finished 11th February 2006
An interesting mix of stories with an average of 6 pages per story, many much shorter. Some Urban Fantasy, some horror, some quite ingenius some very cliched.

Interesting if bitty fantasy that left me with no urge to find the sequels, in fact it almost works as a standalone. There's almost too many characters and they all seem to have no issues with being thrown into unusual circumstances. There is a lot of acceptance of the strange without wonder.

Just Finished



Thoughts: the first 100 pages were quite hard to get into, and I nearly abandoned the book but now I'm just flying through it.

It's pretty much an Alien living hidden in human society story. R'shiel is different, feels different, her mother is a political animal who won't let anything, even her children stand in the way of her ambitions. Her son, Tarja, is a captain on the front-lines, protecting the Sisterhood's society from the god worshipers. The gods have plans tho and they involve both of these people, who turn out not to really be brother and sister. Yeah kinda spoilerish but it's pretty telegraphed from the start.

Obvious first novel, screamingly obvious, and possibly a good editor would have tightened the first few chapters up to make it flow smoother and got the punters into the story quicker. Also the relationship developing into love between Tarja and R'Shiel, WTF? I have a foster sister, now granted she is my cousin but NEITHER of my brothers would even think of someone brought up from early on as ANYTHING other than a sister. Shame on the Goddess of Love for that squick.