Posts Tagged ‘adventure’
The Spirit Thief, by Rachel Aaron
Posted on: April 30, 2013
The Spirit Thief, by Rachel Aaron
published in 2010
where I got it: the library
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The entire internet has been afire about Rachel Aaron’s Eli Monpress series for a while now, and it’s no secret I’ve a major weakness for thieves in fantasy environments, so how could I resist a story about the greatest thief ever? The first volume wasn’t exactly what I expected, but surprises are always a good thing, right?
The infamous thief (and wizard!) Eli Monpress is certainly the focus of the story, but we learn about the world through Spiritualist Miranda Lyonette. She’s been sent to the Kingdom of Mellinor to keep Eli from stealing an important artifact. Lucky for us, she’s rather unsuccessful in her mission, otherwise this would be a very short and rather un-fun book.
Upon her arrival at Mellinor, Miranda finds that Eli has completely ignored the artifact and has instead kidnapped King Henrith and is holding him for ransom. Out of the woodwork steps the King’s brother, Prince Renaud, who claims the throne for himself and convinces everyone that Miranda is secretly working for Eli and against the kingdom. As Miranda unravels what’s going on, she’ll have to choose which is more important: following the rules, or doing the right thing.
Miranda is a court-trained Spiritualist, which means she’s made binding agreements with the spirits she works with. She offers them physical protection and a portion of her own energy, and in turn she can use their magic upon request. It’s a very formal agreement, and she’d never think of using a spirit against its will, or hurting it in any way. Wizards who go against their training, who take advantage of the strength of spirits, are known as enslavers, and should be destroyed at all costs.
Eli’s relationship with spirits is completely different. He doesn’t offer protective contracts with them, but he doesn’t force them to do anything either. He just talks to them, almost as if they were just other people he was having a conversation with. He’s certainly not a spiritualist, nor is he an enslaver. The Spirit Court isn’t sure what to make of him. And that’s just one reason why there’s a huge bounty on his head. Eli Monpress, the man who steals everything that’s not nailed down, and when he wants something that’s nailed down, he convinces the nails to give him a hand.
A Natural History of Dragons, by Marie Brennan
published Feb 2013
where I got it: purchased new
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In early 2012 I found my favorite book of 2012. I figured it was a fluke, as how can you read something and know nothing else could compare? it’s only March of 2013, and yet again, I can tell you without a doubt, Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons is one of my top reads of this year.
Not into fantasy? Don’t think a book with a dragon on the cover is for you? I don’t care. Read this book. Like its main character, it transcends expectations.
Marie Brennan has written a book I’ve been waiting a very long time to read. All this talk about strong female main characters? Women who fight for what they want, who are strong yet impulsive, intelligent, vocal, protective towards their loved ones? Brennan gave me all of that and took it one step further. She gave Isabella Camherst the most important personality trait of all: she made Isabella completely realistic.
How to describe Isabella? A naive and sometimes thoughtless (not out of malice, simply out of ignorance and impulsiveness) woman who sees nothing odd about being only woman in the room, and who can’t possibly understand the unintended consequences of not caring about societies expectations for her gender. forgive the presumptuousness, but it’s as if Brennan spied on me when I was nineteen years old and wrote a book about my imaginary alter ego. Dragons were never my forte, but I do recall many a college course where I was the only female, being secretly jealous of other women my age who made looking and acting feminine so easy, while at the same time knowing their lifestyle wasn’t for me. I feel like this book was written just for me. Like Isabella, I often felt confused and trapped by societies expectations.
The Aylesford Skull, by James P. Blaylock
published January 2013
where I got it: purchased new
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Langdon St. Ives had plans. Those plans involved spending as much time as possible in the country, enjoying the company of his wife, and raising his children in peace. His most recent case ended badly, and St. Ives needs time to reassess, to recover, to figure out what went wrong.
So much for having plans.
In short order, a grave robberry is discovered near his country home, a woman is murdered, his wife is nearly poisoned, and his son Eddie is kidnapped. All these crimes were perpetrated by Dr. Narbondo, with whom St. Ives has had previous dealings. The Aylesford Skull is just the most recent in Blaylock’s Langdon St Ives adventures, but thanks to some concise yet very well presented character introductions, the readers knows everything they need to know to enjoy the story without having read previous tales involving Professor St. Ives.
