Flight into Fantasy

Title: Oathbreakers
Author: Mercedes Lackey
Genre: Fantasy
Grade: B+

Summary: Sequel to Oathbound and featuring Kethry and Tarma, the mage and warrior partners of that previous book. They have joined up with the Sunhawks, a mercinary troop, where they’ve been training for the last three years, but when Idra, the Sunhawks’ captain, returns to her home in Rethwellen and doesn’t return, Kethry and Tarma are presented with a mystery.

The Good: You know, I think Kethry and Tarma are among my favorite Mercedes Lackey heroes. The Kethry and Tarma stories are slightly darker than the rest of Valdemar canon, and both of them do things that are definitely harsh in this book. Plus, I just like the female-friendship dynamic of these two. It was also nice to read Kethry’s love story, which we get in this book.

The Bad: A lot of my complaints about this book are pretty much what I say about all Mercedes Lackey books. Her morality is a bit too simplistic, her villains are so uniformly bad that it’s hard to really distinguish them.

Final Thoughts: Other authors write better fantasy, but Mercedes Lackey is entertaining, and I enjoy her books. This one included. B for this one.

Please note, this does not include all the books I intend to read somehow. These are just the ones I’ve started and for whatever reason have not finished.

• 1. Cravings – An anthology featuring Laurell K. Hamilton, MaryJanice Davidson and two other authors. The LKH story was godawful, and the MJD one didn’t start out so well, but I am curious to see how her non-Betsy heroine vampire gets herself out of the clusterfuck that is the first section.

• 2. Son of Avonar by Carol Berg: Actually, I really like this story. Its first two chapters start out very well, but I haven’t gotten around to finishing it.
• 3. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley: I’m somewhere in the middle of this one. Jeff, our erstwhile protagonist, is a lot of fun. But I’m not so much feeling it with the telepathic red-haired people everywhere. Still, it’s not a bad book. Eventually, I will find a mood in which to finish it.
• 4. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley: Yay for rereads. But this book is freaking long, and I’m not sure I can deal with every female character pining over Lancelet, who is just… so not my idea of all that hot.
• 5. Fool Moon by Jim Butcher: I loved the first Dresden Files book, but this one totally doesn’t start off all that well.
• 6. Kushiel’s Chosen by Jacqueline Carey: See 6. I loved the other Kushiel books, but Carey always takes a while to grab me.
• 7. King’s Dragon by Kate Elliot: Another book I love. I think I’ve been putting off finishing it because I really don’t want it to be over, even though there are, like, six other books in the series.
• 8. Dark Desire by Christine Feehan: I don’t know why I started this one after my thoughts on the first book in the series. I think I was just in the mood for uncomplicated random sex. And I got pleasantly surprised that there is a little bit more of a story here. Not, like, a whole lot more story, but I like the dynamic between the hero and heroine… at least in the beginning.
• 9. How to Conjure a Man by Nancy Lindquist: I started reading this during the last bit of the tour for the play. I don’t know why I put it down, either. I think I don’t want to be disappointed by how it ends… Because the hero had an ex he can’t seem to get rid of, which is something I don’t see too much of in romance stories.
• 10. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer: I loved the beginning, but now that Bella has caught up with me and figured out that Edward is a vampire, I’m afraid my poor suspension of disbelief is just going to give up and go home.
• 11. Sorceress of Faith by Robin D. Owens: This made it onto the list even though I only maybe read a bit of the first chapter. I loved the first book in this series, though, even though Robin D. Owens uses, like, every cliche in the book and then some.
• 12. Sword Dancer by Jennifer Roberson: I liked the heroine. Not so much our narrator, who is a bit of a dickhead. They haven’t made with the smexing already, and I want them to get it over with so we can get back to the plot kthxbye.
• 13. The Summer Queen by Joan D. Vinge: The Snow Queen was a great book. World’s End had a lot more BZ emoing than I would have liked, and The Summer Queen has been unfinished for way too long. And unlike most books, when I skimmed to the end just to see what happened, I was not so much intrigued to see how the characters got there. Still, I will one day prevail.
• 14. Dark Lover by J. R. Ward: God, I shouldn’t love a book about urban vampires who have dorky ass names. And yet, unlike some authors on this list, it is obvious that J. R. Ward had fun writing about her vampires. I keep coming back to this book more often than some of the others on this list because of that.
  

Title: Undead and Unappreciated
Author: MaryJanice Davidson
Genre: paranormal chick lit
Summary: Betsy, everyone’s favorite queen of the undead, learns that she has a sister, who just happens to be the daughter of the devil.

The Good: This is a fun, seriously light bit of reading. Betsy is her usual self–a bit shallow and selfish and not the brightest crayon in the box. Not a lot of stuff happens, but then, reading these books for the plots will just leave you disappointed. There are moments of sweetness here, though, which makes me wonder what MJD could do if she weren’t trying so hard to go for the laughs.

The Bad: As I’ve mentioned before, by this point in the series, it’s a bit hard to find things to relate to about Betsy. Sure, she’s got problems, but she also lives in a mansion, is universally (for the most part) adored, and has a hot vampire consort. Excuse me while I sigh and wish I had the problems she does. This lack of my own ability to relate to Betsy will probably be what causes me not to read the rest of the series.

Overall: Not a bad book, though there’s not much of substance in it at all. Still, I’ll give it a B- for being mostly entertaining.

I am tired, but can’t seem to quiet my mind down enough for sleep, so let’s have an LJ post instead.

I wonder why it is that a book about urban vampires with ridiculous names Like Rhage and Phury fills me with unholy glee, whereas a reread of a book I loved ten years ago which contains some of the soppiest dialogue known to man, not to mention one of the weirdest love knots ever, makes me wish I weren’t reading an etext so I could toss something physical across a room?

I’m not sure what I’m getting at, except that I clearly would not know fine literature if it smacked me in the face. (Case in point, I am enjoying Christine Feehan’s second Carpathian novel, which I started despite the fact that I seriously did not love the first one.)

Title: The Secret History
Author: Donna Tartt
Genre: Literary fiction

Summary: When Richard Papen is accepted at a small Vermont
college, he gladly leaves his boring California identity
behind. After he makes up an appropriate past, Richard is
allowed to join an elite group of students who take all of
their classes from one professor. Richard learns that the
clique is hiding some odd secrets–and one deadly one. The
members trust Richard, but they’re not so sure of one of
their own.

My Thoughts: As I mentioned before, I never would have picked up this book if not for Shantih. And even a few days after I’m done with it, I still don’t entirely know what I think of it.

What I liked: Tartt evokes a sense of place and character effortlessly. I really got a sense for the college Richard attends, which is almost a character in and of itself. (I never understood what that expression meant, incidentally, until I read this book.) Also, the relationships between the characters, who are all real, flawed individuals, were intricate, complex and not at all easy to decipher. This is a good thing, because I like things like that.

The Bad: Well, to be truthful, it was a tedious, depressing story. Someone described it to me as squallid, and I have to agree. I tend to like a bit more escapism in my fiction, which is why I don’t read more real literature. It was also hard to find a whole lot that was redeeming about the characters. But, well, that was the point.

Final thoughts: I don’t think I’m likely to reread it again, but I am glad I did, and would recommend the book to anyone who enjoys a realistic story about human nature and what it’s made of.

Grade: A-