I know I love a book when as soon as I finish reading it I go online to Google when the sequel is coming out. Sentinel Mage is one of these books. Unfortunately, there are no release dates available for the next two books in the trilogy so I am going to assume Emily Gee is working on the #2 now and hopefully I will have the sequel in my hand in a year.
Innis is a shape shifter living in the world of Seven Kingdoms. A curse has awoken in the land turning humans into blood-thirsty creatures. Innis is part of the elite group of mages sent to stop the curse. The only man who can stop the curse is Prince Harkeld. As the group travels across the Seven Kingdoms in their quest, they are stalked by assassins, zombies and soldiers sent by a power hungry King. The biggest challenge comes as always from within as Prince Harkeld's beliefs and prejudices are challenged and he is forced to look beyond the lies he had been living with. Innis shape shifts into a man to protect and help Harkeld as they are all pushed beyond their mental and physical limits.
I have been a fan of Emily Gee ever since I read Thief With No Shadow and The Laurentine Spy. Her originality surprised me then and it surprised me again with these two books. She has managed to create characters that are real and fascinating. Innis is a great mixture of bravado and confusion. Harkeld's struggle to accept the strange turn his life takes is heart breaking to read. The book deals with some very serious issues as it plays out its fantastical setting. Power, corruption, prejudice, and identity all come to head in this short novel leaving one anxiously waiting for book number two.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Blackveil: Book Four of the Green Rider by Kristen Britain [spoilers]
I can't make up my mind about whether I hated or loved this book. I was depressed for a couple of weeks after reading it so its safe to say it left a mark on me. This should mean it is a good book since it affected me to that level but i truly hated the direction it took and the reason for that is what happened to Zachary in it. To me it felt like Kristen Britain broke his character and it broke my heart cause I truly love Zachary. The aftermath of his rape left me feeling the way I did after reading the rape scene in Patricia Briggs Mercedes Thompson story. Unfortunately Briggs wasn't able to recover her series to my satisfaction after that. Maybe Kristen Britain can.
To summarize this is what happens in Blackveil: Zachary gets shot by a poisoned arrow and goes into some kind of coma. While he is in a coma his advisors and that awful, awful creature Estora marries him and then goes on and has sex with him while he is in a painful haze and dreaming of Karigan. Another word for taking advantage of someone like that is rape. He wakes up and fires his advisors but agrees to stay married.
There are so many things that went wrong there.
1- The rape was horrific. I came very close to crying reading it. It was just so sad. He just lies there totally helpless while he is completely betrayed by his advisers and taken advantage of.
2- Estora: I used to feel sorry for her but this just turned her into a total villain. I don't care how much she loves him. Anyone who takes advantage of a comatose person like that is a hateful, hateful person. If that was Britain's goal - to transform Estora into a villain then bravo! But, if she expects us to just let her be the nice and just and perfect little Queen in the next book I am not going to continue reading the series. Also, she can't continue on this line of how Estora was trapped into this as a noblewoman with no other options. She had options. She did not avail herself of any of her options because she is a power hungry selfish person. She trapped him. Britain as the author was more than capable of creating alternatives. But she didn't and instead we are stuck with a broken Zachary stuck in a marriage without his consent.
3- Mapstone: needs to stop babying Zachary. Yes, she raised him but come on! he is thirty something. Her supporting Estora and Estora's actions also disgusted me. How can you be okay with that happening to someone you think of as your little brother. I am starting to hate Mapstone more and more and she is supposedly one of the good guys.
4- Zachary needs to develop more of a spine as a King. He didn't seem to care that he was raped -unless he is biding time for the whole possible pregnancy to be proven impossible - it seems so depressing to see him be completely all right with this strange marriage. I am hoping this awful thing that happened to him will make him realize more about his own wishes and future and maybe he can act towards those instead of letting awful things happen to him and not doing anything about them. There needs to be some kind of emotional resolution to this. Nothing was offered in Blackveil. I hate Estora enough that I would completely accept it if he kills her. It would make me like him more.
5- Karigan and Zachary - if Zachary is just gonna go with this screwed up marriage that pretty much destroys any hope of happy future for Karigan. It seemed like with all the other blossoming romances it was established that only Zachary will do for Karigan and if he doesn't change course the future seems very unhappy for our Karigan. I am unsure if I want to read 3/4 more books with Karigan yearning for something that she will never ever have. By breaking Zachary like that she destroyed so much more than just him. Britain also ruined any happiness for Karigan and i am unsure i want to keep reading more books about her with no future.
