Gomagog

 So, after a long absence from reading Stephen King's post Dark Tower novels, I picked up Fairy Tale with a gift card I received for my upcoming birthday.

While not particularly a horror tale (it really falls under the "Dark Fantasy" umbrella more than any other genre), it did not disappoint. (On the other hand, his endings still need a bit of help.)

Anyway, our focus character is Charlie, who's narrating the events from a future time of what happened when he was 17 and living in a Chicago suburb. A reclusive old man falls off a ladder, and Charlie saves him. Which introduces us to Radar, the dog, with whom we spend probably a quarter of the book learning about the care and feeding of said animal. 

Eventually, the old man dies, leaving Charlie with everything, including a pot of gold in his safe and a shed with a well to another world in it. 

Charlie ends up going in with the intention of saving Radar, who is very old and dying, since there's a sundial that works like Bradbury's carousel in Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Except...well...he does eventually subtract several years from Radar, but in the process, he winds up trapped in the Fairy Tale world he's part of, becoming a tale in and of himself. 

There are quite a few things I liked in here. King tends to reuse phrases from previous works, and in this particular book, he tells us the roots of some of those phrases. I like the idea presented in here about worlds stacked on worlds, since it echoes The Dark Tower without getting bogged down in the mythology that eventually overtook the narrative. I really was reminded of Walter Jon Williams' Aristoi at a few points as Charlie must confront being dragged out of an ideal into hard reality. 

I enjoyed this quite a bit. It reminded me quite a bit of Eyes of the Dragon, but with less sibling rivalry and much more just enjoying the ride.

I see why this got so much hate

 So, despite my best attempts to avoid it, I did read Greg Weisman's deeply unpopular War of the Spark: Forsaken this week. 

Picking up right after the last volume, we get into the chase after 3 planeswalkers who had sided with Nicol Bolas. Including the perpetual Liliana Vess, who's popularity has remained constant over the years since her introduction. The others are Tezzeret and Dovan Baan. 

Ugh. Anyway, of the 3, only Dovan actually dies, mainly because someone else kills him and plans to blackmail the person who was supposed to. (This was an older storyline, so the plot should be pretty familiar to anyone who reads the book.) 

There were a couple of odd reveals, such as finding out that Rat, the invisible girl, also has a male personality that assassinates people, and exactly who all the shapeshifter Laslov is actually impersonating. (One of his old printings is actually a lot of fun to play.) 

And then there's the controversial part. See, it was heavily implied that Chandra and Nissa were having an affair. And in this book, we find out it was never consummated, and most folks read it as bi-erasure. Which, yeah I get that. On the other hand, letting Chandra and Nissa have a happy ending given that everyone else gets a bad ending (Jase and Vraska are back to Human/gorgon coupling, but lacking trust in each other; Ral and Tomik losing together time; Gideon dead, etc etc....) it kind of makes sense that the world is bereft of elf on pyromancer fanfic for a while.  I'm sure they'll retcon the retcon eventually. 

Readable, but silly.

Let's break out the D&D and Ozzy!

 So, as part of my attempt to read something scary for Halloween, I wound up grabbing Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeod Chapman. (It popped up on goodreads, it looked interesting.) 

So, we're switching between two narratives; one, Sean, starts in 1983ish, and one, Richard, is self narrated in 2012. Both are the same person, we just wait most of the book to get the full story on what exactly happened to turn Sean into Richard. The long story short here is that Sean got lead down the garden path by a pushy child psychologist and, along with his classmates, winds up implicating his teachers in a Satanic Ritual Abuse scandal. 

In 2012, Richard is teaching art at an Elementary school, and lo and behold, we start with him finding a mutilated rabbit with a birthday card for Sean stuck in its chest cavity. Things in the past keep happening in the present. It does seem Richard is being set up to be accused of doing what he accused his teachers of doing. 

Having lived through the 80's moral panic, Chapman does a really good job of recreating the mindset of the era during the Sean bits. Deeper digging into the era shows that what Sean endures pretty well reflects what was happening with the children coming forward with wild tales of zombies feeding them flesh after being summoned by teachers. 

That being said, the parts in the present of 2012 fall flat. Really flat. It felt a lot like reading an outline of a much better story than actually was presented. Even the big reveal isn't that exciting, as pretty much anyone paying attention will figure it out about halfway through.

Which is sad, since Sean's story is both sad and compelling. One just wishes Richard's story was more fleshed out, and less thin than his created identity.

Meet/Cute with a bunch of silly

 So, one of the books I found myself browsing at work was Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall.Which once I realized was male male romance with a male author, I figured, Why not?

So, we're (self) centered around Lucien O'Donnel, the son of an Irish-French Folk Singer and a Prog Rock start who mostly seems to be a cypher of Ian Anderson. Luc is about to get fired from his job as a donation coordinator for a Dung Beetle charity after donors get wind of him passed out in a gutter after a party, particularly after the paparazzi takes pictures of said event. Needing reputational rehab, he gets his best friend Bridget to set him up with Oliver Blackwood, a straight laced criminal defense solicitor. As it turns out, Oliver needs a fake boyfriend to get through his parents' anniversary party. 

Which leads to a fake relationship that becomes much more real about halfway through. 

Well, ya know, except for the whole complications that crop up towards the end, leading to Richard Gere picking him up from his hovel....er...well....

I mean, we get solid portrayals of both men's emotional damages as the plot meanders on; Luc's dad left him for fame, and tries to reconcile now that he's dying of cancer and on a The Voice style competition, Oliver's parents are some of the most unintentionally cruel people this side of Harry Potter's Aunt and Uncle. It's appropriately sad at all the right points, and absurd bits of humor crop up at unexpected intervals. 

Yeah, it's a bit too frothy to be serious, and a bit too dark to be comedy. But it works and entertains. 

Nicol Bolas needs ketchup

 So, one of my older HPB purchases was Greg Weisman's novelization of Magic: the Gathering's War of the Spark. 

Now as someone who plays the game occasionally, I knew the plot here, but reading the novel was kind of a novel concept to me.

Problem being that, like many novels written about gaming material, it's really uneven. 

So, plotwise, we open on Elder Dragon Nicol Bolas landing on the city plane of Ravnica, and setting his trap. The Planar Beacon to draw every planeswalker in the multiverse to Ravnica, the Immortal Sun, to trap everyone there, and the Planar Bridge opened in the Guildhall to disrupt the leylines and let the mummified Eternals to march on Ravnica, taking everyone's Spark to feed Bolas.  

As such, what remains of the Gatewatch gathers to try to put down Bolas once and for all. 

Anyone who plays the game has a good understanding of this. People who don't aren't likely to read this. 

