More Books than Time

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

Hunting in Bruges – Flat Fantasy

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Hunting in Bruges by E. J. Stevens is set in the old Belgium city of Bruges and features Jenna, a young lady who takes herself and her job very seriously.  She is a Hunter, one of a guild that protects us normal folks from nasty predators like vampires, ghouls, grindylow.

Lots of authors use the fantasy niche of protectors protecting humanity from supernatural predators; some, like Jim Butcher, successfully merge fantasy with human emotions and characters, fast plots, compelling narratives, funny and on-tune dialogue to create excellent novels.  Others leave me flat.

I wanted to like this book.  The author was a finalist for a fantasy award and the book had flashes of a real story with interesting characters, enough that I kept reading, hoping the story would improve.  Main character Jenna was obnoxious, arrogant and bossy, dedicated to getting rid of supernatural creepy crawlies, unlikeable.  Dialogue, plot and secondary characters also left me glad to finish and put the book aside.

The author did a nice job describing Bruges and the 1299 wars between Guy of Dampierre, count of Flanders and  Phillip Capet of France that were caused the problems Jenna faces in the story.  E. J. Stevens got me interested enough to look up the history, which makes me wonder why the story and characters in Hunting in Bruges are so dull.

Overall 2 Stars

Mini Reviews: Five Fantasy and Science Fiction Novellas to Miss

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These short reviews cover books that I want to remember not to try again.  Several were free from Instafreebie, meaning the authors are likely new and may improve in their later books.

A Magical Reckoning: Magic and Mischief Book 1

This is a set of 6 novellas about supernatural betrayal.  I only got partway through the first story because the back story is all about people who have [insert animal here] genes and thus have [insert favorite power] here.  The lead character has skunk genes that give her fatty glands in her back that secrete thiol, which can be either really really good stuff or not.  Unscrupulous evil people are dragooning skunk/people and forcibly draining their thiol.

Can we say “yuck”?

The writing wasn’t too bad.  N. R. Hariston, the author had a big backstory to tell and crammed as much as she could in the first few pages.  We know about the skunks, the evil dragoons, the dragon/people, the fact our lead is in some vigilante or police force.  What we don’t have is a reason to care about the character.  I decided supernatural betrayal is probably not a good sub-sub genre to pursue.

Warning!  Do Not Read this Story

Somehow I managed to finish this longish short story by Robert Jeschonek but it was a close one.  It isn’t very good.

Moon Men:  A Science Fiction Comedy

Author Chris Lowry describes this as extremely funny.  Not particularly.  It’s science fiction, sort of, given the aliens want to talk to our hero on the moon and he’s having a hard time getting there.  On the other hand, you can’t just point a rocket at the moon and expect to get exactly where you need to be.
I did finish it, mostly because I wanted to see what the aliens had to say but the story ended before our hero actually arrives.

Xander  An Incandescent Short Story

I didn’t get past the first page.  Main character is a teen boy with hormone issues.

Complicated Blue:  The Extraordinary Adventures of the Good Witch Anais Blue

This was boring and I quit almost immediately.
I don’t recommend any of these.

Obsidian Son – Great Sounding Fantasy, But What A Bust

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I don’t usually review books I don’t finish.  Since I read 5 to 10 books a week and review only a couple, I put most effort into books I like or ARCs.  I’m making an exception for Obsidian Son, the first novel in a four-part series by Shane Silvers.  Obsidian Son sounds so good and has great reviews on Amazon, a fun premise, neat cover.  It’s all there, everything except the book itself.

The story starts off with our hero, Nate Temple, wizard, bookstore owner, super rich young fellow and recent orphan, sneaking up on the Minotaur to engage in a bit of cow tipping.  He gets smeared with cow dung, arrested, interrogated by the police, released.  When he gets home to have a drink with his two best friends he simply tosses his coat into the laundry basket and makes drinks – without washing up.  Sorry, that was hard to take.

