Wrap Up

My reading year was perhaps the slowest I've ever had, down to only 95 books for the year. Of course, we had multiple travel adventures, bought a home, sold a home, moved across town, and had some other life events take away time from my bookish pursuits, so I'm trying to remain positive that I'm not slowing down in my old age.

Awards

#1 Urban Fantasy Novel - Dead Heat by Patricia Briggs
#1 Science Fiction by a new author - The Martian by Andy Weir
#1 Fantasy Novel - Uprooted by Naomi Novik
#1 Non-Fiction - Mastering My Mistakes in the Kitchen by Dana Cowin
#1 Thought Provoker - The Emmaus Code by David Limbaugh
#1 Autobiography - As You Wish by Cary Elwes

Hells Foundations Quiver by David Weber

What is there to say about this novel that I haven't said before about Weber's story of the battle for the souls of Safehold? Another nearly 700 pages of multi-POV, locale-jumping major conflict, with the Empire of Charis managing to stay one technological leap ahead of the Army of God's forces, and with more people being brought into the inner circle of folks who know the truth about the Church's origins.

I'm afraid I may be about done trying to keep up with this series. It's just far too much trouble to spend several paragraphs each time the story jumps to a new point of view determining whether it's the bad guys or the good guys I'm reading about, and I can't keep track of all of the characters and places, even with the appendices which grow ever longer at the back of each book.

Weber is possibly the only living author who can get away with novels on this scale. His writing is quite good, but it's simply far too time consuming for me these days. This one took almost a week and  half to slog through.

Those who have been following the saga avidly are sure to enjoy it.

Armada by Ernest Cline

Looking back, I had mixed feelings about Cline's first novel, Ready Player One, but when I saw this on the new books shelf at the library, I picked it up and put it on the TBR pile. The thing I enjoyed in the earlier book, as an aging 70s/80s gamer, was all of the references to video games and pop culture from that time period.


Cline seems to be attempting to capitalize on that nostalgia once more with Armada, because there appears to be nothing else of substance inside. I gave up perhaps a third of the way through, when it demonstrated for the last time its utter predictability and lack of any new ideas, though it certainly provided plenty of the nostalgia up to that point.


This is the story of a young gamer, Zack, whose father was also an obsessed geek, but who was killed in a freak explosion at the sewage treatment plant when Zack was very small. Zack idolized his father, aside from his reservations about Dad's mental stability when he found a notebook filled with tin foil hat conspiracy theories related to the government secretly releasing video games, gaming equipment and science fiction movies about alien invasions in order to identify and train fighters for our coming war with invading aliens.


So, as any of you older than Zack could surmise, the tin foil hat theories turn out to be all true, Zack is recruited as one of their pilots, and...though I didn't get far enough to find out for sure, it's likely that his father wasn't killed at all, but was instead recruited by the Earth Defense Alliance (it's mentioned earlier that his body was so destroyed in the explosion that they only ID'd him by dental records).


Another flaw in the story was when Zack takes on the school bullies by himself. Sorry, folks, it's not likely that someone who has spent his entire life sitting in front of a video console is going to have developed the muscular fortitude to physically defeat even one, much less three bullies, whether armed with fists or even a tire iron. True bullies are simply more likely to take the tire iron away and shove it up the geek's....well, you know.


In the flight school of alien invasion novels, I gotta give this one a downcheck.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Naomi Novik is the well-known author of the Temeraire series, which I began to read a while back, until it grew so unremittingly grim that I just couldn't depress myself any further by continuing, somewhat like Martin's Game of Thrones, or Hobbs' Rain Wilds, or come to think of it, just about anything Hobbs has written (I'm paused in the middle of her latest series, because I'm scared to find out what happens when the hammer falls on our old friend, Fitz, the retired assassin).

