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Panchaali enters this world through a holy fire, an unwanted boon granted by the gods in addition to her brother, the child destined to kill their father's greatest enemy. She marries the five Pandava brothers, the eldest of whom bets and loses his kingdom to their cousin. After twelve years of exile in the forest, the cousin refuses to return the kingdom, and the Pandavas go to war against the Kauravas. It is a story…
Jane Austen and I have had a rocky relationship. I respect her as a writer and believe she deserves a place in the canon of great English authors, but I sometimes wonder if she is overhyped. When it comes to Sense and Sensibility, it has a lot of Austen's trademark wit, but as a first novel it also has the immaturity and inexperience of a writer learning the craft. So with Sense and Sensibility…
So, yeah, I don't really understand this book.
It is not often that I admit a book has defeated me intellectually; upon the rare occasion that it happens, however, I will admit it. This review is, like any review, a meditation on the unique experience I had reading the book, but it is also ruminations about why I feel that Kafka on the Shore is a mountain whose summit I never reached.
I'm starting to…
Books create whole other worlds, and nowhere is this phenomenon more explicit than in fantasy and science fiction. More than just telling a story, great books transport the reader to a new setting, one where the rules might be different. It takes impossibilities and makes them possible. The author, then, is more than a storyteller—he or she is an architect, a craftsman executing a careful and intricate design. This is what we often mean when…
The cover of Norse Code is misleading. It has a classic "urban fantasy" pose, the woman holding a phallic weapon and looking over her shoulder at the reader. Really, Norse Code is nothing like the cover or the description on the back of the book. Although it begins like other urban fantasy books, it quickly becomes something different. It is an epic tale focused through the lens of postmodern apocalypse, where metaphor becomes literal, and…
The title of this book, breaking as it does Jim Butcher's pattern of two words of equal length for each previous title in the Dresden Files, says it all. There are definitely changes; as such, the spoiler warning here is not to be taken lightly.
If you haven't read the book and at all plan to read it, turn back now.
So it's just me, the people who have read it, and the people…
As with my review of Small Favor, I will refer you to my first review for this book. I'm not even going to add many notes, because I like my original review that much, and I doubt I could improve upon it significantly.
The only thing I have to say is that re-reading the series in quick succession has given me a better context in which to appreciate Turn…
When I re-read a book I've already reviewed, I tend to write a new review to reflect how my opinion of the book has changed with a second reading. In this case, my opinion hasn't changed much. If anything, my admiration of Small Favor has increased. I stand by my original review, and I recommend you read that for my full thoughts on this book.
Some addenda though.
…
When I began re-reading White Night, I wondered why I had previously given it five stars. The plot didn't sound very interesting from the description on the dust jacket; it certainly didn't compare to Proven Guilty, which is now my gold standard of Dresden. Had I slipped into an alternate universe where I mistakenly gave out five star ratings to four star books?
Turns out, no, I was still in my universe…
Proven Guilty is probably my favourite Dresden Files novel my second-favourite Dresden Files novel, after Small Favor. It has almost all of my favourite parts of the Dresdenverse in it: Murphy, the Carpenters, Faerie, and sticking it to the White Council. Jim Butcher manipulates the relationships he's developed over the past seven books to play on motifs of love, family, and temptation. If Dead Beat showed us how much Harry has changed, Proven…
Let us take a moment to look back at how far Harry Dresden has come from busting a sorcerer in Storm Front. Since then, he has started a war between the wizards and Red Court vampires; he has killed a faerie queen and prevented a war between the Summer and Winter courts; he has been offered the mantle of Winter Knight and picked up the Blackened Denarius of Fallen Angel Lasciel. Last time we…
Vampires on the set of a porno! Vampires who feed through sex rather than blood, no less! And one of them is Harry's half-brother.
Yeah, that's right. I dropped a major S-bomb in the third sentence of the review. You see that spoiler alert? I don't fool around with those things. Deal with it.
Speaking of dropping bombs, Jim Butcher does that a lot in Blood Rites. As with Death Masks, the story…
I'm discovering that it's almost impossible to review a Dresden Files book without resorting to spoilers. So many awesome things happen that trying to discuss the book without mentioning them would be a severe handicap to any review. Death Masks is no different in that respect. After Summer Knight put the fate of the world on Harry's shoulders, Death Masks returns to the personal conflicts that embodied the first three books of the series. Once…
There are many ways to make it easier on oneself when constructing a protagonist. For example, a kickass, wise-cracking female heroine with magic and not one but *two interested men is a good start. Couple that to a magical soul-sucking stone coveted by a mighty and nefarious goblin sorcerer on the lam, and you have both character and plot.
Not that I'm trying to suggest that these books are formulaic. Lisa Shearin, like all good…
Faeries are even better than vampires. Firstly, you can actually make a deal with faeries and compel them to honour the deal. Secondly, that makes them even more deadly, because they're usually clever enough to twist the deal so it ends up harming you anyway. Just as Jim Butcher can't claim credit for vampires, he can't claim credit for faeries, but he sure can claim credit for the characters he creates to personify each…
So I don't like werewolves but do like vampires. Some of you will never forgive me, I know. Others will be happy I've taken a side. But if you hold up Fool Moon against Grave Peril, there's no contest. Dresden Files #3 is where it the magic happens. (You may groan.)
With another in media res opening, Jim Butcher plunges us back into the Dresdenverse while simultaneously expanding it even further: Knights of the…
Time for another confession: I am unfairly prejudiced against werewolves. Maybe it's because I have an irrational fear of dogs, or maybe it's just the whole icky shapeshifting aspect, but I've never liked werewolf-oriented fantasy. When my favourite supernatural series has a book or episode featuring werewolves, I just don't enjoy it as much. For that reason alone, while my re-reading of Storm Front persuaded me to give it a fourth star, I was…
Returning to the first book in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series is like returning to a favourite vacation spot—one of those cozy ones that are well-known and well-regarded but never very busy for reasons you can't quite figure out. The temperature is just right, the weather is just like you remembered, and you have all the time in the world … to watch Harry get his ass kicked.
Harry Dresden. Those are the only two…
Soon after my return to Terre d'Ange in Kushiel's Chosen, I'm back for round three: Kushiel's Avatar. Let's do this.
We begin "ten years later…" with a recap of the previous two books, reminding us who this Phèdre chick is and why we care. Specifically, we recall the contribution of Hyacinthe, a Romani—sorry, Tsingano—prince and lifelong friend of Phèdre. Way back in Kushiel’s Dart (remember that? remember?), Hyacinthe saved Phèdre from having…
This is a birthday present for a coworker, who as far as I know reads only that other vampire series. I wanted something similar to give her, so I bought Night World No. 1 upon the recommendation of a friend. Now I've read it for myself, so I know what it is I'll be giving away.
The first rule of Night World: Do not talk about Night World.
The second rule of Night World: Do…
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