Assassin’s Honor by Monica Burns

Review by Cynthia F. (frazerc)

Good read, action paranormal.

I found the world interesting – it uses an imaginative twist based on some Roman history.  Historically speaking, the Praetorian Guard [generally considered to be the good guys, bodyguards of the Caesar du jour].  They were officially dissolved in the 4th century by the current emperor – at a guess that was NOT done as cost-cutting measure.  The Sicarii were considered assassins and generally killed Romans and Roman sympathizers.  Since they specialized in carrying hidden daggers under their cloaks to off their targets – they were the original cloak-and-dagger specialists…

Switch to now, both groups are still around and the groups hate each other.  The Praetorians are the bad guys, fond of torturing their victims to death.  The Sicarii are the good guys, still dealers of death but specializing in monsters that the legal systems couldn’t or didn’t handle – child rapists who walk when evidence is lost, serial killers, and Praetorians of course.  But the kills are as quick and clean as they can manage.  Both groups have special powers – the Praetorians are telepaths and the Sicarii are telekinetics.

The hero is Ares.  Probably the worst thing I can say about him is he suffers from acute nobility.  [I also had trouble reading the name ‘Ares’ without chuckling, but that’s probably just me.]  Other than that he is bossy, hunky and knows his way around a sword.

The heroine is Emma.  She is a relatively normal [not many people know about her psychometric abilities] archaeologist.  Well normal if you don’t count her parents being hacked to death on a dig, and her friend and mentor meeting the same fate at the start of this book.  The worst thing I can say about her is she takes a long time to get over offing one of the Praetorians.  Now this Praetorian was planning to kill her, had already seriously wounded her to the point she would have died, but she’s upset she killed him.  She’d have been fine with Ares killing him, however.  Whining AND hypocritical – two strikes.  She does get over it eventually.

The actual plot is worthy of Indiana Jones – missing sacred object, bad guys searching for the same object, enigmatic and obscure clues, locales exotic and not.

Order of the Sicari Books:

Assassin’s Honor

Assassin’s Heart

Inferno’s Kiss

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Bodies in a Bookshop by R.T. Campbell

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

This narrator of the 1949 mystery Bodies in a Bookshop gets into a reader’s good graces by observing, “The trouble with bookshops is that they are as bad as pubs. You start with one and then you drift to another, and before you know where you are you are on a gigantic book-binge.”

But in a “curious little shop in a side-street off the Tottenham Court Road,” botanist Max Boyle finds not only recondite tomes but also two bodies in a back office filled with gas fumes. He also notices that their heads have been bashed in and that the room is bolted from the outside. Not for the first time, internal evidence says, Boyle calls the long-suffering Yard Chief Inspector Reginald F. Bishop a.k.a. The Bishop. However, Boyle’s flat mate and research mentor Professor John Stubbs horns into the investigation, which reveals a dismal world of blackmail, pornography, and theft of rare books. The suspects are sharply differentiated, the plot speeds up, and in a change of tone and pace, the reveal is outstanding.

The Bishop is skeptical of Stubbs’ use of the scientific method. He claims that forming and testing hypotheses, finding them implausible, and starting the process over and over again until the solution that fits the facts is found simply amounts to guessing and throwing explanations out until time, more evidence, and the law of averages ensure that one explanation is probably the right one. Stubbs, a loud beer-quaffing Scot, takes exception to this wording of the scientific method. But in traditional academic style, truth is found through different approaches and more or less good-natured bickering.

Author R. T. Campbell (real name Ruthven Todd) was a Scottish-born literary man who wrote a handful of mysteries. His witty writing style makes up for his jocose repetitions when describing the foibles of Stubbs and The Bishop. Also enjoyable are the superbly drawn characters and vigorous dialogue. Every setting is appropriately claustrophobic.

Child of Fire by Harry Connolly

Review by Bowden P. (Trey)

This is a horrific urban fantasy novel. No, its not bad, or poorly done, but a novel where the magic and fantasy are tinged with horror and darkness. Would I suggest it to folks? Yes. Normally, I wouldn’t have looked at it, but Harry Connolly guested on Charlie Stross‘ blog several months back and sounded interesting, so I took a look.

What’s it about? Child of Fire starts with Ray Lilly driving his boss Annalise Powliss to a town in the Pacific Northwest. Ray is an ex-con who had gotten himself involved with with sorcery through a friend he’d accidentally shot and paralyzed. And for his sins, Ray is now a semi-disposable distraction for the real heavy hitter, Annalise. On the way they have an encounter at a rest stop that is plain horrifying (and doubly so if you’re a parent) where they meet the first child of fire. And to be honest, it will get worse.

