Ok so February is at an end, so fantasy month is over.

I had a great month of reading, with 23 books, making my total so far 57 books!

I had a couple outstanding reads that I want to shout out.

 Dead Heat by Patricia Briggs  check it out at goodreads. 
Sweep in Peace by Illona Andrews check it out at goodreads 


As always when it comes to fantasy, these are my favourite authors: Terry Pratchett, Guy Gavriel Kay, Neil Gaiman, Kelley Armstrong and Patricia Briggs.


Next month is Mystery March! I switched it up a little for my first read, in that my cat got my attention and then determinedly pulled a book on my shelf, so I'm using it as my first big read of the month, since it was a mystery. It's a little crazy cat lady, but I only have 2 cats, so while the crazy fits, the cat lady doesn't yet.

Februarys final big read

I chose to reread The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett. Check it out over at goodreads. I have so much emotion bound up in this book. It's Pratchetts last, and as with any loved thing, I'm not ready for it to be over.  I laughed, I cried, I laughed while crying, I made undignified noises and a pile of snot and tear filled kleenex.  I basically started crying at the dedication and stopped at the end of the book.

This book is about the ending of things, and moving beyond endings to to fill the spaces left behind. Tiffany Aching finds herself with big boots to fill as she steps up as the official  unofficial head witch. Witches don't have leaders, but if they did, that leader was Granny Weatherwax, who chose Tiffany to take over after her death. Tiffany also takes on the discs first male witch apprentice. She is juggling two steadings (areas that she personally attends to as a witch), a long distance relationship, the loss of a mentor and a bunch of fairies trying to take over the world.

Pratchett writes his fairies beautifully. They are not the tiny colorful sprites of Disney. In an earlier book, he describes them thusly: "Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror." Pratchett uses the terms fairies for his Tiffany Aching books, which are young adult books, and Elves for his adult discworld books.

This book was actually left unfinished, and was lovingly turned into a full novel by Rob Willkins. You can definitely see it in comparison to Pratchetts other work. It is stretched thin in some places and some spots are oddly flat. It is still an amazing novel. It is in the running for the Carnegie medal, which is the oldest running award for children's books in the United Kingdom .

I love this book. I loved it when I first read it and I shall love it equally 50 years from now when I reread it for the final time. I deeply recommend it, as I do all of his books. 10/10

Last big read for the month

I chose my last big read. I'll be rereading The Shepherds Crown by Terry Pratchett. Check it out at goodreads. I sobbed my way through it after it was published. I'll probably sob my way through it again. But that's ok. I have a letter, from Terry Pratchett himself, telling me that it is totally ok to cry while reading.

Terry Pratchett has been my favorite author since I was 15. He was the bestselling author of the Discworld series, as well as Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman), the Bromeliad Trilogy, The Long Earth series, the Johnny Maxwell series, and co-author of over 20 Discworld companion books. The Shepherds Crown is the fifth book in the Tiffany Aching series of Discworld books, and the 41st Discworld book.

It's always hard, losing someone you love, at least we have the Disc to remember him by.

Big read the third

So for my third big read I chose to revisit an author I used to like. Laurell K Hamilton is a great author. Dead Ice was a great book.

But oh the issues. Too many cooks spoil the dish and too many plots spoil the book. Aside from the main plot, which was post snuff porn involving zombies with souls, there were 6 other plots, and they took up most of the book. A couple of them were interesting, and could have been their own books.

Anita raised a zombie for a historical society, and we got to see some neat necromancy points. I love just the idea of raising a zombie to talk about history. It also brought up some great stuff on the science of flesh eating brainless zombies and ghouls.  Give me books upon books of that.

Anita has several 'animals to call', meaning that she is a panwere who doesn't shift. Now those powers are spilling over to the actual shifters in her life. This is great for the shifter polticial interplay that Hamilton likes to bring up, but here it felt like it should have been more, if there had been more time and space for it.

The personal  relationships have really changed for the better since I last picked up one of these books. Hamilton has written many of her characters into therapy, and there was a lot less squabbling and bitchery. There were some great examples of polyamorous negotiation, as Anita has a fiance, 2 seriously committed boyfriends, several less committed boyfriends, a couple girlfriends and some friends with benefits. Added to that is her character moving towards marriage and a commitment ceremony (with the 2 serious boyfriends), she is looking seriously at adding a new partner (possibly a girl) to the commitment ceremony to fulfill a prophecy about one of her old enemies.  

