Review: Sorcerer's Feud

Sorcerer's Feud by Katharine Kerr
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

[Disclaimer: I read this book twice in beta and was sent a copy by the author when it was finished. My opinions are my own.]

***There are no spoilers in this post, unless you have not read book 1, in which case what are you doing?? Go read it now!!***

In the second installment of the "Runemaster" series, Maya and Tor are dealing with the aftermath of the accidental murder of Tor's uncle Nils. The book picks up almost immediately after the last book ended, with Maya worrying that the police are going to figure out she killed Nils, and come after her. Not to mention her brother is still in the hospital and not progressing with his recovery, she has a final project for her degree to work on, she's finally engaged to Tor, and they make the discovery that Nils had kids, one of whom makes contact with Tor regarding the will.

On top of all of that, there's a frost giant who keeps showing up in the driveway demanding the gold plaque that Tor won't give back, Tor is still a were-bear, and Maya is finally confronting the memories that can unlock her heritage and her powers. And Nazis! *dun dun dun*

Let's get one thing straight: This series is fan-freaking-tastic! I loved reading it all three times, and even in my final read I discovered new things and saw some minor changes that really illuminated the plot. I always have fun reading about Maya and Tor, they are a great couple of characters. And the addition of Joel, Tor's cousin, was a great way to show how Maya is becoming entrenched in the magical world. His disbelief was once hers, but now she's so involved that it's like she was never a "normal" person. Her heritage is even more engrossing, because we finally learn where she's from and how she got her "disease."

Obviously it's not true urban fantasy, and the author says as much in the note at the beginning. It doesn't really fit into any one genre, at least not completely. I consider it simply fantasy set in the modern world (which I normally don't like to read as much, but I find this set wholly entertaining). The writing style is pretty easy to read, because you can end up reading a huge chunk of the book and not realize how much until you check your page count! And it never gets boring. I highly recommend this series (definitely start with book 1, Sorcerer's Luck) to anyone who enjoys a fun but intense story about magic, runes, old gods, and some spicy romance.

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Review: Sorcerer's Luck

Sorcerer's Luck by Katharine Kerr
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Simply put, I love this book. It is so imaginative and original, and full of history and magic and all sorts of fun!

Maya Cantescu meets a sorcerer while she's drawing portraits at a local fair. He draws her into his world with the offer of a job, and since she's barely scraping by she talks herself into it. Maya isn't just any ordinary girl herself, though - she's a vampire. No, not the blood-sucking kind, but the kind that feeds on other people's energies. She could easily kill someone if she took too much, but she has trained herself to only take smidgins here and there. This has barely worked for her, but by the time she meets the sorcerer, Tor, she isn't at the peak of health.

It seems like love at first sight, but as we get further into the story we find out that they have known each other a lot longer than Maya first thought!

There's also the hitch that Tor is a were-bear. Can Maya keep him locked in his room every full moon so that he doesn't go off gallivanting around the countryside eating small children? And what really goes on behind that locked door every cycle?

Most of the action focuses on Tor's uncle Nils, who has a huge vendetta against him for some perceived slight. It takes probably half of the book to figure this out, but that's hardly where the excitement ends!

The masterful writing coupled with a great story has really turned out a great book. At the end we're left with the set-up for another book, which is awesome, because I seriously can't get enough of Maya and Tor, her brother Roman, and her kooky friend Brittany.

5/5 stars, highly recommended to anyone who loves fantasy, adventure, romance, magic, mythology, and just enjoying a darn good read.

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2012: A Retrospective (Of Sorts)

Another year gone, another lump of books read.  To be quite honest, I'm not disappointed in myself at all for failing to reach my 75 book goal.  In looking at my list of books read this year, I am quite proud of the genres, lengths and authors I've tackled this year and I am feeling very accomplished at a total of 51 completed books for the year.  Of course, I can't count the two unpublished manuscripts I read, nor can I count the book I am working on proofing (I am getting it chapter by chapter, so I haven't finished reading it yet as it's not yet done).  But if you do count those in my totals I'm up to 54, which is admirable in itself.

Anyway, enough patting myself on the back.  And don't mind me as I take a short stroll through some of my most memorable reads of the year.

