Gatefather by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this more. I'm not saying I didn't like it because I actually did.

I just wanted to like it more.

So what was good?

The ideas! The direction the magic took was rather cool and I would have loved to play in this world for a lot longer, but the focus came down rather heavily upon individual choices and Danny's godlike power. Not that this couldn't be a good thing, mind you, even in the face of a setup that could bring down war between worlds and numerous new uber-powers laying waste by both accident and intent, but in the end, we were left with very little actual action. Good story paths, yes, and the idea carries everything better than you might expect, but that leads me to the bad.

The bad: Reader expectations.

I'm not going to sit here and say we're all bad people because we're used to and enjoy anti-heroes and we now hate christ-like imageries because we've seen such things overdone to the point of absurdity. I'm also not going to complain that what was a much gentler touch in the first two novels then gets to be a bit hammer-like in the third.

What I will say is that if you go into reading this knowing that you'll be dealing with a genuinely heroic and moral MC, perhaps something like Ender or Alvin Maker, but without their obvious failings, then you might start thinking that he might be rather single-dimensional. And you'd be right. At least in the previous novels, he was mooning people or knocking up chicks. In this one, he just plays host to Seth and never needs to worry about anything because he's amazingly powerful.

And then we get the morality play. Don't get me wrong! I like a good morality play that's done well. I don't even care if it's heavy as long as it's also clever as hell. This novel's writing is crystal clear and I still enjoyed a lot of the characters and it was very much a YA, but the very insistent focus that most girls (mind you, not women) will always be attracted to the truly powerful, got a bit gruesome.

That being said, there was still a rather big mix between the extra-juvenile (to be expected, considering their ages,) and some rather cool but out of place philosophical moments, (which also might be expected, considering their ages.) However, somewhere along the line, these didn't gel for me and it fell flat. Maybe that's just me and I'm being a bit more harsh on this novel than I usually am because I've read and loved so much of OSC's works. I particularly loved the philosophical moments in the others, even.

This one felt a bit rushed. Like it needed another pass and tone up, perhaps a different main focus or at least one that brought out the peril a bit more. I found myself thinking the novel was about to wrap up half-way through and wondered where it could go. The actual end was... okay, but just okay.

I wanted to have more happen. We did get something big, but we didn't have to work for it. I just feel a bit cheated.



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The Gate Thief by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think Orson Scott Card is doing a fantastic job writing good-kid YA. It's really hard. Most of the YA out there is full of stupid kids doing stupid things and while Danny fits the bill, he's still a sight better than most. He's dependable and loyal and he does the right thing even when it would be so easy to just fall into the traps that everyone lays out for him.

I'm talking about sex.

I mean, truly, Danny's now the definition of a god, with super-uber gate-magic powers that not only let him use his imagination and trickery, but they also heal the people that go through them. That's pretty beast, especially since he can make a million of the gates. He's a god among gods. God-Punk at its best. :)

But sex is the downfall of all the gods, is it not? Just look at Zeus. And yet, Danny is trying not to be *that*. Admirable, don't you think?

Alas, this isn't the entire book, but it's an important part. The rest is all about the coming war with Seth, the Dragon, with Satan, with Bel, while all the while having to deal or not deal with the rest of the underpowered mortal-gods as they go through the Great Gate that amps up all their powers, while all the while trying to protect his normal friends. Danny's pretty heroic, but he's still just a kid, and a lot of the dialog is very HS.

In the end, I'm really happy with the shape of this story. I love most of the writing and I think it's really gorgeous when it comes to clarity and how well it explains the magic system and just how huge the stakes are. Stolen souls across time? Yup. Worthy of a tale of gods on Earth. :)

Above all, though, I love just how much comparative religion there is in here and how nicely it dovetails into the action. :)

I'm having a blast with this series. Very easy read, emotional, and a lot of high standards while the rest of humanity and gods wallow in the muck. :) It's pretty awesome, in fact.

(And if you're worried this is just another religious tract, don't worry. It's no more religious than, say, OSC's Speaker For The Dead.) Morals, yes. Hammer over head? No. Just decisions and trying to do the right thing. :)

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The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I honestly didn't know what to expect with this one, but I was very pleasantly surprised to find a magic system that incorporates every myth of gods and creates families out of them, weak with time but always hoping for the potential to get much, much more powerful.

That only happens with Gate magic.

Enter Danny, learning that he can bend space and time and learning much about himself as he leaves his scary folks and their community to become a thief. It's a perfect field for someone who can jump anywhere. :)

There's a lot more, too, of course, and the end was fascinating and open to so much goodness... but the one thing that really stands out the most is the post word.

