Staked

Staked
by Kevin Hearne
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780345548511
Series: Iron Druid Chronicles #8
Publication Date: January 26, 2016
Pages: 224
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Random House

When a Druid has lived for two thousand years like Atticus, he’s bound to run afoul of a few vampires. Make that legions of them. Even his former friend and legal counsel turned out to be a bloodsucking backstabber. Now the toothy troublemakers—led by power-mad pain-in-the-neck Theophilus—have become a huge problem requiring a solution. It’s time to make a stand.

As always, Atticus wouldn’t mind a little backup. But his allies have problems of their own. Ornery archdruid Owen Kennedy is having a wee bit of troll trouble: Turns out when you stiff a troll, it’s not water under the bridge. Meanwhile, Granuaile is desperate to free herself of the Norse god Loki’s mark and elude his powers of divination—a quest that will bring her face-to-face with several Slavic nightmares.

As Atticus globetrots to stop his nemesis Theophilus, the journey leads to Rome. What better place to end an immortal than the Eternal City? But poetic justice won’t come without a price: In order to defeat Theophilus, Atticus may have to lose an old friend.

A couple of things occurred to me while reading Staked: it feels like Herne doesn’t really like his main character, Atticus; at least, not judging by the amount of existential pain he dumps on him. The other is that I can see the inspiration, right down the the scatalogical humor, of the character in his new series that starts with Ink & Sigil – clearly in Owen, the arch-druid and Atticus’ mentor. Owen is quite feral and off-putting, no matter how gold and good his heart may be.

Staked is told through the rotating viewpoints of all three druids: Atticus, Granuaile and Owen, and the meandering is epic. We begin and end with the titular war with the vampires, but in between there’s a battle-seer-horse needing rescue, ecological retribution being wrought, treaties being hammered out in Asgard, greek gods getting vaporised, and all matter of other trivia. It wasn’t boring but I disliked being passed off between characters, especially when I had little use for Granuaile’s daddy issues and Owen’s feral lack of expletives that didn’t include his bollocks and backside, and those of everyone else’s.

I do enjoy Atticus’s adventures and character, and I like Oberon even more when I read him, as opposed to listening to a narrator scooby-doo his voice. I enjoy his interactions with the various deities and villains, and especially enjoy the verbal sparring between himself and Leif. It’s a detriment to the books, if not the overall story arc, that Hearne felt it necessary to take all of Atticus’ interesting friends away from him; he suffers from the lack of intellectually challenging interactions. Overall, though, it was a good enough story to keep me reading, and I enjoyed the ending well enough. If one chooses, one could end the series right here and everything save Ragnarok would be tied up neatly. At this moment, I’m content to leave the series here, but I can’t say I won’t change my mind.

I read this book for Halloween Bingo 2020, for the Dead Lands square. In spite of all the wandering about the plot did in the middle the beginning and end were chock full of vampires.

Half-off Ragnarok (InCryptid, #3)

Half-Off Ragnarok
by Seanan McGuire
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780756408114
Series: InCryptid #3
Publication Date: March 1, 2014
Pages: 356
Genre: Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: DAW Books

These books always start off so slow for me, and this one felt especially so. I suppose the author might have felt as though she needed to do a bit of world building with the change of character. Whatever the case, Alex’s story dragged in spite of some cryptid action early on in the first half.

Fortunately, I liked Alex, and I was interested enough in Sarah’s recovery after book 2 to keep on. Which became more important as I failed to find anything interesting or authentic about Shelby, Alex’s romantic interest. Partly because, living in Australia, I was looking for the “Aussie-ness” of her personality, and it never appeared. In the acknowledgements, the author thanked someone for keeping her from making Shelby a cliché, which I can wholly appreciate wanting to avoid, as well as how easily it might be to fall into that trap. But I think her advisor might have over-compensated (and failed to catch that it’s the Great Ocean Road, not highway). Most Aussies aren’t Crocodile Dundee, or Steve Irwin, but they do have a unique character, and Shelby didn’t have it. Though my favorite quote of the book was:

“Pretty sure that ship has sailed,” said Shelby, who was eyeing the nearby foliage with trepidation, as if she expected it to attack at any moment. Then again, she came from Australia: she probably did expect some sort of vegetable ambush.

(Australia. The only continent designed with a difficulty rating of “ha ha fuck you no.”)

