Listening to a Storm

I swear I won’t be going through audiobooks at such a ferocious pace all the time. This is just…happenstance. But yes, I’ve continued listening to Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series. Today I finished Archangel’s Storm, which from the cover alone indicates it’s time to delve into the depths of another of Raphael’s seven. In this case, Jason, the angel with night-black wings that seem to reflect no light.

On the Indian subcontinent, the archangel Neha rules, and she’s kind of pissed at Raphael (and Elena) for opposing and killing her daughter. Never mind that said daughter did heinous and horrendous things. A mother’s love is still a mother’s love. Anyway, Jason hears that Erras, Neha’s consort who hasn’t been seen in three hundred years, is dead. And Neha decides that Jason, the best spymaster in the cadre, is the one to solve this murder mystery.

Jason agrees for reasons of his own. Being in Neha’s court will allow him an opportunity to gather information he’d normally find difficult to acquire. And he’ll be able to learn about Mahiya, Neha’s niece. The princess is the daughter of Neha’s dead younger sister…and Erras. Yeah, there’s some family issues there.

Mahiya is a princess because Neha acknowledges their kinship. But while she has some privilege, it can be taken from her at the archangel’s whim, and she can be severely punished. Neha’s court is a prison, and she sees Jason as a means to escape.

This is still a paranormal romance, so it can’t possibly be a surprise how most things go down. But there’s some twists and turns to the plot that will have ramifications for the world as a whole.

But the best parts of Archangel’s Storm (and yes, the title does refer to Jason just as Dmitri is Raphael’s Blade), are the ones where we go back to Dmitri and Honor. Actually, this book opens just a few hours after Archangel’s Blade ends, with the two getting married. The synopsis is that Dmitri admits, at first just to himself, that he manipulated Honor into agreeing to become vampire. And she reaffirms her decision.

Since I don’t find Storm as compelling as Blade, it’s easy enough to see why those chapters are my favorites of this book. I have nothing against Jason or Mahiya. I just find Dmitri and Honor more interesting characters, hence why I started listening to that audiobook far more than I would normally. I doubt I’ll keep up that pace, but it’s impossible to say at the moment.

I am getting more than a little tired of the words “fisted” and “fisting”. Singh vastly overuses them and I kind of wish the woman would just find alternate words and phrases so that I’m not hearing the word multiple times in a single minute. Good advice for any writer is to read your work aloud. If Singh had done so, her sentences might not sound as repetitive as they sometimes do. And while I know that the effect might be muted in print, I think this overuse of some words would probably be just as bad there.

Still, I will definitely keep listening to the series. It might not be entirely believable in some aspects – I have a lot of questions about how some angel ages fit in with what I understand about evolution – but I can’t complain too much about those things.

It remains to be seen if the next five books will feature romances for the rest of the seven. My guess is that there’ll be at least one break in there, either for one of the other pairings hinted at or to further Elena and Raphael’s plots. Either way, only time will tell.

Short and Sweet

So, what book did I judge less important yesterday than the audiobook? Just a reread. Wild Invitation by Nalini Singh. I guess she’s been on my mind, given the audiobook odyssey I’m on. But Wild Invitation is short fiction from her Psy-Changeling universe. It’s not particularly capturing my attention at the moment, so I’ll definitely shift some gears tomorrow.

“Beat of Temptation” is the first entry here, detailing the story of Tamsyn and Nathan from the DarkRiver leopard pack. She’s the healer and he’s a sentinel, one of the key group who sits just under the alpha in the hierarchy and helps run the pack. The healer sits outside that hierarchy in some ways, which means Tamsyn can definitely hold her own. The problem is that they realized they were destined mates when she was fifteen and he was some years older. Obviously they weren’t going to do anything then. But she’s nineteen now. And she’s tired of waiting. If only her stubborn mate didn’t still see her as a child.

A prequel like this is nice, given that it’s fifteen or more years before the start of the series in Slave to Sensation. And since Tamsyn and Nate are characters, along with their troublemaking twins, that we meet in that first volume, we generally only see them as a mature couple in the novels. So seeing them be young, desperate, and kind of stupid is a change of pace.

Then there’s “Stroke of Enticement”, which is still one of the most touching pieces of short fiction I’ve read. It’s about Annie, a young teacher and the DarkRiver leopard who comes to pick up his nephew and falls in love and lust with a glance. She’s got two issues. Firstly, she has a weak leg due to a bullet train accident when she was a child. And secondly, she’s afraid to be trapped in a marriage where she takes second place at best. After all, her mother adores her father, and her father’s primary focus is his work. Annie loves her father too, but family just doesn’t matter as much to him as to the women in his life. And since changelings are known for being sexually open and going through partners, she can’t reasonably expect more from Zach.

“Declaration of Courtship” switches us over to SnowDancer, the wolf pack that is allied with DarkRiver. Specifically we’re looking at Cooper, one of the lieutenants (equal to a sentinel’s rank) and a submissive wolf named Grace working in the same den. (SnowDancer has multiple dens spread out around their Sierra Nevada territory.) The whole dominant/submissive thing is basically a force of personality. Submissives can crumple when faced with a dominant’s force, but they’re also vital to the health of the pack and generally have responsibility towards children in an emergency, since any child will trust them instinctively. But it can be awkward, when a dominant and a submissive are attracted to each other. If the dominant uses that force on their would-be partner, it’s coercion.

