Reviews: Various Short Stories
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Book Reviews, Reading
I just finished reading a bunch of different short stories that have been lurking in various programs on my iTouch. While they are reviewed in separate entries on GoodReads, I’m going to try to put the reviews in one blog post. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Fantasy, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Laura Anne Gilman, Patricia Cirone, Retrievers, Science Fiction, short stories, The Retrieval Artist
Review: Blood From Stone
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Reading
Blood from Stone by Laura Anne Gilman
My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars
It feels like a spoiler, but since Gilman says this at the front of the book, I suppose it isn’t: Blood From Stone is the last Retrievers novel, at least for a time. She’s moving on to focus on other characters in the Cosa Nostradamus universe. I wasn’t happy to read that, but after reading the book, I’m okay with it.
Blood From Stone definitely isn’t a book to start with if you’re new to Gilman’s work. The Retrievers series really does need to be read sequentially. If you have read the rest, you know that Gilman has developed a very interesting universe and some very well-developed characters in the series. Book 6 doesn’t disappoint at all, and brings the major plot threads to a very satisfactory close. I can’t be more specific without real spoilers, though!
I’m definitely looking forward to reading the next novel in the universe, which will focus on Bonnie and the PUPIs (Private, Unaffiliated, Paranormal Investigators). I adore CSI, Bones, NCIS and the like, so I’m curious as to how forensics will work in urban fantasy settings. Jes Battis’ A Flash of Hex is supposed to be waiting for me at the library, so by the time I get to Hard Magic I’ll have something else to compare it to.
Tags: Blood From Stone, Cosa Nostradamus, Laura Anne Gilman, Retrievers
Drama Circuits Still Overloaded
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Reading
My real-life drama tolerance circuits were totally burned out with marriage v.3. I’m cool with that. I was able to handle much more of it in fiction, though I’m not big on whiney characters.
I guess the Stephanie Meyer backlash is still with me, though, because after finishing the fifth of Laura Anne Gilman’s Retriever novels, Falling Free, I tried reading Anne Bishop’s Tangled Webs.
I just started reading Bishop earlier this year, and truly enjoyed the earlier Realms of the Blood books. I did notice that everybody in the books is more than slightly high-strung, and that (as is so often the case), good communication skills would have largely removed most the plot premises.
I mean, yeah, evil people plot, what are you going to do about it? Stick together and talk to the people you care about, dammit! Never believe you’ve been betrayed without doing some fact-checking, at the very least!
But I just got a few chapters into Tangled Webs, and there they go again. I think lithium needs to be added into the water table of this universe.
I’m disappointed, because I do enjoy many things about Bishop’s writing. Maybe I’ll give that one another try someday in the future. For now, it goes back to the library.
Greywalker by Kat Richardson is next on the stack!
Tags: Anne Bishop, Kat Richardson, Laura Anne Gilman, Stephanie Meyer
Sunday Night
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Critters, Family, Reading
Yes, I’m boring. I hate trying to think of titles for posts.
The girl is off visiting, having left yesterday afternoon. Her cat is frantic. He is very much attached to HER, not US. So whenever she leaves the house, he goes nuts, gets terribly anxious, and is certain that she’ll never, ever come back. He spends most of his time sitting in the front windows or sniffing under the front door, trying to detect her return.
Shelley never freaked like that, but then Katie visited Atlanta once a week pretty much every week from the time she was a few weeks old ‘til they moved here with me. She knew the girl would always come back. And Shelley was with me for a year before Katie was born, and attached to both of us. Kioshi is just a one-person cat. I should make that a one-girl cat, as he isn’t big on males at all.
I read the first of Laura Anne Gilman’s Retriever novels, Staying Dead. Fun stuff, and I think many of you would enjoy it. Then I went on to Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Katie was so excited about it that I had to see what the big deal was. She finished that huge sucker in a day or so. I took a little longer, but then I wasn’t the one checking the library’s hold queue several times a day.
I can see why the series is such a huge hit with some teenage girls, but I don’t think it will carry nearly as much popularity with any other age group or males, period. There’s too much “oh, I’m bad for you” angsting from the vampire (male romantic lead). Seriously–he beats David Boreanz’s Angel all to pieces on the brooding, and that takes some doing.
The main character, Bella, is annoying to me because she’s pretty damned useless. She honestly can’t be trusted to walk down a hallway with no obstacles without hurting herself. She’s not creative or particularly intelligent, shows no particular talents of any sort–a beige person, in my mind. What’s there to like?
I took a break and read Curse The Dark (second of the Retriever series) before starting New Moon, but I did start it. And damn, it’s even more emotionally dramatic.
I’m not sure I’ll read the other two books whenever we get hold of them (I’m not sure the fourth is even out yet). I know that Katie will, though. The series isn’t written badly, but I’m way out of the target audience.
Tags: Katie, Kyoshi, Laura Anne Gilman, Stephanie Meyer
What? Huh?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Reading
There was something specific I was going to post. I know it. I remember thinking, “Oh, yeah, I want to blog about that!” But I didn’t do it immediately and now, of course, it’s gone, gone, gone. Blah.
So, instead, you get a little hodge-podge update of books and pictures. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Adrienne Barbeau, Botticelli, C.E. Murphy, Laura Anne Gilman, Laura Resnick, Michael Scott, Modigliani, Mucha, Patricia Briggs, photomanipulation, Stephanie Meyer