I want to marry Harry Dresden

not actually reviewing a book here just yet, although I'm currently re-reading Changes by Butcher (review coming when I finish the re-read).  I decided, an hour or so ago to re-read this book, and already I've laughed out loud three times at the wording Butcher uses.  Harry is -FUNNY-!

examples, just in the first few chapters:


"and the gunshots weren't good because a pair of bullets came through the wall not six feet away, and one of them tugged hard at the hem of my jeans over my left ankle.  "Ack!" I said.  Fearless master of the witty dialogue, that's me."

"By contrast, I crashed into a garbage can.  It was, of course, full."

"You aren't the boss of me."... "The hell I'm not," I told her.  "Do it or I dock you a year's pay."  "you know you don't may me anything, right?"  "Curses," I said. "Foiled again."

it's so great!

The thing I like most about Harry though, is his loyalty.  It could seem fairly arbitrary to some, he thumbs his nose at enough laws and rules and authority in general most of the time.  If someone threatens one of "his" people though, or things that he holds dear, then watch out.  Nothing will stand in his way.  I think later on in the book is a line that sums this up pretty well, I'll have to write it down when I get to it and put it in here. 

I just love the idea that he'll do whatever is necessary to stand for what he believes in, or to protect those that he cares about.

now that I think about it in those terms, he sounds quite similar to another one of my favorite characters, Repairman Jack.  hmmmmm.  insight into my psyche, perhaps?

regardless, Dresden rocks my socks off.  If you're looking for a really wonderful paranormal fantasy series, I strongly suggest that you pick up Storm Front:

Seriously one of the best series I've ever read.



*EDIT* Found the quote I mentioned above.  "I will make Maggie safe.  If the world burns because of that, then so be it.  Me and the kid will roast some marshmallows."

That's exactly what I love about him.  "To hell with the consequences, as long as I make someone I care about safe"

The Lost Gate, by Card 4++++

The book:


The rating:  as high as it goes.  4+.

Alright, I'll admit, I'm biased.  Card ranks right up there with Wilson, for me as all-time-favorite-authors.  While Wilson's draw for me is his ability to weave storylines together in amazing ways, Card's draw is his character development and his .... for lack of a better term, his storytelling ability.  There is a synergy between me and the characters that Card develops (or perhaps the way that he tells their stories) that I can't really describe.  I'm able to immerse myself in his stories to a level that I haven't found with any other author on a consistent basis. 

So, I basically love this author.  A while back, I read his short story, Stonefather, in the anthology Wizards:

(side note, Stonefather has since been published as a stand alone)

Stonefather blew me away.  I seem to remember reading in Card's comments on the story in the anthology comments that said something along the lines of "I've always wanted this story to become a novel, but it wouldn't grow into one.  I'm working on it though!" and thinking to myself "woah.  that would be an awesome series"

well... enter the new Mither Mages series.  The magic system is incredibly detailed and well thought out.  The storytelling is, as always from Card, wonderful.  The characters are compelling, the humor in the dialogue made me laugh out loud more than once.  To be honest, I've noticed Card using a lot more flippant dialogue in his recent books, and I really like it.  The characters are witty and quick with a comeback, both things that I am not.  Probably why I like it so much :-D

But anyway... Have you ever picked up a book and literally found yourself unable to put it down?  Found yourself looking at the clock, knowing that you should go to sleep, and yet continuing to read?  Powering through it like it's a drug that you just can't get enough of, finishing the book in a rush of "WOAHHHHH" at the last page?

This was one of those books for me.  I call them bookgasms, and this one was a great one!

Blood and Memory by McIntosh; 4

The book:


sequel to Myrren's Gift.  I'm not sure if the bits that I found irritating in the 1st book of the series diminished in this book, or if I just got used to them, but I enjoyed this book.  I'm giving it a solid 3 rating.  Lots more intrique, and a fairly decent plot.  A few "WTF" moments where plot twists come out of left field and don't really make much sense, but they aren't so awful that they ruined the story for me.  I'm looking forward to finding the 3rd book in this series.

Myrren's Gift, by McIntosh - 3-

The book:


Giving this book a 3- in my rating system.  I like the characters, I like the intrigue, I like the twist of what the Gift actually is.  It isn't the best written story I've ever read, the narritave jumps from character POV within the same paragraph in places, and that disorients me.  I love seeing different POV's, but prefer them to be consistent within a scene at least.