Anyway, there are a few surprises in here, like finding out Static Shock er Ral Zarek has a male lover. Or the about as subtle as the Village People lesbian undertiones between Chandra and Nissa. (Supposedly, in the sequel volume, they retcon the hell out of that.) We get the silliness of Jace's love for the Gorgon Vraska (it's sweet, but I'm trying to figure out what the children would look like), and Rat, who almost no one can see. 

Honestly, the weak parts here are trying to humanize the characters. They have no real depth.

On the other hand, as befits the authors work with comic books, the action sequences match if not surpass the grand fight scenes in your average MCU movie, where everyone gets some screentime to show off. I mean, when the Invulnerable Gideon Jura, paragon of White Magic attacks Bolas after jumping off the Black and red Demon Radkos, I felt the urge to yell loudly and throw popcorn. 

Honestly, I enjoyed it enough to feel I didn't waste money by buying the volume, but...

Not the cemetary, but the Lake

 I'm running behind on updates again.

So, Riley Sager wrote another late summer thriller, and once again, I wound up reading it, expecting the same issues I run in to with his narratives. 

Honestly, The House Across the Lake is a step up from previous novels by the author, but it does suffer from a problem with sticking two major twists too close together, so that the effectiveness of the final twist suffers. 

We open on Casey Fletcher, an actress who has been schlepped up to her lakeside Vermont estate after her drinking problem got so out of control that she got fired from a Broadway play she was starring in. WE find out that Casey's drinking issues stem from her husband drowning in the lake she's currently trapped at a year prior. (Yes, I didn't make the connection that Casey is a rough cypher for Carrie Fisher until I started writing this review.)

Anyway, We have four other people staying at the lake, which is fairly isolated and very rich. Eli, an old sci-fi author is the only year round resident. We have Boone, a recovering alcoholic ex cop restoring the neighbor's house. And we have Tom and Katherine,  the former a tech millionaire, and the latter a supermodel. 

We get introduced to Katherine as Casey saves her from drowning in the lake. 

Anyway, the story becomes equal parts Rear Window, and a few other horror movies we won't mention due to spoilers, as a hurricane remnant approaches, and Casey starts spying on the neighbors with her dead husband's bird watching binoculars, as we find out EVERYONE's dirty secrets. 

I mean, the overwhelming sense of catharsis is palpable as we hit the first finale, but then there's the second finale that falls kind of flat following the original reveal. Past that, it's what I expect from Sager, readable fun.

Well, Hello, Esme!

 One of the books I picked up in London was A Blink of the Screen, a collection of short fiction from Terry Pratchett. While anthologies aren't usually my thing, this is Pratchett. 

Anyway, the collection is roughly 2/3 non-Discworld, and 1/2 Discworld, although a few of those are things written for other sources. (In particular, a synopsis written setting up the Discworld boardgame that eventually got written in book form as THUD!.) 

There are some stories that are really really good and stick out in the not Discworld section. Like "Turntables of the Night", in which DEATH goes to a Disco. The entire conversation between the anthropomorphism of Death and a DJ discussing artists they collect made this worth the buy. In another really odd one, "Twenty Pence, With Envelope and Seasonal Greeting" is a bit like if HP Lovecraft wrote a Christmas story. (Seriously. Much of the story is recounted by someone observing an insane postal worker driven mad by the world turning into Christmas Cards.) 

In terms of the Discworld section, the big one is the near novella that is "The Sea and Little Fishes" (which has deleted material in the Appendix). It concerns Witch Trials, and a committee of witches trying to convince Granny Weatherwax not to enter so someone else can win. Esme's way of dealing with this is delightful. Another standout is "Theatre of Cruelty", in which the Night Watch tries to solve the mystery of a dead puppeteer. Including the absolutely wonderful interview with a witness, once again DEATH. 

One really interesting story in here, "The High Meggas", is basically the origin of The Long Earth. One of the protagonists here shares a name with the eventual protagonist of the series, but past that the resemblance to what came later on is superficial. 

And of course, there's the lyrics to the Ankh-Morpork National Anthem, written for a BBC Radio programme about various National Anthems. Which was then set to music and sung by the Scots. 

Seen Here. 

Bonus joke is Pratchett's observation that most folks remain shocked to learn their anthem has more than one verse, so the second verse has a bunch of mumbling followed by a few words, as if the Soprano singing it remembered the ends of the phrase. 

I miss Pratchett. I'm always glad to have a reminded of why I miss him.

A nightmare at midsummer.

 So, I actually finished Seanan McGuire's Be the Serpent Friday, but it's been a week. 

So, October and Tybalt are married and in bliss. Other than being summoned to Muir Woods for the debate on waking up Rayseline, who was last seen (awake) trying to kill off most of the court. Mind you, when October entered her dreams, a promise was made, which comes to the fore after she's wakened. Which is, essentially, Rayseline comes to be October's servant for a year, giving her a chance to heal. 

Which is all well and good until two of the court seers (sisters of Toby's best friend) start screaming in terror. Which leads to finding out one sister is dead, and the brothers are ok. 

Which is pretty much where the plot gets going, as we start digging deeper into the true nature of Fairie, and indeed, just about everyone in here ends up going off at Oberon at some point in time. (Frankly, he kind of has it coming.) 

Any rate, we get pretty deep into what actually caused the Broken Ride, or at least another perspective on it, and a hell of a lot of dirty laundry about the Courts and Claims of Oberon, Janet, Titania, and Maeve. We also get a really BIG freakin' cliffhanger after the main plot is mostly resolved. 

Then we get a really cool novella that explains the binding of Antigone the Sea Witch and how it came to be. 

While most people who've finished complain about the cliffhanger, I'm enjoying it, since I can't wait to find out what happens next. Particularly since the teaser we got prior to the book being released had me assuming this would be the book in which Antigone actually tries to kill October. It's not. Yet. 

Always fun, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

As unto Sodom, but with less purpose

 So, wound up rereading John Rechy's The Coming of the Night over the past week. While it's a lot less verbose than City of Night, it covers similar territory while illuminating the end of an era. 

We're in Los Angeles in 1981, opening on Jesse in the morning, as he prepares to basically screw his way to a massive release in the night. (A note on structure here. We get multiple focus characters, and we follow them from morning until Night.) The Sant'Ana winds are blowing and the entire city is on edge. We meet Zha Zha, the drag queen porn director, doing a "rehearsal" in the hills for a closeted producer. We have Clint, who's come to LA to get away from some issues in NYC. We have the black cowboy who hates being fetishized for being clack, we get the muscle guy who's worried that his size isn't enough for people. We have the older queen, who sees himself as above the lowlifes out cruising the streets, even as he cruises himself. We have Paul, who's boyfriend is off screwing around in San Francisco. We have the straight hustler, doing men for money. We have Father Norris, who is asked by a woman in confession to go save her son, who has a naked crucifix tattooed on his back while he's busy hustling.And we have the leather guy, who winds up plotting the orgy for Jesse's birthday in the park at night. And lest we forget, we have the roughnecks out to go queer bashing. 

