Finally, to finish up last year's reading list, here's a quick review of the 4 books I managed to get through in the last 3 months of the year (spoilers):
The Wheel of Osheim by Mark Lawrence
"The Wheel of Osheim" is the third book of Mark Lawrence's "Red Queen's War" trilogy (I think earlier in the year I wrote about book two, "The Liar's Key"). The story takes place within the same Broken Empire as his previous trilogy: a world that reads like typical "sword and sorcery" genre but is actually post-apocalyptic as the civilization that came before broke the world with their creation of "magic" and sending civilization back to the Dark Ages. In the final part of the trilogy, Prince Jalan Kendeth and Snorri ver Snagason, having retrieved Loki's Key and escaped Hell, must make their way to the Wheel of Osheim, the source of magic, and stop it from turning or risk the entire world coming to an end.
What I most enjoy about Lawrence's writing style is that while it could fall into the typical High Fantasy genre, he doesn't get as bogged down in description and world building as most of the others in his field. The story flows quickly from place to place, spending just enough time on the detail for you to get an idea of what the area might look like before jumping into the action.
Urban Enemies (Anthology)
"Urban Enemies" is an anthology of short stories from a bunch of different urban fantasy writers starring the antagonists ("Bad Guys") of those series. And since one of those featured writers was Jim Butcher (starring Gentleman John Marcone, no less!), I was definitely going to buy it. As with most collections of this sort, there's always going to be stories I like more than others, and stories that I disliked entirely, and even more in the middle. As I always say when buying collections, there's no way you're going to like every single story, so I at least tend to make sure there's at least one or two writer's who I like enough to justify spending the money (for this one, almost twice what I would normally pay for a regular paperback). The main appeal of this particular collection was getting stories in which the main characters were not good guys, in fact, in the context of their particular series they are the enemies of the protagonists. If you're familiar with a book series, seeing the world as a known enemy can provide an interesting point of view, and if the series is new, well, at least you get a story featuring a protagonist with a completely different set of values and motivations than you're used to reading about.
While some writer's used this opportunity to provide more back story and insight into their villains, my favorites (being unfamiliar with most of the series featured in this book) were the ones that told standalone stories from the point of view of these villains. Some of my favorites include:
"Even Hand" by Jim Butcher. Starring "Gentleman" John Marcone, a notorious gangster in a world of supernatural creatures, Marcone is one of Harry Dresden's most formidable adversaries. Throughout the series Marcone is presented as a cunning Chicagoan gangster with rules he ruthlessly enforces. In this story, Marcone protects his turf, and one of Dresden's allies, from an attack by the Fomor, creatures that have risen from the ocean to prey on humanity.
"Balance" by Sean McGuire. Being unfamiliar with the world inhabited by monsters and men, I enjoyed this story as I didn't need to know much besides that to jump right into the story. The story is told from the point of view of a Cuckoo, a race of psychic creatures which implant themselves into their victims memories and prey off of them until it is time to discard their target for greener pastures. For this cuckoo though, on this one particular day of self-amusement, a former victim returns to wreck his plans.
"Alter Boy" by Jonathan Maberry. From the synopsis, the main story is usually focused upon a special ops team tasked with taking down terrorists with futuristic technology (more in the realm of sci-fi). In this story though, the main character is one of the series "reformed villains," Toys and his encounter with temptation back to the man he used to be.
The Internet is a Playground by David Thorne
First off, thanks to Kristian for the recommendation, this is one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. Probably not since reading "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" have I needed to stifle a laugh when reading in public. In true Internet fashion, "the one who cares less is the winner," Thorne taunts co-workers, lawyers, teachers, and the police in email transcripts. The Email transcripts are pretty straight forward, someone will contact him by email on a subject that seems to annoy him, and he will respond with an even more ridiculous fashion, always taking things one step further and further. Some of my favorites include: 1) Informing a teacher that he authorizes the use of physical punishment against his child after he is informed that his child will no longer be allowed to use the school computers; 2) After being harassed for tardiness, creating an unbelievable story about why he was late; 3) After receiving an email from the Australian police regarding a humorous post he wrote soliciting drugs requesting that he take down the story or amend it (while still acknowledging that they understand it is all a joke), he makes the necessary changes a minute before their deadline.
A Conjuring of Light by V.E Schwab
I was really planning to wait until next year to buy the paperback version but it turns out I couldn't wait, so I ended up breaking down and picking up the last part to Schwab's Shades of Magic trilogy. So far, there's only been one book I've bought the hardcover version for and that was "The Magician's Land" by Lev Grossman. As book 2 of this series ended on a cliffhanger, I really couldn't wait any longer for the next part.
As I covered a lot of the background early last year when I finished "A Gathering of Shadows," I'll try to skip over that stuff. Book three picks up immediately where Book 2's cliffhanger leaves off and the reader is immediately pushed into the danger of magic gone sentient. In the previous books, magic is described as an almost living thing, and each "London" represents that relationship. The harmony of mankind and magic in "Red London" is broken when the creature from "Black London" attacks, magic which consumes and overpowers man. The protagonists set out to find a way to destroy this new monster and save all 4 Londons from its power.
One thing I really liked about Schwab's writing was the constant perspective shifts as the story is told from many different viewpoints. As each character sees the world a little differently, Schwab is able to choose which character acts as the narrator for each section to give the reader the best point of view for the situation. Each section stays true to the character that you could probably figure out who is narrating the section just based on how they see the world and the things they do, the things they react to.
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