Review of To Be Chosen (Paperback)

How to begin?This is a book I picked up after an author e-mail/press release in January '08.The tagline "Ask yourself what you would do if you were chosen to better humanity...because you were," sets the expectation that this book is going to go somewhere.I plodded through the child-like text and choose-your-own-adventure plot and closed this book gladly.Despite glimmers of deeper thought that step out of text sporadically - the appearance of the green man, phrases like "a living statue of gold and volcanic glass", the inference of Nietzsche (the abyss gazes into you), right up to one of the closing concepts of an Earth on which "the freed slaves from a hundred worlds were equal in number to the surviving humans" - are few and far between.Despite the books promise, "profound thoughts are provoked," by and large the story is a mish-mash of Wikipedia-like entries and badly chosen grammar, fragmented sentences and in many cases the repeated use of the incorrect word (wonder vs. wander, passed vs. past in particular).Child-like telling is consistent throughout: a constant switching between highbrow concept straight to gutter talk and unending references to any one of the character's butts, packages, pecs, biceps, etc. become an uninteresting dull roar.The diary of a peeping Tom.Unthinkingness - to quote Samuel Delany.The entire book should be culled to the choicest of its concepts and then smartly edited and re-issued.

Product Description

They never asked to be chosen. They didn't want the weight of the world on their shoulders. But God had selected them for a mission only the three of them could carry out.

A grieving father with a superficial and materialistic lifestyle, a lovely witch, and a gay college boy are united by newfound supernatural powers and an ever-morphing spiritual guide to battle a demonic invasion from another world and Earth's own past. A motley group of friends and even the ghosts of loved ones join these outcasts, chosen to be God's Hammer, as they fight in city streets and farmyards to save mankind and each other. Love, sex, violence, spirituality, mystery, suspense, magic, and humor combine in an adventure that provides a glimpse at the hardest and sweetest human truths.

This contemporary fantasy will appeal to fans of every genre of speculative fiction. The surprising bonus is that the thrilling action on every page is a reminder that even a freak like you is loved without limit. Ask yourself what you would do if you were chosen to better humanity. because you were.

Click Here to see more reviews about: To Be Chosen (Paperback)

Review of Spotted Lily (Paperback)

SPOTTED LILY is a remarkable novel of dark satire.It is brutal and terrifying.It is painful and beautiful.It is profound and I think it has the makings of a classic.This is far from an easy read, and it is not commercial -- it simply cannot be, not with the nature of themes it explores:god is dead and ultimate ennui.

Herein lies a peculiar, resonant, and bitter combination of Bulgakov's THE MASTER AND MARGARITA, a very adult version of Philip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS, and frequent touches of Kafka and Marquez's ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE.

The satire is dark and biting and yet it is the pathos of Angela that got to me, her humanism and vulnerabily and the subtle nature of the fragile self and self-image hell (on earth!) she wallows in -- it broke my heart.

The novel is steeped in a succession of naturalist and surreal details -- sensual, beautiful/ugly dissonance and erotic fetish, frequently shocking and supremely memorable.There is loss of dignity and the redemption of self, over and over; a dance.

And the Australian heart is there -- I who have never been to Australia feel that now I have; the Bush is IMPRINTED upon me. Her childhood home, the secret place her father wept... flowers placed in ordinary jam jars to bloom in small private wonder.

The journey of Angela is ultimately an amazing piece of pshychological portraiture.And her deal with the Devil is merely the tip of the iceberg.

This is, to me, a work of literary significance, far transcending the boundaries of genre of the fantastic -- Anna Tambour makes an amazing novel debut.

Product Description
Angela Pendergast, escapee from the Australian bush, grew up with the smell of hot mutton fat in her hair, the thought of her teeth crunching a cold Tim Tam chocolate biscuit-the height of decadent frivolity.

Now, though her tastes have grown and she knows absolutely what she wants, her life is embarrassingly stuck.

So when the Devil drops into her bedroom in her sharehouse in inner-city Sydney with a contract in hand, she signs.

He's got only a Hell's week to fulfil his side, but in the meantime he must chaperone her-or is it the other way around?

