Latest reads
Feb. 21st, 2006 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperFirst, some picoreviews!
Moon Called, by Patricia Briggs--unusual urban fantasy with werewolves, unusual not in the treatment of the weres but rather in the directions the plot takes the reader. Some bits that felt shaky, but otherwise a decent read, and I'll probably be picking up the inevitable sequel.
Survivor in Death, by J.D. Robbs--yet another in the long-running In Death series, but if you've made it this far in, you'll find a few nice surprising touches in the ongoing adventures of Eve, Roarke, and all their supporting cast. Nothing to hugely break the formula that has made this series such a success, but the little surprises were nice.
Spoilers behind the cuts!
Patricia Briggs' Moon Called was an odd read for me, especially reading it right on the heels of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rachelcaine's Ill Wind. In some ways I found it to be evidence that as with many fiction genres, urban fantasy really is rather formulaic... and in others, I found it a fairly interesting little book, not because it did anything hugely new or unusual with urban fantasy tropes, but more because of certain plot choices that caught me off guard and made me genuinely unable to predict how the book would go.
The first of these was the introduction to the heroine of a young man on the run, the evident victim of a plot to make people into weres against their will. He's been made a brand new werewolf and has no idea how to control his beast, and now he's also wanted for the murder of his girlfriend (which naturally he did not commit). In many books I would expect this story to wind up being all about the effort to set this kid's life right, let him learn how to control his new furry self that pops up every month, etc., etc.
What does Briggs do, fairly early on into the book? She KILLS OFF THE KID. That by itself was enough to make me go "whoa". Then later on, we discover that the character being set up as the evident near-at-hand bad guy (as opposed to the mastermind that's off in Chicago) is actually not the bad guy at all... and a scene where I was convinced that our heroine Mercy was going to get her ass kicked actually turned into a parlay as she learns the truth from this guy and his cronies. By that point, I was well and thoroughly into the land of "okay, I have no clue where this is going at this point, cool". And I appreciated that. This kind of thing is something I've seen in Briggs' earlier fantasy novels, and it's put to good effect here.
On the other hand, there are bits of the overall setup that I don't quite care for. When I learned in the first chapter that the heroine was a mechanic, hard on the heels of reading a different book with a heroine who was into fast cars (Ill Wind), and still not terribly long after reading yet another book with a heroine who's a mechanic (Urban Shaman), I couldn't suppress a reaction of wondering when the hell "chicks who like cars" became the hot thing in urban fantasy. ;) Now I know the genre isn't suddenly swimming in such characters, but having read three urban fantasies fairly close together where this was a common trait of all the heroines was still a bit much for me, and kept me from quite getting into the heroine's head as much as I might otherwise have done.
Nor am I entirely sure that the notion of Mercy as a "walker" (a shifter who, unlike a werewolf, can turn instantaneously and without pain into her beast, in this case, a coyote) entirely worked for me. I appreciate the usage of a Native American concept here, but on the other hand, giving Mercy the backstory of being raised by a werewolf pack sometimes struck me as a too-convenient way of getting her werewolf connections without going to the trouble of making her a werewolf. Though I do have to giggle at the thought that this does give the whole idea of "raised by wolves" an entirely new spin. ;)
And I'm similarly ambivalent about the obligatory triangle set up between Mercy, Samuel, and Adam. Adam is pretty much your garden-variety alpha werewolf, though it was kind of cool to see him have a teenage (human) daughter. Samuel as a character had more potential interest, since he not only has a lot of backstory with Mercy, he's also got the unusual conflict of being a werewolf who's also a doctor. Both men like Mercy, but I didn't quite like the way that this was dealt with towards the end of the story--i.e., Adam taking Mercy out to dinner, then bringing her home only to discover that Samuel is suddenly her roommate, and he's also being snarky about Adam's presence on the porch. That put a bit of a forced ending on that whole plotline, and didn't quite feel smooth enough to set up further romantic tensions between these three for me later.
Yet Briggs' prose is tight, and she does have a deft hand in sketching out her world without hitting you over the head with certain concepts. I like how she chose to handle the supernaturals in her world coming out to humanity at large, and I liked that the big meeting with the local vampires didn't degenerate into a big blood-and-sex-fest--this is what I get for being put off by one too many Anita Blakes, I think.
