Stalking the Unicorn by Mike Resnick is sort of like The Dresden Files meets Alice in Wonderland. It's a reprint of an urban fantasy from the 1980s before urban fantasy was a popular genre all by itself. Not only that, it's a pulp detective story with a classic opening scene of the PI in his office, broke, suddenly wife-less, down on his luck and a last bottle of good booze (Hmm. I guess it has a bit of country-western music in it too!)

Resnick doesn't disappoint; this book gives any Dresden File book a run for its money—the plot, which is more like a quest than a mystery, makes sense and any serendipitous turns are inserted with skill. This isn't really a page-turner, more of a steady-as-she-goes kind of story. It's interesting enough that you just keep reading without it being a book that really makes your heart pound. It's funny and witty without being laugh-out-loud.

Mallory, the PI, is hired to find a unicorn in an alternate Manhattan that he doesn't know about--at least not until an elf shows up and begs for his help. Mallory goes along with it, mostly assuming the liquor he consumed has much to do with what he is seeing. There's no boring parts where Mallory accepts the realization that what he's seeing is real—Mallory just starts adjusting to it in practical New Yorker style: He's cold so he buys a coat and so what if it has a button to adjust to the temperature or rain?

The chase after the unicorn leads him through several almost familiar places with lots of odd characters, bizarre settings and danger that is enough to keep you interested. Mallory faces some philosophical questions about good vs evil, but there's really no doubt what choice he will make—more a case of wondering how he will mete out his own version of justice.

At 288 pages, this is a quick read. It's good old-fashioned fun without trying too hard.

I was a Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi "virgin", as I had never read any of their books before.  I was going into THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES  Blu Ray movie tabula rasa.  This can be a good thing, as there are no expectations, and a bad thing as I have no real background as the viewer.

All the actors did a good job with all the blue screen work they had to do, while interacting with the fantasy creatures created by powerful computers.  They also portrayed a regular family with brothers/sister interaction very well.  I particularly liked Sarah Bolger playing the character of Mallory Grace and how she deals with her younger brothers.  Everyone that has an older sister can relate here.

From the voice acting standpoint, the CGI characters came to life.  Hogsqueal, who at first I thought was too simple for the story, came around a bit in the end.  The humor of the character does lend itself to some entertaining moments throughout the film.  Mulgarath , the ogre, was the main villain in the story, but at the end of the day while he seemed so very evil, it did not feel like the character had been built up enough that I felt he had the chance to take over the world. 

This is really where the issues come into play.  The movie felt very rushed, and I am sure it had to be due to the fact it was covering 5 books in the span of a single movie even if the books were not huge volumes.  We are rushed in without too much background and this causes our investment in the characters to be rather small, leading to a low level of concerns for their fate.  The story should have been paced over two movies to give the character time to develop on the screen, which I can only assume they did in the book, or there should have been a warning that reads, “read books first for true background before watching”. 

The strongest part of the movie stems from the special effects, which are pretty darn special.  Mulgarath, the Troll in the tunnels and the goblins themselves are extremely well done and mesh with the environment seamlessly.  The battle scenes draw you in and bring what you only thought you could render in your imagination on the screen.  These are the scenes that up the excitement factor for the movie and make us sit up and take notice.  Mulgarath, with his morphing from one character to the next is truly a marvel of special effects.

The two things from the Blu Ray Extras that stood out (don’t know if they are also on the DVD) were the making of the fantastical creatures in the ILM computer labs as well as the interviews with Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi.  There are other interviews with the rest of the actors and then some deleted scenes as well, what one has come to expect from the extras section.

Overall, a rather rushed effort that is really too scary to lend itself to a young child’s viewing.  Maybe being a well versed fantasy reader had an effect on my review, or maybe reading the books may be necessary to fully enjoy it.  The special effects save this movie for a lower score from this reviewer, and everyone should see them in glorious High Definition at some point.

Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs         

Here I go again on my own…(Whitesnake 1987).  Just seems an appropriate way to start out our review of the new Futurama episodes packed into a DVD for a movie length feature.  This will eventually air on Comedy Central Network as a bunch of 30 minute episodes, and we can only hope that it will get picked up for some direct to TV shows as well.  If you are unfamiliar with Futurama, it is a Matt Groening creation of a man (Fry) who is frozen in 1999 and thawed out in the 31st century.  Futurama gives all the people that lived through the 1980s nice Easter Eggs of funny things to watch for when Fry deals with the many situations at hand.

