Cast in Sorrow by Michelle Sagara

Title: Cast in Sorrow
Author: Michelle Sagara
Publisher: Harlequin Luna
Rating: worthy

This is the Chronicles of Elantra Series #9. There are brief reviews of the entire series on my Novel Series page.

Normally I don't do covers because I don't care what a cover looks like; I care about the content, and the writer has absolutely no say (and no se) in what crap goes on there unless they self-publish, and even then many of them hire someone else to create the cover, so I have to ask on Sagara's behalf: which idiot writes book blurbs like the one on this back cover: "The end is only the beginning"? Seriously? Is that meant to be deep or something? This is the major advantage of self-publishing - it’s all your own. You get to say how it reads, how the cover looks, what the blurb says, Yours may be just as idiotic, but at least it's your idiocy, and not someone else's! Nuff said!

I can't begin to express how thrilled I was when I saw this one on the library shelf. I snatched it up in a spit second. Unfortunately, I couldn't start on it right away because I had two others to finish. But now I am into it, and it's like coming home. Michelle Sagara is a KICK-ASS writer who knows how to build a completely enthralling world, and she's created a serious contender for Hall-of-Fame All-Star All-Time female hero in Kaylin Neya. I will detail this in detail giving you the detailed details as soon as I've had a nap!

As accomplished and skillful a writer as Sagara is, there's still the odd occasion when she could use some editing! For example, on p335 we get this: "…why would be live as a pet?" which should, I'm assuming, be: "…why would he live as a pet?" Sad to say (and I don't recall this from earlier novels, but maybe those had it too), Sagara is yet another devotee of long moments, and long minutes, and even a long half hour! And the number of times she uses the phrase "like, and unlike" or a variant of it, is really, really annoying!

On the confusing front, I found this piece on p49: "The stairs that fronted it were flat and wide, the columns that held the roof almost the height of the trees that stood to the right and the left of the building." When I first read this, I was confused about what she was saying, and I had to read it again to get it. This interrupted the story for me. Leaving aside the interminable argument about the use of 'that' over 'which', it seemed to me that the sentence ought to read: "The stairs that fronted it were flat and wide, and the columns that held the roof were almost the height of the trees that stood to the right and the left of the building." Maybe the whole sentence should have been re-thought and split, perhaps? Yeah, it's a minor quibble, and it's her novel, not mine, but if writers are wanting to keep readers happy, an iota of extra attention to legibility can go a long way.

Another instance appeared shortly afterwards, on p55, where the first four paragraphs at the start of chapter 4 have a character speaking without offering any indication as to who it is. This is why it's a good idea to read what you've written - both at a later date, and out loud so you can get a feel for how others might perceive it. When you read out loud, you read a little differently than when you read inside your own head. Just a thought!

On p305 Kaylin grabs Teela's hand and pulls it down and then says "What are you doing?", but the speech isn’t included with the paragraph of the yanking o' the hand, so it made it seem like Teela had said it. This was unnecessarily confusing. Sagara needs to learn when to identify the speaker. Again this is something a writer should be able to catch if they put the writing aside for a period of time and then come back to it and read it out loud. This is also an advantage which comes en suite with the "tell the story as fast as you can" style of writing, where you write the whole thing off (so to speak!) in one and the hell with editing, but then go back, once it's finished, and read it through, editing as you go.

On p364, there is a real classic: "Which guttered the little bit better entirely". I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what the heck Sagara means by this. It’s not even English in any meaningful sense! But enough of this nit-picking! Let's move on.

So this story takes off where Cast in Peril left off, kinda half-way through. None of her other volumes (at least as I recall - it's been a while!) are like this: they're complete stories even while still an integral part of the series. Oh, and yes, this is a series where you really need to start on volume one to get everything that follows. The Barrani party with whom Kaylin is traveling to a ceremony in which she is to play an important part, is under attack and threats follow them, but within the first few chapters they arrive safely in the territory known as the West March where the ceremony is to be held. Kaylin will be safe until she tells the tale, but after that, all bets, it appears, are off. This writing is some of Sagara's best in her descriptions of the bizarre things which happen in the forest right before they achieve sanctuary in the Lord of the West March's property. It's fascinating to me, but this novel wasn't all plain sailing.

Having said that, I have to also add that chapters five and six are all but unintelligible in far too many places. I don't recall having this problem with Sagara's previous volumes in this series, but I pretty much read those one after another, since I was quite late coming to this series. This not only made the read pleasurable, since I had virtually no down-time between volumes, it also made it a lot easier on me in keeping track of people and events than it must have been for those people who read one novel, and then had to wait a whole year before they were able to continue the adventure. I think I had a real advantage with this flow, and this is what enabled me to enjoy the novels far better than others who had a much more staccato experience.

I know that other reviewers have expressed complaints about her poor writing - where she has a conversation start up and it's entirely unclear who is saying what and to whom. This goes back to what I said earlier about reading out loud what you wrote, and before you do that, wait a month or so. If you can't quite grasp who is doing or saying what, or why, then you know for a fact your readers won't exactly be on top of it either, and it's your fault if they're not!

Like I said, I don't recall experiencing this difficulty before, but chapters five and six in this novel are a classic examples of this problem - of the same problem I had at the start of chapter four, which I mentioned above. These two chapters also recap (after a fashion) some previous events; the problem is that it's been so long since I read those other volumes that the recaps were useless, since they were so very sparse and mentioned names and actions which I couldn't recall well (or at all!), without giving any context for those names.

