More Books than Time

Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

Carpet Diem by Justin Lee Anderson: Averting the Apocalypse One Step at a Time

by Leave a Comment

I found Justin Lee Anderson on Hoopla Digital which recommended him as an author similar to Jodi Taylor, who writes the excellent Chronicles of St. Mary’s novels.  Sadly this novel, Carpet Diem, just misses.  Carpet Diem is meant to be a humorous take on “How We Averted the Apocalypse”, much like Good Omens or Tom Holt’s novels.  It has funny moments and the hero postpones the Apocalypse, but it isn’t overall a winner.

Characters

Writing a humorous book is hard work!  Authors need characters that carry the load, characters that we readers engage with, care about, people with senses of humor.  The whole time I read Carpet Diem I kept wondering why the book wasn’t better, and I think it is because the author created characters he thought were funny in themselves, and didn’t write dialogue or events that were funny.

None of the character was very interesting.  We have the drunken great aunt, the extraordinarily people-averse hero (because he has too-good a sense of smell), an angel or two, a demon or two, a few oddball, never explained magic characters, and assorted side kicks.  The only one with any personality is the hero, Simon, who must face his immense dislike of crowds (even tiny crowds, as in one or two people) to retrieve his carpet and gift it to the apocalyptic force of his choice.  Simon was moderately interesting.

Overall

I think part of the problem is the characters go through truly harrowing, deathly events that do not feel real.  Simon faces death and we readers just go along with the story, not really feeling any terror or anything more than a vague anxiety.  The story reads like a story, not like anything that characters or we readers experience.

Perhaps part of my negative feeling for Carpet Diem is that I felt gypped.  The story is not compelling and not the quality of Chronicles of St. Mary’s novels or Good Omens.  I expected something with plenty of plot, great characters and dialogue and funny moments in between terror.  Carpet Diem is not these things.

3 Stars

Wizard Undercover – Rogue Agent Book 4 Fantasy by K. E. Mills

by Leave a Comment

Wizard Undercover is the latest novel in K. E. Mills’ excellent fantasy series, Rogue Agent, about wizard Gerald Dunwoody, and his friends Reg the bird, Monk Markam, Emerabiblia (Bibie) Markam and Melissande.  In the first three novels, The Accidental Sorcerer, Witches Incorporated and Wizard Squared, Gerald changes from semi-talented to very powerful and very unpredictable, a rogue wizard, conscripted into his country’s service.

Gerald’s boss, Sir Alec in this world’s version of the CIA/NSA/etc., sees potential in having a very powerful wizard chock full of unorthodox spells, and prevents Gerald from removing the dark magic he consumed in the prior novels.  This leaves Gerald on his own, terrified of the grimoire spells, desperate to control himself, to not follow his alter ego in a parallel universe who reveled in evil and killed anyone who got in his way.

Wizard Undercover picks up right after book three ends, with Gerald heartsick at what happened and frightened of hia magic.  He grieves for Reg – his Reg – wants to get to know the new Reg, wants to love Bibbie but fears he will hurt her.

The main conflict in the novel is Gerald’s internal struggle.  Can he control his magic, can he use it without contaminating himself?  Can he and Bibbie find each other?   The external conflicts set the backdrop and secondary action:  Can Gerald prevent an international disaster and can Princess Melisande and Bibbie jump into the heretofore all male world of international espionage.  Author Mills deftly braids all three plots into a solid novel.

Wizard Undercover is not as compelling a read as the earlier three books in the series.  Good as the story is, interesting as the characters are, I find my attention drifting, reading 50-100 pages at a time.  The espionage backdrop is the weakest part of the story and Wizard Undercover needs a strong plot to hold all the emotional tensions.  In the prior novels Gerald and friends fought for their lives; the threat in Wizard Undercover is more diffuse, impersonal for most of the story.  I think the interpersonal tensions work best with a stronger plot and existential threat.

Author K. E. Mills has written a good book, one I recommend.  Like the other novels in the Rogue Agents series Wizard Undercover has a true ending, no cliff hangers.  Read the books in sequence because the characters continue and the plots reference previous events.  I look forward to a fifth book with Gerald, Reg and the rest.

4+ Stars

And the Rest Is History: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Book Eight by Jodi Taylor

by Leave a Comment

And the Rest Is History: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Book Eight has all the vivid descriptions we expect from Jodi Taylor with a bonus.  Taylor always shows us history and the people involved in colorful, loving detail, but she has tiptoed through on Max’s and others’ feelings.  This time Max and Tim, Dr. Bairstow and Leon come alive just as does history.

