Latest read: Heat Stroke
Feb. 23rd, 2006 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperHeat Stroke, Book 2 of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rachelcaine's Weather Warden series, proved to be just as jam-packed with fun as the first book. The uber-hot David is still very hot, and for that matter, Lewis Levander Orwell is pretty hot too. I have a few quibbles with some of the mechanics of the plot, but these are small quibbles at best and did not detract much at all from my overall enjoyment of this fast, hard ride of a novel.
Let me get the quibbles out of the way first.
Did I miss something in the first book? When did it start working that if a Warden has a Djinn bound to his or her service, that Djinn's allegiance can be shifted around to whomever happens to have hold of their bottle? It puts a lot less weight on the whole "Be thou bound to my service" thing if that bond is based on the bottle rather than to the actual person who did the invocation in the first place. It turns it more into "be thou bound to whoever happens to get lucky enough to swipe this bottle". Certainly vastly more annoying to the imprisoned Djinn to be sure, if he or she doesn't even have the assurance that whoever bound them in the first place is going to actually keep control. But it makes me wonder about what measures the Wardens have in place to make sure that they don't accidentally trade Djinn back and forth.
I hope we don't get an incident in Book 3 of Jo having to save David from being enslaved by a cruel master. We've had this two books in a row now, and any more of this would push over into Repetition Land. But if it's as easy as somebody getting David's bottle away from her, I'm worried that we'll see more of this.
I'm also not entirely clear on how Patrick and Sara wound up beyond the rift, either, where Sara was somehow not an Ifrit anymore. I mean, I get the whole idea that she and Patrick had created the rift in the first place when Sara had tried to pull the same stunt that David did, and that David had accelerated it. And I get that Sara could restore some balance by making Jo human again--in fact, given that the series in fact called Weather Warden, I was fully expecting something to happen to make Jo human again so she could continue to BE a Weather Warden. I'm just not entirely sure if I bought Sara conveniently showing up beyond the rift to make with the necessary mojo.
Lastly, I'm not entirely sure I buy the whole prohibition against turning humans into Djinn in the first place, especially given what Jo gets to see of the origins of both Jonathan and David--that they themselves were once mortal men. Which makes me wonder how Djinn get created in general, if not through death-fueled transformation of mortals. Do Djinn reproduce? Though I do also note that Sara included Jonathan in her little recitation of things that had been done to throw the balance of existence out of whack, so I suppose that it's possible that Jonathan was aware of this very problem and had laid down a stricture to keep it from getting any worse. He did tell Jo never to assume that he hadn't noticed the obvious.
Anyway. Quibbles, as I mentioned, though none of these were severe enough to get in the way of me enjoying the overall ride. There was just as much fast-paced fun in this story as there was in Ill Wind. David is still very, very hot, and I appreciate that Caine has a way of dropping heavy hints about exactly how talented and clever David is at his hotness without ever having to spell out what he pulls off. I really liked the line "his hands did things that ought to be illegal, and mandatory for every woman in the world to experience daily". Plus, David hits all three of my favorite hotness buttons--voice, hair, and especially eyes. Just the visual alone of his copper eyes flattens me.
And for that matter, as long as we're talking hotness, let's talk Lewis. He's hot in an entirely different way, much more understated, more a hotness of spirit. Kind of like how Jo describes for the reader about how Lewis always looks like himself even in the aetheric... he just is. I really like the sheer simple compassion and honesty of the man, and I am rather pleased that there's some emotion going on between him and Jo as well.
I'm finding myself really hoping that if we're going to get a triangle thing going on--as seems to be popular in urban fantasy these days--that it doesn't turn angsty. I've had plenty enough of that with LKH, and even a little bit with Charlaine Harris' books.
Let's see, what else... I liked that the whole setup between Kevin and Yvette was another thing that didn't get spelled out in too much detail. Plenty of implication that Yvette had abused this boy in many unpleasant ways--again, another thing we see a lot of in modern urban fantasy, the abused young person. Especially the abused young person with huge amounts of power. Caine muddies the waters here, though. It would have been easy to take this in a direction of Kevin being turned safely over to the Wardens, but instead, she sets him up as the next Big Bad. We've seen this, too--the Abused Young Person With Lots of Power Goes Psycho archetype. We got a taste of this with the whole Evil Willow arc in Buffy. It'll be interesting to see whether Kevin is ultimately redeemed or whether he will actually get taken down. Especially if he's carrying around bottles of Demonmarked Djinn. That's spelling impending doom for the kid in Book 3.
And I liked that Jo was reinstated in human form, even if I knew it was coming and kind of quibbled with the mechanics of how. Very Buffy-esque resurrection there, and it should be interesting to see what kind of standing this gives her among the Wardens now. Especially if she and the second most powerful Djinn on the planet are now on tap to go take down Kevin and free the MOST powerful Djinn on the planet.
Looking forward to the next book!
rachelcaine's Weather Warden series, proved to be just as jam-packed with fun as the first book. The uber-hot David is still very hot, and for that matter, Lewis Levander Orwell is pretty hot too. I have a few quibbles with some of the mechanics of the plot, but these are small quibbles at best and did not detract much at all from my overall enjoyment of this fast, hard ride of a novel. Let me get the quibbles out of the way first.
