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

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.

My Favorite Fantasy – Borderlands Novels by Lorna Freeman

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Have you ever felt you just had to re-read a favorite book?  I just finished re-reading (for the third or fourth time) the three Borderlands novels by Lorna Freeman, Covenants, The King’s Own and Shadows Past.  Once again the wonderful, complete characters, excellent plot, intricate back story and strong narrative writing kept me reading and once again I found more to enjoy with each book.

I will review each book separately in upcoming posts; let’s look at the three overall first.

Characters

Rabbit, otherwise known as Lieutenant Lord Rabbit ibn Chause eso Flavan, tells all three novels.  Rabbit is the son of Two Trees and Lark, formerly high born nobles from Iversterre who fled to the Border to become farmers and weavers and raise eight children in the land of the fae and magical.  Rabbit had been apprenticed to Magus Kareste, but fled in fear and came back to Iversterre to be hide, becoming a horse trooper in the Royal Army.

Lorna Freeman does an excellent job showing us Rabbit who is a most enjoyable young man.  He is courageous, loyal and intelligent, yet fears his magic and wants no part of politics, whether in Iversterre or the Border.  Rabbit matures through the three novels as he faces and reconciles to his magic and demands on his person and loyalties.

Laurel, the mountain cat Faena, is come to Iversterre to seek peace in the face of blatant smuggling and murder – and to seek Rabbit on behalf of the Border High Counsel.

Other key characters are well rounded:  Captain Suiden, Captain Javes, Enchanter Wyln, King Jusson, even minor figures like Ryson and Thadro and the assorted villains and other players in each novel

Not Really a Trilogy

You would enjoy these the most by reading in sequence but it isn’t truly necessary.  The individual plots stand alone and each has unique characters for the competing parts.

Covenants

Covenants is the longest and most complex of the three.  Rabbit and his troop are lost in the very familiar mountains they routinely patrol near the small northern town of Freston.  Even though they know the area they cannot find their way until Rabbit meets Laurel in a small dell.  Laurel shares cakes with Rabbit and gives him a red feather, signifying a meal covenant.  Suddenly the troop can see the town below and the way is clear.  This is the first magical mystery, but not the last.

Laurel turns out to be the ambassador from the Border High Counsel, sent to Iversterre in a final attempt to broker peace.  This is a surprise to the King of Iversterre, Jusson, and most of his government, since they did not realize there was a problem.

Covenants moves very fast.  It is over 500 pages long and complex and you may – like I did – find you see even more the second time through.  Lorna Freeman tells the story by dialogue and Rabbit’s thoughts and observations and the little vignettes build on one another.  Those vignettes are easy to read through and not see the significance until later.

The King’s Own

The King’s Own picks up after Rabbit and company return to Freston, where the king has stopped on his progress through the kingdom, a trip meant to reassure and bind the kingdom together.

Unfortunately the remnants of the plotters from Covenants also come to Freston, only this time they bring a demon.

The King’s Own is a little harder to follow than Covenants, partly because Rabbit himself is puzzled by the apparently senseless actions.  It also further develops the relationship between Rabbit and King Jusson, and brings in several stand-alone characters that are interesting, Chadde the peace keeper, Ranulf and Beollan the Marcher lords, doyen Dyfrig.  The plot is great but the characters keep us interested!

Shadows Past

Shadows Past marks the point where Rabbit realizes how serious is his situation.  He has sworn to the throne of Iversterre and to King Jusson personally, and Jusson has made Rabbit his heir.  Up to now Rabbit has been too busy fighting rebellions and demons to realize exactly what that means.

The crux of the book is about 2/3 of the way through when Rabbit is tempted to just leave, to get to the harbor and take the first ship away.  He gets as far as a couple of steps when he realizes what he is doing:  denying his oaths, denying his magic, denying his friends.

Shadows Past doesn’t have the intense plot threats and conflicts of the first two (although there are still plenty of both), instead Rabbit must fight through to what and who he is, remaining true to himself while remaining true to his oaths and loyalties.

Summary

I enjoyed all three books immensely. Covenants is outstanding, one of the very best fantasy books I’ve ever read.  The other two are excellent, and I found that re-reading them this week that I enjoyed them more than before and would rank them right up with Covenants.

