Actually, my wife picked up this collection of four novellas at Hastings when she was between books. She's a Harry Dresden fan, but I don't think she enjoyed the rest of the book all that much. In The Warrior, Butcher gives us an out-take on Harry and his friend, Michael. Michael was injured to the point of not being able to continue as the holder of Amoracchius, the blessed sword, any more, in an earlier Dresden novel. Harry becomes aware that someone is threatening Michael and his family in order to take possession of the sword, of which Harry is the custodian.
When Harry confronts the culprit, the action goes about as one would expect, but there are some interesting revelations about the story arc, and about Harry's true place in the scheme of things - read God's Plan. A good vignette to fill in some details.
I'm not a big fan of the Nightside series by Simon Green, though I own and have read the first novel. Green, via Taylor, is trying to be just a little too smarmy and cute with his tales of the evil that lurks in the hearts of men and in the Nightside, but if you like this series, you'll probably enjoy the additional glimpses it offers into this world.
I do, however, love the Greywalker novels by Kat Richardson, and the short story included here about Harper Blaine's quest to place an odd dog statue on a man's grave in Mexico was definitely interesting. I don't know how much of the detail provided about the Mexican Day of the Dead was accurate, but if it was, it's another bit of trivia to tuck away in my brain. Harper's ability to talk with the dead comes in handy, and she ends up putting some old injustices right.
I'd never heard of Thomas E. Sniegosky before, but I may just have to pick up his Remy Chandler books and give them a try. Remy is a fallen angel who masquerades as a human private eye. He's dragged into investigating the murder of Noah (yes, that Noah) by a group of fallen angels called the Grigori, whom he is not all that fond of.
There's an interesting (highly heretical) retelling of the story of the biblical Flood here, and I found the entire premise amusing.
A good collection, all in all.
2 comments:
Jim was the main reason I picked up this book. The Warrior was fantastic. Simon's bit was okay, I liked the idea, but I'm not a big fan of how he did it. However, it did cause me to pick up his Secret History series (bk 1 is "Man With the Golden Torc") which I am really enjoying. It also introduced me to Kat's work, which is absolutely phenomenal. That leaves Tom.
Tom is such a nice guy. While I went to NYCC this past weekend to meet Jim, I also met Tom, who was a wonderful guy to talk to.
If you want to keep up to date on these folks, and are on twitter, the following are their usernames:
Jim—@longshotauthor
Kat—@katrchrsn
Tom—@TomSniegoski
Thanks for the Twitter info, Garrett. I've read Man with the Golden Torc, and found it amusing, but not quite amusing enough to buy the next book in the series. I used to read Green back when he wrote the Hawk & Fisher series (swords & sorcery stuff) and read the first few books in his Deathstalker series, then I just let him fade out of my repertoire.
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