Posts tagged Book Review

Major spoilers for Changes, minor spoilers for Ghost Story

Where to begin with this? Well I guess at this point it’s worth saying if you haven’t read Changes yet then don’t go any further because there’s major spoilers ahead I will try to keep spoilers for Ghost Story to a minimum but I’m sure there will be some slipping in so read on with caution if you don’t even want minimal spoilers.

It’s been a long wait for the follow up to that ending in Changes. Then we got Aftermath in Side Jobs and then some more waiting, and now we finally get to follow up on Harry’s apparent execution, and where we go from there. Well (un)surprisingly Harry is pretty spray for a dead guy. The story begins with Harry going towards the light, only this is Harry Dresden we’re talking about so of course the light at the end of the tunnel is a train coming towards him at full speed. After his fight at Chichen Itza the night before and his death he understandably feels beat and a bit pissed off about that, so decides to just stay there in front of the oncoming train. Only to be dragged off the track by a man, a man who seems to know him and who seems familiar. The man is Carmichael, Murphy’s lately deceased partner, only he looks younger, fitter and healthier.

It appears Harry was stood in front of the “Southbound train” and that’s not somewhere he wanted to go. And so Carmichael takes him to headquarters to talk to the Captain. Harry is in the “Between” he’s not ready to move on so here he is in an empty “Could have been” Chicago, it’s not quite the Chicago that is, but all the possible buildings that could have existed, and it’s empty but has a strange feeling of danger to it.

When he talks to the Captain he discovers the other side cheated and his death wasn’t what it appeared, he has a choice, he can stay there in the between and work with them and what appears to be guardian angels, or he can try to move on and in order to move on he has to solve his murder, and if he can’t solve it 3 of his friends are in danger and could die. So of course Harry has to go back and help his friends, though will be a ghost, they won’t be able to see or hear him. He’s given a lift back to real Chicago, and given no one can see him, he chooses to go to the one place he knows he will be able to get help, Mortimer Lindquist, Ectomancer.

On his arrival Harry notices Mort’s house has changed since he last saw it. A much nicer place, less like a dressed up spooky place and a more calming and quiet place. Walking up to the house he’s stopped by a big ghost at the door, Sir Stuart of the Colonial Marines, he won’t let Harry pass without good reason, after a quick chat Harry convinces him to take him to Mort so he can talk, and once in the house Mort decides Harry is trouble and runs off and hides in a room, where Harry tries to run in and follow, and being Harry, runs smack in to a solid wall and falls on his arse. Mort it seems is smarter than Harry gives him credit for, he painted the wall of this room with Ghost Dust and made it impenetrable to ghosts. And just then an attack starts on the house. Wraiths are attacking Mort’s house, and Sir Stuart and his gang of soldier ghosts are protecting the house, from a distance Harry notices are the back there’s a grey cloaked ghost and a floating skull, looking a lot like Bob, but Harry being a newbie in the ghost stakes knows nothing of how to fight against these things, his magic won’t come to his command and he’s practically helpless.

So this is how things start with this Ghost Story. The main mystery of the story is Who Killed Harry Dresden? But the main thrust is Harry trying to do what he’s always done, only being stymied by not actually being able to do anything to effect the physical world. His usual tactic of kick in a door and throw fire around won’t do him any good, so he has to think round things and do put in to practice what he’s been telling Molly for the past few books. Of course, this is a Dresden book and there’s more than a little magic thrown around and more than a few stupid moves by Harry, as per usual.

As you’d expect a large part of the book focuses on ghosts and what they are, ghosts are build on the memories of the person, so we get a lot of backstory from Harry’s life, we finally hear the full story on what happened with Justin, Elaine and He Who Walks Behind. And it’s not quite what I imagined, but it fits what we already knew, and also gives us some interesting ideas to dwell on for the future. There’s some real insights for Harry here, in his own life, who he is and what he could be.

I guess at the start I was thrown a bit by the shift in style here, there’s some really dark stuff here. Not that The Dresden Files is a light series, and Changes was Dark but here is seems really hard, I loved it in the end, but it started out a difficult to take. Jim has taken a bat to Harry in the past, it seems now it’s time the other characters got in on the action, too. I doubt it’s going to get much lighter in the books ahead either, but it seemed harsh here for some reason.