Borderlands is hands down my favorite fantasy series.  According to Lorna Freeman’s page on Amazon, she intends to write a fourth book, The Reckoning Flames, but it apparently has not made it out to print.

Borderlands reminds me of the Ivory Series by Doris Egan.  There are many similarities:  one-and-done series that are enormously popular, well-written with engaging characters and settings, with authors that seemed to come out of nowhere.  I keep hoping we’ll see more books featuring Rabbit, Laurel and the rest.

Review: The Human Division by John Scalzi, Vignettes in the Old Man’s War Series

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The Human Division is listed as the fifth book in the Old Man’s War series, but you can enjoy it even without having read the other books in the series.  John Scalzi does a good job filling you in on the background and who’s who while telling the story.  I’m speaking from personal experience here as I read only one of the other books and that was several years ago.  I didn’t recall the story except that it was good, and of course Scalzi is the same guy who wrote the wonderful Agent to the Stars. Those were good enough to make this book a must-read.

Scalzi is so talented a writer he was able to take 13 semi-related vignettes that seemed written for a television series, and turn them into a novel that flowed well.  That is not easy.  Each episode was loosely connected with most of the characters repeating and there was a loose time sequence.  (The introduction mentions the publisher released these as individual episodes electronically.

I enjoyed this book.  Each vignette was interesting and had characters with a few quirks and habits that added a bite of humor.  The plot was deadly serious.  The Colonial Union got found out for its bad habit of keeping Earth in the dark and using the home planet as a source of people for colonists and army.  At the same time several hundred other races banded together in a Conclave that detests the Colonial Union.  (Since I didn’t read the prior books I’m not sure what the CU did to these other races to warrant this ill will.  It’s clear the CU had a penchant for aggressive, in-your-face behavior and managed to come out on top in prior conflicts.)

The book focuses on the B diplomat team led by Abumwe and helped greatly by Harry Wilson, Colonial Defense Force (the CU military) liason and his good friend Hart Schmidt.  The CU leaders view Abumwe as a second tier diplomat but after her team performs heroically and brilliantly to save the Utche agreement the leadership decides to upgrade her – but doesn’t tell Ubumwe or anyone else.  Instead they will use her team for those miserable situations that need initiative and off-the-cuff solutions.

In the first episode one of the A teams is destroyed by an unknown force when it arrives early to meet with the Utche.  Ubumwe’s team is tossed in as back ups with virtually no notice.  Wilson discovers five missiles primed to attack the Utche upon their arrival.  Wilson manages to decoy four of them to attack his shuttle and the ship captain gets the last one to attack the ship.  This of course makes the Utche feel pretty good and the diplomacy succeeds.

Each episode was like the first.  Present a problem, let the characters deal with it the way they would, and pull victory from defeat.  By the end of the book it is still far from certain that the CU will survive and even more uncertain whether Earth and the CU will become buddies again.  But there is hope.

Scalzi left the stage wide open for future books, whether conventional novels or this type of episodic story.  No one is able to identify who the mystery attackers are that destroyed the first Utche mission team and that mystery enemy pops up in several later episodes.

If Scalzi decides to write more in this series I’d like to see the stories done in this vignette style.  It was a very successful way to show the situations and characters and most enjoyable.

 

Chasing Fireflies – Charles Martin – Growing Up, Family and Place

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Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery is another novel by Charles Martin set in the south with engrossing characters, frequent shifts in time and character and characters who are deeply mistreated but maintain grace throughout.  In Chasing Fireflies we have three stories:  Chase, who desperately wants to know who he is and whose he is, Sketch, an abused boy who is mute but communicates via drawing, Unc, who was framed and looted by his high-rolling brother Jack.

Chase narrates and seamlessly brings us between his memories growing up as Unc’s foster child and his current-day work investigating Sketch and his relationship with Unc and Unc’s niece Tommye who is dying of Aids.  I admired how Martin flipped between times and character focus.

Martin has a gift for making his characters come to life.  Unc is the most developed but we get a solid taste of Sketch.  Chase develops himself partly through his narration – some of which is self-pitying – and partly by his actions and observations of Unc and others.  We also see side characters like Jack, Unc’s wife Lorna, Chase’s friend Mandy.  Tommye tells her own story but it was the weakest of the bunch.  Her motives were unclear.

