In the Company of Vampires by Katie MacAlister

Review by Cynthia F. (frazerc)

In the Company of Vampires

Dark Ones #8, Ben & Fran #3

Publication Date: 11/2/2010

Pages: 334

This is the third in the Ben and Fran books. The first two, Got Fangs? And Circus of the Darned, were young adult novels. This one is not. It takes place five years after the previous two and Fran has broken off with Ben, graduated from college and finds herself still miserable.

The action starts off with the kidnapping of Fran’s roommate. During the rescue (by Fran of course) it becomes apparent that Loki is at the root of the kidnapping. (Norse gods have long memories.) When Fran calls her mother, only to find that her mother is missing, she fears the worst. Fran immediately makes plans to head for Europe and the GothFaire, only to be interrupted by the arrival of her Vikings from book 2. It seems that Freya sent them to help her get rid of Loki using the necklace. Unfortunately she left the necklace in Europe so it is not immediately accessible. Her Vikings insist on going along with her. (Fortunately Freya provided them with their own Visa card so the only problem is convincing them they have to leave their weapons behind.)

She arrives at the GothFaire only to discover a wide range of problems. Ben is there and with another woman. (Yes she blew him off but she hadn’t really expected him to move on – after all, she hasn’t.) Imogen is there but the necklace isn’t and her mom is still missing. While checking through her mom’s things for clues she finds a birth certificate indicating she has an older half-sister she never knew about.

Like the other books this one has lots of wacky details; the town where the GothFaire is currently located is competing for a Wagnerian opera company so everyone is wearing Wagnerian costumes (including cross-dressing mermaid cabdrivers) and frequently bursting into song. Her Vikings have gone shopping and are now being Viking ninjas (based on having seen a ninja movie on TV) and have picked up new weaponry.

The plot concerns rescuing mom, saving shape shifters, confronting Loki, and of course resolving Ben and Fran’s relationship problems.

All around a satisfying read.

Ben and Fran

1.  Got Fangs? (2005)

2.  Circus of the Darned (2006)

Confessions of a Vampire’s Girlfriend (omnibus of 1 & 2)

3.  In the Company of Vampires

Dark Ones

1. A Girl’s Guide to Vampires (2003)

2. Sex and the Single Vampire (2004)

3. Sex, Lies and Vampires (2005)

4. Even Vampires Get the Blues (2006)

5. The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires (2007)

5. Bring Out Your Dead (2006) (in Just One Sip)

6. Zen and the Art of Vampires (2008)

7. Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang (2009)

8. In the Company of Vampires (2010)

9. Much Ado About Vampires (2011)

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie By Alan Bradley

Review by Cheryl G. (Poncer)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It had a bit of everything, a murder mystery, some social history, interesting tidbits of science and a precocious 11 year-old protagonist.

Flavia de Luce, the protagonist and narrator of the book is a budding chemist, pretty much left to fend for herself in a dysfunctional household in England. The story is set in the 1950’s.

Early one morning, Flavia somehow stumbles upon a dying body in the garden of the mansion she and her family call home and sets out to solve the murder.

She is up against some fun characters, a father who barely communicates with anyone since the death of his wife, 2 older sisters who are more interested in looks and books than in their little sister, some officious police officers and some quirky neighbors.

Despite Flavia’s best efforts to solve the mystery of the dead man, police Inspector Hewitt thwarts her at every turn. He reminds her that “King George is not frivolous”.  Flavia isn’t a frivolous child, though.   She is a bright, and fun to follow through this book.

I am looking forward to reading the next book in this series, The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag.

Blindsight by Peter Watts

Review written by Bowden P. (Trey)

Y’know, I had no idea what this would be like when I started it, and its compelling stuff. Yeah, the protagonist isn’t very likeable, but he does get the job done. Its a great, if rather chilling read. The cover blurb does a decent job of summarzing what sets the ball in motion and what the ball is – the spaceship Theseus and crew of trans- to post-humans.

It also skips over some of the most important things in the book: The nature of consciousness and whether its an advantage or not in evolutionary terms. This is the big idea of the book and the one guaranteed to unsettle a reader.

Our viewpoint character is Siri Keeton, the “synthesistan informational topologist with half his mind gone” of the blurb. Siri, is unique. He is not nice, hell, at the start of the book he might only be human by DNA, not how he acts. This leads to some interesting flashbacks and a moment of genuine sympathy for him. I will admit it might be better to say “half his brain” though – he’s had hemispherectomy to treat epileptic seizures.

Siri’s world isn’t a nice one. People routinely opt to live in virtual fantasies. There’s an ongoing insurgency over it where the insurgents use bio-weapons. War crimes from the other side are common as well. Drugs and hormones to alter mental states to something more useful are widespread. Corporations do things that lead to the creation of the vampires that are ethically challenged at best. Genetic manipulation is common – so common that one of Siri’s child hood friends is unusual for his lack of it.

But that’s just Earth. The Theseus is a lovely thing – fueled by antimatter teleported to it and assembled there, with synthesizers that can handle building almost anything so long as it has mass and is able to reconfigure itself at need. This is just the vehicle that gets them to the real action that takes place well beyond the Solar System. There an alien spacecraft has been found and is busy ‘terraforming’ a brown dwarf. Think about that for a moment and what it involves. Our intrepid band of posthumans goes out to explore and discovers an environment more hostile than can be imagined. It routinely destroys their probes and has effects on the crew even in their most heavily shielded suits. It makes communication difficult at best and meddles with their brains like transcranial magnetic stimulation but creating temporary ‘brain damage.’

Once it actually gets to first contact, its scary.

Folks, I love this book. Its five stars easy. Watts does things that many hard science fiction writers routinely fail to do – he writes well. His characters are characters, not caricatures. What he writes is darkly humorous, clever, moving and powerful. And the ideas he works with are huge, world shaking and dangerous. Good stuff to play with and he does it with human characters.

Likes: Neat neurobiology bits; Good characters; Big ideas; Some humor where needed; Big questions; Good writing; Neat toys.

Dislikes: I want more, darn it.
Suggested for fans of A User’s Guide to the Brain by John J. Ratey, Oliver Sachs, Kluge by Gary Marcus, A Mind of Its Own by Cordelia Fine, Scott Bakker’s Neuropath, and good (if dark) science fiction.

And if you can’t find it in print, head to www.rifters.com where Creative Commons Licensed version of Blindsight lives.