UNDER THE PENDULUM SUN – Jeannette Ng

Posted by Daniel on March 22, 2019
Posted in: SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Catherine Helstone’s brother is a missionary, but instead of going to Africa, like most of the missionaries of the time, he has gone to Arcadia … a special land of the Fae. Because she has not received any word from him, Catherine follows to Arcadia where she is met by Miss Davenport – a changeling who is looking after Catherine’s brother, Laon. But Miss Davenport, who has been appointed to her position by the Pale Queen, is not exactly looking after Catherine.  Instead she takes Catherine to Gethsemane where she abandons the girl.  Catherine is now in a very alien world, on her own. She begins to investigate this strange land of Arcadia and finds the journal of the previous missionary to make the journey. From this she learns that Arcadia has some dark secrets.

There seems to be a trend for me lately of books with really fascinating premises and strong characters and yet story-telling that just doesn’t hold my interest.  This is one such book.

I like the idea behind this book a lot, and I definitely enjoyed having Queen Mab as a character. All the characters were of some interest, in fact.  But no one was outstanding. As I think back on this, the character who stands out the most to me was Queen Mab – Christine was just sort of a presence.

The pacing of this book felt very much like a Victorian romance … slow.  It is full of rich images that capture the imagination, but I need more than imagery to keep me interested in a book.  Clearly I am not the intended audience for this novel.

Looking for a good book? Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng is a fantasy that combines gothic romance pacing with a mix of average characters.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Under the Pendulum Sun

author: Jeannette Ng

publisher: Angry Robot

ISBN: 0857667270

paperback, 409 pages

COGNAC CONSPIRACIES – Jean-Pierre Alaux & Noel Balen

Posted by Daniel on March 20, 2019
Posted in: MYSTERY. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

One of the oldest Cognac estates in all of France is potentially facing a hostile take-over by foreigners. The renowned wine expert, Benjamin Cooker, is brought in to look over the books but he discovers much more than a hostile take-over when he is met with constant stalling and state officials, as well as running into his first love. A drowning sets the community on edge and Cooker and his first love investigate.

I will admit that I put off reading this book because I really haven’t been able to get into this series. The concept of mysteries and vineyards really appealed to me even though when I first requested this book I hadn’t had much experience reading mysteries. And while I’ve developed my palette for mysteries, just like certain wines, this doesn’t taste good to me.

The story seems to revolve around Cooker’s first love (now a widow with a child) more than it does the take-over aspect. This might be okay if I felt that the two different plots connected better but I was frankly bored with what was happening and really just wanted the book to end.

I also felt like the resolution to the mystery was a lucky accident.  Certainly these things happen, but in a book series it would be nice to have a little more detective work result in the discovery.

I think that some of my personal disinterest in this series is cultural, not having read much French literature and understanding what might be a French method of story-telling. And some of it could be the translation not capturing the energy of the characters in a manner that would draw me in. It also falls into the ‘cozy’ mystery genre, which I’ve found I generally don’t care for. Whatever the answer, this just doesn’t appeal.

Looking for a good book? Cognac Conspiracies by Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen is as calm and relaxing as an evening sipping cognac … but that’s not what most of us are looking for in a mystery.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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Cognac Conspiracies

authors: Jean-Pierre Alaux & Noël Balen

translator: Sally Pane

series: Winemaker Detective Mysteries #5

publisher: Le French Book

ISBN: 1939474329

paperback, 164 pages

REASON TO DOUBT – Nancy Cole Silverman

Posted by Daniel on March 18, 2019
Posted in: MYSTERY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Nancy Cole Silverman’s Carol Childs Mystery series just keeps getting better and better. In Reason to Doubt, Carol faces a parenting nightmare when her daughter’s boyfriend – an apparently serious, staying-overnight boyfriend – is accused of some grisly co-ed murders. Carol gets a look at some of the preliminary evidence and it definitely points to the boyfriend. But her daughter doesn’t believe it and asks Carol to prove him innocent.

Silverman brings us into the story by making it personal. Almost any parent can recognize the desire to protect a child – to keep a child safe from danger … even an adult child. But at the same time, trying to find that balance between protecting and being over-bearing. It seems even more difficult when your job brings you closer to the story. Carol Childs has to balance not only her concern for her daughter, but her objectivity with her job as well.  How does she report about the girlfriend of the prime suspect when that person is her daughter?

The mystery is well put-together – as we have come to expect from Silverman.  The evidence does seem overwhelming against the boyfriend and it’s only Childs’ determination to help her daughter that keeps her poking in to other leads when the police and DA are sure they’ve got their man.

