More Books than Time

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

Temping Fate by Esther Friesner, Cute Fantasy, Bridezilla and Summer Jobs

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Ilana needs a summer job.  Now.  If she doesn’t find one her parents will find her all sorts of things to do, starting with music camp.  Of course Ilana must take care that her job will not interfere with endless fittings for her bridesmaid dress so she can be her sister Dyllin’s maid of honor.  Dyllin has transmogrified into Bridezilla, scourge of caterers, florists and sisters everywhere.

Ilana gets a summer job as a temp at the Divine Relief Temp agency, assigned to the three Fates, one of whom is having a severe attack of Mommy-itis.  Ilana isn’t too sure about the work but she sure loves the paycheck!  Plus she meets some cute guys who also temp, albeit with heroes and other assorted demigods.

Temping Fate is light summer reading and most teens would enjoy it as would many adults.  Dylin’s panic attacks (NO!  The wrong color of ribbons!!!  The Horror!) add comedy offset by some real sisterly moments.  Ilana grows up somewhat, but don’t expect a serious coming-of-age novel as this is lighthearted fun.

3 Stars

The Glass Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg, Sequel to Paper Magician Set in Retro England

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Charlie Holmberg’s The Paper Magician (reviewed here) surprised me with its fresh take on elemental magic and the two main characters, Ceomy and her mentor Thane.  Holmberg follow up novel, The Glass Magician, is set immediately after the first book and introduces new heroic side kicks and new villains.  While The Glass Magician is good, it is not in the same league as The Paper Magician, primarily because it has more YA elements than the first.

In Paper Ceomy is brave and prudent and takes independent action only to save Thane’s life, and only when there is nothing else to do.  In The Glass Magician, Ceomy makes one dumb move after another, tries to go after Grath – unsuccessfully – despite being told not to, and gets her good friend into the mess.  The Ceomy vs. Villains situations comprise the bulk of the plot, something more typical of YA fantasy than stories aimed at adults.

Also typical of YA novels, Ceomy spends too much of the book worrying whether Thane loves her.  The romance was a nice plus in Paper, but it’s overdone in Glass, reducing mature, likable Ceomy to a silly girl.

I still enjoyed The Glass Magician, still liked Ceomy, Thane and the magic system.  I just didn’t enjoy it quite as much as The Paper Magician.

3-4 Stars

Silver in the Blood by Jessica Day George: New York Society Meets Romanian Politics, Werewolves and More

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Jessica Day George’s short story A Knight of the Enchanted Forest, published in the Monster Hunter Files (see review here) was excellent, funny with a streak of serious, and I checked out her other novels.  While George writes mostly teen fantasy, Silver in the Blood is suitable for older teens and adults looking for a quick, enjoyable read with historical interest.

We meet devoted cousins, Dacia and Lou, both children of New York high society with mothers from a aristocratic Romanian family.  The novel is set in 1897, when Romania is independent, beginning to step onto the larger European stage, with culture from both Paris and the Near East.  Both girls are intelligent and rich; Lou is more timid while Dacia is braver and occasionally flouts social conventions.

Plot and Conflicts

The novel opens with Dacia, stuck in her family’s townhouse in Bucharest, waiting for Lou to arrive, bored, looking for friends and a little entertainment.  Lou and Dacia meet some of their mothers’ family and realizes that not everything matches what they have been told.  Grandmother is nasty and drops mysterious comments, Aunt Kate worries about something, Lou’s father is dismissed to leave Bucharest – with Lou’s twin brothers but without Lou and Dacia – and a somewhat mysterious man drops cryptic comments and questions when he meets Lou.

What makes Silver in the Blood work is the political tension that underlies the main conflict.  Prince Mihai, descendant of Vlad the Impaler from centuries ago, intends to usurp the throne and he needs Dacia and Lou and their family to do so.  Lou and Dacia know nothing about any of this and must discover what they truly are (not 100% normal human) and decide themselves whom and what they will support.  The political angle makes the conflicts more believable.

The other conflict is between Lou and Dacia against their family elders.  Lou and Dacia are Americans, not terribly impressed by centuries-old ties of loyalty and even less impressed by old prophecies.  This conflict starts small and grows along with the political tension, then finally both resolve together.

Characters

Characterization is a little light.  Lou and Dacia are more than debutantes or silly girls, as George uses diaries and letters along with the novel’s events to show us what they think and feel.  Both are 19 or 20, old enough to marry, rich and attractive with many suitors in New York, then in Europe.  Both girls are believable characters, but realize this is not a character-driven novel.  It’s a fantasy with believable emotions.