Review of the movie storylines

I am going to pick up some of the story lines and sub story lines and comment on them without hopefully spoiling anything for the viewers.  We start a bit after the last movie (see the continuity) and there is a big ‘ole tear in the universe.

One of the first storylines we get is of Colleen and Fry, who are dating (we can see a whole dating theme throughout the movie).  Unbeknownst to Fry though, the future must look upon polygamy in a different light as Colleen has boyfriends from all corners of the world as well as walks of life.  Fry is really digging her (what happened to him and Leela) and tries to make it work, but Fry cannot take the sharing of his girlfriend for that long.  This lends itself to some humorous moments but it is really only a setup for the central plot of the movie with the big ball of tentacle loving that Yivo puts on the planet.

Sprinkled in the storylines we have a neat little one about Bender and his fascination of what he originally believes to be an imaginary League of Robots from his robot youth.  Nice spoof concept here as well as being a necessity for Bender’s climactic act at the end of the movie.  It is a great setup, even if it is originally a solid storyline from the get go. Hang on ‘cause it makes the movie in my opinion.

Professor Farnsworth and Doctor Wernstrom, as always, get to competing with each other on who gets to  encase the world in their version of some clear crystalline structure.  Having a nemesis is awesome, and the back and forth between both of the characters works as usual.  A nice cameo voice from Stephen Hawking flesh this part of the movie out as well.

Ok, so back onto the central concept of the movie, which can be summed up as “dating”.  The previously mentioned big ball (think planet or so sized) of tentacles comes to earth and wants to spread his love to the people of Earth by sticking his tentacles into their necks.  Fry, who was the first to meet Yivo, soon becomes Pope of the tentacle shenanigans with most everyone on Earth being ass-imilated (intended).   But as Leela escapes she comes to find out the tentacles are genitals or genticles and everyone now feels disgusted.  So is that it?  No, Yivo feels bad that he/she pretty much raped the inhabitants of Earth and now wants to go on a date with the people of Earth.  Some funny dialogue ensues with some answering machine messages and the Head of President Nixon pulling out some quips from behind his ear.

The inhabitants of Earth figure they will go back to Yivo’s Universe and what they come to find out is that it is a pretty good approximation of Heaven and everything is pretty satisfied. 

This is Futurama though and here comes Bender being Bender.  While everyone is loving the Yivo life, Bender brings his robot army he got from the robot devil which he used to take over the League of Robots and “rescues” all the humans from Yivo.  Bender is a friend to a fault and I love that about the character.  His trying to save them actually ends up taking them away from the perfect life, and to Bender it is all in a days work.  This is by far the climax of the movie and stays true to character.

There is one storyline in the movie that really for me was the reason I knocked it down a few notches,  and that is that Kif Kroker asks Amy to be his Fon-Fon Rue and have the ceremony on his home planet to make the union.  I never really like the Kif character and his role to begin with, but this just seemed forced and out of place.  Then to top it all off *spoiler* we have the Kif resurrection at the hands of Yivo. Come on, I for one would have been pleased to see him go.  The Amy and Zapp sex may have some future implications going forward and that I do enjoy.  Switch out this story line and come up with something else and this is then in the top notch halls of Futurama.

Extras

Let us not forget the extras of this DVD because they are pretty solid.  I am not a huge fan of extras, and had this not been for a review I probably would have skipped them.  I would have been a darn fool to do so though.  We have the norm, with some commentary by Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Michael Rowe, Claudia Katz, Peter Avanzino and Lee Supercinski.

Futurama The Lost Adventure, which are the cut scenes from a long lost video game.  The commentary on the top of the computer scenes are really funny as well. There are two audio tracks, one with the creative people commenting and then the actually audio for the cut scene episodes. It is almost worth watching twice, one for each audio track.  The characters are cell shaded 3-d models and it looks pretty good actually, the robots may even look up to par with the cartoon.  The scenes all together add up to an extra long episode of Futurama.  The Professor’s project the Re-animator is pretty funny, and seeing Devastator in his cameo (hey as well as Zoidberg) was also nice.  So this extra is actually more than an extra but really like a second episode.

