As the caissons go rolling along....

I'll be the first to admit my picture appears on the Things that are not Steampunk page. I love the visuals in Steampunk art, but the fiction is usually so tech heavy as to be distracting.

But there are exceptions to every rule, and sometimes the narrative doesn't get bogged down in fanciful alternate history. Such is the case with Doktor Glass, by Thomas Brennan.

Set in Victorian Liverpool, we meet Inspector Langdon as he finds a faceless body at the base of the soon to be inaugurated Span, a rail and road bridge traversing the Atlantic between Liverpool and New York City.  The faceless body is covered in tattoos of Boer Irregular mercenaries, leading to speculation that the man was part of a South African Dutch plot to destroy the Queen, the Span, or both.

However, the corpse also has two square burn marks on the side of his neck.

What follows is a convoluted story involving the class warfare between upper crust English and lower class twits trapped in what amount to Hoovervilles along the side of the span; widows wanting pensions for husbands killed in the sinking of the caissons of the span, hopeful emigres trying to get steerage trips to America once the rail starts running...

Into this, thanks to a medium trying to help Inspector Langston get past the grief of losing his wife, we find out that the burn marks they keep finding on corpses' necks is due to the Jar Boys, who've created a device that captures a soul as it exits the body of a dying person. These newfangled canopic jars have the added bonus of giving folks who touch the poles on top of the jar a brief glimpse of the soul's life.

And of course, the mysterious Doktor Glass, who seems to be intent on taking out his competitors in the soul trade, who also has Langston's wife's soul in a jar.

The only really issue I had with the narrative was figuring out Doktor Glass's identity well before Langston did, even if the motive remain veiled until near the very end. There are, however, several other mysteries surround supporting characters (most of which revolve around "Who works for whom?") which keep interest high, and of course some exposition on the building of the Span itself, which brought be back to an Art History class that dealt with a lot of Architecture. Because the Span itself is a magnitudes greater version of the famed Brooklyn Bridge, stories of the sinking of the caissons in "the pond" are very similar to the horrors of sinking them in the Hudson so many years ago. 

So wait, the clans got involved with dragons?

Since I'm really not updating this blog as much as I'd like, and I'm not reading with the alacrity I used to read with, and there are so many other blogs doing similar to this one...

Trying to take notes from Bob over at Candy-Coated Razor Blades and posting occasional updates that aren't about a specific book, but maybe a synopsis of an ongoing series, a survey of books from a specific genre or world...stuff like that. Particularly given how many of the series I'm reading are getting ready to release new books soon-ish, it would be helpful to the 5 of you, out there alone in the dark looking at this, to have a ready log of what came before, so I'm not having to explain a world to you before talking about the newest book

Any rate, with that in mind, and the fact I'm about 30 pages from the end of the book I'm reading right now, I thought I'd spend some time talking about some of my first real introductions to the fantasy genre, Role Playing Games tie in novels.

To be fair, most of these get a really bad rap. Mind you, most of the time, it is a deserved reputation... But some of it is fairly entertaining and only held back by the fact it has a game logo on the cover.

I think I started with Troy Denning's Prism Pentad, set in Dungeons and Dragons' Dark Sun setting. Also known as "Let's make the Hobbits cannibals and everyone lives in a desert!" The five book series covers the freeing of the City State of Tyr, the origins of the dragon that comes and eats folks as tribute, and what actually happened on Athas that caused the desolation of the planet. It wasn't exactly happy reading. It also gets points taken off for introducing psionic powers to D&D, which basically increased the math exponentially.

Then there were the loosely related Ravenloft novels. Ravenloft was a gothic-horror setting tied into Strahd the vampire. The novels here were generally tied to one or two dominions within the Demiplane of Dread, and usually involved one or more Darklord, ruling over that geographical area. Some of them were quite good, like Christie Golden's Dance of the Dead. That one involved a theatre troupe on a boat facing down an evil boat captain in the island of Souragne. So, basically, the main character learns to control zombies with magical dancing. It sounds silly, but it worked well. There were others, though, like Mordenheim, which were more or less retellings of the source material. (In this case, Shelley's Frankenstein.) One thing that should be pointed out about the Ravenloft novels, however, is that they attracted a lot of talent before they became big names in the genres they write in. Like Tanya Huff, Laurell K. Hamilton, and P. N. Elrod.

