Brotherly Love

 Before we actually try to review Silent Scream by Dan Schmidt, I feel we must discuss its existence before getting too deep. (This will become important again in about 3 books, since I picked up a book discussing the era this one got written in.) 

This one is out of the mid 90's, and bears the stamp of 90's horror mediocrity, Leisure Books, as the publishing imprint. Leisure Book, much like Zebra books, were commonly found with lurid covers over cheap paper, decorating supermarket book sections, enticing people into what may or may not be a memorable horror story. (Mostly not, although I do remember a few of them, and I imagine when we clean out Mom's attic eventually, I'll find even more.) 

Anyway, at it's heart, Silent Scream is a tale of two brothers, and why one hates the other. Mike, the younger brother, starts off a homeless addict currently roaming the streets of Philadelphia. Older brother John, has stayed in Glendale, Illinois, a farming community that's become a prosperous middle class urban utopia. John has a loving wife, 3 kids, owns and edits the town newspaper, and owns and runs a restaurant with the family. Mike runs into a former classmate who runs away screaming. Mike repeats a prayer he found in some obscure volume of self help literature. Mike finds a dead body with an amulet shaped like the symbol in his book. Mike puts it on, and wow, Mike can suddenly hear everyone's thoughts and start using his thoughts to control people around him! (Had this been 80's comedy instead of 90's horror, this would be a sex comedy.)

Anyway, back in Glendale, where Mike will eventually make his way back to, John is having issues of his own, including a letter from Mike that starts off the novel. We see the serene nature of John's life, and the occasional crack in that facade, what with drunk coworkers who want very badly to crack open the mafia connections that brought the money into Glendale. 

While John is potboiling his way through, Mike uses his new powers to start hitching rides west, starting with his old classmate. Mike's hearing a voice with his new powers, encouraging his revenge plans. 

Until the brothers finally meet up, we mostly get Mike getting revenge on people he feels wronged him and plotting against his brother's "perfect life" and John learning to be a more assertive person. And then they meet.

As far as readability, this is a decent read. I mean, Mike is a sympathetic antagonist, one whom you can empathize with to a point. John is not a great protagonist, as I found myself hating him throughout most of the story, and frankly, Mike does have reasonable grounds to hate him on. I mean, John did know the charges against Mike growing up were untrue, and he also knew the truth about other things that lead to Mike's victimization. And he said nothing. I'm sorry, keeping a trust fund of parental money doesn't excuse silence in the face of oppression of someone you supposedly love. 

On the other hand, Mike's actions with powers start losing logic of any kind when he goes after John's youngest, the one who most resembles the Mike as a youth. We never learn whether Mike's powers are inborn (it's mentioned that some of the side effects manifesting with the powers mirror illnesses Mike had growing up), or come from an external being, maybe a demon or a god of some kind. We get very vague hints about some of what Mike went through as a kid, but never enough to really flesh out some of what happened.... I felt like had this been written a bit later, Mike would have been revealed as being molested or even gay, but instead, we just know he was falsely accused or raping a girl, even if it never went to court. We know something happened in the bushes with another boy and his dad beat him half to death over whatever happened there. We also get more than a few scenes of the misogyny that tends to inhabit pulp horror, which does tend to make Mike quite a bit like the monster everyone thought he was as a teenager. And when we find out love and prayer are Mike's weakness, the ending takes on a vaguely moralistic stance that in no way redeems anyone while feeling tacked on to satisfy an editor. 

Honestly, I enjoyed it, although I felt like I was checking off boxes on the genre all the way through.

As you wish

 So, after more than a few years, I finally got around to reading William Goldman's The Princess Bride. 

Honestly, there isn't much to add here. Most folks have seen the movie by now, and laughed and been enchanted by it. The story in the book is pretty much the same, although instead of getting Columbo reading to Kevin, we instead get a bunch of self depreciation from the writer. (Not that some of it isn't amusing, particularly when he starts discussing Steven King....Note that I was reading the 30th Anniversary edition, which includes chapter 1 of the follow up.)

I checked around, and despite being listed as an abridged version of a bigger foreign work, this all belongs to a self depreciating author, who frankly doesn't come off well when talking about himself. 

On the other hand, it's hard not to love Westley and Buttercup, root for Fezzig and Inigo... (The book does go into somewhat greater detail on backstory, which the movie skipped over a bit. We actually find out how Buttercup wound up engaged to Humperdink, for instance, and Miracle Max and his wife have more fleshed out roles, even if it's impossible to read their section without hearing Carol Kane and Billy Crystal speaking.) 

And the actual ending is a bit different, which annoyed me. I think he fixed a few things in the screenplay, even as he messed up other things. But hey. It's a charming read, and easy to forgive for minor problems.

The desert never lies

 So, finally circled back to finish Mercedes Lackey's Dragon Jousters with Aerie, which I know I read at some point, but honestly didn't remember anything about.