A Locus Recommended Reading List Selection

Click Here to see more reviews about: Spotted Lily (Paperback)

Review of The Alukam (Paperback)

This is certainly one of those cases of don't judge a book by its cover. The cover art looks like a ten year old did it and does nothing to portray the quality of this story. This is an excellent police procedural novel that pits a police detective, who also happens to be an Orthodox Jew, against a cunning centuries-old serial killer.

This book was fascinating in all the details, and not just in the exploration of Judaism, both historical and modern. The author is obviously extremely well read and constantly adds interesting tidbits of information about almost everything. I learned a lot from reading this book like the fact that embalming fluid is bright pink, the difference between a clinical pathologist and a forensic pathologist, that you can tell an unmarked police car from the heavy duty locking gas cap. So much extraneous information, although all of it interesting, that the author came across as somewhat of a know-it-all trying to show off. Despite that, the book will certainly satisfy the lovers of Vampire fiction, adding an entirely new chapter to an already huge vampire mythology, and at the same time will intrigue the mystery lovers, with its realistic approach. The Alukam is certainly a book that vampire lovers don't want to miss.

Product Description
From 17th Century Poland to 1993 Florida, this fascinating novel seamlessly combines the matter of fact style of a police procedural with the horror and eroticism of the vampire. Drawn from obscure stories in the Jewish mystical tradition, The Alukam presents an entirely new type of vampire, one unaffected by crosses, sunlight, or any of the usual remedies, and who can rest in his coffin only on the Sabbath.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Alukam (Paperback)

Review of Dust (Paperback)

The book was great!What I liked most was that I couldn't figure out the ending.Pure suspense!A lot of similarities to Stephen King.Can't wait until the movie version!

Product Description
While unloading groceries in her Rock Haven condo, Karen McKay notices a strange swirl of red, green, and blue dust. The swirl follows her inside, lifts a porcelain ballerina from her wall unit, twirls it in the air, and throws it to the floor, shattering it into pieces. The following evening, Karen hears her neighbor's dog barking loudly. Upon investigation, she finds her neighbor, Marion, at the bottom of the stairs?dead. At the top of the stairs, a colorful whirlpool of dust circles ominously. Now the feisty librarian must consider the unthinkable: Could the dust be responsible for her neighbor's death and, if so, would it kill again? Karen turns to her ex-husband, Jerry, for help and together they bravely confront the mysterious dust. But will their daring actions cost them their lives?

Click Here to see more reviews about: Dust (Paperback)

Review of Bloodtide (Blood...) (Paperback)

The city of London is slowly crumbling, with two prominent sides tearing the city apart. There are the half-men who are too grotesque, too unworthy of living the normal life they once had, all because of the way they were transformed against their will. Then there are the humans, the ones who would rather dominate the world around them than save the city from total chaos.

Among these humans are two clans, the Conors and the Volsons. Both have the thirst for power and both are willing to do anything to take over London, then England, and then all of Europe. The leaders are agreeing to combine both clans, with a marriage between Signy, the daughter from the Volson clan, and King Conor.

A betrayal from the Conor clan leads to Signy, who was inspired to do anything for power by her father, the leader of the Volson clan, and Siggy, her twin brother who was skeptical of the entire idea to begin with, on a crazed road to vengeance.

It is up to Signy and Siggy to recapture what was once theirs and hopefully restore London back to what it used to be, and what it used to stand for.

BLOODTIDE takes readers on a futuristic journey that they will never forget. With its raw material and controversial plot, the story is a page-turner that will leave everyone on the edge of their seat. Melvin Burgess continues the story of restoring a city that is completely damaged in the second novel, BLOODSONG.

Reviewed by:Randstostipher "tallnlankyrn" Nguyen

Product Description

PART I

London is in ruins, a once highly advanced city now a gated wasteland. Within its walls, a bloody war rages between two clans. Hope is sparse, but the people believe the gods have risen from the dead.

Odin himself has come to play a part in the lives of two twins, abrother and sister from the Volson clan. Siggy and Signy must come togrips with their destiny as London's future teeters on the edge of aknife....