Gave it a 3, because I'm reading the 2nd book in the series now... a minus because it could be better, and I wouldn't cry if I couldn't find a copy of the 3rd book.

not half bad, all told.

The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson - 4+

The book:


buy it.  seriously, if you like high fantasy at all, buy this book.  (or at least pick it up at the library)

This is, quite honestly, the most original piece of high fantasy that I have ever read.  High fantasy, as in 'horses and swords and magic, with no modern technology to speak of'.  Original, because almost everything about this story is new, even as it works within a fairly standard and formulaic genre.  The plants act like no plants I've ever read about.  I've never before read a story in which almost all of the animals on a given planet seem to have evolved from crabs, and yet humans exist too.  The magic system is intriguing and new, which is admittedly not something foreign to Sanderson's other works, but we're talking about another level of writing completely here.

The comparison makes me want to gag, but I honestly have to compare this to

Ok.  yes, I know that Sanderson is filling in for the deceased Jordan, but that isn't why I'm drawing the comparison line between the series.  The Eye of the World was a fast-paced adventure, full of new creatures, characters the reader could empathize with, and an entirely new magic system.  The series followed different key characters in different plot lines that eventually merged and or diverted from each other.  It was new, and it was exciting, and it was brilliant.

I can say all of those same things about The Way of Kings.  It is refreshingly new and different, and I find myself wishing that I had found the series a few years from now.  That way, I wouldn't have to wait for the next book, it would have already been published :-)

The only complaint I have about the book, and it is a small one, is that the prologue didn't work for me on the first reading.  Since the world Sanderson has created is so entirely new, I didn't have a frame of reference to put the prologue onto.  Names, places, peoples, none of them ment anything to me, and so many of the intriciacies that exist were lost on me at the first read.  After reading the entire book, I went back and re-read the prologue, and it works so much better for me now.  I can fully appreciate the richness and depth of the detail that Sanderson is employing now, and I look forward to re-reading the whole book to see what other interconnections I missed the first time through.

This book is definitely one that will end up on my 'frequently read' list, and I highly suggest that you pick it up!

Blood Trinity, by Kenyon and Love - 1.5

alright.  here's the book:


and here's my rating:  1.5.

I normally enjoy Kenyon's stuff.  She's one of my favorite authors.  Somehow, though, I can't get into this story.  I read a few chapters, and it is just not doing it for me.

alright, alright, if I didn't finish the book, the rating should be a 1, right?  I'm giving it a 1.5, because chances are that I'll be really bored someday, with nothing to read, and will end up picking it up and slogging through it.  Because Kenyon is usually a good author, as is Love.  Therefore, based on my opinion of the authors themselves, I gave the book half-finished credit.

I think my issue with the story is that I have no mythology framework to build on.  If I'm going to be reading about demons and gods and so on, I need to know how that magic/belief system works.  I'm perfectly alright with coming to understand a new mythology/magic system as the story unfolds, but the necessary details for this story weren't coming.  The plot was developing and progressing, and I still had no framework for the magic to be built on.  I'm not explaining myself very well here, the words aren't coming out correctly... but basically the magic/powers of the characters in this book weren't being explained well enough for me.  It irritated the snot out of me, and I gave up. 

perhaps, if/when I end up re-attempting this book in the future, things will make more sense as I get further into it, and I'll have to make another post about it then.  For now though, I wouldn't suggest this one.

My love affair with F. Paul Wilson

A few years ago, a very book-trusted friend of mine (someone who I know will never lead me astray with his book recommendations) suggested that I check out a horror series.  Now, if you know me very well, you are probably aware that I simply do not do scary things.  Sleep over parties as a child, friends would be watching Pet Cemetery, or even Betlejuice, and I'd be in their bedrooms hiding (and usually reading something I found on their bookshelves).  I don't go watch scary movies, I don't read things that will scare me.  I avoid being frightened at just about all costs.

I honestly don't remember if I put up much of a fight against the recommendation.  I think I must have, because I just don't do horror... but my friend isn't the type to pressure me into doing something.  Somehow, however it came about, I found myself flopping in bed with a copy of The Keep.  Maybe Devlin got me to give it a try with the Vampire angle... I'll have to pick his brain when I talk to him again.  Regardless of how I got into it, within a few pages I was hooked.  Nazis, Vampires, a mysterious guy, jews... It was great!  great at first, anyway...