Also in the bonus features is a story board of the movie, which is neat to see how things are laid out and pitched.  There is also a section that has some bloopers while the actors are doing their audio voiceovers.  Meet Yivo allows us some insight into the voice actor (David Cross) who does Yivo.  It is always really cool to see the real actors doing the voices of cartoon characters, even though it can be weird at the same time.  The Deleted Scenes are always a nice touch, even if some of them never made it past the story board phase.  Geek feature where the 3d animators show us how their job works worked for me as well, it always interesting to see how these things are done.  The Deathball background was one of the weaker parts of the extras as I really was not fond of that portion of the movie anyway.  And now on to the second best extra.  A preview of the next movie, which is a Dungeon and Dragons spoof called Benders Holiday, which we should be able to check out Holiday 2008 (Christian and Jewish Holiday I would assume if anyone is keeping track).   Obviously with our fantasy reading background this is on the super hype meter for me.

Summary and waiting for next one

The thing I enjoy most about the Futurama characters is the consistency of their actions as well as the overall tidbits that get carried over from one episode to the next;  why hasn’t any company made a Slurm drink yet?  TBWABB seems like it might have had too much closure on the story, which at this point we cannot tell if it is a good thing or not.  A Beast with a Billion Backs may not be the best episode(s) of Futurama that has ever been produced by Matt Groening, but being very cliché here, a good episode of Futurama is still better then a great episode of most other comedy television.  We had one storyline bomb in the Amy/Kif one, and we had a little bit of a lull in the latter parts of the DVD, but Bender saving them all really upped the ante.  Even though the scene was at the end and didn’t seem like a huge thing, from the Futurama standpoint and the character of Bender it was just brilliant.

Futurama is my favorite cartoon sitcom, passing the Simpsons, King of the Hill, American Dad, and Family Guy (which I feel has gone too far in some of its humor).  Bring this show back into the regular rotation with a regular season Fox, it is missed.  I haven’t watched the Simpsons in ages, but I have re-watched every Futurama at least 10 times and it still is on my DVRs schedule.

Since I got to watch this one early it means an even longer time before I get to watch the third part, as Bender would say “Well I’m boned”.

Take the political intrigue of various factions of church, state, subjugated peoples of an empire, and religious heretics in a Renaissance setting and combine with magic and a well-realized fantasy setting and the result is A Magic of Twilight by S.L. Farrell, the first, yet stand-alone, volume of the Nessantico Cycle.

Nessantico, the city and empire has endured a period of relative peace under the leadership of its long-time ruler – Kraljica Marguerite ca’Ludovici. This period of peace has allowed for elements within the ruling nobility, the lands of The Holdings, and factions of the religious order known as the Concènzia Faith to separately plot their own ambitions. The Kraljica and Archigos Dhosti ca’Millac of the Concènzia face a rough road as they are awakened to the growing dangers encircling them.

The main narrative follows the path of a of a minor noble, Ana cu’Seranta as she gains the favor of the Archigos Dhosti within the Concènzia. Ana is gifted in the magical force at the heart of the faith and is soon overwhelmed by the ambitions of the higher nobility, the demands of the faith, and a personal brush with a heretical sect at odds with all she’s ever believed in as she is taken into the Archigos’ council. In these struggles lie the future of The Holdings and Nessantico.

A Magic of Twilight represents another example of a fairly standard epic fantasy framework – an adolescent rises above her roots to attain power and save the day with inborn magical skill. A couple of the variances to the common clichés are the Renaissance setting and use of a female lead character, though the tropes of epic fantasy are embraced rather than subverted. The key is that A Magic of Twilight is skillfully realized and balances well the needs of world-building, characterization and plot. Trope and cliché have their roots in universal truths of the human condition and in competent hands can both entertain and enlighten. While A Magic of Twilight may not rise to a level of enlightenment, it does provide an entertaining and addictive read.

The strength of A Magic of Twilight resides in politics. There are no less than six factions of competing interests at play – complete with assassination, massive armies, and powerful magic. The interplay of these factions and their shifting alliances keeps the reader alert and interested while providing just enough surprises along the way. The portrayal of these Machiavellian politics rivals writers like Robert Jordan at their best, even approaching the skill of George R.R. Martin, if not actually attaining it.

