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.

Magic Burns is the second in a new series from Ilona Andrews. In the first book, Magic Bites, we are introduced to Kate Daniels a magical mercenary whose heritage and experience has given her the ability to handle herself in difficult situations. Living in Atlanta after a magical cataclysm that renders technology unreliable on a regular basis, the magical pulses that are echoes of this magical upheaval occur in an unfixed pattern except for the large ‘flare’ that happens every seven years. That Flare is coming soon and apparently some magical beings are out to utilize that Flare to escape their prison and make Atlanta their new base of operations. Since these destructive demons intend to use the human race as fodder, Kate must work to stop their plan. Kate discovered all of this while searching for the mother of an orphaned waif who seems to have a great deal of innate magic herself.

This was a very fitting sequel to the first book, taking up nearly at the same time that the first closed. As a character, Kate seems a bit more fragile mentally than your average magic wielding heroine. Her past, including a dangerously powerful father and a murdered partner keep her from exuding the usual invulnerability. Her relationship with the Beast Lord is both convincing and compelling while being a touch out of the ordinary. Kate still kicks demon butt though when needed and typically gets herself in trouble with her smart mouth. While parts of the timeline for the magical catastrophe and certain areas of logic that Andrews used to constrain and explain her world seemed a bit sketchy to me; her characters, plot, magic and adventure carry the story along nicely so that this will not be a deterrent to any but the most pedantic.

I found this to be a satisfying, if short, urban fantasy adventure in the line of Patricia Briggs and Jim Butcher. Like their characters, Andrews’ heroine is a bit of an outsider who does not fit comfortably in one category and thus is able to cross differing cultures without undue difficulties. In my opinion, this book was definitely enjoyable enough for me to keep an eye out for the next in the series. I’ll give it a 7.

I’m a fan of stories centered on strong female characters: ball busting, take no prisoners, hey-buy-me-a-drink-and-when-I-do-you-walk-away-laughing-at-what-a-chump-I-am; you know, basically the women I’ve known all my life. While these types are generally relegated to the urban-fantasy subgenre, it’s always nice to come across them in science fiction. I think the last science fiction story I read with a really strong female character was Sharon Shinn’s Archangel and I thought that was a fantastic book.

Grimspace is the story of Sirantha Jax, a Jumper that works for the corp, which is a large business corporation that controls most of the planets in the known universe (think of Dunes Empire). A Jumper is a female born with the J-gene which allows them to move through space in starships at faster-than-light speed. Think of it as opening a worm-hole, which they call beacons. Travel that may take months can now take hours with a Jumper on the crew. However, this gene being rare, all known Jumpers are highly prized and used as commodities.

These Jumpers are cursed with the addiction of seeing things only they can see when they jump: colors, lights, patterns, etc. It’s like a screen saver with the flashing beams of light and you kinda get the picture—except with more drug use. To them this is the opium that they can’t get enough of, and many “burn-out” and die after too many jumps.

As the story begins to unfold, we find Sirantha being haunted by her last jump, which she can’t remember. Evidently, her last jump consisted of her crashing a starship, killing delegates from all over the universe and her pilot/lover, Kai. Along the way she meets the roguishly good-looking yet cold starship pilot March, a pacifist doctor named Saul who may be more than he seems, the lesbian tough as nails ship mechanic Diana, and the alien-slave Loras, who has been genetically predisposed to be a slave.

Throughout the whole story I kept thinking, this really is a poor man’s Firefly (even right down to the banter of Sirantha and March a la Mal and Inara, which I love!) and that the book would read better as a television show. Still, if it can remind me of one of my favorite television shows, then that can’t be a bad thing.

Grimspace is the debut novel of Ann Aguirre who lists her inspirations as Linnea Sinclair, Sharon Shinn and Elaine Corvidae, and it’s not hard to see why. Her overly feminist world view is at times refreshing and mind-numbing odd all at the same time.