Prince Mihai is a villain with virtually no redeeming qualities, drawn broadly, who displays his villainy through his actions.  Lou and Dacia’s Romanian family also show their allegiances and character by the choices they make.

Overall

Silver in the Blood is interesting, especially if you enjoy fantasy with a slight historical twist.  It reminded me a little Patricia Wrede’s Sorcery and Cecilia novels, mixing fantasy with high society in a late 1890s milieu.   It is a light, easy read, and I enjoyed it on a cold winter afternoon in front of the fire.

3 Stars

 

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Marry the Queen, Get the Kingdom: The King of Attolia

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Megan Whalen Turner delivers another solid novel in her The Queen’s Thief fantasy series.  The King of Attolia picks up a few months after The Queen of Attolia with Eugenides married to Attolia, but reluctant to assume the king’s power or take authority from his wife.  Unfortunately, just because Gen is reluctant does not mean others are squeamish about usurping power; all it does is make him look weak.

We see the action through Costis, a member of the Queen’s guard. The King of Attolia opens with Costis sitting in his room contemplating execution and disgrace after hitting King Eugenides in the face.   Gen comes into see him and decides to make Costis his bodyguard instead of hanging him.

Costis then witnesses Gen’s approach:  Gen lets his gentlemen/courtiers run over him; he never is seen seeking his wife’s bed; he seems bored and flighty during court; he does nothing when a noble composes a witty song about what (supposedly) didn’t happen on his wedding night.  Despite Gen’s past escapades as the Thief of Eddis, the nobility and court believe him lightweight.

Over time Costis sees that Gen is in fact aware of every slight and we watch along with Costis as Gen is wounded fighting off an assassin team.  One of my favorite episodes is when Gen tracks down a finance minister for a crash course on types of wheat, then hustles one of the wheat-growing nobles out of bed to confront him with tax evasion for reporting the wrong type of wheat.  Of course no one believes that it was Gen who did the legwork; even the cheating noble thinks someone must have betrayed him.

Slowly, very slowly, Gen believes his wife when she asks him to take on his authority, and slowly he digs himself out of the hole he let the court push him into.  Eventually Gen assumes his proper place as the King of Attolia.

Summary

I enjoyed all three books in The Queen’s Thief series.  Turner gets the cultural and geographic settings just right and captures the feeling of menace and danger hanging over Gen.  The court scenes are delightful as are the confrontations with various villainous wanna-bes.  She built Gen into a real person and in this novel, also brings Costis to life.  He’s a foil for Gen, but takes on a more solid character through the novel.

The King of Attolia is fantasy because everything takes place in Attolia, an imaginary country based on ancient Greece and because the gods are active now and then.  There is no magic, no quest, no talisman to seek or to destroy.  Using a fantasy setting without the heroic trimings lets author Turner spend her time on making the people and the setting and conflicts interesting and believable.

Libraries classify The King of Attolia as YA along with the previous two books, The Thief and The Queen of Attolia.  The Thief is a bit lighthearted and has younger characters, fun for older teens.  The Queen of Attolia is more sober, with more serious conflicts and character development, suitable for teens and adults.  Likewise adults will enjoy The King of Attolia as will teens.

5 Stars

 

The Glittering Court – Review of Sneak Peek – YA Fantasy with Romance

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NetGalley offered a sneak peek of The Glittering Court, a novel of romance and intrigue set in a fantasy world similar to ours of 500 years ago.  This is considered fantasy due to the imaginary world, but there were no magical events or any of the other elements we think of as “fantasy”.

The story is straightforward:  The Countess of Rothford has a title and ancient family name but little money.  She is to marry a distant cousin and quickly decides this man is not for her.  She sends her maid, Adelaide, back to her family and takes Adelaide’s name and her place in the Glittering Court.  The Court is a school to train lower-born girls to act, dress and talk like upper class ladies so they can find rich husbands in the New World.  Adelaide’s only challenge is to not succeed too much because she needs to remain safely anonymous.

Adelaide faces the threat of exposure and forced return while around her society and her country Osfrid are churning with religious strife and the fallout from the civil war in neighboring Sirminica.  She is intrigued with man who recruited her, Cedric, and it’s clear from the sneak peek that they are falling in love.  That’s a problem because Cedric’s family runs the Glittering Court to supply classy wives to the frontier men, not to find a classy wife themselves.  And Cedric adheres to the outlawed religion; discovery could mean he dies.