In another genre, when one reads a series, the names are much more familiar and the roles those people play, much more ordinary. But I think the writer has a real responsibility to help keep the reader enlightened when taking an excursion into a fantasy world where both names and roles are pure invention and unfamiliar to the reader. Sagara fails dismally at this in these two chapters, but then she picks it up somewhat when Kaylin has to once again heal the Barrani consort - who promptly disappears during an all-out assault on Lord Lirienne's West March central (or is it central march west? - whichever it is, they're almost given their marching orders - west, right, west right, quick march - until Kaylin comes to the rescue), and by them it's almost April....

So all is forgiven because Sagara takes off again after the, ahem, bad chapters and takes it to the next level which is the one right after the mezzanine (if you're south of the border that will be the mexanine), but before you get to the sign which says "Next Level and Then Some", okay? If you reach the sign saying, "She's all that and a bag of chips" then you've gone wa-ay too far at this point. All righty then.

So, despite all the itty-bitty annoyances, Sagara puts together a pretty engrossing tale, full of amazingly imaginative scenes, and curious events, slowly but surely adding this volume to the rest in terms of stories I can say are enjoyable and addictive. I love Kaylin and An'teela, and I love especially how Sagara brings them closer as friends in this story, having each of them open up more to the other than they ever have before - but then she threatens to seriously split them apart. I'm not going to say any more on that score, but it made my skin crawl in considering that she might really do this!

So to conclude, I recommend this!

A Study in Silks by Emma Jane Holloway

Title: A Study in Silks
Author: Emma Jane Holloway
Publisher: Gallery Books
Rating: worthy!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration of any kind for this review.

Erratum:
p262 "His mouth twitch with ire." should be "His mouth twitched with ire."

I reviewed A Study in Darkness, the second novel in this series, here.

I reviewed A Study in Ashes, the third novel in this series, here.

Evelina Cooper is a niece of Sherlock Holmes. I had thought this must be through his older brother Mycroft, but it was a case of identity: Holloway has invented a non-existent sister called Marianne, who ran away to the circus! Now Evelina is an orphan with an overbearing grandmother. I was not impressed by this. I have to ask, Holloway my dear, What's on? I chose this novel and its two sequels (so I can review all three in a row) because it sounded like a great idea for a series, and I really loved the opening few pages: it really got hold of me and pulled me in, but I was led to expect a Holmes-esque novel and did not get one.

There's a wood sprite which appeared when Evelina was escaping from an attic by climbing out of the window and into a nearby tree. Yes, I was expecting elementary and got an elemental! Clearly the publicist is the man with the twisted lip - or is he the crooked man? So I'm thinking: did I just get duped by a freight and ditch? This was not at all what I come looking for when I'm told by a book blurb that this is a novel about Sherlock Holmes's niece! So we have Holmes, magic, fantasy, paranormal, automatons, demons, detectives, and steam-punk. Hmm. Why make her a relation of Sherlock Holmes and then leave me Strand-ed, betraying everything Arthur Doyle stood for in his delivery of the Holmes adventures? This Baker Street irregular made no sense to me, especially since there's really nothing in this novel, not even the appearance of Holmes himself, which reflects anything of the Doyle novels. Should I give it the five orange pips?

After getting past the beginning with no issues, I quickly started having some really mixed feelings about it. Okay, so we finally get a murder and Evelina is really doing a cracking job of sussing-out the clues, but no sooner do we have what I actually came looking for in this novel than I get handed the second stain: Holloway tosses in a completely gratuitous and appallingly tropish love triangle between her and a high-born heir to a lordship and also a lowlife from the circus. Honestly? Why in hell do women of all genders, aspire to write novels about strong female characters, and then hobble these same women with a crippling need for, and attendant dependency upon, the validation of not one but two, count 'em, two dancing men? And iffy men at that: these men are such clichés as to be truly, seriously, painfully pathetic.

I have to confess that she does make an effort with these two - to try and give them some substance - but at that point she'd already lost my good faith and wasn't making enough of an effort to regain it! I committed to reading and reviewing three of these novels (the first three in what is evidently an ongoing series), so I found myself dearly hoping this would improve, and Holloway started to come through for me as I read on, but she was too inconsistent, making me first enjoy what I read and then making me regret it by turns! For example, she made me fall in love with her for this one sentence on p123: "Silence resounded with all the majesty of an oriental gong." I have no idea why, but that just hit me right where my pleasure nodes are. Unfortunately, she came around one hundred eighty degrees right after that and saddened me.

She has now presented Evelina as secretly wanting marriage all along, and only deflected from that course by her impoverished circumstances. That seems unnecessarily genderist even in these circumstances. I know that Victorian women were raised this way, and all-too-many girls still are today, but even in reality not all Victorian women felt that way, nor traveled that path. There is no reason at all to present a fictional woman as being brain-washed by that idea unless your plot demands it. In this case, Holloway's plot does no such thing as far as I can tell; quite the opposite in fact, so why sell her main character down this particular river? I was very disappointed with this approach. However, as much as Holloway toys with my affections, addicting me one minute, and repelling me the next, I decided it was worth it, on balance, continue to read this. I pretty much have to if I'm going to proceed to volume two, and thence to three, anyway!

Here's another reason to love Holloway: "Even a stupid servant was more versatile and cost a fraction of the price." (p153). I am so glad she's smart enough to see the impracticality of a lot of the steam-punk stuff, favoring servants over automatons (although morally, it ought to be the other way around!) - so why can't she apply those obvious smarts to relationships and love triangles?! It's a bigger mystery than was Boscombe Valley, but that's not a patch on this howler exactly one third the way in describing an interaction between Evelina and one of her two male interests, Tobias, the wealthy son of a lord: "Her palms brushed the front of his jacket, feeling the soft, expensive fabric and the swell of firm, young muscle beneath. An ache throbbed deep in her body, blotting out common sense." Seriously? Evelina loves her a firm young muscle...!