Narbondo didn’t just dig up a random grave, he chose one involving a particularly horrid family secret, and took the skull of the child’s corpse. Using tiny machinery and photos of the deceased, Narbondo makes creeptastic ghost trapping lamps out of the skulls he has stolen over the years. It’s believed his final goal is to open a pathway between the world of the living and that of the dead.
And that’s the just the beginning! Once the action gets started in this steampunk thriller, it doesn’t stop! While St. Ives and his trusted friends set out to rescue Eddie, the medium Mother Laswell endeavors to save the soul of her own son, and even side characters have their own missions and goals. From the tunnels and alehouses of London to the marshes and rivers of the surrounding countryside, Blaylock whisks the reader along through an all immersive and atmospheric adventure.
The Zero Stone, by Andre Norton
Posted on: January 25, 2013
The Zero Stone, by Andre Norton
published in 1968
where I got it: borrowed
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Can someone please tell me why it took me so long to read this book? Nearly every Andre Norton I’ve picked up has been excellent, and The Zero Stone is no different. Skillfully written and wonderfully imaginative, I think this is my favorite Norton so far!
The story gets rolling right away when Murdoc Jern’s patron is assassinated. Raised by a gem dealer with shady connections and then apprenticed out to the legitimate gem merchant Vondar Ustle, Murdoc knows everything there is to know about gems and stones, but he’s woefully naive about everything else. When Ustle is murdered Murdoc finds sanctuary and then takes the first available ship off planet.
All this time, Murdoc has been in possession of a singularly strange ring. Too large for any human finger, the ring holds a weird lusterless stone. It was found on a corpse in space, and it seems to offer guidance to specific people. What does the ring point to? Is this why Ustle was killed? Is Murdoc in danger?
Befriended by the ship’s cat, Murdoc accidentally allows the cat to eat a strange pebble. The pebble impregnates the cat (don’t worry, this isn’t my favorite horror scifi movie), and a weird little mutant cat is born. The mutant cat, who calls itself Eet, is telepathic, intelligent, and refuses to tell Murdoc anything about it’s origin. Eet helps Murdoc escape from those who would do him harm, and a partnership is formed between the two. Not quite trusting friends, they do need each other. Eet is stuck in a tiny feline body and needs a strong person to help, and Murdoc could certainly use some help avoiding certain death and learning more about the powers and origin of the ring.
The Lost Continent, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (also published as Beyond Thirty)
published in 1916
where I got it: either bought used, or borrowed. it has my friend’s name stamped in the front, so I am not sure!
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Originally titled Beyond Thirty, and printed only once in an obscure magazine in 1916, The Lost Continent wasn’t available to the masses until the late 1950s. In the introduction to the novel, the Ace editor mentions the only copy he saw until this printing was a fan’s typed version that had been laboriously cribbed from another fan’s typed version or the original magazine printing. For decades, this was the lost manuscript of a master. To add to the mystery, the copyright page in this Ace printing contains only 4 lines, none of which specify the actual year this version was printed. If anyone can tell by the Frank Frazetta cover art or the suggested retail price of 60 cents, I’d appreciate knowing.
Since the outbreak of The Great War (that would be WWI, for those of us aware of its second incarnation), America has cut off contact with the other continents. For two hundred years Pan-America has kept it’s activities between 30 and 175 degrees longitude. War ships watch the waves, prepared to slaughter anything that comes across. But nothing, and no one, ever does.
Lieutenant Jefferson Turck grew up reading hearing his grandfather’s stories of England and Europe and studying his grandfather’s forbidden maps. Not everyone onboard the aero-sub agrees with Turck’s curious thoughts about the outside world or appreciates his ability to move up the military ranks. During a storm while patrolling The 30, his sub is sabotaged, and Turck soon finds himself stranded in a small motorboat with a few other seamen. And they are, most certainly, beyond the 30. With no possible way to survive the trip west over the Atlantic, the men row east towards England and the unknown.