(There are captions underneath the photos - I don't know how to change the color of the text so just hover for the captions and the links.  You'll be able to see them that way if you're interested!)

The Zona, by Nathan L. Yocum
Photo from Goodreads.com

The Zona - Nathan L. Yocum
Date started: 2/14/2012
Date finished: 2/17/2012

This book was more of a novella, as it was only 115 pages.  I didn't particularly click with this one, didn't enjoy the read as much as I had hoped, but it was an interesting book that has stuck with me since I read it.  It's certainly an interesting topic for thought: Preachers as killers, tasked with sending their marks to their death or to Purgatory.  The thing that has stuck with me the most, though, was how the reader gets to see three different points of view on what happened to Vegas, a brutal massacre on the part of the Church in order to purge sin from the world.  A recommended read, even if you don't consider yourself a religious person.

Review: Love on the Run

Love on the Run by Katharine Kerr
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This series just gets better and better! In the 4th installment of the Nola O'Grady books, Nola is yet again fighting back against the forces of Chaos and those who would harm her family.

Here is my unapologetic disclaimer: I love Katharine Kerr's works. At least everything that I've read, anyway. I don't think I've ever been disappointed. There, I've said it. Maybe I'm biased, but I really LOVE this series. I can't get enough of Nola and Ari! It's a fun adventure with a lot of serious thought-provoking themes and ideas. The book doesn't take its vague genre seriously, and the frequent mention of psychic squids makes me giggle. I love it at the end when Nola gets so tired of seeing them that she orders calamari and eats it in front of the apparitions, making them nervous, and then blows the squid-smell at them until they go away. HI-larious!

THERE ARE SOME MINOR SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT

After someone tries to kill Nola's sister Maureen on the night of Nola's engagement party, she is thrust into further danger on the deviant world levels. Traveling between One, Three and Six, Nola and Ari investigate the collapsing of the gates, the murder of a TWIXT agent, and Maureen's ex-boyfriend who has a vendetta against her for leaving him. Trying to balance her family's outrageous problems, her relationship with Ari, and all the action on the deviant world levels could make a normal person go nuts. Nola, on the other hand, sure knows how to handle herself.

I did a beta read of this book before it was published, and there were definitely some noticeable changes and improvements. I appreciate knowing how Cam and everyone else know that their Nola is dead. It was heartbreaking to see them realize that our Nola was not the same person, and yet Cam's denial was more genuine this read. The timing problem for me, where I wasn't sure how long a time span this was all happening in, was fixed and definitely made much more sense. Now I can see it takes place over a period of a few weeks, as opposed to what I couldn't tell were days or months.

Overall, this is yet another fantastic installment of a great series I can't get enough of. I highly recommend it to all fans of fantasy, urban fantasy, even mystery. It has just enough action, romance, humor, and thoughtfulness to get you through. If you haven't read from the beginning, start with License to Ensorcell.

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Make An Impact

Being friends with a published author has its advantages and disadvantages.  Being able to read and offer feedback on new work is a really great experience, but knowing that a series you've been enjoying for three books may not see the light at the end of the tunnel really puts a damper on things.  That's when you have to think about your priorities, and your friendship, and what you're really willing to do to see something get published.

Readers are driving the market right now, as it seems they always have.  I spent several years working in a bookstore, and never truly appreciated how those books came to be there.  Every month we would get catalogues in the mail, with page after page of books by authors I'd never heard of.  I would thumb through them, ask if I could get an ARC if they were offered, maybe see what might be ordered.  Sometimes the manager would have circled a book or marked the page, so I would know to expect it.  Sometimes there would be something interesting that was crossed off, or that seemed to have been overlooked.  Often my suggestions were not heeded.