Anyone who's been a big fan of Card's early short fiction will be very pleasantly surprised that this whole novel has the feel of some of his most imaginative works. That's saying quite a bit. I still have a grand memory of them that led me into a life-long love of reading Card in general and not just because he wrote a few of my absolute favorites, like Ender's Game or A Planet Called Treason. :)

I'm still quite amazed that he can write such cool things and do it so engagingly. He deserves respect. His personal opinions on some topics aside, his regular writing is quite fine and always entertaining. I personally don't think he's lost his touch at all. I love the ideas going on here. If he does have issues in RL, it's not showing up in his novels. In fact, I'm very interested in plowing right through all three of these to see where it'll head!



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The Overneath by Peter S. Beagle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So far, I've been enjoying Beagle's works and this is my first real taste of his short fiction. I'm sure that there will be a ton of fans going ga-ga over the fact that there are two Schmendrick shorts here!

Even so, I think I enjoyed a number of the other stories a bit more. I'm particularly fond of his Steampunk story: Music, When Soft Voices Die which had a particularly awesome horror feel. Indeed, I think I prefer all the stories that had that taste, such as these three: The Very Nasty Aquarium, Great Grandmother in the Cellar, and Underbridge.

Even better are timeless stories like: The Queen Who Could Not Walk. There was something about this one that really got to me.

Even so, there's a little something for everyone in this collection, especially if you like unicorn tales that don't fit in Beagle's Last Unicorn universe. There's even a delightful SF about a lonely guy with an awesome computer who has a penpal across the universe. :)

I admit to liking but not loving most of these, but I can't complain about the quality of any of it! I am quite pleased with the quality of the research and the depth of the myths inside some of the tales. Magic is everywhere. :)

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

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Artemis by Andy Weir
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was great.

I admit to worrying that he wouldn't be able to keep up the quality from The Martian, and this is definitely a very different kind of tale from that, being half a heist novel but otherwise just a great adventure, but he pulls it off. Better than pulling it off, even. I love his characters and the feel of the moon city, Artemis, is vital and detailed.

But you know what the best part is?

I was thoroughly entertained during the entire read. The pacing is great, the reveals believable, the twists unexpected, and the action, delightful. I really couldn't ask for more when it comes to fun science fiction.

The moon is a great place to have an adventure. There's always the threat of being deported to Earth, the expensive living arrangements, and the law if you're a smuggler, which Jazz is, but there's always suit and engineering and environmental problems to worry about, too. And never forget greed and cupidity and the need to balance being a good person against a ton of intrigue. That's what we've got going on, here, and it's a real treat every step of the way.

No spoilers, but I can easily say that I had a great time reading it from the first to the last page. Nothing could have pleased me more. The read is solid as hell.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

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Hellboy, Vol. 5: Conqueror Worm by Mike Mignola
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oddly enough, or perhaps not oddly at all, I'm really enjoying Hellboy. At first it was just an intellectual enjoyment, getting all into the conspiracy stuff and the metaphysics and the magic as well as the history, but now I'm just rocking to the stories being told.

It's filled with gentle reveals, perhaps no more than hints, and we've got a grand sweep of untold history, but all these snippets are pure gold.

I like Lobster Johnson and Roger a lot. Alien intelligences and cthuhlu entities? Even more. :)

I'm almost sad that I'm reading this as a buddy-read of one volume per month. I kinda want to rip through these now. I'm hooked.


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The Nightwalkers by J.A. Kahn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an enjoyable YA horror/mystery with very pronounced comedic elements, but at its core, it's all horror.

I couldn't help but feel the elements of Stephen King's It combined with Inspector Cluso, young kids on the track of a real horror butting heads against absolutely idiotic and bumbling law enforcement. This makes up a very significant portion of the tale, and it gets very dark even through all the amazing incompetence. I kept expecting a moment where the kids would uncover the masked villain who'd say that they'd have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those darn kids... but no, the horror is real, the killers are real, and the incompetence feels absolutely real.

The only people with a clue are the kids, but that's a pretty usual key to these tales. The gulf between the adults and the kids is what makes this stand out stronger than the competition. All the adults are written with broad strokes and tragedy follows despite the humor.

But this is only a part of the tale. We also get deep into the other side of the tale. Vampires. No one believes or wants to believe... and that's fine with them. Still, there's a real tragedy and a long story in this house, too.

Later, all the elements will clash and this was probably the most satisfying part of the tale. So much death for such an otherwise funny horror. Maybe that's the point!

Thanks to the author for providing me an ARC! It was a blast.

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