Tag Archives: fantasy

Magic Eclipse

Book Review of Magic Eclipse (Dragon Born Shadow World #1), by Ella Summers

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Magic EclipseI picked up a copy of Ella Summers‘ Magic Eclipse from Amazon, when it was free. It was still free at the time of posting.

Description from Goodreads:
They were lovers. Now they’re enemies. 

A magic shock wave cuts across the world—fracturing reality, leaving only a dark Shadow World in its place. 

Former monster-hunting mercenary mage Sera Dering is fighting for her right to exist. Labeled as an abomination, she’s caught in a supernatural war that has been raging for centuries between her kind and the Magic Council’s Crusaders. But when people from both sides begin to go missing, Sera has to team up with Kai Drachenburg, the Crusaders’ commander. She soon discovers that the mysterious fog rolling across San Francisco is only half as dangerous as the sexy, powerful dragon-shifting mage who brings out memories in her of a forgotten world. 

As the commander of the Crusaders’ North American army and a member of one of the world’s oldest magic dynasties, it is Kai’s sworn duty to hate Sera. But as they work together to fight the magic fog plaguing the city, he finds himself drawn to her in ways he cannot understand. Their new alliance is tested, however, when they begin to realize that someone close to them is behind the dark spell—and that the fog is more than it seems.

Review:
Oh man, this book made me angry on several fronts. I mean, it’s an ok, if stripped down, read but it’s problematic too. My main issue is that it’s very clearly labeled book one. But a little investigation shows that it is actually book one of a series that is actually a sequel to a four book series, making this book five. And I went and did that investigating because I very early on felt I was missing something, so yes, you definitely feel the lack of those previous four books. It’s readable, but not overly enjoyable for the characters to talk about people and events you don’t know about and for the world to not be explained and the history to be a blank. It’s not even small things either. The whole plot here is that the characters have forgotten their lives, meaning forgotten the events of the previous four books, and they are fighting to get them back. So, ya know, important stuff.

Then there is this note on Dragon born Serifina’s GR page, that’s the series this is apparently a sequel to.

The Dragon Born Serafina, Dragon Born Alexandria sister series and Naomi’s story Dragon Born Awakening can be read independently or together. The Dragon Born Serafina continues with Dragon Born Shadow World

Suggested reading order:
Mercenary Magic (Dragon Born Serafina, Book 1)
Magic Edge (Dragon Born Alexandria, Book 1)
Magic Games (Dragon Born Serafina, Book 2)
Magic Nights (Dragon Born Serafina, Book 3)
Blood Magic (Dragon Born Alexandria, Book 2)
Magic Kingdom (Dragon Born Alexandria, Book 3)
Fairy Magic (Dragon Born Awakening, Book 1)

It starts out ok, with the separate or together bit, but then confuses me with it’s suggested order. So, does that mean I should read seven books before getting to this one? Or is that establishing a pattern, rather than an actual list? Because each of those series is four books long. So, do I need to have read all 12? Come on authors/publishers. I hate this stuff. If a book is a sequel label it as such. This is obviously not a book one of anything! I mean, we’re even told that: “The Dragon Born Serafina continues with Dragon Born Shadow World.” Continues with…. Not a new series then. Not a book one!

As for the story itself? It’s got some humor. But it’s basically the main characters running around and reacting to things. There is almost no development of plot or characters. We’re told repeatedly that they’re at war, but they call each other, have meetings and are on a first name basis. So, not much of a war then? I never felt the tension that was supposed to exist. The ending came about very quickly and it concluded on a cliffhanger, with nothing looking anything like a conclusion. So, I basically started in the middle of a series and ended on one too. What fun! <–sarcasm

Look, this isn’t the first time I’ve complained about this. In a real sense, it’s the publishing industry’s apparent insistence on making this normal enough for it to happen to me repeatedly that makes encountering it again so problematic for. I even wrote a whole blog post about it, earlier this year. This a hot point issue for me, as a reader. I cannot express how much I hate it.

Lastly, because I’m not feeling particular charitable toward this book at the moment, I need to address that cover. Is it just me or is it particularly focused on breasts? I don’t know, something about that picture seems over-exaggerated and unnatural.

Edit: I’ve decided to add links when I get flack for my reviews. Apparently someone thought this one was “illogical and silly.”

Book Review of The Banished Craft (Shkode #1), by E.D.E. Bell

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The Banished CraftI received a copy of E.D.E Bell‘s The Banished Craft from Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
Struggling to solve the mystery of her parents’ murder, Cor comes across a mystery much deeper—a secret society who predicted that someday their world would be devastated. That time is now. In a world where women are not allowed to read, live alone, or pursue knowledge Cor presses forward, discovering a new magic and the power to wield it. A world away, Atesh works in the Imperial Labs, devoting his study to the turmoil destroying his home and endangering dragonkind. Instead he discovers a long-hidden truth. Humans are real.