The main character is a sophomoric jerk with an overabundance of ego and a nasty attitude about women.  (Quote:   “To women and careers and the men who ride them.”)  Yet this same character hasn’t asked his office manager for a date because he might get turned down.  Yeesh.

Author Silver has way too heavy a hand with foreshadowing.  Even without getting past the first quarter of the novel I could tell that Temple’s mysterious client is himself a dragon (he smelled like rocks and snakes), that Temple’s friend Peter was somehow corrupted by someone magic (since he had on a new bracelet and suddenly had magic abilities), that Temple will discover his parents’ company used magic as much as technology.  So on.  Really, how much more obvious can someone be, yet Temple, who is supposed to be super smart never notices and never even asks his buddy Peter where he got magic?

The author clearly has little to no understanding how people who have money actually use it, or what the consequences might be of flinging Aston Martin cars around to one’s friends.  The main character thinks nothing of driving through red lights, speeding down urban streets and doing donuts to stop his flashy new car in front of his friend.  Does anyone really think that having a fancy car means he doesn’t have to share the road?  This is when I decided to pull the plug and delete Obsidian Son from my reader.

The last point is the blasphemous use of the name Jesus.  This is the name of God’s only begotten Son, not some casual throw-away interjection.  The author tossed a couple of these in the mix too.

Overall, 1 star.  Did not finish and do not recommend.

A Crown for Cold Silver – Complicated, Confusing and Ultimately Unpleasant

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I started A Crown for Cold Silver during a month of intense busyness, reading 15 minutes one day, half an hour another.  The book started strong, with five different groups all engaged in life-or-death struggles in interesting and different situations.  I wanted to know more and see what connected these people, what would happen next, but it was hard when reading a dribble here and a drabble there.  Finally I had an evening with several hours and sat down to enjoy it.

Unfortunately, the strong beginning peters out.  We see how the characters will connect, what may eventually bring them together, who may oppose whom.  But none of the characters is likable or interesting enough to keep going.  About half way through my evening I found myself distracted, wanting to do just about anything aside from finishing the novel.

Too Much Back Story

The world in A Crown for Cold Silver has a complex geo-political back story, something that usually fascinates me and keeps me going.  A challenge with building a new fantasy world in a novel is moving the story along with action and character development at the same time as explaining the back story and helping the reader understand the context.  This is essential for a novel that has geo-political/religious/cultural conflicts and it is where author Alex Marshall fails to deliver.

A Crown for Cold Silver has plenty of action, lots and lots of action, and some character development.  I liked the characters less he more I learned about them, not a good sign.  None of the countries or religious groups were attractive either; the Crimson Empire apparently used assassination and regicide and duels to transfer power and the main religious group was sadistic.

Just Not Interesting

The combination of overly-complex and un-illuminated fantasy world with unlikable characters and what felt like a pointless plot (revenge no matter the cost) left me feeling “so what”.  In fact I could not quite finish the book even though it was from NetGalley.  (I’ve managed to get through some real stinkers but this one was just too bad to read.)

Maps might have helped but I think the main problems are the unlikable people and the fact the actions take place in a world that we know nothing about.

1 Star

I received this novel from NetGalley in exchange for a review.

The Wretched of Muirwood – Just OK Fantasy by Jeff Wheeler

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The Wretched of Muirwood has almost 1900 Amazon reviews with a 4.5 star average and it’s the first novel in a fantasy series that also has high scores.  I didn’t care much for the story.  Setting and back story are so-so, characters are so-so, setting and magic system are a quasi-religion where faith will let you do stuff and fear or jealousy will keep you impotent.  Real faith is not utilitarian.

Wretched of Muirwood follows the traditional unknown/poor/underdog person discovers he has magic and an important fate.  In this case the underdog is Lia, an orphan left at the Muirwood abbey where she lives and serves in the kitchen.  Lia tells us from the first chapter that she wants to read, to be a learner more than anything, but it’s forbidden.  After 287 pages we don’t know much more about her, although we trudged through a nasty swamp, rescued a young Earl, fought off the evil sheriff and suffered homesickness.