Finally there’s “Texture of Intimacy”, which follows hard on the heels of Kiss of Snow. This story is specifically about Walker Lauren and Lara. The former is the patriarch of a Psy family that defected from the PsyNet rather than see their “undesirable elements” reduced to mindless bodies and went to SnowDancer for refuge. That was a few years ago, and in that time the three kids have blossomed into people unafraid of their emotions and their father and uncle have found love. Such as with Lara, the SnowDancer healer. Of course, the mating is new and Walker’s still overcoming a lifetime of Silence, conditioning, and secrecy. So it’s only to be expected that he and Lara have to figure some things out.

I think this type of read might have been a good choice to contrast with my listening, but maybe not by this author. I should probably stick to a single Nalini Singh series for the time being.

Listening Hard

I’ve mentioned how I’ve been enjoying Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series as audiobooks. How the novels have captured my attention, where the short stories repelled me. And how I’ve been increasingly invested as the series goes on.

That’s why I have already finished Archangel’s Blade, the fourth novel. Because I did something I thought I never would again and listened to it at work.

It might have only been feasible because this is paranormal romance and it’s not as vital to give my complete attention to every moment of every chapter the way some more intricate novels require. Or perhaps because I took care to pause when I needed to check numbers and the like, and didn’t even start listening until I’d gotten past the more mentally involved parts of my day and onto things that required less attention.

But I could not put this book down.

Archangel’s Blade is the first Guild Hunter book to not star Elena and Raphael. And I wouldn’t have guessed I’d be so invested in getting into Dmitri’s mind, but here we are. Dmitri is a thousand-year-old vampire (give or take) and Raphael’s Second, leader of his seven most trusted people. Dmitri is the archangel’s right hand, and his friend. He’s also got a reputation as a man you do not cross.

When a severed head with a tattoo in an ancient language turns up, Dmitri reaches out to the Guild for some assistance. And they produce Honor. She is an expert in ancient languages, but she’s also been hiding in the Guild for some months. A year ago she was kidnapped and tortured by vampires, only four of whom were ever identified. She’s recovered physically since then, but has remained withdrawn and jumpy. Putting her in close proximity with the most dangerous vampire in the region sounds like a terrible idea.

This being a paranormal romance, you can guess how things proceed from there. Although there are some quirks that you might not guess at first. I did, but that’s me.

Like I said, I found this book strangely compelling. I was utterly riveted by the blooming relationship between the leads as they both work through their traumas side by side. I also remembered a thought I’d had a book or three ago, about how Raphael and all of his seven are male. And single, at the start of the series. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if all of them, Raphael, Dmitri, Illiam, Jason, Venom, Adon, Galen, and Nassar all found partners by the end.

There’s also the Guild side of things. Honor has mutual friends with Elena. Guild Master Sara is married with a kid as the first book opens, and Ransom’s got a thing with a librarian that seems to be going strong two years later. And now Ashweenie and the Cajun vampire she’s spent so long hunting seem to be dating. Given the Psy-Changeling series, the only question is really which relationships will rate entire novels?

I suspect that Singh will return to Raphael and Elena as protagonists. If not in the fifth book, then eventually. There were definitely things left unfinished for the two of them, but these things happen, especially in series that become long or are intended to be open-ended for as long as the author wants to write them.

I don’t know if I would call Archangel’s Blade (which yes, refers to Dmitri) my favorite entry in the series so far. I’d say only that it enthralled me above and beyond the previous books. But I suppose if I saw a physical copy I’d consider it the same way I did Sweep of the Blade. I don’t know if I’ll end up listening to it the same number of times though. Especially because I still have plenty of Guild Hunter books left to listen to.

I don’t plan to make a habit of listening to audiobooks at work though. It really is distracting. So I’ll simply say that I felt waiting with bated breath to listen as soon as I got home felt equally distracting at the time and I made the call to not put things off further.

When the Earth was Flat

It really doesn’t normally take me two days to read a book under four hundred pages. But this is entirely normal when the author in question is Tanith Lee. Her work not only dates to earlier decades, its very style makes a reader feel its age and more.

I pulled Tales From the Flat Earth: Night’s Daughter out of my Pile at long last. It is the companion omnibus to Tales From the Flat Earth: The Lords of Darkness, which I read some time back. And I know I waited far too long. There are a number of recurring characters, beyond the Lords of Darkness themselves, and I only had the vaguest memories of who they were and what they’d done.

Obviously, Night’s Daughter is primarily about the child Azhrarn got on the mortal woman Dunizel, her life and her adventures. And it was not an easy read, not the first half of this omnibus, Delirium’s Mistress. I think part of that is because, as I said, I had largely forgotten many of the characters. Another aspect is because while the story is told chronologically, the girl (who is variously called Sovaz, Azhriaz, Soveh, and Atmeh) doesn’t go through life that way. I would say that she starts as a young woman, then a mature woman, then a child, and finally an old woman.

And I don’t know that I was in a mood for the rambling sort of stories making up a story that the Flat Earth novels tend to be. I’m not entirely certain how best to describe the effect. I suppose if you imagine a TV show where, one day, you’re presented with new characters in a new location. And you watch them for an episode or three before the main character slips into the story, but maybe only in the background. Then this tale concludes in its way, which isn’t always totally resolved, and the next episode will either be a different adventure for the main character, or another new beginning.

But yes, all these smaller stories weave together and join in by the end. So there’s that. Honestly, out of the three hundred fifty-three pages, it wasn’t until I was in the two-twenties or so that I really felt my interest catch and hold more strongly than it had previously.

And yet I can’t find it in myself to want to read Night’s Sorceries, the anthology that makes up the second half of this omnibus. Because, while reading Delirium’s Mistress, I realized that I do not need to keep the Flat Earth books. They are good books, if different from many. Some are definitely better than others, and they seem to be best on an initial reading. But their languorous pace and old-fashioned style means they tend to drag on a reread or a revisit.