In Hammer Bay, Washington, a former lumber and mill town, Ray and Annalise get a chilly reception from the townsfolk and it goes downhill from there as they think that Annalise is trying to get the major local employer (a toy factory) to outsource work overseas. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the local police are corrupt and they seem to have some knowledge of magic. For even more fun, the local criminal element seems to have it in for Ray too.

Now, while all this is bad enough, Connolly pulls no punches. Violence and magic in this series have a cost. In Hammer Bay, the cost to the children is high and to me, what it does to their families is the worst thing. It really punches the dad spot if you will. The fights Ray gets in are nasty, unpleasant and the stakes are permanent injury, death or worse, so he ‘plays’ accordingly. The fights and their aftermaths are not for the squeamish.

Ray is our narrator, and for all that he’s ignorant of much of magic and the world at large, he’s still sympathetic. He knows the stakes are high, but still tries to protect the innocent bystanders. He sometimes even succeeds. Like a lot of modern occult investigators, he’s ignorant of technology, but not because of magic, but because he’s been in jail for a decade and missed a log. Plus, that’s just not his world. Connolly does an excellent job writing Ray in such a way as to be interesting, sympathetic and (mostly) a nice guy for all that he’s a criminal and good at violence.

Did I like it? Yes. I’ll give it four stars. I didn’t give it five because of the fate of the children. It had nothing to do with Connolly’s craft, but my reaction to it.

Likes: Ray – hardened but still basically good; Magic – it has a cost, its mysterious and brings interdimensional predators to Earth, ones that could end all life in a few years; Horror – too many urban fantasy novels are jaded about the horrors their characters deal with, this is not; The picture of small town life – brutally accurate in its stifling nature; Horror without relying on gore.

Dislikes: Annalise is so hardened I can’t see how she functions; The fate of most of a generation of children and how its covered up and what it does to the families.

Suggested for: Fans of the Dresden files, Stross’ Laundry series (The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue and The Fuller Memorandum), Kadrey’s Sandman Slim and horror fans in general.

The Dragon Who Loved Me (The Dragon Kin #5) by G. A. Aiken

Review by Cynthia F.  (frazerc)

I love Shelly Laurenston, even when she’s being G.A. Aiken.  Maybe especially when she’s being Aiken since that is pen name she writes her Dragon Kin books under.  As always, these books are full of quirky characters, lots of action, fun [and frequently snarky] dialog set in a complex world full of dragons, mages, humans and witches.  And the gods, LOTS of gods, each with their own agendas.  The living embodiment of the Chinese curse:  ‘May you live in interesting times…’

The hero is Vigholf, brother to Ragnar [hero of the last book], and seemed a somewhat typical Northerner in the last book.  In this one you become aware of his intelligence, and the fact that his people skills are at least as strong as his warrior skills.

The heroine is Rona, one of the many Cadwaladr cousins.  Despite the fact that all her siblings [and her mother the general] are Dragonwarriors or are soon to be so, Rona is a sergeant.  She likes being a sergeant.  Sergeants do what they’re told; they don’t make policy, or decisions, or disobey orders because they think their way is better.  It leaves her more time to do the important things:  like taking care of her siblings, her cousins, and fighting with her mother.

The story starts five years after the end of the last book.  The dragon war against the Iron dragons and the human war against the Quintilian Provinces are both stalemated, Garbhán Isle is under attack and the Gods have decided to stir things up.

Queen Annwyl deserts her troops and heads deep into the Quintilian Provinces [accompanied by Izzy and a young dragon] to foment rebellion…

Kieta and Ren [with Rona and Viegholf] head back to Garbhán Isle to rescue the twins…

The Dragon Queen orders Rona to retrieve Annwyl so she and Vigholf march off to the Quintilian Provinces to repossess the obviously insane queen…

And then things start to get intense!

Warning these books are VERY connected, reading them out of order is NOT recommended.

Dragon Kin

0.0 Grandfather Ailean’s story ‘Can’t Get Enough’ appears in Everlasting Bad Boys (with Cynthia Eden and Noelle Mack)

0.5 “Dragon on Top” in Supernatural

1. Dragon Actually which contains the short story Chains and Flames – chronologically this appears between ‘Can’t Get Enough’ and Dragon Actually

2. About A Dragon

3. What A Dragon Should Know

4. Last Dragon Standing

5. The Dragon Who Loved Me

Souls in the Great Machine by Sean McMullen

Review by Bowden P. (Trey)

I can’t remember how this book was suggested to me, but its a good, if strange, fit. Its interesting post-apocalyptic fiction set in Australia over 2000 years in the future.