Odd tangent: Ann reminds me of my high-school history teacher. The teacher was a young lady just out of college with really strong views on “man’s domination” of world views and topics. Even though she was a history teacher, she hated the word “history” calling its “man’s” corruption of the word (get it? His-story) and made us refer to past events with the gender non-specific “our-story” or “old-story.” While I could see her point of view, I always felt that it was unnecessary, since history is not a gender specific world. What does this all mean? Well, it’s like using race for race sake, unnecessary and it draws unwanted attention to what you are doing. Ann Aguirre does this quite a bit in Grimspace ; all throughout the book, the female characters of the story say, “Sweet Mary, Mother of Mary, Mother Mary sucker, etc” whenever they want to curse (this of course instead of Jesus or god). While this may not seem important, I found this odd because Ann makes a point in her story telling us that the concept of souls and heaven have been disproved by science, and most people are not religious anymore. They don’t even remember what Mary stands for. It was like the whole story was trying to be misandric but for no real reason than just to be so. I know this isn’t really a big deal but I just thought it was odd, and it kept pulling me out of the story.

Another problem I had with the book was that it felt like it went through a writer’s camp or a serialization. Chapters were roughly five-pages long and always tried to end on a high-note. While this at times is fine, at five-pages a clip, it got a little excessive. It took away the immediacy of the story with all those high-notes. Short chapters can work for some stories. Take for instance Kite Runner . While I didn’t particularly like the story, I felt that it was a quick and nice read because of the short chapters and that added to my enjoyment of the book. However for Grimspace the short chapters make things seem rushed and too-fast paced, which leads me to wonder if this was done at a writer’s camp that need a chapter or two done every day.

As I mentioned before, I especially loved the banter between the male protagonist March and Sirantha Jax. It’s one of those beautiful, “I hate you so much and I hope you die but I can’t stop being so sexually attracted to you” stories that is at once altogether unrealistic yet entertaining. I kept catching myself saying aloud, “oh no, she didn’t” and then having to close the book, take a break and re-evaluate my masculinity.

While I had a lot of fun reading Grimspace, it felt rushed and incomplete. It reminded me of that Flight of the Conchords song, “you’re so beautiful, you could be a part-time model; but you probably still have to keep your normal job.” While this book was a fun read, it wasn’t necessarily memorable or thought provoking (and at times it was overly sappy and clichéd, like I was reading a book that belonged in the Romance book section). Still, that isn’t always bad. We as readers need a rest sometimes, and it’s always nice to just sit back and read a fun story without having to think. And for that, I say to Grimspace, thanks!! I look forward to any future efforts she puts towards her new creation.

[On a side note]: The whole jumping aspect of the book reminds me a lot of Bester’s Gully Foyles “jaunting” in Stars My Destination . This is reminiscent even right down to Sirantha possibly unique jumping quality (which I don’t want to give away) that may change the universe, just as Gully Foyles unique ability to jaunt through space changes his universe.

If you liked this book also check out: Linnea Sinclair’s Games of Command, Sharon Shinn’s Samaria Series, Catherine Asaro’s Skolian Empire Saga and Firefly.

Captain John "Black Jack" Geary has spent 100 years in cryogenic preservation in an escape pod. In that time, his deeds at the space battle that cost him his ship and crew have gone on to render him a near mythic figure in the eyes of the crew who finds that escape pod. His crew, part of the Alliance, are fighting a near-ceaseless war against the Syndicate, better known as "Syndics" in the book.

What makes this book so interesting is not the detailed space battles, which seem much more vividly described towards the end of the book, perhaps because as the reader continues and gets a feel for lingo and the technology the battles become easier to understand, or the characters, which don't seem all that vivdly fleshed out, not even John Geary himself, but the ways that simple human nature are retained as constants despite all that has changed in Campbell's universe. Sci-fi can fall very easily into the trap of malevolent alien races hell-bent on human destruction, but this book holds very tightly to the idea that humanity's worst enemy is itself. Not only does John Geary have to battle against his own reputation as an infallible commander, he has to battle against the opressive Syndics, and members of his own Alliance Fleet.

There are no high and mighty holier than thou sentiments in this book. Humanity has not suddenly pulled through its turbulent adolscence to become a mature, peace-loving adult that embodies idea character. These are flawed people who experience jelousy, rage, and doubt just like anyone else.

The technology doesn't seem implausible, though it doesn't seem truly innovative either. It is all based on sound principles of physics and certainly makes a very plausible leap of extrapolation into what could be possible. I did really love the names that Campbell used for the ships in the book, names such as Audacious, Revenge, and Leviathan, all of which seem incredibly appropriate for battleships.