It's quite funny in several spots, as almost everyone in here keeps mentioning how to avoid a hookup once you think the other person is saying no, as Zha Zha's party finds the stars switching roles randomly; but there's also some really painful moments as Clint reveals that he's running for a gay cancer that took out one of his friends in New York, as father Norris chases shadows, as the queer bashers wind up getting bashed themselves. 

Ultimately, it's the portrait of the days right before AIDS, when sex and sexuality were the reward for the sheer amounts of shit society poured down upon the queers. Sadly, as we all know, it got worse. 

Well worth reading.

D&D Multiverse?

 Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman have returned to Dragonlance with Dragons of Deceit, their first collaboration in this setting in several years. 

We open on Destina, a Solamnic Lady who's father dies at the battle of the High Clerist's Tower (where Sturm died in Book 2 of the original series.) As time progresses, her life falls apart, as the keep her father left her gets taken over by her Uncle, and she winds up losing everything.

Hearing tales in Palanthas of Tasslehoff's adventures (in Legends), Destina seeks first the Greygem (last seen in Summer Flame; however, this book is set before the Chaos War) in Thorbardin, and then seeks out Tasslehoff in Solace to get the Time Travel MacGuffin Device to go back in time to try to keep her father from dying. 

There's a hell of a lot of silliness, particularly since Destina's big plan to get Tas to cooperate involved her turning into a Kender, made more complicated by the Greygem also playing havoc with magic. 

By the end, two characters who were dead prior to the start of the book wind up with Tas and Destina in an major event prior to the Cataclysm, with folks in the present (of this book) looking on in horror as history rewrites itself. (With both the Greygem AND Tas in the past, time can be altered.)

While I was amused by the novel as a whole, I kind of wonder what path the authors are shooting for with this trilogy. I mean, there's Destina's narrative of accepting the death of her father, there's the whole if Chaos is back in the 3rd age, can they prevent the whole of the Chaos War later on, and another bit of two characters who sort of remember their fates but are honestly kind of as they were at the beginning of the entire world, and what could they do? 

While part of me is hoping they're retconning the entire Chaos War (it was seriously a painful read, and one gets the impression it was forced by TSR), I'm also wondering if we aren't going to wind up with the first D&D setting with a Multiverse of Madness.

Not Quite the Illiad

Wicked Beauty, the 3rd novel in Katee Robert's Dark Olympus series, essentially rewrites Homeric epic poetry in a fun way. 

We have 3 narrators here. Helen (here, Perseus' sister, son of the former Zeus), Achilles (who in this is an orphan, raised in Hera's orphanage), and Patrocles (here the beloved son of of two lesbians who left Olympian politics to protect their family.) At the start, we learn the previous Ares has died, and Athena is running the trials to replace him. Zeus sweetens the pot by giving Helen's hand in marriage to whomever wins the trials. 

Helen isn't pleased by the latter, and enters the trials herself to retain her autonomy. Which sets her in opposition to Achilles, who is second in command to Athena, and his lover Patrocles.  Well, except for the fact that Achilles is so convinced of his own path to the title, that he really has no beefs with Helen. Helen, it seems, knew Patrocles as a child. 

As the trials begin, Achilles and Patrocles and Helen form a triad relationship, which amazingly allows for the two men to continue to have sex with each other as well as her. (In what bits of this style of writing I've read, two men generally won't touch each other once a woman gets involved. Not the case here.) 

One of the better parts comes from the revelation of what a jackass Paris is. Indeed, during his prior to the narrative romance with Helen, he spent most of his time destroying her self esteem. 

Honestly, even if this series seriously deviates from the source material, it has grown on me. I find myself amused by what the author can come up with to reimagine characters and stories. I do hope we eventually get a book focused on Hermes and Dionysis, since they remain the two most fun characters supporting the narratives.

Darkness falls

 This is mildly delayed, mainly because of some personal trauma. 

I recently finished John Rechy's 1959 novel City of Night, which I had picked up in London back in July. I thought I had read this one before, but I think my head confused it with his later Coming of the Night (which is in my TBR pile now.) 

Te story concerns a nameless hustler from El Paso, as he passes through several big cities and his idea that all of them exist as part of a bigger city where it's always night, where people like him can hustle marks for money. While one gets the rather distinct impression our narrator is a cypher for the author, and most of the stories are just renamed people he encountered in his travels, the afterward does mention that many of the people in here are amalgams of people he did know, and a really nice thought about how every reader helps keep those folks alive. 

There's honestly not much of a plot here, we get tales of the narrators exploits mixed in with vignettes about friends and foes he meets along the way, and portraits of the gay world as it stood towards the end of the 1950s. We get probably the most explicit sense of his journey towards the end in New Orleans during Mardi Gras as a guy who he winds up with for most of the actual party confronts the narrator about his life, and what he wants from it, even as the narrator struggles to maintain the mask he wears as the butch number who is only interested in money. I mean, the overall theme that everyone is wearing a mask in relation to what it is the actually want is interesting, particularly in this day and age where we tend to look at our queer antecedents as being more fundamentally honest in their rather more gender bending ways. Honestly, what comes through here is the idea that all the ways we exress our inner me is a mask to cover our true emotional needs. 

Mind you, this isn't true for all characters in here, or more to the point, they express themselves and then add a layer over it. Like Trudi and her beads, which are the fates rattling their beads to bring people down. Or Miss Destiny, who actually uses language that would not be unheard of today about how G-d gave her the wrong equipment. (It's one of the few cases in here you could point a finger at and say that she would be trans under current definitions. Many of the queens running around in this narrative could fall under several categories, and it's always going to be a mystery where they would fall under today's labels. Something else in here that amused and saddened me was the couples who weren't scores or youngmen, who basically just wanted a relationship with another man, preferably without a transaction involved. 

This book also speaks to the narrative I ran deep into back in the 1990s about the people of the streets and the secret world most of us don't look at. It's depressing, and frankly post 1980, it gets even worse. But it's still there. 

Well worth reading to get a sense of the other side of the vaunted Family Values era.

And we come full circle

 Realized that thanks to July being re-reads, I haven't had an opportunity to update over here in a month or so. 

