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TDF Staff Editor/Head Writer:
TDF Pamela
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Strangeness Abounds
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TDF Pamela, on July 29th, 2010 |
 Shadow Fall by Erin Kellison
Buy It Now: on Amazon.com
Description:
Sacrifice
Custo Santovari accepted pain, blood, even death, to save his best friend. But a man with all his sins just isn’t cut out to be an angel.
Mystery
One moment he’s fleeing Heaven; the next, he’s waking up stark naked in Manhattan. In the middle of a war. Called there by a woman who’s desperately afraid of the dark.
Shadow
It gathers around Annabella as she performs, filled with fantastic images of another world, bringing both a golden hero and a nightmare lover.
Wolf
He pursues her relentlessly, twisting her desires even as she gives herself to the man she loves. Because each of us has a wild side, and Annabella is about to unleash the beast.
This review is based on a review copy received from the publisher.
TDF Pamela’s Review:
Warning! This review contains spoilers for Shadow Bound, the first book in Kellison’s series. It’s kind of unavoidable. :( If there was a way for me to talk about the events in book 2 without referencing the end of book 1, I’d do it, but alas! I kind of have to. So, if you haven’t read Shadow Bound, beware spoilers here!
I have to admit, I was a bit surprised when I cracked open Shadow Fall and discovered that it’s not about Adam and Talia, the couple at the center of Kellison’s first novel, Shadow Bound (read my review here). After that initial bit of disappointment, I found myself quickly sucked into the new couple’s storyline.
Custo Santovari, Adam Thorne’s right hand man, died at the end of Shadow Bound, and much to his surprise, he finds himself ferried through the Shadowlands to the gates of Heaven. Custo had always tried to do his best, but he knew he wasn’t a good person. When he discovers that he’s been promoted to angel, he’s sure someone screwed up. Instead of getting used to life in Heaven, he spends his time prowling the walls, and when Shadowman, still mourning his lost love, appears at the gate, Custo makes a shady deal. He’ll swap places with Shadowman, letting the Fae into Heaven while he escapes into the Shadowlands. While looking desperately for a way back to Earth, he sees a beautiful dancer being stalked by a wolf, and he can’t help but intervene.
Annabella is a ballet dancer, just promoted to the starring role, and she has an unusual talent. When she concentrates on her dance, she can breach the boundary between the mortal world and the Shadowlands, and unfortunately her talent has captured the attention of the wolf, a shadowy hunter who is bent on making Annabella his. When Custo bursts back into the mortal world, accidentally dragging the wolf with him, he finds himself attracted to Anna; he not only wants to protect her, but he wants her. Together, the pair must evade the wolf and find a way to send it back to the Shadowlands.
I found myself really drawn in by the characters in Shadow Fall. Custo is a complicated, conflicted sort of guy; as the reader, you know he’s a good guy, but he just can’t believe that. From his illegitimate beginnings to his rough-and-tumble upbringing to his job doing Adam’s dirty work, Custo isn’t easy to pin down, but you just know that he’s good inside. All of the bad things he does, he’s doing for the right reasons.
Annabella is likewise an interesting character, even if she’s not as complex as Custo. She’s finally realized her dream of being a star ballerina, only to have her sudden (and unfortunately unexplained) ability to tap into the Shadowlands surface and threaten to ruin everything. She’s smart and confident, and while she occasionally loses her cool–and with good reason–she always pulls herself together and holds her own. This is the kind of heroine I want to see more often in paranormal romances. The progression of her relationship with Custo felt completely natural, as something that starts as pure physical attraction and turns into something more as they go through harrowing experiences together.
The wolf is intensely creepy, particularly in his ability to change shape and possess others. I won’t go into detail, but I’ll just say that his snake-like attack on Anna left me shuddering. His motivations aren’t exactly clear, though, other than that he is a hunter and therefore he hunts Anna. I would have liked a bit more out of him, but he is an effective villain.
