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House of Stone

Book Review of House of Stone, by Vaughn R. Demont

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House of Stone

I borrowed a copy of Vaughn R. Demont‘s House of Stone. Thanks L!

Description from Goodreads:

A modern knight, a noble quest, and a magical sword. What could go wrong?

Welcome to the City, where gods run nightclubs, goblins hire out as mercs, sorcerers work their magic, the Fae hold court over every neighborhood…and humanity is blissfully ignorant of it all.

For minor Fae noble Richard Stone, life is going well. He has a decent fiefdom (okay, it’s a slum), a budding acting career (okay, so it’s porn), and one of only five magical swords in the City. An arranged marriage is barely a blip on his worry meter—until his family blade loses its magic. The shame of it puts his noble standing in jeopardy.

To regain his status, Richard needs help. Fortunately, his new bride is a sidhe knight and his servant Simaron has, er, his back. Together they embark on a quest to find the demon who slew his father, investigate a conspiracy that goes to the highest echelons of Fae nobility, and discover a secret family legacy that could ruin his House.

All while keeping up appearances to a society that demands perfection. And they say a noble’s life is easy…

Review:
I have been entertained. Honestly, there are times that’s the highest praise a book can garner and now is one of those times. From the first page to the last, Richard amused me with his irreverent narrative, ignoble commentary, and ironic observations. This is without mentioning his capacitous ability for internal and emotional growth. I enjoyed him when he was a shiftless cad in the beginning and when he was a noble hero at the end. 

However, I also found this same personal growth problematic, in that it largely invalidated he and Sim’s pre-established love. Richard changes so much from the beginning to the end as to be almost a new man. Sim is shown to be a lot more (and different) that Richard ever knew. I ask then, how they were to have known one another enough to love beyond their lust? They were not yet (or yet known to be) the men they would love the other for being. It felt a little hollow to me.

I also thought that Richard (and to a lesser degree, Rem) were the only wholly fleshed out characters. The rest were likeable enough (or unlikeable when appropriate), but I never felt I knew them particularly well. 

Regardless of my few irritants here and there, I was happy throughout. Demont shows a real talent for timing and dramatic disclosures. I especially appreciated that he could drop a verbal bombshell or subtle joke and leave the reader to furrow out the meaning. Something is lost in a joke if the punchline has to be explained to you. I also was pulled in by the idea of elves being the stuff of dreams. I’ll definitely be seeking out more of Demont’s writing.

As an aside (and personal niggle), if you’re going to describe a sword in a book and then have, presumably, that sword on the cover, they should match. That’s not the Azure Blade as described in the book and I’m annoyed by the discrepancy.

Aside number two: If you follow this link to Mr. Demont’s webpage, you see that he’s crowdsourcing to go to a conference. Wouldn’t it be nice to reward a good writer for his skill and his willingness to put a request out that doesn’t come with any type of expectation. No, ‘I’m asking (read demanding) so the universe (you) must provide,’ but rather a polite ‘would anyone be willing to help.’ Anyone? I’d love to see this guy provided for by a host of strangers. It’d be a great way to let him know his writing it appreciated.

Memory Zero

Book Review of Memory Zero (Spook Squad #1), by Keri Arthur

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Memory ZeroThe nice folks over at Random House Publishing Group – Bantam Dell and Netgalley approved a review copy of Keri Arthur‘s rerelease of Memory Zero.

Description from Goodreads:
For Sam Ryan, life began at age fourteen. She has no memory of her parents or her childhood. In a decade of service with the State Police, Sam has exhausted the resources of the force searching for clues to her identity. But all mention of her family seems to have been deliberately wiped off the record. Everything changes the night Sam’s missing partner resurfaces as a vampire . . . and forces her to kill him in self-defense. Now Sam is charged with murder. Suspended from the force, and with no one left to trust, Sam accepts some unexpected help from Gabriel Stern, a shapeshifter who conceals startling secrets.
 
