Irish author John Connolly is perhaps best known for his crime stories that hover on the edges between traditional detective stories and supernatural horror, but with The Book of Lost Things, Connolly travels deeper into fantasy-land, reinventing age-old fairy tales in a beautiful and poignant story of childhood and loss.

Set in England during the beginning of World War II, The Book of Lost Things is the story of the 12 year-old David and his struggle to come to terms with the death of his mother, his father’s quick re-marriage and the birth of a baby sister. David is especially close to his mother, sharing her love of literature. Her illness and death is an earth-shattering experience for him, and it is this loss that the whole narrative revolves around, which is already hinted at in the very beautiful opening paragraph:

David’s mother has shared her love of fairy tales with him, and she has taught him that these old stories are important. The fairy tales have a special power. They are stories that come “alive” in the telling and they have the power to take root in and transform the reader, and the power to create their own reality. After his mother’s death, these ancient stories begin to intrude upon David’s reality. Books start to whisper to him and he receives episodic visitations from the Crooked Man, a strange and frightening figure.

About six months after his mother’s death, David’s father introduces him to Rose. She works at the hospice where David’s mother ended her life, and it quickly becomes apparent that she is in a relationship with his father, a relationship that most likely began while his mother still lived. David’s father and Rose marry not long after this introduction, she gives birth to a son, Georgie, and the new family moves into an old country house that belongs to Rose’s family. This house contains its own tragic story, a story that becomes intertwined with David’s. In his new room, David finds a book with dark and horrifying fairy tales, a book that once belonged to Rose’s uncle Jonathan, who, as a child, disappeared with his foster-sister Anna many years ago, never to be found again.

David is both attracted and repulsed by the tales in Jonathan’s book, and the narrative subtly builds an atmosphere of quite menace as David continues to hear the books and see the Crooked Man while he at the same time clashed repeatedly with his step-mother. He hates his new life; he hates his step-mother, his half-brother. He misses his mother, and his father who is emotionally absent. And the reality of war is ever present as the backdrop of this more intimate battleground of familial conflict. This atmosphere of conflict and menace comes to a head when the war in the family and the war in the world briefly collide. David’s resentment of Rose’s intrusion into his family finally explodes in a heated argument, and the very same night, a bomber airplane crashed in the garden. At precisely this point, the membranes of David’s reality violently ruptures, tearing him away from his known world and catapulting him into a strange and frightening place, where he hears his mothers voice, calling for him to save her, to bring her back.

David finds himself in a strange forest where the trees bleed and the flowers have the faces of dead children, and where blood-thirsty wolves walk and speak like men. Aided by a woodsman, David sets out to find the king of the land, who owns The Book of Lost Things, which might help him find his way home again. David has to negotiate many horrifying dangers during his quest, sometimes aided by different helpers, sometimes alone – all the time haunted by his mother’s voice, and shadowed by the mysterious Crooked Man, who wants something from him. When he finally reaches the king’s castle and finds the Book of Lost Things, David learns that things are not what they seem, and that he has to make a choice that might have severe consequences for himself and his family.

In The Book of Lost Things John Connolly engages with several different, yet interrelated literary traditions. His novel is structured as a portal-quest fantasy in the tradition of C.S. Lewis, where the protagonist enters parallel world, but the world David enter into draws extensively upon the tradition of fairy tales with an emphasis on their darker aspects, which touches upon the horror genre. Connolly handles these different aspects extremely well, weaving them into a coherent whole with an emotional underpinning that is both poignant and psychologically truthful.

The main part of the narrative takes place in the parallel world that David enters, but Connolly manages to keep up a continuous doubt about its reality. It is a world that is both real and tangible, in the sense that David interacts with it, yet also dream-like and hallucinatory, its elements made up well-known fairy tales re-told and re-invented, mixed up with elements from other books that David has been in contact with. Thus David’s encounter with a group of dwarves living with a petty house-tyrant in a dysfunctional domestic situation offers a rather funny and whimsical interpretation of the fairy tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves filtered through a text book on Communism! Thus, the kingdom that David journeys through is in many ways his own creation, it is the amalgam of all the stories he knows, mixed and reordered into a new configuration.

In a sense, John Connolly highlights the workings of the traditional quest fantasy by making explicit the fact that the external quest often stands as a metaphor for the internal journey of the protagonist. David’s quest through his dark and twisted fantasy-land is driven by his need to work through his grief, to accept the loss of his mother and the presence of his new brother – a need that is not met in his own reality due to the emotional absence of his father. But at the same time, Connolly leaves the reader in doubt about the actual presence of this fairy tale parallel world. It both is and is not real, for The Book of Lost Things is also a story about the power of stories.

The Book of Lost Things is brilliant take on a modern fairy tale – dark and scary but also beautiful and moving in its depiction of a child’s loss, grief and ambivalent jealousy as is it filtered through the fantastic. The emotional underpinning of Connolly’s story is its most powerful element, but his re-workings of popular fairy tales also work very well. Their emphasis on the horrific touches upon all that is scary, while at the same time addressing the fact that most of the fairy tales we know today were heavily edited in the 19th century. The paperback edition of Connolly’s novel comes with an appendix, where the author explains the origins of each of the tales he re-invents in the novel, accompanied by a reprint of the “original” tales (from textual sources such as the Brothers Grimm). The appendix is also the only gripe I have with this otherwise wonderful novel as Connolly unfortunately not only explains the origins of each tale but also proceeds to explain their use in his narrative, thus essentially interpreting his own work for the reader. This is a rather heavy-handed move, but since it is located in an appendix, it can be skipped.