And the grandaddy of all D&D literature, Dragonlance. Which I still love the hell out of, even if the Chronicles are an unholy mix of Mormonism and Lord of the Rings. And that series is still going strong. Just stick with Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis and you'll be fine. Some of the stuff they didn't write together or separately delves off into silliness.

And of course, as much as I wish we could, I can't talk about D&D without mentioning the damned Forgotten Realms. I enjoyed the Avatar Trilogy by  Richard Awlinson, but hated the two sequels. (The first 3 concerned all the Gods of Faerun being kicked out of their realms and forced to live among their subjects. The followups concerned folks who ended up becoming Gods to replace dead gods. And they got progressively dumber.) And I'm seemingly alone in my hatred of R. A. Salvatore and his Dark Elves, monks, and frozen waste series.

Moving on then, we reach White Wolf's World of Darkness fiction. Which, again, is kind of a grab bag, usually continuations of short fictions published in anthologies accompanying ever game's release. Or interrelated stories set in late Medieval (for the release of Vampire: the Dark Ages) and the modern age. Or the Clan Novels (13 novels and an anthology. Each novel centered on a specific clan. Some were really good. Others, like Tremere, were horrible. Thankfully, they released 4 Omnibus editions that more or less assembled the plot lines in chronological order.) and the Tribe Novels (14 novellas centered around the Werewolf tribes, printed in two novella editions.) All of which lead up to the end of the shared Universe. Gehenna: the Final Night (Vampire) was well written, The Last Battle (Werewolf) was probably the best, because Judgement Day (Mage) was like ending a plotline in an outhouse. (Seriously. It had nothing to do with much established metaplot, well loved characters, or anything to do with Mage at all. Instead, we got people fusing 3 souls into one body and then being judged. The actual supplement they released to end the line would have made a MUCH better ending.)

Which brings us to the last shared world I wanted to discuss, Shadowrun. SR was very interesting in setting, mixing high fantasy and cyberpunk. Other than the system's reliance on d6...(First time I played, I had one roll that involved rolling 10d6. (10 six sided dice, for those not up on terminology.)

I found a used copy of a book called Crossroads by Steve Kenson at a local gaming store. And I got sucked in, buying the other two stories revolving around the main character (Ragnarock and The Burning Time) because I liked the story. Basically, Tommy Talon was an Arcane Mage in the setting who also happened to be gay. (Let's face it, finding gay characters in any RPG is a rarity. One who survives 3 novels, has a dead lover who figures prominently into the plot, and kicks ass in pretty much unheard of.)

I'll also tell a story of Mr. Kenson here. At the time I read the trilogy, I called a friend of mine who informed me that Steve;s husband was a New Age/Pagan/Witch author of some renown, Christopher Penczak. I read some of his stuff as well, and still highly recommend two of his books to friends. (One on Gay Spirituality, and one on city life.) Anyway, it seems the majority of my circle of friends knew of Mr. Penczak before they knew of Mr. Kenson. Seems I was the odd man out in that situation.

Anyway, a review of Doktor Glass should go up this weekend, and I'll see about doing another survey/synopsis post later next week.

And before I forget, since my friend Robert over at This is who I AM always acknowledges his followers as they sign up, I'd like to recognize Bob from Candy-coated Razor Blades, Lady Justice at Justice Is Served, and Chris from Renrields. Go read em. They all have interesting things to say.

Dig deep

So, when last we heard from Facilitator Joseph, he was running around as an indigenous Coyote God. Now, in what was the modern era when the book was written, he works in San Francisco.

We last saw literature Specialist Lewis at New World One just prior to the Spanish arrival in Central and South America. He's in Los Angeles.

And when last we saw Mendoza, she was WAY back in time.

And since this is an even book in the Company Series, we're back to Joseph for The Graveyard Game by Kage Baker.