After about the first half, the story started to stand on its own legs. Shelby never really got off the ground for me, but the rest of the story coalesced into something moderately interesting. The plot was well crafted, but it just didn’t have any oomph, for me. As always though, the presence of the Aeslin mice, and in this case, Angela Baker, made up for a lot.

I have the second of Alex’s books, and I’ll read it – it takes place in Australia, and it will be interesting to see of the author writes the characters any more authentically on the second try.

I’m using this book for the Monsters square in Halloween Bingo 2020. It not only had basilisks, gorgons, and cockatrice, oh my, but one of the main secondary characters, Alex’s grandfather, is a revenant.

Down the reading hole, or what I did my first week of holidays

Remember that re-read streak I went on? The one that had nothing to do with my Halloween Bingo progress? I’ve just now come out of Patricia Briggs’ world of the Marrok; I’ve run out of books to re-read. I’ve decided, though, that I’m going to make Patricia Briggs my Author wild card in Halloween Bingo; at this point, it would be stupid not to. That means at leat one square can be filled with a book: A Grimm Tale.

Rather than do a re-read review of the 4 books I’ve re-read, I’m just going to summarise by saying they’re all good and they all stand up nicely to my original ratings and reviews. If anyone is curious about reading those original reviews, the covers below link to them.

Fair Game (Alpha and Omega, #3)

Fair Game
by Patricia Briggs
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 0441020038
Series: Alpha and Omega #3
Publication Date: March 9, 2012
Pages: 293
Genre: Fiction, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

You know what’s really aggravating about deciding to re-read an old favorite series? Discovering that you don’t actually own a print copy of the first book. That’s been remedied – though I had to settle for a paperback, grumblegrumble, but I couldn’t wait. So I grabbed what I thought was the next book in the series, Fair Game. It isn’t, by the way, the next book. I skipped over one; it was late, I was tired and angry about Cry Wolf, and, oh, who cares, it’s a re-read.

Reading my original review, I didn’t care for this book as much as the others. Yet, when I think back on the series, this is the one I remember best. Re-reading it, I find that I rate it higher than I originally did; 4 stars instead of 3.5. It’s still all kinds of dark and deeply disturbed in plot, but I didn’t find Charles’ inevitable crises, and his reaction to it, quite as irritating as I did that first time. Likely because this time I knew it was a crises that wouldn’t last beyond the book itself.

I’m looking forward to re-read all the books in the series – after my copy of Cry Wolf arrives, that is. There’s a new one coming out next March, and I need to catch up before it arrives.

Alpha & Omega (re-read from Shifting Shadows anthology)

Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson
by Patricia Briggs
Rating: ★★★★★
isbn: 0425265005
Series: Alpha and Omega #0.5
Publication Date: September 9, 2014
Pages: 450
Genre: Fiction, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

The re-read rabbit hole I fell into this weekend included a need to re-visit Briggs’ Alpha and Omega series, and what better place to start than the beginning?

I’ve re-read this story many times, and it always holds up; it’s almost exactly the right length – another chapter’s worth of details would have been welcome, but the story didn’t suffer from the lack either. The plot is complete, the characters well-drawn.

I can’t imagine a day when I’ll stop enjoying this story.

End of Days (Penryn and the End of Days, #3) – re-read

End of Days
by Susan Ee
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 1444778552
Series: Penryn End of Days #3
Publication Date: May 26, 2015
Pages: 336
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Hodder Paperback

Ok, so book 3 re-read and I still don’t care for dystopian/post-apocolyptic settings.

My second read brings this book down to a 3.5, but I have to say, that on the second read, I was better able to appreciate the parallels to the stories of Lucifer’s original battle and descent/fall. I was also better able to empathise with the tragedy and sacrifice of Baliel. So, while I got more out of it the second time around, I also found the science fiction elements even more grating, and I was totally dissatisfied with the ending. Yes, it’s an HEA, but it’s still lacking, with questions left unanswered, and that annoys me more than it did the first time, obviously.

I remain satisfied with the trilogy; it didn’t wow me, but I feel like I got what I paid for, more or less. Perhaps someday my nieces will enjoy reading it.

World After (Penryn and the End of Days, #2) – re-read

World After
by Susan Ee
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 1477867287
Series: Penryn End of Days #2
Publication Date: January 1, 2013
Pages: 438
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Publisher: Skyscape

I hadn’t planned on re-reading all three of the Penryn books, but I should have known better; I’ve never been able to just re-read one book in a series without wanting to re-read them all.

