Living Dead in Dallas

Charlaine Harris’ second entry in the Southern Vampire Mysteries is entitled Living Dead in Dallas. This novel finds Sookie drafted by Eric to use here telepathic powers to solve a crime in a neighboring vampire district. This is partly due to a promise Sookie made in Dead Until Dark, but also partly due to Bill’s new status as a vampire investigator. The investigation takes them to Dallas, and Sookie for the first time interacts with the larger vampire world.

In Dead Until Dark we are only introduced to vampires, shape-shifters, and telepaths. Living Dead in Dallas reveals the fact that in the Sookie-verse pretty much any legend, myth, or nightmare is probably true. In this novel we encounter more shape-shifters, werewolves, another telepath, a maenad, and of course lots of vampires. From this novel I get the sense that this setting, with all the things that go bump in the night, is going to be a fun little place to play.

While, like Dead Until Dark and season one of True Blood, the overall storyline starts and ends much the same season two of True Blood made some major changes. Again a lot of this is due too the novels being told from Sookie’s point of view and the show being more of an ensemble. Another reason for this divergence is the fact that these novels are short and fast moving. If True Blood stayed word perfect to the novels it would probably only be able to get 4 or 5 episodes out of each novel.

In truth I liked the pacing and results of Living Dead in Dallas much more than I liked season two of True Blood. Again this goes back to the narrative style of the novels. The Dallas plot takes place first with only Sookie, Bill, and Eric involved and for the show this would have left a lot of favorite characters hanging for about six of the episodes. So in order to sort this out the maenad story line was dragged out over all 12 episodes, and it just wasn’t that good of a plot line. The novel not only handles that story in an almost completely different matter, but starts it up and then doesn’t go back to it until the very end keeping the whole deal mercifully brief.

Living Dead Until Dark introduces a lot of new lore and helps to flesh out the structure of the vampire world. We learn that there are things bigger and badder than a vampire. The Fellowship of the Sun is also introduced. The Fellowship is a good foil to use to both make the vampires seem less evil and also to comment on the abuses of religious ideals and political conservatism.

I like the fact that Harris does not try to make these novels more than they are. The story arcs are brief and the mysteries are resolved without a lot of CSI style investigation, which is good because that is not what these novels are about. Shorter novels rarely catch my attention because I often don’t feel like getting to know a character and then moving on so soon, but as Harris already has several novels out it’s not quite so bad. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I give it a 3.5/5.

Thud!

The Battle of Koom Valley (and its numerous repetitions) is the wheel around which Terry Pratchett’s Thud! turns. In this, the 34th Discworld novel, Commander Samuel Vimes and the various members of the City Watch are the main characters. The story is essentially a study on racism and the ludicrous notions that often beget long term race related hatred.

Thud! is a reference both to a board game in which the players reenact the Battle of Koom Valley, and the alleged murder of a dwarf leader by a troll. This murder happens deep underneath Ankh Morpork in a new dwarf “mine” (which is really just the dwarves excavating the many previous floors upon which the current city is built) and is thus the province of the City Watch.

To complicate matters even further Vimes is saddled with a new vampire recruit, an auditor from the Patrician, and the need to keep tempers cool as the anniversary of Koom Valley approaches. There is much tension involved in investigating the crime as the dwarves don’t trust the troll officers to not skew the facts, and the trolls just don’t trust the dwarves.

When you get to the nuts and bolts of the story this is a fairly average entry in the series. The Watch and Vimes are characters that Pratchett often uses both as main characters and as important parts of other stories. Due to this fact a lot of the really inventive things Pratchett does are often not found in Watch-centric novels. There is just too much history built around them already to get too far off the beaten path. Not to mention the fact that they are bound tightly by the laws of the city.

I don’t intend to give the impression that Thud! is not a good read. I would say that even the weakest Discworld novel is still entertaining and frequently makes one think about things in a new light. It just seems that Pratchett really shines when using characters that have been used more lightly. This is probably why the stand alone stories are peppered throughout the series and also why characters like the Witches and Wizards have become background characters in the later volumes.