Basically, we cover one whole hell of a lot of time in this one, from the mid 1990's to 2289ish. We follow Joseph and Lewis as they try to figure out what happened to Mendoza, who more or less dropped off the face of the planet. (Lewis was there in the last book when Mendoza jumped forward in time [theoretically impossible], and is now trying to figure out where the botanist ended up, since her current assignemnt is merely a number.

We go through the second American Civil War, the complete veganization of the UK (and later on the newly reconciled USA), suborbital travel and antigravity cars....

We find out about different factions within the Immortals (including the Plaguebringers, the founder believed to be Budu, the Enforcer who found Joseph back in the neolithic era.)  We learn that Edward Alton-Fairfax is indeed almost the same man as Nicholas Harpoole. (Basiclaly, the two men Mendoza loved. The former was shot by the Yanks, the latter was burned as a heretic.) We learn that one Immortal in particular (who really doesn't like "Monkeys" set Edward up to take a fall. We learn of a group of humans who know about the Immortals and who have been chasing Lewis for quite some time.

Oh yes, and conspiracy theories abound about 2355, the Year The Silence Descends. (I'm sure my fellow Whovians will giggle about that. Sadly, The Silence here refers to the year that all communication from the future stops. Not Aliens trying to end the universe.) Really, it's interesting, since there are more than a few places where I keep thinking Moffat co-wrote some of this book.

All very interesting, as we dig through graveyards both literal and figurative, learning secrets here and there. Like what happens to retired cyborgs. And the fate of Budu, last seen under arrest in Sky Coyote. What we don't know at the end is where Mendoza is, and what will happen in 74 years from the end of this novel.

I'm amused at how hooked into this series I am, particularly since The Garden of Iden took me so long to get through. Now, I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next and what happened to Mendoza after her trip WAY WAY back.

Darn it, Bob....

Bob, over at Candy Coated Razor Blades, posted about psycho old biddies the other day, and closed it out with Louise Fletcher's scenery chewing in Flowers in the Attic.

Which of course, inspired me to rewatch the horrible horrible movie again, and then look up the entire Dollenganger saga by VC Andrews. (Although technically, I'm pretty sure some of the later books were done by her ghostwriter.)

Because, seriously, that cookie is made of WIN!

Anyway, I last read most of the series in 8th grade. (I never did finish the prequel, Garden of Shadows. Of course, after 5 books of this crap, I was done by the end.)

For those who have never endured Ms. Andrews (or Andrew Neiderman, the estate's ghostwriter), the series starts with Cathy and her siblings moving to her grandparents' estate following the death of her father and the catastrophic financial crisis this entails for her poor mother. 

Problem being that A) Grandmother doesn't like children, and B) Grandfather won't give Momma money if she had kids. This necessitates locking 4 young children in a small room with access to the attic. For several years. Because Mom eventually forgets about them. But Grandmother doesn't. Oh no. Grandmother is like Pepperidge Farm. She remembers. And heaven forbid the little devil spawn do anything Grandmother doesn't like. And she doesn't like a lot of things. At one point, Grandmother starves the children because Cathy won't cut her hair. Then she drugs Cathy and puts tar in her hair to make her cut it. This allows for my first exposure to watersports in fiction as her older brother Chris tries uric acid as a tar removal system. 

Speaking of Chris, as brother and sister enter puberty, guess which brother and sister start exploring sexual desire together? Oh yes, incest. And the worst part? They keep sleeping together for the rest of the series. 

Anyway, to make a very long story short, they escape after the youngest brother dies from arsenic poisoning in the cookies Grandmother brings them to eat. All of which leads to 4 more books of Chris and Cathy alternately loving and hating each other, trying to ruin their mother's life, being locked in a basment with said mother while the building burns, one of Cathy's children getting crushed by a large building during a ballet version of Sampson and Delilah... It's trashy, gothic, and hard to put down. And particularly as a teen, quite exciting.

Any rate, a real review should go up this weekend, as I'm about done with the book I'm reading.