I tend to prefer space battles on film, as my imagination lends itself more easily to imagining battles that involve swords or hand-to-hand combat, or, at the very least, people meeting face to face. Later in the book, Campbell does a better job of explaining the movements of the fleet geometrically which certainly helped my visualization process and made those parts of the book more enjoyable, which is definitely important because there are a lot of battles in this volume.

I had not read the first book or the second which I do view as a bit of a liability because the author probably laid much of the necessary groundwork for the character development in those books. The characters didn't seem two-dimensional, it just seemed as if I were attending a dinner party, albeit a fairly non-graphically violent one and no one really bothered to introduce me to any of the other guests. There is enough background given in the book to make sure that new readers aren't completely lost, I certainly wasn't, but I would certainly recommend beginning with the first book, rather than jumping into the middle.

This isn't a particularly bloodthirsty book. The participants have been fighting in a war that has been going on far longer than they've been alive which has become the focus of their society. They have their doubts about how valid their own military policies are and are starting to find some common ground with their supposed enemy as revealed by some captured message transmissions. While many books that involve war stories can get entirely lost in the battles and technology (even histories or contemporary war stories), Campbell never lets the reader forget that they are reading about people, not just strategies and firepower.

It was certainly not a boring book. I feel that I would have enjoyed it more if I had read previous volumes, but I didn't mind reading it in the slightest. I would most definitely recommend it to people whom I know thoroughly enjoy military science fiction and probably some people who would just enjoy a good military story.

Halting State is Charles Stross most recent published effort, published by Ace Books (US) in 2007 and by Orbit (UK) in January of this year. The book features, as you would expect from a science fiction work, a number of speculative technologies, including those that can be characterized as ‘speculative computer technology’. Most notably, virtual server networks over mobile phones are part of that equation. Indeed so, with his latest novel Charles Stross seemed to have tapped into a well of technology that’s rapidly expanding and growing. In a time where virtual MMOs (massive multiplayer online games) have greeted their tenth million active player (World of Warcraft anyone?), it was just a matter of time before these virtual realities would become the subject of interest in speculative fiction works.

At first glance, it seems to be the subject of Halting State. When the book opens Sue Smith (a police sergeant) is called in to investigate a robbery of a banking company called Hayek Associates. The company is a diversified economics consultancy and market-maker. Interestingly enough, they run virtual central banks for ORGs [massively multiplayer online role-playing games] and try to stabilize the economies of seventeen imaginary realms.
As you might guessed, Hayek Associates isn’t your average banking company and neither is this your average bank-robbery. Instead it encompasses something more than ‘normal’ street-crime. To avoid things getting things out of hand and to clear up the mystery surrounding the crime, Sue wires in a specialist from London, Elaine (an insurance fraud investigator). Then Sue proceeds to hire Jack, a recently laid-off programmer and expert on MMOs. Bundling forces together, Elaine and Jack must investigate how the virtual bank was robbed and more importantly, why it was robbed. They have swallowed the red pill. Little do they know how deep the rabbit hole goes..

When we move away from the plot for a second, the other thing that struck me in Halting State was the second person narrative. I admit I approached the narrative hesitantly at first, as it is in some way quite unnervingly a voice is addressing you, the reader, without interference of the characters. However, once I had bitten through the sour parts of the apple, I found it this perspective almost as natural as a first or third person would feel in the same kind of situation. It worked out well for me and it created a sort of intimacy between the narrator and the reader as if I was somehow being confided in. The example below illustrates this intimacy a bit (while cracking a typical ‘Halting State’ joke ).

Ultimately though, Halting State is a bit disappointing. The novel starts great, with a mysterious email sent to “Atn. Nigel” (with a spam-weighting of 70% “probable but worth a look”). The intro is thought-provoking and immediately sucks the reader right in. Stross then proceeds to introduce us, or rather ‘you’, to the major players, before kicking the plot into jumpstart. At that point it is safe to say, we’re dealing with a techno thriller with the emphasis on the techno part, not so much on the thriller part. The chapters that follow are the moments where Stross’ visionary ideas fully come to their right. You don’t have to be a computer wizard to appreciate the way Stross’ integrated the concept of virtual realities in a near-future setting. If you are however, I’d reckon the books are probably even more rewarding, as Halting State is one of the few efforts that hits the nail on its head with its accurate portrayal of the speculative computer technology. Jay once said, when working on his top 200 list: “Stross perhaps accomplishes the most believable geek characterization I have ever read.” When I was working on this review, this statement suddenly came back to me. So if you pardon me for shamelessly copping it here, I think it does rings very true in these parts.