And frankly, given how scattershot the plot is at points, that isn't a big surprise. 

Kiron and Aket-ten are having separation missions throughout, as she's stationed in Mephis and trying to raise a female only wing of dragon jousters and Kiron is at the newly discovered city of Aerie trying to find ways to keep the Jousters active. 

Eventually, among all the relationship drama, Kiron discovers a plot that leads back to the long ago vanished Nameless Ones, which ends up getting Aket-ten and him going to the Two kingdom border with the Chosen of Seft. 

And eventually, Altia gets attacked by the tribe of the East with their Goddess of Vengeance, Tamat. 

Oh yeah, and a subplot about one of Aket-ten's trainees finding Kiron's mother. 

Despite my quibble about the plot being scattershot, there is actually a very interesting argument in here about the relationship between Gods and Humans, and how both end up influencing the other. That made the latter half much more interesting.

A rose in winter stilll smells of rose

 I actually finished Seanan McGuire's A Killing Frost last week, but given I was on vacation...

 Again, we're back in October Daye's liminal world of fairie, and we're still waiting on our Dochas Sidhe changeling to marries her cait sidhe suitor.  

This time, she gets sidetracked by a quest out of the Kingdom of Saltmist, as Dianda points out her fey father Simon (who was good, then lost his way again) has to approve or he can claim insult. This sends Toby running around stirring up several hornet's nests to find Simon again, then figure out how to give him his way back. (Which involves finding something REALLY important, which becomes the point of the book by the end.) 

Anyway, since it is October, everything works out fairly well in the end, with quite a few surprises along the way. Hopefully the next book shows us more of what the repercussions of those are, since I'm kind of curious as to what happens now.

Endings beginning

 Finished Winds of Wrath, book 15 of Taylor Anderson's increasingly misnamed Destroyermen trilogy, and actually an end to the series as well. 

Which means most of the book concerns wrapping up the Grik war in Africa (down to one major army of Grik) and the League of Tripoli and Holy Dominion armadas in Nuevo Grenada on South America. 

It's quite involved, and quite a few major characters die, although some of the core does survive to appear in any followup series. One of those deaths is actually quite shocking, since it involved changing a moral or two around. 

Anyway, It's a fun read and a good end to a solid series, with a few loose ends, including two large explosions around Japan that go unexplained at the end. 

Honestly, for a series I wasn't sure if I'd like or not, I wound up sticking around for all of it, and falling in love with characters just as much as I do with other series.

Welcome to Manderley, now located in Amityville

 So, in the year's edition of Riley Foster's Abandonment Theater, we have Home Before Dark, which, while the main character retains some of the formulaic character building in all of Riley's heroines, Maggie does have an ongoing and current relationship with her parents, albeit one strained by her father's bestseller House of Horrors, detailing the 20 days they live in Baneberry Manor in Vermont. Dad, who recently died of cancer, and who claims to have never returned to the Manor, still owns it, which Maggie finds out about as she's visiting the estate lawyer. Maggie's mom offers to buy the manor outright, because neither mom or dad seem to think Maggie needs to be there. 

We get glimpses of "The Book", as the narrative alternates between Dad's book and Maggie's narrative as she tries to piece together what really happened when she was 5. Dad's narrative has all the pieces of The Amityville Horror, with specific sounds happening at specific times of the morning, bells ringing with no one pulling the strings, Ouija board communications, and 3 ghosts his daughter sees, Mrs. Pennyface, Mister Shadows, and a little girl. 

Maggie, as an adult, has no real memories of her time at Manderley, and indeed thinks her dad was full of crap. Some of that might be from the fact that once people found out she was the daughter from the bestseller, relationships changed. When she inherits the house, she, as a contractor, goes to fix and flip the Manor. 

Many of the characters from Dad's book are still alive and living in town, and many of them have similar memories to the book. Maggie also finds out one of her friends, who was written about in the book, disappeared the same night Maggie and her family fled into the night. 

As Maggie gets into house, some of the things her father wrote of start repeating, like the main chandelier turning on when she isn't home, a record upstairs playing "I am 16, going on 17" from the Sound of Music (which, given how much I hate that musical, even I will admit that its use here is really well done and creepy), things appearing and disappearing...

It may not be the most original story, and once again Sager uses more red herrings than a Seattle Fish Market, but it's a fun mash up of Amityville and Scooby Doo.

He's a Dead Ringer for his brother

 I'm a day late writing this, but...

Sanctuary by Mercedes Lackey is the third book in the Dragon Jousters series (and reads like the last book in a trilogy. Amusingly, there's a 4th book, which is up when I finish my library reserves.) 

Again, we're following Kiron and friends in the desert city aptly named Sanctuary as they deal with the aftermath of leaving Alta, following finding out the Mages have been using dark aligned magic to keep from aging on both themselves and the royal family. About a third of the way through, as refugees from Tia come pouring in, we find that a schism among the mages has lead to the Tian royals to be similarly corrupted. 

