I am enjoying these books, but I still have to complain that it really isn't fair to drop the reader at the end of a full trilogy with the story lines so completely unresolved that, in all fairness, we ought to be able to turn the page and keep on reading. Not only is nothing resolved, a major complication is added in the last chapters. Sort of like the Robin Hobb book.
So, John is sort of dead (temporarily), Leo is dead (also temporarily), Emma is now half demon (temporarily?), and the Turtle and the Serpent are hanging out at opposite poles without any clue about how to get together or that they need to - which is odd, because they came face to face down in the park in this book. We still don't know what Emma is. And Hell is located underneath an urban renewal project in Hong Kong. Okay, nasty Simon Wong (122) is dead (permanently?) - but nothing so far has led me to believe that anybody stays dead in this story (except John's wife, she is dead dead).
Now I have to decide if my annoyance is because the writer has tried to trick the reader into continuing - or lacks the confidence in her writing to end a story and trust that, if she writes it, readers will come. Or if my problem is that the next three books are already out - in Australia. I'm not at all certain why it is going to take until October to accomplish the US release.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Red Phoenix by Kylie Chan
More martial arts, more demons, and Emma's poor unsuspecting family "finds out." It turns out that her sister's British solicitor husband (well, his family) has been working for Mr. Chen for somewhere in the vicinity of 200 years. So he is thrilled to pieces and "My Lord" and "My Lady"ing all over the place which sets sister Jennifer into new hysterics and totally demolishes her program of being the gracious lady herself.
Of course, as Emma's true being begins to emerge even more complications arise. Not the least of which is the arrival and narrowly avoided kidnapping of her parents from Australia, only to have them face a full-out assault by an overwhelming force of demons in the airport parking structure. Fortunately for all, True Emma is pretty overwhelming herself. And everyone gets cleaned up in time to go to Emma's graduation ceremony where she is awarded her MBA.
Chan has several story threads at the crisis point by now - I don't think she can let them twist in the wind for seven more books. So I had better get on with it and find out what's up. I do know there are two more trilogies to follow this one, but I'm not sure how tightly they follow. Of course, my friend at school has now started book three in the murder mystery series that I'm reading and shared with her, so I need to catch up there, too. And I have a paper due in a week or so in this class I'm taking, and the guy I decided to write about is one who doesn't produce 6,589,452 hits on Google. I'm actually going to have to go to the library!!
Of course, as Emma's true being begins to emerge even more complications arise. Not the least of which is the arrival and narrowly avoided kidnapping of her parents from Australia, only to have them face a full-out assault by an overwhelming force of demons in the airport parking structure. Fortunately for all, True Emma is pretty overwhelming herself. And everyone gets cleaned up in time to go to Emma's graduation ceremony where she is awarded her MBA.
Chan has several story threads at the crisis point by now - I don't think she can let them twist in the wind for seven more books. So I had better get on with it and find out what's up. I do know there are two more trilogies to follow this one, but I'm not sure how tightly they follow. Of course, my friend at school has now started book three in the murder mystery series that I'm reading and shared with her, so I need to catch up there, too. And I have a paper due in a week or so in this class I'm taking, and the guy I decided to write about is one who doesn't produce 6,589,452 hits on Google. I'm actually going to have to go to the library!!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
A Fountain Filled With Blood by Julia Spencer-Fleming
Gay-bashing this time instead of an abandoned infant, still it was fun. I'm never sure how much to say - I risk telegraphing the entire plot, on the other hand, I'm not sure that any of you come here for actual recommendations. At any rate, I enjoyed it - far more than I would have enjoyed the assigned chapter for the class I am taking; of course, I still need to read that tonight.
The whatever it is between Rev. Clare and Police Chief Russ is getting fairly intense. I suspect that in a book or two we may learn that his wife is doing a little more than buying curtain fabric on her frequent trips out of town. Besides, it's a small town - how many volumes can we go without ever meeting the spouse of one of the two main characters?
Clare gets to fly a helicopter this time - this she has been missing since she left the army. She continues to outrage her conservative congregation - and she has replaced the red sports car that she trashed in the last book with a red Shelby Cobra - which survived this book intact - to the great annoyance of Russ, who had encouraged her to buy something with four-wheel drive and a really good heater. After all, this is upstate(?) New York, and winter is coming.