Chasing Fireflies has a very complex plot with lots of side journeys, some of which seemed a bit too much.  I did not understand why Unc, portrayed as a Christian man with deep grace, would have tossed a body into the river.  That seemed out of character and unnecessary.  We also heard at the beginning and near the end that evil brother Jack was after the last thing Unc owned, the Sanctuary in the middle of the 26,000 acres of swamp and timberland that Jack already extorted from Unc, but we never heard the pretext for the seizure.

The plot is melodramatic but still manages to be excellent.  I read this very fast one evening, then thought I may have missed something that would have clarified Tommye or Jack, so re-read it.  I hadn’t missed anything but the second time through I noticed a few plot and character false notes that hadn’t struck me as off kilter the the first time.

Chase’s constant refrain about wanting his Dad (no mention of Mom) and the aching hole he had as a foundling got a little tiresome.  The point of the book is family and belonging, but at some point we all have to face what is, good or bad.  Even those of us who grew up in loving families have aches in our hearts, it is part of life.

We see that Chase and Mandy are falling in love but their romance is a side conversation.  Martin could have explored that a little more, perhaps having someone to love would help heal Chase’s broken heart.

Overall I loved the book and will continue to look for books by this author.

Review: First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen Follow On to Garden Spells

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This is a hard review to write.  I cannot do justice to this book.

Sarah Addison Allen came to prominence with her novel Garden Spells, about a family in a small southern town that is blessed with unusual gifts. Claire includes flowers from her garden in her catered meals, pansies to make children thoughtful, rose to remember one’s first love.  Claire’s sister Sydney left home immediately after high school and returns with a small child. Garden Spells ends with hope for both sisters.

First Frost takes place 10 years later.  Sydney owns a successful beauty salon, is happily married to Henry.  Daughter Bay is now a freshman in high school with the gift of knowing where everything is supposed to be.  Sometimes she knows where people are meant to be, and this gift is on overdrive the first day of high school when she sees Josh Matteson and knows immediately she belongs with him.

Claire began making candy infused with her garden flowers, at first for family, then neighbors with sick kids, then she got noticed by Southern Living and now cannot keep up with the candy demand.  She is married to Tyler and has a small daughter.

All the Waverly women and their families are facing the usual problems.

  • Bay’s should-be Josh is popular and a senior, and his father is the Matteson who broke Sydney’s heart.
  • Sydney’s receptionist Violet takes gross advantage of her kindness and doesn’t do  her job.  She also brings her darling baby Charlie to work where he stole Sydney’s heart.
  • Sydney wants another child, a boy for Henry.
  • Claire wants to quit the candy business and go back to catering, but worries about finances.

Enter a silver-haired older gentleman, Russell Zahler, a heartless ex-carnival performer and con man.  Russell is 80 nowbroke and looking for the easier scores, the fast in and out.  He knew Claire and Sydney’s mother years before and kept a photo of her with the children and another couple.

Russell tells Claire that she is really not a Waverly but the daughter of the couple in the photo and asks for a pay off to keep quiet.  Being a Waverly matters to Claire because she believes her skills and gifts are based on her family.

All Set Up for Resolution

Sarah Addison Allen’s genius is in how she builds out real people as she resolves these problems.  The characters do what they do best, act as they would every day and things just work out.

True, Sydney must help Josh and Bay but all she does is build a bridge, she doesn’t even put a sign up saying it is there.  Sydney’s relationship with Violet and Charlie works to its inevitable end, again based completely on Violet’s character and personality.

Claire works out what to do about candy vs. catering and handles Russell the same way she does everything.  She talks to Tyler and her cousin Evanelle and her sister and the decision suddenly is easy.

I am on Sarah Addison Allen’s email list for a reason.  I love her books.  They are hard to describe.  Southern?  Yes, but that’s trivial.  Romance?  A little, sure.  Suspense?  A tiny bit.  Normal contemporary fiction?  Yes it’s contemporary but there is no angst, no divorce, no miserable sins and lies.  Fantasy?  Nope.  Her books are all of these but so much more.  Truly excellent, well done characters you want to see be happy, interesting plots and a touch of magic.