So, all in all, a slightly shaky but otherwise fun start to a new series. And as mentioned, I will probably be buying the obligatory sequel!
I will be the first person to admit that J.D. Robb's <Foo> in Death books are pretty formulaic. Tough cop chick kicks ass solving a case, angsts about her tortured childhood on the side, and has frequent hot sex with her devilishly sexy husband who seems to own seven-eighths of the planet. That said, it's a good formula, and by and large ol' J.D./Nora does a decent job keeping at it. And when she can actually surprise me twenty books into the series, I have to give her credit for that.
Survivor in Death is all about a family murdered in their beds in a military-style precise assassination, and Eve and Peabody and Roarke working on figuring out why in the world a family with no apparent trouble should be so slaughtered. But this time around there's an added wrinkle--one of the children actually survives, because she's having a friend sleeping over and the friend is the child murdered in her bed, because little Nixie got up in the middle of the night to get herself a drink in the kitchen. And conveniently avoided being found by the killers.
It's not surprising that the kid winds up in Eve's custody, since Eve is the one who finds her and Nixie latches onto her like a remora, and with her own traumatic memories of going through the system Eve isn't about to surrender the poor thing to the same fate. Nor is it surprising that both Eve and Roarke find a lot of sympathy for what Nixie is going through and even are tempted to adopt her as their own, when they find out that Nixie's only remaining relatives are either totally unsuitable or totally unwilling to take her... and that the parents of the girl who was murdered in Nixie's stead can't stand to take her because of the reminder of their own loss.
The part that surprised me is that Eve and Roarke didn't actually adopt her. I was totally expecting it, given the ongoing mileage with Eve struggling to figure out how to deal with a scary creature like a nine-year-old girl and starting to like her despite herself, and given how Roarke tries to help by hunting down the one relation Nixie has to see if he can convince her to take Nixie on. That Eve and Roarke give it hard consideration and angst at one another about it--and then do not actually do it, but rather arrange to turn her over to trusted friends who have already adopted a boy and are hopeful to add a girl to their family--really kind of pleased me. It made Eve and Roarke stronger characters for me in a way, since it shows me that here are two people who both really want children and yet are very conscious of the fact that neither of them are prepared to deal with one, especially one that's already nine years old. It's a mature decision, and I approve of it--because no matter how much they liked Nixie, it would have been the wrong thing to do to try to keep her if they weren't really ready to be parents.
So yeah, kudos to that.
Aside from that, there wasn't too much terribly new or surprising to the formula. Plenty of little touches I liked, like Roarke being so wrapped up in his hacking work that he starts swearing in Gaelic, and Eve and Summerset actually being vaguely nice to one another for once, and Eve actually screwing up on the job and getting into a bit of trouble over it. But these were all variations on familiar and comfortable territory.
I'd still like to see something really new and unusual happen to this cast--something that oh, say, I dunno, puts Roarke in extreme danger. The man's richer than Croesus, we got that part already, it'd be nice to see him rattled on his lofty perch every so often. And it'd be nice to see some resolution come to Eve for all of the angst in her past. Which I'm hoping will come with Memory in Death.
I'll keep reading until then, at the very least! Like I said... formulaic... but it's a good, fun formula, and as long as it entertains, that's all I ask. ^_^
Moon Called, by Patricia Briggs--unusual urban fantasy with werewolves, unusual not in the treatment of the weres but rather in the directions the plot takes the reader. Some bits that felt shaky, but otherwise a decent read, and I'll probably be picking up the inevitable sequel.
Survivor in Death, by J.D. Robbs--yet another in the long-running In Death series, but if you've made it this far in, you'll find a few nice surprising touches in the ongoing adventures of Eve, Roarke, and all their supporting cast. Nothing to hugely break the formula that has made this series such a success, but the little surprises were nice.
Spoilers behind the cuts!
Patricia Briggs' Moon Called was an odd read for me, especially reading it right on the heels of
rachelcaine's Ill Wind. In some ways I found it to be evidence that as with many fiction genres, urban fantasy really is rather formulaic... and in others, I found it a fairly interesting little book, not because it did anything hugely new or unusual with urban fantasy tropes, but more because of certain plot choices that caught me off guard and made me genuinely unable to predict how the book would go.The first of these was the introduction to the heroine of a young man on the run, the evident victim of a plot to make people into weres against their will. He's been made a brand new werewolf and has no idea how to control his beast, and now he's also wanted for the murder of his girlfriend (which naturally he did not commit). In many books I would expect this story to wind up being all about the effort to set this kid's life right, let him learn how to control his new furry self that pops up every month, etc., etc.