So I’m glad to have discovered them, but I really, truly do not need them in my life or my library at this point. I’ve read all the novels now, or at least I think I have, and a number of the short stories. And that’s more than enough.

I do have some other Tanith Lee in the Pile, but those aren’t set on the Flat Earth. And no, I’m not going to read any of them right away. Tanith Lee is a lot as an author, and there’s a reason why it took me so long to read the second of a pair of omnibi. But I refuse to dismiss her work out of hand.

True, I had an opportunity to buy more anthologies recently and passed it up, but that’s a little different. I haven’t been buying nearly as many books in recent months. And I really do want to finish the Tanith Lee books I already have before seriously considering buying more. They’re a significant portion of my to-read Pile even now.

I think tomorrow will be a reread. Something I don’t need to think so hard about. But what it will be I have yet to decide.

Listening to Angels

I started really listening to audiobooks as a way to keep myself engaged when out walking, exercise that can be interminable if I have nothing to focus on. But then there’s the question…what if I want to keep listening to the audiobook when I’m done with that exercise? The answer is that I need to be doing something physical. That can be things like sorting laundry, making food, or doing a puzzle.

In the past I commonly put something on the TV while I’m puzzling, but something that I don’t need to actually watch to pay attention to. Which is roughly equivalent to an audiobook, although it has images when I choose to look up, and can change the amount of light being shed on my work surface.

Still, it’s an excellent way to advance and even finish an audiobook. Which is what happened today with Archangel’s Consort by Nalini Singh, the third Guild Hunter novel.

After the events of Archangel’s Kiss, it’s definitely time for Elena to go home to New York City with Raphael. There’s multiple reasons for this even though her immortality is so new that she is a severe liability for her archangel. Firstly, because she is Raphael’s lover, consort, mate, whatever you want to call her, they don’t want to be parted from each other longer than necessary. So obviously she needs to be where he is. And he can’t stay away from his territory for too long, else the other members of the Cadre will try to take it from him. Plus, she needs to be close enough to him that he’s not splitting his resources too badly to protect the weakness she is to him.

Secondly, Elena’s mortal life was in New York. All her friends are there, as well as her family (although that’s still a strained relationship in some aspects). She hasn’t fully grasped what it will be like to outlive them all at this time, but if she stays in the Refuge until she’s older and stronger, they’ll have died by the time she leaves. And even though she’s now an angel, Elena and everyone else still consider her a Guild Hunter. And her job as a Hunter is in New York.

Lastly, Elena needs to do this for herself. Raphael is a powerful individual, used to being obeyed. If she allowed, he’d shut her away in layers of protection, concealed from the world. And if she let him do that, she would always be totally subservient to him, which isn’t in her nature. It isn’t the person she wants to be. Which is why she needs to stand her ground and not shy away from whatever may come.

And something is definitely coming. It seems that all sorts of natural disasters are happening worldwide with no real reason for them. Save one. These are what happens when an ancient angel wakes from a slumber of centuries or millennia. And there is one angel whose presence could radically affect Raphael and Elena’s relationship. Raphael’s mother, the archangel Kaliyan. (I don’t care if that’s spelled right or not. I’m listening to the book, I can’t see spelling.)

Kaliyan was losing her mind to madness when Raphael was young. She badly injured him and disappeared, presumably to sleep since she was never confirmed dead. It’s possible that centuries of sleep have healed her mind to some degree…but it’s just as possible that she’s as mad or worse than before.

I will say that there never is any doubt as to who the sleeping angel is. Kaliyan is the most likely subject not just because of who she is to the series leads, but also because she is vastly powerful, and the scale of the natural disasters directly relates to the waking angel’s power. I guess more of the tension is supposed to come from “how mad is she”, and not “which angel is waking”.

I almost want to look up the dates on these books, because they feel older and less well-written than the Psy-Changeling series. However, the two series are fundamentally different in a variety of ways. Guild Hunter has one pair of leads, as far as I’ve read. It’s possible, but unlikely that will change. Psy-Changeling has new leads every single time, except for Allegiance of Honor, which holds a singular place in the series.

It’s true that the Guild Hunter short fiction does have other leads, but it’s hard to count those stories. The vast majority of the ones I’ve read were hard to understand with no context for Singh’s world as a whole. I think I probably will revisit a number of those in the future, now that I’ve gained that familiarity. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that I had an extremely negative reaction to just about every angel story I read up until I gave the novels a try. Whereas the Psy-Changeling short fiction got me to actually read the series as a whole, the angel short fiction actively repelled me from the series. Which is never what you want from short fiction.

Supplementary short stories to an existing world of novels aren’t just extras for fans. They’re entry points for potential new readers, buying anthologies or magazines for other reasons entirely. And if your short story intrigues them, then they might just buy your books as well. So having short fiction that has a high entry barrier and confuses those who aren’t in the know? That’s a problem, especially in terms of sales. Because most book series see diminishing returns from one book to the next. There’ll always be those who drop off eventually, for any number of reasons. True, the fanbase can be strong enough to finish the series, but it’s not a guarantee. And publishers will look at retention rates, and how steep the dropoffs are. If it’s too bad, an author might get dropped. Or, if they’re small press or self-published, might not be able to muster the funds to do much more, although self-publishing is highly accessible today.