Excellent! Faith, Love, Sacrifice With A Football Background – A Life Intercepted

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The blurb on A Life Intercepted: A Novel caught my eye, “Matthew “The Rocket” Rising had it all.  Falsely accused of a heinous crime with irrefutable evidence…all was lost.”  Matthew Rising won the Heisman trophy for best college football player twice, led his team to the national championship three times and was the number 1 draft pick in the NFL.  In Matthew’s mind all these were nothing compared to his marriage to Audrey.

Matthew was convicted of sexual assault and deviant sex with a minor based on a video of sex acts that did not show his face plus testimony of the three women who woke up with him in their bed.  He never made it to training camp, never made any money, and worst, his wife disappeared.

Paroled after 12 years he is forbidden to approach a minor, to work or live within half a mile of a daycare or school, completely broke, homeless and with no job prospects.  Matthew went back to his hometown to find his wife.  His oldest friend lets him stay in his cabin, which is just far enough from the Catholic convent and high school.   He has no intention to violate his parole, just to find Audrey and peace.

 

Matthew finds Audrey is living at the convent, where she planted a flower garden that memorializes Matthew’s final play in his last college football game.   Dee Dalton, 17 years old and a wanna be football quarterback, approaches Matthew to ask for his help.  Dee had been a fine young player but his throwing mechanics are messed up and he needs to learn from someone besides his high school coach.   Matthew initially says no, since that would violate his parole and land him back in prison, this time for life.

 

Audrey comes to Matthew and tells him that he owes it to her to coach Dee, that he cheated her of a family and a life and further that no one would ever know.  Matthew knows that it is all too likely that his nemesis, the person who framed him for the sexual assault, will in fact be watching him, looking for evidence he broke parole.  Nonetheless Matthew agrees to coach Dee as a sacrifice to show Audrey what she means to him.

 

Of course his nemesis videotapes the coaching sessions.  Each individual parole violation means 10 years in prison and Matthew and Dee meet over 70 times.  Matthew is arrested but only after demonstrating to the football loving world that both he and Dee are ready to play, Matthew at the NFL and Dee at high school, then college.

Tight Plot with a Unique Setting

We know all through the book that Matthew is innocent although we don’t know the details nor how – or whether – he will somehow win through.  Author Charles Martin keeps us in suspense until near the end.  He unfolds the plot through Matthew’s memories offset with the events as they occur.  We see Matthew willingly sacrifice his life to help Dee, initially for Audrey’s sake then for Dee’s, and through the memories of Matthew’s life with Audrey.

The novel is set behind the scenes of football, not the games themselves but the practices and the events after the games.  You do not have to understand or like football to enjoy the book because the game is the setting, not the purpose.

There were a few weak points, mostly in the trial that found Matthew guilty.  I thought of a couple points his lawyer could have made, such as whether the DNA evidence against Matthew included semen, whether his fingerprints were on the video camera, the fact it was dark, all of which could have cast some doubt in the jurors’ minds.  But the story is not about the trial.

Charles Martin’s  purpose isn’t to debate the merits of the case, but to show that it happened, that the evidence was overwhelming, that even Matthew’s lawyer and his wife believed him guilty.  This is the set up for the real meat of the novel, how Martin deals with gross injustice.

The resolution with Ginger, Matthew’s supposed victim was wonderful, but it required the woman to completely forego everything she had for something she had never wanted.  It was great to read but a bit far fetched.  Let’s hope that people are like that.

Characters

Matthew and Dee are well done.  Matthew remains loving and determined.  He knows exactly the value of the worldly success and the happy marriage he thought he had, and he has a fine perspective on which matters.

Wood and Ray, Matthew’s two friends, steal the show.  They are courageous, caring, willing to help Matthew, willing to more-or-less believe him.  The character I found the weakest was Audrey.  I understand she was incredibly hurt, wounded to near death by her husband’s betrayal, but it was incredible to me that she insisted he coach Dee even knowing it meant life imprisonment if caught.  She clearly did not expect the vindictive Ginger to spy on Matthew and videotape his movements, and why should she.  She believed Matthew guilty.