The result is wonderful.  Like every other reader I am horrified at Ronan’s cold cruelty, share Max’s broken heart and lonely soul.  I felt especially torn for Tim Peterson, losing happiness not just once but twice.

In the other St. Mary’s books I don’t notice plot holes because we sweep on by so fast, but this novel slows the action to include more loss and hope, moving slowly enough that the holes are easier to spot.  For example, why do the Time Police remove Greta and Matthew from their time? Why is Leon, Ian’s and Greta’s pod pre-programmed to go to a hellhole like Constantinople during the massacre?  The Police tell Max Constantinople was the last jump the team made; was Ronan trying to lose them in the chaos of the 4th Crusade?

Ronan must have a source at St. Mary’s and help.  He stays on the loose for years, yet we know that pods take constant maintenance, plus he needs to get money and food and clothing just to sell Matthew and buy him back.  He knows to go to Sick Bay to kidnap Matthew; he stays ahead of the Time Police.

The biggest hole is Matthew.  No one with a grain of sense kidnaps a baby and expects to have an easy time of it.  Babies take work.  I’m curious how Ronan found a sucker someone to not only care for Baby Matthew but actually pay him.  I am even more surprised that Max doesn’t bring Matthew back to St. Mary’s when she returns with the rest.  She is not a quitter yet she is ready to give up on establishing a relationship with her son after only a few months.  We know from the short “Christmas Past” that Matthew stays in the future and rarely sees Max.  That doesn’t feel right.

s usual the historical sections are great.  We watch Harold vs. William for the future of England unfold from Guy of Ponthieu entertaining Harold and William to Edyth Swanneck retrieving Harold’s body.   This is a fascinating time for England and one I’ve always enjoyed reading about.  Taylor brings the events to life.  We read about Harold’s blue and William’s red, about the deception around the relics Harold swears upon, about the back and forth at the bridge over the river Ouse, about the Saxon wings fatally venturing out beyond their pikes and ditch.

Overall And The Rest Is History is excellent.  Yes, it is sad, yes it has plot holes, but the emotional depth and maturation along with Taylor’s normal excellent history make this one of the most intense and rewarding books in the series.  It is not as much fun as the others, but it is an outstanding novel.

5 Stars

Popular: The Power of Likability in a Status-Obsessed World by Mitch Prinstein

by Leave a Comment

Did you ever wonder why some people seem to have it made, to always have a wide circle of friends, to be able to say things that people listen to?  While others struggle just to be seen?  Mitch Prinstein brings research findings on how people act, how they talk about others, how their brains work, to this topic and uses anecdotes to share his findings.  Popular is easy to read, accessible to us non-specialists, and full of interesting – and helpful – information.

Prinstein divides “popularity” into two types, one is basically status and the other is likability.  He points out that the status type tends to make people miserable over the long haul as people either burn out from being treated as objects or seek foolish aims.  Think about anyone you might know who was high-status in middle or high school but who ended up not very successful as an adult.  Or celebrities who both lust after fame then despise how it works in practice.

Prinstein sees likability as very important and worthwhile.  He shows how most likable people genuinely care about others, are kind, follow the rules, help people in groups and one-on-one.  As he puts it, the most likable people actually live in a different world than most of us, a world where things tend to go very, very well.

He talked some about people who are the opposite of likable, those who are disliked.  These people tend to be bad at picking up social cues or don’t respond to others in ways that are comfortable to be around.  He points out that most of the little gaffes are truly tiny, but add up to a personality that others avoid.

One item I found especially fascinating is how disliked people react .  Most bring some level of aggression while others tend to step back and fade out.  Some put their heads down and just work, but most get snarky or unpleasant, some backbite and gossip.  It was interesting to think back where some of these scenarios played out.  Of course it’s always easier to see things from the perspective of distance!

Prinstein has some advice for parents who want their children to be popular and for those of us who would like that for ourselves.  First, he cautions against seeking the status type of popularity.  It’s the type we all think of but it doesn’t do us much good and we tend to blur our thinking about status and likability too much .

Second, he suggests that parents give kids opportunities to play with others, that they help kids by playing with them, by talking through social situations, especially younger children.  Kids that are too shy or too aggressive are disadvantaged here but a wise parent can possibly help.

Also, while we tend to get a level of popularity/likability as children that stays with us for our lifetime, we can adjust our behaviors to increase our likability.  There’s a risk here that someone can try too hard, become unauthentic, but all of us can strive to be kinder, more thoughtful, pay attention when others talk, not interrupt.  It is possible to make ourselves at least somewhat more liked by our actions.

Popular is a fascinating book on an interesting subject, well-written and easy to follow.  Author Prinstein avoids being preachy or too prescriptive and makes his point by illustrating it with his research subjects.  Overall excellent.

