“I have found that it is the small everyday deed of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”

— Gandalf (The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien)

InCryptid Series Review

Lately I’ve been filling my book shelves with urban fantasy books and I especially like reading books in a series. The benefit to a series is that if I like the characters and the books, there are more. I don’t have to wait.

I hate waiting. :-)

I first read the “October Daye” series by Seanan McGuire and when I ran out of books, I discovered her “Incryptid” series.

The Twenty-Sided Sorceress Review

I’ve been reading the fast and fun series by Annie Bellet called The Twenty-Sided Sorceress series. I have read the first five books of this seven-book series. They are:

• Justice Calling
• Murder of Crows
• Pack of Lies
• Hunting Season
• Heartache

This is, as I said, a fast and fun series about a sorceress who is also a gamer. She plays Dungeons and Dragons, video games, and likes pop culture, especially nerdy pop culture. This means there are a lot of quips and quotes from a multitude of fantasy and scifi works. Fans, like myself, will enjoy the references and the apparent in jokes that she regularly works into the stories.

When I first started reading this book I was pleased to see that it wasn’t just another cookie cutter high fantasy novel. The characters are interesting and the world is different enough from our world or other fantasy worlds to be engaging, but not so much that I was confused. It starts out like a coming of age story, with the main character, Maia, traveling with a hired killer called a kishion. She is either on the run or in hiding—it’s not clear which and has to make her way across some inhospitable lands to save herself and her kingdom.

I received a free copy of this book and it looked interesting. But this book is really more of a first draft than a final manuscript, no matter that it’s published and sold on Amazon. I have been in several writing groups for years and that experience combined with my own writing efforts makes me think that this story needs more work before it’s ready to be read.

Some of the problems I had with it include:

It’s written in first-person with mostly I-subject sentences. In other words, most of the sentences read:

I love to read, I always have. But as I get older I find myself more and more willing to stop reading mid-stream. Ironically, eBooks have made this even more likely, as I stop reading something, thinking “I’ll come back to this…” all the while knowing that, well, I won’t. Devil’s Punch (2012) by Ann Aguirre Thus we come to today. I finished Devil’s Punch by Ann Aguirre. This was a good book. It’s the third I’ve read about Corine Solomon and I’m enjoying the ride. Corine is a woman who can sense the history, especially strong emotional history, of items when she touches them. In recent books she has undergone some changes to become more of a witch, but as is the course of many urban fantasies, she has to make choices that on the face of them are evil and so has been branded a black witch by most other practitioners. When her best friend is stolen by demons and taken to hell (Sheol), Corine puts her life and soul on the line to go save her. That is some friend! Of course, in the course of getting to hell and saving herself and her friends, she has to make more gray choices. There were bits in the middle that were confusing, especially as Corine is slowly being subsumed by a demon queen who has been a parasite on the Solomon line for hundreds of years. But right before the point where I would get so confused about who was in control of Corine’s body, it would be made clear again. The action was fast paced and fun, and the story didn’t stick to standard tropes in fantasy, so I was surprised at how she ended it. The story starts in Mexico, moves to Sheol, and ends up in London. And Corine saves her friend, but with a large cost to herself and her soul. After the break are two more reviews of a book I’m reading and another that I am starting to read. Warrior (2010) by Zoe Archer This was the book I interrupted to start reading Devil’s Punch. I got through 49% before my library copy expired, and I was almost relieved that that happened, as then I wouldn’t have to slog through it any more. The problem with this book was not that it was bad — it wasn’t. It is a mystery set in the early 1900s or late 1800s about a mystical group that is dedicated to protecting the world’s natural magical wonders from falling into the wrong hands. The problem was it felt like it was trying to be two types of book at the same time:

“Brave” (2012) Starring Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly and Emma Thompson Directed by Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, and Steve Purcell (Buy soundtrack) Brave is going to have a special place in my heart because it’s the first feature film my son watched all the way through in the theater. (I don’t count Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull because he was only a few months old at the time, and slept through the whole movie.) He and his father went to see Cars 2 last summer, but only made it through about 30 minutes before they had to leave. So, in order to be sure that we got to see the whole movie, we resorted to bribery (if he sat through the whole movie he got to go to Barnes and Noble afterwards) and chocolate raisins. And that worked. I’m not sure how much he really got out of the movie, but he did sit and watch the whole thing, only asking interminably if it was over yet during the credits. And I think he even liked it. Brave is a fairy tale, but not an insipid or sexist one. It is the story of a young girl trying to find her place in the world, which was not the same place her mother wanted her to enter. This is a common theme for both girls and boys — their choices might not be the same as their parents’ and they have to figure out a way to reconcile it. I particularly liked that this was a story about a girl. Pixar has been fairly boy-focused up until now, and I admit I wasn’t confident that they would be able to pull off a female main character, without going the Disney route of “reading” to prove she’s smart (Beauty and the Beast), annoyingly jealous and bitchy to prove she’s tough (Tinkerbell), or dependent on a big strong man (Snow White, Cinderella, Jasmine, etc.). So I went in expecting a standard girl-wants-to-be-boy type plot. But I was pleasantly surprised. For one thing, Merida doesn’t necessarily want to be a boy, she just wants more choices then her role as princess of the realm afford her. As the first born, her father dotes on her, and teaches her archery and how to ride and she uses this to her advantage when the other clans come trying to win her hand in marriage. If you are familiar with the record Free to Be You & Me you might remember the story of Atalanta. In it, Atalanta, the daughter of the king, is to be married off to the man who wins a footrace. She trains for the race as well, and on the day, is able to beat all but one of the contenders — coming in first place tied with Young John. She asks to be given the chance to choose her own fate and Young John asks to be given the chance to get to know her and become her friend, possibly winning her hand in marriage, or possibly not. The plot to Brave is similar to that of Atalanta, and Merida would like to change her fate the way that Atalanta changed hers. But in order to change her fate, Merida must come to grips with her relationship with her mother. She hopes that if she can change her mother, that will change her fate. But changing her mom into a bear is not exactly what she had in mind, especially as her father is the “bear king” who kills every bear he finds. I enjoyed the scenes of her mother trying to act like a proper woman while a bear. The flouncing walk and attempts to use silverware made from tree branches are particularly funny. But there are other humorous touches. The triplets are hilarious whether they are three ginger boys making trouble or as three bear cubs, as is Billy Connolly playing her father. There are some scary scenes in Brave. Mor’do, the evil bear, was scary, but Merida and then her mother are both willing to stand up to him, and it’s not surprising that a bear would attack. But overall, it’s not any scarier than the other Pixar films and in many ways is less scary than Charles Muntz (“Up”) and much less disturbing than Lotso (“Toy Story 3”). If you’ve read any other reviews, you know how beautiful this movie is. There are scenes that look almost photo realistic. Merida’s hair is wiry and wild and amazing on screen. And even her riding looks realistic (although I don’t know anyone who could stay on his back through some of the jumps he does). Scotland got some great PR in this movie. I loved Brave, and I look forward to when it comes out on BluRay, so that I can watch it with my son over and over again. It was a fun story and a great message about choosing your own fate, not blindly going along with what other people want for you. And this message is true for girls and boys.