*cue the creepy music*  by the time it started to get scary, I was too hooked to stop.  I distinctly remember setting the book down and telling myself that I should stop reading because it was scary, and then picking the book back up and diving back into it.

By the time I had finished the book, I was in awe.  This guy (as in the author) was freaking awesome!  By the time I finished the next book in the cycle, The Tomb, I was hooked.  I quickly searched online and found some used copies of the rest of the adversary cycle, spent all of my christmas money on those puppies that year.  They had been out of print for years, and were hard to track down.  I finally got my hands on the rest: 
The Touch
Reborn
Reprisal
NIGHTWORLD

To explain this series, I'm going to use the author's own words, taken from his website repairmanjack.com

"The Adversary Cycle didn’t start out as a cycle. I like doing connected stories – future histories or separate stories sharing the same milieu, like the Village of Monroe – but I had no intention of doing a series. The first three novels of the cycle (The Keep, The Tomb, and The Touch) were intended as stand alones, completely unrelated. They shared no characters or themes.

Then I went to work on a new novel that was also meant to be a stand-alone. I wanted it to look like a Rosemary's Baby or an Omen but actually be something different (just as The Keep looks like a vampire novel for a while, but is not). I wanted to use an evil entity other than the tired old Antichrist, but who? Then I realized I already had that entity in Rasalom from The Keep. I needed a suburban setting convenient to Manhattan, and I already had one in Monroe where The Touch took place. I became intrigued by the challenge of tying those two novels, and The Tomb as well, into *CONTENT REMOVED FOR SPOILERS* bringing the books full circle. It worked so well that I suspect my subconscious might have been linking them all along.

The result was a 1,000-plus-page novel. Nobody was going to publish that, so I broke it into three parts – Reborn, Reprisal, and Nightworld."

so, you take that, and then add in the fact that the main character in The Tomb, Jack, begged to have his own series.  (again, Wilson's own words) "By the time I reached the end of The Tomb, I realized I had a series character. I didn't feel I was ready to write a series then, so I *CONTENT REMOVED FOR SPOILERS* The Tomb never went out of print, and through the years it amassed a huge following. So after 14 years of pleas from readers, I wrote a second Repairman Jack novel. Legacies was so much fun I had to do another, and it’s been a book a year since then."

so, essentially, all 15 of the Repairman Jack novels squeeze into the time between The Tomb and Nightworld.  That created some problems, as Nightworld was set in the 80s, and more recent RJ novels were obviously set in modern times.  Therefore, Wilson has revised and is in the process of re-releasing Reborn, Reprisal, and Nightworld in order to make the dates flow properly.  With 14 of the 15 RJ novels published, (last one is due out in 2011), and the revised versions of Reprisal and Nightworld still forthcoming, I can't really explain how excited I am.  I know how the whole series ends, but at the same time, I don't.  Somewhere, I've seen Wilson describe this set of works as a "river" of stories.  You have no idea how they're interconnected, but as you go with the flow bits come up from the depths and tie together, and all of a sudden it all makes sense.

I'm totally not doing this series justice, and I haven't even started in on Wilson's other works, but I feel that I've gushed long enough.  This is a must-read series for anyone who enjoys fiction that makes you think a little bit (Jared, Dick, I'm talking to both of you here.  read these).  If you want, you can only read the Repairman Jack stories, starting with The Tomb, but I'd really suggest reading them in this order:
(+ indicates adversary cycle, and * indicates Repairman Jack)

The Keep+
Reborn+
The Tomb+*
Legacies*
Conspiracies*
All the Rage*
Hosts*
The Haunted Air*
Gateways*
Crisscross*
Infernal*
Harbingers
Bloodline*
By the Sword*
Ground Zero*
The Touch+
Reprisal+
Fatal Error*
The Dark at the End* (not yet published)
NIGHTWORLD+*(wait for the revised version)

Fatal Error was published this past October.  In the midst of reading it, I honestly sat the book down, my jaw on the floor, and just marveled at the artistry that Wilson has used to sew all of these tangents together.  Seriously a master of the craft.