We really don't see much of Tia, though, as Kiron and his wing are busy dealing with another city unburied in the sand, a former wild dragon of Tia roosting there, and then the whole saving the Winged Ones from Alta and eventually the remains of the Healers. 

It's a crowded book. 

By the end, two kingdoms have more or less fallen (in Alta's case, literally, as the earthquakes caused by the Mage's big magnifying glass cause most of the city to sink into the swamp) and Kiron and friends are looking forward to a normal life. Eventually. 

I've enjoyed this reread, but I find it really doesn't have as much emotional depth as some of her other works. On the other hand, it hold attention quite well, so I can't complain.

Delta Blues

 Book 2 of the Dragon Jousters, Alta, opens with Vetch (now Kiron) leaving his time with the Bedu and finding his way into his home country of Alta. He acyually lands in the courtyard of Lord Ya-Tiren, who's youngest son, Orest, and only daughter, Aket-Ten fall head over heels in love with Avatre. 

Kiron gets his wish and joins the Altan jousters, he teaches them the ways of raising tame dragons, which gets him a wing of 8 boys to do so. One of these is of course Orest, but also one of the twin princes in line for the throne. Aket-ten, ine the mean time, is becoming a Winged One thanks to her gift of Silent Animal Speech. 

Now, as happy as everyone is, we end up finding out the Magi of Alta are actually bad people, draining powers from dead soldiers, Winged One, Fledglings, etc to fuel their spells. It's not pretty, particularly when the prince winds up dead after accusing the Magi of being traitors. 

In the end, the other twin prince discovers the Voice of Prophecy, the dragon wings find a way to ruin the tala that keeps the wild caught dragons tractable in both Tia and Alta, and everyone winds up in a city in the desert they call Sanctuary, including Ari and Kashet from Tia. 

It's again a fun read, just really a case of frying poan and fire for Kiron.

Land of De Nile

A while back, someone gifted me a copy of Mercedes Lackey's Joust, which I last read when it was released. It was fun to revisit one of her not so major series. 

For the sake of summarizing the setting, this first book focuses on the kingdom of Tia, which is roughly analogous to the Upper Egypt of antiquity. Our focus is on the Altan serf, Vetch, who's family was put into serfdom after the Tians invaded their farm. (Alta, of course, being analogous with Lower Egypt, where the Nile reaches its delta.) While the two countries share similar Gods, the hierarchy of deities is a bit different, as are some of the practices. 

Anyway, Vetch labours under Kefti-the-Fat, who pretty much abuses the heck out of his serf, his servants, and his apprentices. Indeed, much of the first chapter gives us details on curses Vetch is trying to lay on his evil master. Then Ari lands, and Vetch's life takes a turn for the better. Ari is one of the famed Dragon Jousters of Tia, who rides dragon back to keep Tia safe. He ends up conscripting Vetch and making him his Dragon Boy (a squire and caretaker when in quarters). 

Vetch excels at his new job, and Kashet, Ari's dragon, loves him. Kashet was raised by Ari from an egg, unlike most of the other dragons in the compound, who were grabbed from nests around the time of their first flight. As the book goes on, and we find that Ari is sympathetic to Vetch's problems, we hear all about how to train a dragon. Which comes in handy later on, as one of the wildborn dragons has a mating flight and lays an egg Vetch ends up hiding in an empty pen and eventually hatching. 

By the end, we all sing one of those 70's numbers as Vetch and Avatre fly free on her first flight. All is revealed in the last chapter, as Vetch gets a bit of help from Ari and heads to Alta. 

While not as epic in scope or as prolific as some of her other series, it's still fairly quality and good for a read.

Wow, that's a dark view of humanity

I technically finished Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett yesterday, and totally forgot to post a review.

So, we're back with Sancia, Gregor, Berenice, and Orso, who run the Foundryside house in the Commons, and have figured out how to twin Lexicons. Which is nice, since they can now pretty much Robin Hood the major houses' trade secrets.

Sort of. Gregor's Mother, it seems, have found a way to bring back Craesedes Magnus, the first Hierophant, who is running around in Scrived bandages that make him look like Papa Monsoon, who comes to take the dead on Shorefall Night. (Think Carnival, only with a darker twist.) Which gets Valeria, the Construct, up and moving again.

All of which leads to some real ugliness, as they end up killing Gregor long enough to watch how Craesedes and Mama Dandalo Scrived time to bring back Gregor whenever that happened. Speaking of that Scriving, this also allows Craesedes to take control of Gregor's mind about halfway through.

Eventually, we get a very bleak view of humanity, as both Craesedes and Valeria discuss their views on how to bring peace to humanity.

We end on a low note, which sets up a war to finish off the trilogy eventually. But wow, what a read. I looks forward to seeing how the heck this can end.