Gin Blanco is an assassin. She goes under the name The Spider. Her weapon of choice is knives and she’s very good at her job, something she will rarely shut up about, even in times when people are trying to kill her. Gin lives in a world where there are a number of elementals, controlling fire, ice, earth, air, water, stone, even electricity and the like. Gin is a stone elemental and can also control ice. If you forget, she’ll remind you every third chapter […]
Son of a *itch
I read Wicked several years back, around the time the play was gaining popularity, and it took forever to read. In my mind it took forever because I was in college and a lot of my reading was for class not for pleasure. After reading Son of a Witch I realize my memory must have been kind to Wicked if it was anything like its sequel. Maybe I just like catchy musicals, not what they’re based on… I was only able to read a few […]
Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
This story is about two cups of Beauty and the Beast, a dash of Rumpelstiltskin, and a pinch of Bluebeard. The mixture is then blended with a heaping tablespoon of fantasy (I don’t know, there’s this weird touch magic thing). A teenage girl named Nyx is forced to marry a horrible beast. Her future is to kill him, though she will also die in the process. I had some major issues with the main character at times. There are some inexcusable moments of stupidity. Overall, […]
I’m a nice man.
Rogues was my second George R.R. Martin/Gardner Dozois themed anthology in less than six months, and I’m happy to say I enjoyed it more overall than their previous effort, Dangerous Women. (I will pick up Warriors eventually. Maybe next year. I’m soooo done with anthologies for now.) And I’m sad to say, especially for how good Martin is at writing lady characters, I really think the main difference is that a lot of genre writers (including women!) just could not fathom how to write a […]
“…once you learn your answers, you can never unlearn them.”
From Goodreads: “Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and […]
London calling to the underworld
Ben Aaronovitch’s Moon Over Soho was the first book I ever reviewed for Cannonball Read (CBR 4, 2012), and I loved it – it was dark, fresh, funny and deep. Broken Homes pales in comparison–both the light and shadow of Rivers of London and Moon Over Soho have faded, and things seem to be deliberately slowed down rather than allowed to proceed at their natural pace. When the book opens, Peter Grant, Nightingale and Leslie are still on the trail of the Faceless man, London […]