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dancing_moon
I have this huge, impressive and/or guilt-inducing stack of books to read now. Have promised myself to not buy anything but recent parts of the series I follow until I'm at least halfway through it. Also decided that I should take a leaf from the page of other, more organized bloggers and jot down some thoughts about the books I read this year. We'll see how that goes...
Anyway, so far I've mostly been watching tv series; a most unusual state for me. But the Granada Sherlock Holmes series is very good (yes, of course I watched the new movie too. Pretty, but lacking depth and feeling. Their Watson was nice though). Also, I've started on Jeeves and Wooster, borrowed the box from Mac. She all the good stuff, or more properly put, she has all the stuff you can imagine!
Anyway, I am home with a cold right now, so there is plenty of time to read. I finished Rob Thurman's Roadkill, part five of an urban fantasy series. Not released yet, there came a heap of preview books this Monday.
It's the first in a new "cycle" of Cal Leandros books, but still the exact same style as before. Lots of wisecracking, everyone thinks about sex most of the time (except the super-ninja-samurai-healthfreak that is the main characters big brother who mostly seems to think about him. Oh, alright, he has a girlfriend but she definitely takes second spot...)
It's not that the books are very good literature, but they are fast-paced and entertaining. In this one, the POV shifts between Cal Leandros, main character and a sarcastic, bitter half-not-dark-elf-but-kinda-anyway, and a werewolf with some serious magical trouble. That said, I like Cal. Bitchy, entertainingly bitter, fanatically devoted to his big brother (and junk-food, alas the two doth not good friends make) and more than a little crazy. Just my type.
Anyway, the books often follow the "rule of cool" a bit too much, the characters don't have that much depth and this time the ending was predictable - not just what happened, but how most of it happened. And trust me, I'm not good at puzzling those things out, but it was similar to how previous books had ended. Not bad final chapters, no, just not surprising. Kind of like the above mentioned Sherlock Holmes movie, while most of Conan Doyle's original mysteries still has me going "buh?" until Holmes reveals it all. But I did figure out where they hid the lady in the tv-version of The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax, so there.
Still, it's good fun in a trashy kinda way. Bit like Supernatural, I assume, since I haven't seen that series - but you know, monsters, brothers etcetera. In this book they even make a journey. I've read some other urban fantasy, and I think this is the series I like best except for the Dresden files which are more detective novels. The humor is the strong parts and, oh alright, they are almost ridiculously fanficable with their hot, witty characters with low moral thresholds and (often) tortured pasts.
Where they fall short, is that they are too predictable, the characters repeat things too often and, despite all the upheaval in their lives, Cal and Niko's world feels a bit static.
They are still infinitely better than the first book of her other series, Trick of Light. In that book I wanted to strangle the main character after only a few chapters... My thoughts were something like: If I have to read more about what a fine ass she has, how good she looks in read, how cool she is and did she mention (to herself!) that her ass looked great in red? someone must suffer Argh.
At least Cal only repeats what a misanthropic bastard he is and how he hates everyone but his brother and his, like, 2-3 friends so could the rest of the world plz fuck off. Much less annyoing - partly because I can imagine someone having that mental monologue but goddammit if I want to read about someone who can't stop thinking about what a sexy piece of meat they are (wearing red).
This seems to be a common and unfortunate trend with urban fantasy that has female main characters - perhaps chicklit overall, I'm not that familiar with the genre.
Stephanie Plum, which is one of the only "normal" such book series I've read mostly angsted about her squishy waist, with occasional celebrations about her long eyelashes and awesomesauce hair. Those moments, however, usually came after some hard work by the make-up table and were more often than not followed by an explosion so they were much less annoying.
Then there was Dead Withc Walking, which annoyed me in a multitude of ways (the cool guy with magical horses who rides around glowing at night is an ELF, you idiot!) but also suffered from "I am so pretty and must repeat it a dozen times"-itis, as did the Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff. But hey, that book was about a clan of matriarchal, horned, sex-witches or something so I was kind of expecting it.
Well, enough whining. If someone finds two angsty, violent brothers battling monsters and snarking around with a horny puck (that is, Pan. Except without the goatlegs, I think. And he wears Armani suits) interesting, I can recommend the book. Popcorn-reading, but pretty fun such.