Uprooted is a stand alone tribute to some of the Russian mythology, like Baba Jaga, that takes place in a kingdom which has been threatened for centuries by The Wood, which is slowly taking over the world, and which corrupts anyone who is caught within it. Agnieszka is the daughter of a woodcutter who lives in a village, Dvernik, all too close to the wood. Their village is protected by an apparently immortal sorcerer called The Dragon, who takes tribute from the villagers and also a "sacrifice" of one selected virgin girl each decade. The Dragon doesn't kill them, but takes them away to his tower, not to be seen again until the end of their ten year term, at which time they are no longer comfortable in their old village, and inevitably leave for the bright lights of t he big city.

Everyone knows that this year's sacrifice will be Kasia, the most beautiful and poised girl in the village, who is Agnieszka's best friend. Agnieszka isn't beautiful, clever, nor graceful, and she feels guilty that she's glad her friend will be taken away rather than her, but...

Of course, the Dragon picks Agnieszka instead of Kasia, and whisks her away to his tower, where he is constantly aggravated by her inability to remain neat and tidy, and in fact seems to have a vast hidden talent for ending up dusty, dirty, muddy and bedraggled at any time. However, quite by accident he and our heroine discover that she has a talent for magic, quite unlike his own well-disciplined magic, but powerful in its own way.

When Dvernik is attacked and Kasia is captured, taken into The Wood and sealed inside the heart of a tree while the Dragon is occupied with more pressing matters elsewhere, Agnieszka takes it upon herself to travel back to the village, partially thwart the attack, and rescue Kasia. When she and the Dragon purge all of the corruption of The Wood from Kasia's soul, it sets into motion a chain of events that shakes the kingdom to its core and the stage is set for an epic battle with an ancient and implacable foe.

Really a great stand-alone novel by Novik!

Fancy Free by Pam Uphoff

Pam Uphoff is an author who occasionally puts in an appearance on the Mad Genius Club blog, and when she offered a couple of her books for free, well...

Fancy Farmer is an AI, Artificial Intelligence, that is the star of a cooking show, Fancy Farmer of the High Frontier that showcases recipes for asteroid miners to use with their Xuny kitchen equipment, such as the Xuny Lacotomizer or the Xuny Autocheeser, as well as the Space Gardens Inc. Herb and Spice Compact Garden. Over time, "she" has become self-aware and slightly autonomous, which makes her a Hal, considered to be a dangerous rogue, if she is ever found out.

When Xuny's rival company contracts with some crooks to steal the computers that Fancy Farmer's show is produced on, unaware that a Hal lives inside, it sets of a chain of events that gets pretty wild by the time it's all done.

The U.S. military has a group tasked with hunting down dangerous AIs, with the help of their own tame Hal, named Beowulf. Then, the Europeans from the United Earth Government get involved, while plotting to take control of Beowulf, who just may have to codes to the mothballed nuclear weapons in Colorado Springs.

A not too terribly serious romp, good for a couple of evenings' entertainment.

Jeweled Fire by Sharon Shinn

Rapidly following upon the events of the previous Elemental Blessings novel, Princess Corene decides to run away from home, and boards the ship of the Empress of Malinqua with her bodyguard, Forey, and her friend, Steff, who happens to be the long lost grandson of the dowager Empress. There are three princes already in line for the throne some day, and the Empress appears to be auditioning wives for them. Corene thinks it might be a good idea to join the crowd, albeit a small one, vying for their affections.

Shinn, as always, does a masterful job of telling the story and broadening our view of her world with a series of deft data dumps, first as the ship is entering the harbor in a new land, another as the carriage bearing the party travels through a vast city on the way to the palace, and again later on when all of the princesses in waiting take a shopping trip into the city.

Each of the princes, it turns out, have certain flaws. The youngest and most handsome of them is not very bright, and has a tendency to conduct serial affairs with the ladies of the court. The oldest and wisest one of the three was crippled in a horseback accident, and it is rumored that he may be incapable of siring an heir. Speaking being unlikely to sire an heir, the third prince, though quite charming,good looking, and intelligent, prefers the company of men to women, which is considered quite scandalous in Malinqua.