And yes, I am talking about *that* John Campbell. You know, the guy who edited Astounding (later renamed Analog) for nearly 35 years, the guy who kicked off the careers of many of the most famous golden age science fiction writers. This is the guy who in 1938 also penned a little novella called Who Goes There? which later became, among other incarnations, John Carpenter’s 1982 film The Thing. Simply put, without Campbell, science fiction would not be what it is today.
The Black Star Passes, by John W. Campbell
published in 1930 / 1953
where I got it: purchased used
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The Black Star Passes is a 1953 fix-up of three of Campbell’s earlier stories that were originally written in 1930. I know that the stories were edited from their original forms to become a smoother novel, but I don’t know the extent of those changes. In Campbell’s introduction to this 1953 printing, he says the fiction he writes is for students (he specifies male students, but take it in the time in which it was written) who were discovering the joys of math, chemistry, and engineering while in high school or college. These stories were for people who enjoying thinking about problems and figuring out the answers. Basically, these are stories for science nuts.
In Piracy Preferred, the first story, the young inventors Arcot and Morey are challenged with catching an invisible thief. The pirate manages to gas entire airplanes with sleeping gas, get aboard, steal the valuables, and get away. the plane is able to safely land on auto-pilot, and no one is ever hurt in these attacks, except for the fact that the sleeping gas also cures many cancers and other ailments. If a pilot begins to feel sleepy, it’s too late. It’s quite entertaining when entire planes go up filled with the elderly and cancer stricken and all their money, hoping to bait the pirate into curing them. This isn’t a mystery or a suspense story, and after a bit of experimentation in their labs, Arcot and Morey are able to make themselves invisible, break through the invisibility cloak of the pirate, and catch him. And what do you do when you catch a genius criminal? you hire him, of course!
Swords and Deviltry (Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser, book 1), by Fritz Leiber
published in 1970
where I got it: purchased used
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On the very long (and growing longer) list of books and authors who were before my time and influenced entire genres is Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser series. Born in 1910 in Chicago, Leiber spent his youth following in his actor parents footsteps. He later studied philosophy, religion, copy-editing, chess, and fencing. He started publishing short stories in science fiction and fantasy magazines in the late 1930s, and would continue to publish until into the 1980s. His writings are highly influenced by spending his youth around Shakespearian actors, his formal studies, his love for Lovecraftian literature, and a passion for all things unusual. Having just finished my first Leiber, two things have obvious to me: his potential for weird, and his influence on the sword and sorcery / dark fantasy genre.
The Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser series was originally a large smattering of short stories published in multiple magazines, which follow the two titular rogues on countless adventures. Later, Leiber figured out the chronology and wrote some additional stories to help bind everything together. Starting in 1970 and going until the late 80’s, the short stories were published into larger volumes, and the first of those volumes is Swords and Deviltry.
Swords and Deviltry is split up in three parts – the first part, The Snow Women, introduces Fafhrd, the second part, The Unholy Grail, introduces The Grey Mouser, and in the third part, Ill Met in Lankhmar, the two meet for the first time and the bonds of friendship are secured through tragic events.
Skeen’s Leap, by Jo Clayton
Posted on: July 21, 2012
- In: Jo Clayton
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Skeen’s Leap, by Jo Clayton
published in 1986
where I got it: purchased used
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On the run from the law (what else is new), and left behind by her beloved ship and her now ex- boyfriend, Skeen knows she’s in trouble. With the clothes on her back and the coins in her pocket, how is she going to get off this dusty backwater planet? How is she going to track down her ship and tell that man where he can stick it? To do that she’ll need money, and do that she’ll do what she’s best at: thievery, smuggling, ruin raiding, and selling what she finds.
On the unreliable rumors of a drug addict she follows his directions to an untouched alien ruin, supposedly laden with gems and trinkets the likes of which this corner of the galaxy has never seen. She walks through the gate he described, and into somewhere else. Thus begins the story of Skeen’s Leap, which follows our titular heroine as she steals, cons, talks, seduces, and otherwise convinces people give her what she wants so she can get where she’s going.
Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess (a Girl Genius novel) by Phil & Kaja Foglio
published in 2012
where I got it: purchased new
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First there was the webcomic. then came the graphic novels (identical to the webcomic, just in printed form). Now there is the novelizations.