Hamitlon writes a great urban fantasy, but she is forever expanding Anita's circle of partners, and their interplay has taken over the books to the point where it feels like the plot on the back of the book is ignored.  There were at least two good books here. Hamilton could have put the two zombie plots together with a small amount of fleshing out for a full book, just as the shifter politics and the romantic plots would have made their own great book.

7/10. I reccomend this book, but if you like the main plot to be the main plot, than this probably isn't the book (or the series or even the author) for you.

So I'm two thirds through dead ice.

I've got two pages of notes.

I'll be rereading the other ones, somewhere along the way, and the ones I haven't read.

Hamilton has changed some things for the better, but I have spent a decade screaming at her books. It looks like I won't stopping that anytime soon.

Valentines day is tomorrow!

Valentines day is tomorrow so I'm going to take a break from fantasy to talk about romance!

Romance novels were my first big reads. My mom collected them, and I used to borrow her books. This lead to me loving romance, and eventually I started collecting them too. They now constitute about half of my library.  I have a whole bookshelf for my traditional and historical romances. It's three shelves high, but 4 feet wide and double stacked. I keep my paranormal romances on the shelves with all my urban fantasy books.

My favorite romance authors haven't changed much over the past 20 years or so. I'm going to talk a bit about 2 of them and rec one book each.

Judith McNaught sent the romance world into a flutter. Her book Whitney My Love is considered to have created the regency historical genre. She has four series, two of which are modern and two of which are historical. I recommend reading all her books as they are fabulous, but my favorite is definitely Until You.  It's a historical romance with an amnesia plot, and it's great.

Julie Garwood has 24 new york times bestsellers. She started off with historical romances, and then expanded into modern thrillers. Her thrillers are connected to her historicals, with the characters being the descendants of the people from her earlier books. I love them deeply, because it's nice to know that the happier ever after went on and on.  I must recommend her thriller Heartbreaker, which starts off with the creepiest confession ever and is non stop awesome.

After some nostalgia I've decided that my third big read for the month will be the most recent Anita Blake book by Laurell K Hamilton, Dead Ice. Check it out at goodreads.

I'm not caught up on the series. I've read up to book 15, I might make a run for it and try and get caught up, but I don't know. I loved the early books, but ah, there were some changes that I didn't really enjoy. So basically, I'm diving back in to see if things were as bad as I remembered.Let's see how I sink or swim.

It's a good urban fantasy series. Full of vampires and werewolves and fae and other beasties. The main character is a necromancer, a vampire executioner, a US marshal of some sort, a succubus, and all around badass who has a harem of sexy sexy men. Now she also has a fiancee.

Anita is loaning her skills out to the FBI to do some zombie investigating. Some one is making post snuff porn (I guess? and also EW) with zombies (BIGGER EWW) and the films hint at the zombies souls being trapped inside their rotting flesh (AUGH THIS IS SO CREEPY). Big gross voodoo of the darkest sort is going down in the porn world and Anita Blake is out to stop it.

I may need to spend all next week reading Ursula K Vernon's Dragonbreath series to recover after, but I'm going to do this.

big read the second

my second big read for the month is sword and verse by kathy mcmillan, as i discussed in my last post.

 the book is rather different from what i was expecting based on the goodreads page.  Raisa doesn't actually know how to read and write, shes just from a people who do and she knows a couple letters here and there. She has a poem from her dad that she doesn't know how to read, and she really wants to learn it. so while being promoted to learning things is scary, it's also a happy thing for her. her falling for the prince involves being invited to be in a play with him, in the role that nobody wants to fill. oh and she's just got to play the goddess of wisdom who everybody hates because she taught people how to read and write and that's bad.  did i mention that the ruling class traditionally portrays this fallen and bad goddess as looking like the people they use as slaves? most of the ruling class need a punch in the teeth.

the gods in this book are so hard to like. as a reader and a writer, mostly when the gods pop up in this book, i found myself thinking that 90% of them needed to be punched in the teeth. i know this is partially because the main character is from the down trodden slave class, taken from her own people.