6- If Karigan is to have some semblance of a happy ending Estora dying seems like a natural solution to this screwed up situation that Britain has created. If she dies though her raping Zachary would be a needless plot twist -Zachary did not need to be broken for her to die.Plus she would be like a martyr and probably make Karigan look bad. And it would be such a cheat of a move for Britain to make.
Either way the future of the series is pretty despondent. The strange cliff hanger ending and the fact that we have to wait another 4-5 years for the next books doubles nay quadruples that despondency. Moreover, this book only brought forth so many changes that the series is evolving into something very different from the first three books. The added perspectives and adventures of Amberhill and Colin seem forced and unnecessary and not at all interesting. I wish she would just keep telling Karigan's story as the first couple of books did without forcing other story lines that are way too complex and added way too late in the series.
For such a long book it seemed the characters and the relationships went backwards instead of forward. The lack of a resolution at the end just adds on to that. I am looking forward to the rest of the series because I'd like to trust her to resolve the chaos that she created in this book. Book 1-3 were quite good so i guess she was due to screw up one. I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she knows what she is doing as I keep my fingers crossed. This is her world after all and next 4/5 years will hopefully dissipate the bitter taste Blackveil left in my mouth so I can read her next volume with a much more open mind.
To summarize this is what happens in Blackveil: Zachary gets shot by a poisoned arrow and goes into some kind of coma. While he is in a coma his advisors and that awful, awful creature Estora marries him and then goes on and has sex with him while he is in a painful haze and dreaming of Karigan. Another word for taking advantage of someone like that is rape. He wakes up and fires his advisors but agrees to stay married.
There are so many things that went wrong there.
1- The rape was horrific. I came very close to crying reading it. It was just so sad. He just lies there totally helpless while he is completely betrayed by his advisers and taken advantage of.
2- Estora: I used to feel sorry for her but this just turned her into a total villain. I don't care how much she loves him. Anyone who takes advantage of a comatose person like that is a hateful, hateful person. If that was Britain's goal - to transform Estora into a villain then bravo! But, if she expects us to just let her be the nice and just and perfect little Queen in the next book I am not going to continue reading the series. Also, she can't continue on this line of how Estora was trapped into this as a noblewoman with no other options. She had options. She did not avail herself of any of her options because she is a power hungry selfish person. She trapped him. Britain as the author was more than capable of creating alternatives. But she didn't and instead we are stuck with a broken Zachary stuck in a marriage without his consent.
3- Mapstone: needs to stop babying Zachary. Yes, she raised him but come on! he is thirty something. Her supporting Estora and Estora's actions also disgusted me. How can you be okay with that happening to someone you think of as your little brother. I am starting to hate Mapstone more and more and she is supposedly one of the good guys.
4- Zachary needs to develop more of a spine as a King. He didn't seem to care that he was raped -unless he is biding time for the whole possible pregnancy to be proven impossible - it seems so depressing to see him be completely all right with this strange marriage. I am hoping this awful thing that happened to him will make him realize more about his own wishes and future and maybe he can act towards those instead of letting awful things happen to him and not doing anything about them. There needs to be some kind of emotional resolution to this. Nothing was offered in Blackveil. I hate Estora enough that I would completely accept it if he kills her. It would make me like him more.
5- Karigan and Zachary - if Zachary is just gonna go with this screwed up marriage that pretty much destroys any hope of happy future for Karigan. It seemed like with all the other blossoming romances it was established that only Zachary will do for Karigan and if he doesn't change course the future seems very unhappy for our Karigan. I am unsure if I want to read 3/4 more books with Karigan yearning for something that she will never ever have. By breaking Zachary like that she destroyed so much more than just him. Britain also ruined any happiness for Karigan and i am unsure i want to keep reading more books about her with no future.
6- If Karigan is to have some semblance of a happy ending Estora dying seems like a natural solution to this screwed up situation that Britain has created. If she dies though her raping Zachary would be a needless plot twist -Zachary did not need to be broken for her to die.Plus she would be like a martyr and probably make Karigan look bad. And it would be such a cheat of a move for Britain to make.