A terrorist attack on San Francisco kicks off this Young Adult novel by Cory Doctorow. Marcus Yallow and his friends are playing an interactive scavenger hunt game and end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of their number is injured and when they flag down the police, they find themselves under arrest and taken to a secret prison where they're interrogated by the Department of Homeland Security. Once released, Marcus uses his technology skills to become and activist, which makes him Public Enemy Number One, as he attempts to regain the city and the freedom that he used to know.

This novel is particularly compelling because it isn't far-fetched. When a government and its people gives terrorists the power to disrupt their lives, the changes that a governing body can institute and the people will tolerate in the name of safety can become shocking. The majority of the technology in the novel already exists in some form, even if it isn't yet as sophisticated or widely-used as in the book. The leaps for the techonolgy in the book aren't unreasonable and have probably already been developed, but haven't been released to the general public. Interestingly enough, the chief tool for the subversion of the government are xBoxes that have been hacked.

Marcus is a compelling character because if he hadn't been so mistreated, he wouldn't have become so active in attempting to bring down the Department of Homeland Security. He isn't stupid, nor does he seem particularly lazy, he's just a kid, doing the kind of things expected from a typical teenaged geek with free time on his hands. He's a little selfish and a bit vindictive, but he's a highly realistic character. Many very significant social movements were founded on a similar vindictive dissident basis.

Cory Doctorow also provides afterwords and a bibliography for those who want to learn more about the technology involved in the book and the ideas presented. The book mentions Abbie Hoffman and the Yippie movement, as well as civil rights groups, and some very poignant quotes from the Constitution. The book never become preachy, it has a point and the author is never shy about reminding the reader what that point is, but there is still so much action, reaction, and character growth that it doesn't feel as if it's an adamant statement. This is the kind of book meant to get people thinking and talking, and it certainly offers a great deal of food for thought.

Technology can sometimes be off-putting in fiction. If an author has to take a long tangent in order to explain how things work or how and why the technology was developed, the plot and characterizatino can often suffer. Sometimes, techno-babble can cause readers to lose interest, especially if they're unfamiliar with slang or jargon that is being used. "Little Brother" doesn't suffer from these problems. The technology isn't inacessible and through various plot devices it's easily and neatly explained enough to help the reader understand what is happening.

The bigger point, though, is at what point trading privacy for safety needs to be stopped. "Little Brother" is being marketed as Young Adult, but I believe that adult readers would gain just as much, if not more, benefit from reading this book. Anyone who has concerns over the amount of power the Department of Homeland Security has been granted or about the Patriot Act should definitely get a hold of a copy of "Little Brother" and then start sharing it with their friends. Some adults are certainly part of the problem in the book, but not all adults are the issue. There are very specific villains in this book, which gives it a more balanced view than it might have had.

It's an excellent, thought-provoking read, and I would recommend it to just about everyone.

Wolverine is perhaps Marvel's most compelling X-men character. While his backstory and volatile makes him interesting, it can also make him easily cliched and largely unlikeable. Given to competent writers, Wolverine is rich fodder that can make for some incredible story-telling. Dave Stern has certainly used the character well in "The Nature of the Beast."

This particular novel takes place between Wolverine #76 and #77. Magento has taken all the adamantium from Wolverine's body, forcing him to learn who he has become, as well as relearn everything he used to know about his body. He retreats to a desert preserve where he encounters a scientifically modified tiger that sets off a whole chain of events. Suddenly, he's Logan again, and he's investigating an internatinal web of secret labs performing experiments with one goal, to rid the world of any further mutations. On his quest, he begins to understand that he has physical limitations again and that he is, in fact, vulnerable. Pieces of his past after the adamantium was bonded to his skeleton resurface, and the reader gets a few more parts of that elusive and mysterious backstory.

"Wolverine: Nature of the Beast" is fast-paced and certainly more given to simplified explanations of any technology and the plots to use it. This is mostly a result of the story being told in first person from Logan's perspective. He's not the kind of guy who worries too much about the details, which is often what gets him into trouble. He's not stupid by any means, but he is impulsive and prefers to act, rather than make detailed plans. The author provides a good balance between positive and negative outcomes for Logan's general mode of operation. Sometimes, his focus on the immediate really pays off, other times, he ends up making things much worse.

This book was largely a fun and entertaining novel, certainly it had the feel of reading a comic book because it moved quickly and the focus really was in telling a good action story. Fans of Wolverine should be very pleased with Dave Stern's take on the character. Newer readers who are curious (especially if they're unsure or unwilling to get to involved collecting the comic books, or who only know who Wolverine is because they've seen the X-men movies) should find this book to be a fairly serviceable introduction to the character. At the very least, my interest about the rest of the Wolverine novels that Dave Stern writes has been piqued.

We awaken with Tynan Llywelyn from a hundred year's Sleep. Tynan is no Rip Van Winkle, however, but a powerful vampire who is not eager to return to the vampire community who shunned him. The world that greets him is vastly different than what he left behind. Society has crumbled and humanity is being controlled by a domineering techno-government called the Tyst. A small group of rebels, the Phuree, are fighting back as best they can. The Phuree have taken a radical step in allying themselves with the Predators who feed off them - the vampires. Tynan finds himself embroiled in a power struggle between vampire and human players alike.

I knew I was in for an incredible read when I became captivated by the Acknowledgments page. Ms. Faust's talents as a wordsmith far surpass anything I have read in some time. Her depiction of vampires is a delicious exquisiteness that at times had me running my tongue over my teeth to insure fangs had not appeared! She creates these beings with a deft hand, stitching common myths together with her singularly modern twist, providing a seamless and completely believable existence.

