books

It is perhaps indicative of how little impact The Ionian Mission had on me that, writing this review several weeks after I actually read the novel, I can barely remember what happened in it. Which isn’t really fair to the novel or Mr. O’Brian’s writing, to be sure, since this is after all an Aubrey-Maturin novel and by definition comes with a certain default level of Awesome. Also, a lot of the events in this book naturally inform what comes next in Treason’s Harbour.

Unfortunately, the book did indeed make little impact on me. I do recall Jack’s encounter with his old flame Mercedes (who goes clear back to Master and Commander), and his later being called on the carpet by Admiral Harte, and the general sucktitude of the Worcester as a ship when compared with Surprise. Other than that, though, the book’s primary virtue for me is serving as a lead-in to the superior Treason’s Harbour. Three stars.

The second Sebastian St. Cyr mystery is a decent episode in the series, following up on Book 1 by giving us a nice juicy politically motivated murder–and a side helping of expounding upon the background of Sebastian, revealing all sorts of intriguing secrets about his mother. It seems that the lady did not in fact die when Sebastian was eleven, as he’d been told, and that furthermore, a certain necklace that’s cropped up in the case he’s trying to solve ties back to her. Meanwhile, we learn more of why Kat, the actress Sebastian loves, steadfastly refuses to marry him: she has political intrigue in her own background, a life she’s desperately trying to abandon.

All in all the murder’s fun enough, set up intriguingly and giving an interesting portrait of Englad at the time, and in particular the popular opinion of the Prince Regent. But what really drove the plot for me here more is the background on Sebastian’s mother as well as the background with Kat. I’ll be very interested to see how this progresses with Book 3. Four stars.

Steve Alten’s The Loch was a grocery store impulse buy for me, and I have to admit I was drawn in by the promise in the blurb of a scientist guy haunted by a drowning experience in his childhood and being driven back to Loch Ness in Scotland to investigate whether the monster is really real. Sounds like fun, I said to myself.

Problem is, as grocery store impulse buys often do, the book just didn’t work for me over all. Our hero’s father is one big reason; the man’s an abusive prat, and constantly maligns his son’s manhood, calling him “lass” and randomly chosen feminine names practically every time he addresses him. And yet this is apparently all for the altruistic purpose of making Zach face his childhood fears. Um, what? Really? I gritted my teeth practically every time the character opened his mouth, and when Zach actually finally called his dad on his abusive asshattery, it really was too little too late for proper emotional satisfaction, even if it does shut dear old Daddy up.

Also, although this is less the fault of this book in particular and more the fault of being a general trope: I am generally crankier these days about romance plots that equate strong lust with actual love at first sight. I did sympathize with our hero getting dumped by his annoying fiancee after his initial accident, but wound up losing a good bit of that sympathy as his romance with his Actual Love Interest played out. Too many overused romance cliches, there.

Now, all this said, I did at least like the book well enough that I kept reading to the end, and it was doing interesting things with tying in the history of the Loch Ness monster to a centuries-old Jesuit conspiracy and a secret order. And it did have at least a bit of decent suspense. So overall, I’ll give it two stars.

The Patriot Witch, first installment of ‘s Traitor to the Crown series, sets up the story of young Proctor Brown, who’s inherited the ability to scry from his mother. His only wish is to marry his sweetheart and prove himself to her father by making a fortune on his farm… except that the stirrings of rebellion are beginning in the countryside, and Proctor’s sympathies are with the local militia with whom he’s enlisted. When he encounters a British officer carrying a powerful protection charm, he’s set onto a path that leads him deeper not only into the brewing revolution, but also into understanding his own power.

All in all this was a fine little tale. Proctor’s an engaging young hero, and Deborah, the girl he eventually meets after his initial sweetheart abandons him, is his equal in spirit and his superior in magic. Some interesting threads are laid down about the greater role that magic plays in this version of the history of the American colonies; I’m quite intrigued to see where this will be going.

If anything my only beef at all with the book was that it felt a little too light. But that’s okay for the first book of a series, with Proctor as young as he is. It’ll be fun to see how Books 2 and 3 progress. Four stars.

The second Sirantha Jax book by Ann Aguirre didn’t strike me with quite as much awesome as the first one–but that’s not to say that I didn’t like the book, because I did. Wanderlust picks up in the aftermath of Grimspace, with Jax and her beloved March being interrogated while the Confederacy scrambles to reorient after the shock wave of what happened in the first book. Now out of a formal job, Jax is offered the highly unlikely position of Ambassador to Ithiss-Tor, only to discover that there are powerful parties who will stop at nothing to keep her from pulling it off.

Here’s the thing though: once Jax actually accepts this job, much of the rest of the book isn’t about it at all. Rather, it’s about getting her to it, and revisiting the world that much of Book 1’s events took place on so that March a plot-relevant excuse to actually bail on Jax for a while. Which is all very action-packed and exciting to be sure, but that whole part of the plot worked a little too hard to convince me that March had torn apart his own soul because of the Horrors of War and Oh Noez! He’s Going to Have to Do It Again! Also, Oh Noez! There’s a new gorgeous guy who has Romantic Rival for March Written All Over Him! And, Oh Noez! March is going off to war because he thinks Jax doesn’t actually need him!

So all in all there was a little bit too much Oh Noez! for me, this time around. But it wasn’t badly written and I’m still absolutely interested in seeing how Jax manages to pull off working her way into actually knowing what she’s doing with this ambassador gig, which one presumes will start happening in earnest in Book 3. For this one, three stars.

I am of course a huge fan of the Dresden Files, and Storm Front, its first installment, holds a special place in my heart. I have not only the original novel, but also the audio version read by James Marsters, and I was particularly interested in seeing how the short-lived TV version of the Dresden Files would adapt that story. So naturally, when I learned that it was being adapted into graphic novel form, I had to check it out.

Volume 1 of the graphic novel version covers somewhere between the first third and the first half of the story, and does a credible job of it. Some of the smaller details are left out, but they’re streamlined well to account for the needs of the medium. Happily, Ardian Syaf’s art is a little more solid than in the earlier Dresden graphic novel Welcome to the Jungle, although for my money, the gentleman still needs to work on his ability to draw female faces. Most of the women still look strangely masculine in his style, although Murphy looks more like a blonde Dana Scully now and less like a German beermaid, and that’s a step in the right direction–which is to say, towards Butcher’s description of Murphy as looking like a cute little cheerleader.

Thumbs up though for Syaf’s depiction of Harry, which is quite nice and manages to convey Harry as suitably tall without making him particularly bulky. I also very much liked the panels featuring the fairy Toot-Toot, and the fight scene at the end with the demon that tries to attack Harry’s apartment is fun (even if it’s choregraphed with all sorts of conveniently placed distractions to hide the fact that Harry is stark naked during the whole scene).

So yeah, nothing really new here to anyone who’s familiar with the story, but it’s a fun read nonetheless and worth looking at for any Dresden Files fan. Three stars.