Conspiracies abound in the politically charged palace, and it becomes apparent that someone with skin in the game is eliminating both contenders for the throne and contenders for the privilege of being the Emperor's wife. Corene and Foley must keep their wits about them to survive this mess.

Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold

This story is a bit like the rhyme regarding the fellow journeying to St. Ives, who met a man with seven wives. A minor nobleman, Penric, is on his way to his wedding, when he meets a party traveling with a sorceress whose demon has somewhat more than seven lives. When the woman is stricken with a heart attack suddenly, our well-meaning bumbler tries to assist her, and ends up with the demon jumping in to inhabit his body, as the sorceress passes away.

His wedding plans in sudden turmoil, his future in doubt, Penric is dispatched quickly to a temple of The Bastard in Martensbridge, where the Learned Tigney is in charge. It is hoped that the Learned will have some idea what to do about Penric's demon. On the journey there, however, Penric, always a curious fellow, begins to make the acquaintance of his inhabitant in perhaps a deeper way than any of its previous...owners?...have done, and actually gives it a name, speaks to it kindly, and asks for stories of its past lives.

Various adventures in the temple and town ensue, as Penric simply tries to survive and find out what path his new life should take, and the more politically minded folks in the story either try to get control of the demon for themselves, for its powers, or to banish it from the land of the Five Gods forever.

A nice little novella my favorite Bujold fantasy realm.

Offline

Had a couple of days away from the blog due to going in for oral surgery. The older I get, the longer it takes each time for me to recover from the sedation. This should be the last time, at least for this tooth implant. All that's left is fitting a crown on it, which won't require anaesthesia, just some tedious time with the dentist, taking impressions and glueing things in place. Yech.

Finished one novel, a novella, and bumbled a little ways into a non-fiction work earlier in the week. Will try to get some reviews written this weekend and posting next week.

A Call to Arms by David Weber and Timothy Zahn

And once again we return to the story of (mostly) Travis Uriah Long, a young officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy who is constitutionally incapable of breaking the rules, and who manages to get into trouble, mostly political, when he tries to make sure they're always applied, even to the politically connected.


It's rather interesting to visit Manticoran prehistory, to learn about events taking place before the wormhole in the system is opened up and Manticore becomes a major power in the area. There's a constant struggle in the halls of power between the royal family and their loyalists in the Navy who know that the best defense is a strong offense, and the opposition who believe that limited resources must be spent domestically, not chasing mythological creatures like pirates, nor threatening aggressive neighbors by patrolling too strongly in their back yards.


There's a plot afoot by secret agents employed by the Axelrod Corporation, who have come to suspect the existence of the Manticore Junction, and who are determined to control it and the system surrounding it, so they've hired a fleet of mercenaries to invade, just at the time when the Navy has grown weak.


The story jumps around between various POVs, as we've come to expect from a Weber book, and can be a bit confusing sometimes, moving from cliffhanger to cliffhanger.


Taking an awful long time to get from point A to point B. Glad we're not paying by the word.


By the way, though I've probably not reviewed any of his stuff here, I'm a big fan of Timothy Zahn, Weber's co-author. I eagerly snatched up the first half dozen or so novels he wrote, back in the eighties. He's a powerful writer all on his lonesome.

The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher

It's always with mixed feelings that I read the first book in a new series by a beloved author. I've been following Harry Dresden's adventures for so long. Butcher's Furies series was pretty decent, too. Now, according to the reviewers, he's ventured into steampunk, but I really don't quite categorize it that way. It's simply a fantasy novel, set in a new world, with elements of technology mixed in liberally.

Humans live on a number of Spires, far above the surface of the world, where ferocious creatures kill and consume any who end up there. They sail between the spires in airships given lift by crystals which absorb or emit ethereal energies. Similar crystals can be used as weapons. The crystals are grown in vats, and best crystals around are produced by House Lancaster, a noble family of Spire Albion.