Holloway improves things as she continues the story of the relationship between Evelina and Tobias, and it starts to mature intelligently and does have a real surprise at the end, which I didn't expect, so I can tell you without giving too much away that this love triangle did not go the way I had feared it would when I first read of it. Nick OTOH, is unsavory at best and pretty much went exactly where I thought he ought to end up even as I feared he wouldn't go there! I can say that Evelina continued to impress and develop, and that was where my main interest lay. And the story did stay focused, more or less, on the thing which first attracted Evelina's attention before it side-tracked into the magical.

Page 271 was interesting from my own oddball writerly perspective. I felt I'd entered a time loop when I clicked back a page. I had clicked back because I thought I'd clicked two pages forward instead of one (I hadn't, but this is a problem with ebooks and the Kindle). This page starts with "At a quick calculation, Evelina counted a dozen men who were baronet or better." and ends with "The barons are catching us, one by one, by holding our pocketbooks hostage." So what happened to me was that in clicking from that page to the same page, thinking it was the next, I read: "The barons are catching us, one by one, by holding our pocketbooks hostage. At a quick calculation, Evelina counted a dozen men who were baronet or better." It flows perfectly and took me a second to realize what I’d done. Minor weirding-out there!

But that’s not an authorship problem; in my case, it was a clueless reader problem! Maybe it's also of interest to an author interested in writing one of those self-navigation stories. These used to be common at one time, but are rare now. They’re interactive in a limited way, because at each page, you choose which page to jump to next from a selection of options presented at the bottom of the page. You could have your reader weirded-out quite nicely with a page like this one!

P271 was also of interest in that it sported this sickening sentence: "His hand on her arm sent a pleasant shiver down the back of her legs." It was a bit much, especially after I'd been feeling better about the YA trope romance between Tobias and Evelina. The worst parts were offset somewhat by Holloway's detailing of how smart Evelina was, for example when she turned away from the crowd and whispered to Tobias in order to avoid being overheard or having her lips read. Some might call that paranoid, but in the context of the novel it was very smart and I loved Evelina for doing it and, in turn, Holloway for writing that bit! Yes, I'm a sap for that kind of thing and not ashamed to admit it into polite company!

But later, Holloway makes the mistake of having Tobias use this Americanism: "I've always known you came from someplace different..." No son of a British lord, and especially not one in Victorian times, would use 'someplace'. It's 'somewhere'! That's a minor faux pas, but I kept getting vertigo from getting to a high point where I really enjoyed the writing, and then having the text swoop down low for one reason or another, before climbing back up again with the next Evelina bounty. And rest assured Evelina was not the only character who was worth the reading. Her best friend Imogen was equally entertaining, and didn't get anywhere near enough air time for my money (not that I paid any actual money!). Her relationship with "Bucky" was charming and entertaining to a wonderfully high degree - but not enough!

I do not, however, love Nick. The the final problem is that he is the creeping man, and not at all the kind of person with whom I would wish for a young lady of Miss Cooper sensitivities to spend her time. Holloway needs to kill him off heroically (she doesn't!). He is nothing but a horn-dog who has little respect for Evelina, spends the bulk of his time lusting after her, and comes uncomfortably close to raping her at one point in the novel, when he's in the throes of a magical communion with her. It's actually rather sickening, and even scary given his penchant for stalking Evelina. I don't like him at all as a character or as a friend of hers, so I was glad that he went the way he did, but not at all happy to discover that he's featured in the second of this series, as, I assume, is Tobias, or Toby-ass as he now ought to be known.

So in summary, I am rating this novel a worthy read, even though I did have a few issues with it. I had hoped for no magic or steam-punk, no fantasy, and definitely no trope romance, so why Holloway went there, I don't know, and given that she obviously had decided to go there, I can't understand why she chose to have Evelina related to Sherlock Holmes, unless it was nothing more than a cheap ploy to try and pull in readers. I suspect Holmes fans will be as annoyed and resentful of this ploy as I was. It seemed underhand to me to talk the reader up one way and then pull the rug out and send them another. This is no Sherlock Holmes tale, not even in spirit (and he is the dying detective!). It is, however, an entertaining tale for the most part, and even some of the magical stuff, particularly, Evelina's robotic mouse and bird, was really entertaining. The novel would have stood by itself without the Holmes Crutch to lean on. I have to wonder why no editor advised Holloway thus. But I am still giving this the the engineer's thumb up and moving on to volume two to see what I can find there.

Bounty Hunter by SJ Hollis

Title: Bounty Hunter
Author: SJ Hollis
Publisher: Uninvited Black Cat
Rating: WORTHY!

This novel was an easy read. It lasts about four hours according to my Kindle's count-down which appeared from nowhere some time ago at the bottom of my screen with neither warning nor explanation. It used to tell me how many minutes to the end of the chapter; now it sullenly advises me how many hours remain until to the end of the novel, like it's annoyed with me both for taking up so much of its valuable time, and also irritated by my insistent tapping its right cheek every few seconds. Don't you just hate it when your technology branches out on its own like that, doing stuff without so much as a by-your-leave? Microsoft excels (particularly with its spreadsheets!) at that sort of thing, preventing Access, trying to have the last Word, sticking its PowerPoint sharp end first in your ass while you twiddle your thumbs (or whatever you're wont to twiddle) in Paintbrush waiting for your operating system to go 'Bing!' and let you know you can finally get something done on the device which you thought you owned, but which, according to Microsoft, you empirically don't. This is why I run Ubuntu on my computer at home. It, too, can be really irritating, but it's better than Windows. At least at home I don't to deal with patiently watching the hourglass, wondering what surreptitious machinations Microsoft is perpetrating in my face behind my back.