Just finished Robert Jackson Bennett's finale to his Founders Series, Locklands, which was a pretty well written conclusion to a world involving people rewriting reality.

Sancia and friends have moved to Giva, and 8 years have passed as Tevanne has captured Crasedes and pretty much all the major land masses except for the islands. The time has come for everyone to confront one another, as Sancia, Bernice and Clef first have to find Crasedes, the prepare for the final battle to prevent Tevanne from opening the door to the creator's realm where all of reality can be remade. 

It's a long journey, and ends up with the Heirophants remembering their past, finding their original home, and a whole bunch of WOW. (I'd love to get deeper into this, but honestly, it would ruin a few major plot twists.) 

While the climax is satisfying, and a great place to wrap up this trilogu, the actual ending reminded me quite a bit of Clarke's Childhood's End. Which is not an insult in the least, but it does tend to fit a paticular trope that isn't used quite as often anymore. 

I do hope Bennett writes more, since his books are really well written and thought provoking.

How sweet the sorrow

 I actually finished Music to My Sorrow by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edgehill a few days ago, but...

Anyway, here ends the story of Eric the Bard, unless he's going to show up in the new reboot that he hasn't in 2 books. 

This one basically finishes connecting the lines between Jaycie, Magnus, and Ace, as all of their parents get involved in a really complex revenge plan that winds up with just about everyone suffering eternally and deserving it. 

In the process, we find out the Elf Jaycie's dad is working with Ace's Dad, a White Nationalist preacher, who's side ministry for rebellious youth sucks in Eric and Magnus's parents. 

It's very convoluted, but eventually resolves itself quite nicely.

Coming back around

 Finished my reread of Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edgehill's Mad Maudlin, in which Bedlam's Bard, Eric Banyon finds out about his younger brother. 

Of the series, this is probably the one I remember the best, mainly because one of the plot threads overlapped with some digging I was doing when I read it. 

So, as we open, Eric has been seeing a psychologist who treats folks with magical ability, and dealing with trauma related to having parents who thought of him as a commodity more than a child. As such, he resolves to go see his parents in Boston. Which has the side effect of him learning of his younger brother Magnus, who evidently also has a degree of Bardic Gift. Magnus ran away from home for much the same reason Eric left Julliard at 18 to get the heck away. 

Magnus, in the meantime, is living on the streets of NYC with two close friends: Ace, aka Heavenly Grace, who is on the run from her father who was using her Talent to get more cash; and Jaycie, who's on the run from something else entirely.

Hosea, the banjo Bard/Guardian has his hands full with the Secret Stories going around the children in the homeless shelter he volunteers in (Bloody Mary, who lead the demons to heaven and took over) and his romantic interest, who's managed to get sucked into a cult based around Master Fafnir, who wants to supplant the Guardians with himself. 

As the book progresses, all the plots converge, as Ace's father's helper (an unseeleigh Magus Major) manages to target Eric with a spell, Fafnir manages to summon up Bloody Mary, and Jaycie and Bloody Mary's true identities are revealed

A few things struck me both last time and this time. The Bloody Mary thing being the first. There was a whole thing very similar to this that I found out about after reading involving children in Miami, if I recall correctly. One can't ignore the power of folklore among the youth. The other was the whol False Guardians plot with Master Fafnir, which seems to be echoing back on real life crap that happened long before I read any of her work. (There was a whole thing that you can google and decide for yourself on involving people making a myth cycle out of her Diana Tregard Investigations. Search for The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back.)

By far, this is probably the best of the series that these two collaborated on.

Slitter and Slither

 So, Morgan Brice's BadLands series continues with No Surrender, as we rejoin Vic and Simon in Myrtle Beach, dealing with a cocktail of wedding planning, the trial of the killer from books 1, the discovery of a serial killer on the Grand Strand from the 1980's, and the Slitter's fan boy sending cursed objects to people involved in the trial...

Which somehow all pulls together very nicely. 

Brice's M/M paranormal romance books have a really good tendency to be able to juggle multiple plots and weave them together fairly well, which is on full display here. I'm hoping that in a few volumes, when Vic and Simon do actually get around to getting married, all of the invited characters (from both the Morgan Brice series and the Gail Martin series manage to fit in the volume.

Flute and Banjo Duets

 Running behind on updates again due to personal issues.

Spirits White as Lightning continues Eric the Bard's story in NYC, as his relationship with Ria expands, Kory and Beth try to find a way to conceive a baby of their own (Maeve is technically Eric's daughter), and Aerune tries to get his hands on the drug that awakens latent powers. In the process, we meet the Appalachian Bard, Josiah, who plays banjo and becomes both Guardian and pupil to Eric. 

While this continues and finishes off the story from Beyond World's End, it leaves the door open for the next two books, as the Healer Kayla winds up living in Guardian House by the end as well. 

Really, it's a fun read, even as we have to adjust to some rather big adjustments in the makeup of the characters, although we also get to see Tannim and Chinthliss again, as the Dragon will give access to his library if Kory and Beth can build a computer that will work underhill. When I originally read this, I thought the plot was padding out the story, now I see where it's building a story that will expand in the next volume, as the Green Government people show up at one point. 

It's a fun and soapy read.

Threefer

 I'm a lot behind on catching up on these, so I'm reviewing an omnibus and a single volume as one big review. 

We'll start with Bedlam's Bard by Mercedes Lackey and Ellen Guon, which is an Omnibus of Knight of Ghosts and Shadows and Summoned to Tourney. We meet Renaissance Fair actor and flutist, Eric, who is having a loud breakup with his girlfriend at the outset. In his depression and drunkenness, Eric composes a song on his flute that winds up waking up Korendil, an elf trapped in The Dreaming by the exiled elf Perenor. 

Eric, Kory, and Eric's friend Beth wind up working together to stop Perenor from destroying the Nexus that is in Los Angeles by moving it by the Observatory, which manages to annoy both Perenor AND his daughter Ria. 

The second part picks up with Eric, Kory, and Beth living in San Francisco as a Throuple. In this one, a shadowy government agency is kidnapping psychics and using them for nebulous purposes. Eric breaks a few of the kidnapped psychics out using Nightflyers, which in turn lets the Nightflyers try to set off THE BIG ONE using equipment designed to prevent earthquakes. 

Then we come into Beyond World's End, in which Eric has become a full Bard, moves to New York, and restarts like at Julliard. Beth, being pregnant and more in a couple with Kory than Eric, stays in Underhill. There's a certain amount of humor in here, since Eric now lives in Diane Tregarde's apartment complex, and has a talking gargoyle dropping by for conversation. 