The characterization generally holds up well across the spectrum of point of view and supporting characters. While all the common roles are present, Farrell manages to go beyond caricature characterization to provide an interesting depth. My only real complaint with the characterization is with some of his choices surrounding the main character, Ana. To round her out with a depth of hurt and despair, Farrell chooses to follow the well trodden path of sexual abuse. This approach both benefits and detracts from the character that Ana could be and would drive any follower of feminist theory into a fury.

The primary aspect of A Magic of Twilight detracting form its readability is the choice of naming and the hierarchical titles. The liberal use of apostrophes and made up titles brings the pace to a crawl – especially in the beginning. While this is somewhat effective at creating an otherworld sense of atmosphere, it often proves to be a confusing stumbling block that will likely sour many a reader. The inclusion of an informative Appendix may help and please some, but does little to improve the pace of the narrative.

A Magic of Twilight presents a familiar fantasy epic in a new wrapping that should appeal to fans of the genre while providing an entertaining and addicting read. The story is complete and stands well on its own, though this is the first volume of the larger story of the Nessantico Cycle.

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.

Bitterwood by James Maxey is on its surface a fantasy tale of dragons versus humans. Our titular character is Bitterwood. Notice his name is not Mellowwood. He is not a laid back easygoing man. Dragons have ruined his like and he’s….bitter. Bitterwood has vowed not to rest until he has hunted and killed every dragon in the world. Despite their power and their position of rulership over humans in the world, the name Bitterwood still inspires fear, as he is a man with nothing to lose with the expertise and will to kill dragons. That is his only ambition in life, and his motivation is born from personal vengeance not the cause of humanity as a whole.

Humans being oppressed by dragons, and an anti-hero obsessed with delivering vengeance despite overwhelming odds are pretty standard s for a fantasy story. The biggest question would be whether Bitterwood could bring a twist to the story to rise above the average

Bitterwood did not take long to toss out the first morsel when a Southern Style fire and brimstone preacher comes to a village preaching the salvation of God. Blessed with inhuman strength and endurance he seems to be the very messenger of God. That’s certainly unexpected in a dragon ruled world of fantasy, and it’s a spark that kickstarts the story from the get-go.

As we progress through the story, in the presence and in flashback, I feared for awhile that the story would turn into a complicated story of political intrigue and powerplay within the court of the dragon king Albekizan. Instead individual characters moved back to the forefront to give me someone to latch onto as I read the story. Personally if I’m going to read a story high on the political intrigue, it had better be written by Robert Jordan or George R.R. Martin. Even Jordan’s plots became so complex and intertwined that I began to get lost in the intricacies as The Wheel of Time got deep into the series. So I was beginning to get nervous as we saw the interplay between the King’s sons, his royal mage, his royal biologens, and his insane, murderous brother.

King Albekizan was determined to exterminate the human race in revenge for the death of his favorite son. Many in his inner circle disagreed with this plan, and even desired to overthrow him and bring forth a new age for the race of dragons. Most of the motivations here had nothing to do with altruism, but rather personal agendas.

The book then moved some characters to the forefront and provided some sympathetic characters through which to tell the story. That allayed any concerns that I had and got the story flowing again after it had been in danger of stagnating a bit.

We learn that there is much more to this world and to the story than what had previously been apparent. As more twists are parceled out, Bitterwood becomes more of a fantasy/science fiction story.

I liked that part of the story evolution a lot, and became more and more engrossed in the story as it went along. While these more science fiction elements were intriguing to me and added to the story in the way that they were incorporated they didn’t affect the overall world, nor have any bearing on the war that was brewing between dragons and humans. If those elements are to be used to their full potential we would need to see them expanded in the additional books of the Dragon Age series.

It was these elements that added the unpredictable into a story that was predicable on the larger scale. The story gave us unexpected alliances, secret plans, betrayal, daring escapes, and heroic victory against overwhelming odds. There’s our basic scoop of chocolate ice cream. It’s good. The science fiction that James Maxey sprinkles into his recipe are the fudge chunks. They make it better.