I know I talk almost every post about how it’s almost a fluke that I started listening to the Guild Hunter books. And I’m enjoying them, so I’m glad I made the attempt. But the short stories really have rubbed me wrong so many times already that I’m kind of amazed that I did try the novels. I’m often very unforgiving, as readers may have noticed. But life’s too short to waste on bad books.

There is a physical book I’m reading, but I am not finishing it today for multiple reasons. Rest assured, it does exist. And it’s one of those volumes that’s been in the Pile for some years. So I’m getting things accomplished at least.

Strong Women

In case it wasn’t obvious, as soon as I finished Angel’s Blood by Nalini Singh, I immediately started Guild Hunter book two: Archangel’s Kiss. Some pretty important things with life-altering consequences happen at the end of that first volume, so any discussion of later books will spoil that. But, as is normal for this blog, I’ll avoid discussing spoilers for today’s discussed volume.

Archangel’s Kiss opens roughly where we left off, with Elena Deveraux awake in the Refuge, where all young angels live. Fitting, because she herself has somehow become one of these immortal creatures thanks to Raphael. It wasn’t something he had real control over, he just acted on instinct and his love for her made it possible. She’s the first angel made in living memory, so no one can really say too much of what she can and can’t do. All they know for certain is that, as a new-made immortal, she’s weak and vulnerable compared to the ones she normally associates with.

Things aren’t as peaceful in the Refuge as one might hope from the name. Some archangels have taken an interest in Elena due to her unusual circumstances. And it seems like, with Yurim dead, someone’s making a power play to take his place in the Cadre. Plus, there’s Lijuan. She’s the eldest and most powerful of the archangels, and she seems to have a new ability to make and control zombies. And she’s declared that she’s throwing a ball in Elena’s honor. So our heroine has two months to learn to fly, and hopefully learn enough other things to stay alive in Lijuan’s court.

It’s also worth noting that Elena’s hunter abilities seem to have acquired a new aspect as a result of her race change. Or perhaps as a result of the healing coma she spent the last year in. It seems that when angels are forced into a healing sleep, they often find themselves more powerful and with new abilities once they awaken. But those abilities can be erratic at first, and no one would betray such weakness as offering information about how long it might take for them to settle.

We’ll also meet the rest of Raphael’s seven most trusted lieutenants, fleshing out what will probably be a core cast throughout the series. And the two leads continue to actually get to know each other. Their romance may have started hot and heavy, but having a partner means actually learning who they are and what motivates them.

I’m still finding the series interesting. I wasn’t thrilled with the zombies, but I’m almost never thrilled by zombies, so that’s nothing new. I also didn’t like how Elena’s suppressed memories freeze her up so many times throughout the book as they resurface, but that might be less obnoxious in print form. Yes, I’m still doing this series as audiobooks. I like this sort of stuff while I’m walking.

Anyway, my point is that I think I find repetition more noticeable audibly than textually. There were some sentences I listened today where I asked myself “does she really need to use ‘blood’ and ‘bloodshed’ in the same sentence?” (There is a lot of blood in these books.) Regardless, it’s interesting to note what flaws I detect aurally instead of visually.

I’m still listening to the Guild Hunter series. I have some questions, and I’m just interested in hearing what happens next for the leads. Plus I think the series is long enough that I won’t have to wonder about what I’m listening to next for some time.

Back to the physical front and my to-read Pile is dwindling mightily. Which is both good and bad. Good for the visible progress I’ve made, bad because I haven’t been buying many new books to refill it. Good because I’m saving money, bad because I have fewer options to pick from. Good that I’m finally getting to some of these books after literal years, and bad because there’s often good reasons why I haven’t read these books yet.

Today I felt the need for an anthology, and I wanted one I not only knew I could finish today, but also one I knew I’d like. Which meant it was time for Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress 29. Fun fact, this one had a note at the end explaining the decision to switch from Roman to Arabic numerals in the volume numbering.

This volume also has many fewer continuing series than the last few books. Some authors have moved on to new characters while others simply aren’t present. Like the one that editor Elisabeth Waters was cowriting. I hope that means she and her friend have exhausted their ideas because it definitely felt like it had moved well past where it started and lost track of things. Still, I find the drop in previously seen series a positive marker. But, let’s get into the crux of the content: the stories.

Deborah Ross begins with “The Poisoned Crown”. This is a variation on Snow White, although it’s a prince instead of a princess. Honestly, the only obvious elements in common with that fairy tale are the evil stepmother queen, the rightful heir being blocked, and a bit of poison. But the execution very much feels in line with Snow White, to good end.

Speaking of continuing series, “Heartless” is the first of those. It’s another of Steve Chapman’s stories about Princess Shada, a teenager who is far too impulsive for her own good. I mean, yes, she uncovers problems and solves them, but how many are of her own making because she plunges headfirst into everything? It’s not that fun to read about someone making the same mistake repeatedly.

Rebecca Eaker is back with “Witch of Stones”. The protagonist’s magic works on stone, and she’s truly an artist. But she desperately wanted to be a witch of flowers instead. Her sister got that magic and while she tries not to be jealous, it’s hard. And what do you mean, she should hookup with the shopkeeper who supplies her? He couldn’t possibly be flirting with her!

“Chosen Ones” is a Amy Griswold story. A Goddess’ people go around selecting young women as potential sorceresses to train. Naturally the girls’ widowed mothers will at least accompany their daughters to the Temple. And discuss which of the girls is most likely to be chosen. I saw where this was going, but I did like it.

Robin Wayne Bailey’s story “Warmonger” is about a battle maiden who’s come home to find almost everything changed. Oh, and she’s been sent on a suicide quest because of course. But there’s definitely more going on than it seems.