In this, Eric gets dragged into a mystery that also involves the Guardians, in which an Unseeleigh Lord is trying to find a Bard, but runs afoul of a shadowy group trying to awaken people's psychic gifts with drugs. 

While I still find myself loving the series, I found the transition to Eric going from nominally bisexual to hopelessly straight a bit jarring. In the transition, Eric's fluidity gets erased for the most part. Plus the redemption arc of Ria Llewellen is a bit rushed, since she was a secondary antagonist in the first book, now suddenly trying to make amends with Eric. 

I mean, it remains good reading, even as we again get dragged into the streets with the characters, a theme that tends to happen in any of Mercedes Lackey's Urban Fantasy series.

Achilles did not fight alone.

 So, once again, another title showed up on my radar, and I wound up finding a copy. 

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes opens with narration by the muse Calliope, who's complaining a bit about the poet telling her to "Sing, Muse!" She has several interstitial passages in a similar vein, discussing how the poet is upset that she won't give him details he wants, even as she sings the stories of the women involved in or left behind during The Trojan War, or in Penelope's case, the Odyssey. 

For the most part, this mainly concerns the women of Troy and their various fates at the hands of the victorious Greeks, although we do hear of Penelope, Clytemnestra, Iphigenia. and Electra. 

We hear of Polyxena, who goes to her sacrifice  at Neoptolemus to be his father's bride, we sit with Andromache as she cries over her youngest son being thrown from the walls of destroyed Troy. We feel Hecabe's anger, at the Greeks for killing her husband as he clings to a statue of Zeus, as she blames Helen for bringing war to Troy, as Odysseus grants her a chance for revenge on the man who killed the son she managed to get out of Troy. We get Cassandra's story and Clytemnestra's story entwined, even as we hear how the Furies left her after killing Agamemnon only to find her daughter Electra ready to take vengeance on her mother. 

We also get deep into the start of the war, going backwards from the three goddesses arguing over an apple to Eris finding the apple to throw in the first place, to Zeus asking Themis to step in to help lower the population, to Gaia telling Zeus the humans weigh too much and the population needs culled. 

By far the most heartbreaking story in here are Penelope's letters to her Husband, that chart is journey back from Troy. She tells him tales the Bards sing of him in his court, and how annoyed she is at him if any of them are true. Towards the end, when he sleeps in their bed, she prays to Athene, and a side unseen in Homer comes out where she wonders if the man who came home is still the same man that left. 

 Of all the women, poor Andromache winds up with the best lot, living in Greece and married to a former Trojan prince in a place that isn't quite Troy. (Ok, Helen did better, but her defense of being enraptured by Aphrodite really doesn't seem to be expected to be believed.)

While this didn't hit me with quite the same emotional impact as say Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles or Circe, more than a few of the stories in here did have me feeling lots of empathy for the women. Frankly, any of our various focus characters in here could use a novel just on them, telling their story more fully for a modern audience not looking to dig through poetic fragments for hints of what they missed. Or in Cassandra's case, something better than The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradly, one of the few books I've ever been tempted to throw across a room when reading. Heck, I'd be interested in reading her take on Dido, who she mentions she couldn't find a way to fit in the book. 

I know several people with interests in Greek Mythology, and this book would likely be a good addition to their libraries as well.

Grandma Alice Kicks Some Butt

 Seanan McGuire returns to InCryptid with Spelunking Through Hell, this time focusing on dimension hopping Grandma Alice Healy. 

Grandma Alice has been seeking her husband, taken by the Crossroads, going on 50 years. Her Snake guy mentor keeps sending her in particular directions, and hunting bounties, but with the Crossroads dead, Alice ends up going another way with a chart she finds in another dimension (with voyeuristic intentions). 

What she finds is fascinating, and winds up with a happy reunion in a bottle world. You know, a roach motel dimension, where you get in, but can't get out. 

It's all very exciting, and that elderly people with some kind of magic can appear to be much younger. 

It's again, well written, and I look forward to the next book.

Burn away mortality

 Finished Electric Idol yesterday, the second book in Katee Robert's Dark Olympus series. While not quite as smutty as the first one, it's in there, but we also get a better look at the setting than we did in the first book. 

This one starts similarly to the first one, as Demeter is trying to marry off another of her daughters to Zeus, recently promoted to the position. (Seems Poseidon, Zeus, and Hades are legacy positions; with the previous Zeus dying off last book, his son Perseus has now become Zeus.) In this case, Demeter is negotiating to get Psyche to marry Zeus, which is annoying Aphrodite, who traditionally finds Zeus's wife. As such, Aphrodite tells her son to bring her Psyche's heart. 

Psyche isn't exactly thrilled with this prospect; besides the fact he's mildly attracted to Psyche, she's been very nice to him, despite his reputation, not undeserved, of being Aphrodite's button man. 

As such, when he arranges a meeting with her to poison her and take her heart, his heart changes, and they start a game to stave of both power hungry mothers. They start a fake romance, complete with social media posts building off a rather suggestive picture taken by the paparazzi at the start. They get married with Hermes presiding, and Zeus's sister Helen and Eris as witnesses. 

None of which particularly appeases Demeter or Aphrodite. 

At any rate, they do have their romance, and the resolution involves Psyche using her particular gifts to take acre of the situation. 

Honestly, I liked it better than I thought I would. While the original myth is not among my favorites (in one version, Eros leaves Psyche when she figures out who she is, in another Aphrodite tortures her until her mortality burns away), this was a satisfying take on the entire affair. I'll also add I'm a bit less worried about the next book involving a love triangle involving Achilles, Helen, and Patrocles... here, at least, the rather sexually fluid nature of the Greek myths, while not explored in smutty detail, is at least discussed, as Psyche discusses affairs with women and men, while Eros admits to sleeping with several people of both genders. Or Aphrodite trying to set Zeus up with Ganymede at the outset. While I doubt the next book will include explicit content beyond what's standard in dark erotica, I think the relationships will be. 

But yeah, if you enjoy mythology and like erotica, this series will likely entertain you.

I'm your huckleberry

 Several store across my platform are selling the paperback of Tom Clavin's Tombstone: The Earp Brother, Doc Holliday, and the Vendetta Ride From Hell, and since I really enjoyed the Kurt Russel movie, I wound up checking the book out of the library. 

What I found was a well researched book that goes into a much deeper depth than many tellings of the tale. 

I mean, the first section of the book, before we even get into the Earp brothers getting to Arizona, centers on a bit of the history of the territory, the silver mines in the SE part of the territory, the natives of the area fighting for their territory vs being shipped off the the reservation, and the strangely hand off politicians of the era. 