Either way the future of the series is pretty despondent. The strange cliff hanger ending and the fact that we have to wait another 4-5 years for the next books doubles nay quadruples that despondency. Moreover, this book only brought forth so many changes that the series is evolving into something very different from the first three books. The added perspectives and adventures of Amberhill and Colin seem forced and unnecessary and not at all interesting. I wish she would just keep telling Karigan's story as the first couple of books did without forcing other story lines that are way too complex and added way too late in the series.
For such a long book it seemed the characters and the relationships went backwards instead of forward. The lack of a resolution at the end just adds on to that. I am looking forward to the rest of the series because I'd like to trust her to resolve the chaos that she created in this book. Book 1-3 were quite good so i guess she was due to screw up one. I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she knows what she is doing as I keep my fingers crossed. This is her world after all and next 4/5 years will hopefully dissipate the bitter taste Blackveil left in my mouth so I can read her next volume with a much more open mind.
Smilla's sense of snow by Peter Hoeg
After finishing the third book of the millennium trilogy I found myself bereft of Scandinavian literature. With Salander Larsson has written one of the most mesmerizing fictional characters. In Smilla Jasperson I believe I have finally found her match.
Smilla in her own way is as unique and as intriguing and tough as nails as Salander. She is a loner, a world renowned glaciologist, an heiress, a admirer of Newton, an anarchist, a rebellious daughter, an immigrant, an outcast by choice, sometimes unlikable but always a very stubborn and fascinating heroine. The book starts off with the death of Isaiah, the child of a neighbor. Isaiah was someone she knew and loved. It was someone who pushed his way into her life and she let him in even though she liked to be alone. He was someone who understood her and she had very few people like that in her life. The police determines the cause of death to be an accident. However, Smilla with her understanding of snow and ice discovers clues that say otherwise. Her search for answers leads her to a complex corporate conspiracy. In telling the story of her search for truth and justice Hoeg explores the history of Greenland and Denmark and its affects on the population of both countries. Smilla with a foot in both cultures - her father is Danish and mother is Greenlandic Inuit - is the perfect character for that as she pushes beyond her physical and mental limits.
While both books share certain themes Smilla is a much more introspective and philosophical character than Salander. Her pondering about life, post-colonial culture, ice, and Europe provide a weight to the narrative that left more of a mark on me than the millennium books. For me, Smilla is a thinking man's/woman's Salander and while some might find that boring, I thoroughly enjoyed reading her story. I am not at all surprised it was Time Magazine's book of the year. Hoeg's prose brings to the fore the beauty of snow and ice covered landscapes of Scandinavia. I expected the unresolved ending as it only adds to the story. This is not a book to have a HEA ending or a villain at the end that most mysteries are known to produce. It resonates more as a piece of literature because it is much more than mystery. The mystery aspect only serves as a vehicle to explore the other themes of loss, identity, love, culture, colonialism and society of today surrounding the caustic and complex character of Smilla Jasperson.
Smilla in her own way is as unique and as intriguing and tough as nails as Salander. She is a loner, a world renowned glaciologist, an heiress, a admirer of Newton, an anarchist, a rebellious daughter, an immigrant, an outcast by choice, sometimes unlikable but always a very stubborn and fascinating heroine. The book starts off with the death of Isaiah, the child of a neighbor. Isaiah was someone she knew and loved. It was someone who pushed his way into her life and she let him in even though she liked to be alone. He was someone who understood her and she had very few people like that in her life. The police determines the cause of death to be an accident. However, Smilla with her understanding of snow and ice discovers clues that say otherwise. Her search for answers leads her to a complex corporate conspiracy. In telling the story of her search for truth and justice Hoeg explores the history of Greenland and Denmark and its affects on the population of both countries. Smilla with a foot in both cultures - her father is Danish and mother is Greenlandic Inuit - is the perfect character for that as she pushes beyond her physical and mental limits.
While both books share certain themes Smilla is a much more introspective and philosophical character than Salander. Her pondering about life, post-colonial culture, ice, and Europe provide a weight to the narrative that left more of a mark on me than the millennium books. For me, Smilla is a thinking man's/woman's Salander and while some might find that boring, I thoroughly enjoyed reading her story. I am not at all surprised it was Time Magazine's book of the year. Hoeg's prose brings to the fore the beauty of snow and ice covered landscapes of Scandinavia. I expected the unresolved ending as it only adds to the story. This is not a book to have a HEA ending or a villain at the end that most mysteries are known to produce. It resonates more as a piece of literature because it is much more than mystery. The mystery aspect only serves as a vehicle to explore the other themes of loss, identity, love, culture, colonialism and society of today surrounding the caustic and complex character of Smilla Jasperson.
