After the Funeral

Considering how many books I read, it's surprising that I'd never read an Agatha Christie novel until I read After the Funeral, and the only reason I read that is because the publisher sent me a review copy. Now, you might wonder why a publisher would send out review copies of a book that was originally published more than 50 years ago. Apparently, the Christie estate has authorized Sophie Hannah to write a new Poirot novel called The Monogram Murders, and the publisher had her choose her favorite Poirot novel and write an introduction for a new edition, She chose After the Funeral for its "nontransferable motive."

This book certainly had one of the most peculiar motives I've read. In fact this is one of the few mysteries I've read where I didn't have any idea who the killer was until the end of the book. Despite being a Poirot mystery, Poirot isn't in the book very much.  The book spends most of it time with the family of the victim(s).  They are a strange lot.

I really enjoyed the book and will have to add Agatha Christie to the ever growing list of authors whose books I really have to read.

City of Stairs

City of Stairs is definitely not your typical otherworldly fantasy. For one thing, it eschews the typical pseudo-medieval setting in favor of something closer to the late 19th/early20th century. The world has trains, guns, gas lighting, cameras, and telegraphs. It is not a steampunk novel though (if you were wondering).

Besides having a fairly distinctive setting, this book also draws a good bit from the mystery and spy thriller genres. The main character is a spy who goes to the city of Bulikov to investigate the murder of a professor who she greatly admired. Along the way she finds rebellion, political intrigue, and gods.

The gods are what makes this book a fantasy. Long ago, the gods led the people of the continent to conquer the world.  Two generation before this story began, a man called the Kaj led a rebellion against the continentals and killed their gods. Of course as you can guess, it turns out that some of the gods survived and their followers are causing trouble.

This was a really great book. Besides being a fantasy/mystery/thriller, it also deals with issues of colonialism, religious fanatacism, and the nature of divinity. This was a really great book.

The Simon Iff Stories & Other Works

Since I'm trying to do reviews more often, it's time for another one. This time, it's Simon Iff Stories and Other Works by Aleister Crowley. I found it surprisingly enjoyable.

The Simon Iff stories are mysteries, which to be honest reminded me of nothing so much as G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories.Don't get me wrong, Iff and Brown are to very different characters with very different worldviews. However, both of their methods of deduction revolve around am understanding of the darkness of the human soul more than any clue hunting.

There are some problems with the stories. "An Old Head on Young Shoulders" just left me confused. "Not Good Enough" was one of the most racist stories I've ever read. Despite this, I found the collection interesting.

The "and Other Works" from the title is a collection of stories called Golden Twigs based off of Frazer's Golden Bough. I probably would have enjoyed them more if I'd actually read Frazer's book. They aren't bad, but I didn't like them as much as the Iff stories. Still the book is worth getting just for the Simon Iff stories.

December Park

Ronald Malfi is rapidly becoming one of my favorite writers. He is very good at writing entertaining stories with really great characters. Naturally when I got the chance to get a review copy of his next novel, I knew I'd have to take it. I'd be crazy not too, because Malfi is just that good.

Unlike most of his books that I've read, December Park is not a horror novel. This is definitely more of a crime novel or a mystery, and also a coming of age story. It's set in a small Maryland town in the 90s where teenagers have begun to disappear. The police have no leads, and the papers are blaming the disappearances on a serial killer they've dubbed the Piper, so a group of high school boys decide to amke like the Hardy Boys and try to solve the case themselves.

I just couldn't help but care about the boys. I also just couldn't figure out who the Piper was going to turn out to be, which is fairly rare for me in these types of books. Trust me, you'll want to read this book when it comes out.

Bizarro Fiction Month Day 4: Jimmy Plush: Teddy Bear Detective

It's day 4 of Bizarro Fiction week here an the blog, and once again, I'm posting a review of a piece of bizarro fiction written by an author who I'll be reviewing again sometime later this month. This time, it's Garret Cook, whose Archelon Ranch I'll be reviewing sometime before the month ends. This time though, I'm taking a look at Jimmy Plush, Teddy Bear Detective.