Sadly all good things must come to an end, and so it is in Halting State. In fact, coming to an end long before the finale. Around the 200 page mark, the emphasis slowly but steadily began to shift from the ‘techno part’ to the ‘thriller part’. As a result of this shift, there seemed to be less room for speculation and as a result less room for writer Charles Stross to shine. Stross does stubbornly try to push his story to a climax, but in the process gets all tangled up in a blur of confusing morals, conflicting interests and hit-and-run action scenes that doesn’t have nearly enough impact for it to be a convincing thriller novel. Where the novel was structured in the first parts, it dissolves into a chaotic blur in the latter. And this is disappointing, because the novel had much potent ideas to begin with.

So rounding up, Halting State is convincing as work speculating on technology and where it will take us. It offers an unique reading experience in the form of a second person perspective, which is unnerving at first but greatly enjoyable once you’ve gotten out the starting blocks. The novel however pretends to much more than “just” a speculative work but doesn’t really convince as techno thriller. Ultimately this is disappointing, because Charles Stross’ can be a visionary writer when his ideas are not undermined by a lack of care for the other aspects of his novels.

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.

Dog Days by John Levitt was a great little cross-genre read; I highly enjoyed this urban mystery/fantasy set in San Francisco. My favorite thing: Mason, the hero, has a dog for a familiar. But Louie isn’t really a dog, and he’s not really a familiar. In a mix of East and West, Louie and others like him are called Ifrits for lack of a better term. Louie can sense danger, especially magical danger, and he’s not quite of this world, which makes him a very interesting character. Whatever else he is, he is Mason’s best friend. There is a powerful tie between the two.

Mason is a “practitioner,” which means he has the ability to do magic. He’s a bit on the lazy side and would rather not mess with it too much. It’s work, and he has old friends that want him to spend time being an “enforcer;” keeping other practitioners in line so that the world doesn’t really figure out that there are a bunch of magic users running around. Mason tried the enforcement bit and decided being a musician with no money was a better fit. He likes to improvise, and he isn’t fond of taking orders so being a jazz musician is his chosen profession. I liked the tie-in to music; it made understanding Mason’s magic very easy. It really played well with “improvisation” since he never studied magic enough to have spells at the ready.

It's really too bad that Mason didn't practice his magic more because even though he doesn't want to be an enforcer, someone appears to be threatened by him--or maybe they are just trying to kill him because they don't like him. Either way, Mason needs his old friends to help him out, which of course they are willing to do. And while they are helping him, they'd really like it if Mason could help them with a problem too.

The character development in the story is quite strong, although I thought the women in the story could have been stronger. The author redeemed himself on this account in the second half when he introduced a Wicca who played a key role in more than one rescue. The pacing picked up throughout the book. There are great action scenes, a couple of unique battles and some very creative spells used to get out of danger. Levitt doesn’t limit himself to western lore when it comes to monsters either.

There were a couple of areas where I thought opportunities were missed. One key area that left me a bit flummoxed was Mason’s general disbelief in other magical systems—such as occult (black magic) and Wicca. That line of logic didn’t make sense to me, especially since Mason was following the general belief about black magic as taught to him by his mentors—people who were supposed to be far more knowledgeable about magic than he. It did make for a rather interesting scene or two, but I found it hard to believe that people that studied magic their entire lives were so unwilling to really believe in black magic. His mentors did believe in Wicca, and it didn’t take long to convince Mason.

I could probably whine about a couple of other minor details, but not without giving away too much of the plot so I’ll just say there were a couple of loose ends that could have been tied up better. Nothing major, just nitpicks.

The Ifrits (Louie the dog) were some of the most interesting characters in the book and played a major role. Levitt did a great job of doling out information about them—keeping me curious and also making them very easy to care about. I still have questions about them and their nature, but this is not a bad thing as it leaves room for the series to continue.

All in all, I highly recommend this book to anyone that likes urban fantasy. What seemed like a simple plot at first came together exceptionally well and had more than enough surprises to keep it interesting.