When I say science fiction don’t expect spaceships streaking through the sky unloading arsenals of laser weapons. Things are handled more subtly and expertly than that, and I thought that it provided the gem of the story. The backstory of Bitterwood, and his character development that was intertwined into the story was more interesting than the character in the present day portions of the story. He’s definitely a flawed hero, if he can even be called a hero. Perhaps he will blossom in future books but he wasn’t the most interesting character in the story, or even the second most interesting. Bitterwood is not a hero. He’s just a man with a grudge, a lot of arrows, and a knack for using them to kill dragons. Many of our science fiction pieces swirl around Bitterwood though, so his story is still of interest within the novel. He does also begin to show signs of wanting some purpose in his life other than to kill dragons. I suppose that’s a classic portion of the journey of a hero, so I don’t believe that Bitterwood will end up taking a backseat in the novel or series named after him, even if that happened to an extent in this book.

I’ll be interested to see who the central character ends up being. Jandra, the 16 year old human apprentice to a dragon mage would be my candidate and was my favorite character in the story.

I give Bitterwood a 7.5. The fantasy portion of the story, taken alone, was above average, on the strength of the elaborate focus on dragon society and culture. It was the other twists that made this an even more interesting tale and raised my rating a bit. For this series, if in fact this is the beginning of one, to truly remain above average the pieces of the larger world as a whole and some of its history and truths needs to play a larger role in the story. Hopefully they will be more than just interesting addendum to the story. Bitterwood promises much. We’ll have to see if it delivers in its sequels.

Deepsix is the second novel in Jack McDevitt’s “Academy” series, which can be described as mostly-hard science fiction with a few exceptions like faster-than-light travel included out of narrative necessity. However, while it has the same main character as the first Academy book, The Engines of God, it is a fully self-contained story and can easily be read by someone who has not read its predecessor.

In the 23rd century, the Academy of Science and Technology and its fleet of superluminal ships is tasked with exploring the reaches of space and pushing back the frontiers of human knowledge. When a rogue gas giant adrift in deep space for half a billion years enters the Maleiva system, a scientific team is sent to watch. The rogue giant is on a near-collision course with the third planet of the Maleiva system, dubbed Deepsix, providing a rare opportunity- the chance to observe as a planet is ripped apart by gravity. Teams of scientists and an interstellar liner full of tourists gather in the Maleiva system to observe.

Deepsix is a rare life-bearing world, but has seen little exploration of its surface since the first human expedition to the planet ended with most of the survey team dying at the hands of local wildlife. But when the orbiting scientific team studying the planet in preparation for its destruction spots something that appears to be an artificial structure, rendered almost invisible beneath the ice and snow of an ice age that has frozen most of the planet for thousands of years. In desperation, Academy pilot Priscilla Hutchins is sent to the surface with a scientific team, including the leader of the ill-fated first expedition, Randall Nightingale, with the hope of learning as much as possible before Deepsix is destroyed. They are joined by a second shuttle bringing renowned journalist, essayist, and curmudgeon Gregory McAllister, who managed to talk the captain of the tourist liner into letting him go down.

The exploration of the ruins on the planet has barely begun when disaster strikes. As Deepsix strains under the growing stress of the rogue gas giant’s gravity, a violent earthquake shakes the area and wrecks both shuttles, leaving everyone stranded on the surface. Now, trapped among the ruins of a dead civilization, they must struggle to survive on a hostile, dying world while the Academy personnel in orbit desperately try to figure out a way to evacuate them before the planet is ripped apart.

Deepsix is a great combination of survival thriller, tale of discovery, and traditional hard science fiction problem-solving story. The two narrative threads- Hutchinson and company trying to survive on Deepsix, learning about the fate of its civilization as they do so, while their allies in orbit struggle with the engineering problem of a rescue- provide a great combination of both intellectual stimulation and adventure.

As is often the case in his work, McDevitt does not reveal all of Deepsix’s secrets to either the characters or the reader, with new questions arising as old ones are answered, and by the end the reader is left with as many mysteries as at the beginning. However, this didn’t leave me feeling frustrated; rather, instead McDevitt is very skilled at both satisfying and tantalizing the reader at the same time. Perhaps somewhat ironically for a story that simultaneously incorporates a lost alien civilization, bizarre and deadly wildlife, a struggle to survive in the wilderness, scientists in a race against time to mount a last-minute rescue mission, and the violent annihilation of an entire planet, McDevitt takes a “less is more” approach to the central question of Deepsix’s lost civilization. He is very effective at creating a fascinating picture by giving a bit of information here and a bit there, never filling in all the details but giving enough to stimulate the imagination and create a feeling of wonder and mystery.