The reason is that I am in the minority.  I accept it, I've accepted it my whole life.  Fantasy and sci-fi are not the most popular genres, and they don't produce the bestselling novels that seem to be constantly on the shelves.  James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Nicholas Sparks - all of them command an audience's attention, whether good or bad (mostly bad - but that's just my opinion).  They somehow earn their spots at the top by writing the same book, over and over again.  There's no imagination, there's no spark, there's no (and I hate to say this when talking about fantasy, but) magic to them.  There's nothing in them that makes me think, "Wow, this could never happen in real life but I love it!"  It is so much easier for them to get published simply because they have the readership, whereas fantasy and science fiction generally don't.  Aside from tried-and-true geniuses like Ray Bradbury, Terry Pratchett (who, despite his decline in popularity and recognition still manages to end up on the bestseller list for at least one week when a new book comes out - AND he gets published in hardcover), Neil Gaiman, and yes, even J.K. Rowling, very rarely are new authors published, and even more rarely are new fantasy and science fiction available in hard cover.  The sales aren't there.  That is sad.

What makes this all the more personal is that I know a fantasy writer.  I consider her, Katharine Kerr, a friend.  I invited her to my wedding, even though I knew she probably couldn't come, just because I wanted her to know that I appreciate and care about her.  She has let me read advance copies of some of the Nola O'Grady books, which has been an indescribably happy experience for me.  I wish I could never see the end of it.

But with the first two books not selling as well as the publishers had hoped, and with the massive amounts of piracy of the existing books, Kit is facing what many other series writers face: the end of the series before it's finished.  But maybe we, as readers, can help.  Maybe we can help all of our favorite authors.  It all starts with, well, buying the book.  Show the publishers you want this material.  Show the authors you want them to keep writing.  Don't just download it from some poorly-copied website, buy the actual book.  Secondly, if your favorite writers' books are in danger of not being published, write to the publisher.  Tell them how much you enjoy the series and want to continue to see it published.  Tell them you want to make sure the authors you love are compensated for their hard work, and that the readers get to continue to enjoy the hard work of the writers they love.

I would like to ask all of you Kit fans out there to please write to DAW and tell them how much you are enjoying the Nola O'Grady series, and would like to see it completed.  You can contact them by e-mail, or by snail mail.  I sent an e-mail off this afternoon, but I might try to send a paper letter soon too.  Every little bit helps.

And I urge each and every one of you, if you find that your favorite authors are in danger of not  having their hard and wonderful work published, write to their publishers.  Show your appreciation.  And most importantly, buy the books.

Review: Apocalypse to Go by Katharine Kerr

This book will be released on February 7, 2012.  I have actually read it, and it is fantastic!  Kit will be doing a signing on February 11th at Borderlands Books in San Franciso.  You can order signed copies from their website by e-mailing them if you don't live locally.  There is also a giveaway over on Goodreads that you can enter.  Kit says these will be shipped directly from the publisher, so they will not be signed.

You can read excerpts at her blog, along with progress updates on her other works, and other non-book talk.

Apocalypse to Go by Katharine Kerr

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Nola O'Grady gets deeper into the deviant world levels in the third installment of this exciting series. Greeted by a projection of a leopard-woman one morning, followed by a vision of the destruction of the level known as Interchange, Nola grabs her partner (in every sense of the word) and heads off on an exciting and fast-paced mission. Her goal at first is to find out who this "ASO Fourteen" who has been contacting Ari is. But it leads her somewhere I don't think she ever anticipated.



Family secrets come to the surface as Nola finds out who her father really is, and where he has been for so long. The climax of the book comes upon the reader with anticipation and a big bang. And Nola makes a huge change for the better - but you'll have to read to find that one out.



This is a fantastic addition to the series and sets up a great continuation into the next book, not yet published. Check it out - you will enjoy this, and you'll be surprised at how the action carries you through. I finished in about two days, and enjoyed every minute!



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Collecting (Hoarding?)

First of all, hello! I'm back from my wedding/honeymoon, and have gotten back into the swing of things at work. I've also started getting back into the reading habit, which is wonderful. We didn't have much energy for reading on the honeymoon, so while I did manage to get through the majority of One More for the Road in the airport, I didn't get much other reading done.

I did, however, come home with about 30 extra pounds of books. 30 pounds? Maybe I'm exaggerating. But we had to get an extra carry-on to carry them all home, and that thing was HEAVY! Between the two of us, we stopped in at least four different bookstores in our travels (I admit, that was something I was seriously looking forward to once we had decided on London) and spent about £100 on books (I had to control myself). Chris found a couple of Thomas the Tank Engine books that he had been looking for, and that made him happy. I ended up buying the most, but it was worth it.