Back when I was a kid, I used to love detective stories. These days, I don't read them so much except, for some cross genre stuff, like the Dresden Files. This makes  Jimmy Plush a good choice for me, because it is a bizarro detective short story collection (or at least an episodic novella posing as one). It's a good story, too. There's a lot of humor in it, even on the copyright page, which includes imaginary 50s era pulp magazine appearances for the stories.

The book is about a teddy bear detective named Jimmy Plush who used to be a human being named Hatbox. The two switched bodies in exchange for the original Jimmy Plush covering the original Hatbox's gambling debts.  Of course, the original Plush is actually evil and becomes the new Plush's archnemesis.

The whole world of this book is strange. It's full of criminal furries, living versions of normally inanimate objects, giants, martians, zuvembies, and that kind of thing.  The stories tell the story of how Jimmy plush battles various weirdos and like a Fu Machu-wannabe crime boss, who isn't really Chinese, or another crime boss who is a living Kewpie Doll, or a mad scientist with an army of zuvembies.

This book is funny enough that I actually laughed out loud several times while reading it.

Blood & rust, by S. A. Swiniarski

Blood and Rust is a nice little omnibus. It contains two vampire dective stories. The first one, Raven, is about a man who is trying to figure out how he was killed and turned into a vampire. The second, The Flesh, the Blood, and the Fire, is about the hunt for the Cleveland Torso Killer.

I thought these books were great. Both of the stories feature vampiric antiheroes, but both avoid all that vampire sex appeal stuff. The vampires are still all to human, though some of them are monsters.

Anyway, I give Blood and Rust five yo-yos, and I'll have to look for some more of his stuff.

The Black Tea Experiments, by Ray Atkinson

I love getting things for free. So, when a publicist offered too send me review copies of two books, I jumped at the chance. Once I got the books, there were some warning signs that the quality might not be too high. One of the books was obviously POD book, and the other (which I'm reviewing today) was published by a "publisher" who's on Writer Beware's "Two Thumbs Down" publisher's list and is strongly not recommended by Preditor's & Editors.

The Black Tea Experiments calls itself an "airplane book," by which the writer means it's intended to be picked up at an airport bookstore, and is short enough to be read during a single flight. If that's what your looking for, then I would recommend this book. It does have an original plot and interesting characters, which can make it a fun read.

The plot goes like this: there's a Russian mad scientist/mob boss who made a serum that turned some kids into super-geniuses and altered their blood. One of these kids gets murdered on a college campus and the hero's girlfriend is blamed. Somehow the hero's super-dooper telescope managed to catch pictures of the crime. It's fairly interesting.

Unfortunately the book has some major style problems. There is way too much extraneous information. It seems like every character (major & minor) gets his own little backstory or side story, which distracts from the main plot. Then there's the fact that the POV keeps shifting from one character to another with no warning. Hell, it shifts from one character in the main plot to another character's back- or side story with no warning. There are also quit a few typos and word misuses like this one:

Your Honor, the defendant has been discovered on a security camera leaving the library with the decendent...

I suspect the author meant deceased. Also, the dialog is pretty bad in spots.

I can only give The Black Tea Experiments three yo-yos. I hope the POD book is better, but I'm not holding my breath.

Wizard by Trade, by Jim Butcher

Just in time for the brand new SciFi show, I finished another Dresden omnibus from Zooba, Wizard by Trade. This one contains Summer Knight and Death Masks. I liked both of these, but especially the second one.

Summer Knight is about faeries and a murder investigation. Death Masks is about some demons and the Turin Shroud. These are pretty imaginative. I just hope the tv show is imaginative and not crappy.

I give this book a full five yo-yos.

The Blood books: Volume Three, by Tanya Huff

If you've read my reviews of Volumes 1 & 2, you can probably guess that I liked The Blood Books, Volume III. The characters are interesting, and the stories are original. This volume contains a novel and a short story collection.