A Life Intercepted is a coming of age novel that brings four characters to adulthood, Matthew and Dee of course, and Audrey and Ginger too.  Matthew’s coming of age isn’t when he’s in his teens or college, but as he works with Dee and earlier, in some of his prison memories where he loses the hate and grows his way to redemption.

Thoughts on Redemption

A Life Intercepted: A Novel is one of the finest books I’ve read in a long time.  I read this concurrently with Memory by Lois Bujold, which gave a unique flavor to the experience. Both novels are about redemption and both have exotic settings, football with A Life Intercepted and the planet Barrayar in Memory.

The primary difference is in the nature of redemption.  Memory is all about Miles’ self-redemption after an act he did commit.  A Life Intercepted is about the redemption Matthew offers to his wife, his supposed victim, his fans, the young Mac for acts they committed, not what he had done.  Reading the two books together helped me see the difference and realized that A Life Intercepted first shows Matthew accepting the injustice, coming to peace internally, then offering that peace to the others who judged and rejected him.  It is a Christ-like redemption, not a private personal redemption.

The underlying themes of love, faith, redemption and sacrifice are timeless.  Combine those with excellent characters you care about, intense plot and good writing and you have a real winner.  Five stars.

Real? Or Imitation Human?

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Too often to review a book I have to get it back open, just to look up the title. Not so with The Socket Greeny Saga by author Tony Bertauski. Mr. Bertauski told me Socket Greeny was his first fiction work, and it is excellent. I have him noted as an author to follow.

The main character is seventeen but this is not YA fiction.  Bertauski grabs your heart and does not let go.  You care about Socket Greeny.  Socket finds everything and loses it:  his family, his place in the world, his friends, his identity.  At the end you still wonder what happened and what will happen next.  The book ends but the story does not, yet there is no cliff hanger, no obvious sequel.  Instead the ending brings the loose threads together and leaves us Socket.

The Socket Greeny Saga is a trilogy that flows seamlessly from one book to the next. In fact my Nook version had no separation between the books, other than a periodic “Discovery” or “Training” or “Legend” interspersed in the text there was no way to know which book was which.

The plot is interesting, especially the first book of the trilogy, Discovery. Socket Greeny and his two friends Chute and Streeter go into Virtualmode during study hall and get into trouble. Socket inadvertently triggered a time slip that causes his Mom to pick him up from school and take him to the secret training facility for the Paladins. Paladins are humans with improved abilities, especially mental abilities, who are sworn to protect humanity.

In Books one and two Socket has to come to terms with his new abilities, learn and grow and develop mental powers.  Socket’s recurring enemies, duplicated humans that look and act just like real people, attack.  Socket is able to stop the duplicates, first with his friends and then by himself.

Book three starts with Socket, now a full Paladin, taking a wormhole trip to a remote outpost. Somehow he is kidnapped on the return trip and attacked by the real, ravenous enemy that the Paladins know nothing about.
Now Socket realizes that not only must he save the Earth and all his friends and family, he must save the universe.

The book could have gotten a bit ridiculous at this point. A seventeen year old universe saver? A ravenous enemy that kills all worlds? That can come to live with one cell? Instead the book turns inward, where we see Socket’s emotional depth when he realizes he has been betrayed and nothing is what he believed.

I loved the characters, especially Socket and the grimmets. Tony Bertauski did what too-few authors do when writing YA science fiction, and explored the inner depths of people and how they reacted to the events and threats. The story was well written, interesting and fast moving. It seems authors tend to skimp on plot or character or setting or good dialogue and writing style, but The Socket Greeny Saga had all four.

Just a few minor complaints.
The ending was ambiguous. What happens next? Socket is awake now, does he stay awake? Does he drift off again?
What about the grimmets? Did they die at the end? Or did they, and their world, survive?
Why did Socket stay sane and human when others just like him did not?
The hallucinogenic sequences during the testing and training were a bit much.

But overall, this was excellent. Tony has a generous offer in the end of the Nook version to request any free E book from him. After reading The Socket Greeny Saga you can bet I quickly took him up on his offer!