Stephen Briggs was the voice of this audiobook. As usual he did a very impressive job bringing the voices of the characters to life. While not one of Pratchett’s most inventive or freewheeling novels, Thud! is an entertaining read and does comment quite successfully on the idiocy of racism, and also how people should really study things, rather than just blindly believing. I give this novel a 3.5/5.

Ring of Fire

In general I don’t plan to do full a review of any anthology. To do an actual review would essentially require a short review of every story, and that’s not my cup of tea. If I enjoy the anthology or, as in this case, it is fairly focused I will endeavor to provide a short overview review of the entire anthology.

Ring of Fire, edited by Eric Flint, is the first collection of short stories set in Flint’s 1632 universe. At this point there are four anthologies (two under the Ring of Fire moniker) and something like 27 Grantville Gazette’s (which are essentially Flint approved fan fiction anthologies). The stories in Ring of Fire range from beginning concurrently with 1632 to beginning more or less at the same time as 1633.

There are several notable authors involved in Ring of Fire. David Weber’s entry is important to the 1633 storyline, and Flint, Virginia Easley DeMarce, and Mercedes Lackey each have stories that spark later books in the main story arc. These four stories are the strongest entries in the anthology. The other stories are written by fans and approved by Flint as essentially canonical.

All in all Ring of Fire is a very enjoyable read. If you like the 1632 setting as much as I do Ring of Fire is definitely worth picking up. In Ring of Fire we get a lot of seeds for later plot lines, and also a good deal of background about characters that are not necessarily the ones that Flint likes to write about. I give it 3.5/5.

Dead Until Dark

Since True Blood is a lot of fun to watch, I have begun reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris. The first is entitled Dead Until Dark. The approach the TV show has taken is not what I would hope for if I were a diehard fan of something (that is to say I hope David and Dan stay truer to aSoIaF than True Blood does to these novels) but I do think that in this instance it works well.

The overall story arc of the first novel and the first season of True Blood are fairly similar. In both cases we start and end in the nearly the same places, and most of the subplots are, if not exactly the same at least maintain the integrity of the story. Where we find a lot of divergence is in characters and characterization. This has a lot to do with the fact that the novels are written in the first person and have a heavy introspective component, these two things would not work well for TV!

Thus Dead Until Dark is focused much more tightly around Sookie, and we only see the events from her perspective. It takes much longer in the novel to get a feel for the characters around Sookie. In fact with the exception of Bill and possibly Sam the other secondary characters are much further developed by the end of the first season of True Blood than they are by the end of Dead Until Dark. This is not a bad thing, it is merely the result of changing from novel form to TV and all of the adjustments required therein.

To be honest Sookie, as portrayed in True Blood, annoys me quite a lot. This I believe has to do with the lack of her inner dialogs that we have available in the novels. Sookie’s character is played much as she projects herself to other people in the novels. That is to say the novel Sookie realizes that being a young, curvy, blonde in the South gets her typecast as a bit of an airhead, or at least less smart than your average bear. She uses this knowledge quite effectively to her advantage by playing up that image while actually being intelligent about things. In True Blood, all the viewer gets is the played up dumb blonde act, without the benefit of Sookie’s true thoughts, and as a result she doesn’t come across as a sympathetic character.

I have not read very much “urban fantasy” prior to this novel, just one or two random things and I guess you might call the later Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles novels urban fantasy, but I think they may be more of a predecessor to the sub-genre. Urban fantasy is not my favorite of the sub-genre’s but it can be a fun interlude between weightier reads. That is exactly what Dead Until Dark is.

Harris writes in a very concise and quick moving style. We only discover facts and background about each character in glimpses and snippets that are important to the immediate plot line. As a result this is a very quick read. I wouldn’t say it’s an edge of your seat kind of story, but the writing style keeps things moving fast enough that you never lose interest. I give Dead Until Dark a 3.5/5.

