Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What at first appeared to be a straight tale of totally augmented dogs and other animals refitted with all the glorious technology of war, designed to be true monsters completely obedient to their masters, eventually became a tale of ethics and morality couched in legal-drama, societal commentary, and complicated decisions.

I'm quite impressed. This isn't just a war-dog story taken literally. It's a full-blown discussion on what makes humanity, transhumanism rights, and the pitfalls of certain kinds of tech, focusing more or less on those that remove free-will, but it's not always about the tech.

What are any of us? Truly? We hide behind entities and justifications just as damning as the operant conditioning so tightly discussed in this novel.

Good boy, Rex, you're a good dog. lol yeah, indeed.

It's similar to Tchaikovsky's other novels in that he's got a big thing going on about personified animals or a wide variation on the theme, but like his other SF novel, Children of Time, I really like his SF much better than his fantasy. :) There's a lot more depth that I can sink my teeth into, IMHO. It's not as epic as CoT, either, but it's certainly a very interesting ride.

Don't go into it expecting the same thing it starts out with. The novel changes with the MC... or I should say the MCs. Damn, I love Honey. It's worth reading just for her.



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Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There have been many great reviews on this old favorite of Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld, and I won't wax eloquent, (or otherwise), save to mention that it's full of Headology and Shakespeare references, between murdered kings and lost heirs and crowns and a mummer's farce and a showdown between Witches and the King, but even so, it's all fun as hell.

I think this is the first novel of the Discworld series that truly comes into its own... or the first one that Pratchett uses as the template for all the ones to come. Since this is a second read of the whole series, I found this one to be an awfully familiar and warming experience.

I still think that there are better Discworld novels out there, but not by very much. :) All in all, it's a fun read.

I can't quite tell whether I like Ogg or Weatherwax more. :) I never really connected with Magrat.



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Lycanthrope Rising by John Matsui
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Lycanthrope Rising continues to take the whole Vamp/werewolf convention and turn it on its head, crafting a courtroom drama out of an outed vampire, seeing how he enjoys the limelight as a spiritual guru and on the other side of the coin is an introduction and complicated tale of modern werewolf society as seen through heavy corporate drama mixed with a distinctive Godfather feel.

How could people be missing this? It's awesome!

Granted, I'm a huge fan of mixed genres and Mr. Matsui here not only has a grand and deft hand at all these genres, but he manages to weave them as skillfully as I've ever seen.

Honestly, these books are a real treat for well-read fans of all these genres, but I doubt even the casual reader is gonna complain. There's great tension, pathos, commentary, satire, drama, all based on solid reason. Hell, we even have plausible science, a genetic twist, ancient history, a bit of romance, and a really cool gladiator twist.

How? Just... how?

I should really just say... TRUST THE AUTHOR. :) These are a really wild ride and this sequel to Late Bite is keeping up the quality. :)

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Mrs. Dracula by Logan Keys
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Here's a cool read for Halloween, folks!

Indeed, it's a short story collection by a bunch of cool folks focusing on the brides of Mr. Bad Boy without ever dealing with Vlad much at all. Rather, we get a lot of historical pieces from the women who barely had a role at all in the original Dracula. Indeed, this one can read quite nicely as absolutely dominated with females if not a decidedly feminist bent.

My favorites are with Mina as carried on in the future, but in point of fact, we've got a very wide cast hitting so many great history points, from WWI, II, Flappers in the '20's, a Wild-West train heist, to a number globe-trotting moderns making their way the best they can.

Some of these short stories are plainly fun slasher-types, but more than a few are full of complicated plots, great settings, emotional depth, and great action. Most aren't a gimmick. Most of these are quite entertaining even to the savvy horror reader. :)

I had a great time! It's a perfect mood-builder. :)


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Provenance by Ann Leckie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ann Leckie's new novel is still set in the Imperial Radch universe, but don't be fooled... It's a very focused novel that details issues of family, inheritance, cultural relevance, and politics while completely surrounded by aliens and odd mores. Indeed, this novel is more of a comedy of manners than anything else, but there's also a bit of the mystery, murder, and mayhem as well.

Out of the original trilogy, I felt like this one matched the feel and fun of the third novel. Even so, I can't even begin to describe how many times I heard the exhortation, "Don't break the Treaty!" And of course, that's the source of most of the conflict.

Inheritance is the key motivator for Ingray, trying something new, which, of course, goes disastrously wrong. Need a thief to steal a priceless cultural artifact in order to prove that you're worthy? Ah, but first, make sure the provenance on all the key players and artifacts are up to snuff, please! :)

I really enjoyed this novel, but not in the traditional way. I tended to mostly rely on the laurels of the complicated world building that we've established in the previous novels and focused instead on the characterizations, the dialogue, and the subtleties. That's not bad, of course, but we're still destined to work for our pleasure. Gender neutrality is still a big deal in the expression of this novel, as is the complicated or rather odd names we need to keep track of.

My main issue was in the identification and thereby the connection with the characters. I can simultaneously appreciate that things aren't dumbed down for us while also having to work rather more hard not to get lost, but the fact is, it did pull me out of the tale a little too often. Maybe it wasn't entirely the names, either, but a lot of that was solved by having a rather small cast of characters. The only other issue might have had was in wanting some huge shattering change or revelation with far-reaching effects, but such is not in the cards for a comedy of errors. :)

Still, this is quite good! Fans of Leckie will still remain fans. :)


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Protector by C.J. Cherryh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can still honestly say that this series is consistently excellent, and while I can't say that this novel broke a lot of new ground unlike the previous one, I was quite amused by Cajeiri's ship friends coming down for his birthday. A little romp through the fields couldn't hurt a few human kids, could it?

I was a little annoyed by all this focus on the Shadow Guild within the Assassin's, however, but I'm sure other readers would get more out of it than me. It does feel like it's drawing on a bit too much, a little too much reusable plots... with one exception. I liked seeing past events come to different light. A broader political view is rather interesting. And impressive.

Fortunately, the characters are really something else and I'm never getting tired of them. Bren is great as usual, but it was really a treat to see Jase again. When are we going to get aliens???



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Nanoshock by K.C. Alexander
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow.

What a ride! I mean, I'm a die-hard fan of anything cyberpunk, but this one takes things to a whole new level of pacing, action, great story, great characters, and above all, a rip-roaring fun time.

I will not spoiler this, but I can say that it's even better than the first book. I'm not saying the quality is all that different, but so much more seems to happen in this one. More development, more emotional backlash, more tension, more mindblowing implications.

It picks up our nearly cred-less hero spiraling down the social pariah hole and doing everything she possibly can to survive, including working for corporate c***s, and it just goes downhill from there. Am I feeling it? Oh yeah. Do I blame her for her shell-shocked existence? Not at all. Is she f***ed? I do believe so.

I just can't believe how much solid story follows this, just how cool the turns are, or how much I love the tech, nano and otherwise, nor how awesome are the pitfalls. Necros are when the nano colonies inside your heavily modded body replicate out of control and eat you alive and turn you rabid. Everyone puts you down at that point. Nanoshock is the state of going into full conversion.

These titles aren't just for show. It's the one-two step toward total f***ing meltdown. :)

So F***ing Cool. :)

And yeah, the voice and the insults and the curses are just as good in this one as in the first one. I'm totally rocking to Riko. She's gotta be one of my very-most-favorite cyberPUNK characters in a very long time... maybe ever.

I'm still reeling with the end of this. Just wow.

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