I thought the novel wasn't quite as good as the previous ones. The other ones featured supernatural enemies and mad scientists. This one featured an evil doctor who killed street people for their organs. That might have been fairly original in 1997 when the story was written, but in 2006 it's been done to death. Adding in the ghosts were a nice touch. The story was still pretty goo, though I thought it dragged in places.

I liked the short stories better. I had actually read "This Town Ain't Big Enough," though I have no idea where, since it was first published in Vampire Detectives, and I'm pretty sure I haven't read that. I liked all the stories, but I guess I'd pick "So This Is Christmas" as my favorite.

Anyway, buy these books. I give The Blood Books: Volume III four and a half yo-yos.




Edit: While cataloging my books, I discovered that "This Town Ain't Big Enough" is also in the book Virtuous Vampires, which I do have a copy of.

The Blood Books: Volume Two, by Tanya Huff

I was at Borders the other day, and I picked up The Blood Books: Volume II & Volume three. Sadly, I couldn't continue with Repairman jack or The Runelords series, because my Borders didn't have Gateways or Wizardborn. Sigh, it's there own damn fault Amazon gets so much of my business.

Once again the stories feature Vicki (the half-blind detective), her ex-partner Mike Celluci, and Henry Fitzroy (the vampire). This book introduces new enemies who are truly terrifying. And creepy too.

Anyway, The Blood Books: Volume Two is great. I actually liked it better than volume one. The first novel in this one, Blood Lines, is about a resurrected mummy. I know it sounds clichéd, but it's done very well. The mummy in this book is one of the best villain I've read in a long time. Blood Pact, the second novel in the omnibus, completes the Abbot and Costello Meet... theme in the other books (Dracula, the wolfman, the mummy, and now Frankenstein). It's not at all silly, though. It's a very touching and tragic story. I think I actually cried at one point. I mean Vicki's mother dies and is brought back by a mad scientist. That is sad enough, but the ending is tragic.

I liked this one a lot. I give The Blood Books: Volume Two five yo-yos.

The Blood books volume One, by Tanya Huff

As you might recall, I wasn't to impressed with Huff's Wizard of the Grove. I thought her The Blood Books, Volume I was a much better book. First off it doesn't have six chapters of back story shoved in the beginning like Wizard of the Grove did. Also, it's one of those fantasy/mystery type things that I like. Oh yeah, it's an omnibus edition too, and I always like those when they're good.

There's this ex-cop named Vicki who had to leave the force when she got a rare disease that makes her night blind and is destroying her peripheral vision too. She becomes a PI and is hired to find the killer in a series of "vampire" attacks. She gets some help from a real vampire. In the second novel in the book, she and her vampire buddy team up again to investigate the murder of some werewolves.

These books have a very exciting plot, and the characters are (mostly) very believable and generally interesting. The only real exception was the villain in the first novel, who was so unbelievably geeky that he seemed more like a stereotype than a real person. The villain in the second novel was much more believable.

I really liked this, and I'm definitely going to pick up Volumes 2 & 3 next chance I get. I give this one four and a half yo-yos.

We're Off To See A Wizard...

I've finally started reading Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books, mainly so I can complain about how SciFi butchered it when their TV version premiers :) Anyway, I got an omnibus edition called Wizard for Hire from Zooba. It contains the first three books.

These books tell the story of Harry Dresden, Chicago's only practicing wizard. He tends to get into trouble with the white council, wizardry's ruling body. He helps the police solve supernatural crime. He has a nosy reporter for a girlfriend. What's not to like?

I'm glad I finally read them, because these are some good novels. My favorite in the omnibus is Grave Peril, which is book number three. There, we meet Michael, a knight, and we get to see Harry kick some major vampiric butt. Oh yeah, and there's a killer ghost too.

Volumes one and two, Storm Front and Fool Moon, were pretty good too. I didn't enjoy Storm Front quite as much as the others, because I found Morgan, Harry's wizardly parole officer, to be so annoyingly stupid. It was still a good novel.

Really, if you haven't read these books yet, do it now. I give Wizard For Hire five yo-yos.