4+ Stars

The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell, Edited by Christopher Hibbert

by Leave a Comment

Boswell’s Life of Johnson has been on my must-eventually-read-this list forever and finally I finished it this evening.  Boswell writes well, using anecdotes and quotes to show his revered Samuel Johnson, and his circle of eminent friends.  Johnson lived in the 1700s, dying in 1784, and was a man of words, written and spoken.  Johnson viewed conversation and wit as great arts and took great pride in his skill talking about almost anything and winning discussions on any topic.

Johnson saw nothing whatsoever to love about Scotland or America, yet his great friend Boswell is Scottish and he willingly would discourse with Americans when they were polite and showed him reverence.  Boswell was obsequious; what we would call brown nosing, Boswell felt was simply showing the immense respect that Johnson deserved.

Today we don’t read much of Johnson’s writings, although we still use some of his sayings, e.g.,  “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully”.  Boswell wrote travel books but his only enduring success is this, the Life of Johnson.

Boswell writes well and uses anecdotes and remembered conversations to show us himself, Johnson, and 1700s London.  Editor Christopher Hibbert noted that his edits removed direct excerpts from Johnson’s writings.

I doubt I’ll ever read anything by Johnson or Boswell but this was interesting and I’m glad to have finally read it.

Emissary – Strong Fantasy, Romance and Coming of Age by Thomas Locke

by Leave a Comment

The main character in Emissary is Hyam, just turned 21, who honor’s his mother’s last request to visit the Long Hall, home of wizards, home of his father, and his despised home for five years as a young teen.  The Mistress of the Hall tells Hyam very disturbing facts and hints about his ancestry.

The novel could have taken several paths, pure fantasy with quests and wars, coming of age as Hyam learns about himself, quasi-medieval romance adventure.  Author Thomas Locke did an excellent job at merging all of these into a novel with plenty of magic and fantasy elements that centers on a young man who must put aside his frustrations at wanting to know who and what he is in order that he can protect his land and people from sorcery.

This theme of self-sacrifice recurs throughout the novel in subtle ways.  Hyam’s wife puts aside her worries to present him with a serene and happy face while he recovers from a magical attack.  The current Oberon lord puts aside his claim to the throne in order to prevent war, then retires to a small fortress and lets his name slide into obscurity.  The wizard master Trace gives up his leader role to follow Hyam.  The elves and Ashanta give up their seclusion to aid the people fighting the sorcerers.

This undercurrent of sacrifice and adult decisions makes Emissary a serious novel, an excellent, enjoyable story  about magic, yearning, romance, and war, meant for adults.

4+ Stars

 

Lies, Damned Lies, and History: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Book Seven

by Leave a Comment

Max is in trouble.  Deep, deep trouble.  She is also pregnant, very, very pregnant.  Which will come first?  Absolution or the baby?

Book 7, Lies, Damned Lies and History, opens with Max learning that she gets the booby prize for jumps, witnessing Caroline of Brunswick chase around Westminster Abbey seeking entrance to her husband’s coronation.  Her next assignment, likewise supposed to be a yawn, checking a hill fort in Wales, turns wildly exciting as her group is pressed into service alongside Arthur (yes, that Arthur) to hold off the Saxons.  Here’s where trouble starts.

Max manages to get herself and St. Mary’s in trouble, nearly ending the unit, then out of trouble, reinstate herself and her friends until real trouble, Clive Ronan trouble, strikes.

The Good Stuff

As usual the plot just keeps going.  It’s like watching Niagara Falls, the action sucks us readers in and we tumble helplessly along.  In fact I had to go back and re-read the book a second time so I could pull myself to the shore long enough to check a few things – and read a few recipes.  (We American’s know nothing about jam’s premiere place in dessert trays.)

Max is as always a lot of fun.  She is in a hard place, knowing that the right thing to do is the wrong thing (and vice versa no matter which way she goes) and she won’t trust anyone enough to just go ask for what is needed.  I love how she throws herself into her job, whether it’s history, fund raising or mom.

I am glad that Leon gets more personality.  As Max says, he is husband and hero, and immensely patient with her.  He is quiet and easy to underestimate but no one should mistake quiet for soft or meek.

As usual Jodi Taylor gets the history just so.  She takes the facts we know and dresses them up in gorgeous costumes that make the scene and the people involved come to life.  I always end up looking up people and events, even ones I’m fairly familiar with.