This one stands up exactly as well as it did the first time around. It’s good, but not awesome, and of course, the whole science fiction angle doesn’t score points with me, as it’s just not my jam. Still, the angel mythology remains compelling.

Angelfall (Penryn and the End of Days, #1) – Re-read

Angelfall
by Susan Ee
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 0761463275
Series: Penryn End of Days #1
Publication Date: January 1, 2012
Pages: 284
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Publisher: Skyscape

This is a re-read for me; I was going through my archives, trying to update this blog and my presence on the new site, bookhype.com, when I came across is and just felt like I needed to re-read it.

It held up well, though my original rating was 4 stars, and on the re-read it gets 3.5. I’m not sure why, except that on the second read, I found parts tedious. But it remains a compelling read. I still didn’t really connect with Penryn as a character, but Raffe became more compelling.

The same elements of it disturbed me that disturbed me the first time around; I don’t think I’d really like to see the imaginings of Susan Ee too up close and personal, but the story remains, to a degree, haunting.

Smoke Bitten (Mercy Thompson, #12)

Smoke Bitten
by Patricia Briggs
Rating: ★★★★
Series: Mercy Thompson #12
Publication Date: March 19, 2020
Pages: 344
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Orbit Books

Mercy Thompson returns in another thrilling instalment from No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Briggs

I am Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman. My only 'superpowers' are that I turn into a thirty-five-pound coyote and fix Volkswagens. But I have friends in odd places and a pack of werewolves at my back. It looks like I'm going to need them.
Centuries ago, the fae dwelt in Underhill. When they were cast out, they left behind their great castles, troves of magical artefacts . . . and their prisoners. Without the fae to mind them, those creatures roamed freely through Underhill wreaking havoc. Only the deadliest survived.
Now one of those prisoners has escaped. It can look like any creature it chooses and if it bites you, it controls you. It lives for chaos and destruction and can make you do anything - even kill the person you love the most. Now it is here, in the Tri-Cities. In my territory.
It won't, can't, remain. Not if I have anything to say about it.

Finally! A Mercy Thompson book that didn’t include storylines with animal sacrifice. The last few books before this had me seriously hesitant to continue with the series, and even after buying this, it stared at me for about a week before I picked it up with the intention of putting it right back down again if it even looked at an animal the wrong way.

Fortunately – and unfortunately – I never had to put the book down. At least, not until 2.30am when I finally gave into sleep, only to pick it up again the next morning and finish it off.

That’s not to say the story was perfect; it was good, but the sub-plot between Mercy and Adam was meh, and got terribly schmaltzy towards the end (keeping in mind I have a low tolerance for “the power of love”).

The main plot concerned something that got out of Underhill and started possessing people, making them kill others, before it killed them and moved on. This was more interesting to me, although it never really achieved ‘gripping’. And towards the end, but long before the climax, I guessed who the smoke demon was, which was both a tiny bit disappointing, and also – YAY! I was right! – making it a wash overall.

Generally, I enjoyed the story and it restored my faith in the series. I hope book 13 stays away from the witches, although with that number, I don’t like my chances.

Small Magics

Small Magics
by Illona Andrews
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781596069619
Publication Date: December 1, 2019
Pages: 455
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Subterranean Press

An anthology of short stories in the Kate Daniels universe.

When I saw here on BookLikes that Sweep with Me was out, I went to Ilona Andrew’s website to find out more, and noticed the release of a new anthology, published by Subterranean Press. Yes please!

This is a compilation of the short stories Ilona Andrews has written, all previously published elsewhere, and for the first time in print, all the Curren POV’s Gordon Andrews has written and posted on their website. Interspersed are 3? full color illustrations.

It’s a nice book – not the most impressive I’ve seen put out by Subterranean, but a good solid book. I’d read some of the stories before, but enough of them were new to me to make me appreciate having bought it.

My only gripe with the book is with the Curran POVs. As a character, these stories don’t always flatter Curran, but that’s trivial. What is really disappointing, though, is the poor copy-editing of the Curran stories. On the website, they’re clear to state that the stories were written for fun, not edited, yada yada. And that’s totally understandable. But I’d have though when it comes to publishing a limited release, numbered, signed, illustrated edition, the publisher, if not the authors themselves, would have wanted to take the time and make the effort to correct, at the very least, the most glaring omissions and errors (lots of the, a, an articles missing, or misplaced).

Ah well, a good collection that might have been great, but still welcome on my shelves.