Cammon is a gifted Reader, able to know people’s thoughts and emotions. In fact, he might be the most powerful Reader in a kingdom known for distrusting mystics. Surrounded by his mystic friends, he has the opportunity to change this hatred and mistrust when he befriends the princess. As Cammon’s friendship with Princess Amalie deepens to something no commoner should ever feel for royalty, the kingdom faces a political crisis brought to a head by enemies of the crown. Not only that, Amalie begins to display some astonishing talents. Those involved in the power struggle for the throne begin to be deeply concerned as their viewpoint on mystics is challenged.

Reader and Raelynx is the latest installment in the Twelve Houses series. Although I haven’t read the first two books, I wasn’t lost in the story. The author sprinkled in the backstory with a deft hand, explaining the history and pieces of the character-building in a way that I could jump right into the story. I found the story concept inventive, a new twist on mind magic in a market glutted with mental sorcery. I was captivated by the characters and their experiences. I intend to go back and read more, to watch these people develop even though I know how the story will end.

Sharon Shinn is good at describing individuals but the book gets shaky when the story steps back to look at political entities. As a result, the scenes from the final battle are disjointed and rough. Perhaps if I had been in on the political scene from the beginning of the books I would have picked up on the more subtle workings in the action. Unfortunately, I felt a bit let down by the last couple of chapters.

Regardless, Reader and Raelynx is still an enjoyable read for a Saturday afternoon. Not complicated or gory, this is a perfect story for young readers looking to explore a different author. I would encourage readers to also look into The Thirteenth House and Dark Moon Defender, the first two books in this series.

The titular heroine of Mike Shepherd's Kris Longknife series returns in Kris Longknife: Audacious.

As the story opens, Kris has arrived on the planet of New Eden, ostensibly for some long-overdue rest after a tour of duty in the Rim Territories. Unfortunately, her hopes for peace and quiet are brought to a halt by a series of assassination attempts. Kris is quickly drawn into not only a struggle to stay alive, but also to discover who wants her dead and why she was sent to New Eden in the first place.

"Audacious" stands alone fairly well, despite being the 5th in a series. I hadn't read any of the previous books, so that was a plus for me. As a whole, "Audacious" is a pretty decent read - Shepherd's naval background shows itself in the verisimilitude given to the military aspects of the book. Kris herself is a strong female character, although there isn't much character development throughout - the book focuses on action, with some interesting sci-fi twists thrown in.

The central storyline could have used some work, however. It seems rushed and some of the plot threads aren't developed clearly (the kidnapping, etc.). Perhaps more explanation of the antagonist's motives would have helped. I'd also have to say the prose and dialogue are readable but were rough at times. That said, it excels as a page-turner with some good action scenes.

Ah, it’s a wonderful feeling to find a book that takes you into a new world with twists and turns and magic. Magic Lost, Trouble Found by Lisa Shearin is a gem. Raine, the main character, comes from a family of professional thieves. She’s an elf and a seeker by trade. Her seeking talents provide a living, but her talents are generally considered pretty average.

She is loyal to her friends, however, and that is where trouble starts. A friend and “former” thief has been talked into another “last” big heist. It’s dangerous. It’s foolhardy—and Raine is determined that her friend make it out alive, even if she has to follow him in secret. Luckily one of Raine’s cousins is on hand too, because the challenge turns out to involve at least two goblin sects fighting over the object her friend is trying to steal. Once she’s involved, Raine finds herself the target of more attention than she bargained for.

Thus begins an interesting story of subterfuge and intrigue where Raine tries really hard to stay out of trouble, but it just keeps tracking her down. Like Patricia Briggs, Shearin excels at setting up a world with magical rules and unique characters. Raine lives in a setting reminiscent of Venice. In this time and place, goblins share the streets with elves, humans, mages and various combinations of the above. The goblins have quite the political structure—a prince or two vying for power in the city, militant goblin guards all over the place and backstabbing politicians of all types. The politics were handled with great skill, details coming out in snippets—usually battle scenes with one group chasing the other group around with swords. No boring info-dumps here.

Raine is a dynamic character; as are the side characters. It’s easy to care about Raine, and her family and friends, which include not only thieves, but a spellsinger or two and a landlady who happens to be a rather powerful sorceress. Raine grows both as a character and a magic user as she deals with numerous challenges: kidnapping, betrayals and fights both magical and mundane. There’s only a tease or two of romantic entanglement in the story—enough to raise a speculative, hopeful eyebrow, but Shearin absolutely does not loose track of the story. Wonderfully and skillfully done.