Next to such thoroughly real characters, the Tyst and Phuree pale by comparison. The Tyst are nameless and faceless; although characters are mentioned we never really get to know them. These are the Big Bad Guys, yet they seem completely untouchable and almost nonexistent. The Phuree are also a bit out of reach. Teirnan, their leader, and his sister Khanna are stereotypical and rather predictable. They appear small and ineffective somehow. This book is the first in a series, however, so perhaps the next installment will focus more on the other characters. If Faust can bring them to reality as she has her vampires, this will be a knockdown-dragout favorite!

The overall sensation of the story is very focused on Tynan, his tough and (unusual for the Living Dead) his emotions. In fact, Tynan's emotions are a pivotal point of the entire storyline. Faust captured his moral writhing quite well. He is struggling with a moral crisis, one that led him to abandon his Dark Brethren and sink into Eternal Sleep. But his despair only kept him for one hundred years, not forever. With prose the texture of deep velvet, Faust draws us down to the depths of a story as old as fear, as dark as sin, and as deep as Satan's heart. The lines between friend and foe are re-drawn. She captures desperate obsession and hunger, outlining each with the passion for existence that burns in all beings.

In spite of a lack of character development in some areas, I was very impressed with Gabrielle Faust and Eternal Vigilance. I eagerly devoured the book from cover to cover in one sitting and felt bereft when I was finished. This is not an airy-fairy, "rescue the damsel"-type of story. Gritty and dark, readers will begin to understand the "un"life of a vampire.

My first experience with Tad Williams was when I picked up his novel, "City of Golden Shadow." I found the book's opening, in which one of the main characters experiences scenes from World War I, to be marvelously descriptive and quite riveting. Though I found the culmination of that book series to be rather disappointing, I moved on to more of Williams' books. I read his "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" saga, which I found more enjoyable, but was once again disappointed by the ending. I then tackled "Shadowmarch," which was so bogged down I could hardly finish it. After all of these lengthy works, I wanted to try something that would give me more of what I liked about Tad Williams without the sheer weight of pages. That led me to try, "The War of the Flowers."

In this standalone novel, I was soon rewarded with exactly what I had hoped for. Williams' gift for wonderful descriptive scenes was again present as I began reading. The scenes and events involving Theo and his mother stand out as some of the most poignant I've ever read.

The premise of the book is interesting, if not completely new to fantasy readers. Theo, the main character, finds himself transported to the land of Faerie and encounters danger and adventure as he is caught up in the affairs of the ruling houses, named for flowers. I found the title misleading, as actual war in the sense of pitched battles and combat heroics is not a major element of the plot.

The book is not so much about fantastic elements, though these are certainly present, as it is about interaction between its well-developed characters. Many are dark, with sinister aspects hinted at and revealed slowly by the author. Theo begins as a sympathetic loser, but grows as the story progresses. Love interests abound throughout and feature prominently in his fate. There are some aspects of "Romeo and Juliet" here, in fact, though with a less tragic outcome.

There is some social commentary as well, though I perceived it to be understated, perhaps even underdeveloped. The inhabitants of Faerie, in an interesting twist for a fantasy novel, are discovering all the problems of industrialized society, class inequality, exploitation, and greed.

Unfortunately, the excellence of the early parts of the book begins to wane by the middle to late chapters. This is a common problem with many of Williams' books, in my opinion. The mysterious elements in the plot begin to be explained -- but the details seem overly contrived. I was disappointed with some of the plot twists, and others I found predictable. In a few cases, I felt as though I was left hanging with no explanation at all.

These complaints would have been forgivable but for the end of the story. It almost seemed as though the author had lost interest in the book chapters ago, and just needed to get it wrapped up so it would be finished.

In fairness, I enjoyed reading this book, flaws and all. Tad Williams once again succeeds in creating another world for the reader to explore, though at times the writing is frustrating. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a short -- if 700 pages may be called short – introduction to the style of Tad Williams. His best and worst are both present in this novel.

Unquiet Dreams takes fans of Urban Fantasy back to what the subgenre could and should be. Urban Fantasy has long been relegated to the slow simmering back burner reserved for the thick, sloppy cheese that is comforting, unsurprising, and coagulates into a lumpy mess far too easily. There are perfectly good Urban Fantasy books and perfectly horrible ones. Fortunately, "Unquiet Dreams" is one of the very good ones.

This is the second book in the series, after "Unshapely Things".This volume stands alone quite well, with enough recapping incorporated into the story to help new readers understand what Connor Grey is talking about without bogging down the pace. Connor Grey used to be part of the Guild, a magical police force that takes care of problems within the magical community, but after a nasty encounter with a powerful elf robbed him of his powers, he does freelance work with the human police. A teenaged human boy dies in the street and when Connor is called into the investigation, things spiral into a much larger and much more dangerous case. Clever readers will be able to figure out who the culprit is in advance, but the journey to the revelation is still well worth the read. Del Franco's Boston is a city that has been changed by the emergence of magical creatures but still retains most of its character. The city is populated with a variety of beings, many of whom are represented in any number of other fantasy novels. What sets this book apart is that no single class of characters is bad or good, rather they run a spectrum, though they've been subjected to stereotypes, much like their human counterparts.

The book keeps its crime scenes quite descriptive without delving too much into horrifically graphic tableaus. It's both more entertaining and far less stomach-turning than the average episode of "CSI." It's paced well, with little drag and little lacking in plot development. The characters could easily have disintegrated into a mush of stock and cardboard, but they rise to the story almost effortlessly without seeming contrived. The whole book carries an air of careful plotting without ham-handed manuevering. None of the breaks in the case seem contrived and there aren't any deus ex machina moments.