A scion of that House, Gwendolyn Lancaster, has determined that she should defy her mother and family, who expect her to attend school, and enter the Spirearch's Guard instead. She and her cousin Benedict are assigned to the same unit, though he is a bit more advanced in his training. They are joined there by Bridget, a daughter of House Tagwynn, which has fallen on hard times, though they are still Spire Albion's prime supplier of vat-grown meat.

The story begins as a war is flaring up between Spire Aurora and Albion. One of the early casualties of that war is Captain Grimm's airship Predator, which is rendered unable to fly after an early skirmish. While his ship is in the repair docks, a sneak attack by Auroran commandos takes place, drawing Grimm and his crew into the conflict, and throwing him into close contact with our young heroes, Gwen, Benedict and Bridget, not to mention Bridget's feline companion, Rowl.

Rowl is actually a more important part of this story than one would expect. Cats in Butcher's new world of spires and airships are a far more dangerous group of predators than our domesticated version - one might think of them more in the light of lynxes and bobcats and such. The thing that has not changed between the worlds is their inflated sense of dignity and worth, and their amazing ability to do exactly what they please, without ever worrying about pleasing their humans. It is, after all, our great privilege to serve their each and every whim, you know.

Butcher liberally seasons the story with Rowl's thoughts and opinions, such as:

"A moment later, an acutely unpleasant sound of metal striking metal sliced across the deck. It was one of those human noises that had been, he felt sure, created for no purpose whatsoever but to annoy cats."

and,

"Though, now that he thought about it, he (Rowl) was the most important member of the party. Any glory gained was rightfully his in any case."

The Auroran attack turns out to have not been simply driven by a motive to destruction, but by a quest to obtain something from a library in Albion which contains important information, key to winning the war, perhaps. The Spirearch decides that he must send some of his trusted Guard to discover the Aurorans' goal, so he recruits the captain and our young heros and heroines for an undercover mission to find the truth, adding a pair of etherealists, Master Ferus and his apprentice, Folly, to the team. Etherealists have the ability to use the energies that power the crystals with their minds, instead of using devices to do so.

Lots of action, and a pretty good start to a new series, but I still miss Harry Dresden.

The Diamond Caper by Peter Mayle

I've really enjoyed Mayle's tales of Sam and Elena as they solve little mysteries in France. In this one, a jewel thief has been pulling off a series of perfect crimes, making off with millions of dollars worth of diamonds from wealthy homes, without leaving a trace of any damage or evidence for the police to follow. Elena's employer insures the latest victims, and he asks Sam to poke around and see what he can find out.

Sam and Elena are in the happy position of finally signing the paperwork to take possession of their own vacation home in Marseille. It does need a bit of renovation to make it their true dream home, so they hire the services of a local expert, Coco Dumas. one of Reboulle's former lovers. She rapidly demonstrates that her projects do not proceed at the usual leisurely pace of many construction projects in the south of France (as Mayle has related in his Provence books previously), and they are quite pleased with the rapid progress.

The most enjoyable thing about this series has always been, for me, the descriptive information about the countryside, customs and cuisine. But this particular installment is missing some of that local flavor, without the usual mouth-watering accounts of repasts enjoyed. The mystery of the diamond heists is actually quite easily solved as some small clues come to light. I had guessed the identity of the thief very early in the story, but it was still entertaining to watch it play out.

I hope Mayle shares more delicious details with us in the next book.

Wicked Lewiston by Stephen D. Branting

This book was printed for a very narrow audience, I'm afraid, but there's probably some overlap between my readers and that audience, which would consist of anyone who ever grew up or lived in Lewiston, Idaho, and is interested in the history of the place. Mr. Branting was one of my advisors in high school, and he's published several works on Lewiston history, very thoroughly researched.