Shadow Fall fits into the world-on-the-edge established in Kellison’s first novel, where the supernatural is beginning to filter into the mortal world, and people are beginning to become aware of the wraith threat. I was very pleased to see the mythology expanded in this book. It’s a fascinating blend of different cultural mythologies, and I’m very hopeful that we’ll get to see more of this world very soon.
This is a very solid sequel that only falters in its lack of explanation of some key points, such as Annabella’s magical ability. However, the strong characters; believable, sexy romance; and strong worldbuilding overshadow that flaw by far. I enjoyed Shadow Fall very much, and I’m hoping I’ll hear about a sequel soon.
 TDF Pamela
The Discriminating Fangirl, who is more likely to answer to Pamela if you shout it at her, is the proud owner of an MA in English, focusing on children's/young adult literature and popular culture. Because of her ample free time thanks to being gainfully unemployed, she reads voraciously. She also loves geeky movies and tv shows, reads comic books as often as she can buy them, and when she's procrastinating, she enjoys playing video games. She can be contacted at t.d.fangirl @ gmail.com and followed on Twitter at the link below.
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Tarte Amandine, on July 21st, 2010 |
 Realms of Fantasy by Mychael Black & Shayne Carmichael
Buy It Now: on Amazon
Description: Angels and demons. Two races of beings, alike and yet not the same. The battles between them have raged for time untold. Realms of Fantasy is the tale of ten such creatures. At the heart of their eternal struggle lies the blinding pain of the greatest Fallen One of all, Lucifer, and Michael, the missing half of his soul. As passions run high and balances of power shift, love is the only power that can save them all.
This review is based on a copy I bought myself.
Tarte Amandine’s Review:
I’ll admit that I went into this book with somewhat lowered expectations and was drawn in by the idea of angels and demons getting it on. Sadly, even those expectations weren’t met by the series of five stories inside these pages. The authors took what could have been made into a very interesting universe based on thousands of years worth of mythology and skipped over it in lieu of hot gay sex. It read more as one long Porn Without Plot cleverly disguised as a set of short stories.
Considering one of the draws to the book was the promise of some angel/demon action, the sex wasn’t all that sexy or exciting because it lacks the chemistry that I like to see between the characters before they get to the good stuff. At most, the authors describe the characters in each story as being inexplicably drawn to each other shortly before they do dirty, dirty things to each other. The descriptions are just this side of purple and contain more than their fair share of ridiculously sappy dialogue (“Yes!” Michael’s eyes flew open and he looked down. “Please. My love, my soul.” Groaning, he spread his legs farther wanting everything, wanting Lucifer everywhere). Their actions are also based on said attractions which aren’t properly explained until the very last story, “The True Fall of Lucifer” (this is probably the best of the five and should have been the first story in the book). Due to the lack of any interesting and substantial mythos for the characters, it feels more like Black and Carmichael just slapped some wings, forked tongues and talons on some fairly uninteresting, overly sappy guys and called them angels and demons. When I first read the description of this book, I had expected some serious angst and maybe even a few scenes of hate!sex because we are dealing with beings that have hated each other since the beginning of time. Instead, they come off as oddly possessive and needy.
The set up that is there made me feel like something was missing or that I was reading something that is a sequel to another, more in depth story. It was disorenting to be thrown into this universe without any sort of explanation as to what’s going on or who these characters are. There were times when I didn’t know if I was reading about an angel or demon until later in the paragraph. Likewise, the confusing settings took away from the stories. “Hunter and the Prey” and “Unholy Need” come off as having more of an urban, contemporary setting whereas “Angels of Blood” and “Order of the Highest” feel more like they are set in a fantasy world of marbeled halls and characters wearing tunics. Dialogue inconsistencies are another problem I had with the book. Sometimes you have an angel or demon speaking like characters from the Middle Ages and within a few more lines, they’re back to talking like someone you’d meet in a bar (or see in a porn movie once they got past those pesky plot points). Black and Carmichael mention the “Orders” of demons and angels which again, aren’t really explained until the final part of the book.
