Review: The Juging Eye by R. Scott Bakker

Twenty years after the events of The Thousandfold Thought the Aspect-Emperor Kellhus has united the entire Three Seas and is leading a vast army in it's first steps against the Consult, to ensure the No-God's  apocalyptic resurrection does not come to pass. His wife Esment is tasked with ruling the empire in his stead but is beset by her own fears as well as the plots of her own children. Her eldest daughter Mimara travels to see Drusas Achamian hoping he will teach her sorcery and become the father she has never known. Achamian has been receiving visions of Seswatha's lfe that have offered him a clue to Kellhus' origins. Mimara's arrival spurs him into more concrete action and sets him onto a journey in which he hopes to expose Kellhus as a fraud.  Meanwhile young King Sorweel of conquered Sarkarpus finds himself as part of Kellhus' army struggling between his belief in Kellhus and in his father's belief that he is a fraud.

As can be noted from the above the Judging Eye is divided into three main plot points. The biggest problem is that for two of them the pace is too slow and there is too much time spent on settting up events in future books, only Archamian's plot seems to advance to any degree.

The characters themselves are wonderfully conflicted and do keep things very interesting, throughout. This was undoubtedly the highlight of the book for me.

Overall Bakker continues to produce some very interesting characters, however pacing does let things down in this one. 7/10. 

Review:The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams

For eons there has been a delicate balance between Heaven and Hell with earth providing both a neutral territory and a battleground controlled by strict rules. When someone on earth passes away advocates from both sides are allowed to argue their case as to why the soul in question should be sent to their domain. That is until one soul disappears before either side can make a move, making the possibility of their cold war turning hot a frighteningly real one. Bobby Dollar an advocate for heaven and the first one on the scene finds himself caught in the crossfire, unsure even who on his own side he can trust.

Like a good majority of urban fantasy out there DSOH is told from a first-person perspective. For this to be successful the character in question needs to be entertaining, engaging and keep a delicate balance between capability and vulnerability. With Bobby Dollar Williams hits the nail on the head and his snarky cometary keeps the reader hooked throughout. Jim Butcher fans will see some very real similarities to Harry Dresden but without being too derivative.

The world-building is very interesting and Williams utilizes the fictional city of  San Judas  better than all of the urban fantasy's I've read bar Kate Griffin's London. Pacing is also well controlled throughout.

Overall Tad Williams again demonstrates his versatility in his first foray into urban fantasy. 8.25/10.

  

Review: Stray Souls by Kate Griffin

 
Sharon Li's has unexpectedly discovered she is a Shaman. For an instant she was one with the city, knew every detail about everything then suddenly it was gone. She decides to create a support-group Magicals Anonymous for people who have had similarly strange experiences. This group quickly comes to the attention of Matthew Swift, the midnight mayor, who needs a shaman's help in trying to find souls which seem to have gone missing throughout the city, including the very powerful Greydawn.

Like in her Matthew Swift books Griffin's descrpitions of life in London make it an interesting character in it's own right. Sharon is an accessible and well developed protagonist  but where this book really excels is the development of the support characters. Each one gets their own few pages to essentially describe themselves which works brilliantly. Short-sharp chapters keep the pacing ticking along nicely throughout. I enjoyed seeing Matthew Swift in a supporting role and love the potential with having the two series running concurrently.

In sum Griffin delivers a great novel yet again and shows real skill in developing a lively group of characters. 8.5/10.

Review: The Unremembered by Peter Orullian

Tahn is a young woodsman living in a small village at the edge of the world. For reasons unknown to him his childhood is a blur and he feels compelled to utter a phrase each time he draws his bow and greet each dawn. One day creatures out of myth descend on his village and target Tahn and his sister Wendra. Tahn is forced to put his trust in a pair of mysterious strangers and flee his village.

To put it bluntly this book was an absolute chore to read and only sheer bloodymindedness got me through it. It wasn't so much the recycled plot lines, I've read Terry Brooks and enjoyed his work, but the poor quality of the writing that put me off. The characters were all wooden and Orullian failed to make me care about them at all. The dialogue is clumsy and the prose feels like it is trying to be something it's not,though does improve slightly as the novel progresses. While there is a lot of world-building going on there is never enough development to truly grasp the details. This feels like a writer's first attempt at a novel and if I read it as part of a writting group I would say Orullian had potential but needed to write a few more to get to a point of being publishable. Why TOR decided to print and market this book so strongly is beyond me.