“Gift Horses” is Samantha Rich’s first publication and it does feel a little rough and unpolished. It’s about a woman who tends to horses, surrounded by people she hates and people she is more neutral towards. Well, what can you do when you and your horses are basically a bribe to leave her people alone? But there’s magic to be had, if you’re clever, and she’s got a plan.

Cat and Bari Greenberg offer a new take on the story of Kassandra in “Plausible Deniability”. Yes, you know Kassandra. The prophetess who was cursed to not be believed. Maybe, just maybe, she was happy to see people believe the opposite of her words. Sometimes.

“The Stormwitch’s Daughter” by Dave Smeds is part of a series that has been told slightly out of order. Last volume was the prequel of how Azure and Coil began their wandering lifestyle. But the one before that was about how they rescued the witch’s daughter. And now the prequel has explained why they’re seeking out gods. Oh, and I think I made an accurate prediction two stories ago. Yay me.

Catherine Soto has given her character Lin Mei reasons to travel all over ancient fantasy China in many stories, including “Shining Silver, Hidden Gold”. At this point I think that’s the point of the stories. I still think calling the series “Temple Cats” is a misnomer as the felines have little to do with the plot at this point. And it doesn’t really feel like Lin Mei has a reason to be in so many of these different places and doing so many people favors by uncovering lies and deceptions. She’s no one special, not really. So at this point the series feels more like the locations and cultures Soto wants to explore are driving things more than any plot or character.

“Mendacity” is a new story of Cluny the squirrel mage and her familiars by Michael Payne. I’ve been going back and forth on the series, whether or not I think it’s gone beyond what it needs to or not. And I think that Payne’s improved with time. The bios also indicate that he was working on an actual novel, and I think that’s helped the stories. They feel less like crazy ideas about what he can do next with his wizard squirrel and more like sequences that fit into a larger story. Obviously he does have to do some tailoring, reminding old readers and briefing new ones on relevant parts of what’s happened previously, but I accept that as normal in a short story. I am looking forward to the next installment though, which I didn’t think I’d say just a book or two ago.

M.E. Garber presents “Amma’s Wishes”, set in your typical D&D tavern where hearty heroes come to spend their coin. Amma, a server there, wishes they’d be quieter and more courteous. Not slamming the door, not pinching her butt…these would be good starts. Then the most polite adventurer there tells her he’s retiring and leaves his little bag of loot to her. Inside she finds an old, dirty lamp. You know where it’s going, but I promise you can’t predict everything. I particularly like the part where [redacted] and [wouldn’t you like to know] end up hooking up.

“Dead Hand of the Past” is from one of the newer series featured in S&S. Jonathan Shipley’s protagonist can see and speak with the dead, and is now a Church exorcist. This is in part so she can do some good, but also because if she isn’t in the Church, they might condemn her ability as being witchery. Anyway, she and her guard have been summoned to the capital. Learning why might spell big danger. Oh, and it’s clear the series is far from over as we’re adding a new character to the core cast by the end.

Patricia Cirone’s story “Nut Rolls” is also a sequel, but in this case it was seven years between tales. Her young protagonist is an actual medium who works for a fake medium. This has not endeared her to her mistress, as you might imagine. And seeing ghosts in most places really isn’t helping things either. Especially because the mistress’ dead mother is just as annoying.

“With Thy Six Keys Enter” comes from Julia West. A poor scribe finds a treasure at the used bookstore and immediately begins studying it. It’s just one part of how her fortunes seemed to have turned from that moment on. What does it mean and where does it lead? Well, that’s an interesting answer indeed.

Pauline Alama’s story “All Else” is about magic, yes, but it’s also about dedication. If spells are just words in a person’s mouth, where does the magic come from? And what kind of price does it demand? Definitely a good tale to consider.

“Gods of the Elders” follows, a Jonathan Moeller story that starts with young women sniping at each other. Well, it’s somewhat understandable. Our protagonist is demonborn, the daughter of a possessed woman. And she doesn’t like hearing lies spread about her people. That and a bit of quick work with her fists are a great way to find punishment. Of course, she’s a bit of a disciplinarian’s nightmare; pain means little to her. So how to properly punish the girl and get her to begin to find a more acceptable attitude?

I think Melissa Mead has concluded a few S&S volumes now. Flash fiction seems to be her forte. This one is “Bronze Bras and More!” It seems that a king has a group of guardswomen working for him and he’s installed magic mirrors everywhere to ensure that if he needs them, they’ll known instantly. And someone got the bright idea that, when the king doesn’t need the mirrors, they can show advertisements. But in a pinch, any weapon will do…

Overall S&S 29 is a decent volume. Better than some because I think a number of the worst ongoing series didn’t make an appearance this time. Oh sure, there’s at least one I still want to see the back of, but there were others that I’m intrigued to see more of. It’s all about tradeoffs.

I do continue to appreciate the S&S dedication to finding new authors to showcase. It’s an excellent goal ensures that there will always be fresh new stories and ideas in each volume. (Even those volumes which were invite only had fresh new ideas because some of those were established and talented authors.) I will say that I have to disagree with Elisabeth Waters about live action Disney remakes. I respect her right to enjoy them. I just don’t think very many of them are any good, and most just seem like cash grabs and ways to keep the intellectual properties under Disney’s control.

There’s still a handful of S&S volumes left to go and I can’t honestly make any predictions about when I’ll finish the series. At this rate, it’ll probably be this year. But how late in the year is anyone’s guess.

And I’ll have to figure out what to read tomorrow. But that can wait until morning.

Saint’s Eyes, a Mystery!