There was approximately a six month gap between the first two, I wonder if she is going to keep the time frame that tight. Only one way to find out, I suppose - go read the reviews on Amazon. I think I will go back to one of the other series I just started for a book or two first though. Let's see, Kylie Chan or Henning Mankell? Or I could read How Green Was My Valley which was the alternate selection for the facebook book club. Or go back to the 100 books under 3.99. Or actually go read up on American curriculum history - first paper is due in a couple of weeks.
The whatever it is between Rev. Clare and Police Chief Russ is getting fairly intense. I suspect that in a book or two we may learn that his wife is doing a little more than buying curtain fabric on her frequent trips out of town. Besides, it's a small town - how many volumes can we go without ever meeting the spouse of one of the two main characters?
Clare gets to fly a helicopter this time - this she has been missing since she left the army. She continues to outrage her conservative congregation - and she has replaced the red sports car that she trashed in the last book with a red Shelby Cobra - which survived this book intact - to the great annoyance of Russ, who had encouraged her to buy something with four-wheel drive and a really good heater. After all, this is upstate(?) New York, and winter is coming.
There was approximately a six month gap between the first two, I wonder if she is going to keep the time frame that tight. Only one way to find out, I suppose - go read the reviews on Amazon. I think I will go back to one of the other series I just started for a book or two first though. Let's see, Kylie Chan or Henning Mankell? Or I could read How Green Was My Valley which was the alternate selection for the facebook book club. Or go back to the 100 books under 3.99. Or actually go read up on American curriculum history - first paper is due in a couple of weeks.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell
Another dark, moody Swedish murder mystery. The central character is police detective Kurt Wallander. The name is reminescent of Lisbeth Salander, but that's about the only similarity between The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and this one. Wallander is a cop with all the cop angst and personal problems. His wife is divorcing him, his daughter refuses to see him, his father is lapsing into senility, he is an alcoholic, and he doesn't even have a dog to run away.
I think the only time we see anything from any point of view other than that of Wallander is the opening chapter in which an elderly farmer realizes that something is wrong at the farm next to theirs in their remote valley and discovers that his neighbor has been brutally murdered and his wife tortured.
From there on we follow police procedure through a long painful investigation that goes by fits and starts and frequently stalls in dead ends. The original crime precipitates another, which is solved; and another criminal enterprise is uncovered along the way, but the perpetrators of the original crime elude our hero. Although the investigation stalls a couple of times, the story never does, somehow.
The double murder is finally solved, not by a fortuitous discovery, but by a late flash of policeman's intuition. Rather satisfying.
I think the only time we see anything from any point of view other than that of Wallander is the opening chapter in which an elderly farmer realizes that something is wrong at the farm next to theirs in their remote valley and discovers that his neighbor has been brutally murdered and his wife tortured.
From there on we follow police procedure through a long painful investigation that goes by fits and starts and frequently stalls in dead ends. The original crime precipitates another, which is solved; and another criminal enterprise is uncovered along the way, but the perpetrators of the original crime elude our hero. Although the investigation stalls a couple of times, the story never does, somehow.
The double murder is finally solved, not by a fortuitous discovery, but by a late flash of policeman's intuition. Rather satisfying.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming
The title was a grabber for anyone who has read through as many hymnals as many times as I have. The main character is appealing. She is an episcopal priest who is a retired army warrant officer. There is quite a lot of play on the fact that she grew up in the south and has now sought out a position in small town New York. She becomes friends with the local police chief, also an army retiree, and much is made of the sexual tension between them. He, uncharacteristically, is married and happily so.
The story centers on a foundling infant which is left on the steps of Clare's church. It only closes after two murders, a couple of attempted murders, and a suicide.
The next one (also on this month's under $4 list) is called A Fountain Filled With Blood. How can I resist? And how long can she keep this hymn thing going on.
The story centers on a foundling infant which is left on the steps of Clare's church. It only closes after two murders, a couple of attempted murders, and a suicide.
The next one (also on this month's under $4 list) is called A Fountain Filled With Blood. How can I resist? And how long can she keep this hymn thing going on.
Monday, February 13, 2012
White Tiger by Kylie Chan
Urban Fantasy from a slightly different perspective: the urban setting is Hong Kong and the fantasy, as one might expect in that setting, is a Chinese pantheon including input from Buddism, Tao, and Confucianism - and a heavy dose of oriental martial arts. The heroine is a sassy Aussie, who somehow landed in Hong Kong and teaches English in a kindergarten as well as teaching a number of private clients. As her private clients move on, the father of her favorite student picks up their times so she can spend more time with his daughter. When she leaves the kindergarten, after the owner requests that she spy on her private client for her, Mr. Chen, the client, hires her full time as his daughter's nanny at such a fantastic salary that she cannot refuse, but has to wonder what is really going on.