That could too easily be a recipe for disaster, but this is the team of Phil and Kaja Foglio. Disaster isn’t in their vocabulary. Not satisfied with developing the Hugo award winning Girl Genius comic series, they’ve dived headfirst into writing the novelizations of the comics. (read my review of the first novel, Agatha H and the Airship City, here) Not interested in webcomics or graphic novels? You should still pick up their Agatha Heterodyne novels. Why? Because they are simply fantastic. These books have it all: characters with incredible depth, humor, doomed romances, hysterically ridiculous mad science, more humor, family secrets, excellent dialog, circus folk, monsters, and an all around good time. You will have a smile on your face the entire time you are reading these novels. Don’t get me wrong, the graphic novels are great (I own them all), but the novels are even better.
In a semi-fictitious Europe, those with the ability to breath life into machines are known as Sparks. Being a Spark isn’t always a good thing, because they are so intent on making amazing creations that they often don’t realize last week’s amazing creation has burned down the village. Some Sparks hide their abilities, others survive by volunteering to work for the powers that be.
Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess is the second book in this series, and it picks up right where the first book, Agatha H and the Airship City left off. Along with the talking cat Krosp, she’s escaped from Baron Wulfenbach’s flying castle, learned who her parents really are (the famous Bill Heterodyne and Lucrezia Mongfish), and discovered that she is indeed, a very powerful Spark. It doesn’t matter that she’s developed some pretty strong feelings for the Baron’s son, Gilgamesh, as she’ll probably never see him again anyway.
Alone in the forest, she comes across a traveling circus, who allow her to travel with them. Agatha doesn’t tell the troupe who she really is, and they are hiding their own secrets. The troupe puts on what are known as “Heterodyne shows”, with the actors performing the madcap adventures of Bill and Barry Heterodyne, and their sidekicks Klaus and Lucrezia. It sure is uncanny how well Agatha can imitate Lucrezia on stage! She sounds just like her!
Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey
Posted on: July 3, 2012
Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey
published in June 2011
where I got it: purchased new
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Be warned, this is a slightly spoilery review.
People keep trying to shoot Jim Holden . First, while on a routine rescue mission his ship was attacked and he barely survived with his life. Then, taken prisoner by the Martian Navy, he and his remaining crew stole a ship and escaped, and then got shot at. A lot. Everyone wants Jim and his crew, and no one will tell them why. No one will tell them what was on that first disabled ship they tried to board to save souls or salvage, no one will tell them who blew it out of the sky, and why everyone who witnessed it is dead.
An ex-Navy man from Earth, Jim Holden realized he was too idealistic for the Navy of the inner planets. After a few bad experiences, he signed on as XO with an ice hauling crew doing the Saturn – Belt run, and he’s been in heaven ever since. With the few surviving members of his crew and now answering to Captain, Holden’s got to find out who is least interested in killing him, and he’s got to find out fast.
oh, and his crew? Probably the best part of the book. I’m not sure which I liked better, the perfectly done characterization or the hilarious and dry dialog. Acting XO is Naomi, who doesn’t do so well under pressure but does keep Jim from being completely stupid; Alex the weak stomached pilot; and Amos, the brawler mechanic who swears creatively and reminded me of what Jayne could have grown up to be, which made me like him even more.
Meanwhile in the carved out asteroid Ceres Detective Miller looks for a lost girl. Her parents contracted his employer to find her, and he got stuck with the gig. He does his normal routine, check out her apartment, peek through photos, read her e-mail, see who she’s been hanging out with. When clues begin to materialize, Miller is violently taken off the case. Shortly afterwards, Ceres erupts in riots. The organized crime element of the place has just taken over.
A sprawling space opera, Leviathan Wakes is what happens when you take humanity and fling them through the solar system. People born in low gravity are longer limbed and skinnier, people born in heavy gravity are more squat. Instead of everyone looking alike and hating each other, we now look very different, and still hate each other. Tensions are high between the Inners (Earth and Mars) and the Outer Planetary Alliance (everything from the asteroid belt on out). To start a full scale war, all it would take is one little incident. Kill some marines, blow up a science station, impound a few water haulers, anything that you can blame on any group you don’t like. Add into this mix a depressed alcoholic detective and an ice hauler crew who don’t have a death wish, and you’ve got the recipe for one helluva Space Opera.
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