By the time we get into the arrival of the Earps, we have a good idea of how the stage was set for catastrophe before they even got there. We also know quite a bit about the ranches in the area, many of whom were raiding nearby Mexican ranches for cattle to rebrand and sell, as well as the Cowboy gangs who were doing the rustling. 

My basis for comparison here is mostly the aforementioned movie, which, using this book as a yardstick had the events mostly correct, but not in the correct order. 

One of Clavin's main contentions in here is that many of the issues between the Earps and the Clantons had to do with a deal between Virgil and Ike to arrest other Cowboys with a fake stagecoach with the Clantons getting the reward money and Virgil getting the recognition. Since that deal, if discovered would have lost a lot of face for everyone involved...

Also, Bat Masterson's role, although he wasn't around for the gunfight and the vendetta, was new to me. (He was in Tombstone, but wound up returning to Dodge City to help his brother before the feud got ugly.) 

It would also seem that the big confrontation that everyone loves between Doc and Johnny Ringo happened long after the Shootout at the OK Corral, and some of the had to do with Doc's girlfriend, Big Nose Kate, getting romanced by Johnny, or at least being encouraged to get out of Tombstone. Also, given Doc was in Colorado when Ringo died, it's highly unlikely he shot him. Most likely, according to Clavin, Ringo died by his own hand. 

On the other hand, Mattie, Wyatt's commonlaw wife, does seem to love her laudanum, in every story, including real life. 

One thing I really enjoyed here was quotations from records of people not directly involved in the feud writing diaries or articles for the society pages in San Francisco. 

While the author does let his personal prejudices show a bit in his recounting, he does manage to point out how morally gray the entire affair was for all parties, and how it wasn't just the criminal element who didn't think the Earps Vendetta Ride was justified. 

Fun read, although like many things, sometimes the legend is more interesting than the truth.

And back to Elves on Wheels

 Finished up the other omnibus volume of SERRAted Edge a few days ago, but have been lacking in free time to update here.

Anyway. 

The Other World collects Wheels of Fire by Mercedes Lackey and Mark Shepherd as well as When the Bough Breaks by Mercedes Lackey and Holly Lisle. 

The first part concerns a young medium being kidnapped by a white supremacist Christian cult and being exploited to become a vessel for Salamander. Thanks to the continuation of this being in the previous omnibus, I already knew how this played out. 

The second concerns a young magician who's been abused by her father, who in turn was abused by his father. As such, she has 3 or 4 separate personalities running around, including a separate entity (a Celtic witch) who somehow wound up sharing the body with everyone else. 

One of the things I'd forgotten about this series is how many plots revolve around children in danger. Which is good and bad. Problem being, the latter book draws much from When Rabbit Howls, which was a much more interesting read. 

Still, it's engaging urban fantasy.

Da da devil is in da ta da tails

 Morgan Brice's new Witchbane novel, The Devil You Know, is actually a pretty good continuation of the story, even as it continues expanding the shared world she's building with all of her various and sundry series. 

Evan and Seth are in Cleveland looking for their next Witch Disciple, this time a drug dealing businessman who makes drugs for supernatural people. This time, Seth gets cursed (and kidnapped) with a spell that mentally connects him with his greatest desire, while Evan is stuck trying to navigate alliances with the Supernatural FBI to take down the next disciple. 

Seth's hallucinations are kind of painful to read, since his greatest desire is his family who died before the series started. It's rough reading about his relationship with his brother and parents, and it runs counterpoint to Evan's youngest brother who shows up in Cleveland and gets sucked in to the narrative. 

While everything does get resolved as one would expect in this series, dealing with things from both boys' past helps humanize them a lot more than what we've seen. Bonus points for Evan finally figuring out he's safe to not go back for a parental visit to retraumatize himself.  

Fun book.

One of us may be an Unreliable Narrator

 My employer sends out $25 gift certificates for anniversaries and birthdays, so last year I used one to buy Karen M. McManus's One of Us is Lying. 

My initial impression on reading it, which our murder victim Simon points out not long before dying is that it's The Breakfast Club, only Ally Sheedy dies 10 minutes in, and we spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out if it was Judd, Molly, Emilio, or Anthony who put peanut oil in her water. 

See, the set up here is that 5 high school stereotypes wind up in detention due to a teacher finding cell phones in their backpacks. We have Bronwyn, on her way to Valedictorian; Addy, who's popular and dating an athlete; Nate, who sells pills and weed as a side hustle; Cooper, a popular baseball player; and Simon, the outcast who runs About That, a Tumblr gossip site about the goings on at Bayside High School outside San Diego. (So, add Gossip Girl to the mix.) Towards the start of detention, several things happen. A car crash in the parking lot distracts everyone. Simon gets thirst, can't find his water bottle, and winds up using a chemistry glass to get water from the sink. And promptly goes into anaphylaxis. Someone runs to the nurse's office and finds that all the EpiPens are missing. Simon dies. 

Our 4 narrators become suspects in his murder after it comes out the vial had peanut oil in it (Simon had a peanut allergy) and a pending post from Simon reveals that Simon was getting really to expose rather damaging gossip about the other 4. (Bronwyn cheated to pass Chemistry, Addy slept with someone besides her boyfriend, Nate is still dealing while on probation, and Cooper has been juicing. All but one of those are true, although the lie gets exposed when someone breaks the encryption on what was supposed to go up.) To top it all off, someone keeps posting the the Tumblr detail on how the murder went down. 

Much like the Breakfast Club, the walls between our central characters come down as the year progresses, as they learn more about each other. However, as the title states, we're trying to figure out which of them is not telling the truth. 

As YA fiction, it works well, giving us the standard sanitized version of High School life, although that has changed quite a bit since I graduated. (I realize Christopher Pike, R L Stein, and J. K. Rowling all have their various issues, their YA fiction did a lot to bring YA fiction out of deathly dull morality plays.) As a mystery, it also works well, even if it doesn't quite get to the paranoia and claustrophobia that Dame Agatha managed to get in a few of hers in a similar vein. I mean, of the twists in here, one I had figured out early on, mainly because I knew the phrasing from personal experience, but the resolution I had thought early on then discarded, although the second part I had not foreseen. 

Honestly, I enjoyed reading it, and the solution and resolution fit the narrative, which is always good in any kind of mystery.

Mythological SMUT!

 So, I got Neon Gods by Katee Robert out of the library, mainly because I read the back of the sequel at work, and the premise amused me. What I didn't catch is that it's erotic fiction. Which certainly opened my eyes in a few passages.

The premise here is that Olympus is a fairly large city with mortals filling leadership roles in the city under titles taken from Greek mythology. Most of the 13 are in the Upper City, with Hades living in the Lower City across the River Styx. 