The Glittering Court is aimed at teens, 7th grade and up.  The writing style – language, scene changes, themes – are sufficiently engaging that many adults will enjoy the book too.  I didn’t find any of the “and a miracle happens” events nor the abrupt switches among viewpoints that make some teen novels so disappointing and hard to read.  Author Mead does a good job presenting the situations, giving us reasonable dialogue and events, then finishing the scene before moving on.

While I was not intrigued enough to seek out the full novel, I do recommend this to older teen girls and adults who enjoy a romance with fantasy elements.

I received a free copy of the sneak peek in the expectation of an honest review.

The Thief – Megan Whalen Turner – Fantasy with a Touch of Greece

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Author Megan Whalen Turner states she was inspired by Greece and used bits and pieces of Grecian history and geography to write The Thief.  These basic blocks plus good character development and an intriguing plot with unexpected twists made The Thief an imaginative fantasy while avoiding a retelling of Grecian myths.

The plot features Gen, a braggart and thief currently imprisoned in the King’s royal prison in Sounis, a smallish state south of Eddis and west of Attolia.  Gen made the mistake of bragging about stealing the king’s seal, then doing it and then getting caught, so he’s in chains and unable to escape.  We can tell from the get-go that there is a lot more to Gen than these bare facts – anyone who reads fantasies will recognize the noble-born-but-pretending-to-be-common character.  Turner doles out bits and pieces of hints to clue us into Gen’s real status but holds out the complete story until the end.

The king’s Magus retrieves Gen from jail to steal the Gift of Hamiathes, the stone that is the kingship symbol in Eddis.  The king of Suonis wants to Gift to force the queen of Eddis to marry him.  The magus has two younger men, Sophos and Ambiades and Sophos’ man Pol along on the journey to retrieve the Gift from its hiding spot.

So far this sounds like a normal quest fantasy, enlivened with humor and questions about Gen, and The Thief is a quest on the surface.  It is more.  The characters are well done, with betrayal, mystery, and a background of geopolitical reality that drives the magus on his hunt.  If the magus is right then the three countries must ally to keep themselves whole.  Turner left enough open to write several sequels but The Thief is a complete novel on its own.

Most of the libraries shelve The Thief under YA fantasy.  The book will appeal to teens but it has enough complexity and interesting characters that adults can enjoy it too.  It’s not long, about 220 pages, and a fast read without a ton of elaborate writing.  The small number of characters, about 12 altogether, keeps it easy to follow, no hunting back and forth to remember who is who.

Turner so vividly describes the terrain with cliffs, ravines, arid volcanic residues, olive groves that you feel you would recognize the country if you saw it.  A map would have been a plus.

Overall I enjoyed The Thief.  The tension between Gen and the magus, Gen and the two young nobles, and finally between Gen and the goddess make the book lively and the rich characters make it an enjoyable, satisfying read.  4 Stars.

 

The War of Words – YA Fantasy Fiction by Amy Neftzger

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The blurb for The War Of Words sounded so intriguing I had to try it despite it being YA fantasy.  An evil sorcerer has enveloped the land in a spell of confusion and unreality, sending mysterious shadows to battle the king’s army.  I love words, how could I not want to read a book about a war on language?

Main character Kelsey, whom the king assigned to the army, discovers a man burning reams of paper, each covered with a single word, during a battle.  She knows this is somehow related to the unreality but not how or how to stop it.

Kelsey works with her friends to find out the sorcerer’s plans and weaknesses, all while battling the never-ending shadows and trying to stay out of trouble with the army general.  Her friends are students at a school behind the castle wall, protected from the confusion spells, and an apprentice wizard Nicholas, his teacher Moss and gargoyle Newton.

Good Points

The scenes with Kelsey and the sorcerer, and the general with the sorcerer and finally the king with the sorcerer were well done.  Amy Neftzger imagined how words would look if we could see them colored as to intent and meaning, a very good way to show the tension among the enemies.

Neftzger did a nice job coming up with a plot that is a true problem:  How do you fight against a creeping sense of unreality, when no one can trust what they see or hear, when one’s words and speech are misheard and lost?  I would like to see her use this same plot idea in an adult book with better characters and interesting back story.

YA Fantasy Problems

The War Of Words jumped around, things seemed to just happen, it felt out of tune.  Characters came and went without introduction nor did we find any time to learn about them as people.  Kids took the lead to find the problem, devise the solution, then lead the fight, just as a kid would imagine things to work.

The book felt like a sequel, although the NetGalley blurb did not say it was.  Author Amy Neftzger’s wrote two prior books, The Orphanage of Miracles and The Orchard of Hope, in The Kingdom Wars series that used the same characters and back story.  Perhaps if I’d read those the characters would have felt real.