That said I loved the book, as I do all books in the series, there’s plenty of the humour you expect in there to balance out the dark, there’s a lot of nice moments where you feel glad to be with these familiar characters again, but there’s also times that bring a lump to the throat or a heart breaking sadness at the tough decisions and hurt that is being dropped on them.

As always I recommend the series to any one. This book feels like it could be a jumping on point for new reads, as there’s a lot of explanation of the situation, the rules, the relationships and everything else governing the Dresdenverse, but I would really recommend anyone starts at the beginning and reads them all, even being a long haul it’s well worth it.

I’ve had this novel sat here for a few weeks now and it’s taken me some time to get around to reading it. A friend wrote this, as yet, unpublished novel and kindly allowed me to read it. She asked if I could write an honest review of it for her when I was done. So here we are an honest review.

Charming Incantations is the story of Elizabeth Richards, or Lisa as she prefers, and her struggle to come to terms with her life when it changes so much after an accident that killed her parents. She is thrust in to a world of the supernatural, where she discovers her family have been part of an ancient alliance between the magical and supernatural creatures and the human race to fight an ongoing war against the goblins. She is told the humans abandoned the Alliance long ago and she is the only human who knows of it’s existence and the fate of the human world rests in her on her shoulders.

As the story starts we come in as she’s meeting the representatives of each type of supernatural race; Werewolf, Banshee, Witch, Shapeshifter and Vampire and after discussing the nature of The Alliance she becomes a little overwhelmed. It’s decided Lisa should stay with Romulus, the extremely handsome werewolf representative, since she’s new to this world and has no idea what’s happening or the danger she’s in Romulus is to protect her and train her to defend herself.

Of course, this being a dark romance/fantasy book aimed at the teen audience, you know what happens next Bella and Edward (or perhaps that should be Jacob)… sorry, Lisa and Romulus form a budding romance, but he’s dangerous and doesn’t think she should risk it… you know what you’d expect really. If this sounds like I’m belittling the story, I’m not really, though it is pretty much par for the course in these stories and in it’s defence it has an interesting mythology and backstory that definitely kept my interest throughout. To be fair I’m not exactly the target audience but it seems a good addition to the genre with a well established world, wide ranging characters and an interesting True Blood meets Buffy kinda feel to it with its mix of romance, training to fight monsters, longing for an ordinary life when destiny is calling and big battles it isn’t quite either but reminded me of both. Of course being aimed at younger audiences it isn’t as graphic or sexually charged as True Blood.

The story is a little predictable, or maybe just well foreshadowed, but I’m guessing in future stories it’ll turn out to be more than it appears in this one, but I’m probably getting ahead of myself.

With some entertaining and interesting characters, as well as some of the cliches you expect from these type of stories I think it’d definitely work for the teen audience. A well done and interesting story but (and sorry Monique I know I’ve already said this to you) could benefit from a professional editor to come in and do some cleaning up and proofreading. Though I have to say, somewhat despite myself, I’m interested in seeing where the story leads and I would recommend it to anyone who likes this kind of story.

I decided to read Rivers of London after seeing a review calling it “The British Dresden Files”. I found that to not really be a very apt description but loved the book nonetheless.

The story begins with a murder near St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, and we find the hero of the story, PC Peter Grant, on guard duty keeping the crime scene clear, while his friend and fellow probationary office, Leslie May, heads off to get a coffee from a near by cafe. When he sees someone skulking about. When he approaches this person he finds to his surprise that rather than a drunk Londoner it is in fact a ghost from then 18th century. This ghost professes to have seen the murder and Peter’s policing instincts take over and he asks for his eye witness statement, which just sounds bizarre. The killer took a bat and knocked the victims head clean off. This interview is cut short when they’re interrupted by Leslie with the coffee.