What does Briggs do, fairly early on into the book? She KILLS OFF THE KID. That by itself was enough to make me go "whoa". Then later on, we discover that the character being set up as the evident near-at-hand bad guy (as opposed to the mastermind that's off in Chicago) is actually not the bad guy at all... and a scene where I was convinced that our heroine Mercy was going to get her ass kicked actually turned into a parlay as she learns the truth from this guy and his cronies. By that point, I was well and thoroughly into the land of "okay, I have no clue where this is going at this point, cool". And I appreciated that. This kind of thing is something I've seen in Briggs' earlier fantasy novels, and it's put to good effect here.
On the other hand, there are bits of the overall setup that I don't quite care for. When I learned in the first chapter that the heroine was a mechanic, hard on the heels of reading a different book with a heroine who was into fast cars (Ill Wind), and still not terribly long after reading yet another book with a heroine who's a mechanic (Urban Shaman), I couldn't suppress a reaction of wondering when the hell "chicks who like cars" became the hot thing in urban fantasy. ;) Now I know the genre isn't suddenly swimming in such characters, but having read three urban fantasies fairly close together where this was a common trait of all the heroines was still a bit much for me, and kept me from quite getting into the heroine's head as much as I might otherwise have done.
Nor am I entirely sure that the notion of Mercy as a "walker" (a shifter who, unlike a werewolf, can turn instantaneously and without pain into her beast, in this case, a coyote) entirely worked for me. I appreciate the usage of a Native American concept here, but on the other hand, giving Mercy the backstory of being raised by a werewolf pack sometimes struck me as a too-convenient way of getting her werewolf connections without going to the trouble of making her a werewolf. Though I do have to giggle at the thought that this does give the whole idea of "raised by wolves" an entirely new spin. ;)
And I'm similarly ambivalent about the obligatory triangle set up between Mercy, Samuel, and Adam. Adam is pretty much your garden-variety alpha werewolf, though it was kind of cool to see him have a teenage (human) daughter. Samuel as a character had more potential interest, since he not only has a lot of backstory with Mercy, he's also got the unusual conflict of being a werewolf who's also a doctor. Both men like Mercy, but I didn't quite like the way that this was dealt with towards the end of the story--i.e., Adam taking Mercy out to dinner, then bringing her home only to discover that Samuel is suddenly her roommate, and he's also being snarky about Adam's presence on the porch. That put a bit of a forced ending on that whole plotline, and didn't quite feel smooth enough to set up further romantic tensions between these three for me later.
Yet Briggs' prose is tight, and she does have a deft hand in sketching out her world without hitting you over the head with certain concepts. I like how she chose to handle the supernaturals in her world coming out to humanity at large, and I liked that the big meeting with the local vampires didn't degenerate into a big blood-and-sex-fest--this is what I get for being put off by one too many Anita Blakes, I think.
So, all in all, a slightly shaky but otherwise fun start to a new series. And as mentioned, I will probably be buying the obligatory sequel!
I will be the first person to admit that J.D. Robb's <Foo> in Death books are pretty formulaic. Tough cop chick kicks ass solving a case, angsts about her tortured childhood on the side, and has frequent hot sex with her devilishly sexy husband who seems to own seven-eighths of the planet. That said, it's a good formula, and by and large ol' J.D./Nora does a decent job keeping at it. And when she can actually surprise me twenty books into the series, I have to give her credit for that.
Survivor in Death is all about a family murdered in their beds in a military-style precise assassination, and Eve and Peabody and Roarke working on figuring out why in the world a family with no apparent trouble should be so slaughtered. But this time around there's an added wrinkle--one of the children actually survives, because she's having a friend sleeping over and the friend is the child murdered in her bed, because little Nixie got up in the middle of the night to get herself a drink in the kitchen. And conveniently avoided being found by the killers.