The novel wasn’t catalogued in our system as YA but it’s obviously meant for younger readers.  It’s short with plenty of white space and big print to fill 287 pages and the characters are youths.  None of the emotional conflicts feel real.

Let’s say 3 stars, not horrible but not recommended.

 

The Long Way Down – Nasty, Demon-Filled Las Vegas Sorcery

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It’s hard to like a book when you don’t like the characters.  Daniel Faust, the sorta hero in The Long Way Down, is a Las Vegas sorcerer who earns just enough to keep a roof over his head but not enough to stay clear of the seedy side of the town.    Daniel works as a private investigator – not clear whether licensed or informal – and takes on cases involving porno producers, half-demons and murders.

Daniel is meant to be the Good Guy here.  He takes on a case to investigate the murder of a young porno actress, discovers she was murdered, and works out vengeance on her murderer.  The vengeance turns out far worse than he had planned and spirals out to wreck havoc on a group intent on opening the Etruscan Box.

The The Long Way Down moves fast, which is a good thing as otherwise you’ll feel coated with the gunk under your bathroom drain.  The characters are all unpleasant, even Daniel.  If you think about it, a guy who’s willing to impersonate a snuff film maker in order to have revenge, is not the kind of person you want to spend time with.  His heart is supposedly on the side of the good and the true, but his actions show a man willing to murder – but only in the name of righteousness – and to steal and to cohabitate with a succubus.

Sorry, not my kind of guy.

The characters are well done, although icky, and a few are too nasty to be believable.  The best part is the setting.  I’ve not been to Las Vegas but this felt real.

Most novels with creatures from Hell feature good guys who fight the demons; Daniel in The Long Way Down cooperates with his girlfriend/succubus Caitlin to stop the apocalypse.  Daniel is too fascinated with Caitlin to wonder why her boss, demon prince Sitri, wants to avoid the apocalypse.

I finished The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust Book 1)  mostly out of curiosity, but wish I hadn’t.  It left me feeling depressed and not at all interested in further books about the character. The blurb for Craig Schaefer’s second book, Redemption Song, has Daniel enmeshed in the plots of Prince Sitri in order to keep his “girlfriend”, succubus Caitlin.  Anyone with the sense God gave a gnat knows to steer away from demons and the schemes of hell, but apparently Daniel didn’t figure this out.  I shan’t be reading this one as it sounds even more depressing and with more unpleasant characters.

3 Stars

Nasty Ghosts and So So Book – The Spookshow by Tim McGregor

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The blurb for The Spookshow: (Book 1) describes the plot: Billie Culpepper accompanies her friends to an abandoned house with dark reputation.  What the blurb leaves out is the rest of the story.  First they find a long-dead body surrounded by satanic markings and secondly, the nastiest ghost goes home with Kaitlin, the instigator of the let’s-explore-the-haunted house visit.

The book was so-so.  I didn’t care for any of the characters and the story was boring.  There’s no conclusion; the book just stops.  Two stars.

As the title implies The Spookshow is the first book of a planned series.  I won’t read the others.

Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas – Is This Funny?

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Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas was on BookBub and sounded funny so I got it.  It’s one of those books that tries so hard to be funny you lose track of the story until you reach the end and think “Is that all there was?”   The plot is ridiculous.

Bubba Snoddy, grown son of the current Snoddy matriarch, lives at home with his mother in the decrepit Snoddy mansion near a small Texas town.  Bubba’s cousins from Louisiana are visiting with an eye to appropriating anything in the house that may have value.  Bubba wants to date gorgeous sheriff deputy Willodean but lacks courage to ask her out.  Oh, then he finds a corpse dressed in the Santa suit in the city’s Christmas display.

Of course the local police chief assumes Bubba is the murderer, arrests him with a concussion, then spends the rest of the novel chasing around for clues to prove Bubba killed the Santa, the older lady, assaulted the sheriff and is after Bubba’s mother.  Everything ends up tied neatly with a bow at the end except the chief still thinks that if Bubba didn’t commit this murder he’ll surely commit one next week.