This is a particularly appropriate introduction to Bounty Hunter, because Kai Koson, the male protagonist, is subject to the whims of fate in much the same way as we are when our computer takes over from us. He's towed along behind his uncle Galway (who may or may not be a relative), a fierce and tough protector who has taken care of Kai ever since he was a child and his parents died. Why is he on the run? Because he's a witch in a world haunted by demons who came through a witch-initiated rip in the sky long ago, and who take an immediate and very personal dislike to him for reasons he can only bemoan and ponder.

It's during one of these encounters that Kai meets Sam, a bounty hunter with a ship of her own. He turns down her offer to join her crew, but reconsiders his refusal when his uncle takes him to meet a senior witch, and Kai overhears something which he doesn't at all like. So off he goes, leaving his uncle behind and chasing his dream into the wild black yonder, seeking bountiful bounties. Over the course of his long journey he learns who his friends are. He learns deep secrets about his uncle, and about the demons, he learns why magic is so hard to come by. He learns why he was never taught to use his own. And he ends up somewhere that he never expected to go with a huge bounty of his very own.

Talking of which, I had wondered about the wisdom of the choice of title for this novel. Bounty Hunter speaks strongly of the wild west, but it doesn't really speak sci-fi to me. I asked SJ Hollis about this, and she explained it this way:

The title was there from the very beginning. I was searching for something to write about, and Sarah Rees Brennan posted on her LiveJournal that a place to search for ideas is way outside your genre. She got her idea for Demon's Lexicon, I believe, from a documentary about wolves (her book has nothing to do with wolves). So I watched lots of TV and read lots of books constantly searching for something I could twist in a YA story. Then one day I watched Dog the Bounty Hunter and thought, hmmm, teenagers, bounty hunters. In space. WITH MAGIC! WIN!

The cover concept was a group effort between me, my sister and her partner and then my illustrator Lawrence Mann. We came up with Kai's hand holding the Earth, his blood dripping, and Lawrence, from my descriptions of Kai, the demons and Laon, put together the rest.

So I can't argue with that! Frankly, now I have to wonder about how her mind works, but then she does describe herself as "slightly odd" in her bio!

This novel has been described as influenced by "Buffy, Stargate, Firefly, House, Doctor Who, Big Bang Theory, Sherlock and Supernatural". I agree with the Buffy element, in that there's demon fighting, but this is a different kettle of fish to Buffy, a show I never watched because I detested it, so don't let that put you off! I don't recall reading anything which reminded me of Stargate, but that's another show I never watched, even though I loved the movie which spawned it. I agree with the Firefly: it's very much in the mould of a cowboy/Sci-Fi mash-up. I cannot see any comparison with House, a TV show I really loved. I agree with the Doctor Who as far as the 'bigger on the inside' goes, but that was only one instance; otherwise it has nothing in common with Britain's long-running (50th anniversary: 2013!) sci-fi series - there is no time travel involved, for example. I saw no elements of Big Bang Theory jumping out. This is a show of which I'm not particularly fond, but of which I've seen several episodes (my kids love it!). I saw nothing which jumped out at me and cried Sherlock, but kudos to Hollis for mentioning it! That's another show which is coming back in the fall for what's likely to be its last run. Supernatural is on par with Buffy as far as I am concerned - my wife loves it but I can't stand it, so don't ask me to comment on that!

I honestly think this novel is done a disservice when it's compared with TV shows, because it's strong enough to stand on its own. It's unique in my reading experience in the breadth of its constituent elements, and I was most impressed by the basic plot and by the execution of the tale. There was humor (Hollis seems to have a fondness for fish!), friendship, betrayal, forgiveness, and many twists and up-endings of status quo. It was an enjoyable read which entertained me throughout, and the satisfying ending made me glad I had read it. This is definitely a WORTHY read!

Celebromancy by Michael R Underwood

Title: Celebromancy
Author: Michael R Underwood
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Rating: WARTY

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration of any kind for this review. Since this is a new novel, this review is less detailed so as not to rob the writer of their story, but even so, it will probably still be more in-depth than you'll typically find elsewhere!

Errata in galley ebook:
P42 "Pprofessional' should be "professional" or "Professional"
P106 "…roast.Her…" should be "…roast. Her…"
"I know what I don’t know what I'm getting into." should be perhaps "I know when I don’t know what I'm getting into."?
P219 "firs-floor" should be "first-floor"
P242 "She hustled home assembled some war tools…" would better read with a comma: "She hustled home, assembled some war tools…"
P271 "I'msupposed" should be "I'm supposed"
P340 "Ree hrmed internally…" ???
P348 "She'd heard a few cinemancers swear that they magical buck went way further with Blu-Ray…"
P374 "He slipped a hand from the strugle…" should be "He slipped a hand from the struggle…" (or maybe strudle?!)

Here's a choice quotation: "Around midnight, Ree got a call on her phone." On what else would she get a call?! Just asking!

Celebromancy is book 2 in the Geekomancy series. I didn't realize this, so please note that I haven't read book 1 (although that's in progress!). I advise you to do this if you're just starting on this series, because it seems to me that it will clarify a few things. At least I hope it will since I already bought the ebook for Geekomancy (it's very reasonably priced, and cheaper at Amazon than at Barnes & Noble as of this writing).