The build-up at the end could be construed as both good and bad—I wanted the payoff and that means I was turning the pages pretty fast, but it was teetering on the edge of running the tension on the long side. And as anyone who reads my reviews knows, I like my stories to have clean, succinct endings—after wrapping up nicely, the last chapter is really a lead-in to the next book; something that I found unnecessary. Shearin is a wonderful writer. I’d read what she had to say next without any setup.

Kudos to Aleta Rafton on the cover art as well—it’s what caught my eye when I was trolling Amazon.

McDevitt returns readers to his well-known character Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins, Academy starship captain and willing space explorer. While remains of several civilizations have been discovered, no living intelligent societies have ever been located. In fact, at this point in the story the official opinion is that no such life forms exist. However, a civil organization calling themselves the Contact Society firmly believes the establishment is wrong. When an alien satellite begins broadcasting to an unknown receiver, they demand a full expedition take place and commission Hutch as their captain.

I always enjoy McDevitt’s work. His talents lie in making science fiction seem completely believable. The technology is well-crafted and I enjoy the idea that space exploration calls for archeologists as much as NASA scientists. He doesn’t answer all the questions, but leaves a bit of mystery to intrigue his readers. The people are very real and always seem to remind me of someone I know. chindi continues this tradition, containing characters complete with blind spots, hang-ups, and as many opportunities for mistakes as brilliance. This is not a book for readers who need a neat and tidy package with all loose ends firmly tied. Like real archeology, the reader never gets the entire picture. The search, however, is addictive and completely worthwhile.

Likeable as chindi is, I felt the ending lacked the usual punch. He had me totally involved until the very end and then lost me in the grand finale. Yes, we are talking about alien life forms, but what happens at the end of chindi is too alien for me and therefore anticlimactic. Having said that, I have read this book several times and enjoyed it each time. The story is good, even if the end is a little campy. If you like McDevitt, definitely continue exploring space with Hutch. If you haven’t tried any of his books, feel free to start with this one. Each book can stand alone and I think chindi is worth it.

Jethri was born on a Terran trade ship piloted by his mother and crewed by various relatives, for that is how Terran families were structured. Families stay together for the good of the trade and the well-being of the ship. He has spent his 17 years learning trade - the all important transport and distribution of goods between worlds. Trade keeps spaceports functioning and enables Terrans to live on worlds where they cannot grow or make all they need to live. In an attempt to help out another trader, Jethri is launched into an adventure that will alter his well-established life path completely. As Jethri learns to navigate the intricate life of a master trader, he finds himself catapulted into an unknown culture as an unlikely Terran ambassador in a sometimes hostile environment.

Lee and Miller have created an entire universe where Terrans (humans) like Jethri live in an uneasy truce with Liadens. In fact, the stories of this universe spanned seven books, with Jethri’s story in the Balance of Trade being the eighth. Liadens sound very much like humans with a few physical differences, height and skin color mainly. The main difference would be culture. Liaden society is balanced with complicated social strictures and forms, the most dominant being the bow. A bow to another Liaden communicates volumes of information, not the least of which is who holds the power in the situation. Bows can even, as Jethri finds out, precipitate family feuds.

I found this a delightful story. As an armchair traveler, I reveled in the nuances of Liaden culture and the places I was able to see. I feel Balance of Trade is well able to stand on its own because the authors do an excellent job of building characters. I feel I truly met each person, even the subsidiary ones. The setting was so thoroughly described I am sure I would recognize each place if I were able to actually visit. Yet the authors do this without excessive verbiage. I also found my curiosity piqued by some of the back story regarding Old Tech and Jethri’s ancestors. Rather than take away from this story, however, I am encouraged to seek out the previous books.

This story contains new (or old?) technology, a touch of intrigue, and an insight into how one person handles extreme culture shock. I loved the juxtaposition of cultures in this book - the outspoken Terrans and the introverted Liadens. Yet each in their own way were rigidly controlled by their social norms and expectations. Ultimately this story is a coming-of-age experience where a young boy faces challenges internal and external, eventually finding his heart’s home in the end.