The book could have been so much more.  The interplay with the covetous cousins and their 10 year old active, intelligent son Brownie was fun to read and could have been the focus of the story instead of a nonsensical murder rampage.  Bubba reveals a more complicated character during the book than the one-dimensional redneck he seems initially.  Had author C. L. Beville spent more time on the family and less on too-neat murders it could have been a good book.

I noticed the reviewers on Amazon mostly liked the novel with under 10% giving it low marks.  I would give it 2 or 3 stars; it wasn’t good enough that I want to read more Bubba books, but it wasn’t so bad that I stopped midway.  It’s a fast read with some funny scenes interspersed with bad word plays and incredibly stupid-acting police and villains.  I’m not a fan of making fun of people who talk funny or believe and act differently and didn’t enjoy the redneck cliches.

Big Disappointment – He Drank and Saw the Spider by Alex Bledsoe

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After enjoying The Sword-Edged Blonde (reviewed here) I was eager to read more Eddie LaCrosse adventures by Alex Bledsoe. Unfortunately He Drank, and Saw the Spider: An Eddie LaCrosse Novel disappoints.

We still have Eddie, now on vacation with his girlfriend,  Liz Dumont, traipsing through the world, we have the refreshing modern names and vocabulary, we have other characters and flashbacks to Eddie’s first years as a mercenary.  We also have gaping plot holes, boring secondary characters, and a force-fit sets of problems.  Overall the book was boring with a predictable conclusion.

I read several other Amazon reviews and most enjoyed the book, giving it a 4 1/2 star overall rating which is darn good.  No one commented on the gaping plot hole, which means either it didn’t bother anyone else or the answer was in the book and I missed it.

In the flashback to 16 years before, Eddie encounters a group of soldiers sent by Crazy King Jerry with orders to kill the baby girl he protected.  We never found why the soldiers were sent after the baby, particularly puzzling since Crazy King Jerry wasn’t even aware there was a baby.  I was pretty sure who the baby would turn out to be, but kept reading because I couldn’t see why Jerry would want her dead.  This wasn’t answered and frankly, I don’t really care enough to go back through and see whether I missed it.

This was a big enough let down that I doubt I’ll look for any more books in the series.

Throne of Glass – Pretty Good; Crown of Midnight – Not

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I read Throne of Glass while on vacation and liked it a lot despite the unappealing main character. Unfortunately, the sequel, Crown of Midnight was boring and I did not finish it.

This review focuses on the first novel, Throne of Glass. The main character, Celaena Sardothien, is an assassin, trained since childhood to kill for money. She is 18 and has been imprisoned at hard labor for a year. With that background, she has very little choice when offered the chance to leave the prison to compete to be the king’s champion.

It’s obvious Calaena doesn’t like killing people but she is put out and angry when someone does not instantly recognize her or her lethal skill. We don’t know much about her, but from the broad hints she was the daughter of the murdered rulers or highborn nobles in the neighboring country that the King conquered. She did not have much choice but to learn the assassin trade, and once trained, was presented with a bill for 5000 marks for her training. It’s clear that it never occurred to her that she could have left the assassin guild once she paid back the 5000 marks – she could never have left before repaying – nor did she ever look for alternative employment.

That’s the main character. A rather stuck up assassin who doesn’t much like to kill but is very very good at it. Her main adversary is the King and her sidekicks are the King’s son Prince Dorian and Captain of the Guard Chaol. These two secondary characters are more likable but we don’t learn much about them.

The political background could be fascinating. Unfortunately we see hints of the politics, but nothing is built out. Calaena spends a lot of time getting dressed up, exploring secret passages, flirting with Chaol but she is a flat, lusterless character in a sketched out world.

Nonetheless, Throne of Glass was enjoyable enough that I was eager to read the sequel, hoping that Calaena would grow up a bit. However, after reading about 30 pages of Crown of Midnight I put it back in the library return bag. I could not read it.

From the reviews on Amazon, readers are split, either loving it or a little bored. This is another novel that was written for older teen girls who probably love it.