The Black Company

Glen Cook’s The Black Company is the first in a series of ten novels. These are ostensibly tales gleaned from “the Annals” of the Black Company. The member of the Company tasked with writing the Annals is Croaker, who is also the Company physician. The history of the Company goes back perhaps thousands of years, the full length of time is only hinted at, and there is no indication given why the reader is introduced to the Annals at this point.

This book was published in 1984, and as many such novels of previous era’s has a narrative style and feel much different than those prevalent today. In many ways the novel is much more violent than the likes of Joe Abercrombie or GRRM, but in a way that is almost more ominous because it is less graphic. The tone is somewhat more cerebral and the action more sparsely described than more current novels, and the author is not afraid to skip periods of time between one large event and the next.

Apparently the second chapter of this novel was the first actual published story of the Black Company. This is only vaguely noticeably as one reads through. In fact if the reader were not aware prior to reading the first two chapters it may not even be noticed. The first chapter tells the story of how the Company came to be in the service of the Lady, and in the North. The second chapter begins some months later and spells out first true bit of infighting between the Lady’s minions.

The story goes on from there with many battles between the Lady’s troops (of which the Black Company is one) and those of the Rebel, leading to a climatic showdown at the Lady’s fortress. There are many little skirmishes between the minions of the Lady along the way, and somehow Croaker finds himself closely involved in most of them. At first Croaker romanticizes the Lady but gradually he begins to realize that the Lady is evil. The true strength of the novel lies in that Croaker realizes that there is no good side in this conflict, rather two evils, of which neither is truly lesser.

All in all this is not a hugely complex tale. Cook takes a fairly straightforward approach, as one would expect in a true Annals. What makes this a better than average story is that although the tale itself is not hugely complex, there are several important twists and turns which are foreshadowed, or not, to varying degrees. Perhaps aided by the fact that it is very short by current novel standards (barely cracking 300 pages) I found myself really yearning to have the second novel on hand to read the moment I was done with the first.

As I noted before, any reader used to reading newer novels will immediately notice stylistic and tonal differences. Is the change from then to now as great as the change from the days of Asimov and Heinlein to when the Black Company was first published? I would say easily. This does not in any way tarnish these older works, in fact it can be a refreshing change. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I give it 4/5.

The Last Hero

The Last Hero is the first Discworld story wherein Pratchett varied from the normal novel format. This book was published in a large format and was illustrated by Paul Kidby. It is much shorter than the average Discworld story. After this entry (number 27 overall) we find the Young Adult titles interspersed with the regular series.

With the Last Hero Pratchett brought together two characters I have always felt would make a great team. Those being Captain Carrot and Rincewind. Unfortunately this story feels a bit phoned in. Since we have in effect 4 characters in play (add Cohen the Barbarian and Leonard of Quirm to the cast) the story never really settles on one main protagonist. We have grown accustomed to Carrot being a secondary character but Rincewind occupies so much space he feels out of place as a second or third stringer.

The story itself is quite fun. Cohen and his Silver Horde are afraid of dying a normal boring death and thus head out to return fire (actually high explosives) to the gods. Vetinari gets wind of this and realizes that if the Horde are successful it will be the end of the Discworld. Thus Leonard, Carrot, and Rincewind are sent via “the Kite” (a true space fairing ship) to try and stop the Horde. We actually get to cover a lot of ground in the Discworld and interactions with the gods are always amusing.

Stephen Briggs usually does a great job on this recordings for the audiobooks in this series. This time around however, I felt that his Rincewind was more a bumbling idiot than the sage coward that he truly is. All in all this was a fun little entry in the canon of the Discworld. I need to get a hold of a printed copy as I am sure the illustrations add a lot. This feels like a fluff piece though, definitely not Pratchett at his best, I give it a 3/5.

The Charnel Prince

In The Charnel Prince, Greg Keyes picks up the saga of the The Kingdom of Thorn and Bone basically right where it left off at the end of The Briar King. Here we have basically the same cast of characters (excluding the deceased) and POVS, with the addition of a bard who is bent on writing the first opera. The main narrative arc of this novel covers Muriele’s power struggles in the capital, whilst Anne tries to return, Neil chases Anne around, and Aspar is tracing the “threat” of now awake Briar King.

