Sunday, September 24, 2006



This has echoes of the Pied Piper but only to a lesser extent. The children who follow the piper are escaping the destruction of their settlement by bandits. Not really my favourite of hers it's still an interesting read and well worth the time. It's told from a first person point of view by the eldest of the children who doesn't sound all that young, but then again lives on a colony planet as a first wave of settlement so may have more responsibilities settled on his shoulders earlier and if it's written by him later, the more adult attitude may be excused as filtered by this.
Not one of her best but does display a lot of her typical themes, children taking responsibility, questing, etc.


I'm very glad I intercepted one of Justina Robson's books en route to another library becasue this too was a very good read.

In a near future England where clever children are sent to a school to learn faster, Anjuli O'Connell is an exception, among all the exceptionally bright she's different, she has perfect recall, a memory that logs everything (would have made an exceptional librarian!). Her school friends carry over to her working life, partially because she can decode what they're talking about into understandable English.

WHen on of her friends dies while apparently trying to upload himself into the network, her world starts crumbling around her. There are secrets within secrets and the AI's are getting to an independant age.


Not as good as the first book but still readable. The next crystal artifact has to be found and it's up to Chief Warrant Officer Vickey Mabrey, her partner in this job is Griff Hutchinson, who was involved in a campaign to have her dismissed when she was in training. Now she has the superior position. Will she use the situation to get revenge or will she act on her other feelings for him.


A not bad but pretty typical Vampire Romance. So not in the Horror genre, there was no real horror or sense of doom in it mostly because the main character, Nell Harris, has a great sense of humour about the entire thing and really doesn't take anything all that seriously.

When she's asked to look into a kidnapping because of her ability to work charms and defuse them, she finds herself in cahoots with a man who is considered one of the ultimate evil.

Owes a fair bit to the likes of Christine Feehan (who has a blurb on the front) but honestly I found it more readable than hers.

The author would have done well to talk to people recovering from strokes and long-term disability tho, cause apart from some comments by Nell about her disabilty I really didn't get a feeling that it got in the way.


Pretty standard fantasy fare with bards and true names and a root language. The setting of it in a pseudo earth past is a little too much really and the story would have worked as well without that conceit.
Maerad starts off as a slave and is rescued by the Bard Cadvan, one of the great bards of Lirigon. As they journey together they find that her gifts are mighty indeed and she has potential to change the course of the world.


On a quest to save the crystal mask of the Cherokees' Kai Alseoun works with Jake Carter. Jake loved Kai when they were young, but life has embittered Kai.

Interesing and readable. A little bit too much angst occasionally but overall worthwhile.


It's been done before. Group of women who are genetically engineered to be better than most, secret project with dead mothers, one escapes with her child and goes into hiding. Girl grows up, finds she's different, is found by others of her group.
It's not a bad example of this genre, quite readable, and at first the policeman is quite hostile to Faith and he behaves in a way that makes him very believable. I'm not sure the sudden conversion from dislike to love is as believable but is part of the Romance novel convention.
The killer is also interesting and quite well fleshed out. A little more fleshing out and this book would work as a pretty mainstream thriller. In fact it's better, in my eyes, than many of the thrillers going around.


The Story of Kelric and his trying to survive being sold as a slave/provider to Aristos and his failing health. On some levels it's an interesting read but on others it's a bit so-so. Not a book to introduce yourself to the series but an interesting look at the psychology of the Aristos and some of the other things going on in Catherine Asaro's world. There's a bit too much angst to make it good and some of the escapes were a bit silly. Some of the places seem to have existed purely for CA to describe them and have him escape from them, despite his continuing and failing health.


At first this seems pretty cliched, youngish woman being chosen by a goddess to do a certain job, changes tack because of a push by the said goddess and I was thinking ho-hum, here we go another quest novel. Amusing but pretty predictable.
I was wrong, this book does suffer from first book syndrome but after the first about 150 pages it actually started to really engage me. I had and still have a few quibbles about some things in it but still a lot of what went on was actually interesting and made me want to hunt up book 2.


A sometimes interesting, sometimes laboured story of coffee trading in Amsterdam as coffee started to become popular and one man who tries to make a profit amidst intrigue. When there are a lot of people against you, who do you trust?
Honestly it passed the time but didn't impress me greatly.


Con ap Ifan left to find his fortune years ago, now he's back to visit Enid of Glyneira and his heart is conflicted between a future with her or a future in the Norman world, however there's something about her firstborn son she's not telling.
Pretty predictable but readable.