While investigating the circumstances surrounding her partner’s strange behavior, Sam discovers that Garbriel’s been involved with a dangerous organization that’s planning a war on the human race. More immediate, someone is guarding the truth about Sam’s past—someone who’d rather see her dead than risk her knowing too much. To stay alive, Sam must unravel the threads of her past—and find out not only who she is but what she is.

Review:
I had mixed feelings about this book. It jumps right into the action and never stops. And while this is exciting, it’s also problematic. Because with all the go, go, go the characters never once stop and have any sort of getting to know one another conversations. This means that the reader never has access to any getting to know one another conversations. I’ve finished the book and still feel that Sam is a complete stranger; Gabriel too, though to a minimally lesser degree, as we at least got to see his affection for his brother.

Further, I checked again and again to ensure that this is in fact the first book in the Spook Squad series. Once I had convinced myself it is, I started looking to see if the Spook Squad is a spin off of another series. Dark Angels is a fairly large series by Arthur, for example, and dark angels are mentioned here. But as far as I can see, the original release of this book predates the other series, so it can’t be a spin off.

The reason I was so convinced it must be is because there is no world building and a lot of information seems to be assumed or glossed over—What is the Federation, for example, or who/what is this Sethanon everyone seems to know about, the events surrounding the recently deceased sibling, the interspecies war, all of Sam and Jack’s history, why does the SIU and the Federation know all about Jack in the first place, etc. There is a lot of history that is referenced but never directly addressed (and arn’t part of the book’s mystery) and I felt I was missing a very large piece of the puzzle.

I did like that the book was set in Melbourne. I always enjoy finding that books are set in interesting locations. Though, honestly it could have been set anywhere. The setting played very little part in the story. I also liked that though the MCs were obviously becoming emotionally aware of each-other, the book didn’t go there. This is urban fantasy and it remained true to its genre by not straying into romantic territory.

The writing was pretty good, though I do have to admit to thinking the use of ‘kite monster’ was incredibly cheesy. I could have lived it just ‘kite,’ you know, like the bird. But really, kite monster? Would a group of shifters, vampires, shapechangers, etc (you know monsters) really refer to another mythical creature as an xxx monster anyway? Either way, it felt really middle grade to me.

Final say: not a complete dud, but not a big winner either.

Book Review of Evenfall Vol. 1 Director’s Cut (In the Company of Shadows #1 part 1), by Ais & Santino Hassell

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Evenfall

I downloaded Asis and  Santino Hassel‘s Evenfall (In the Company of Shadows) for free from its website.

Description from Goodreads:
In a post-apocalyptic future, the Agency works behind the scenes to take down opposition groups that threaten the current government. Their goals justify all means, even when it comes to their own agents.

Sin is the Agency’s most efficient killer. His fighting skills and talent at assassination have led to him being described as a living weapon. However, he is also known to go off on unauthorized killing sprees, and his assigned partners have all wound up dead.

Boyd is not afraid to die. When his mother, a high-ranking Agency official, volunteers him to be Sin’s newest partner, he does not refuse. In fact, his life has been such an endless cycle of apathy and despair that he’d welcome death.

In the newly revised Director’s Cut of Evenfall, the first volume follows these two cast-offs as they go from strangers to partners who can only rely on each other while avoiding death, imprisonment, and dehumanization by the Agency that employs them.

Review:
Note: If you want to skip all of my circumstantial psycho-babble just skip down to the ***.

I first encountered Evenfall on Goodreads. A number of reviewers that I follow had read the book, with fairly mixed and extreme reactions. Those who loved it seemed to LOVE it and those who didn’t, really DIDN’T. There were very few mid-level reviews (at least amongst those in my update feed). I ignored it for a while since it’s a work in progress, with no final version yet available (and at almost 1500 pages I was hesitant to commit). But I was curious and since the whole thing is available for free, I decided to give it a go.

I was intrigued from the start. My interest was definitely piqued. (Hey A & S, BTW, for your next editing round you might want to search all your peakeds and change about half of them to piqued. Just a friendly FYI, since the forward said this still isn’t a final version either. Though, I imagine it could be called pretty close.)