We open on Persephone, here again a daughter of Demeter, and her sisters Psyche, Eurydice, and Callisto. They're kind of like Kardassians, with Demeter playing Kris Jenner. Difference being here, Demeter promises Persephone to Zeus for marriage (a bad idea, since this Zeus has been through 3 Hera, all of whom wound up dead by his hand). Persephone flees Zeus and winds up crossing the Styx and being semi rescued by Hades. 

Hades and Persephone make a deal, wherein they'll pretend to be in a relationship to get Zeus to back off. Which mainly serves to write some really elaborate adult scenes of Hades deflowering Persephone. 

There are some nice allusions to the myths this came out of, like Persephone's safe word being "Pomegranate", and their adoption of 3 puppies (Cerberus, Scylla, and Charybdis). I kind of like the female Hermes and her oddball partnership with Dionysus (I'd love to read a book centered on them.) I enjoyed that Persephone kept her autonomy throughout, not sublimating her identity into Hades. (Indeed, her persona is one of a Brat, which seems to be a rarity in these things.) I enjoyed that there was a plot in there, and the focus wasn't completely on the scenes. (Also a rarity, I've found.) I thoroughly laughed at exactly how ruthless Demeter turned out to be.

I do wish there was more of an exploration of the setting, as to whether or not the 13 are maybe descended from the Gods themselves, or how Olympus came about. 

While this is not something I'd normally seek out, it did capture and keep my attention, and leave me wanting to see what happens next.

Everything comes to an end.

 Book 12 of Benedict Jacka's Alex Verus series turns out to be the final volume in the series, and oh wow does he end it well. 

Risen picks up not long after the end of the previous volume, as Anne (possessed by a MArid) has kidnapped Vari and begins her invasion of Sagash's shadow realm. Richard Drakh joins forces with the Council of Light Mages and Alex to stop her. 

What follows is a large game of cat and mouse as every story line in the series gets tied up slowly.

I can't get too deep into the plot here for fear of spoilers, but let's just say that unlike a few other series that have ended, this one seemed much more satisfying in its resolution. Towards the end, Alex has faced down who he was and who he has become and is able to face his Mentor as an equal finally. 

Well written, and while we may not return to Alex as a central character, his world remains, waiting for another story.

Women in Space!

 As I wanted to do after finishing Barrayar, I finally got my hands on Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold, which is the book preceding the former. 

While many of the events contained within are discussed in that volume, it really was better fleshed out reading this. 

Cordelia Naismith, a Beta Colony officer is on a survey mission when the team gets attacked by Barrayans. One of whom happens to be Aral Vorkosigan, who got abandoned on the planet due to political backstabbing. She, Aral, and one of her subordinates who is severely injured wind up making their way to a supply depot where they eventually do get back to space, after clearing up some political murders. 

They meet again during Barrayar's attempted invasion of Escobar, as Cordelia gets captured again by crazy Barrayans while running weaponry to Escobar. 

After the war is settled, Cordelia attempts to return to Beta Colony, only to find that politics there, while not quite as murderous, are just as treacherous. We eventually end as Cordelia marries Aral, and Aral becomes regent to the young prince of Barrayar as the Emperor lies dying. 

I mean, most of this story is known when the actual saga begins, but her three Cordelia books are wonderful reads.

Elves on Wheels

 Bit delayed in posting this due to the modem dying. 

Recently picked up Mercedes Lackey's The Chrome Borne, which collects volumes 1 and 4 of her SERRAted Edge series, which center around the mage Tannim. Tannim drives a much loved and souped up Mustang, and works for Kevin Silverhair and his elven racing association. 

In the first half, we deal with a common topic in LAckey's urban fantasy, that of exploited runaways. In this case, the child predators are Unseeleigh elves, and only two of the children get saved, but...

In the second book, we find out about the romance between Tannim's dragon mentor Charliss and Lady Ako, a 9 tail kitsune. Seems Lady Ako slept with Charliss's old foe Charcoal, and the resulting child became Tannim's mirror. Except for the fact that they end up falling in love driving the Mustang around underhill. 

It's all fun, even if the tonal changes between books is a bit jarring. (The first half is set mainly in what passes for the "real world", the second spends much of its time elsewhere.) And many of the themes repeat across the setting, which will come in handy when I start rereading Bedlam's Bard. Eventually. When I get through the library TBR pile.

And now a return to theme

 I finished up Mercedes Lackey's finale of Darian's Tale yesterday, which more or less brought the overall themes of leaving home to find home full circle in the end. 

Owlknight opens on K'Valdemar Vale and Errold's Grove 4 years after the arrival of the Ghost Cat Clan, who are now part of the metroplex in the northwest corner of Valdemar. Word comes from Haven that a Herald Mage and his assistant (Keisha's sister Shandi) are being permanently posted in the area. As such, the local powers decided to perform several Rites when Herald Anda arrives to show that Darian is on equal footing. While much of this is amusing (including the sentient equine dyheli king stag offering to perform the rite to make Darian his "prime doe"), it really just serves to set up the second half. As such, we see Darian having visions of Ghost Cat and a Raven totem, having a feather found in the sweatlodge in from of Darian, and some other subtle hints that Darian might find his parents among the Raven Tribe. (They find part of his father's foot outside of a change circle, and a little magic suggests the original owner is still alive.) 

So, the second half mainly involves our major characters posing as dye merchants, riding through the north, with Keisha training healers in the various tribes as she goes. We meet several tribes, and run into an ocean. We find Darian's parents, among the Raven people, who are under siege from the Wolverines, who also absorbed the remains of Blood Bear, who we last saw at the end of the first book. Given this is Lackey, the outcome of that confrontation is never in doubt, however, Darian must contend with his definition of Home, versus the expectation that his parents have of him and Keisha joining the Raven tribe with them. 

That emotional resolution rings truer than almost anything Lackey has ever written, even if it is truncated. 

While I have enjoyed rereading this series, I will say that the ending seems rushed, as we close on everyone in Raven, and a 3 page epilogue set back in the Vale. 

But still, it's a really fun series.

Two in one

 Normally, I'd write separate reviews for Owlflight and Owlsight, but since they're part of the same Mercedes Lackey series, and the second book is mostly a reverse image of the first...

Keep in mind this is the last series the author has written in what could be considered "modern" in the setting. There may be a few short stories set after this, but everything else she's written after this has been set in an earlier place on the time line, bookwise. 