The Final Garrett Omnibus

I just finished with Glen Cook's Garrett on the Case, which is the last of the Garrett omnibuses (unless Cook writes more Garrett books).

As usual, I loved it. I'm not really sure why I love the Garrett books. It's probably the combination of fantasy and mystery. The first novel in the omnibus, Angry Lead Skies is actually a science fantasy mystery,, I suppose, as it features aliens in flying saucers causing Garrett all kinds of trouble. The second novel, Whispering Nickel Idols, has Garrett trying to save Chodo Contague, the local crime boss, while simultaneously fighting off an evil cult that has really bad taste in pants.

That's another thing I like about the Garrett books: the humor. Where else would you find a cult that's easily identifiable because it's members all wear green plaid pants? There's also lots of wise cracks, and Garret's often comical first person narration. And then there's his problem with women.

I'm not really sure how a man who's getting on in years, who's out of shape, and who gets beat up so regularly that he can't possibly be handsome anymore gets so many women to fall in love with him. He's got Tinnie Tate, the vivacious red head, Belinda Conague, the psychotic crime lord, Pular Singe, the rat girl, a trio of ETs, a pixie, and dozens more in the previous books. I wish I had those kinds of problems. Sigh.

I wasn't completely satisfied with the ending of the second novel, and I kept getting the various groups of ETs confused in the first one, but other than that I had no complaints. I give this one 4.5 yo-yos.

The Garret Files

Okay, you probably know how much I like omnibuses, and if you've read my other posts, you know that I've liked the other Garrett books I've read. The Garrett Files, by Glen Cook, is no exception. I'm especially pleased with this one because it's the first three books in the series, so now I'm finally filled in on the back story from the other novels.

They novels are fantasy mysteries. While the fantasy elements are important, Garrett hangs out with a lot of non-human types, they don't use the "standard" fantasy plot elements. There are no quests to find the magical thingamajig needed to defeat the evil Lord Whatshisname. There are no valiant knights, though Garrett does like to play the knight errant. Basically, if all the fantasy elements were removed, the books could still stand as mystery.

I'm not particularly into mystery. Don't get me wrong; I've read Arthur Conan Doyle, and I like G. K. Chesterton's mysteries, and I've read a few others. It's just that for years fantasy (and to a lesser extent science fiction) has been my primary reading material. That said these novels were enough to keep me guessing, especially the second one.

I would definitely recommend this book, though I must admit the ending of the third novel was somewhat disappointing. I give The Garrett Files 4.5 yo-yos. Though, if you do buy it, I also recommend joining Zooba or the Science Fiction Book Club so you can save money on the omnibus. Up next, I'm reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

An Omnibus of Redheads, Blonds, Brunettes, Goddesses, Ratgirls...

I recently finished reading Glen Cook’s Garret Investigates an SFBC omnibus edition containing Deadly Quicksilver Lies, Petty Pewter Gods, and Faded Steel Heat. These novels are part of that fairly rare genre, the fantasy mystery.

These mysteries are set in the city of Tun Faire. The main character, Garrett, is one of those hard boiled detective types. He tends to not want to work, preferring to drink beer, chase redheads, and sleep in till noon. His partner is called the Dead Man, who is a sort of psychic, non-human corpse. He spends much of his time with beautiful women—who always seem to fall for his charms—and with an assortment of oddball friends.

In Deadly Quicksilver Lies, Garret battles a cross-dressing crime boss. In Petty Pewter Gods, the gods of Tun Faire are fighting over the last available temple, and Gerret is right in the middle of it. Faded Steel Heat is the story of various human0rightist groups and a bunch of shape shifters.

All of these Garrett stories are great. The setting is wonderfully though out. Garrett is a remarkable character, who does an admirable job of narrating his adventures. Overall, I’m not sure whether I like this series or Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy series better. I also wonder if Cook named his character after Randall Garrett. But that’s really beside the point.

The Garrett series is a really great, engrossing read. I give these volumes a 4.5 yo-yos. Up next, Orson Scott Card’s Magic Street.