Reviews and Comments

I enjoyed the early books in both Alpha and Omega and the Mercy Thompson series. But I’ve found myself less enthusiastic about the later ones. Perhaps they suffer from the plot inflation that can creep up in long series: bigger badder monsters! world even more at risk than before! escalating personal drama!

Unfortunately, Wild Sign wasn’t a satisfying read although I did finish it. It felt like it was paying fan service to a selection of prior characters, by having them make cameo appearances (or mentions) and manifest some hitherto-unknown abilities/backstory/motivations etc. Frankly, the whole thing felt jumbled. The plot points felt like recycled ones. And as other reviews have mentioned, why does sexual abuse trauma need to feature so heavily? I shouldn’t be sitting here thinking, “Here we go again. Boooring.”

I picked this book up a few years after it was released rather than straight away, and I don’t see that trend changing.

I’ve read quite a few of Foster’s books over the years. This one has a very similar flavour to his “Journeys of the Catechist” trilogy. The story covers a journey towards a simply defined objective, meeting characters, creatures and cultures along the way. There’s an episodic feel with a mild sense of curiosity about what odd thing will happen next along the pre-ordained path. However, I don’t get much sense of each element building on the previous ones, and the “challenges” could be interchanged or omitted without detriment. Despite quite a lot of gore and guts, there was little tension.

Madrenga doesn’t strike me much as a personality. He’s simply the character who experiences the journey rather passively. He literally grows as the story progresses (as do his companions), but he doesn’t seem to learn from experience. I found myself rolling my eyes more than once. For someone with supposed street smarts from growing up in poverty, he loses his caution far too often and too easily, in a very telegraphed (belaboured by the author) way.

Still, a fun read as long as you don’t expect a thought-provoking tale that will linger.

I enjoyed this urban fantasy by a new-to-me author. There’s an interesting premise of people sometimes becoming shifters, with MC Angela being a “probation officer” who guides them through the process. Unlike many other urban fantasies, shifting is neither hidden nor widely practised: it’s more “acknowledged but not spoken of in polite society.”

Angela was a likeable character, although with a bit of a too good to be true “saint complex.” It’s a refreshing change that she isn’t tortured by internal conflicts and secrets, but perhaps that also made her come across as a bit bland. The other characters were pretty much as described on the tin, with no surprises (no hidden agendas) once we’d met them. The jerks remained so all the way through, as did the friendly, supportive side cast.

The writing was smooth and the read easy. Despite some dangerous challenges (there are deaths, so I wouldn’t call this cosy), the vibe I got was mainly slice-of-life. There was a focus on interpersonal interactions , eg office politics and thinking about other people’s perspectives. The action was depicted with a light touch.

Overall, a very pleasant read.

I’ve enjoyed reading Zelazny’s works after borrowing Nine Princes in Amber from my local library some forty years ago. Some of the novellas in this collection of ten were old friends, and I enjoyed revisiting them while discovering new-to-me works as well.

Setting each work in perspective, the novellas are interspersed with brief commentaries, author’s notes and explanatory notes. (I didn’t pay much attention to the last. On the one hand, they might be handy, but on the other they felt rather condescending.) I liked learning more about the context (eg what else was being published at the time, and by whom).

Zelazny’s protagonists are unapologetically exceptional. We don’t (generally) follow them through a story that challenges their abilities. The opposition they face is not usually from equally competent people. Instead, they may strive against forces of nature (as in “This Moment of the Storm” or “This Mortal Mountain”). Their challenges—or maybe, the challenges the reader perceives—are moral or philosophical problems, such as the dying population in “A Rose for Ecclesiastes”. Perhaps because I binge-read the collection, I found myself hankering for a touch more human fallibility, but I guess then the stories would lose their mythic tone. It would also have been nice if the women had more than walk-on roles.

Overall, a handy collection for completionists, but new readers might want to start elsewhere.

I read A Memory Called Empire earlier this year and really enjoyed it. In this sequel, I was curious to see how the author would handle the mysterious aliens, who we previously hadn’t seen on page.

We see this story from multiple points of view. While I liked getting different perspectives, they felt rather contrived in terms of answering questions raised by the previous PoV character. I also felt there was a lot of characters standing around being told (or overhearing) information by other characters. Sometimes I was put in mind of “messenger speeches” in Greek drama, where important events are recounted to the actors (and audience) by a messenger, rather than being played out on stage.

There was a sex scene which… felt unnecessary and didn’t (in my opinion) contribute in any way to the story, and I could have done without as much angst-y interactions. (Or perhaps, since we all have angsty moments, not having them spelled out so explicitly).

That said, I enjoyed the read overall and the interweaving of the narrative viewpoints.

An interesting post-apocalyptic adventure where it seems dangerous to even properly comprehend the nature of the major threat. It’s written in present tense with a loosely omniscient third person viewpoint. I found that presentation odd though I guess it fits with certain questions and ambiguities about the nature of self and other.

The writing was generally tidy and easy to understand, though I tripped over a few typos (mainly homonyms). The characters (Bear, and those he meets along the way) were all distinct, with their own backgrounds, attitudes and secrets. I can’t say I felt particularly drawn towards any of them. Perhaps a good thing since some of their experiences are unpleasant, and I probably wouldn’t want to be in their heads for those.

I’m not sure I understood the explanations the ever-curious Bear uncovered about what was happening, never mind whether they were true or not. The ending isn’t a cliffhanger, but it’s clear there are even more mysteries to solve out there, which no doubt will be addressed in later books.

Overall, a weird horror SF with a lead-in to further books.