A side plot (more than just a sub-plot) has a couple of female witnesses, who want to stay out of the police light, give Childs some clues, but a mystery around them seems almost as intense. And of course it all comes together.

I’m enjoying this series. What at first started out as a pretty light mystery read has developed into some strong, heavy mysteries. Fans of the mystery genre should definitely get in on this. I would consider this border-line ‘cozy’ with some intensity.

Looking for a good book? Reason to Doubt is a strong showing in the Carol Childs Mystery series by Nancy Cole Silverman.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

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Reason to Doubt

author: Nancy Cole Silverman

series: Carol Childs Mystery #5

publisher: Henery Press

ISBN13: 9781635114225

paperback, 252 pages

KINGDOM OF NEEDLE AND BONE – Mira Grant

Posted by Daniel on March 15, 2019
Posted in: Dark Fantasy/Horror, SF/FANTASY, SHORT FICTION, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Powerhouse author Mira Grant takes an idea that appears to be ripped right out of the newspaper headlines and makes it even more terrifying because we all know who close to truth this fictional story is.

In a world where medical and technology knowledge grows at a staggering pace and vaccinations are so common that we can easily forget how terrible the diseases were that are now vaccinated against, the next biggest danger to mankind is probably man him (or her) self.

It starts as a simple fever. Nothing too serious, right? Shortly after the fever there are the spots that appear and now it’s already too late. The first person to contract this is dead and a pandemic has begun.  But to add insult to injury, this is a disease that we’ve already fought and had vaccinations for. But the movement to not vaccinate children – especially for a disease that no one’s contracted in decades – has opened the door for the disease to rush back in a lay claim to millions of people.

One doctor, related to the first person to contract the new strain of the old disease, sees a possible way out for humanity, but it’s not exactly ethical and she will be vilified by anyone and everyone who might ever mention her name.

The amazing thing about Mira Grant’s writing is that she can make even the eradication of humanity seem poetic. She also manages to make everything incredibly plausible with her detailed research and the way she presents the science behind the horror.

On the one hand, the book appears to be about vaccinations and immunizations but it’s the people in Grant’s books that make her stories rise up.  They are ordinary people.  Maybe doctors, maybe news reporters, maybe day laborers, but they all seem like someone we know in our own towns, and they are asked, by the circumstances presented to them, to challenge themselves – to rise above what they thought were their limits to combat the horror in front of them.  And Grant finds new ways for people to do that. And that is what keeps me reading her books … whether she is writing as Mira Grant, or Seanan Maguire … I’ll keep reading.

Looking for a good book? Kingdom of Needle and Bone is a science fiction horror story by Mira Grant and it is captivating.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Kingdom of Needle and Bone

author: Mira Grant

publisher:  Subterranean Press

ISBN: 159606871X

hardcover, 128 pages

A TASTE FOR BLOOD – David Stuart Davies

Posted by Daniel on March 13, 2019
Posted in: MYSTERY, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

This is one of the oldest books in my ARC queue and was requested at a time when I was requesting everything in the hopes that I’d be approved for something. I did not know that it was a part of a longer series. But all that aside, I don’t think you need to read the previous five books in the Johnny One-Eye Detective series to appreciate the story … though you might want to after reading this.

Johnny “One-Eye” Hawke is a private investigator and is currently looking in to a suicide that just doesn’t feel right. A police detective friend of his, David Llewellyn, is investigating a bloody crime involving an escaped convict and a psychiatrist. These appear to be separate, parallel stories until Hawke manages to come to a realization about his friend. The cases do teases us as coming together once in a while, but author Davies manages to keep us on our toes.

The book is set during WWII era and I’m not quite sure why.  I tend to like historical fiction, but nothing about the era mattered to the story. In fact I found it a bit of distraction because it read pretty modern and then something would pop up from the era and I’d be thrown off for a moment.

The book is well-written and the mystery is very intriguing.  The last few chapters had me on the edge of my seat. They were also somewhat gruesome in expectation of a nasty killing.

On the one hand, this is very much the sort of hard mystery you might want to read (if you enjoy mysteries with a bite).  It’s well-written, with interesting characters, and a plot that keeps you paying attention.  On the other hand, there is nothing really very spectacular here.  It’s a good story but not one that I will look back on and want to read again.  It is what I consider beach fare or an airplane read … something to keep me occupied and entertained (I find reading to be entertaining) and not much more.

In that sense, then, this is a perfectly average read.