The characters are not examined in extreme depth, but McDevitt is good at slipping in just the right amount of detail to make them interesting individuals. I especially liked the figure of writer Gregory McAllister, who is a type of character I’d like to see more of in fiction- a believably unpleasant person who is not a villain.

McAllister is bitter, unkind, and misogynistic. He’s doesn’t have a secret heart of gold beneath his harsh exterior and he doesn’t learn some dramatic lesson about the value of niceness. At the same time, he’s not amoral or relentlessly nasty or mean for the sake of being mean. He’s a jerk, but he’s not a caricature of a jerk.

McDevitt grounds his events in a background that also shows his skillful use of small details. In addition to references to human technology and the state of affairs back on Earth in the early 23rd century, McDevitt effectively creates a setting that is both full of wonders and yet believably mundane. Rather than any mythological or historical name, the Maleiva solar system is named after the daughter of a Senator who voted to approve Academy funding. In the midst of a desperate do-or-die effort to get the survivors off the doomed planet before it is ripped apart, characters worry about things like lawsuits over the people who have died or the public uproar that will result if Earth’s premiere man of letters is killed- mundane but all-too-believable details. McDevitt carefully mixes these down-to-Earth elements in with more exciting ones, giving a sense of a world that is full of exciting events and yet still a place where everyday people live and go about their lives.

The more cataclysmic aspects of the premise are well-exploited too, with a growing sense of apocalyptic dread as Deepsix’s crust bucks and heaves under the growing tectonic stress, the weather is driven into chaos, and the approaching gas giant looms ever-larger larger in the sky. McDevitt does a great job of conveying the doom of an entire planet.

I would strongly recommend Jack McDevitt’s Deepsix to any fan of science fiction. If you want a book that successfully brings together adventure, discovery, hard science, and interesting characters, Deepsix is definitely a winner.

State of the Onion by Julie Hyzy was a great little read! Adventure, job issues, a deft touch with detail and enough danger to keep the pages turning. I'd label this one a cozy, because it has some of the standards; recipes, romance and sleuthing by an amateur. There were many a zany moment, but the heroine (Ollie—short for Olivia) didn't end up in hot water due to incompetence or sloppy writing.

The story begins when White House assistant chef, Ollie Paras, stops an intruder from entering the White House. It was a rather serendipitous event, and Ollie actually gets in a bit of trouble for interfering with the Secret Service. Her boyfriend isn't too pleased with her for being in danger either. Ollie really doesn't need attention drawn away from her cooking skills; she's trying hard to earn the head chef position in the White House kitchen.

Hyzy doesn't overdo the politics—whether it be national or in the kitchen. She focused solidly on the story, keeping a steady stream of suspects parading through. She also doesn't overdo food tips, but she has enough authenticity in the story to make it believable—from the description of the food and food preparation to the occasional description of things like the White House china. Ollie doesn't have the most supportive of boyfriends—or I should say, the boyfriend is a bit inconsistent about whether to be supportive or just angry. There's certainly room for the author to add character development to Ollie's current boyfriend or have Ollie hunt up a new one as the series continues.

This is a terrific beach read that moves along at a good pace.

Embrace the Night, Karen Chance’s third volume in the Cassandra Palmer series is a fitting sequel to the first two. Fast paced and filled with faeries, kids, vampires, mages, ghosts, incubi, gargoyles, magic spells, evil plots, backstabbing and surprises – this one follows the lead of the first two and adds in a bit more of each to ‘kick it up a notch’ so to speak. In this novel, Cassie is now Pythia, the most powerful living clairvoyant with the charge of keeping the current timeline from being corrupted through unscrupulous use of time travel. Cassie’s familiarity with vampires and ghosts is an aid to her for this post but she has just a few tiny little obstacles to surmount. The first issue she has to deal with is a geis placed upon her by the very old and very powerful vampire Mircea. Just for complications sake, during one of her trips to the past, she accidentally caused the geis to be intensified. Another problem she must manage is her deal with the king of the faeries. She has agreed to retrieve an ancient book of magic for him. Not just any book but one written personally by Merlin and sought after by everyone who is anyone in the magical community. It hasn’t even been seen in hundreds of years, yet she has to find it and recover it. Working against her are the mage’s Silver Circle and various factions of this or that group that either want to kill her or control her because of her power.