On the good side The War of Words did not have the romantic tripe that keeps slithering out of YA fantasy, no 16 year old girls who capture the hearts of immortal demigods, no love triangles, no gonadal driven decision making, no histrionics.  The kids were good kids who want to do what’s right.  That was a huge plus.

Summary

Reading The War of Words as an adult and rating it for adults I’d give it 2 stars. I would not have finished it had I not gotten it from NetGalley, but it wasn’t a bad book, just not a book for adults.

Trying to put myself in the reading chair of a teen longing for challenges and the chance to be heroic, I’d say 4 stars.  I don’t think kids would mind the way it jumps from character to character nor the sense that scenes were unfinished, discarded too quickly.  Kids would enjoy it more if they were familiar with the characters already from the other two books.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik, Excellent Fantasy for Adults, Magic vs. Malevolence

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Uprooted by Naomi Novik is one of the best novels I’ve read in the past year.  It has the emotional depth that adults enjoy along with the straightforward story of good vs. evil, magic vs. despair with great characters.

Author Novik  sets Uprooted in the kingdom of Polnya, a standard late-medieval place threatened by the neighboring kingdom of Rosya on one side and the malevolent magic of the Wood on the other.  The Dragon, foremost wizard of Polnya, lives in the tower in the Spindle Valley to guard against the encroachment of the Wood.  When the Wood takes over people or animals they are corrupted, lost inside of themselves and a grave danger to everyone.

Characters

I loved Novik’s heroine, Agnieszka.  She has internal strength that even she doesn’t realize and she’s not afraid to put her life on the line for people, especially her friends.

The growing love affair between Agnieszka and the Dragon feels real.  When they work magic together they blend their hearts and work together intimately.  Agnieszka can see beneath the Dragon’s scowls and snide comments and she knows he loves beauty, whether in people, or things or magic.

Agnieszka’s magic is very different from the Dragon’s.  Hers is song and ad hoc, nothing formal while his is sharp, crisp, clean edged and powerful. They are stronger together than separate and the intimacy grows each time they combine magic.

I’m tired of books with girls who are strong in the sense of physically strong, or extra special strong in magic or whatever, standard kick-ass types.  I like reading books about people who are strong because they have strong characters.  Courage, determination, honor, love, cherishing people, generosity and stewardship are all qualities that make people strong, and Agnieszka and the Dragon have these.

Plot

The book begins when the Dragon selects Agnieszka to serve him for 10 years – but he forgets to tell her he selected her because she has magic.  Agnieszka and everyone else assumes he will choose her best friend, Kasia, and she can’t fathom why he took her.  After a couple days the Dragon begins teaching Agnieszka – but once more he doesn’t tell her that’s what he’s doing – and she hates it.  Doing magic the Dragon’s way leaves her exhausted.

Agnieszka realizes her magic is valuable when her home village summons the Dragon to stop corrupted cattle and wolves, but he has left to attend another monster.  She stumbles into the type of magic that she can do – ad hoc, more wandering and less of a highway – very powerful.  She and the Dragon begin working together in earnest.

The plot is excellent, fast moving, with lots of intrigue and blind alleys along the way.

Mood

Uprooted is excellent at conveying mood.  We feel Agnieszka’s fear and loathing early, then the ever-present threat of the Wood keeps a sense of worry and drives her and the Dragon to develop her skills. Novik does a great job with setting the Wood up as a dark, evil force that is just there, never goes away, never stops being a threat even when it is not overtly challenging.  We feel Agnieszka’s terror when she fights off the wolves, when she rescues Kasia, when she flees the capital with the royal children, when she and the Dragon fight the Wood together.

Then the Wood turns and becomes more a normal forest, still a bit scary with dangerous, hate-filled creatures, but not the malevolent entity it had been.  We feel lighter along with Agnieszka.

Uprooted isn’t all danger and fear.  It has love and even quiet humor.

Other Thoughts

Like many novels with younger characters, Uprooted is classified as YA Fiction.  It is not.  It is a novel for adults, one that older teens will love, but one that we older people will find richer and deeper.

Be aware there are 2 sex scenes.

Overall this is 5 stars.  Excellent book with deeply realistic characters and a memorable sense of mood and emotion.

Personal Note

Uprooted is going to stick with me a long, long time.  It spoke to something important.

Something about the relationship between Agnieszka and the Dragon reminded me of something I read long ago but cannot recall, perhaps something by Patricia McKillip.   I kept hearing an echo but cannot remember what it is an echo of, rather frustrating since I enjoyed whatever the earlier book was and would like to reread it.