A quirky and modern take on dragons and wizards, The Banished Craft begins the genre-bending Shkode fantasy trilogy about a split world, exploring themes of identity, prejudice, violence, compassion, and the ways we are all connected.

Review:
OMG, I finally finished this, which was in doubt on more than one occasion. I just could not get into it and every page was a slog. I mean, I can read a book this length in a day. But I’ve been reading this one forever and a day…ok, three weeks, but for me, that’s an eternity. I would pick it up, read a chapter (sometimes less), put it down, go off and read something else (usually an entire other book) and then come back to this one for a chapter (sometimes less). It was in this arduous manner I finally chipped away at it enough to finally finish. And do you know what? It ended about where I expected it to start with nary a conclusion in sight.

And it’s not even that it’s a bad book. The writing is pretty good and the characters seem interesting enough. Unfortunately, there are about four billion of them, most of whom don’t seem relevant (though I suspect they will be in future books). And all these characters populate about a million unrelated plots. Though I expect they’ll connect up at some point, just not in this book. I can kind of see the shape it will be taking, but that’s not enough to be a satisfying rad.

It this over abundance of characters and plot lines that did me in. I was just never able to sink into it and float away with the story. Just about the time I settled into a narrative, it jumped to another, and just about the time I got comfortable there, the book was off again. This is stylistic and if it doesn’t bother you then you may like the book. This drives me batty and I wanted to scream…or DNF the book.

There is a pleasant circularity to the two worlds that I appreciated and again, the writing is pretty good. But This one was definitely not for me. I had hoped to read the sequel, but I barely made it through this one.

Graceling

Book Review of Graceling, by Kristin Cashore

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Graceling

I bought a copy of Graceling, by Kristin Cashore.

Description from Goodreads:
Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight – she’s a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king’s thug.

When she first meets Prince Po, Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change.

She never expects to become Po’s friend.

She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace – or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away…

Review:
Well, that was a pleasant surprise. I went through a YA phase a couple years ago, but almost every YA book I’ve read since them has made me all sorts of ragey. This was an exception.

I thought Katsa was a marvelously strong female characters, but also able to be compassionate and kind. (Not just a man with tits, which is a very common misrepresentation of strong women in my experience.) In fact, learning this fact was one of her biggest challenges of the book.

I liked seeing a common gender trope turned on its head, as it’s usually the tortured hero, instead of a heroine. The few other times I have encountered this, it’s been accompanied by an inference that she struggles with her own violence because she’s female and a man wouldn’t be so bothered, because he’s strong enough to handle it. Making her reluctance to kill a gendered fault, not a moral dilemma. I never felt that here, even as Katsa fought to move past being little more than a brute. It was personal growth, not personal weakness.

We had male/female platonic friendships. We had supportive female/female friendships. (It passes the Bechdel test.) We had a same sex couple. We had a male romantic partner that was empathic, expressive and liked pretty things. We had a romantic pairing that was presented as valid, even when it didn’t end in wedding bells and baby bonnets. We had men willing to accept a woman as their leader and be more skilled than themselves, without feeling humiliated. So much to appreciate.

I did think Katsa’s dislike of dresses and hair and such pretty things compromised the authors attempt to make her both strong and female. Why can’t she be a strong fighter and like female things? It’s like she can be female and strong, but not feminine and strong. She can remain a woman, but she has to give up the trappings of her gender before she can be convincingly strong and valiant? (This is one of the few man-with-tits strong female character traps I noticed Cashore falling into.)

This and some of Katsa’s obliviousness and ‘specialness’ felt a cliched. As was the use of sexual deviance to make the villain especially evil. This is plot device that has been used so often that it’s lost all effectiveness for me. I see it and think, well, the author just grabbed a pre-formed baddie for this one, didn’t she? Sexual deviance is frequently used in books to telegraph that a man is not just a bad man (a bad man might just be violent), but a very bad man and if he targets children a very, very bad man. No depth or exploration of character needed, because these actions are already conveniently placed on the continuum of evil for reader connivance. Plus, I didn’t really think it matched the tone of the res of the book.

Lastly, I thought there was a notable change of pace between the first and the second half of the book and Katsa was a little too resilient, accomplishing things that really should have killed her, even with her Grace. But all and all, I enjoyed this book.

What I’m drinking: A sample of Gwy-u Latte, given to me by the proprietor of Traveling Tea, when I last visited. I’d mentioned that I enjoyed chicory and she thought I might enjoy Gwy-u Latte tea. I did, very much. It’s a “green guayusa herbal honeybush rooibos blend.”