Later, after finishing their probation, Leslie is assigned to the murder team and Peter is assigned to the case forwarding unit, which basically means paperwork for Peter. So trying to plumb for a better assignment he decides to go back to the church and see if he can talk to the ghost again and find some information that may break the case and increase his chances of being put to better use. But when no ghost is forthcoming he is left sitting there all night, until a strangely dressed man asks him what he’s doing, and he tells the truth, “looking for ghosts”. It turns out this strangely dressed man is actually Inspector Nightingale, a senior officer in the Met and a wizard, who actually runs a department charged with keeping the Queen’s peace amongst the supernatural and magical in Great Britain, and he recruits Peter to be his apprentice. The first Wizard’s apprentice in a very long time.

From there Peter is sucked in to a world of magic, ghosts and gods and goddesses and drags his friend Leslie along for the ride. The plot revolves around trying to solve the murder, which turns in to a rash of murders, while avoiding a turf war between the god (Father) and goddess (Mama) of the Thames and their sons and daughter, each named after tributaries and forgotten rivers of London, hence the title. 

With vivid characters, a plot that is paced very well and a mixture of humour, darkness and detailed observations of police procedure and of London itself the book is compelling and charming. In fact half way through I put down preorders on the next 2 in the series with no hesitation. So while calling it The British Dresden Files isn’t really a good description it is a good comparison if it attracts fans of the series and the genre because if I’m anything to go by they will love it.

Score 4/5

I’ve first became a fan of Jim Butcher’s work thanks to The Dresden Files TV series. While the show was a poor but improving urban fantasy series it introduced me to the fantastic novel series. I tore through the first 7 books of the series in a few weeks and it has become perhaps my favourite series of books. After I finished reading them and discovering the next story was 6 months away I looked for more of his work and found The Codex Alera.

Now I’ve never been a fan of traditional fantasy so I was a little wary at first, and it took me a while to get used to the change in tone and style from The Dresden Files books, but around half way in to the first book, The Furies of Calderon, I became hooked.

Since First Lord’s Fury is the sixth book in the series I’ll give a bit of background. The story takes place on the world of Carna, a world with many different intelligent species, who seemingly were lost on this planet. The humans of Carna live in the realm of Alera, a realm based on the customs of Ancient Rome, but the Alerans have developed the skill of Furycrafting.

Furies are elemental beings who reside in the air, fire, earth, water, wood and metal of Carna, and the people of Alera have learned how to use and control Furies and master the world around them.

The story starts with a boy called Tavi, who is the apprentice shepherd on his uncle’s steadholt. He has no powers of furycrafting and he is considered a freak amongst his people. When he becomes embroiled in a plot to start a war with the Marat, a barbarian race who killed the Princeps of the realm 15 years prior, he has to use the brains and wit he has to avert a battle that could cost thousands of lives.

From that moment on the story draws you in to its world of different races and tells a strong story with lots of action, with twists and turns. Some fairly predictable with the clues dropped along the way, others that seem a bit cliché at times but always entertaining and hard to put down.

Now I’m going to get on to some details of the final book, so if the stuff so far has interested you then I recommend you stop reading now and go read the series so you don’t pick up any spoilers because there are some pretty big spoilers.

After the death of the First Lord in the battle with the Vord at Alera Imperia High Lord Aquataine has taken command and is acting as Princeps of Alera. He commands the forces of Alera from the city of Riva where the they retreated to after losing the capital city when First Lord Gaius Sextus unleashed the Great Fury below the city in an attempt to land a crippling blow to the Vord.

Meanwhile Tavi is sailing back from Canea with the last remnants of the Canim civilisation, hoping to bring their long time enemy together with Aleran legions in an effort to have a united front against the Vord. When he learns of his grandfather’s death he begins to plan how he can defeat the Vord and claim his rightful place as First Lord in time for there to be a realm left to fight for.

I’ve enjoyed this series immensely and like the way Jim Butcher weaves elements of the story in early in the series that come to fruition much later, and characters aren’t interchangeable, they’re introduced and disappear in to the framework of the story to come back later, not just forced in to the story for the sake of being there, or only there to perform the role the plot demands then disappear

It is one of the few book series that I find hard to put down and fly through in a day or two and leaves me wanting more, or even to go back and read them all over again.

The series taken as a whole scores 4/5.

The book on its own scores 4.5/5