This title initially appealed to me from simply reading the title! Obviously, I wasn't going to fall for it just based on a title any more than I would if based just on a cover, but after I read the author's (publisher's?) description I decided it had to be worth a try. Like a new apartment, I felt good about this location, but the apartment itself can sometimes be a disappointment if the place you're moving into turns out to be a real dump. This one didn't - at least as far as I read initially! It was well-furnished and comfortable, and I felt at home quickly. First hurdle cleared! Unfortunately, the other hurdles became increasingly higher and higher.

The premise for the story is that of magic, but not in the traditional sense. You know that feeling you get when you read a really good novel, or watch a great TV show or see an inspiring movie? Well Underwood has taken that emotional magic and formalized it into a real magical power which you can derive from watching a video (and from other sources - more anon). If you enjoy a movie, it empowers you, and with whatever it is you were watching, and you can then draw on that store of magic and use it yourself. If you want to solve a mystery, you watch a Sherlock Holmes video. If you want to climb buildings, watch Spider-Man! How I wish this premise were true! I’d be one of the most powerful and talented people on the planet with my love of novels, movies and TV - that's what this blog is all about! So yes, initially, I felt quite at home here; it was another 'why didn’t I think of this first' moment, a big swallow and off it flies.

Having not read the first book in the series when I started this one, I first took the female protagonist to be a Celebromancer, but she's a Geekomancer. The difference will become clear shortly. What bothered me about this is that when Underwood introduces a new character, he follows their name with their stats, as though they're a player in a card game or a role-playing game! This was both annoying, confusing, and apparently misleading. For example, when the main character, Ree is introduced, she appears thus: Rhiannon Anna Maria Reyes (Strength 10, Dexterity 14, Stamina 12, Will 18, IQ 16, Charisma 15, Geek 7, Barista 3, Screenwriter 2, Gamer Girl 2, Geekomancer 2), but none of this means anything! She's supposed to be a Geekomancer, yet her Geekomancy score is pathetic, even after the first novel!

Aside from those minor irritations, the novel impressed me to begin with. It was believable within its framework, it was initially realistically told, and it was entertaining. I liked the main character at the start, too. My problem with the stats suffix to the name was never resolved. I still have no idea what they really mean having finished this novel. I mean, on what scale are these scores issued? If the maximum is twenty, a score of 18 on your 'Will' is really good, but if the maximum is a hundred, then you're pretty much a complete pawn! Perhaps hardened gamers will instantly clue in what these are supposed to convey, but for the rest of us, we're left in the cold, and that's not a good way to treat your guests if you want to sell novels. I'm neither a game card player nor an online gamer, so I ignored the stats, and it cost me nothing. So here's my point - if the info conveys nothing and the reader can safely ignore it, then what's the point of it?

So how does this magic work? Well, Rhiannon - aka Ree - can watch a scene from (for example) Castle and absorb skills from the experience, which she can then turn around and re-employ to aid her in her endeavors, but the skills wear off rather quickly. Frankly, I can think of far more empowering shows than Castle, but each to her own! I started out liking that show, but it quickly became so formulaic and tedious that I couldn’t stand to watch it any more, especially with the dysfunctional relationship between Castle and Beckett which was taken way too far, and the unresolved and boring quest to find Beckett's mom's murderer. Find something new already!

This show evidently has quite the opposite effect on Ree however, and she uses this to her benefit. She has succeeded in getting her spec script accepted by Jane Konrad, who was once a big star. Jane was Ree's idol during her teens, when Konrad was a teen herself, but she's fallen onto slim times of late. Her DUI's and other drunken behavior have not helped. Lindsay Lohan's checkered history was more than likely an inspiration for this character.

Ree not only has a helping of hero-worship going on here for Jane, but there's also a real physical attraction, and when Jane invites Ree out to dinner and offers her a choice of clothes to wear from her own wardrobe, Ree realizes this could be a hellishly slippery slope she just stepped onto. Not only is this new show which Ree has created going to be Jane Konrad's last big chance at resurrecting her career (her production company is poised to go bust if this fails), if she and Ree become an item and then suddenly they're not, what will that do to Ree's career, to say nothing of her mental state, even if Jane's takes off?

Although Underwood was smart enough to start this novel out with no prologue, which is always a big plus with me, there are chapter quotes which are just as annoying. What I call a chapter quote is some quotation which may be a real one or not (in this case they're faked), which appears at the start of a chapter. I routinely skip these with the same disdain I employ in skipping prologues, but in this case it was harder to do because the quote was pretty much in line with the text and had no quote marks or special font to make it stand out very much from the regular text. This font problem occurred elsewhere, too: the description on the back of Ree's personal chair on the movie set had a font which was bizarrely small. Instead of it appearing in-line with the text and looking normal, the tiny block capitals really jumped out and not in a good way. It almost looked like he had super-scripted the phrase REE REYES WRITER. But maybe that's me! Maybe the actual novel will be different from the galley.

So I found it peculiar that the author included quotations at the start of the chapters, which contribute zero IMO, but then gives us nothing at all regarding what these character evaluations/scores mean in the big picture! Given the excessive name-dropping (TV shows, bands, songs, games, movies, etc.) throughout this novel, it seems that the reader is expected to understand all of this or die trying! This novel appealed to me originally, and I'm not exactly an adept in the gaming world, so I have to ask: why not open it up more, and let a wider audience participate by offering a tid-bit of explanation here and there? Otherwise geekdom is simply turned into snobbery.

Anyway, Ree has a lot of fun with Jane at the club, but she notices weirdness pervading the air. She does light battle with one creature (with a light saber - another example of the magic. Her toy light saber, in her hands, becomes real. A game card, torn in two, can give her the power which the card would have given to a card-playing gamer). Even that battle, however, doesn’t prepare Ree for being woken up that night next to Jane who is screaming in the throws of a nightmare. Nor does it prepare her for discovering that whatever Jane is fighting off is real, it's in this world, yet it's invisible and tough as nails.