Oh, and the author has a Livejournal. Neat. Book is to be released in March.
(wow, this got long. don't expect such a detailed review every time)
Anyway, so far I've mostly been watching tv series; a most unusual state for me. But the Granada Sherlock Holmes series is very good (yes, of course I watched the new movie too. Pretty, but lacking depth and feeling. Their Watson was nice though). Also, I've started on Jeeves and Wooster, borrowed the box from Mac. She all the good stuff, or more properly put, she has all the stuff you can imagine!
Anyway, I am home with a cold right now, so there is plenty of time to read. I finished Rob Thurman's Roadkill, part five of an urban fantasy series. Not released yet, there came a heap of preview books this Monday.
It's the first in a new "cycle" of Cal Leandros books, but still the exact same style as before. Lots of wisecracking, everyone thinks about sex most of the time (except the super-ninja-samurai-healthfreak that is the main characters big brother who mostly seems to think about him. Oh, alright, he has a girlfriend but she definitely takes second spot...)
It's not that the books are very good literature, but they are fast-paced and entertaining. In this one, the POV shifts between Cal Leandros, main character and a sarcastic, bitter half-not-dark-elf-but-kinda-anyway, and a werewolf with some serious magical trouble. That said, I like Cal. Bitchy, entertainingly bitter, fanatically devoted to his big brother (and junk-food, alas the two doth not good friends make) and more than a little crazy. Just my type.
Anyway, the books often follow the "rule of cool" a bit too much, the characters don't have that much depth and this time the ending was predictable - not just what happened, but how most of it happened. And trust me, I'm not good at puzzling those things out, but it was similar to how previous books had ended. Not bad final chapters, no, just not surprising. Kind of like the above mentioned Sherlock Holmes movie, while most of Conan Doyle's original mysteries still has me going "buh?" until Holmes reveals it all. But I did figure out where they hid the lady in the tv-version of The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax, so there.
Still, it's good fun in a trashy kinda way. Bit like Supernatural, I assume, since I haven't seen that series - but you know, monsters, brothers etcetera. In this book they even make a journey. I've read some other urban fantasy, and I think this is the series I like best except for the Dresden files which are more detective novels. The humor is the strong parts and, oh alright, they are almost ridiculously fanficable with their hot, witty characters with low moral thresholds and (often) tortured pasts.
Where they fall short, is that they are too predictable, the characters repeat things too often and, despite all the upheaval in their lives, Cal and Niko's world feels a bit static.
They are still infinitely better than the first book of her other series, Trick of Light. In that book I wanted to strangle the main character after only a few chapters... My thoughts were something like: If I have to read more about what a fine ass she has, how good she looks in read, how cool she is and did she mention (to herself!) that her ass looked great in red? someone must suffer Argh.
At least Cal only repeats what a misanthropic bastard he is and how he hates everyone but his brother and his, like, 2-3 friends so could the rest of the world plz fuck off. Much less annyoing - partly because I can imagine someone having that mental monologue but goddammit if I want to read about someone who can't stop thinking about what a sexy piece of meat they are (wearing red).
This seems to be a common and unfortunate trend with urban fantasy that has female main characters - perhaps chicklit overall, I'm not that familiar with the genre.
Stephanie Plum, which is one of the only "normal" such book series I've read mostly angsted about her squishy waist, with occasional celebrations about her long eyelashes and awesomesauce hair. Those moments, however, usually came after some hard work by the make-up table and were more often than not followed by an explosion so they were much less annoying.
Then there was Dead Withc Walking, which annoyed me in a multitude of ways (the cool guy with magical horses who rides around glowing at night is an ELF, you idiot!) but also suffered from "I am so pretty and must repeat it a dozen times"-itis, as did the Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff. But hey, that book was about a clan of matriarchal, horned, sex-witches or something so I was kind of expecting it.
Well, enough whining. If someone finds two angsty, violent brothers battling monsters and snarking around with a horny puck (that is, Pan. Except without the goatlegs, I think. And he wears Armani suits) interesting, I can recommend the book. Popcorn-reading, but pretty fun such.
Oh, and the author has a Livejournal. Neat. Book is to be released in March.
(wow, this got long. don't expect such a detailed review every time)