Yes, It’s Light, But Not Silly and Not for Kids – Medium Dead, Chris Dolley

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I was in the mood for something funny, not too serious and found Medium Dead. This book was one of those “if you like A then try…” on my Nook. It sounded cute so I got the free sample, read it and immediately bought the full story. Just what I was looking for: fun, interesting characters, underlying mystery and a serious back story, fast plot and great dialogue.

Heroine Brenda has been vegetating since finding her best friend with her husband four – count ’em, four – years ago. Since then she’s watched soap operas, gotten an undemanding job with great hours, lives alone three hours from Mom and older sister Susan, and, oh yes, sees ghosts. She meets a new ghost one morning who warns her to leave NOW or risk her life. Sure enough, in comes a serial murderer-rapist along with his car jacking victim, ineffectual Brian.

Only catch is that Brian is hard to kill. He absorbs bullets, even loses his head, and still keeps after the bad guy. Brenda doesn’t know what’s going on but she gladly helps, improvising right along with Brian. After Brian tells Brenda that he is a Vigilante Demon, here to fight crime. Fun ensues.

A few minor quibbles. I can’t fathom why anyone would claim to be a demon although Brian invents a demon call center staffed by Sanjay for some of the funniest dialogue. The plot has loose ends.  If Brian and Brenda stay crime-fighting partners and see Mom and Susan again, I’m not sure how Brian will morph from sexy Fabio the model, doctor and fireman to Brian. And at the end we see Brian is not a demon, just a semi-normal guy with a passion to put the creeps away.

Overall the plot is pure fun, the characters interesting, dialogue witty without a bit of meanness. Brenda and Brian feel like real people – ghosts and shape changing aside – and interact with other real people. The villain is well done and creepy, and at the end we see enough of the other creeps to know there’s plenty of room for a sequel should Dolley choose.

Medium Dead is a fast read. I finished in one evening and got to bed early. Don’t think that it’s written in a juvenile style though. There aren’t a lot of big words or heavy historical allusions but it’s meant for adults.

I recommend Medium Dead. In fact, I just started another Dolley novel, Resonance. Always a happy event to find a new author!

Excellent and Not Just for Kids! The Paladin Prophecy Fantasy by Mark Frost

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I was up till 12:45 last night. Why? The Paladin Prophecy: Book 1 kept me up. Just a few more pages, just until we find out what’s going on.

This book could have been 539 pages of copy cat fiction, with a helping from number 4, mortal coil and a dose of harry potter. The plot uses Will, a teen hero who unexpectedly gets a perfect score on a standardized test and gets recruited for a special school. Sound familiar? Last month I read Diamond In My Pocket that had a similar starting point but dwindled to a mediocre YA fantasy. The Paladin Prophecy turns that on its head in the first 4 pages.

Will wakes up feeling a “queasy cocktail of impending doom” that takes on shape when he sees the dark sedans that seem to be chasing him on his way to school.  The book takes off from that.  We have a raft of interesting characters, including Will’s nutty roommate Nick, adults that may be just what they seem or not, a New Zealander that drives a souped up hot rod (and who happens to be dead), obnoxious bullies at school and of course other friends and roomies.

The Paladin Prophecy is listed as YA fiction but it’s not really. True, the main characters are teens and author Mark Frost glides past plot and background elements that adult novels may explore a bit. But the characters feel real and the underlying conflict is not for kids. Plus the dialogue, setting, people are richly done and the plot moves at 90 miles an hour. Which is how I found myself nearly done at 12:30 and staying up just a few more minutes to finish the ending.

You notice the “Book 1” in The Paladin Prophecy: Book 1. We ended with many loose ends:

  • Are the school headmaster, teachers and board part of the conspiracy?  Or are they good guys?  Or a mix?   The ending gives us very good reason to suspect the school is not on the side of the angels.
  • Why did Will’s roommates believe him almost at once?
  • What happened to Dave?
  • Who is “The Old Gentleman” and does he have a human analogue?
  • How did the roommates get their abilities and why?
  • Is the conspiracy really done?  (Of course not, but we need to find out!)

Book 2 is out now too, Alliance: The Paladin Prophecy Book 2, and from Amazon’s descriptions there will be at least one more.  I intend to get that one just as soon as possible!

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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