From there we are pitched into a world of gods and demons and magic and martial arts and a child with some extraordinary gifts. There is blood and gore, and the lifestyle of the extremely wealthy, and a visit to the Paris home of Kwan Yin. We learn the true identity of Mr. Chen fairly early on, and meet a number of his colleagues, one of whom is the title character. Which seems fairly odd, because he really is not central to the story at all - unless she is carrying out an elaborate mah jongg parallel, but I don't see it in the titles of the second and third trilogies of this triple-triple.
As in the last trilogy that I started, Chan drops a number of heavy portentious hints and then stops rather abruptly - the last five percent of the book is a glossary. Perhaps it is less annoying than the last one because it isn't nearly as long. Never mind, I just checked and they only differ in length by four pages. Maybe it seemed shorter because there are not three different story lines to tie together and there is much more action.
From there we are pitched into a world of gods and demons and magic and martial arts and a child with some extraordinary gifts. There is blood and gore, and the lifestyle of the extremely wealthy, and a visit to the Paris home of Kwan Yin. We learn the true identity of Mr. Chen fairly early on, and meet a number of his colleagues, one of whom is the title character. Which seems fairly odd, because he really is not central to the story at all - unless she is carrying out an elaborate mah jongg parallel, but I don't see it in the titles of the second and third trilogies of this triple-triple.
As in the last trilogy that I started, Chan drops a number of heavy portentious hints and then stops rather abruptly - the last five percent of the book is a glossary. Perhaps it is less annoying than the last one because it isn't nearly as long. Never mind, I just checked and they only differ in length by four pages. Maybe it seemed shorter because there are not three different story lines to tie together and there is much more action.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb
I considered being aggravated by Hobb's device of running three separate and distinct character narratives, keeping them separate, and making abrupt switches between them, but each of the three was engaging in her own way and when finally - over halfway in -they all come together, it all seems to work. Each of the three grows in her own way to the same. Alise, who married to escape her home, and ended up with an abusive brute, begins to realize that she does have some control over her destiny. Thymara, the mutant who should have been exposed to die at birth, is beginning to realize that the rules may not have to apply. And, finally, Sintara, a crippled queen dragon, is learning that she is a dragon after all.
All well and good - and this is announced as a trilogy - but in a well-crafted trilogy I expect each volume to have some individual integrity. And this one doesn't. It just ends with no conclusion of any story line and countless set-ups for the following volumes. The reader has been let in on the ultimate villainy of the man sent by Alise's husband to "protect" her. We already know that he, not some unknown woman, is Alise's husband's lover. And as the travelling company prepares to deal with the probable death of the weakest of the dragons, we learn that he has probably killed her to salvage some of her blood and scales to sell for their magical healing properties. That's where Hobb drops it. Everyone else is gathering around the dying dragon and he is gloating in his cabin over his theft.
Definitely annoying. Still, the story is good enough that I will probably read the rest - but I will still be irritated that she so blatantly suckered me in for the second volume - and I'll be looking for it at the end of that one. I don't remember that it was so obvious in the book of hers that I read several years ago. Or maybe it was - and that was why I never went back for Volume 2.
All well and good - and this is announced as a trilogy - but in a well-crafted trilogy I expect each volume to have some individual integrity. And this one doesn't. It just ends with no conclusion of any story line and countless set-ups for the following volumes. The reader has been let in on the ultimate villainy of the man sent by Alise's husband to "protect" her. We already know that he, not some unknown woman, is Alise's husband's lover. And as the travelling company prepares to deal with the probable death of the weakest of the dragons, we learn that he has probably killed her to salvage some of her blood and scales to sell for their magical healing properties. That's where Hobb drops it. Everyone else is gathering around the dying dragon and he is gloating in his cabin over his theft.
Definitely annoying. Still, the story is good enough that I will probably read the rest - but I will still be irritated that she so blatantly suckered me in for the second volume - and I'll be looking for it at the end of that one. I don't remember that it was so obvious in the book of hers that I read several years ago. Or maybe it was - and that was why I never went back for Volume 2.
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