Have I got something exciting today. I am a lucky devil – Megan Mackie gave me a copy of the newest entry in her series of the same name. It is more a novella, or a very short novel, which is fitting as it’s another entry in the Saint Code miniseries companioning the Lucy Devil main series. Specifically Saint Code: Constable.

From the start of The Finder of the Lucky Devil, we’ve met several Saints. There’s St. Benedict, of course, who’s the male lead of the series. His sometimes partner is St. Rachel. Once or twice they’ve crossed paths with a St. Dominic through the series. And then there’s St. Augustina. She was an opponent in Finder, but ended up in an awkward situation with the end of that novel. And we saw how that was resolved in Saint Code: Lost, which concluded with St. Augustina becoming affiliated with the Magic Guild.

Saint Code: Constable picks up perhaps not long afterwards. Actually, where exactly it lands on the series timeline is unclear. Obviously after Saint Code: Lost, but I couldn’t tell you when in relation to The Devil’s Day or The Digital Mage. Not that this is essential for enjoyment. And since St. Augustina doesn’t cross paths with St. Benedict or Rune, it’s mostly irrelevant at this time.

Constable is St. Augustina’s new title. She’s taking charge of the Magic Guild Guard, the Guild’s policing force. It’s supposed to have jurisdiction over those who owe allegiance to the Guild as opposed to one of the innumerable corporations that otherwise rule the city. However, the Guild, like all the nonhominals and magic-users, has slipped in power and influence in recent years. And as she told Lady Ursula in Lost, the Guild needs someone like St. Augustina who knows the rules of the corporations’ games and can play them even better.

True, as a Saint, she’s a cybernetically enhanced human. And it’s also true that magic can cause her pain because it is, in some ways, antithetical to her tech. But because the magic-users seem stuck in the past, they do need someone on the cutting edge to help out.

As for St. Augustina, she chose the life and freedom that the Guild offers her. She may not know much about any of the races or magics, but she’s not going to let that stop her from learning. And since she knows so little, she’s inclined, in many ways, to observe and accept before making judgements. Many, but not all.

She agrees with the open-and-shut nature of her first case. In fact argues against it. A former Magic Guild Guard (they all quit when the Saint announced she was now in charge) is convicted of killing a woman. He’s a vampire and she’s hominal after all. She was found at his place, there was blood, there were bite marks, etc. But it’s also true that vampires have a negative reputation and it is possible, when magic’s involved, that things aren’t as they seem.

So begins St. Augustina’s first foray into solving cases for the Magic Guild. A nice little mystery that allows us to see more of the Lucky Devil’s world. Especially some of the more diverse peoples and cultures that fill it. And St. Augustina is an intelligent character finding that she just might have more compassion in her than her status as a tool for corporate espionage might suggest.

If you’re a Lucky Devil reader, you definitely need Saint Code: Constable when it’s released. You don’t necessarily need to reread Saint Code: Lost to get the context. Just to be familiar with the world. There are a number of familiar characters here, as well as a number of new ones, some of whom I expect to see again in the future. And, of course, can you solve the mystery before the reveal?

Shorter Night

I needed something far shorter and lighter today to follow that brick I’d been reading. And fortunately, such a thing was in my Pile, thanks to a stop at Barnes & Noble over the weekend. I don’t go in that often, but they have a surprisingly good selection of greeting cards. And if I was going to be there, how could I not check all my favorite sections?

I almost didn’t go to the kids section, but then I remembered that there might be new Rick Riordan and Rick Riordan Presents volumes of interest to me. The former wasn’t available in paperback, but I did find some of the latter. This included The Lords of Night by J.C. Cervantes, book one in a sequel series to the Storm Runner trilogy. We’re talking about Central American gods here, the Maya, and also now the Aztec.

I should say that I regret not rereading any of the Storm Runner books prior to this one. Ren, short for Renata, is the protagonist and she was introduced in that first trilogy. Daughter of Pacific, the ocean goddess of time, and a shadow witch. But where did those shadow powers come from? That’s what we’re exploring in The Lords of Night.

Zane is off elsewhere, so he’s next to no help. There’s still that quintet of godborn who sided against our heroes and now seem to be helping the Aztec Lords of Night to rise from their centuries-old sleep. In fact, the only godborn around to help at all is Marco, son of the god of war, and he’s a bit more focused on his schoolwork and football. Still, Ah-Puch won’t let Ren go through this alone and will randomly pull two potential aces in the hole out of his back pocket.

Not rereading the earlier books didn’t do me any favors here. There’s a lot of continuing issues from the Storm Runner volumes and it’s been a while since I read those, so it’s only coming back to me in bits and pieces. Still, the book is decent even with that handicap, so I think that if I did my prep work on a reread, I’d get a better result.

I just didn’t want to bog myself down in rereading a series right now. I picked The Lords of Night for today based on length and ease of reading. Not because I was really looking forward to it. So any lack of enjoyment is my own fault. I did the book a disservice and I’ll have to remedy that in the future. It’s been a long day and that definitely affected things.

But I’ll let that be a lesson on how far I can go on memory for a series like this. And I won’t let it happen again.

Disappointing

I think one reason why my book friend sends me certain volumes is so that these self-published novels end up halfway across the country where they can find new readers. So, it’s really in service to the authors. Because that’s not necessarily a recommendation for me.

Emmi’s Pride by Jill Marie Denton is very obviously young adult. I grabbed it this morning purely because it was the shortest book in my Pile, the easiest to finish if I made it that far. From what I can tell, Emmi is the lead singer of Second, a band that’s made it to the big leagues after years of work. She’s also a control freak, as well as a doctor and a lawyer. And through a series of coincidences that culminate after a London performance, she gets to meet her actor crush. Who is totally into her, by the way.