Family matters

So, book #2 was a return to Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series, with Midnight Blue-Light Special. Verity Price is at it again, trying to save the cryptids from an impending purge by the Covenant of St. George. Thankfully, her occasional boyfriend, Dominic informs her of their impending inspection of readiness for a purge prior to their arrival. Unfortunately, since he's part of the Covenant....

What follows is more exploration of Verity's private life, working at a cryptid cabaret, dealing with a man she loves and hates...

And then gets kidnapped halfway through by one of her relatives from the branch of the family that stayed in the covenant. Which transitions the narrative to the Cuckoo cousin, who takes over narrative duties for a time.

Really, this one was less of an extension of the first volume, and more a chance to finish off Verity's story for a time. A note at the end of the book states the next book will be following around one of the cousins, which, while sad, will hopefully allow for some less.... condensed plotting. Because really, I felt like the plot would get derailed in exposition, followed by a couple pages of intensity, only to fall back into the quagmire.

Dark Lady won't live to turn a card again...

So, while I was out of town, I managed to finish 2 books and start another 2, thanks to the Nook and some Library Wi-Fi. Also picked up St. John's Lutheran Church's recipe book, which has become a sacred relic. (Whomever used it last added annotations that had everyone laughing. That, and being published in 1979, some of the recipes are quite dated.)

None of which has to do with the two-fer I plan on posting tonight. That, and I will not likely be posting about the one book I got digitally, since I don't really think people want to hear about what turned out to be Gay Amish Romance Porn written about the level of USA today.

Anyway, I had started R. S. Belcher's The Six Gun Tarot before I left, but I finished it while I was gone. And since I wasn't about to try to type a blog post on a tablet with a stylus...

This was a fun book that left almost no cliche unused in places, and had a few parts that disturbed me, but probably not for reasons the author anticipated. (One involved the drinking of a mythological creature's menstrual blood, the other involved a hentai like scene wen something in the silver mine claimed its bride.)

However, there is quite a mythological mess contained within. Which, as written, works out well, since none of the characters involved in the mystical shenanigans seems aware of other characters' special place in their respective mythologies.

We get introduced to Jim, trying to cross the 40 mile desert on his was to Golgotha, Nevada. It's post Civil War Era, but not quite past the Gold and Silver Rushes of the mid to late 19th century. Jim nearly dies, talks to a Coyote, and winds up getting saved by Mutt, a Native American who's been outcast by his tribe.

Mutt refers to one of the coyotes as as his brother.

Then we meet Sheriff Jon Highfather, who strangely has several noose marks around his neck, where they tried and failed to hang him.  Who saves Maude and Auggie from a man rambling about worms while trying to rob the general store. Maude is married to the local banker and is training her daughter to be one of Lillith's avengers. Auggie, with help from the local taxidermist, is keeping his wife alive in a fish bowl of chemicals in a Frankenstein way. 

You get the idea.

Add into this mix the Mormon mayor with two wives and a boyfriend who plays piano at the Chinese brothel (and access to such Mormon paraphenalia as the plates, the glasses, and the sword of Latham), The mysterious man who owns most of the town, and seemingly unrelated passages relating to Biqa, an Angel guarding something on the Earth when not being tempted to rebel by Lucifer Morningstar. (This proves what Uncle Milton already know. Lucifer is a scene stealer.)

Then there are the mad preachers who somehow got control of the mine and start waking up what's bound inside. Which is when all the Lovecraftian incantations start coming out and someone gets tentacles in her private parts.

I know this sounds like a corny train wreck, and there are a few parts where is really is, but there are some rather fascinating meditations of what is real, and how our perceptions of reality are colored by what we believe. Because there are about 5 different explanations of what exactly lies under the mountain, and all of them are treated as equally valid.

It really is a supernatural western, and quite the enjoyable ride. Almost makes me wish I could find that picture of Cthulhu in a stetson.

It's like a Tom Petty song...only with cyborgs...

I discussed The Company novels by Kage Baker after reading the second book, and now just finished Mendoza in Hollywood.

