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

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

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

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

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.

Carla Speed McNeil, Finder vol. 1: Sin-Eater
Lightspeed (2007) ISBN: 978-09673691-9-8
Score: 1

This is the first collection (or maybe an omnibus of the first two) of the post-apocalypse urban fantasy comic Finder, specifically issues 1-14 and 22 (including an additional 9 pages that weren't in that issue) and some author commentary. The setting is fairly deep and complex (perhaps too complex) but not really relevant to this story, which is mainly a psychological drama. I didn't really like any of the characters, and thought both the hero and villain were far too trusting and admiring of each other, especially since they both suffer from violent hallucinations. Also, part of the premise is that the ruling clans have strict rules concerning how much their members can vary in physical appearance, which is plausible in context (and useful to the plot), but makes the characters hard to tell apart, especially in a black and white comic.

Next Book: Carol Berg, Breath and Bone

Charles Stross, The Merchants' War
Tor (2007) ISBN: 0-7653-1671-4
Score: 2

Fourth book fragment of the Merchant Princes series, in which everyone runs around panicking. An attempt is made to give the inheritable-ability-to-travel-to-parallel-worlds-by-looking-at-a-special-pattern a scientific explanation, but I still call it magic for only affecting one person and what they are carrying. I'm beginning to think this may be a series that's better to read once all the books have been published, since I had trouble remembering details from previous books (like Miriam's tampering with the post) and just who everyone was; it wasn't until I finished the book and was trying to figure out where everyone was that I realized Lady d'Ost had to be Brilliana, since everyone else was on the other side of the country then (in other words, a Dramatis Personae would have helped a lot).

Next Book: Eileen Wilks, Tempting Danger

Robert Asprin (writer) and Phil Foglio (artist), Myth Adventures
Airship Entertainment (1978, 1985, 1986, 2007) ISBN: 978-1-890856-43-4
Score: 5

This is a reprint of the Foglio's graphic novelization of Asprin's Another Fine Myth, originally published by Warp Graphics as 8 issues and then as two collections; not to be confused with Myth Adventures vol. 1, which is an omnibus of Asprin's first six Myth books with illustrations by Foglio. I had already read the first collection when it came out and most of the novels, but I'm still glad I got this; there are some differences from the text in the second part, including some information not available in any of the novels (backstory for Tananda, Garkin, and Isstvan).

Next Book: Jim Butcher, Captain's Fury

Kristine Smith, Endgame
Eos (2007) ISBN: 978-0-06-050359-8
Score: 3

Conclusion to the Jani Kilian series, involving an assassination and lots and lots of politics. The ending may be a bit too neat, but it's still nice to see a book that doesn't just stop right after the climax.

Next Book: Patricia Briggs, Iron Kissed

Charlaine Harris, An Ice Cold Grave
Berkley (2007) ISBN: 978-0-425-21729-0
Score: 2

The third Harper Connelly mystery, in which she is hired to help find a serial killer in a small mountain town. Some of the plot twists were telegraphed well in advance, and I'm getting really tired of murderers are caught when they try to kill the heroine (or someone she cares about) in front of witnesses.

Next Book: Naomi Novik, Empire of Ivory