Connor Grey isn't a perfect character. He's a fallen hero who's still scraping himself together. The reader can feel sympathy for his struggles, but also see that he's one of those characters who most likely led himself to his plight. He's a very readable and compelling character.

This book was highly enjoyable, and I will definitely be seeking out the rest of the series. I'll also be buying copies of the first book for friends who enjoyed books like "War for the Oaks" by Emma Bull and Terri Windling's "Bordertown" series. I will also be holding out hope that more readers and publishers will take notice and start publishing more Urban Fantasy titles. The subgenre just faltered a little, like Connor Grey, and it doesn't deserve to be either forgotten or ignored.

It is the mid-1950s, and in a fleabag hotel off Times Square, Kockroach, perfectly content with life as an insect, awakens to discover that somehow he's become, of all things, a human. This tragic turn of events would be enough to fling a more highly evolved creature into despair, but cockroaches know no despair. Firmly entrenched in the present tense, they are awesome coping machines, and so Kockroach copes. Step by step, he learns the ways of humans—how to walk, how to talk, how to wear a jaunty brown fedora.

As Kockroach, led by his primitive desires and insectile amorality, navigates through the bizarre human realms of crime, business, politics, and sex, he meets with both great triumph and great disaster. Will he find success or be squashed flat from above? Will he change humanity, or will humanity change him?

In some ways Kockroach is a success and in others not quite. The first part offers a great version of Times Square and New York in the 50's where junkies, gangsters and prostitutes eat in the same diner as the early members of The Beat Generation. It's told in idealized broad strokes but they are efficient at painting, and affirming a certain pre-Giuliani mental image that probably never really existed. But its a hell of a ride and a lot of fun.

Kockroach is a problematic book though and part of this lies on the shoulders of Mite, one of the main characters and the conduit through which which we read the story.

Through the character of Mite Kockroach cant decide if it wants to be a gangster pulp parody or if it wants to play it straight and as a result it never really attains either. Mite's character reads, at times, like a pale amalgamation of so many pulp characters; on the surface all of the words, slang and rhythms are there but its laid on so thick that it really just approaches caricature. When this becomes really noticeable is when the time frame of the story shifts from the 50's to the 60's and Mite's speech characteristics don't change as well.

**mild spoilers below**

There are some character based reasons why they should have changed; that he is gay and his lover is black. In linguistic terms (especially since we are talking about slang) these are two groups who have done more to influence American Language then any other group. The first due to societal (and legal) restrictions, especially of the time frame we are talking about when being gay was not only illegal but also dangerous, that forced a coded, insular language in an effort to determine who was gay and protect themselves. The second groups contribution to the shaping of 20th century American language is far more pervasive. To say that ghetto vernacular has been moving into everyday speech patterns for 100+ years is not an understatement; from the pre hip-hop world (nitty-gritty, busted, put-down) to the post hip-hop world (bling, boo-ya) this is an linguistically influential group. Or, more succinctly, here is a line from John Brandon's novel Arkansas, "Black children invent slang and in time it makes its way to the dictionary." But the primary characteristic of both of these groups languages is that they are fluid and ever changing. But even looking past those character based reasons the 60's were a decade with their own speech patterns and for Mite to still retain his 50's speech patterns a full decade later with no change speaks to the inability of Mite to progress as a character and the basic two dimensionality of the other characters.

Harder to quantify though is what bugs (intended) me the most about this book. A story about a cockroach who turns into a man is, at its heart, a weird premise and the final product stopped being weird very early on. It should have been, and could have been, weird, odd, maybe a bit horrific but instead it's a little on the sterile side.

--Brian Lindenmuth

David Rice, abused by father and abandoned by mother, suddenly discovers he has the unusual ability to “jump” - miraculously transporting himself and anything he is holding to wherever he pictures in his mind. Using his ability to escape his father, he struggles to survive in a world without job, ID, personal history. Life without personal connections is cold and lonely, though. The temptation to settle down calls to him and, in giving in, he captures the attention of the establishment. Throughout his attempts to avoid the long arm of Big Brother, he tackles terrorism and his relationship with his parents.

Readers familiar with Griffin’s Tale may feel a bit disoriented while reading Jumper. Written in 1992 and re-released this year to coincide with the production of the movie Jumper by 20th Century Fox, Jumper the book sustains a few alterations before making it to the big screen. Griffin is not in the book Jumper but is only a character created for the movie, hence the book Griffin’s Tale written not too long ago to establish the character before the movie was released. Readers shouldn’t avoid this book for this reason, however. Just know that the book is different from the movie, as usual.

I found the concept of jumping interesting and had high hopes for the book. To quote Stephen Gould, “Teleportation is, I hope, a classic trope of science fiction, and not a cliché.” I agree, but even classic tropes need good stories with well-explained back stories in order to shine. Unfortunately, Jumper leaves much to be desired when examined with a critical eye.

Here is a young boy, abandoned and abused, trying to make it on his own. Whenever he meets a struggle, “poof”, he disappears and goes somewhere else. He does deal with some very uncomfortable situations, but his ability makes it all seem so unreal. Yes, I understand the genre is fiction. I expect my fiction to contain kernels of believability sprinkled throughout the fantasy, though.

I appreciate how Mr. Gould tries to have David Rice, the main character, work through these issues. In fact, the adolescent angst is at times palpable and cloying. But, when I got to the end I didn’t feel like I actually made it anywhere. The story read like a chain of events loosely bound together by the same paper cover and not a well-knit story unfolding for the reader. I know no more about David Rice at the end than I did at the beginning.