Souls in The Great Machine has a large cast of characters, most of them female (Lemorel, Zarvora, Theresela, Darien and Lorien) that get more ‘screen time’ than the men (Function 9/Denkar, Ilyire and John Glasken). As a whole, they’re interesting educated, intelligent and sympathetic, if sometimes flawed. What’s more, they change. No, they don’t change shape, but they grow. Lemorel changes roles from the sympathetic view point character to something I didn’t expect (but was logical when I looked back). The same for Zarvora, who is introduced as a ruthless, driven and not that likable  tyrant to someone more understandable, sympathetic and likable. Glasken’s transformation is possibly the largest, but he never strays too far from his character traits.

The Australia of  Souls in The Great Machine is another character in is own right. It has fractious city states grouped in loose alliances, duelling as a legitimate way of settling disputes, lost civilizations (that are still alive) and the Call threatens all of this. The Call lures all land mammals above a certain size to the oceans and their doom.

The apocalypse that shaped all of this is kind of unique too. The Call is part of it, but it stacked with a nuclear exchange, a man made ice age and orbital battle stations that target electronics with EMP cannons, making the use of electronics a moot point.

I know this is not the hardest of science fiction (with the unexplained Call), but my suspension of disbelief got tweaked with the rather lush Australia, especially given the continent’s fragile ecology. Same for the orbital battle stations that lasted 2000 plus years in the face of orbits cluttered with debris, hard radiation, temperature extremes and the need to shift orbit periodically with fuel. I’ll forgive these though for the interesting story well told.

And its an epic story as well. It has loves lost and found, betrayal, redemption, political maneuvering, wars won and lost, scientific rediscovery. Combine it with the interesting characters and their growth and its a winner for me.

Souls in The Great Machine has interesting ideas also. Sean McMullen gives the idea of the galley train – a pedal powered train, wind driven trains, the Calculor – an intellectual ‘galley’ where the skills of thousands are combined for mathematical tasks. The changes to the Calculor good as well, moving from a prison factory to a social institution in its own right. Then there are the religious responses to the call as well.

Did I like it? Four-and-a-half stars worth. Its an interesting post-apocalyptic fantasy well told.

Likes: Characters; Setting; Scope and ambition of the story; Female characters that passed the Bechdel test; Ideas.

Dislikes: Unlikely future Australia and functioning future battle stations.

Suggested for: Fans of Saberhagen’s Empire of the East, S.M. Stirling’s Dies the Fire.

Undercover by Lauren Dane

Review by Cynthia F. (frazerc)

Futuristic/SFR with a relationship driven plot.  I’m not saying there isn’t action but much of it is sexual.  Since this is a ménage book, a great deal of time is spent on scenes exploring combinations of one, two and three partners.   [Despite the heroine assuring them she is okay with ‘boy touching’ – her words, not mine – the two guys are into her and not each other.  They are emotionally intimate, and there is an occasional kiss or caress – but it’s on the way to what they really want, her.]  Light BDSM elements – bedroom submission, a few toys, spanking…

The book opens with the heroine, Sera, storming into her superior’s office demanding to be sent back to her unit.  He refuses and introduces her to her new unit, Brandt Pela and Ash Walker.  She decks Ash, puts Brandt on the ground when he tries to block the door, and storms back out.  Eventually she is forced to listen – she has been assigned to work with these two in a covert intelligence unit – for reasons having to do with her skills, not her past with Ash.

Both Brandt and Ash are Ranked [think English aristocracy, especially before the introduction of the House of Commons.]  Ranked men are not supposed to do more than play around with unranked women.  Sera is unranked.  Ten years ago Sera and Ash were together and, she thought, deeply in love.  The shock when she found out he was engaged to be married and he asked her to be his official Mistress was devastating.  She left him, and any thought of love, behind.

The mission necessitates her being a ‘mistress’ to one of the men since the society they will be entering requires it and they need someone to spy at that level.  She refuses to have anything to do with Ash but agrees to do it with Brandt.  Circumstances [of the extremely obvious plot device variety] occur that require her to be the mistress of both of them…

The threesome work well together in the bedroom and on the mission.  They succeed in tracking down the traitors and bringing the proof back to their superiors, proof that rocks the comfortable world of the Ranked…

Ash wants her back – desperately.  The wife he was forced to marry divorced him seven years ago so he is now free, but as a second son he still cannot marry without his father’s permission – permission that he could not get ten years ago and cannot get now.

Brandt had heard a great deal about Sera from his best friend and he falls deeply in love with her.  And his father is much more liberal than Ash’s..

Sera learns about the realities of being Ranked and finally understands why Ash did what he did ten years ago.  She slowly begins to trust again, both Ash AND Brandt…

Federation Chronicles

1. Undercover

2. Relentless

Phantom Corps

3. Insatiable

4. Mesmerized

5. Captivated