So, here I am sitting on my patio, lounging with my Kindle and cuppa when a friendly message from Julio hits my inbox, essentially saying, “Hey you do know a newer version JUST came out, right?” “Wha—?” I think. “I just downloaded this sucker.” But he was right and the newer version is no slight variation. Apparently, Book I was has been cut in half and about 100K words dropped! So, yeah, even with my tendency to stubbornly stay a course once started, it was worth updating my version for.

This means I got to read the 25 or so pages of each book and got an idea of how the two compare. (There is a reason I’m outlining all this, BTW.) The original version was much wordier. When imagined stretched over ~1500 pages and then compared to the condensed version I can easily see how 100K words could be carved out without significantly effecting the story. So even though a trick of the mind made the newer, slimed down version momentarily feel too skinny when read back to back with it’s heftier brother, no one need worry that too much was lost in what I imagine must have been a fairly ruthless editing round.

Ok, you’ve got my backstory. You see where I am as a reader—curious, already invested, committed to finishing what I started, my fear that I would be tangibly missing out on something by reading a different version than I sat down with assuaged, but also facing the very real possibility that I would love the book (3% was enough for me to know this was as likely as not), have the remains of the series on my Kindle but knowing I would do best by it to delete them and await their reedits too. Because having read those first few pages of the original version of this book was enough to know the new editions would be worth waiting for.

This is the emotional soup I settled in with as I read this book and I think with a lesser book it would have been enough to ruin it for me. (Yeah, I know I’m an emotional reader. I don’t always separate my reading experience from the value of a book itself. So, sue me. At least I’m honest about it.) Despite all that though, I basically loved the book.

***

I’ll fess up that seeing two broken men prop each-other up (be it romantically or just as, you know, bros) is my absolute favourite plot device. (I could call it a trope, but that feels insulting.) So, I was predisposed to love Hsin and Boyd from the beginning. They are both definitely broken and both definitely becoming the other’s support column. Did my heart just flutter? I think my heart fluttered.

But I also loved their contradictions too. Boyd is presented as the weaker of the two. But while he’s certainly physically weaker and possesses far less skill that Hsin, functionally he shows a surprisingly ability to just get on with things, which is a strength of sorts. It was the outwardly impenetrable Hsin whose occasional fractured fragility peeked through that carried the day for me, though. Loved it. LOVED IT!

I did have a few problems with them though. I didn’t think either age worked well. Boyd acted too old for a 19-year-old and Hsin too young and inexperienced for a 28-year-old. Yes, I see that Boyd needed to be young to have not yet had the years to get over his trauma and Hsin needed to be older to have the years behind him with the agency. So, I see why they are as they are, but neither felt realistic for me.

Nor, did it feel believable that the Agency would take such an untried youth on for such an important role. If these missions were so important, difficult and dangerous as to require skill of Hsin’s level, what competent agency would send a barely trained newbie out? This is especially questionable since there was no reason to believe Boyd could control Hsin, which was ostensibly his sole actual duty. It was a fairly major weakness of the plot, but overlookable for the enjoyment of the story.

Perhaps my skepticism originates in the fact that I never could believe either survived in the social isolation they’re said to have. And this is probably largely because the whole post WWWIII, dystopian America is mentioned but plays so little role as to be forgotten by the reader. More than once I reached a scene in some desolate street and had to remind myself of the temporal setting. If I had a stronger sense of the place, time and environment that created these men (Boyd especially) I might have had a different reaction.

I did really appreciate that the men’s partnership is a bit of a slow burn. You’re able to see and understand the causes of their change of opinion and actions/reaction. This makes the end result so much sweeter. I was especially prone to melt whenever Hsin showed his feelings, as opaque as they often were.

So, my final say? I could take or leave the political intrigue, BUT I fell in love with Hsin and Boyd. I will definitely be finishing the series out. However, I want to give it the most opportunity to shine. So, as difficult as it is, I’m forcing myself to stop here and wait for the newer editions to come out. (How I wish I hadn’t even thought to read the books until later this summer when the second half of Book I was already out!) I can’t speak for the epically long first edition that I almost read and a number of other reviewers have struggled so much with, but this one is most certainly worth picking up.