Early in the book there is a moment that might make the reader’s head spin a bit. Aspar encounters both the Briar King and a new Sefry character whilst fighting some monks who are reawakening a demonic sedos. In the aftermath of this encounter we find out that the Church is the real enemy (who didn’t see that coming) and the Briar King is either a good guy or at least the enemy of our enemy. To me this is a bit trite.

I must admit that it is possible to operate on incorrect information and suddenly have to change an opinion based on new evidence. However, the tone of The Briar King and the portrayal of this entity up to that exact moment point so much to the Briar King being evil that this switch about just doesn’t feel right. Perhaps this is just because we will see another flip flop in a later novel, but at this juncture in the story it feels mishandled.

After this point the story works quite well. We find several of the characters really growing up and into the roles they must inhabit. This is most notable in Anne, but also key to both Neil and Cazio. During the story we also find out that the Church thinks that the world is corrupt and is trying to reawaken all these dead paths to somehow save the world before some unknown apocalyptic event. Apparently there is also some unknown player involved that is both very powerful and is gathering powerful underlings throughout the world.

This novel is fast paced. There is plenty of action in nearly every visit to each POV and a lot of ground is covered. What the reader knows about the situation has changed vastly by the time we reach the end. The only down side to this is the fact that it feels like not very much actual time has passed between the beginning and the end of the novel. We only know that it must have been a significant amount of time because several characters travel great distances, and several characters are wounded and heal enough to participate in key battles.

Thus far the novels in the saga of the Kingdom of Thorn and Bone have been enjoyable reads. The Charnel Prince didn’t quite hold me in thrall as much as The Briar King did. I do think that the strength of the overall story has grown a great deal in the second novel, in that it feels much more like a part of a larger story than the first novel did. However, the sense of timing could have been much better and I have a real problem with the way the big bad so abruptly changed. I give this book a 3/5.

Going Postal

In Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal we meet Moist von Lipwig for the first time. Unfortunately for Moist we meet him mere hours before he is to be executed. You see up to this point Moist has been a con artist, and when you indulge in that sort of activity in Ankh-Morpork it won’t be long before the Patrician hunts you down. Fortunately for Moist, Vetinari has bigger plans for him than a simple hemp fandango.

This novel finds Pratchett at top form. He has a new main character (who seems to have become Pratchett’s favorite for the moment given the number of Moist involved books that have either come out or are planned since this novel) to play with, and of course all of the characters like Vetinari that inhabit Ankh-Morpork. What makes Moist a good new toy is that he is unlike any of the previous main characters.

Here we have a newly reformed confidence man who is almost learning to live for the first time. He learns to use his powers of persuasion and guile to help people and set things right rather than just to make a quick dollar. However, since this is the Discworld everything is a bit quirky. He is tasked with rebuilding the Postal system and ends up competing with the “clacks,” (a system that is somewhat like a visual telegraph) which was probably Vetinari’s plan all along. Moist finds his only real help at the start to be a crazy old man, and a possibly autistic boy enamored with pins. Oh and of course Mr. Pump, the golem who is Moist’s bodyguard/parole officer.

The novel really shines as Moist progresses from feeling wronged and hating his situation to really getting into the spirit of the thing. I am glad golem’s feature prominently in this novel. I have always felt that Pratchett’s golems were an interesting bunch, but under used, and this novel starts to remedy that.
Of course there is the arch enemy Reacher Gilt, who in many ways is a mirror of what Moist might have become had he not been caught. In the end though Moist proves to be the wiser of the two, and in essence the better con-man. The Post Office is a perfect place for Pratchett to work. There are so many things about Postal service and the idea of going Postal, that really play right into Pratchett’s sarcasm and love of turning everything in the world on its ear.

I listened to the audiobook version of Going Postal read by Stephen Briggs. Briggs did an excellent job of bringing the characters to life, and chose voices for each which very much matched their character. This novel not only introduced Moist von Lipwig, but also gave us an better insight into the way Vetinari thinks and acts. This is one of Pratchett’s best works I give it a 4/5.