Click Here to see more reviews about: Bloodtide (Blood...) (Paperback)

Review of The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1) (Paperback)

At under 300 pages, "The Gunslinger" - the first book from Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series - may seem oddly short, especially when compared to the latest volume from the epic, weighing in at around 700 pages. Andstill, Constant Reader, there are thousands more to go!

According to theafterword from this book, it took King twelve years to complete thewritings. He wrote the opening line, "The Man in Black fled across thedesert, and the Gunslinger followed"while an undergraduate, the middleportions when "`Salem's Lot" was going bad, and was inspired with anotherconcurrent writing: "The Stand." For King to have kept the Gunslinger, theMan in Black, Jake, and the other characters - and really the entire worldof the Dark Tower - alive for so long in his mind is a testament to notonly the power that this held over the author, but holds over us - hisConstant Readers. Moreover, since the first publishing of "The Gunslinger,"around twenty years have passed, a number of newer volumes in this serieshave come and gone - yet with this first, partially inspired by RobertBrowning's poem, "Childe Roland," and partially inspired by reams of greenpaper (read the afterword to the book), you know that this was a veryspecial creation indeed.

I am not a fan of King's horror fiction. Butwhen he gets down to writing about "other worlds than these," such as "TheStand," "Insomnia," "The Green Mile," and "The Talisman" (co-authored withPeter Straub) - there is no one better. His is an imagination to be jealousof. There is always a feeling that alternate universes exist, next to ourown. King imbues his other worlds with just enough of our own so that wefeel a tantalizing connection between our own perceptions of reality, andthose that King entertains us (Constant Readers) with.

At any rate, "TheGunslinger," at under 300 pages, is just right to introduce us to the worldof The Dark Tower, and keep us on course, with a desire to continue (and towait, ever so patiently for the next volume in the series) the journey theGunslinger started many years ago.



Click Here to see more reviews about: The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, Book 1) (Paperback)

Review of Insect Dreams: The Half Life Of Gregor Samsa (Paperback)

When an imaginative and gifted author can use a giant roach as his main character, include a romance between the roach and a human, and still make you love him, he's accomplished a colossal feat.Yet these are only a few of Estrin's marvelous achievements in this thoughtful, but very playful, and often very funny chronicle of western history and thought from World War I through the dropping of the atomic bomb in World War II.Gregor Samsa, the famous salesman turned roach in Kafka's Metamorphosis, ends up not in Kafka's dustbin, but as part of a Viennese freak show run by Amadeus Hoffnung, in the opening chapter, "Tails of Hoffnung."

Reciting Rilke and discoursing on Spengler's Decline of the West, Gregor attracts the attention of writer Robert Musil, who tells him that although western humanity is finished, that "Society...is in a larval state.What it needs is a larval model to lead it onward, upward, and out of the corral," and Gregor is that larval model, his ironic task being to teach us what it means to be human.

In lighthearted, fast-paced prose, Estrin describes Gregor's emigration to New York, his search for identity, and his eventual connection to seminal events in western history and the people responsible for them.The music of Charles Ives, the Scopes trial (at which Gregor, ironically, testifies), the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, the election and administration of FDR, and the development of the atomic bomb are just a few of Estrin's sensitively presented turning points of American history. At Eleanor Roosevelt's urging, Gregor accepts the offer to move into the White House, where he lives, literally, as part of the "kitchen cabinet" and works at the Department of Agriculture as an exterminator.

Extermination and the death of "others" are, in fact, strong themes throughout this novel, despite its playfulness, and an increasing gravity and darkness develop as the plot progresses. As Gregor, the king of otherness,shows us, the U.S., historically, has not been immune to prejudice, and he is remarkably critical of FDR for failing to take an early stand against the Holocaust when clear evidence was available to him. Still, this powerful book ends on a positive note, one which readers of this extraordinary tale will long remember--and, I suspect, share with their friends.Mary Whipple



Click Here to see more reviews about: Insect Dreams: The Half Life Of Gregor Samsa (Paperback)

Review of Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (Hardcover)

You are never going to believe what Queen Mab wants Harry to do in exchange for a favor owed her.She wants him to rescue Gentleman Johnny Marcone (one of Chicago's most nefarious gangsters) from unknown kidnappers.