Mendoza narrated the first book, The Garden of Iden, where we met our little immortal cyborg as she was recused from the Inquisition in Spain, made an immortal cyborg, then became one of Dr. Zeus Inc.'s botanists. She met a wonderful young man whom she loved in England under the reign of Bloody Mary, Queen of Scots, and had her heart destroyed when the Papists burned her heretical Lutheran lover at the stake.

After the events in Sky Coyote, Mendoza remained in California, preserving plant species in relative isolation beforfe being reassigned by the company to a Stagecoach way station outside of Los Angeles in 1862. (Also American Civil War period. there's a lot of plot and counterplot in the background as Mexico and Britain try to interfere with Union supplies from the coast using Confederate plotters.)

We meet Porfirio, who remembered enough of his family to become a special guardian to them even into his immortal life, which come back to bite him about halfway through the novel; Einar, who's preserving coyotes and longhorns and also is a huge fan of Early Hollywood (which in this time period hasn't started yet); Oscar, the anthropologist who peddles wares to get information from the locals; Juan Batista, the bird guy with evil condor Erich von Stroheim; and Imarte, posing as the stagecoach lady of negotiable virtue.

Given that Mendoza's part in all of this really doesn't get going until the last few chapters, most of the book focuses on Early Statehood residents, as well as Einar's obsessions of what will be  where in several decades. (During the latter part of the book, Mendoza and her beau wind up on a spot marked "Harrison Ford's front porch".) There's also the Immortal Film Festival, easily disguised from mortals due to a drought and the Civil War interrupting stage coach traffic. Which leads to one very long and interesting chapter detailing D. W. Griffith's follow up to Birth of a Nation, Intolerance. (Which I had to Wiki, since I'd never heard of it. I was kind of amused to find that Lillian Gish was in both of the aforementioned movies, since she at one point lived in the house next to where my mother currently resides.) That particular movie sets off Imarte, who was made immortal during the days of Babylon. Watching the Persians at the gate destroying her city again, combined with lots of whiskey, has her chasing off into the valleys of SoCal for a night, reliving her past. It's another glimpse into the hell of being a being who won't die and can't forget anything.

There's also a chapter of what I assume is foreshadowing for a later part of the series, wherein we get more of a glimpse of Mendoza's latent psychic abilities. (As of yet, these are largely undefined. They weren't really mentioned at all in the first book, and Joseph mentions them in passing in the second. In here, a trip to Laurel Canyon winds up interacting with "Chrome radiation" [also not really well defined, but something that some beings generate that also builds up in crystals] and sends Porfirio and Mendoza very briefly to modern era LA, complete with smog, cars, and gang warfare. They get sent back to where they started fairly quickly (since 2 people in 19th century clothes on horseback appearing from nowhere might set off a few alarms), but not before Lewis, another character from earlier in the series, tries to warn her not to go back.

Anyway, in the last part, as pretty much everyone else is gone from the Inn, Mendoza ends up meeting British spy Edward, there to pick up a valise left by a colleague who left it there during an...interlude...with Imarte. Since the valise has plans dealing with the British backing the Confederate privateers trying to cut Union gold supplies (centered on Catalina Island).

Anyway, Mendoza sees her lover Nicolas (last seen burning on a stake) in Edward, and winds up trying to help him in what she already knows to be a failed plot.

Much of the conclusion tells us of what her punishment is for doing so, and meditates on reincarnation and whether or not being immortal is always such a good things. We also get more of the "What is Dr. Zeus Inc really up to?" that Joseph ran in to towards the end of Sky Coyote, as Dr. Zeus Inc. has interests in Catalina, and there are tales of giant white men out there who some presume to be aliens.

Really, this entire series has shown more improvement as I read further in to it. Not that I didn't like Iden, but much of the hints of a greater metaplot weren't really present within, and it got bogged down in comparative theology. Now, though... my curiosity is piqued as to what will happen now as the series continues. (Ms. Baker evidently died, but she did finish the series before that, at least according to wikipedia.)

One of my all time favorites

Since I'm muddling through Kage Baker at the moment, I thought I'd drop in and talk about on of my favorite series that also happens to be calling from the shelf at the moment.