Cassie, however, has friends. She has the permanently cranky Pritkin, war mage extraordinaire who is not only an expert on demons, but the son of one himself. Can she trust him? She also has Casanova, an incubus in the employ of her former tormentor, crime boss and vampire Tony. Can she trust him to not betray her to Tony? Then there are the gargoyles who illegally work the kitchen of the casino where she’s hiding out, Francoise a powerful witch transported from the past, and of course, Billy, her gambler ghost friend.

The action begins immediately and carries through to the final page. This one goes quickly and drags you along for the ride. Full of quirky humor, a bit of steamy romance, and lots of inventive magic and mayhem it is an enjoyable ride to follow along as Cassie attempts to control her gift, save her life and those of her friends as well as to get the magic, faerie and vampire communities off her back. Being new to the post of Pythia, she has to learn as she goes. Her jumps through time seem to be both too easy in a technical manner, as she decides she must go to a certain place and time and does so – even though in the last book it was explained that her magic was tied to a disarray of the timeline and that would be the only way she would travel back in time and would also dictate when she arrived; and too inconsistent – as her multiple leaps bring her physical discomfort some times but not others.

All in all a very engaging book that had me leaping through the pages, and since it is nearly double the size of the previous two, it kept me engaged for a decent amount of time. Now that Cassie is getting settled into the Pythia role, I expect that the series can branch out from personal-to-her stories to more stories of her working at the role of Pythia and keeping the timeline intact. I will definitely be interested in finding out what happens next.

For those who didn't have cable television when "Alien Nation" was being broadcast, the wonderful world of TV-on-DVD releases has made it possible to catch this series in its entirety.

The "Alien Nation: Ultimate Movie Collection" 3 DVD set has all five of the made-for-TV movies that were done after the series was canceled. For those who missed out, "Alien Nation" is about a slave ship that had 250,000 Tenctonese aboard, almost all of whom were slaves that crash landed in the Mojave Desert. Since these aliens were not able to return home, they were introduced into LA and allowed to assimilate as best they could. The main focus is Detective George Francisco and his family. George is an officer partnered with a human, Matt Sikes, and together they work mostly homicide cases.

The series has a focus on tolerance, which is pretty evident in the movies, as the aliens, known as Newcomers face human prejuidice. Some of the Newcomers become concerned about their own racial purity and so they have to come to terms with being a minority in a world filled with what they feel is an inferorior species. There are cultural clashes and serious faux pas galore throughout the movies as the two cultures do their best to adjust. What is nice is that the creators of the show definitely put a great deal of attention into the Tenctonese language and into their cultural representations. It's easy to incorporate explanations (which remain remarkably consistent) into the general fabric of the dialog and plot. Sometimes the "people are people" spiel does get a little tiresome, but then, I watched all of these movies in a single sitting, rather than spaced out over the three years they were made, so it's acceptable within the framework of a show finishing its story arc through multiple movies that aren't going to get shown consecutively.

The series is still highly enjoyable, especially since the Tenctonese go far beyond just being a sort of Bizarro World class of humans, despite being very humaniod in appearance. Of course, more humanoid aliens would be far more likely to survive in a human world, since their might be hesitance on the part of humanity to just go ahead and shoot them and be done with it. It really is a (forgive me Mr. Roddenberry and Mr. Spock) highly logical show.

The look is also a bit surprising, due mostly to the fact that "Alien Nation" is both brightly light and very colorful. These movies were aired during the mid-nineties, before the "X-files" effect really came into vogue, and it's a bit of a shock seeing a show that is a cross between science-fiction and police procedural that actually has color and lighting that isn't pale, washed-out, and shades of blue or green. The make-up effects still hold up, especially in an era obsessed with what computers can do for the movie and television industry, and while some of the special effects now look like they'd be more at home in an old, unretouched "Star Wars" movie, the show is all about the characters and is therefore not completely effects driven. So many shows lose sight of what well-designed sets and costumes can do for a production and completely forget about what green-screen shots really look like when they're done. Sure, some of it looks really good, but a whole lot of it just sort of ends up looking-well-animted. "Alien Nation" is certainly a series that people could look at to get an idea of what things could be.