While the writing itself isn’t bad (no misspellings or grammatical errors that I could spot), the plot, settings and characters left a bad taste in my mouth. The authors should have taken “The True Fall of Lucifer” and turned it into a full length story with a little more research into angelic and demonic mythology instead of burying the lead like they did. It’s really unfortunate that my first review had to be so negative, but that’s just the way things go sometimes. Here’s hoping my next read is better!
 Tarte Amandine
Tarte Amandine, or Amanda, has loved to read since she was 3 and was a fangirl from the start. She has a B.A. in French and studied in France. This fall she will start her MLIS program at Kent State. She hopes to work as an academic or reference librarian. She can be contacted at tarteamandine @ gmail.com and followed on Twitter at the link below.
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WereGeek, on July 20th, 2010 |
 Middleworld – Book 1 in the Jaguar Stones series – by J & P Voelkel
Description: Max Murphy was a typical 14-year-old growing up in Boston. He liked video games and hated the way his parents spent so much time away. They’re famous archaeologists who were always taking off to explore Mayan ruins in the jungles of San Xavier. On their latest trip, Max’s parents disappeared while searching for the Jaguar Stones, mystic carvings sacred to the ancient Maya. Max is sent to San Xavier to remain in the care of his estranged uncle and takes it upon himself to search for his parents while becoming entangled in an adventure that includes a Mayan king inhabiting the body of a howler monkey and a trip to Xibalba, the Mayan underworld.
This review is based on a preview copy provided by the authors’ public relations firm.
WereGeek’s Review:  (for the target audience of 8-12-year-olds) | (for anyone above age 12)
I wanted to like this book. I really did. And I think the plot shows a lot of promise, I just don’t think the execution matched the concept. The main character, Max, annoyed me with his materialism, whining and sniveling, right up to the point of his sudden, inevitable conversion into a decent person. I know he’s a teenager and teenagers are generally moody and materialistic, but it was like the Voelkels used every possible teenage stereotype to accentuate his transformation later on. I really couldn’t get into the rest of the characters either as they mostly seemed like stock characters inserted to fulfill a plot function, like the foreign maid who speaks little English, the estranged uncle who may or may not be one of the good guys and the spunky native girl guide who teases Max mercilessly.
It’s clear that the authors did a lot of research on the ancient Maya because they put a lot of detail into the story. Really, an overwhelming amount of detail. I liked the dramatis personae at the beginning of the book and the glossary at the end, which help you remember the characters and absorb some of the denser information dumps in the text but with those included a lot of those info dumps aren’t really needed, unless the authors are trying to impress upon the reader just how much research they’ve done. It’s really great that they have researched the ancient Maya to such an extent, but not all of it needs to be in the book.
I know Middleworld is intended for kids between 8 and 12, not for adults. I do think kids of that age will enjoy this book, but I think even they will see it’s not as good a book as it could be. It’s easy to say “it’s just a kids’ book,” but I think that’s a cop out. There are lots of very well written books for this age group that don’t resort to storytelling shorthand and an overuse of similes.
I thought about the review I would write on Middleworld as I was reading it, trying to keep in mind the audience the book is aimed at, thinking I might be too harsh since it is “just” a children’s book, so I compared it to one of my perennial favorites (that I reread on occasion, even as an adult) Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, which is also an 8-12 book and a Newberry Medal winner. It may sound like I’m comparing apples to oranges here, but they’re both adventure stories with lots of dialog and exposition, so I don’t really think they’re worlds apart. To say nothing of the talking animals! Mrs. Frisby explains concepts with enough detail for children to get the gist of them in the context of the story without being overbearing. Any ideas I didn’t fully understand and needed to know more about, I either asked my parents or looked them up in the library. I think the wealth of information in Middleworld‘s glossary would be better utilized if it were a supplemental source for the main text rather than restating what’s already in the book. Middleworld could also have benefited from tighter writing and editing. Children’s books don’t have to be sloppily constructed just because they’re for kids.