Many years ago, when I was frequenting the library branch south of Ohio State, I kept seeing a book on the New Books display called The Gumshoe Gorilla. I read the back, and kept looking at it every time I went in to drop off and pick up. Then someone in one of my LiveJournal communities reviewed it and pointed out that it was the second book in the series that started with The Gumshoe, The Witch, and The Virtual Corpse.

So, I placed reserves on both books, and wound up reading them on an extended weekend trip to Illinois for my cousin's wedding.

After realizing that I'd checked the books out 3 or 4 times, I wound up buying copies of my own, since I still enjoy re-reading them, even if the newer editions change a few references around. (In the original edition of GWVC, there's a Star Trek reference that gets changed to a Star Wars reference, and a few other nods to changing tastes or things considered too obscure. I still have an original version of GG, so I'm not sure what got changed in there.)

GWVC introduces us to Private Eye Drew Parker in the year 2024 as he's staking out the fiance of his client. His client is a Southern Baptist, who is trying to see if her husband to be is really gay. Drew's accomplice in this is the Escort Daniel, who does indeed prove the fiance to be gay. This is complicated by the fact the client has decided to come along on the sting. And the client pulls a gun when the fiance's infidelity is revealed.

This little vignette that opens the story gives us a glimpse of the world of 2024. Daniel is a product of the Camps, basically orphanages for gay youth abandoned by their parents following the development of the test for the gay gene. As times have passed, only the Catholics generally won't avoid aborting a gay baby. As such, the Gay culture has a bunch of iconography based on the fusion of Divas and Saints. (For instance, Madonna, the Like-A-Virgin, not the Holy Virgin.) Due to increasingly customizable entertainment options, most groups segregate themselves into fairly insular communities, with no real overlap.

(As a side note, and as a bit of an Eater egg, Drew's introduction was published as a short story in Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction edited by Stephen Pagel and Nicola Griffith. Stephen, in his introduction, makes a comment about how he goes by Stephe since he can't properly spell it Steve. In GWVC, a security guard does introduce himself as Stephe.)

The book itself is written in first person. The twist is that there are 22 narrators throughout the text, each with a handle and a time stamp to help keep track of where we are in the story. Drew, for instance, is The Gumshoe. The geriatric Cherokee shaman is The Lunatic. a school kid who figures greatly into the plot is The Chosen One, mainly because he thinks of himself as God's chosen victim. Nothing near martyrdom, but more like putting banana peels in his path to give God a laugh.

What follows is an investigation into 3 murders, what caused them, and what the murder is actually trying to accomplish. By the time you get to the end, the staggering beauty of the plan is almost overwhelming, and the social commentary quite pointed.

The second book returns us back to Drew a year later, investigating a famous film star on behalf of the star's girlfriend. (The star is on of 5 identical Tom Cruise clones. In the continuity, cloning dead celebrities is an expensive but valid means of reproducing.) It also focuses on Daniel and his past or what little he remembers of it. And in the meantime becomes a very deep meditation on the perils of fame and celebrity.

I recommend these frequently to all of my gay friends who like to read, since they really are fun reads with much to say. And it's hard not to feel kinship with many of the characters throughout both books. I wish Hartman would write another sequel, but I think he's busy doing movies now.

Nixon, you dolt!

I'm going to preface this post with an old meme, mainly because I spent the entire book thinking about it.

Just finished The Cassandra Project by Jack McDevitt and Mike Resnick. Which starts with NASA PR guy Jerry Culpepper fielding a strange question about declassified Apollo-era recordings on the 50th anniversary of Eagle's landing on the moon. Among them was a recorded message involving an earlier Apollo astronaut named Myshko saying that he was ready to go down to the surface. (I looked up the missions on Wiki, I think they created a few things for the purpose of the plot.)

From there, we watch as Jerry tries to find the truth among the recordings; as President Cunningham tries to figure out what's going on, since he's being accused of being clueless or deceitful, depending on who gets asked; and Bucky, the billionaire businessman getting ready to do the first private moon landing gets involved, trying to find out why Myshko landed on the far side of the moon in the Cassingham Crater.