Did I miss something in the first book? When did it start working that if a Warden has a Djinn bound to his or her service, that Djinn's allegiance can be shifted around to whomever happens to have hold of their bottle? It puts a lot less weight on the whole "Be thou bound to my service" thing if that bond is based on the bottle rather than to the actual person who did the invocation in the first place. It turns it more into "be thou bound to whoever happens to get lucky enough to swipe this bottle". Certainly vastly more annoying to the imprisoned Djinn to be sure, if he or she doesn't even have the assurance that whoever bound them in the first place is going to actually keep control. But it makes me wonder about what measures the Wardens have in place to make sure that they don't accidentally trade Djinn back and forth.
I hope we don't get an incident in Book 3 of Jo having to save David from being enslaved by a cruel master. We've had this two books in a row now, and any more of this would push over into Repetition Land. But if it's as easy as somebody getting David's bottle away from her, I'm worried that we'll see more of this.
I'm also not entirely clear on how Patrick and Sara wound up beyond the rift, either, where Sara was somehow not an Ifrit anymore. I mean, I get the whole idea that she and Patrick had created the rift in the first place when Sara had tried to pull the same stunt that David did, and that David had accelerated it. And I get that Sara could restore some balance by making Jo human again--in fact, given that the series in fact called Weather Warden, I was fully expecting something to happen to make Jo human again so she could continue to BE a Weather Warden. I'm just not entirely sure if I bought Sara conveniently showing up beyond the rift to make with the necessary mojo.
Lastly, I'm not entirely sure I buy the whole prohibition against turning humans into Djinn in the first place, especially given what Jo gets to see of the origins of both Jonathan and David--that they themselves were once mortal men. Which makes me wonder how Djinn get created in general, if not through death-fueled transformation of mortals. Do Djinn reproduce? Though I do also note that Sara included Jonathan in her little recitation of things that had been done to throw the balance of existence out of whack, so I suppose that it's possible that Jonathan was aware of this very problem and had laid down a stricture to keep it from getting any worse. He did tell Jo never to assume that he hadn't noticed the obvious.
Anyway. Quibbles, as I mentioned, though none of these were severe enough to get in the way of me enjoying the overall ride. There was just as much fast-paced fun in this story as there was in Ill Wind. David is still very, very hot, and I appreciate that Caine has a way of dropping heavy hints about exactly how talented and clever David is at his hotness without ever having to spell out what he pulls off. I really liked the line "his hands did things that ought to be illegal, and mandatory for every woman in the world to experience daily". Plus, David hits all three of my favorite hotness buttons--voice, hair, and especially eyes. Just the visual alone of his copper eyes flattens me.
And for that matter, as long as we're talking hotness, let's talk Lewis. He's hot in an entirely different way, much more understated, more a hotness of spirit. Kind of like how Jo describes for the reader about how Lewis always looks like himself even in the aetheric... he just is. I really like the sheer simple compassion and honesty of the man, and I am rather pleased that there's some emotion going on between him and Jo as well.
I'm finding myself really hoping that if we're going to get a triangle thing going on--as seems to be popular in urban fantasy these days--that it doesn't turn angsty. I've had plenty enough of that with LKH, and even a little bit with Charlaine Harris' books.
Let's see, what else... I liked that the whole setup between Kevin and Yvette was another thing that didn't get spelled out in too much detail. Plenty of implication that Yvette had abused this boy in many unpleasant ways--again, another thing we see a lot of in modern urban fantasy, the abused young person. Especially the abused young person with huge amounts of power. Caine muddies the waters here, though. It would have been easy to take this in a direction of Kevin being turned safely over to the Wardens, but instead, she sets him up as the next Big Bad. We've seen this, too--the Abused Young Person With Lots of Power Goes Psycho archetype. We got a taste of this with the whole Evil Willow arc in Buffy. It'll be interesting to see whether Kevin is ultimately redeemed or whether he will actually get taken down. Especially if he's carrying around bottles of Demonmarked Djinn. That's spelling impending doom for the kid in Book 3.
And I liked that Jo was reinstated in human form, even if I knew it was coming and kind of quibbled with the mechanics of how. Very Buffy-esque resurrection there, and it should be interesting to see what kind of standing this gives her among the Wardens now. Especially if she and the second most powerful Djinn on the planet are now on tap to go take down Kevin and free the MOST powerful Djinn on the planet.
Looking forward to the next book!
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 08:22 pm (UTC)And if all it takes to free a Djinn is to destroy the bottle, I do have to wonder what keeps the free Djinn from trying to blow up every single bottle in existence. We saw in Book 1 that Lewis had a warded house, which leads one to conclude that magical protections can be set up on a place, but how exactly does THAT work? The Warden power set seems fairly specific--you have your Earth, your Fire, your Weather. I'm not sure how "setting up magical barriers to prevent access" comes into it, unless it's something they can do via the Djinn. I suppose that'd have to be part and parcel of protect-your-bottle security.
(Hi, this is my Writer Brain trying to analyze the universe! ;) Even when this whole series has a rollicky sort of you-should-really-just-relax air about it. Hee.)
But yeah. I'm liking me some Jo. And some David! :D
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Date: 2006-02-23 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 08:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 08:29 pm (UTC)I had to giggle, by the way, when I started on this series. Since both you and
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Date: 2006-02-23 09:05 pm (UTC)All I can say in my defense is I wrote URBAN SHAMAN in 2000, even if I didn't get it published til 2005, so I didn't copy anybody. :)
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Date: 2006-02-23 09:07 pm (UTC)You're coolest with the cars thing, though, and all the imagery your Jo uses to work her magic! ^_^
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Date: 2006-02-23 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-23 09:41 pm (UTC)