This is wish fulfillment at its most basic. And if I cared about being a rockstar celebrity or having millions of fans screaming my name, I might be more interested in the book and the story. But those aren’t my fantasies, so there’s not much I can say about Emmi’s Pride. It doesn’t seem to be a bad book, but I don’t see any reason to read more than the seventy-five pages I’ve already gone through.

I will say that, in terms of design, I think the font chosen is a little too bold. It just seems darker against the page than it should be. This might be because it’s a sans serif font, where serifs can attenuate more and reduce the overall impact of each letter. Most people probably won’t notice this or care. I’m just more sensitive to fonts than most.

I should also note that my friend left a sticky note inside the book saying that it’s not great and I’m not obligated to read it. So really, her mailing it to me was purely a favor to the author. Which is kind of hilarious but who am I to argue? I’ll just have to figure out something else to read.

That something else ended up being Curse of the Midnight King by Yakira Goldsberry, another book my friend had sent. This one is a retelling of the twelve dancing princesses, combined with Cinderella, and also with a more elaborate and epic backstory. The main character is Faye, one of the princesses. It seems that she was intrigued by Pathos, the Midnight King, and that interest led the sisters and their mother to be trapped in the Underworld. But Faye spends most of her time in the sun, living among Humans. Her mother, Nimue, is Fae, and so Faye and her sisters are half-Human, half-Fae. Of course, Faye is no longer living in her homeland of Revayr (where she might be recognized) but Eura, whose King despises all things Fae and decorates the walls of his city with the wings of dead Fae.

The prince of Eura is also Faye’s childhood love interest, who’s held out hope for the past three years that the princesses still live. He’s the prince who will hopefully get hitched as a result of three nights of masquerade balls that Faye must attend for multiple reasons. But the Midnight King is jealous and seeks to make bargains that only benefit him.

Pathos is the Midnight King, but he treats the two sides of himself as separate people. He is, in fact, in an incredibly abusive relationship with Faye and I just can’t stand reading it any more. I know, I got more than a hundred fifty pages in and have a bit over a hundred more to go, but it’s just…not enjoyable. Faye has agency, but gives it up again and again in the hopes that she can save her sisters. Never once does she accept that she is being used, her good faith traded upon for the gain of others.

For example, the eldest sister is Colette. She has a finger cut off and sent as a message threatening the princesses’ lives. Or there’s Adalie, the sister who seems to have become the plaything of Pathos’ twin Phagos. Phagos appears to be a sadistic sociopath, and every time Faye does something wrong, Adalie suffers for it. Pathos won’t allow Phagos to hurt Faye, but the Midnight King does nothing to stop his brother from tormenting Adalie.

You could say there’s an element of Beauty and the Beast as well, because Pathos insists that if Faye will only consent to marry him, everything will be better for the family she’s trying so hard to protect.

I think I’ve made it clear why this is an abusive relationship and not at all enjoyable to read. And Faye won’t release herself to (try and) live a normal Human life while she still has hope of saving her family. It’s a mess, and there’s some epic prophecy crap in the background that I’m sure will save the day but nothing can redeem the relationship between Pathos and Faye for me. This controlling, this abuse, it’s bad in every way. And I don’t need to read it any more.

Mincing Magic

Today, as is traditional, I went for an anthology. And it’s entirely unsurprising that the anthology is Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress 28. Like I said, I’m still going through these and they’re creeping ever closer to the present. After all, this one’s from 2013. That’s just over a decade ago and while things have changed a lot in that time, it’s a lot closer to today than the eighties when the series began.

Jonathan Shipley opens the book up with “Dead Salt”, a sequel to his story “Grave Gold” from the previous volume. The protagonist is now officially an exorcist. But when she, her brother, and their mentor and guard return to the Commandery, it’s clear something is wrong. There’s a new Commandant and he seems to be incredibly unpopular and a stickler. Worse…he seems to have upset the ghosts who linger there. (The main character has been dealing with them, but as she can only lay a few to rest at a time, it’s going to take years. Possibly longer than she’ll live.) Anyway, best to not upset the ghosts more than necessary. I’m not unhappy to read another story in this world though.

“The Rolang of Taiyung” sees Catherine Soto continuing her misnamed Temple Cats series. The protagonist is working as a guard and the cats warn her that something strange is going down. Also, the famous Chinese hopping zombies make an appearance.

Jessie Eaker’s story “Tear-Stained Sword” is about a king’s bastard daughter who has nightmares because she was forced to kill her (legitimate) sister. How and why? Well, that’s all to come in the story.

“A Variation in Silence” comes from none other than Rebecca Eaker, daughter of the aforementioned Jessie Eaker. I wonder how old she was when her father first published in S&S? Anyway, one of the protagonists here is blind and deaf. As such, she’s isolated from a world she doesn’t understand, can’t even realize that she drives custom from her mother’s inn with the noise she makes. And yet…when a Troubadour comes to town, she can feel the music.

Dave Smeds provides a prequel with “The Tavern at the Ford”. I know I’ve read at least one Azure and Coil story. I think they were assassins in the other story? Obviously it didn’t stick with me as much as Smeds might want.

“The Damsel in the Garden” is an obvious trap. Even Pauline Alama knows that. Which is why she wrote this story subverting expectations. Not just from the woman-disguised-as-a-man trope, but much, much more than that.

