kgbooklog

Frances Hardinge, Well Witched
Harper (2007) ISBN: 978-0-06-088038-5
Score: 1.5

A juvenile urban fantasy about three kids who steal some coins from a wishing well, which causes them to gain magic powers the task of making the wishes come true. But the powers are hard to control, the wishes are petty and mean-spirited, and the kid making planning everything isn't very nice. I liked the way the premise twisted the usual wish theme by giving the POV of the wish granters, but I had trouble liking any of the characters. This was originally published outside the US as Verdigris Deep and is unrelated to her previous book Fly By Night (which I liked a whole lot more).

Next Book: Jim Butcher and Ardian Syaf, Welcome to the Jungle

Derek Landy, Skulduggery Pleasant
Harper Collins (2007) ISBN: 978-0-06-123115-5
Score: 2

Start of a juvenile urban fantasy series; the usual story of a girl having to save the world with the help of a skeletal magician. The magic was a bit too convenient at times, but the witty dialog makes up for it.

Next Book: Jo Walton, Half a Crown

Jennifer Fallon, The Immortal Prince
Tor (2007) ISBN: 0-7653-1682-X
Score: 2

Start of the Tide Lords series, a high fantasy about some immortals whose power waxes and wanes drastically over the centuries. The heroine is a common-born scholar (married to a duke) who is asked to question a convicted murderer who claims to be the titular Tide Lord after hanging failed to kill him. The characterization is well done (except for the romantic subplot) and it's nice to see fantasy where "immortal" means "unkillable" rather than "immune to age and disease", but the worldbuilding seems a bit weak (the nations seem to have kept the same names and boundaries for thousands of years).

Next Book: Tobias S. Buckell, Sly Mongoose

Alaya Dawn Johnson, Racing the Dark
Agate Bolden (2007[1]) ISBN: 1-932841-28-8
Score: 2

Start of the Spirit Binders high fantasy trilogy, which seems to be marketed as YA (the heroine is 13 when the book starts, but is nearly 20 by the end). This is a world where magic is done by controlling minor elemental spirits through a spoken geas powered by some sort of sacrifice. The great spirits (wind, water, fire, and death) were imprisoned thousands of years ago; earth was never bound and about 300 years ago wind got free and caused a lot of disasters and wars, but now things have settled down (without rebinding it). The book starts with hints that another great spirit is close to free, and the heroine does a lot of traveling, meeting lots of people and seeing lots of cultures (this is the author's first novel, and it shows somewhat in how numerous but shallow the characters and cultures are). As you would expect from the magic system, this is not a story about happy people making easy choices.

[1] The copyright page says 2008, but the back of the ARC and the publisher's website say Oct 2007, and Amazon says Sep 2007.

Next Book: Gregory Frost, Lord Tophet

Martha Wells, "Holy Places"
Black Gate #11 (2007) ISSN: 1531-7854
Score: 1

Novella about how Giliead and Ilias (from the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy) first met. Can be read before the novels.

Next Book: Patricia Briggs, Cry Wolf

Alastair Reynolds, The Prefect
Ace (2007) ISBN: 978-0-441-01591-7
Score: 0

Science fiction sharing a setting with a trilogy and another novel; I was told it could be read first, but I was confused trying to figure out the relationships between the political entities (Ultras/Conjoiners and Panoply/Glittering Band and Chasm City). I was also told this was a police procedural where the cops actually followed the procedures, and that may be so, but it seems like an awfully tyrannical system (cutting off all trade and communication to a habitat for a century just because someone there is suspected of exploiting a subtle computer glitch). After a couple chapters I decided I didn't like any of the characters, so I quit reading.

Next Book: Lawrence Watt-Evans, The Summer Palace

Keri Arthur, Embraced by Darkness
Spectra (2007) ISBN: 978-0-553-58961-0
Score: 1

Fifth book of the Gaurdian series, dealing with two unrelated cases of serial killers of women. I don't think I'll be reading any more of these; the setting (and heroine) have too many supernatural abilities for my suspension of disbelief (is this the first time we've been told that the Jenson pack is naturally clairvoyant?).

Next Book: Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Mercy

Jim Butcher, "Heorot"
St. Martin's (2007) ISBN: 0-312-37504-2
Score: 1

A Harry Dresden short story from the anthology My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon, and set right before Small Favor.

Next Book: Keri Arthur, Embraced by Darkness

Ilona Andrews, Magic Bites
Ace (2007) ISBN: 978-0-441-01489-7
Score: 1.5

Start of an urban fantasy series about a mercenary in a future that fluctuates between magic or science working (but never both at once). I'm not sure the setting makes sense if looked at closely (the theory about why phones often work during magic but cars don't doesn't make any sense, but it's stated by a character who isn't an expert). As usual the heroine is Special, but she tries really, really hard to keep anyone from noticing (she isn't very successful in this book). While I liked the characters, the plot had a few holes that make me wary of continuing the series.

Next Book: Monk and Nigel Ashland, Kaimira: the Sky Village

Kay Kenyon, Bright of the Sky
Pyr (2007) ISBN: 978-1-59102-541-2
Score: -2

Start of a series called the Entire and the Rose; the former is a parallel universe, the latter is what they call our universe. The Entire is a standard elfland: seemingly immortal lords who are incapable of creating art, a highly regimented culture designed to stifle dissent and creativity, roughly medieval technology except for strange specialized organic things (including sentient airships), telepathic horses, prophetic navigators, and time passing at different rates. The book starts with folks from Earth discovering evidence of the Entire, indicating that maybe the hero wasn't insane when he claimed to have spent a decade there. So they send him back in order to secure trade routes, and he agrees in the hope of finding his wife and daughter (left behind on his first trip). Of course he ends up safely in the Entire (despite the complete lack of thought that went into sending him), and everyone he meets quickly sort themselves into people who risk everything to help him and his family, or those who wish to harm his family. The POV changes without warning (once in the middle of a paragraph) to ensure that the reader hears every thought and emotion, no matter how trite and obvious. This could have been a decent YA fantasy novel, if it weren't for the publisher claiming it's adult science fiction.