Overall Peter Orullian's debut is plagued with problems and I would have to advise giving this one a miss. 4/10.

Review: Elsewhens by Melanie Rawn

Despite their success Touchstone under perform at trials and find themselves once again on the Winterly circuit. However the group is chosen to travel to the Continent with a royal embassy to collect Prince Ashgar's new bride. Magic is viewed with suspicion on the continent so Touchstone's welcome is less than assured. Meanwhile Cade is still troubled by his visions of possible futures (dubbed Elsewhens). He wants to warn his friend Mieka that the woman he has fallen in love with and her mother only plan to ensnare him but is terrified of alienating the elf and bringing one of his worst visions to life.  

Like the first book Elsewhens is focused on the relationship between Cade and Mieka. Both are well realized vivid characters that dance to life on the pages and neatly steal the show. Again the support characters are just fleshed out enough to be interesting.

My biggest problem with this second installment is the plot seems to meander along without any focus. The ending just seemed to highlight further how little the plot has been advanced. I also feel Rawn missed a trick in developing the setting further with Touchstone traveling to a new continent.

Overall Rawn's character development remains top notch, however a meandering plot keeps this book from being one of her best. 7/10. 

Review: Kitty Takes a Holiday by Carrie Vaughn

Following the events of the previous book Kitty has rented a cabin in remote Colorado, hoping to lay low for a while under the guise of working on her memoirs. However when animal sacrifises are left on her doorstep it is obvious some of the locals may be less than thrilled to have a werewolf in the neighborhood. Things get even more complicated when Cormac shows up at the cabin with her injured lawyer Ben O'Farrell in tow. Ben has been bitten by a werewolf and is having trouble adjusting to his new life and only Kitty can help.

My only major criticism of the previous novel was the lack of tension throughout the majority of the book but Vaughan  has adjusted well and corrected that in this volume. Kitty is an engaging character and it is great to see her progression from a reliant almost-victim of her pack at the start of the first novel, to learning how to take care of herself and finally taking the lead in this installment. Both Ben and Cormac are fleshed out nicely as characters. Without giving too much away the ending was both surprising and yet very fitting.

Overall the third Kitty Norville book combines great character development with some clever touches. 8/10. 

Review:Red Country by Joe Abercrombie

Eking out a living on the outskirts of Squardeal, a frontier town in the middle of nowhere, is hard but Shy South has never been afraid of hard work. However when returning to her farm after selling the season's crops she finds her home burned and her brother and her sister stolen, she realizes may have to return to the ways of her bloody past. She is a accompanied by her cowardly step father Lamb, a man whose past may be bloodier than her own (hint, hint). Meanwhile The union is trying to stamp out rebellion on it's outskirts and have hired Nicomo Cosca's company of the gracious hand to do it. The comapny has with them their very own lawyer Temple, a man who prefers to take the easy path. However when he crosses Shy's path he may not have a choice in the matter.

This book had been marketed as Abercrombie's Western and this is very much reflected in the themes of the book, such as the byplay between order and freedom in a frontier setting. Like Abercrombie's two previous books this one stands nicely on its own but long time fans will be happy to see the return of Logen nine-fingers (although he is never once called by this name throughout the book) A host of other familiar faces make appearances, including Cosca, Shivers and Sergent Friendly and one of their stories is completely resolved.

I enjoy how Abercrombie creates a sense of forward momentum in his books with some of the recurring characters being noticeably older and the technology of the world continuing to progress.

While interesting in their own right most of the Point of view characters aren't as well portrayed as characters in previous books. Though having said that I thought that Temple really stole the show and was glad to see his story taken in the direction I thought that Shivers story should have been taken in Best Served Cold. A lot of reviewers will tell you this book is Abercrombie at his most cynical but I don't think that is the case; Shy and Temple's story is as close to a happy ending as you will expect to see in one of his books.

Overall Abercrombie delivers his usual collection of cynical wit and superb storytelling in a somewhat different setting. 8/10.