Jonathan Moeller continues his story of the Emperor’s Ghosts in “Ghost Spike”. Caina seems to be ready to settle down with her paramour…but his father refuses. And pissing him off could lead to something drastic, like a civil war. Better instead to figure out where her lover is, considering that he left unexpectedly after a terrifying letter.

“Ru’s Bad Day” by Lorie Calkins is a very simple story. Very bare bones, the way I see a lot with newer writers (at least the ones who don’t go heavy on prose). Still, it’s kind of fun to watch this warrior woman frustrated by the picturesque sheep pasture around her. Then a strangely doglike dragon shows up. At least it’s something different!

Steve Chapman returns to the world of twin princesses Shada and Sienna with “The Vine Princess”. We’ve been warned that the strange Passages within the castle walls are dangerous. Well, now we’ll see why. I don’t know that I needed to know though. Shada’s impulsiveness is not my cup of tea and I could do without seeing this world again.

“Trading Gifts” comes from Rabia Gale and is an interesting sort of in media res tale. Very little backstory is explained, but the story itself feels quite self-contained and complete enough. Like…the whole novel exists in Gale’s head, but she chose to select this one chapter and polish it up for publication.

Michael Spence and Elisabeth Waters continue to join forces on their academic magic series. “A Drink of Deadly Wine” is the newest entry, going over to China to see how Laurel’s doing. It should be mentioned that this tale was inspired by the traveling exhibit of terracotta warriors.

“Promises and Pastry” niggles at the back of my mind. I feel like I’ve read a story very similar to Melissa Mead’s retelling of Cinderella. But I very much agree with Ella about her overly pushy fairy godmother. Whoops, shouldn’t call the Folk fairies. They really don’t like it. Then again, Ella doesn’t much like this particular fae either.

Michael Payne has yet another Cluny story to tell in “Where There’s Smoke”. This is actually the story I expected to come next in the series. We spent one meeting Cluny’s parents, then one with Crocker’s family, so it seems it’s time to learn about Shtasith’s backstory. So, there will be fire. Because of course.

“Justice” by Suzan Harden feels like it could be a sequel, but doesn’t have to be. Enough of the background is filled in that the reader understands what’s going on. The protagonist is a priest of Balance, and she’s sought out by a woman seeking Justice. Well, trying to figure out where her love is and how to evade his parents’ long, controlling arm. But there’s still justice involved.

Deborah Ross is back with “Pearl of Tears”, which is noted as a companion story to “Pearl of Fire”, published six volumes earlier. And this is one where I could’ve stood to go and reread that earlier story. It provides a huge amount of context for this one, and it’s necessary. I’m not actually certain “Pearl of Tears” stands well on its own. At least not the ending. But as a pair, they are much more powerful together.

The book ends on “What’s in a Name?” by Katharina Schuschke. This is an incredibly short story about how the narrator stopped a godling from taking over the world through a book. The concept is fine, but I just don’t like how the story’s told. I think Elisabeth Waters and I have very different senses of humor because I don’t think her choices of “short, funny, book-ending stories” are very funny. I know it’s the S&S tradition, but it shouldn’t come at the cost of quality.

It seems to me that the S&S volumes of the 2000s and 2010s were falling into the same rut as the Valdemar anthologies with too many ongoing series that had overstayed their welcomes. Which isn’t entirely surprising given that Waters was one of the Valdemar contributors. Fortunately, S&S from the start had a goal and tradition of finding new writers to share with the world, which ensures that the books will never wholly be short story series. And there’s the other tradition of authors who had previously contributed. There’s so many of those that it could be very easy to keep things fresh volume by volume.

It seems to me that there’s an optimum point for short story series, and that’s probably only four or five. Not every series can sustain itself that long even, but beyond that, I think I get bored of them fairly easily. Serial short stories feel very episodic, which isn’t surprising. There’s a lot in common between short fiction and a half hour TV show. Just look at The Twilight Zone. The problem for me is that I don’t want to watch (or read) the same adventure over and over again with changed dressing. Not in this way. Books tend to go over better in many ways because they have the length to add in subplots. They also tend to have overarching series plots that build from one volume to the next. Short stories lack that for the most part. And if they don’t, then it can feel like the individual entries are just drawing things out unnecessarily.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate S&S 28. I’m just annoyed at the same trend of short story series that would eventually see me give up entirely on the Valdemar anthologies. It would be one thing if that was the entire point of S&S the way it was for Heroes in Hell. But the point of S&S has been, firstly, to show sword and sorcery stories of women being unapologetically female and secondly, to share good authors and introduce new ones to the world.

The anthology is already themed. It doesn’t need ongoing stories. Or if it has them, they need to be better. I think of the Tarma and Kethry stories that Mercedes Lackey once submitted to S&S. First she took the stories she’d published and wove them together into a novel. It reads fairly episodically, but it works well enough as The Oathbound. Then she wrote a real novel as a sequel; Oathbreakers. Finally she collected any other stories she’d published plus a new “years later” tale in Oathblood. And she stopped contributing to S&S because she’d outgrown it. She got to the point where she said that she didn’t want to waste a good idea on a short story, she’d rather turn it into a novel. (Which could be taken to mean that some of the her Valdemar stories that I really had issues with were the bad ideas therefore.)

Anyway, my point is that I think that short story series are a trap for the lazy and anthologies stuffed full of multiple of these suffer in quality for it. The only time it works is if the anthology is a collection of a single series and even then it can get old depending on the quality of the stories. The more stories in the series, the more unwieldly.

It’ll be interesting to see how S&S progresses. If it’ll still be dominated by sequels, or if there’ll be more fresh ideas. But I’m not going to find out right away. There’s other things to read first.