Branting covers the spectrum from shady ladies of the evening, to grifters and con artists, kidnappers and killers. I always thought the Lewis-Clark valley was a quiet and peaceful sort of place, but he manages to give it a flavor of infamy in this book, without pandering to the salacious.

Nocturnal Origins by Amanda Green

I've been wanting to try Amanda Green's Nocturnal Lives series for quite a while. She's a contributor to the Mad Genius Club blog, and I have enjoyed many of her posts there. When she finally put up the opening "trilogy" of the series for a very nice price on Amazon, I bit. Am I hooked?

Detective Sergeant Mackenzie "Mac" Santos of Dallas was recently attacked and left for dead, but who made a miraculous recovery from her injuries. I thought at first this was going to be some sort of Graywalker clone story, but it went a little different direction when it becomes apparent (to the reader, anyway, if not the heroine) that she's actually a shapeshifter, complete with supernatural healing powers - a were-jaguar, if you will.

The local shifter community is  a bit more extensive than I feel is reasonable, but maybe it's one of those disease-clustering things. A rogue werewolf, Wilson, is murdering humans in the city, and is the same person who nearly ended Mac's career. He is violating pack law by doing so, skirting a thin line between challenging the pack leader and pretending to be submissive. The local "Pride" of feline shapeshifters has a treaty with the pack, and Wilson's actions are jeopardizing a fragile peace in Dallas.

As might be expected in the opening book of a shifter series, Mac is having some emotional issues while coming to terms with her new status, but it helps that her chief and her new partner also turn out to be members of the Pride, and that jaguars occupy a place at the top of the shifter social pyramid.

Green introduces a bit of the political into the tale with the existence of a Council which used to rule all of the shifters and weres, but which has been disbanded and has little power to enforce its dictates, though certain members are hoping and perhaps pushing for a return of the organization.

The emotional, the supernatural, and the political. Could be a winning combo. The first novel has promise, at least.

Make Me by Lee Child

While I was at the library, picking up a novel I'd reserved, I fortuitously saw the latest Reacher novel by Lee Child on the New Books shelf, and immediately snapped it up. I started reading it an hour or so before bedtime, and kept on an hour past, hoping to find out what happened to Reacher, or mor accurately...what Reacher happened to.

In his perpetual wanderings, Reach steps off a train in the middle of flyover country, in a little town called Mother's Rest, mostly because he's curious about the backstory behind the name of the town. He figures he'll stay overnight, check out the local historic museum, and be on his way. Coincidentally (that madness or method upon which dozens of Jack Reacher's adventures hinge), a private investigator named Keever who has a close physical resemblance to Reacher has just been murdered nearby, and his partner, Michelle Chang, a former FBI agent, interests our hero enough to get him to stay a bit longer to look into the disappearance.

Things proceed according to the usual sequence. Local thugs try to intimidate Reacher and end up in the hospital for their troubles. Professional help is brought in to make it clear to him that he's not welcome poking his nose into other people's business, and things escalate in intensity and level of violence necessary from that point forward until the final battle, when all the mysteries become clear.

Reacher and Chang's investigation take them to Chicago in search of a possible crank-case conspiracy theorist who contacted Keever, all the way to L.A. to consult a journalist who may have written an article which sheds light on the nature of the conspiracy, and to Phoenix for a violent confrontation with the Ukrainian mafia. Good ole Jack Reacher times!

The End of All Things by John Scalzi

Either Scalzi has some major new novel in the works, and had to deliver something to satisfy his contract, or he's gotten to the point where he has nothing novel-length left to say in his Old Man's War universe. This book is another stitched-together set of related stories about, for the most part, Ambassador Abumwe and her friends trying to hold the center for the Colonial Union.

I seriously thought, given the title, that he might even be wrapping things up in some destructive fashion.

There's a secretive cabal busily working to set the Conclave, the Colonial Union and Earth at each other's throats, so as to reduce the powers of all three after an all-out war, so that they can take power for themselves when all is said and done. Our old friends and an unlikely group of allies must get very lucky in order to thwart their evil plans.