It's not surprising that the kid winds up in Eve's custody, since Eve is the one who finds her and Nixie latches onto her like a remora, and with her own traumatic memories of going through the system Eve isn't about to surrender the poor thing to the same fate. Nor is it surprising that both Eve and Roarke find a lot of sympathy for what Nixie is going through and even are tempted to adopt her as their own, when they find out that Nixie's only remaining relatives are either totally unsuitable or totally unwilling to take her... and that the parents of the girl who was murdered in Nixie's stead can't stand to take her because of the reminder of their own loss.
The part that surprised me is that Eve and Roarke didn't actually adopt her. I was totally expecting it, given the ongoing mileage with Eve struggling to figure out how to deal with a scary creature like a nine-year-old girl and starting to like her despite herself, and given how Roarke tries to help by hunting down the one relation Nixie has to see if he can convince her to take Nixie on. That Eve and Roarke give it hard consideration and angst at one another about it--and then do not actually do it, but rather arrange to turn her over to trusted friends who have already adopted a boy and are hopeful to add a girl to their family--really kind of pleased me. It made Eve and Roarke stronger characters for me in a way, since it shows me that here are two people who both really want children and yet are very conscious of the fact that neither of them are prepared to deal with one, especially one that's already nine years old. It's a mature decision, and I approve of it--because no matter how much they liked Nixie, it would have been the wrong thing to do to try to keep her if they weren't really ready to be parents.
So yeah, kudos to that.
Aside from that, there wasn't too much terribly new or surprising to the formula. Plenty of little touches I liked, like Roarke being so wrapped up in his hacking work that he starts swearing in Gaelic, and Eve and Summerset actually being vaguely nice to one another for once, and Eve actually screwing up on the job and getting into a bit of trouble over it. But these were all variations on familiar and comfortable territory.
I'd still like to see something really new and unusual happen to this cast--something that oh, say, I dunno, puts Roarke in extreme danger. The man's richer than Croesus, we got that part already, it'd be nice to see him rattled on his lofty perch every so often. And it'd be nice to see some resolution come to Eve for all of the angst in her past. Which I'm hoping will come with Memory in Death.
I'll keep reading until then, at the very least! Like I said... formulaic... but it's a good, fun formula, and as long as it entertains, that's all I ask. ^_^
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 11:03 pm (UTC)I would pay damn good money to read a book called <Foo> in Death, actually.
:)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 11:18 pm (UTC)Foo in Death, and its scintillating sequel Bar in Death, to be followed by X, Y and so on....
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 11:19 pm (UTC)By then, Eve and Roarke are in their sixties, and they've had a passle of headstrong, tempestuous children who are excellent pickpockets AND crimefighters.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 11:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-21 11:26 pm (UTC)Also, even in her sixties, Eve has still not yet found out who's been stealing her office stash of candy!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 03:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 03:29 am (UTC)I am not far enough into Memory to see where it gets taken, but I'm hoping for a major payoff.
As for them not adopting, YEAH, I was totally with you on the thinking they would, and really not wanting them to, and being surprised and pleased that Nora didn't take the Hollywood route. Because, yeah, they are SO not ready to have kids. They're still angsty teens barely able to control their tempers, who are just fumbling their way around being in a relationship, let alone marriage.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 03:42 am (UTC)And yeah, general props to Nora for having Eve and Roarke be clueful about that. It's stuff like that that has kept me reading this series even when it is fairly formulaic by and large. I just like the characters! And this is yet another really good reason to keep me liking them. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 06:42 am (UTC)I disagree that they were ever tempted to actually adopt Nixie as their own. *grin* not hardly, esp not with Roarke's heart seizure and then Eve's terror when Eve first was going to suggest who SHOULD adopt Nixie... which was amusing, also.
I can't wait for Mavis' baby to be born. That looks to be fun. And I love how Roarke bribes Eve with candy. much fun.
I loved the gaelic swearing, especially when Eve repeats something back to him and he's all "Where on earth did you hear that!?" and she's like "....from you. About a half an hour ago." and he's very O.O *grin*
....I listen to them at work, and have several to share, i fyou like, in MP3. I love Susan Eriksen, who reads them. She's got great voices.
....and don't we all wish for a Roarke of our own? I mean, come on -- the man is DEVOTED to Eve, and has the money, intellegence, heart and wisdom to fix EVERYTHING -- as well as the wit to back off and let her do it herself when she wants to or needs to.