It turns out that another actress, Rachel McKenzie, has apparently put some sort of curse on Jane. Jane is a Celebromancer: she can draw real power from her fans, and this power makes her even more appealing, drawing yet more power, but Rachel's curse, born of jealousy, distorts Jane's power and warps it back on her with these nightmarish attacks. Jane never was a drunk. She was being assaulted by animal-like chimeric demons. Now it’s up to Ree to track down the source and fix this.

Ree impersonates a news reporter to try and learn something directly from Rachel, but it's a complete waste of time, and I have to wonder why this scene was even written - unless it was to convince me that Rachel is a red-herring. Jane, meanwhile, is not doing well. She calls Ree to come over that night to stay with her - not for anything intimate, but just for company, and Ree accepts this offer, but you and I know where that resolve's going don't we?!

And that's plenty of detail to whet your appetite! The rest of this review will be generic observations and commentary, the first of which is that writers might want to actually read what they write and spare some thought to IAN (Inadvertent Absurdity Nuance). Here’s one that particularly struck me on p299:

The small woman turned in place, letting Drake through before she left.

"Drake, right?" Cole said, extending a hand.

Turned, left, right?! That's a bit much to read in two consecutive sentences with a straight face - unless the author intended to be giving inane direction with his writing! Another example of this confusion occurred on p322, where we learn that first, the attacking supernatural gorillas were in "snicker-snack" range; then they were "out of measure"? What does "out of measure" actually mean in this context (or even snicker-snack for that matter!)? Is this just another way for him to say 'out of range' without actually repeating those words? They were either in range or they were not. And repeating himself inanely is not something Underwood avoids like the plague, as this example on p323 shows: "That left only one gorilla left." So please, a bit better writing and a lot better editing would be appreciated.

On a different note, Drake's lingo is not only grammatically stupid, it's really annoying. I don’t know what Underwood was trying to do with him. Whatever it was, for me he failed - and now he's nudging Drake and Ree together. I don’t want to read about the two of them as an item, I really don't. These are relatively minor concerns when taken individually, but when you're reading for enjoyment, and you're hit with one thing of this nature after another, it seriously detracts from the quality of the reading experience.

Underwood channels Charlaine Harris pretty well, too. I mean, do we really need to know the precise ingredients that went into the pizza they ate? I don't. I call pretentious bullshit on that one. I have no time for snotty novels which insist upon conveying the minutiae of every outfit the characters don, and every meal in which they partake, every vintage bottle of wine they consume. Ian Fleming was the master of this kind of trash chic and it turns me off. I really don’t care what they're wearing or what they eat unless it's critical to the plot. I do care what they think about in relation to what’s going on, and how they react to it. Why some people feel a need to emulate Fleming's snobbery is a mystery.

Then there's the lack of credibility in the magic! At one point in the novel, after an assault by some guerrilla gorillas, a dragon attacks Ree, and it’s twenty feet up in the air so she concludes that she can’t take it on with the light saber - but she's supposed to be channeling a Jedi isn’t she? Jedi can can jump spectacularly and throw a light saber to good effect. Is she not geek enough to know this? Even if she's not a full-on Jedi, she can throw, can’t she? This lack of anything approaching a schematic for how and when this magic works, really let the story down for me. A little more rationale (within the framework of the story) would have been much appreciated, but Underwood's random use of magical powers which have no inherent logic with regard to when it works or doesn’t, or how powerful it might be, or even what the internal rule-book is, does not help at all to endear the novel to me.

On this same note, Ree starts powering up for her ritual with Jane, and she says she has three to five hours to do this, but we've learned that the power she gleans from DVDs, etc., lasts only for about three hours before it fades to nothing, so what’s the point of powering up five hours before she'll need the power? She can’t usefully watch videos more than one at a time! And this was also where the mistyped sentence from my errata derived: "She'd heard a few Cinemancers swear that they [sic] magical buck went way further with Blu-Ray…". Why? Why does Blu-Ray go further? Again, no explanation let alone a rationale. And why video and not audio? Why can’t they use music to "magic up"? And why not literature, if they can use comic books?

So to wind this up, I was rather disappointed in it, for the reasons given. This was merely a galley ebook, but it wasn't in great shape - it gave me the impression it had been rushed out for no good reason. That alone obviously isn't enough to condemn the novel, but it seems indicative to me of the author's approach to the story overall: sloppy and uninvolved. I started reading this enthusiastically, enjoying it despite some reservations, but it went downhill too far for my taste, and it wasn't that great of a story or that great of a set of characters to persuade me to hang in there for the ride. I ended-up up-ended, skimming a lot of pages towards the end just because they were boring. I really didn’t care about two Hollywood stars who each thought that they were better than the other. I mean, how petty is that? I can’t take that seriously, and I can’t bring myself to side with either one of them, much less empathize or feel sorry for them. I really can’t.

The ending was entirely nonsensical. The local production in which Jane and Ree are involved somehow fails because of all the supernatural pressure put on it (especially from the big finale), but there's no real explanation given as to why it can’t pick itself, dust itself off, and start all over again, as the song would have it. Here's a dance clip from that same movie! I once saw a bumper sticker which said, "Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in heels". I've never forgotten that!

Ree and Jane are talking like they have to start over from rock bottom scratch, and it’s gonna be tough. For goodness sakes, this is the age of the Internet and Indie films. Jane is so clueless that she never heard of webisodes? I can’t get with that at all especially in a novel of this nature! The fact is that there's absolutely nothing whatsoever stopping them from going ahead and making a web series, yet they both sit around moping about how it’s all over!