As I said in the beginning, I really wanted to like Middleworld. And I very nearly did. The basic plot shows real promise at being a spellbinding adventure story that would grip all ages. Sadly, the execution could have had a lot more trimming and polishing and the overall effect is a book with great potential that fell far short.
 WereGeek
WereGeek is reading 5-7 books at any given time, not including comics. These can range from alternative universe fiction to historical fact and from theoretical physics to Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader. You can argue with her all you want, but Dirk Benedict will always be her Starbuck. Her ringtone is the theme from Airwolf and she believes that there's nothing that can't be improved by the judicious application of werewolves. Or bacon. Or werewolves with bacon. She can be contacted at werewolf17 @ gmail.com and followed on Twitter at the link below.
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TDF Pamela, on July 19th, 2010 |
Yay, I’m back at my own computer! I can use tabbed browsing and upload images and everything! I love my iPad, don’t get me wrong, but writing blog posts on it was a bit of a pain in the ass.
I’ve also got an obscene number of items in my Google Reader, so I figured I’d start a new regular feature here: the Link Roundup! In which I post all kinds of random things that are cool. Rock on.
Books/Writing
TV/Movies
Science/History
What cool stuff have you stumbled across today? Let me know in the comments. :D
TDF Pamela
The Discriminating Fangirl, who is more likely to answer to Pamela if you shout it at her, is the proud owner of an MA in English, focusing on children's/young adult literature and popular culture. Because of her ample free time thanks to being gainfully unemployed, she reads voraciously. She also loves geeky movies and tv shows, reads comic books as often as she can buy them, and when she's procrastinating, she enjoys playing video games. She can be contacted at t.d.fangirl @ gmail.com and followed on Twitter at the link below.
profile | twitter
TDF Pamela, on July 12th, 2010 |
 Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
Buy It Now: on Amazon
Description: When Tyler Dupree was twelve years old, the stars went out. He and his friends, twins Jason and Diane, grow up in the Spin, a strange cloak around the Earth that has slowed down time, so that every second that passes for them means three years have passed outside of the Spin. Tyler, Jason, and Diane’s paths diverge and cross repeatedly as the world tries to understand what the Spin is and, more importantly, who put it there. (Summary written by me; the publisher’s summary not only sucked, it was also inaccurate.)
This review is based on a copy of the book purchased by the reviewer.
TDF Pamela’s Review:
While the SF aspects of Spin were pretty fascinating (the ongoing mystery of the Hypotheticals and why the Earth was shrouded in a time-bending cloak–the Spin–more than held my interest; it made me read the book all in one sitting), what impressed me the most was Wilson’s masterful blend of hard and “soft” SF elements. The science is equally important as the human relationships that make up the backbone of this excellent novel.
Tyler Dupree, the narrator, is very believable and human in his reactions to the world and the people around him, and even Diane, the character we don’t see much but who always occupies a place in Tyler’s mind and heart, is fleshed out and intriguingly complex. The characters are always at the heart of the story, and Wilson communicates most of the science through Jason, Tyler’s genius friend, another strong character who is willing to accept the role for which his father has molded him but who desires more; he wants to know, and doesn’t want to die ignorant of the reason behind the Spin. Even the minor characters, from Jason and Diane’s parents to Tyler’s mother and even Tyler’s brief love interests over the years, are much more than simply flat side characters. They all have complicated motivations and reactions.
Spin was a treat to read. I love SF that masterfully combines speculative science with the human element that sometimes goes missing in hard SF.
TDF Pamela
The Discriminating Fangirl, who is more likely to answer to Pamela if you shout it at her, is the proud owner of an MA in English, focusing on children's/young adult literature and popular culture. Because of her ample free time thanks to being gainfully unemployed, she reads voraciously. She also loves geeky movies and tv shows, reads comic books as often as she can buy them, and when she's procrastinating, she enjoys playing video games. She can be contacted at t.d.fangirl @ gmail.com and followed on Twitter at the link below.
profile | twitter
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