I had hoped the author would address the root of David’s talent, why he has it and where it came from. One could say this would be developed in the next book in the series, but Mr. Gould released this in 1992 and didn’t follow up with another book. There is no series. (For those of you hearkening back to Griffin’s Tale again, please remember that book deals with the history of a character created for the movie Jumper.) He just cuts us off and leaves us with nothing. In fact, after I finished I remember thinking “hmmm, reads like a television show”. Perhaps the movie is more enjoyable.

Small Favor, the 10th book in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files is another tale full of Harry Dresden’s wisecracking and wizardry. In this episode, Harry has been recruited by Mab, Queen of Winter to find and rescue the mob boss, Johnny Marcone. This is a job Harry would never take, except for the fact that he is in debt to Winter and must do it despite his reservations. Regardless of the fact that Harry is being harassed by minions of the Summer Court and that whoever kidnapped Marcone was not only a professional but very powerful, Harry is now on the case.

Asking questions of the right people, Harry discovers who has kidnapped the crime lord and is forced by Marcone’s people to set up a neutral meeting between his abductors and Marcone’s seconds. Macrons’ abductors are none other than the Knights of the Blackened Denarius, mages who have been possessed by fallen angels. Talks of this sort need neutral ground and a neutral negotiator. Harry decides that a meeting this dangerous requires a powerful negotiator and calls in the Archive, the living repository of all knowledge. Getting this sort of meeting set up while being stalked by Queen Titania’s enforcers taxes Harry’s resources. Living through the talks could be even harder.

I find that I enjoy this series for several reasons. The largest of those reasons is Butcher’s voice. Undoubtedly, his characters are of a sort who have lives that readers love to follow. I even find his secondary characters to be fascinating. Bob, Mouse and Mister are some of my favorites, and I love to hear about them. His fantasy Chicago, full of hidden magic and faerie creatures is also very compelling to us mortals stuck in our mundane lives. However, it is his voice that brings it all to life. The character dialog, Harry’s internal dialog, and his pop culture reference riddled descriptions make this reader feel as if the story was written specifically for me. If Mike Hammer was a wizard living in modern-day Chicago and had a fondness for sarcasm and snappy comebacks, his name would be Harry Dresden.

Butcher’s fans will definitely devour this one just like the last nine. It has all the elements, danger, magic, romantic undertones, wisecracks, a multitude of pop culture references, evil beasties and arrogant bad guys, mayhem, threats, faeries, vampires and even the billy goats gruff. Seriously, they are there, I kid you not (pun intended).

As actor Jamey Sheppard is road-tripping from Los Angeles to Arizona to reunite with his fiancee for their wedding, the future looks brighter than gold...until the best day in his life turns into the worst when he's arrested for a high profile crime.

Staying on the run could be the best career move Jamey's ever made...if he can just live long enough to sign on the dotted line.

One of the best things about Mad Dogs is the great premise that lies at its core. A man who portrayed a criminal on TV is mistaken for that criminal then is involved in an accidental shooting of a cop. The paths of the actor and the criminal he portrayed intersect then run together. There is a lot of potential in that deceptively simple premise to explore themes of identity; to have great tension filled moments due to the way that the police always react to a cop killing; and blundering, thrilling moments where the protagonist has to behave in a way that is alien to him in order to survive. All of these, and other great moments, are scattered through out but Mad Dogs does, at times, get away from itself in the telling.

One thing that can be distracting at times with Mad Dogs is the large cast of quirky secondary characters. They become defined, in large part, by their gimmicks. As a result they come off as inconsequential and ultimately forgettable. There are even times when their defining characteristics countermand the role that has been set for them. For example: If you are being told that a pair of characters are supposed to be dangerous, or more specifically, are to pose a threat to the protagonist, but they are such bumbling fuck-ups that their threat is never taken seriously by the reader then have they failed in their purpose? In one sense no, because they ARE in fact entertaining and funny. But in another sense yes, since they are supposed to be a menace but aren't.

But there are bigger problems that dog the book that run just a bit deeper then two dimensional characters. After the exiting first chapter there is a certain level of dramatic tension that has been built up, and is expected to be built upon and utilized in subsequent chapters, that quickly gets squandered. For example, soon after getting the case the lead detective believes not only in the innocence of Jamey but that the shooting was accidental too. So their is no reason for Jamey to be on the run any longer. Then the detective has the opportunity to get word to Jamey that he believes it was an accident. Since the stated reason for Jamey to stay on the run is now gone Hodge had to come up with a way to delay the inevitable. Cue the aforementioned secondary characters.

Its hard when a book releases the dramatic tension thats been built up then expects the reader to just buy into an artificial rebuilding of it. We see this again later on after Duncan and Jamey have come together. The cops think they are going to Vegas, so they don't, and viola they lost the cops. I mean why kill a cop in the first place if you aren't going to exploit the dramatic tension that is inherent in just such an act.

This ties into another problem that is tangential to the loss of dramatic tension, the loss of momentum. A certain level of kineticisim has been built up by the time that Jamey and Duncan have met and the easy loss of a pursurer leads them to a state of inertia that lulls the middle part of the book. Unfortunately Mad Dogs never quite manages to recover from that loss of momentum. Its in this slow middle portion that a subtle shift occurs in Jamey, he stays on the run not because he has to but because he wants to. The exterior reasons for staying on the run have now been fully stripped away, its a subtle shift in reasoning but its one that makes all the difference in the world.