You’d think they couldn't top that, but Ree manages it! Twice! To begin with, she has the chance to go to Hollywood and pursue her career as a screen writer there, and she turns it down flat. My guess is that in book three, which I don’t intend to read, she'll still be griping about how her career isn't getting off the ground. I'm sorry, but I don’t want to read any more of her self-pitying comments on that score! Her other problem was that she's still pining for Eastwood. Now I haven't finished reading Geekomancy as I write this, so I can't offer personal testimony yet, but from what I've read of his conduct in Geekomancy I don't see that anyone in their right mind would want anything to do with Eastwood. much less pine for him. The fact that Ree does means I don't want anything to do with her.

I finished reading this on a Monday and it was a real Monday, so I have no doubt that my irritation from other sources played into my assessment somewhat, but this alone tells me that it’s not a worthy novel, because if it had been really good, it would have pulled me out of the minor irritation I had brewing, and taken me somewhere else. It failed. For that alone, I'd have to rate this as a warty, although I'd never claim that there couldn't be varieties of deep geek who might like bits of this novel. I even liked bits myself. Just not enough bits.

The Salbine Sisters by Sarah Ettritch

Title: The Salbine Sisters
Author: Sarah Ettritch
Publisher: Norn
Rating: WORTHY!

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration of any kind for this review. Since this is a new novel, this review is less detailed so as not to rob the writer of their story, but even so, it will probably still be more in-depth than you'll typically find elsewhere!

I loved this story from the off, and I recommend it.

Is Sarah Ettritch a cool name or what? She has some interesting titles showing on her web site, but this is the first of hers I've read. I may try to track down some others if I like this one. I don't know what nationality Ettritch is, but she writes like someone who grew up in Australia or perhaps England, and I love her phraseology especially when she gets very slightly potty-mouthed in her dismissive phrases. There's something rib-tickling about "nuns" using some bad language, even if only mildly.

The name 'Salbine' made me think of Sabines and Roman times. I find myself wondering if the author (authoress? Already linguistic genderism strikes!) chose it to reflect that, but there's no indication as to where this story takes place, or when, or even if it's on Earth. (I'm not saying this is a bad thing). It was only later that I discovered that Ettritch is pronouncing 'Salbine' as 'Salbin'!

The Salbine sisters is exclusively a female religious order which worships the god Salbine (yes, it's a goddess, but why are we putting ourselves into a position where we must distinguish between them? I mentioned this gender specific terminology in another review, and it's the same argument here: if we bring female deities under the banner of 'god', then do we insult them or equalize them? Maybe we should quit using 'god' and use the gender neutral 'deity' instead?

I found myself counting the number of times Ettritch uses the main two character's names on the very first page, because it seemed such a lot! It was in the twenties for each, but it's hard to see how that could be changed significantly given what she was conveying. Maybe it's just me being weird. The main protagonists are Lillian and Maddy, with an emphasis on the latter. Lillian is a woman in her early forties, who is - I was going to say 'a master', but that's wrong, as indeed is 'a mistress'! so let me say - 'an adept' at the magical arts, which in this case means control over the four so-called elements.

I have to say I found this latter cliché somewhat tiresome. Can we not get away from magic fantasy stories which are mired in the trope of air, earth, fire, and water? From the scientific PoV, none of those is actually an element. I know it's not meant in that way literally in these fables, and some hundred eighteen real elements are a bit much to handle, but even that large number can be simplified into as few as ~10 groups, as the periodic table demonstrates. I'd have a lot of respect for a fantasy story which tried using that in place of what we typically get. Indeed, wouldn't it be a refreshingly different story if we started out with the trope, but the story was about how a young and gifted new mage actually discovers that there is much more to these four 'elements' than meets the wand?

In the same way that real scientists discovered that the atom (something which the 5^{th<\sup> century Greeks named as such because it was the smallest thing of which they could conceive) was itself discovered to be comprised from smaller component parts, so, too, could the four elements. What could be more magical than the discovery that water, something which typically douses fires, could be split into two elements that cause fires to rage, thereby impressively linking fire and water? Anyway, having whined about that, I'm committed to reading this story because I really liked it, so this is one amongst a set of pet peeves we readers may be required to hang up at the door as we enter!}

Lillian, in her early forties, has been a the monastery for a long time. Long before the story begins, she had a relationship with another woman, Caroline, who left her in the lurch. Now she has begun, very nervously, a new relationship with Maddy, a brand new initiate who may or may not have Lillian's best interests at heart. But Maddy, in her early twenties, is a whole thicket of issues herself. In this world, young women sometimes receive the mark of Salbine (a tree pattern on their hand). Once this happens, the woman can choose to take up the call or to ignore it. If they come to this (or another) monastery, they're initiated into the order, and are shown how to harness those four elements. It seems that Salbine is the only god there is. If there are others, they're not mentioned - not this far, anyway! And Salbine is definitely an absentee landlord!

Maddy is having some serious problems with picking up the elemental practice. She can't raise fire except in the most, er, elementary way (sorry, I couldn't resist that!), and one day while trying, she feels like her entire body is on fire and she collapses. From this event she learns from the Abbess that she is 'malflowed'. This isn't the first time this has ever happened to anyone, but what it means for Maddy is that she cannot continue in the magical studies because she could cause great harm to herself or to others.