Mrs. Mack serves all sorts of food that St. Mary’s loves, most of which is new to me.  I learned about jam tarts, jam roly poly (apparently England uses a lot of jam), toad in the hole and more.  It seems every book introduces yet another culinary item (usually requiring suet, but not the type we feed to birds), and I enjoy looking up the recipes.

The book is just plain fun with lots of good dialogue, funny events, serious events and great characters.  The scene where Max and Professor Rapson spring Sykes, Bashford and Ingloss out of jail is priceless.

The Could-Be-Better Stuff

I decided way back in Book 1 not to worry about the whole time travel thing.  Jodi Taylor treats time travel as though events are happening in parallel, not in sequence, and frankly, I’m having too much fun to worry about the technical accuracy or even complete consistency.  (Example:  Why can the Time Police find her in the middle of nowhere and no when but not find Ronan?  How does the tag work across time and space? See?  That’s why it’s best to just smile, jump on and enjoy the ride.)

Max’s disgrace doesn’t have a resolution.  Max agrees with Dr. Bairstow that she learned her lesson but it’s not at all clear exactly what the lesson is.  I do not expect she will become meek and rule-abiding, nor that she will cease to hurl herself and her friends into trouble to do the necessary thing.  Perhaps she learned that it is wise to start with asking for permission, that other people may share similar insights and agree to help.

Overall

Lies, Damned Lies and History is too much fun to be critical.  The story line is serious, characters develop, plot is harrowing, scenery is great.

5 Stars

Stranger Magics by Ash Fitzsimmons – Not Quite Midsummer Nights Dream!

by Leave a Comment

Ash Fitzsimmons took the bare bones of The Midsummer Nights Dream and wrote a full novel with plenty of action and developed characters, some humor and yes, even some mistaken identities in Stranger Magics.

Quick Synopsis

Colin LeFee owns a bookstore in Rigby on the Atlantic coast, lives quietly except when helping Father Paul exorcise faeries who are having too much fun in our world.  (Some Fae get their jollies tormenting humans, others like to rape or just be obnoxious.)  The story opens with Colin kicking one of Oberon’s court out of town.  When Colin returns home he finds his neighbor Mrs. Cooper bringing a 16 year old girl to him.  The girl is terrified (and defiant, like most frightened people), denies she belongs in Rigby, wants to go home.  Colin investigates and discovers the girl is Olive, long lost daughter of his old flame Meggy, and a changeling, whom Titania kicked out.

You see, Titania is the queen of faerie, powerful, nasty and Colin’s Mommy Dearest.  Colin’s dad died about 700 years ago and was human, making Colin half fae.

Along the way we meet Oberon, several wizards both good and semi-good, Robin Goodfellow, Mab, a seminarian and the best character of all, Mrs. Cooper.

Characters

Fitzsimmons did a great job building Colin’s character.  He could have made Colin too good to be true, or a man tormented by his dual nature, but instead he took the harder path to make Colin a real person, someone who cares about others and about whom we care.  As Colin mentions, full-blooded fae cannot love and most don’t try; we can blame his human parent for the fact that Colin can care, does care about people in general and individuals in particular.  Colin takes his role as protector seriously; he protects us humans from other fae and if needed, from worse.

Colin suffers; he is smart, witty, perceptive.  He is also stupid.  Somehow he thought that spending a night with Meggy 16 years ago and leaving the next day was the honorable thing to do; Meggy of course did not share his opinion.

Olive was the least developed character.  She is a typical petulant teen, except now she is a faerie exile marooned here with a mom she denies, constrained from some magics, alone and hating every moment and person in her new American life.

Several of the other characters are well developed, Meggy, Slim/Rick the bartender/wizard artisan, Joey the seminarian, Toula the wizard, and my favorite, Mrs. Cooper.  Mrs. Cooper starts as your basic busybody old lady neighbor, yet somehow knows to bring Olive over to Colin (and who would bring a 16 year old girl to a 20-something guy for help instead of calling 911?), who calmly accepts the fae infestation and helps Colin defeat the attacking faeries by hitting them with her stainless steel teakettle.  She doesn’t say much and what she does say is tinged with kindness and humor. Fitzsimmons made excellent use of a could-have-been prototypical character for the story.

Overall

The writing style is good.  I enjoyed the flashbacks as Colin fills us in on his 700+ years in the human world and explains his antipathy to Titania.  I wasn’t real sure I liked the ending with Colin in his new role, but given the alternatives he faces and the fact that he literally has no good option that would not cause greater woes for himself and all of us humans, it makes sense.

I hope the author, who bills herself as an “unrepentant car singer” writes more, either with the same world or explores new territories.  I will certainly purchase more from her.

