Book Reviews

Destroyer is the latest in Cherryh’s Foreigner series, the tale of Bren ameron’s tempestuous relationship with the alien atevi. As the paidhi, Bren is the sole human permitted to enter atevi society, and on his head rests the task of translating not only language and culture, but also the instinctual behaviors that can seem deceptively similar … with sometimes deadly results.

As Destroyer opens, Bren returns to his adopted planet following the 2-year space mission to retrieve human colonists from a remote space station. That mission had been concluded successfully (though not without difficulty). He is accompanied by his atevi staff, the dowager Illisidi, and the heir-apparant to atevi society. But the situation he finds upon his return is not at all what he left.

The latest in Peter Clives’ series of Ex- novels, this one pits thinly-disguised alternate universe versions of Batman, Superman, and other comic book favorites against a demon lord of hell. And zombies, of course. Lots of zombies.

I’m tempted to call this a lighthearted romp through an unrealistic universe that seems more interested in making in-jokes to readers who are also comic book fans, but the zombies are sort of a downer on the whole lighthearted thing. It’s definitely a romp, though. If you don’t look too closely at any of the premises, and read enough comics as a kid to pick up the references, you’ll have fun. Without the comic background, or the previous books (Ex-Heroes, Ex-Patriots), you’ll be lost.

I ended up reading Orson Scott Card’s First Formic War series because of a discussion I had with a friend of mine about the central moral question of Ender’s Game: was Ender’s action to end his war moral or not? It would be a spoiler to describe exactly what he did; suffice it to say that it’s a close call based on the available information, and our opinions differed based primarily on whether the books in this series were considered canon or not. She had read them, I had not; but I had read the sequels to Ender’s Game and she had not. She thought the Formics had attacked first and Ender’s actions were ultimately justified; I thought the question of Ender’s Game hinged on the crucial first contact question of “What did the Formics know and when did they know it?”

Ethan Kaille is a thieftaker, someone who is hired to find thieves and recover stolen property, in Boston during the time right before the Revolutionary War. His life is complicated by a rival thieftaker, Sephira Pryce, who is more like a female caricature of a mob boss than someone on the side of justice, and her ire at his being hired by a coveted rich client to investigate the murder of the client’s daughter. I liked this book. I enjoyed the mix of the fantasy with the historical context. I obviously need to brush up on my American history, since aside from Samuel Adams and a mention of Revere, I had no idea who those supposedly historical figures were. The story was well done, and moved fast. The characters however, except for Ethan, were largely cardboard cutouts of people, not fully realized characters. The villains had no backstory to give some idea of why they went bad, they are just evil. That aside, this was a fun weekend read, and I’ll be looking for the next book.

When the best think you can say about a book is that you don’t remember reading it a year later, it’s not very flattering. That’s the only way I can describe Kiss the Dead, another Anita Blake novel from Laurel K Hamilton. Even reading the plot summary on Amazon just now failed to bring back any signifiant elements of the story. So why am I writing this review, you ask? Even the fact that a book is that forgettable is useful information. If it was really bad, I would remember that. If it was really good, or even just interesting, I would remember that too. But instead, it’s just another Anita Blake novel. It’ll probably entertain you for a few hours.

The latest book in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Dive series, Skirmishes interweaves three plots together: a past encounter at the Room of the Lost Souls, the beginning of Boss’ attempt to dive the Boneyard and recover more working dignity vessels, and a confrontation between Cooper’s two working dignity vessels and a larger force of ships from the Empire.

Readers will want to be caught up with the earlier works in this series, because it will make absolutely no sense standing alone. The biggest complaint I had about this book was that it doesn’t advance the plot very much. With three separate narratives to follow, there just isn’t time to narrate events along each timeline very far. And while the narratives do come to a degree of resolution, there’s not enough to time to build tension before the climax arrives.

An interesting independently published ebook, The Stars Came Back is a tale of space adventure with distinct military, political and moral themes. Stylistically, it occupies an unusual dialogue-heavy space somewhere between a novel and a screenplay; the author has mentioned that he originally wrote it as a screenplay and as it grew in length the style adjusted somewhat. Though written in a manner reminiscent of a Heinlein juvenile, it is not a coming-of-age tale; almost all of the characters are adults, though they still have room to grow and change.

Set in a richly realized world roughly analogous to the 1930s, Hard Magic diverges from known history with the discovery of many forms of magic accessible to relatively ordinary humans. The main character is known as a “Heavy”, someone with the capability to alter gravity and mass. Heavies are stereotyped as slow and stupid, if physically capable – but despite the book’s opening scenes in a prison for the supernaturally inclined, it rapidly becomes obvious that appearance isn’t everything and we’re dealing with a very smart cookie indeed.

Lackey states in the afterword that she based her Arthurian tale on Welsh legends of not one, but three, queens named Gwenhwyfar. This theory does tend to clear up some of the conflicting tales of Arthur’s queen. In her novel, Lackey focuses on the third queen.

This is a pleasant read. Which seems to be the norm for Lackey’s novels lately. There is none of the emotional depth of her early novels. The heroine is one of those disgustingly well-behaved and self-aware children, who grows up into the same kind of adult. Everything seems to come easy to her. In fact, plot events in general are rather too convenient. The characters are all decently fleshed out, but seem flat, with one exception. The only character that stands out is Gwen’s vicious and vindictive younger sister. My main complaint, aside from the lack of three dimensional characters, is that the story isn’t exciting. There is no tension here, even in the spots that Lackey is clearly intending there to be tension.

Dave Duncan is an author I am familiar with from mainly from his King’s Blades series, a straightforward and competently written set of mostly-independent tales of supernaturally bound bodyguards. The Alchemist’s Apprentice takes a step closer to the real world, being set in a version of Venice where magic is somewhat more effective than in ours.

The alchemist of the title is Nostrademeus, and the apprentice one Alfeo Zeno, the latter being a character more reminiscent of a Dumas musketeer than anything else. When Nostrademeus is accused of a murder by poison to burnish his reputation, it falls to Alfeo to prove him innocent by unraveling the plot.