The problem with all of this revolves around the idea that, as science fiction, almost everyone is going to jump to the same conclusion I did (which is reflected by bad hair guy above), so the what isn't exactly a surprise. Why Myshko landed, what he found, and why both Cold War USSR and USA covered it up. (Seriously. About halfway through, we find out that photos of that area of the moon had been doctored in both countries' archives.)

What we end up finding out in the process of solving a 50 year old cover up is the real reason for the Watergate break in, why Nixon and the Soviets jointly covered up what was in that crater, and some very interesting insinuations of why such an important event was not recorded in the annals of human history.

While I did not agree with the reasoning behind the cover up, mainly because my frame of reference is a LOT different from those who would be most affected by the reveal, I can understand why the characters took the action that they did.

I liked the writing in this, since it didn't get all that bogged down in things that weren't advancing the plot. Much like a Sherlock Holmes story (which gets referenced towards the end), everything works together to come to a conclusion. I also enjoyed that Bucky wasn't a Rand-ian hero; while he enjoyed the benefits of capitalism, he was also looking at ways to improve the world. (And profit at the same time.)

Despite the occasionally conservative politics that get inserted here and there, what comes across the strongest is a love of exploration and the need for human kind to start going out again. The arguments are there in the text, from overpopulation  to the sheer wonder that comes from setting foot somewhere other than Mother Earth. And, of course, the idea of visiting those who visited us.

I'll point out that I was born in 1975, so I missed Apollo and Skylab, so most of my astronaut desires focused on the Space Shuttle and the idea of being out there. And at its best, this book brought back that sense of wonder from my childhood.

He wanted a "13" but they gave him "31"

I'll preface this by stating that I have no tattoos, nor will I probably ever get ink done. Among other things, there's never been much that I've felt strongly enough about to permanently scar it on my body. On the other hand, I do enjoy seeing what other people get tattooed on themselves and I watch Ink Master on occasion.

Which brings us to the book of the evening: Angel's Ink by Jocelynn Drake, first in her Asylum Tales series.

The basic set up is that Gage runs a tattoo parlor (The Asylum) in a bad part of an unnamed town (Probably Cincinnati. Among other things, the author is in Covington, Kentucky, and one of the characters lives in a part of town referred to as "Over the Rhine"), assisted by Trixie (an elf with a past, usually disguised by a glamour) and Bronx (a troll who also has a past.) Gage is one of the few Warlocks to escape "The Ivory Tower", the ruling elite of Witches and Warlocks who tend to only get involved with humanity and other supernatural races only to crack down on the things they don't approve. (I'm sure a few of my friend would quibble with the titles, but it's her world, I just read about it.)

In a page straight out of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, we find out that Gage has a Warden named Gideon who's supposed to keep Gage from using magic for anything other than defensive purposes, punishable by being dragged before the Council for probable execution.

Anyway, the narrative ball starts rolling when Tara walks in to the shop. Tara is dying of cancer, has a very short time to live, and believes she's going to go to hell. As such, she asks Gage to tattoo her with angel wings. Now, given this is urban fantasy, Gage and his cohorts aren't normal tattoo artists. They use special ingredients to make the ink into potions that can rather enhance them. In the case of Tara's wings, he adds a tuft of a feather of an angel's wing to the potion.


Which is all well and good until a member of the Grim Reaper's local shows up and explains that this had the side effect of making Tara immortal. And if Gage can't fix this, the Union will be quite happy to collect Gage's soul in 3 days when Tara's time was to have come.

Add into this mix Gage's old mentor, Simon, coming back to try to kill Gage as an act of political house cleaning, the Summer Court of Fairy coming after Trixie, Lilith, a talking cat, the mob, the black market (including a guy who sounds like David Lo Pan in my head when I read his dialogue), and you have a fairly good yarn. While I think the series will improve over time, especially if the author doesn't keep inserting new plot threads every other chapter (so much going on...most of these would make awesome books in their own right as the characters develop), it is a bit rough trying to keep track of every addition to the cast.

Also, I'd point out I knew this was fantasy during the one big smut sequence about halfway through. Not only does the woman finish first (twice), but the man wants to cuddle and talk afterwards.