Pale Demon by Kim Harrison
For most series i start losing interest by book six. Authors tend to reach a point where they stall to fill the quota and to milk the popularity of the series for all that it is worth. Hollows was turning into one of these series. All the action, all the drama seemed to be the repetition of the same conflicts as previous books. In short, everything in the past couple of books was stagnant and I was getting bored! Pale Demon however (at least for me) changed all that.
I read it in one sitting. There was never any question of me taking a break to eat or drink, i literally could not put it down. The best part from the beginning was the redemption of the character of Trent. I have always felt that Trent, with his shifting loyalties and ambiguous morality is so interesting that he should be one of the more important characters. He is such a perfect companion for Rachel (romantic or otherwise) as she herself struggles to find the gray between white and black. The fact that he is pretty hot and Rachel drools a little every time she sees him suggests so much potential there for that relationship.
In this book we finally get a chance to explore some of that potential. Rachel, Trent, Ivy and Jenks decide to go on a road trip. Rachel has to attend the big Witch pow wow and Trent is assumed to be on some kind of elf quest. Trent being Trent will not say what the quest really entails. As predicted bickering ensues and that part is quite entertaining. I don't think I'll ever get sick of Jenk's tinkerbell inspired swearing. Pierce drops by and and so does a very interesting demon whose appearance provides some insight into Rachel's powers and potential as well as Newt's sordid past. Al as always provides a nice change from the witchy politics and Pierce's opining. Pierce as always says opine one too many times. Kim, i beg of you! please, give him a new word to use.
What i loved about this book the most is the sheer amount of progress that is made for all characters. Finally, i feel that the series is going somewhere. So many twists and revelations make it so more plot development occurs in this one book than in the last three combined. Trent overload also helps since i always felt that he was such a good character and Harrison was wasting him by not involving him more in the series. Some doors are closed (finally!) and a few are opened in the cliffhanger end to the book. Rachel is left with a very complicated choice to make at the end. Waiting a whole year to find out what she is going to do is going to be hard but i guess that is the mark of a good book. I finished reading it with a desperate need for more. The last couple of chapters left a smile on my face. My mouth hurt after a week of dreamily grinning about the kiss that i had been waiting for since book one. Thank you so much for that Kim! Can't wait for Feb 2012!
I read it in one sitting. There was never any question of me taking a break to eat or drink, i literally could not put it down. The best part from the beginning was the redemption of the character of Trent. I have always felt that Trent, with his shifting loyalties and ambiguous morality is so interesting that he should be one of the more important characters. He is such a perfect companion for Rachel (romantic or otherwise) as she herself struggles to find the gray between white and black. The fact that he is pretty hot and Rachel drools a little every time she sees him suggests so much potential there for that relationship.
In this book we finally get a chance to explore some of that potential. Rachel, Trent, Ivy and Jenks decide to go on a road trip. Rachel has to attend the big Witch pow wow and Trent is assumed to be on some kind of elf quest. Trent being Trent will not say what the quest really entails. As predicted bickering ensues and that part is quite entertaining. I don't think I'll ever get sick of Jenk's tinkerbell inspired swearing. Pierce drops by and and so does a very interesting demon whose appearance provides some insight into Rachel's powers and potential as well as Newt's sordid past. Al as always provides a nice change from the witchy politics and Pierce's opining. Pierce as always says opine one too many times. Kim, i beg of you! please, give him a new word to use.
What i loved about this book the most is the sheer amount of progress that is made for all characters. Finally, i feel that the series is going somewhere. So many twists and revelations make it so more plot development occurs in this one book than in the last three combined. Trent overload also helps since i always felt that he was such a good character and Harrison was wasting him by not involving him more in the series. Some doors are closed (finally!) and a few are opened in the cliffhanger end to the book. Rachel is left with a very complicated choice to make at the end. Waiting a whole year to find out what she is going to do is going to be hard but i guess that is the mark of a good book. I finished reading it with a desperate need for more. The last couple of chapters left a smile on my face. My mouth hurt after a week of dreamily grinning about the kiss that i had been waiting for since book one. Thank you so much for that Kim! Can't wait for Feb 2012!
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