The series opens on the orphan Darian, apprenticed to the wizard Justyn in the remote Valdemar village of Errold's Grove on the edge of the Pelegir Forest. Darian's parents were trappers, who vanished during the Mage Storms. Barbarians from the north attack the village, and Darian winds up running in to the forest and finding a group of Hawkbrothers from K'Vala Vale who are working on establishing new leylines and Heartstones. Darian gets adopted by them, and helps free the village from the barbarians, running off with the Hawkbrothers for Magic training. 

In the second book, we meet Keisha, the adolescent Healer for a much more prosperous Errold's Grove and her sister Shandi. Keisha is a strong willed girl who can't find proper training for her Gift, since she can't leave town to go get it. As such, she's on the verge of becoming a hermit by the time Shandi gets Chosen and Darion returns, with news of another Barbarian clan moving south towards the village. 

Darian reestablishes K'Valdemar Vale not far from Errold's Grove, where Keisha comes and gets her gifts trained. The Barbarians do wind up reaching the edges of Valdemar, however, this time, as Firesong, Silverfox, Kerowyn, and Eldan are around (mainly to update everyone on how everyone who survived the Storms is doing now), things go much more easily, as we find the Barbarians got sent south by their totem to find a cure for a disease the Mage Storms brought. Much negotiation later, and a cure for Summer disease later, Ghost Cat Clan is now firmly colonized nearby. 

Now, this series was the one she was releasing when I first got hooked into the setting, so it was the first I was reading around the same time as everyone else, so it does have a special place on my shelf. (To give you an idea, I bought the paperbacks at WaldenBooks using their discount card.) Does she more or less have a formula when it comes to plotting? Yeah. Does that prevent me from enjoying long sojourns into Valdemar? Hell no. While I enjoy more adult fantasy, it's nice to have some old fashioned cozy traditional fantasy to read through. And these, while more rustic than her normal adventures, fill that role very nicely.

Like Noir, with more seeds

 One of the ladies I work with loaned me Harlan Coben's Stay Close, which, while not someone I have read previously, still managed to write an interesting yarn. 

The story centers on 3 people in particular, all of whom have a connection to an Atlantic Missing Persons case from 17 years prior. We have Megan, who 17 years ago went by Cassie, who worked as a stripper at La Créme. She's currently a suburban soccer mom of two kids, who lives 2 hours from Atlantic City. We have Ray, who was a photojournalist, but who now works for a fake paparazzi firm. (We literally meet him giving the paparazzi treatment to a 13 year old Jewish boy for his Bar Mitzvah.) And we have Detective Broome, who's seeking a missing person from 17 years ago. 

Then we have several oddball supporting characters, like a police chief on the take, the father of another missing person, and two psychotic Christian Camp Counselors who like to plot campfire song orders before torturing people for information. 

By the end, we know exactly what happened to the missing person, why it happened, and everyone more or less returns to their old lives a little bit wiser. 

That's skipping a hell of a lot of detail, but it is a mystery of a sort.

Anyway, while I enjoyed this, the logic really requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. Not to mention, much like Atlantic City, there's a seedy nature to the narrative that makes you want to wash grease off your hands every scene, like a white trash Lady MacBeth. 

Would I read this author again? Probably. But he's not something I'd particularly seek out all that often.

Not quite grimdark, but getting there

 Found out recently that Benedict Jacka had released two more of his Alex Verus novels since I last looked, and Forged came into my possession. 

So. 

We're again dealing with the consequences of Alex being hunted by the Council, whatever plans his former master Richard has, Rachel/Deleo's pursuit of him, and Anne being possessed by a rather powerful djinn. The latter involving Anne's vendetta against her tormentors,  including crucifying a rakasha who had once been using her in his club. 

Several things happen in this, almost none of which particularly involve the Dark Mage plot line. Really, we're mainly concerned with Anne's djinn fueled plots, particularly since she wants to play Oprah and give Alex, Luna, and Variam jinni of their own. (She's nothing if not generous.)

We do see what will likely be closure on the Rachel/Deleo storyline, as old girl has some major Freudian consequences when she enters Elsewhere. 

And one of Alex's biggest threats from the light council gets dealt with, as Alex first gets his hand on Levistus's  AI that provides blackmail material, but then manipulates Anne to help deal with Levistus himself. 

While I enjoyed this,and he hasn't quite hit Butcher levels of "How Morally Grey can I make my narrator before people stop reading?", it is getting dark in here, and while the author is British and I assume most of the political shots are aimed at Parliament, more than a few of those shots go wide enough to hit just about any government. On the other hand, he seems to be quite content to explore the "Y" axis between kivertine and authoritarian vs concentrating on on the rather middling "X" axis of Good/Evil.

With the next book on reserve at the library, I'll be interested to see what happens next.

Electric Boogaloo

 Many years ago (like 2002), I found David Bergantino's Hamlet II: Ophelia's Revenge on the sale rack at the library I used frequently. I remember reading it then, but it's been a while since I last slogged through this. 

I'm sure most folks have a general idea of the plot of Shakespeare's Hamlet, and this is essentially the same story with the addition of another vengeful ghost running around Elsinore Castle, the ghost of one particularly angry spirit who's been in a bog for several centuries. 

But first, we open on a football game between Globe University and Fortinbras University, as QB Cameron Dean pulls a trick play to win the game by pretty much climbing over geeky freshmen Rosenberg and Gyllenhal. A late hit in the end zone reveals a vision of Cameron's father, who tells him that he was murdered by his Aunt Claudia, and Cameron is to be the agent of his vengeance.  Cameron is summoned by mother Gerti (who's currently shacked up with Claudia), to be informed that in a few weeks, on his 21st birthday, he is to inherit a family estate in Denmark. 

Anyway, the book past that hits several of the same beats as the play, with changed names and circumstances. (Cameron hires a band in to sing of how Claudia killed his father, pretty much everyone dies....) The difference being that Cameron and his entourage's (He invites the entire team and a guest to go along) happens to wake up a certain vengeful spirit who somehow wound up in a bog after Cameron's twinned soul forsook her. Ophelia wastes no time possessing most of the minor characters, usually women, causing them to drown while strangling their men, in her wrath against love.

Amusingly, two characters who are pronounced dead, don't end up dead, really. Indeed, it's revealed that the terror of the events have lead them to realize their love for one another, which is a bit better than getting shipped to England to get executed on arrival. 

Honestly, the problems with this novel it shares with Shakespeare. The first act drags, and drags badly. Once Ophelia wakes up, things improve, and one gets the sense that the author, like several goth girls of my acquaintance think Ophelia should have had a beer and a one night stand when Hamlet went off on her rather than swimming in peat. 

I mean, Hamlet is not my favorite. Bergantino does well updating it for a modern audience, but it's still the same old story with some new window dressing.