Ultimately Mad Dogs is a sprawling ambitious novel with a great premise that spins out of control at times but still entertains on a lot of levels. It may take some sifting to find the flakes of gold, but they are there. This is Hodges first crime novel and if Mad Dogs isnt yet enough to make us shout 'Theres gold in them thar hills' I feel certain that Hodges future crime novels will.

--Brian Lindenmuth

The Age of Fire has been a wonderful set of books so far, with E.E. Knight doing a wonderful job at spinning the tale of a clutch of dragons each with their own story during the same time frame. Book three gives up the nameless Copper dragon that was crippled after birth in the male dragon battle for dominance. This wild born dragon, who is perceived to be a selfish villain, is given his own story. All that we learned from the other dragons’s perspectives is flipped and we learn the real story of this copper, who will become known as Rugaard.

We start the story with Rugaard, a character that we have come to hate from the other two books. Ah, such a victim of circumstances that we did not really have full insight to at the time. This is why this story is so enjoyable, it feels like a puzzle where the pieces are being put together and you get to see the full story. Let us be clear though, not the 1 million pieces of the same color flower type of puzzle that can be frustrating, but the 500 piece puzzle that makes you feel accomplished but not stupid.

In the cave where we find Rugaard on the way to what we know already is the slaughter of his parents by the dwarves, we get a grander tour after the main event. E.E. gives us a nice view at all the different societies in the cave, like the bats, dragons, dwarves, and snakes. Rugaard has to take on these trials of each culture before eventually breaking free of the cave in his quest to find other dragons. Here starts one of my personal issues with the story, which I will call Jar Jar Binks syndrome. While the bats that Rugaard – still at this time nameless – meets and befriends are used nicely as a secondary character and a companion device, the way they speak took me right out of the story.

“M’answering the nice young dragon’s questions! So now e’be starving and yeee-eyee-yeee…”

We would have been better served by not forcing a speech pattern that denotes their intelligence or difference from the dragon, but letting Knight use his skill as an author to show us the same characteristics.

The copper then finds what Auron was looking for in book one, which is other members of his kind at the Lavadome. This is full fleshed out dragon society with all the culture and intrigue of a human court; Knight shines here with his ability to make us connect with this society and the change that comes upon it. It was interesting to see dragons not separated by color or alignment, but rather a full blown society. Another minor point that felt a bit forced was the dragon battle where Rugaard shows his skills as a commander. It seemed that we did not have enough of a background on why the battle was taking place. Knight does give us a reason, but it seems hasty and not at all developed. Yes, I know this was not the focus for that part of the book, but it still did not seem complete for me.

At the beginning, this book is darker than the others, but at the same time really gives us an understanding of the young copper’s bad decisions rather than an evil heart. While I am sure this book can be picked up out of series and read as a stand alone, it does not do the series or Knight justice. This is a wonderful piece to the puzzle that we are coming to know as The Age of Fire. I don’t know if we can call the copper a hero yet, but that is why we are looking forward to the next book. Barring the two, which I would call minor details, this is one of my favorite reads this year.

I was introduced to Jonathan Carroll through the insistence of two strangers. I’m not known to listen to people, indeed I’m a scoffer, but they wanted to be called Wiz and Grub – and since those are of my two favorite things to do I thought they may have been on to something. You add that one knew the Condor Man uniform on sight and the other had reading list that peaked curiosity itself (not just my own) and you had the beginnings of a recommendation that would be followed through. Some years – and what seems like a couple lifetimes later – Jonathan Carroll is one of those authors whose books I buy. That may seem anticlimactic, but Carroll is one of, and perhaps the first writer who went on that list of “all I need to know is that the book is out” authors. I don’t need to know what it’s about, I don’t need to know where or when it takes place, I don’t need to know if it’s called fantasy, mystery, horror or science fiction – because such questions, such words, cannot contain Carroll. Instead Carroll carries Liza’s bucket of pandora paint adding a stroke with a brush here, there and where.

Frannie McCabe is the chief of police in Crane’s View, New York a town he grew up in and the town he’d happily die in if given the chance, not that death was something that was on his mind until the death of an odd dog that he took in at his office. A dog that like McCabe has the marks of a creature that lived – not just existed – and upon its death he took it upon himself to bury ‘Old Vertue”. A small town, a veteran sheriff, a dead dog – it has the makings of a western or a bad country song. At an rate, the death of the dog, the disappearance of a couple in his town, a girl found dead in the school bathroom, his step-daughter’s new tattoo disappearing - the aroma of change in the air would set McCabe on a whimsical story where he will attempt to connect dots while retracing his steps. Like time travel stories? How about a story that captures the scent of American Pie? About love, family, a coming of age story and a going of age story. When you don’t have to meet yourself to disrupt the space-time continuum, but you may have to hang out with him and perhaps more than anything it presents the idea that there would be value in asking your prior self – a unique individual – questions to see the actions of that person and learn something is not just a cog in the present cumulative. If one could point at a fault there is a point where you think McCabe is going nowhere, where Carroll couldn’t seem to bring a conclusion big enough to pay-off everything he introduced. It may even seem – in reflection – a great opportunity for a more than quaint fictional work without Science Fiction and Fantasy elements missed. What I think actually occurs is that we see a reasonable and competent man by most standards completely functioning as a man we would rationally think would in an irrational – a magical - situation. So many times in fiction we are shown protagonists who become so by acclimating themselves, to rise to the occasion. To become something they aren’t and never were – something nobody could possibly be. In many cases there may be fall to overcome as well, but routinely we are described this relying on our preconditioned acceptance of this due to exposure in rather flat fiction. Carroll does not stumble in tying up The Wooden Sea, Frannie does, and related to that the end of such experiences are not end of eras in any way a calendar would understand. The Science Fiction element – a universal awakening – is so over the top for the a Sheriff of an escapist-alcove American town that you can feel the gravity of just how beyond being simply odd or disconcerting such situation would be. You would attack this how you know how – with McCabe, the experiences of a hell raiser as a child, a Vietnam Vet, a veteran of couple of marriages, who lives a more than stable life and now respected in the town he once was once ‘that kid’ of. Frannie is a man who had gone through his ‘cycle’ only to be thrown into something bigger. It is not because he does not have the qualities to identify him as heroic; it is that rarely do we describe the day-to-day, handle shit as it happens manner as such. He is not offered a mantle, he is, when looking back on his life a man with an understanding of service and what we have is a man who doesn’t have all the answers, indeed he doesn’t even know all the questions. For the fantastic to have an effect, you have to establish a base that we recognize and Carroll nails the towns so many of us live(ed) in. Where reputations matter, where people never seem to get away from – and if they do, everybody can recite you the specifics of it. Where downtown is distinguishable only because it has been always been called that, where you’re Smith’s daughter or boy. Where I certainly have no interest in going to such a place now, perhaps the person I will be one day will. It is in such places that America really resides:

From the beginning Carroll confounds us and it’s not just a mysterious 3-legged dog – man’s best friend – that enters his life. We are introduced to McCabe spouting one-liners, a wife and step-child showing up at the job with jibes and apparent issues and instead of getting a fractured soul, another broken cop getting by on booze – he did keep his smokes – that lives only to confound the world set against him we get a happy man, a loving husband, a pillar of the community, and man who is where he wants to be. We find a man not looking for anything, but not to the extreme of a man who fears what he may find – he has found what he wants. We are shown choices we can believe. What would you make god do to prove his power? What would you learn if you observed your father when he wasn’t at the moment being your father? What would you want to tell him? In the midst of events of global, and even universal gravity, McCabe is in his hood and confronting these opportunities as if they were what really mattered. So many times, we are told the world is worth saving in fiction, even if grudgingly, and in The Wooden Sea we see why McCabe’s world is. More than that, I’m not a reader who views it as a requirement of the author to make me root for the protagonist of a story to enjoy it, indeed even in my most get-along-gang of moods it’s still a quality that I can’t completely reconcile as not being a least a little slow, but obviously that isn’t to say such stories don’t often represent the best fiction has to offer and one would find it hard not to find some part of McCabe’s journey that is not relatable, that doesn’t at least brush up against something you carry.

The Wooden Sea shares characteristics with others Carroll books in that he rarely puts a new spin on genre conventions it just always seems like his is the right one we had yet to see, as if others were suddenly a heart beat off, a turn of phrase too early, a sentiment missed. There is also a clarity to Carroll’s work that I think is rather distinct. The Wooden Sea’s brand of wonder is one that questions what you see, feel and believe but never what you are actually reading. In fiction we are sometimes – I think – too enamored with stylistic conceit, and I while I agree with Hal Duncan in that style is substance in literature – but Carroll’s style somehow morphs into what should be fashion at the moment of reading instead of vying for next. I always marvel most at writers who are able to present several stories – many completely different thematically and even in tone –that don’t take away from one another in the absence of recognition. When I interviewed the wonderful Kelly Link she spoke of stories that could be read and reveal something new – a story that grows – and The Wooden Sea leaves more trees to climb, more secrets submerged.

The Wooden Sea is perhaps not Carroll’s most recommended work, but is still a notable chapter in the body of work of somebody who is in the argument of being the most noteworthy American Fantasist today.

So take a ride on a bicycle, grab an oar and watch yourself fly.

Jay Tomio
The Bodhisattva

The Unnatural Inquirer is the eighth book in the Nightside series by Simon R. Green. I’d probably have been better off starting with something earlier in the series, because this book felt a bit played out already and tracking the main character’s magical abilities was confusing at times. A lot of time was spent on worldbuilding—why Nightside works the way it does, the cool places on Nightside and the various characters and rules that govern this supernatural seedy, hidden side of London. The setting was actually quite fascinating, but while readers of the series might have been enjoying visiting old and dear characters, I found myself a tad bored with every little stop into yet another place. Each one was unique, but not always necessary in order to forward the story. There were interesting little what-ifs throughout: what-if buildings could rebuild themselves or what if religious zealots really could call down lightening, and the main one, if you could see what the afterlife really looked like, would you want to know?

There were some very dynamic characters in this book: John Taylor, the main character, finds things. He has the ability to look through time and see what happened in the past and then follow the past to the here and now, usually finding the person or object he is after. Of course, he needs enough clues in order for his inner eye to work. As he says, he has to know what question to ask. If he’s looking for an object, he has to know who to look for that might have moved or taken the object. He has to be in the right place. In this book something is blocking his powers, and he is forced into manual mode, searching for a recording of the afterlife without much help from magic.

Suzie “Shotgun Suzie” is Taylor’s girlfriend—and I suspect I would enjoy any Nightside caper that included more of her involvement. I am certain I would enjoy the winding tale of how the two of them came to trust each other enough to work together. In this caper, we instead get Bettie as Taylor’s companion; a reporter from the Unnatural Inquirer—(yes, it’s a play on the magazine and has a similar reputation.)

Bettie appears to be there so that Taylor has someone to talk to. She plays the dumb blonde, asking a lot of questions and supplying info dumps of her own. She was little more than a prop for most of the book.

There were other characters that probably played heavier parts in other books: the mysterious Walker who has the ability to give commands that Must Be Obeyed. He is some sort of enforcer/clean-up/self-appointed cop of Nightside and scenes with Walker were always quite interesting and well-done.