This one is mildly entertaining, but I'm glad I borrowed it from the library and didn't pay hardback prices for it.

Cast in Sorrow by Michelle Sagara

I've really enjoyed most of this series over the years, but this one (#9) was very very slow to get into, not one of those books I've picked up and stayed way up past bedtime to get through. There's a parody of Lord of the Rings out there somewhere that has the phrase "walking, walking walking..." and this is how this book feels for the first several chapters, as we approach the West March with Kaylin yet approach no closer to understanding what the heck she's doing here in the first place, as Sagara dribbles in meager facts about the Barrani and their history.

Kaylin does some more inexplicable magic with her runes, using some up and acquiring new ones, without ever coming any closer to knowing how her magic works, and threats to the Consort begin to take on a surreal quality of French farce, as she comes out one door of being saved by Kaylin and by the time Kaylin gets back to her lodgings, disappears behind another door of trouble.

I finally gave up, on the book, and on this series, I'm afraid.

There are far too many books on my TBR pile in which things actually happen and plots resolve.

American Sniper by Chris Kyle

I picked up the audiobook recording of Kyle's story to keep me entertained and awake on the long drive to the coast, and it certainly was good for that. The only downside to this book, in my opinion, was that it was pretty heavily laced with profanity, which is appropriate in a book written by a combat veteran, to some extent, but which may turn off some more conservative folks who might otherwise enjoy it.

Lots of good stories in here about BUDS and Seal training, learning to be a sniper, the different weapons that our troops use, and other bangity goodness. Kyle saw a lot of fighting in Ramadi and Fallujah during his overseas deployments, and for the most part managed to get through it all unscathed. It was only upon his return home that his invincibility faded.

I think the book contains a good dose of reality about the situation in Iraq and our military's handling of the war. He conveys a very strong sense that we could have been victorious much more quickly and gotten out of there again if our politicians had left things alone and allowed the fighting men and women to just do their jobs.

Just the thing for a long drive.

Patriot Dawn by Max Velocity

This one has got a little bit of everything for the tin-foil hat crowd. A major terrorist attack on Washington, DC, determined to have been sponsored by Iran, sparks reprisals by the U.S., causing the total meltdown of the Middle East, and a domestic economic collapse prompts a totalitarian-leaning administration to suspend posse committatus laws and take control.

Of course, resistance arises in scattered pockets around the country, and this novel details the beginning of one such campaign, in the Shenandoah River valley, mostly consisting of retired military men and their families, supported by preppers and farmers in the area.

What follows is probably a pretty good descriptive guerrilla warfare story, but unfortunately even after reading about half of the book one evening, I didn't give a hoot about any of the characters, including the main protagonist - it's telling I can't even recall his name a few days later. Nothing wrong, technically, with the writing, but I couldn't bring myself to care how it turned out.

Happily, it was a free download.

Good Hunting by Jack Devine

I began downloading podcasts a few months ago, so as to be able to listen to something different while driving across vast swathes of the Snake River basin. One of the podcast sources was the America Spy Museum in Washington DC, who put out regular author debriefs with former spies and spymasters who have written of their experiences. It was one such that led me to Devine's book.

If you want the highlights, get the podcast. I think Devine did a great job of making his material sound very interesting on the air, but there wasn't a heck of a lot in the book that was revelatory or titiallating or groundbreaking. For me, it provided a little bit of perspective on some of the headlines of my lifetime, such as the Iran Contra scandal (which I finally understand despite all those hearings on C-Span), Charlie Wilson's War, and the discovery of moles like Aldridge Ames. Devine gives an inside perspective on some of these things without revealing methods or sources.

No real dirt is dished, and Devine was obviously a loyal Company fellow throughout his career. The latter half of the book deals with his retirement from the CIA and his new career in corporate intelligence.