In a future earth where disaster has ruined our civilisation sander smith is in search of more information about smithcrafting. when he meets with fanyl who is searching for some answers about her family they join to search. norton takes an interesting look at our modern infatuation with machines and portrays very well the confusion of people not exposed to this kind of information. interesting and well written.


cassidy st john,an aspiring writer,loses her job and finds a job modeling for the artist colin sullivan. while modeing for him she finds herself attracted to him. a pretty predictable read.


Caroline Malone is a heart surgeon who suffers a hand injury that threatens her career. She's sent to heal in a remote texan mountain community where she finds Diego Montalvo who is healing from his own wounds and trying to help take over the role of his grandmother as local healer, as well as using the skills he learned as a special forces medic.
Fun, light read.


In a complicated family where Rebecca Ryan's brother Jonnie was kidnapped and found dead; panic strikes when her nephew Todd goes missing and the bodies of some witnesses start mounting. Her nephew's fear is affecting her. Her childhood sweetheart, now a doctor in the local hospital, Clay, is trying to help as well.


Lila Black has had an interesting history with Elves. Magic, elemental energy, demons and technology exist side-by-side in this alternative version of our world. A little Shadowrunish, or maybe TORG, there was a Quantum Bom and the spaces between the different dimensions were pulled together, or ripped apart.
Lila Black was put back by technology after the Elves damaged her, she hasn't quite got used to the implications of her new body and it's limitations. The AI that co-exists with her is also not a completely known quantity. When she's assigned to guard an Elf magician she's dragged into the games Elves play and their politics.
I'm looking forward to checking out more of this series to see what happens next.


A fun read. Chasidah (Chaz) Bergren is on a prison planet having been wrongly accused and court-martialed. Killing a prison warden in self-defence, the man who she loves and thinks is dead turns up, Gabriel Sullivan. He has secrets and she has to wonder does he love her or love what she can do to help him. Through romance and intrigue they find out about each other and where they are going.


The last imperial dragon is being barely cared for by Master Lan, most of the duties fall to his slave girl - Ping - a name we don't find out till later as he doesn't bother using her name and she doesn't know it either it's on a necklace she wears. She rescues the dragon from certain death and they go on an adventure to the ocean where the dragon needs to go to for healing.
They fight through necromancers and the dragon hunter who has claimed that Ping is an evil sorceress!
An interesting story that has a great character in the Dragon with Ping as an interesting secondary character, missing some depth but that's probably because it is intended as a children's book.
Apt that I'm listening to a Welsh piece of music while writing this cause it has a lot of influence from Welsh legend. The second book in this series this does develop the characters and bring them through some tribulations which developes them and leaves a lot of openings for the next book. Both Gwenlliant and Tryffin find themselves in the otherworld, seperately, both in search of different things but finding that their paths have some parallels. It's interesting to see them develop as characters and I do want to see what happens next.


Harmless predictable medical romance between two doctors.


Travelling through space to another world humans find themselves in a world abandoned by another people. These people have left legacies of energy and gods that now have to be dealt with by the humans. Elron the Clanless and Gathea the wise woman find themselves exploring this realm and find out more about themselves in the process.

A history of the Witchworld and a very interesting and compelling read. I did really want more!


So Jo is dead and she needs to learn what being a Djinn means. David is keeping her alive and she's trying to work out what's attacking the worlds. Meanwhile some of her enemies are trying to take over the world again, this time she has more and less power than she did at the beginning. An interesting story with plenty of twists and turns but definitely the middle of a series.


Second book in the series and Maelen is trapped in the body of what looks like a pet and Krip is trying to work out the effects of his new body. Meanwhile they land on a planet that has inhabitants who want to continue what they started centuries ago. It was a very good example of Andre Norton's work and I really got involved with the characters and their lives.


Fun sequel to A.K.A. Goddess. This time involves Egypt, the Isis Cup and some parental kidnapping. It was fun to see the relationship between Maggie and Lex develop and how they had to learn to trust each other to survive.


I know that I read a chapter or two of this one before but the book was an interesting one. More of a romance with a thriller thrown in than a completely thriller novel it was a good read, quick too.

David Ransom is a Lawyer with a bit of a problem with incompetent Doctors. When Kate Chesne storms into his office to demand that he listen to her side of the story he starts to question her guilt. As the bodies mount they start to wonder when she will be next. In order to save her life they have to work together and find out the who and why of the murders.


This one is concentrated in the otherworld of Faerie. Ruth finds her way into faerie through a gate in the basement of the library she's working in. This book works as a bridging novel to the rest of the series and you can see where the setups are for conflict and where there are going to be issues that will have to be worked out before the characters achieve their goal. I liked Nic tho!