the resistance starts off blackmailing her into helping them, and just... that's tired, as tropes go. I mean, yeah she's between a rock and a hard place, but the hard place doesn't need to be a jerk about it. there is some nice imagery used about the birds kept in the place of learning that have been caged so long that they don't fly away once you take the bars down but leave the shape of the cage. the resistance pops up after the prince turns out to have fiancee, and gives her a  second, gentler option to join them.

overall it's an ok book. it's not really a sword and sorcery book. barely a fantasy. it's a nice fully fleshed world reminiscent of ancient Greece or Egypt. Gods and slaves and raiding etc

5/10 and an ugh to goodreads for calling it fantasy.


in other news my book count for the month is 9, so i'm on track so far.

Second big read of the month

At the beginning of next week, when ever I finish my last weekend book I'll be starting my next big read.
I've chosen Sword and Verse by Kathy Macmillan. You can check it out at goodreads.

It's a more traditional sword and sorcery book. It's also a young adult novel. Or so it says. I don't really care. It looks neat, sounds good so my middle aged butt is gonna read it.

The main character Raisa is a slave, and secretly was highly educated. She works in the palace of the king and is chosen as the next tutor in training for the royal kids. She can't let anyone know that she already knows what she's being trained in, or it would mean her death. It's the fact that shes working with the prince  is her big issue. There's something more growing between them when she's approached by the underground resistance group. Raisa has to deal with working against the man she loves while completely surrounded by the enemy. Raisa somehow comes across something that bring down the ruling class, and she's the key. 

I'm a sucker for romance, but I'm hoping for some nice magic more than anything.  We'll see how it goes when I give it a go next week.

Silver on the road

Big read review time! silver on the road by laura anne gilman

So I absolutely dove into this book.  The devil is picking up teen aged girls as sidekicks. It feels like the next sentence should be "what could go wrong?" But, to be fair, on the devils side he's actually making a great choice. Isobel grew up in his saloon, and she is the one who comes to him to be his hand, so it's more like "teen aged girl volunteers to be devils sidekick".

Isobel's adventures were fresh and interesting. Shes heading out into the great wide yonder with a guy she just met, to learn the territory and to do a good job. A job she has no instructions for and only her up bringing to gauge things off. Welcome to adult life Isobel.

The characters are well written, even the ones we only see shortly. Gilman writes an interesting devil, he seems to run his territory well, while still being the devil. Much more of the crossroads style demons from supernatural than the biblical devil. He's expecting Isobel to be his hidden power in the darkness, keeping his territory strong. Isobel wants power and respect and to be a part of something bigger. She heads out onto the road with Gabriel Kasun, a good looking advocate. He's got the knowledge of the territory and some errands to run, giving them a reason to be out and about.

 It's a weird mesh of western and dark fantasy and it works really well. It's not fast paced action, but the plot moves along deftly.

A Plus read, 10/10, I definitely recommend this.

first big read of the year

For fantasy February's first big read, and for my first big read ever I've chosen Laura Anne Gilmans 'Silver on the Road' check it out at goodreads


Set in a western fantasy world where the wild west is the devils territory. Our main character becomes an adult (turns 16) and chooses to sign a contract with the devil to become his sidekick. Only she gets the badass title of "the devils left hand". The devil sends her out on the road with a random guy who offers to show her the ropes. He's getting something from the devil too, I think. So she's got brand new devil powers and is getting set loose on her own on the wild wild west.
 
Sounds good right? I hope so.

I'm seriously interested in the world building here. The devil controls the wild west, and is picking up teenaged girls to be his sidekick.  It's sure to be interesting.

I'm not one for westerns, but I love colonization and civilization building in general (good history, and I'm addicted to sid meyers games) . On the other hand my grandpa was super into westerns, so I'm all for trying a version of them that's a bit more temping to me than the usual ones.

well it's been a while since I've posted. whoops! life ate me. but i'm back now. 34 and half novels into the year. there's going to be some big changes to how i do things, including having theme months. i'm going to have big reads each month. basically i'm going to pick some new books from goodreads and read one per week. each book will have two posts, one before i read it, with a summary and one after i read it with a review. this month is going to be fantasy February