*grin*
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 05:54 pm (UTC)As for the temptation or lack thereof--there was a very specific scene where they brought it up, I remember it pretty clearly. I can't pull quotes from it right now because I'm at work and don't have the book handy, but Roarke has a line to Eve to the effect of being annoyed/distressed that they can't even begin to think about keeping Nixie themselves. Eve pretty readily agrees with him as I recall. So I think both of them were at least partly tempted to keep her--but that they both realized that they couldn't and that it would be a stupid idea is, as I posted, a mature decision of which I approve. If they hadn't been at all tempted by the idea, they wouldn't have even had that brief scene of angsting about it. :)
I fully expect giggle value out of Eve holding Mavis' baby and having little panic attacks of "OHMIGOD WHAT DO I DO WITH THIS CREATURE I'M GONNA BREAK IT". ^_^
Yeah, the "from you, about half an hour ago" was priceless. Hee!
Thanks for the offer of the MP3s, though I think I'll pass... mostly because I haven't ever really gotten into audio books. I have a couple, but they don't work for me as a rule. And when I'm actually listening to stuff, I try for music. It's less likely to distract me from getting work done! But I appreciate the offer. :)
I'd love to have a Roarke of my own, indeed. It helps that I TOTALLY envision him played by young Pierce Brosnan, too. ;D
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 06:59 pm (UTC)I've actually really gotten into the stories about her secondary characters: Mavis and Leonardo, Peabody and Mcnabb, even Nadine. I think those storylines are what really make the books.
I'm amused by the fact that, when I started reading these books, Eve and Roarke seemed so much older than I was. Now, I'm their age and look at my life and scratch my head :D Billionaire? At 31? Damn! LOL
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 07:11 pm (UTC)The stuff involving several of the supporting cast is part of what's kept me going through the series, yeah. I really like that Peabody's stepped up from being her aide to being her partner.
And heh! It's a bit disorienting, isn't it? I get that same slight disorientation every time I realize certain famous actors are younger than I am. ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 07:26 pm (UTC)The whole Peabody/Dallas relationship has been such a joy to watch develop. I simply adore the snarkiness that's begun to happen between them. It's been so cool to watch them grow as people and friends. The three best moments have been a) Eve telling Peabody she doesn't need an aide but could use a partner, b) Dallas' reaction after Peabody wakes up from being beaten half to death and c) Peabody reaction when Dallas finally tells her about her childhood.
Just love those ladies!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 07:28 pm (UTC)The moments you quote are great ones indeed. Seeing them working together as equals is a great deal of fun!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 08:13 pm (UTC)Latest book I picked up has been Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs. She's the forensic anthropologist that the tv series "Bones" is based on. It was a pretty good read. And as she writes in 1st person, it'd have to actually be really good, because I generally have problems reading 1st person writing.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 08:29 pm (UTC)Is Kathy's writing more entertaining than Bones? I've tried to watch that show a few times but ultimately had to bail on it, because I found it teeth-grittingly annoying. :( And it was a shame, too, because I like David Boreanaz a lot from his days as Angel.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 09:41 pm (UTC)The Brennan character in the books isn't quite as annoying as the television character. At least she wasn't in this first book. And there are quite a few differences in the two series. For one, she's a mother with a college-aged daughter. And she lives in Charlotte, NC and works frequently with the ME's office in Quebec. She has a sister and a nephew and an ex-husband, too. And a cat named Bird :)
There is no Booth character :( Instead her romantic interest is a Canadian homicide detective. If you like forensic mysteries, I'd definitely give them a try. First book is Deja Dead, though my library didn't have it, so I started with the second one.
I'll admit, I mainly watch Bones for Boreanaz. And the character of Angela, as well. She cracks me up. Dr. Goodman is quite a hoot himself.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-22 09:50 pm (UTC)I like a decent mystery in general, and I have a wide tolerance for the specific flavor of mystery. I don't go out of my way for forensics, but if the story is strong enough I'll give it a shot. :) So I'll see if I can find Deja Dead. Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 04:22 pm (UTC)I actually like that, which surprises me a bit. I'm used to reading mysteries where the author pretty much hands you the solution on a platter. This lets the reader actually think about what's going on and gives an opportunity to figure it out on your own.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 07:27 pm (UTC)