The movies also have very interesting scores. Rather than just hammering home the idea that the Tenctonese have keener senses, the scoring in the show really tries to portray the Tenctonese aesthetic. The music is multi-layered, with startling, almost heart-beat like tribal drums and rich complex harmonies that would probably make Bach weep for joy. It's very unusual, uplifting music that emphasises and forwards every scene where it's used. There are human songs, but there are also human songs which have been reworked with lyrics in Tenctonese which is both surprising and highly satisfying. It's amazing, exciting, and inspiring to see that kind of dedication to a project

There is so much to like about these DVDs, mostly just on the basis of the movies themselves. Sure, they're really just hugely extended episodes of a series and they're made-for-TV movies with all the commercial break interruptions that implies, but they have great stories that add a little humor and a really good point about tolerating others who aren't quite as different as one might think.

The set is relatively low priced, usually averaging around $25, and it has been on sale for even less on a few isolated occasions. The Special Features are kind of standard, consisting mostly of commentary, making of featurettes, and gag reels, but for fans of the show and for those who might be highly interested in the nuts and bolts of creating their own sci-fi show one day they offer some pretty valuable insight into the television process.

What isn't so great is the fact that four of the five movies are on double-sided DVDs. The show is packaged in two slim-line cases, but I've seen four-disc sets released before this that could fit in a case the size of a single DVD case. Those double-sided discs seem an awful lot like a very cheap cop-out, especially considering the middle part meant to hold the discs in place doesn't seem fantastically sturdy. The probability of these DVDs getting scratched or smeared with finger prints, unfortunately, seems very, very high.

So, is this set worth it? If you like sci-fi that doesn't take itself too seriously and fish-out-of-water comedy with frequent wordplay jokes, then yes, this set ought to keep you very happily entertained for a while. If you're a fan of the show, it's definitely worth the money to purchase these. If you're a newbie whose curious, these movies are also a very good introduction to the show, though I highly recommend you watch the movies in order. It's easy to tell what sequence the should be watched in by the package, alas, the DVDs are not so obviously labeled. It was still a fun way to spend a very rainy, very cold afternoon.

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.

"Darkling" is the third book in the Otherworld Series by Yasmine Galenorn. While this book is in the middle of the series, it's possible to pick up this volume and start reading without feeling too lost. The recaps are brief but relevant and they're incorported into the story well so it doesn't interrupt the flow of the plot at all.

Readers are immediately introdcued to Menolly D'Artigo, a no-nonsence tough bar-owning member of the former Otherworld Intelligence Agency, otherwise known as the OIA. The OIA is defunct, since the administration collapsed, but some of its members remain active in order to keep humans safe from nasty supernatural creatures taht would try to kill them. Menolly is also a vampire. She has two sisters, one who's a shapeshifter and one who's a witch, who not only live with her but also act as OIA agents. When a renegade vampire starts making more of its kind, the D'Artigo sisters are called in to put an end to the nest and its sire. They recieve help from sources that are trusted and others that are dubious at best.

The book is a hodgepodge of mystery, urban fantasy, thriller, and romance with a cast that's highly attractive and a style that is fast-paced and entertaining. The strong female characters are nice to have in the book, though they're balanced out with plenty of men to help them. This book feels a little like it wants to be paranormal chick lit but can't quite bring itself to go there.

It isn't entirely light and frothy, there are some fairly graphic scenes of torture as well as some explicit gore. The D'Artigo sisters are hardly perfect though sometimes the exibition of those flaws seems like it really ought to have gotten them killed at least twice in this book alone.
It was a fun book to read. I certainly found myself looking forward to reading it and will probably seek out the previous two volumes as well as the subsequent ones in the series. There are friends that I would certainly recommend it to, especially those that like vampires and angst, though I would want to be sure I considered the age-appropriateness for some of them.

“One day when she was sixteen, Art remembered her mother. It happened because Art fell down a flight of steps, and hit her head on a wooden banister carved in the shape of an eagle…A woman, with strawberry-blonde hair tied back in a knot, and eyes the impossible green of gooseberries. And this was Molly Faith. This was her mother. Though for six years, Art hadn’t thought of her, hadn’t remembered her – this unforgettable and wonderful parent, who had been a pirate captain on the High Seas.”

Artemsia Fitz-Willoughby Weatherhouse is a young lady studying at the prestigious Angels Academy for Young Maidens when a sudden fall down the stairs jars her memory and she recalls herself as the daughter of the famous female pirate, Piratica, also known as Molly Faith. Her amnesi