

In Too Deep: Looking Glass Trilogy, Arcane Society, Jayne Ann Krentz

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In Too Deep: Book One of the Looking Glass Trilogy (An Arcane Society Novel) is as the title says, part of a trilogy by Jayne Ann Krentz.  It is excellent, one of the best fantasy / mystery / suspense / romance /mysteries I’ve read.  Krentz writes under the names  Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle, specializes in books that combine paranormal romance with suspense and does it masterfully.

I finished this in a couple evenings as it is a fast read, albeit one you need to pay attention to.  There are abundant characters, including some who appear minor but end up being central to the story, plus our two primary characters Fallon Jones and Isabella Valdez.

Jones owns the paranormal investigative agency Jones and Jones and does extensive work for the Arcane Society.  Part of their charter is to deal with criminals who use paranormal methods or weapons for murder.  Isabella’s parents and grandmother were conspiracy theorists who could construct a plausible but dopey theory out of thin air to account for anything.  She was raised completely off the records, no birth certificate, no school record.  Jones is a by-the-books (using his book) guy who is also a strong paranormal talent.

Together Jones and Isabella must confront paranormal weapons from Victorian England, defeat a serial murderer, solve the mystery of who is behind the illicit paranormal weapons sales and yes, clear Fallon’s name and reinstate Jones and Jones as credible assets for the Arcane Society.

This is a tall order and in their spare time Isabella and Fallon fall in love.  The love story is well done, fits seamlessly into the story.  It isn’t one of those books where the author says “Hmmm.  Need a dose of romance here.  Where’s my love interest?”

Well Written

All the sub plots, plots, characters, settings work together.  You don’t see loose ends or silly byways.  The dialogue is well done, with people speaking like real people do in every day conversation.  The character Walter doesn’t speak much other than inside his own head, but even that makes sense.

Part of a Series

I read the second book in the series, Quicksilver: Book Two of the Looking Glass Trilogy  already.  It was set about 100 years earlier than this one and was also good but not as believable or as interesting as In Too Deep.

From the reviews on Amazon, most people liked this with a few complaining about slow action or lack of believable emotions. I didn’t see that; the book read and felt to me like the people genuinely cared for each other. The villains were villainous and the revenge seekers were torn between what they knew they should do and what they wanted to do.

Apparently Jayne Krentz wrote several novels featuring Fallon Jones and the Arcane Society. I will see them out.

Five stars.

Beauty and the Werewolf, Mercedes Lackey, 500 Kingdoms, Fantasy Fairy Tale

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Beauty and the Werewolf is from the Tales of the 500 Kingdoms by Mercedes Lackey. All the books in this series so far have been enjoyable, easy to read and loosely based on a fairy tale.

Mercedes Lackey cleverly developed The Tradition, a sort of mindless force that wants to mold people into the traditional motifs: evil stepmothers, foolish older brothers, Cinderella, Snow White, so on and on. The Godmothers each handle one or more of the 500 Kingdoms, keep the peace and try to foil the worst of The Tradition’s impact on those step sisters, older brothers, step mothers.

I wasn’t immediately sure which fairy tale Beauty and the Werewolf was based on. True, the character Bella’s father is a rich merchant, and the title implies Sleeping Beauty. But Bella wore her father’s red riding coat with a hood to visit the local Granny when she ran into the unpleasant Woodsman and was attacked by a wolf. This is Little Red Riding Hood. There are liberal doses of Red Riding Hood but with a twist, plus Sleeping Beauty, but the story is unique and stands on its own.

Characters

The wolf that attacked Bella turns out to be Duke Sebastian, a werewolf, and Bella must spend 90 days confined to Sebastian’s castle to ensure that the bite she got does not turn her into a werewolf too. The book spends a bit too much time showing Bella as a somewhat self-centered, smug young lady, rather too sure of herself. She’s convinced that no one – not her step mother nor step sisters nor housekeeper – can run her family’s home in her absence. And she’s angry at Sebastian for biting her and at the king for imprisoning her.

What helps Bella develop a personality and us to enjoy the book is the Woodsman / Gamekeeper, Sebastian’s illegitimate half brother Eric. Eric takes Bella out with him to look for poachers (and for his own reasons) and Bella is glad to go out. She realizes that Eric is too likely to see her as fair pickings and she decides to act more like a boy, dress in Sebastian’s old clothes and act as Eric’s assistant.

The other change is Sebastian asks Bella to help him with his magic and (of course) Bella discovers she has a talent for wizardry. She helps Sebastian find a way to keep his wolf instincts under control and everything ends happily for all except the villain.

Summary

Overall I liked this among the best of the 500 Kingdoms novels. The people were real, although I wanted to yell at Bella a few times when she was being particularly self righteous. The villain was all too easy to spot, the magic was understated and more or less normal, the Godmother was there but not the omnipotent power. The romance had time to develop and was a bit obvious but still fun and a reasonable part of the plot.

Like all the 500 Kingdoms novels this was a fun, fast read. Take an evening and enjoy!

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman Fantasy Supernatural Angels Demons

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I like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels and Neil Gaiman isn’t too shabby either.  These two collaborated on Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch before they became THE Neil Gaiman and THE Terry Pratchett. They Disclosed All in the Afterword that was fascinating.

Amy Peveto of Bookzilla blog generously gave me two copies of Good Omens
as a give-away. (I seldom enter give-aways since I never win but maybe no one else entered.)  Anyway one day two copies of this arrived in the mail thanks to Amy. I sent her a thank you and put the books aside till I was going to be home for a while.

I read Good Omens 10 or 15 years ago and enjoyed it. It was one of those books that lingers in your mind; you recall reading it with enjoyment; you remember the title; but somehow you never quite get around to reading again. When the books arrived I gave one to my friend Loren and read the other rather quickly.

Plot Synopsis

Even though I read this before, I found my memory was a bit spotty as to the plot. Overall it’s simple. Satan decided to kick off the apocalypse by begetting the Antichrist and settling him in with a nice American diplomat family. The plot was that the kid would grow into his powers when he turned 11, then manage to start nuclear holocaust.

Since we’re still here something went wrong (or right if you are like me and not too keen on the apocalypse). What happened was a combination of normal human screw ups, aided by a lackadaisical angel and his semi-friend demon who both decided they weren’t too keen on the apocalypse either, thank you very much.

The kid is placed with the wrong (or right) parents, who raise him in a rural English town to be a more-or-less normal kid with friends and fun. Neither the angel nor demon realize this has happened and have spent the last 11 years trying to keep Warlock (the other kid who was supposed to be the Antichrist (it’s complicated)) more or less on an even keel.

The plot has the usual zaniness we love in the Discworld novels with a serious undertone that you can ignore if you please.

Summary

Overall I enjoyed this enough to read it again in just a couple of evenings, even staying up late one night to finish. Even knowing the plot (more or less) I had so much fun with the angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley (formerly Crawly if you prefer) that I stayed up till midnight one evening to finish.

Pratchett and Gaiman mention in their Afterword that some fans carry around copies barely hanging together with string and tape. I’m not that crazy about this. It was a fun read and I’ll probably read it again in another 10 years or so. It is my favorite Gaiman novel, and among my favorite Pratchett novels which is saying something since I own several.  It’s fun and you can read it just for fun, or you can consider what some of the underlying questions really are if you can’t stand a book that is just plain fun.

I’ll give this 5 stars!

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