4 Stars

Royal Tournament by Richard H. Stephen – Beautiful Cover on a Morality Tale

by Leave a Comment

I picked Royal Tournament by Richard H. Stephen based on the cover and his website artwork linked in from Instafreebie.  I am a sucker for medieval stories and this one looked promising.

Royal Tournament is a novella featuring Javan, son of a local farmer who is the reigning jousting champion in his baron’s territory.  Now the king is visiting the baron and holding the royal tournament at the castle right near Javan.  Of course he must compete.

Compliments

The story itself is unusual for a fantasy set in a medieval world.  Javan makes friends with a dark-skinned man from one of the kingdom’s allies.  The stranger defeats one of the kingdom’s knights who is badly injured in the joust.  His men take revenge on the stranger and then turn their violence on Javan when he tries to intervene.  I’ve noticed more fantasies taking on themes of racism and basic fairness, and it was good to see a novella that handles this without moralizing or sermons.  Javan simply does the right thing for the right reasons; he acts honorably.

The other plot-related pleasant surprise is the ending.  Normally the young hero wins the competition, somehow defeating everyone.  That doesn’t happen, resulting in a more believable outcome.

Not So Good

I’m no expert in feudal economics but the whole Javan set up didn’t make a lot of sense.  If he and his father worked their land alone – without hired hands or even seasonal help – then they could only farm a small plot.  In that case they couldn’t afford the trained warhorse or even dented armor for Javan or be on such good terms with the baron.

There were a few other points that felt off, but the economic set up was the most obvious.

Overall

I enjoyed this short novella, but probably not enough to pursue more books by this author.

3 Stars

Archangel Down – Solid Start to…? Alien Invasion Maybe? by C. Gockel

by Leave a Comment

Archangel Down starts a new series by C. Gockel that uses some of the same world and characters as her short story “Carl Sagan’s Hunt for Intelligent Life in the Universe”.  I liked the short story and was glad to see Noa Sato taking the lead in this novel.

The premise and world building are excellent.  The colonists on Luddeccea distrust technology in general and believe their time gate, which allows interstellar travel, has been invaded by non-corporeal aliens who can control people through their augments.  No one outside of the Luddecceans believes this story.

The story opens with Noa in a re-education camp with her ethernet port blocked, half starved and frozen, surrounded by others who have had artificial limbs torn away.  Noa escapes and meets James Sinclair, a professor who comes to Luddeccea for a vacation.  Sinclair is highly augmented and Noa knows the authorities will kill him if they can.

Noa hatches a plan to escape the planet and bring warning to the rest of the human worlds, to bring the navy to Luddeccea to stop the murders and rescue the people in the camps.

Weaker Points:  Pace and Character

The plot is choppy.  Noa and James must run and stay ahead of the authorities and the novel spends quite a bit of time on this, making for inconsistent pacing.  It also is a little unbelievable.  Noa has escaped from a concentration camp, is woefully malnourished, and gets a serious fungal lung infection.  Yet she is able to stay several steps ahead of the manhunt even while contacting others she believes can help.

The other point that hurts pacing is the author brings in some 20th century jokes, mostly allusions to Star Trek and Star Wars, plus some racial observations.  The jokes aren’t funny and the race stuff doesn’t add anything to the story.  (In Noa’s world most people are medium tan while she is dark and James is white and blond.)  These slow down the story and feel a little forced.

Noa is a strong character, albeit secondary, in the short story and provides the main point of view and lead.  We see she is loyal to a fault, strong-willed, serious, willing to trust people she knows, ready to love and support her friends.  She is also ruthless, smart, bold.  By the end of Archangel Down we feel like Noa is a real person, not necessarily a realistic one, but someone we want to read about.

James Sinclair provides point of view part of the novel but is more sketchy.  Sinclair realizes he cannot remember anything prior to a serious accident that resulted in him getting so many augments, but he worries that he may not be himself.  This helps explain the paucity of character development, but it left me feeling like he needs more work.

My favorite character is Carl Sagan, currently inhabiting a wherfle on the Ark with Noa.  The short story hints that The One, the individual minds that can inhabit wherfles or other semi-intelligent creatures, know about the dangerous aliens that are in the Time Gate.  I do hope that Noa and James figure out that Carl Sagan is a lot more than a cute pet who keeps the rats down.

Overall

Archangel Down opens a lot of plot strings and leaves us with lots of questions.  It is fairly well-written and interesting, with a good plot and interesting characters.  I intend to read the next book in the Archangel Project series, Noa’s Ark: Archangel Project. Book Two.  I debate between 3 and 4 stars because yes, I liked the book, yes I intend to read more, but it just isn’t quite as compelling as most 4 star novels.

3+ Stars