Looking for a good book? A Taste for Blood by David Stuart Davies is a good hard mystery that won’t leave you longing for more but will entertain fans of the genre.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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A Taste for Blood

author: David Stuart Davies

series: Johnny One Eye #6

publisher: Sparkling Books Ltd

ISBN: 1907230467

paperback, 224 pages

WASTE OF SPACE – Gina Damico

Posted by Daniel on March 11, 2019
Posted in: ENTERTAINMENT, HUMOR, SF/FANTASY, Uncategorized, YA. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Waste of Space by Gina Damico is a very clever idea, written in an interesting (appropriate for the subject matter) style, but still mostly a long, drawn-out story that doesn’t have the payoff for sticking with the book.

Some not quite top-of-the-line Hollywood producers are looking for the next great reality show and team up with some not quite top-of-the-line scientists at the organization NASAW to produce the first reality show in space. Auditions are held and the typical assortment of teens are lined up (including one who doesn’t speak English and thinks she’s been kidnapped).  The Hollywood producers have a plan, however, to not actually send anyone into space, but need the NASAW team to make it look like it. The NASAW team feels as duped as the teens will be.

The ratings are out of this world and very few watchers (or participants) seem to notice that the space ship is made with wood, or question that there is still gravity and that there’s a hot tub on the ship. The only one who does seem smart enough to question it is the one who doesn’t speak English.

But just as the nation seems enthralled and the ratings are at the top, NASAQ pulls the plug … literally … and no one seems to know where the set – or the kids – are, leaving the producers to scramble to try to come up with an explanation.

The concept here doesn’t seem too far off. I’d heard talk of hopes to do a reality show on the moon, but of course rumors in the entertainment industry are nothing new. And that’s precisely what this book plays with.

The set-up of coming up with the concept and bringing the science guys (NASAW) into the story, and the auditions to find the right teens to send off on a spaceship, is a lot of fun. It’s fast-paced and the sort of exciting where you want to rub your hands together and chuckle because you just know something delicious is about to happen.

But then it doesn’t.

Author Gina Damico tries to keep it moving along by giving us plot twists at every turn, but we don’t need plot twists! The story is fun and frightening and so much better than a reality show, that we are simple let down when this becomes ordinary. And that is what happens.  It becomes a YA relationship/mystery novel instead of something really kind of different.

The idea of writing the book as if it was found material and adapted for the book (mostly transcripts of video recordings – both private and part of the reality show film (aired and un-aired)) is clever and quite appropriate , but at 500+ pages, a little long to sustain this style of story-telling.

Maybe this was too much like a reality tv (or “unscripted dramas” – as one producer has referred to them) show … I’ve never enjoyed those. Perhaps this is truly a generational thing – for those who’ve grown up with reality show after reality show and fame simply for having a camera follow you around, perhaps this hit the spot.  For those of us of a different generation, we know that story-telling can be so much more.

Looking for a good book? Waste of Space by Gina Damico is a YA story – bringing ‘reality tv’ to the page in a great concept that doesn’t quite survive the story … a lot like actual reality tv.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Waste of Space

author: Gina Damico

publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for Young Readers

ISBN: 0544633164

hardcover, 400 pages

quotes – March 2019

Posted by Daniel on March 9, 2019
Posted in: OTHER. Tagged: . Leave a comment

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“It was hard enough to write a book – even a lousy book, much less one of such quality-without being constantly distracted by personal and family problems.”
Elizabeth Peters — Naked Once More

“People who don’t dream only exist from day to day.”
Michael Murphy — The Big Brush-Off

“This is a movement of words. Of thoughts and ideas. But what I’m asking you to do is to write something pure. Boil the Internet down to the purest most valuable thing it offers you and spread that around.”
Wayne Gladstone — Agents of the Internet Apocalypse

“They say knowing is half the battle, but they don’t tell you there is no second half, and fifty percent of anything is never a solution.”
Wayne Gladstone — Agents of the Internet Apocalypse

“There is an inherent insult implicit in rejection. The editor is essentially saying, ‘Your work isn’t good enough; it doesn’t measure up.’ What a dreadful thing to hear!”
Best American Mystery Stories 2104 introduction

“Readers are travelers; they move across lands belonging to someone else, like nomads poaching their way across fields they did not write.”
Michel de Certeau, quoted in Fan Fiction Studies Reader

“It’s like a Marvel Comic written by Beckett.”
What the Hell?: Angel’s “The Girl in Question” Cynthea Masson – Reading Joss Whedon

“People … need things to go wrong, they need tension. In my characters, there’s a core of trust and love that I’m very committed to … But at the same time, you can’t keep that safety.”
Joss Whedon, quoted in Reading Joss Whedon

“Why, in the face of such suffering, do stories matter?”
Aliya Whiteley — The Beauty

“It’s harder to write something short than something long.”
The Best American Mystery Stories 2013