• Tag Archives Science Fiction
  • Magic Rises & Theirs Not To Reason Why

    The seventh book in Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series (assuming you include Gunmetal Magic) deals primarily with Hugh d’Ambray and has a small side-focus on some of the Shapeshifters in Europe. While the basic situation and various plot/romantic developments come across as rather contrived, the general feel of the book is similar enough that it ends up enjoyable regardless. The one-liners help.

    The Theirs Not to Reason Why series (A Soldier’s Duty, An Officer’s Duty, Hellfire), authored by Jean Johnson, has an uncommon central concept and an expansive setting. The story centers around an extremely powerful psychic (capable of seeing the entirety of the past, present, future, and all of the alternate realities thereof) who upon discovering that the universe will be completely destroyed by an overwhelming outside force sets her life upon the one narrow path that can lead to the avoidance of that fate.

    Despite being so heavily focused on predestination and following a painstakingly exact schedule, the first two books do not come across as contrived or feel particularly forced. Which is impressive. The third book on the other hand does not quite manage that feat. It has a couple of moments here and there that manage to feel organic, but the majority comes across as a dictated compilation of deus ex machina. That’s not to say its bad or unreadable, it’s just not as engrossing as the first two.


  • Divergent, Silver Shark, & The Damnation Affair

    The first two books in Veronica Roth‘s Divergent series (Divergent & Insurgent) are an interesting window into an attempted utopian community that ends up dystopian in the extreme. You can clearly see both the good intentions behind the society’s structure as well as all of the myriad ways that they can (and do) get corrupted and ultimately fail. So; so far so good. Hopefully the areas outside the city limits (which the third book will presumably focus on to some extent) will end up just as believable as the city itself.

    Silver Shark is a short novella by Ilona Andrews set in the Kinsmen universe. As with Silent Blade this story has a wonderfully detailed background setting that you really wish you could spend more time in. Where that lack of time really hurts though is in the romance arc, which ends up feeling incredibly contrived/rushed.

    Lilith Saintcrow’s The Damnation Affair supposedly takes place in the Bannon and Clare universe. To me, it did not feel even the slightest bit attached to that series… and it’s not just the genre switch from Steampunk to Western either; the supernatural bits seemed to work completely differently. Putting that aside, I didn’t like this story for two reasons. The first is that it turns out I strongly, strongly dislike ‘cowboy talk’ while the second is that the female protagonist is extraordinarily strong-headed while lacking any real power or skill to back it up. While not exactly helpless, against what this book throws at her she may as well be.