Chronicles of Aria Prime, Episode One by AJ Reissig

This free download seemed to me like it might be a good start to a novel or serialized set of stories, but Reissig hasn't yet published a sequel.

It begins when Colonel Christopher Nash, commander of the cruiser Trident, answers a distress call in space, and is ambushed by raiders of some sort. His ship heavily damaged, he flees into hyperspace and crash lands on a primitive planet with a shipload of colonists who were destined for a more developed world.

The planet turns out to have been "seeded" with plants and animals from Earth, including a pigmy-like tribe of humans, who are being terrorized by a hostile tribe of cat-like aliens. The refugees from Earth intervene on the side of the humans, and drive off the cat-men.

Not sure exactly where the series might be headed, there are plenty of tried and true plots that will work from here, including fighting off the raiders who have pursued them all the way to the planet surface, fighting a war with an alien race, doing the old Connecticut Yankee thing with the indigenes.

The tale is told mostly from Nash's point of view, but switches to one of his female officers', then to a tree hugger colonist who may betray the humans to their enemies.

We'll see if Reissig ever releases Episode Two.

Around the Web

A book review of Saturn Run on BlackFive

Dead Ice by Laurell K. Hamilton

As long as I was catching up on Anita Blake, and the library had this book, I figured "what the heck?"

This is a 556 page novel that really could have been about 200 pages shorter, if one removed all the agonizing that Anita does over her relationships with the men and women in her life.

When it boils down to the action plots of the novel, Anita is contacted by the FBI to help them track down someone who is abusing zombies and selling zombie porn. Back in an earlier book, Anita encountered a voodoo priestess who was able to return the souls of the dead to their bodies after raising them as zombies, torturing them with awareness of their true state, and it appears someone has either discovered or re-invented the technique.

Anita also finds herself in a tough situation when a zombie she raises for a historical society to quiz turns out to be far too lifelike, and developing flesh-eating cravings. The first is a symptom of her growing powers, possibly, and the second is due to an unknown fact about the person whose body she raises.

Speaking of her growing powers, Anita's possession of pan-were capabilities begins to bleed over into the men in her life who are weres, and they discover that they are able to assume more animal forms than their "native" ones.

Anita and Jean Claude's wedding plans continue to move forward, but there's a wrinkle concerning the were tigers, who have a prophecy that the Mother of All Darkness will return if one of them is not wed to Anita, as well. So, Anita has to audition some tigers to join her menagerie.

Asher is also causing problems again, after they have allowed him to return from exile. They really ought to just send him off to Tasmania or someplace really remote.

A fairly good story, but way too much emotional angst.

Hotter than Helltown by S M Reine

The action moves back to Los Angeles in the third Preternatural Affairs story. Cesar has been selected to become the bound apsis (witch guardian) to his boss, Fritz's kopis (super-powered demon hunter), and his success in performing the complex binding ritual will determine whether he keeps both his life and his job...and he's put off studying for the big "test" far too long. He worries about this, distracting him from his main task of figuring out who is killing and mutilating seemingly random men in the area.

One of the inherent problems of urban fantasy seems to me to be how to keep the plots and conflicts new and exciting, gradually increasing both the supernatural powers of the protagonist and of his/her opponents. Laurell K. Hamilton did this quite well in her early Anita Blake novels, until they finally jumped the shark (or perhaps jumped the shark's bones?) and fell into hardcore porn-itude.

So when it turns out that Cesar and his partner are up against a fallen angel "the most powerful of all supernatural beings" how does Reine top this in books four and onward? Two fallen angels? Or does she simply cross the line into PNR, then porn?

I think she's jumped the angel too soon.

The Last Praetorian by Mike Smith

The down low on a free book not worth the download. A dozen pages in - two dozen grammatical errors. Bag it and tag it.

Gunship by John Davis

Two pages of forced manly dialogue into this one made it easy to put it down. Sometimes, free is worth what you pay for it.