The plot--Taylor is hired by the Unnatural Inquirer to find an Afterlife Recording—a DVD the “newspaper” has already bought and paid for, only it disappeared before delivery. Of course, since it is seen as a valuable object, everyone else wants it too—collectors, religious zealots, the aforementioned Walker and the odd god creature. Taylor’s powers came and went as he tracked down the DVD—blocked by something or someone. I was never quite satisfied with the explanation given; yes, at the end, I knew ‘who’ caused the problem, but not ‘how.’

Perhaps because there are other books in this series, the borders of Taylor’s capabilities were never well-defined in this book. The most interesting scenes were at the beginning of the book where Taylor had use of his power and readers get to experience how he works. As the book progresses, he is steadily blocked—both in mundane ways and as he tries to rely on a few other secondary abilities that he has.

The ending had several battles, but frankly, nothing worrisome. Taylor’s powers just so happened to reappear in time for one or two battles, and when they weren’t working, it didn’t take him very long to talk his way out of trouble or otherwise free himself from disaster.

I wouldn’t hesitate to read one of the earlier novels in this setting because I suspect the whole series is a collection of quick, fun romps through a strangely magical urban setting. The premise for this story was good, the execution of it wandered, and in the end, it was much like bar-hopping with a guide that knows a city well—some places were fun, some had good music, some had interesting people with more than a hint of danger and some were dingy and tired with questionable food.

Well, this was a weird one. Dead to Me by Anton Strout was a cross between a superhero comic book and Maxwell Smart. It started off fairly serious in tone as far as plotline—an overworked paranormal government guy has a job to do, the main one being to figure out how to help a ghost cross completely over. Even from the beginning, humor lurked on the edge of nearly every scene—although sometimes I wasn’t sure if a particular event was written in bad taste or if the author was trying to be funny. As the book progressed through a series of events and escapades, it became zanier and more infected with puns—there were puns about everything from the predictable politician slams, wordplay, the publishing industry, chick-lit (could this book be the urban fantasy for chick-lit readers?? No, wait! Urban Fantasy for Cozy Readers!) with special jokes saved for corporate American and the government. Some of the humor was good, some bad, and there were the occasional groaners that could cause serious stomach injury.

The book had plenty of action—Strout won’t waste your time walking or taxiing to a particular place. He gets to the point and there are enough people, zombies and bad guys trying to kill him and the people he tries to protect that there’s never a boring moment. A few confusing ones perhaps, but I think I was mostly confused over whether to laugh or just accept the corny spots as comedy.

The main character is Simon, a psychometric individual who works for the secret government organization, Dept of Extraordinary Affairs—in New York, of course. He can divine a lot of information about people or objects just by touching them, and he’s supposed to use this power to help solve problems at the DEA. His life gets rather complicated when he falls in love simultaneously with a ghost and also with a woman that works for the dark side. He wants to help the ghost find her way to where she belongs, but it’s possible the woman working for the dark side has something to do with the ghost becoming a ghost in the first place. Well, that’s one of the plots, probably the most obvious one. The other main plot is that Simon and the DEA must try to figure out why so many ghosts/spirits aren’t crossing over properly.

There were some other interesting plotlines that Strout left open—like an important event that occurred during the boyhood years of Simon’s mentor, Connor. I’m guessing he’ll pursue that in another book. Most of this book Simon was learning to harness his powers and explore their range—sometimes this came across as action-packed drama and sometimes it was farcical, but it seemed the author was poking fun at certain stereotyped characters or overused story devices.

All in all, this book sets out to entertain on several levels and it does the job, although it can be a bit jarring to have a pun or two within a heart-pounding action scene. Simon is an interesting character with moods that shifted rapidly, changing the underlying tone of a particular scene quickly. He has interesting powers, but they are limited enough that Simon cannot rely upon them to get keep him out of any physical dangers. It’s whimsical at times, weird, corny and fun, sometimes all on the same page.

Jude Allman has been hiding a very long time. Jude has a secret. He was once very famous for doing something he had no control over. In fact, he did it three times. Jude died - and then came back to life. The notoriety he gathered, plus the fact he had no idea how it happened, drove him into seclusion. This period of seclusion has now come to a screaming halt, literally.

The Hunter, as he likes to call himself, enjoys stalking little girls. He revels in the hunt and kills them when the thrill is finished. As the Hunter’s activities escalate, Jude begins to realize he may have the power to stop the abductions. When the Hunter gets too close to those Jude loves, then he knows he must act.

T.L. Hines gives us a new and completely different angle to the idea of near-death experiences. This is a suspense-driven novel that at it’s core examines the concept that some people are here for a specific purpose. While it took a few pages for the story to get moving, once it did the author was able to keep the momentum building. The point of view shifts between several characters, effectively hiding the identity of the Hunter until the very end.

I enjoyed reading this book as much as T.L. Hines’ second story - The Dead Whisper On. Both books are published by Bethany House, a company that focuses on fictional stories with a spiritual twist. Mr. Hines definitely accomplishes this with Waking Lazarus. The reader is guided blindly through the minds of the characters, wondering which one is the Hunter. I found myself flipping back and forth, trying to match clues mentioned before with what I was reading at the time and attempt to nail the bad guy.

Although filled with suspense and some violence, this is not something that should cause nightmares for the faint at heart (like me!) In addition, while the story skirts the edge of believability, it doesn’t defy the theology of the mainstream believer. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable read from a new author. I will be impatiently awaiting the third story from Mr. Hines. I do not think he will disappoint.