WebMage by Kelly McCullough

This was okay - but not to be compared with Bared Blade. Maybe I just never really bought into the cyber fantasy thing. I've spent too many years with computers to consider them fit for a fantasy venue. The only one that I thought ever came really close was Stasheff with St. Vidicon. Oh well. And the mix with the ancient Greek pantheon was just a little creepy.

Our hero is a many great-grandson of Lachesis - one of the fates. The three ladies are, of course, still around, and they are up to something truly nefarious. Ravirn (our hero) is seriously clueless, but manages to save the world and himself -- and his sweetie -- in spite of it all. He gets himself cast out and all that, but there is a vast multiplicity of available universes, and he gets himself a new name that is much easier to pronounce. If it is part of a series, I'll pass.

Bared Blade by Kelly McCullough

Classic pseudoMedieval fantasy, some interesting species and magical types. This is book two of the series - I'm pretty sure it's a series, not a trilogy, or some other numbered multiple volume story. The story seems fairly complete with the trails at the end seeming to lead to adjustment in the structure - the lone wolf picks up a dependent - but the change doesn't seem to lead to another story.

The hero is a survivor of the destruction of his order and travels under an order of death with his familiar, Triss, a Shade, a creature from what we would call another dimension if this were SF and not fantasy. He takes up with a Dyad, a magical something from a totally different school of magic. The Dyad is one of the more interesting denizens of the tale. She (or they) is (are) a bonded pair who began as two women, and often functions as two, but the two are also parts of a third entity - their Meld. Cleverly designed and executed.

I liked it enough to get the first book when/if I ever get paid. I found the first book in another series by McCullough on a shelf, I think I'll give that a try, too.

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

Great fun! For years I was vaguely embarrassed to admit how much I enjoyed these books. I don't have much use for sappy romances, and even though I knew at some level that these were different - they all looked so much the same on the shelf! I picked this one up off the free book table in the lobby and had it around for some time before someone else picked it up and started reading it and reminded me of how funny it was. Strong characters, situations that require some understanding of the period and setting, and the introduction of a completely unexpected element. Heyer explains the setting in ways that actually advance the plot rather than in pedantic asides and sets her characters loose.

I had read this one years ago - but of course remembered nothing. The Rivenhalls thought they were managing - not particularly happily - but managing, when Cousin Sophy descends and having gotten the measure of the household sets it on end much to the improvement of everything. By the end of the book, everyone is suitably paired up - even the bitchy (ex)fiancee and the hypocondriac suitor. It reminded me of Much Ado About Nothing.