This is so devastating to her that she feels crippled, rejected, second-hand, malformed. She fears that she will lose Lillian or have to leave the monastery, but she is not rejected by her sisters (although she is abused somewhat by another initiate). She begins, at the abbess's advice, to study other malflowed initiates, to learn more about what she is, and what became of others who were in these same circumstances. She's repeatedly told that this is not the end of her life with the order, that she was chosen for a reason, but this is little consolation to Maddy, who, despite her severe disappointment at her status, resolves to pursue a means by which to handle it. This involves her leaving Lillian for a while, and I have to say that Maddy, the younger of the two, is the more mature in this development. And this parting does precipitate the revelation of a secret which Lillian has been withholding from Maddy.

To reveal more details than the many I've now given would be to tell Ettritch's story for her which is not my goal in my blog, so I'll wind this up with general observations, and leave you to read the novel. This novel seems obviously to have been written from a lesbian PoV, and so one observation I have now is that the novel left me feeling that there is a latent prejudice against heterosexuals underlying its philosophy! Let me explain that. The monastery is for women only. They have men to 'guard' them, especially when they go on journeys. I have some issues with this on several fronts!

As I've intimated, this is, overall, in general terms, a strong novel and it drew me in quickly and held my attention. There were some minor quibbles (such as, for example, a tavern having glasses. Given that this novel appears to be set in medieval times, I seriously doubt your typical roadside inn would have glassware! And there was a bit of telegraphy in play regarding the fortune of one character, but I can forgive all that because the story is otherwise so good. In fact, that one character proved to be as charming, enjoyable, and entertaining as the two main characters.

Here's a pet peeve of mine regarding witches, magicians, mages and wizards - why are they so useless?! These stories (and this isn't aimed at this novel in particular, which I enjoyed very much, but at magical stories in general) always extol the power of magic and/or the particular mage/witch/wizard in question, but when it gets right down to the nitty gritty, these powerful magical people are useless. Take the Harry Potter series as a case in point. Dumbledore was praised as the most powerful wizard there was, yet he was essentially helpless against the rise to power of Voldemort, and it was down to Potter, not through any magical skill, but through luck and pluck to save the day.

The same was true of The Lord of the Rings. Gandalf was supposedly this magnificent wizard, yet he could do nothing to transport the ring to the volcano! All of his skill and power, and his magic was useless. He couldn’t protect Frodo from harm, he couldn’t give him magic to see through the wiles of Gollum, he couldn’t make him invisible, or speed his legs! So what good was his magic, honestly? Why even include magic in a story if you're not going to go anywhere with it? In the end, it was all on Frodo, and Gandalf couldn’t even summon up one of his giant eagles to give him a ride there! This is also true of gods. The Bible talks of the most powerful being in the universe - indeed, the creator of the universe - yet the bottom line was that this creator could do nothing, and it was down to the Israelites to savagely take the land they were supposedly promised! How pathetic is that?!

So how does this relate to The Salbine Sisters? In the same vein as the problems I addressed above, what I don’t get about this novel, given that they have this supposedly strong and pervasive control of the 'elements' at their fingertips (quite literally!), is why is it that they have to resort to sending letters by messenger to communicate with another monastery? They can't use magic to communicate? If not, then why? This isn't explained and I think it needs to be, otherwise the story is letting the reader down. We're being asked to take something on faith and given no reason for it, and I think this reflects badly on an author. I don’t do well on faith alone!

Why, for example, does Maddy have to physically travel to the other monastery to read their documents? Yes, I know there has to be this separation to move Maddy and Lillian's story along, but the question of why their magic is so unhelpful in this regard is unaddressed. For me, it's now sitting there, the bull elephant in the room, reminding me that this is just a story, and I shouldn’t take it too seriously or become too engrossed in it, because this separation seems awfully artificial now - like it didn’t arise truly organically from the story, but was tossed in randomly just because. The problem which Ettritch has caused here is that I want to get engrossed in this story! It’s all her fault! She made me love these characters, but I feel she's cheated me out of a piece of their world.

They can't use their magic to copy and send these documents? If not, then of what use is the magic? What do they actually do with it? This is important given the awful events which befall Maddy on her journey, but it's something which the novel hasn’t covered. Magic plays very little part in the story. I don't get why it's there, because precisely the same story could have been told without any magical element to it at all.

If there's a limit to the magic, it ought to be depicted, spelled-out, shown, or hinted at, to explain the even more pervasive need for the mundane in a magical story, otherwise it just looks like the idea hasn’t been thought through properly. I know that in order for this to be a really good novel, it can’t be just about the magic, with the people being merely props. There has to be a people factor, of course, but the other side of that coin is that it can't be just about the people, either, not if you're going to bring magic into it! And of course I mean the magic of fantasy, not the magic which comes as part and parcel of a really cool relationship, which is actually what we also have here.

If the magic is in, then it has to be an intelligent and integral part of who they are, and of the world in which they live, otherwise why have it? If it’s not integral, then it’s just a patch on an otherwise perfect pair of pants and it stands out as such. If this fails, then the novel becomes loose and disjointed and the author is left relying on telling just a people story, hoping the holes in the magic don’t turn off the reader. Fortunately for Ettritch, she had me at "Maddy ran her hand up Lillian's arm…" and she hasn’t turned me off this story, but she has imbued me with the vague feeling that something's rotten in the state of Denmark, as Marcellus would phrase it.

Okay, pet peeve off! Moving along. I found this story hard to put aside, but put aside I had to from time to time and I missed it when I did. That's a really good sign! It's probably also a good thing, otherwise I would have finished it must more quickly and then have found myself pining for more. That's the sign of a really engrossing novel, and that's what Ettritch has charmed me with. I definitely want to read more of this author.

So in conclusion, the story did go where I thought it would, and where I hoped it would, and my eyes were moist at the end! There, I said it! I loved this story and would definitely be interested in a sequel, or failing that, in reading other materials from Sarah Ettritch.