Now, having Johnny out of the scene could be a good thing?Well, not if the folks holding him are the order of the Denarians.And yes, they want Gentleman Johnny to take one of those ill-fated coins and the demon possession that goes with.

Unfortunately, Queen Titania is not in agreement with her sister regarding Johnny's possession and she sends some heavies of her own to get Harry's goat. What is described as a small favor turns out to be a serious threat to many of the people Harry cares about.

As always, Jim Butcher puts a lot of heart into his novels.He's kept Harry a good man, someone who'd risk his own life for others, a real hero in the urban fantasy genre.

We get some favorites returning: Michael Carpenter and his family; Sanya, the Black Russian Knight; Captain Luccio; Gard (remember Monoc Security, part of Marcone's protection?); and others.

"Small Favor" is one of the faster paced Dresden novels around.Jim had me hooked from the beginning and didn't let up until I turned the last page.I was glad to read that Butcher has ideas for 20 or so Dresden novels on the books and I seriously hope that his publisher will allow him to continue writing them.



Click Here to see more reviews about: Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) (Hardcover)

Review of Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (Hardcover)

Over the course of the last few books, the Dresden Files has been steadily upping the ante for our pal Harry Dresden. He has become a Warden, picked up an Apprentice, triumphed over Hellfire, captured the attention and respect of an Archangel and shown significant signs of growth as a Wizard.

Harry has grown so much that by Turn Coat, the series has really come full circle in many ways. In Storm Front, Harry was the suspected Warlock who had to prove himself to the Wardens, specifically Morgan. It was Morgan who had to pull Harry's butt out of the fire. Now, ten books later and at roughly the halfway point in the Dresden Files (according to info at his site), it is Morgan who is the suspected Warlock/traitor to the White Council, and it is Harry he comes to to pull his butt out of the fire.

Morgan shows up on Harry's door, looking like death warmed over and barely able to speak, but what he does say is like a bombshell dropping: he is a hunted man, accused of murdering a member of the Senior Council.

So begins the best Dresden Files book yet. Turn Coat is everything I expected, and more, it is everything I hoped for. It has been the worst kept secret of the series that a traitor was lurking in the highest echelon of the White Council, and the unveiling of that traitor is very well done. The highest compliment I can pay to Butcher is that he genuinely kept me guessing until he wanted us to know. The ultimate reveal is handled with complexity and a laudable maturity of authorship.

Many of the usual faces return for Turn Coat. Molly, Mouse, Thomas, Murphy, Morgan, Ebenezar, Luccio, the Alphas and Toot-Toot!! all have feature supporting roles, (though Ramirez is surprisingly absent since the book is so much about the Council) and of course, they are all as excellent as ever.

Other characters we have already met, but know little about, such as The Gatekeeper and Injun Joe, are explored in more detail. I do not know about anyone else, but this book is worth it for Listens-to-Wind alone. He is just an amazing Wizard, and I look forward to seeing him more in later books. Add in some quality Gatekeeper conversations and a real look at what just some of the Senior Council can do in action, and you really have as much Wizard action as ever before. And they are really only a very small fraction of the goodness that is Turn Coat!

Ultimately what I am most impressed by is how much Butcher is willing to change the "status quo". There are some major shakeups in Turn Coat, and somewhat of a change in direction for the series. As Bob the Skull says, Harry has really started playing in the Big Leagues. His power and abilities are increasing, but so are the threats he has to face, as the world around him is getting nastier and more perilous every day.

I compared Grave Peril to the second season of Buffy once, similar in how both characters really grew up all at once. I would compare Turn Coat to the fourth season of Angel: a movement away from the more singular storytelling and the beginning of piecing together the larger tapestry. Both characters somewhat outgrow their PI status, still utilizing the talents but focused more directly on the larger scale. Both face enormous powers behind the scenes as they are caught up in the whirlwind, losing friends and allies along the way, but they shall Not Fade Away.

This one has it all: good philosophical debate, fascinating new insight into some characters we thought we knew, moral and ethical quandaries that exceed mere "black and white" bordering into grey, killer action, quality one-liners and a deepening sense of maturity to the series as a whole.

418 pages has never felt so short.

5 out of 5 stars



Click Here to see more reviews about: Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (Hardcover)