The Shadow Throne, Book 3 of The Ascendance Trilogy by Jennifer Nielsen

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Jennifer Nielsen kept the same frantic pace with The Shadow Throne, the final book in her Ascendance trilogy as with the first two, but this third book felt flat, predictable and a bit silly.  Jaron, now the king of Carthya, knows that Avenia captured Imogen only to use her as a tool against him, yet he insists on going himself to free her.

Of course he gets captured, then tortured, which was the weakest and least readable part of the book.  King Vargan and his army commanders vacillate between wanting Jaron to cough up his military plans, or to force him to agree to bind his country to King Vargan of Avenia or, apparently they just wanted to hurt him.

Jaron acts like a clever thief, not like a king and the book is weaker for it.  Some of Jaron’s escapades are entertaining, as when he blows up the cannons sent to destroy his capital.  Some escapades reminded me of the nick-of-time rescues in the old Robin Hood television show.  He has an healed broken leg the whole time he’s prancing around Carthya and Avenia, dodging armies, rescuing friends, blowing up dams.

The characters didn’t seem important, more like pawns set up to fill the action.  I didn’t much like Jaron, he was a bit too selfish to be the real king he felt he was meant to be.  The ending where he somehow pulls a rescue out of the woodwork was fun reading but contrived.

I read The Shadow Throne right after finishing the second book, The Runaway King.  It was sort of like the feeling you get after eating a bunch of Halloween candy, yummy at the time but you really do know better.  I mostly enjoyed it even while recognizing the faults and despite getting bogged down in the very long section where Jaron is imprisoned.  (You can read my reviews of the The Runaway King here, and of The False Prince here.)

The Shadow Throne: Book 3 of The Ascendance Trilogy is the final book in the series, and wraps up the loose ends.  If you read the first two books you’ll want to read this just to find out what happens but be warned, it isn’t as good as the first two novels.

3 Stars

The Runaway King, Book 2 of The Ascendance Trilogy by Jennifer Nielsen

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As the title notes, The Runaway King: Book 2 of the Ascendance Trilogy is the second book in the Ascendance series that features Sage, grown to take the throw under his rightful name, Jaron.  (See here for my review of the first book, The False Prince.)  Jaron is threatened within his kingdom of Carthya, by ambitious regents who seek to push him aside or use him as a puppet, and from the outside by King Vargan of Avenia, greedy to add Carthya to his rule.

Jaron suffers from extreme foot in mouth disease, incurable optimism, self confidence and unbelievable skills he honed for thievery, climbing, undoing chains and ropes, pick pocketing.  The book opens with an assassination attempt that leaves Jaron an ultimatum:  deliver himself to the pirates who already tried to kill him, or see his kingdom destroyed.  Jaron knows the pirates work closely with King Vargan.

King Vargan offers to take a spring in exchange for peace, such a good deal, otherwise known as tribute or appeasement.  Jaron’s father had made many such small-seeming concessions over his reign, leaving Vargan eager to take the rest.  Jaron refuses the deal.

From that point on the book moves at light speed, with Jaron joining the pirates under an assumed name, intending to turn the pirates into his men, his allies.  An audacious move, it nearly works.

Characters

Prince, then King Jaron, is both a cardboard creature and a person.  He is most stereotyped when acting as a thief, the bold challenger, the escape artist.  He is best developed when we see hints of his true nobility and kingship, as when he realizes that to give into Vargan once means giving him over all of Carthya, with timing the only question.

Love interest Imogen is a little more developed in The Runaway King than in The False Prince, but still a little weak.  It’s not clear why she and Jaron fall for each other.  Princess Amarinda is better drawn and an attractive character.  Jaron’s other friends and sometime foes are interesting but secondary.

Thoughts About The Runaway King

The Ascendance series is fantasy without a trace of magic.   You’ll find no wizards, no witches or sorcery.  Books like this, set in semi-medieval kingdoms with fast paced action, depend on the characters and the interesting plots.  Author Jennifer Nielsen does a good job with both, aligning the series to the older teen audience that enjoys plots and fun more than vampires and dystopian apocalypse.

I was restless and looking for something fun when I re-read my review for The False Prince and decided to check out the sequels from our local E library.  I’m glad I did as this was perfect for the evening.  Adults looking for a fast, enjoyable read that doesn’t challenge with a ton of mysterious magic or oddball names will enjoy this too.

4 Stars for adults, 5 for teens.