In Kelly McCullough's debut novel Webmage, the old gods haven’t died or faded away; they’ve gone underground and embraced the digital age. The Greek gods of old are still controlling destiny—only now they use a computerized system housed on a server called the Fate Core to do it. Disdainful of humanity and as impetuous as ever, Atropos-the Fate who cuts the threads- has coded a spell to eliminate free will. Excellent coder that she is, her program has a flaw. That’s where protagonist and hacker extraordinaire Ravirn comes in. As one of the Fates demigod descendants, Ravirn has spent his time flunking out of different colleges and cracking security systems with the help of his familiar, Melchior, a goblin who transforms into a laptop. When Atropos needs help to succeed with her latest scheme, she turns to Ravirn and his excellent debugging skills--skills he isn’t willing to employ once he realizes it will mean the end of the world as he knows it. Fate is not pleased with Ravirn’s choice. From that point, on things really start to get dangerous, and interesting.

Ravirn, Melchior and the Fates are just a few of the colorful characters readers will encounter. Nor is our “reality” the only one to be experienced. Alternate dimensions, fairy Rings, computer viruses, and close encounters with the Furies, Chaos and other members of the realms mix with dorm life, midterms and familial obligations to shape author McCullough's twisted, modern fairy tale.

Ravirn’s world is a fully realized one, and our antihero is both charming and flawed. He’s a young person adrift in the world without a set purpose, until the Fates force him to use everything he’s got and then some. Ravirn’s characterization gives readers something to really connect to. Melchior, love interest Cerice, and all the other secondary characters are colorful, and really balance out the story. McCullough handles the romance well, never detracting from the primary plot. My biggest quibble with Webmage is all that techno-babble gets annoying at times, especially if you happen not to be one of the “wired”.

Mixing magic, humor, romance, philosophy and techno-speak into the everyday, McCullough crafts a fast-paced, fantasy adventure that is unique and enjoyable to read.

"Magic Bites" is a character-driven paranormal mystery set in an Atlanta where waves or pulses of magic take over the city, rendering technology null and void. Not even the buildings are safe, unless they're heavily protected with wards and spells.

Andrews' vision of Atlanta is dark and dangerous. The city has an underworld run by a powerful group of necromancers known as The People who control vampires and are frequently challenged by The Pack, the collective of shapeshifters.

The main character is Kate Daniels, a mercenary, who gets dragged into an investigation when her mentor is brutally killed. She's signed on as an adjunct investigator for the Order of Knights of Merciful Aid, the official law-enforcement agency of humans who wield magic, in order to find her mentor's killer. Naturally, the scope of the investigation widens drastically as Kate realizes this wasn't an isolated killing.

It's a well-paced, well thought-out story. There aren't really any shocking twists, but the plot progresses logically and doesn't leave the reader feeling cheated at the resolution. While it does appear to be the beginning of a series, "Magic Bites" is a good stand-alone novel. The ending isn't a cliff-hanger, yet it still makes a person want to find out more.

What makes it such a good read is characters that could have been horribly flat and cliched, and instead, even when driven by instinct, seem more complex. They are given opportunity not only to react and interact, but make decisions and have a full impact on the story. No one in the book is just there to be scenery or window-dressing, every role has a purpose and it drives the book forward. For each character class, Andrews reveals, in the course of reading, that there is a whole range of behavior, from deranged deviants to good, law-abiding citizens and everything in between. Well, except for the vampires. Admittedly, at times, the gorgeous seductive powerful vampire gets more than just a little boring. You will not find those sorts of vampires here. These vampires are a mindless hive that are controlled by necromancers. Left to their own devices, vampires will simply feed until something kills them.

The shapeshifters and vampires all go through physiological changes in relation to their species, which Andrews explains admirably without going into so much detail it ruins the reader's ability to get immersed in the story. All of the explanations are handled beautifully and seamlessly in the text in a very smooth, believable manner. There is no breaking of the fourth wall in this book to spoil the mood.

A word to the wise, however, this book gets gory. There are descriptions of corpses that can get a bit graphic at times. Andrews doesn't gloss over the nasty details and in the end, it seems as if there's been good forensic research done on various forms of bodily trauma. The fighting all has consequences and not all of them fall into the happy "and everything was resolved, the good guys won, and they all lived happily ever after" variety. It's just really not that kind of book.

However, fans of CSI, paranormal mysteries, the X-files, and any other of a host of such subgenre offerings should be pleased with this novel.