Among my finds were several Wilkie Collins books that I haven't been able to find in bookstores in the States. I bought Armadale and a few others, as well as the British edition of Room, which I have been wanting to read for months.

My biggest problem was putting back all of the British editions of books I already owned. For example, I had to put back several Ray Bradbury books, one of Katharine Kerr's, and several Dan Simmons books. That was my primary excitement about shopping in British bookstores, along with being able to get books I can't here. But I did manage to get one special edition of one of my favorite books: This edition of Hyperion. How awesome is that?! I know, the cover is plain, but you don't see things like this every day.

I guess you could accuse me of being a hoarder, but I prefer the term "collector." This makes my... fourth or fifth copy of Hyperion, which is exciting! Granted, two of the copies are the same mass market paperback, one is just newer because the other is falling apart from all my reads and notes. And now that I have other Collins books, I can actually display them! We will be reorganizing our books in a few weeks and I plan on putting them in the display bookcase with the glass sliding windows. That does mean that some books will get moved out of there, but they were only in there because I had nowhere else to put them.

That reminds me, I need to pick up the books from my parents' house that we used for the centerpieces. Curious to see what they looked like? Here:

Review: Water to Burn

Water to Burn by Katharine Kerr

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


As the second book in the Nola O'Grady series (number of books as yet undetermined), this continues the story of Nola's psychic investigations into multiple realities, as well as more of the story involving the Chaos forces she fought in the previous book, License to Ensorcell. I'll start off by saying that I love this series and can't wait to read the next one when it comes out next year.

What I love about these books is that they don't take themselves too seriously. A lot of writers get so wrapped up in what they're trying to say that they forget to let the story do the telling. Water to Burn isn't especially lighthearted, but it's not dark enough that you are left feeling you just read a heavy mystery novel. Overall, it's a pretty quick and easy read, but it gets you involved enough in the characters and the story that you don't mind.

Nola is a pretty complex character for this kind of urban fantasy, and her relationship with Ari becomes more involved in this book. Let me get something straight here: The person who did the cover art totally got Ari wrong. Do you know who I picture when I read Ari? This guy. Right there. Yep, that's Ari in my head. And when I imagine him protecting Nola, and being her bodyguard, and being such a MAN, I admit I get a little lightheaded. So I can see why Nola would be totally hot for him, because hell, I am totally hot for him myself!

...Anyway...

Another thing I love about this book was that, since you really need to have read LtE first, the explanations of the backstory were short and sweet. I didn't get long-winded explanations of what happened a few months before, and could just move on in the story. It probably would have helped if I had re-read the first book before reading this one, but I still remembered enough of it that reading this one wasn't confusing. There are a lot of acronyms in the book, but they are spelled out in the back.

I'm curious to see if Nola will follow the doctor's advice and put on some weight, because quite frankly she's way too skinny, and I've only "read" her!

I look forward to reading the next installment, in the hopes that the storyline with Michael and Nola's father will be delved into next. It was a great plot surprise to find out that their father opened the portal in the house, and I can't wait to see how Michael's powers will manifest themselves. Also, I wonder how Sophia will adjust to the world she's entered and if she will be able to cope with her new surroundings.

This was a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone who (a) loves Kit, (b) loves fantasy, and/or (c) loves a great read that won't take up a lot of time. In fact, if I'd put my mind to it, I could have very easily finished this in a couple of days instead of the approximate week it took me.



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Author Q&A: Katharine Kerr

Time for a new feature on the blog! I'm hoping to make this a monthly thing, but for that to happen I need authors to interview. So if you know of anyone who would be willing to answer a few questions, send them my way!

So as this is our first author Q&A, it's only fitting that we have my favorite author as the first victim interviewee! That's right, Katharine "Kit" Kerr graciously agreed to answer five questions about her past and current work, among other things.

Kit's first published book was Daggerspell, which spawned a 15-book series that most of her readers just refer to as "The Deverry Series." In addition to this epic fantasy series, she has written several science fiction novels, and most recently has been working on a set of urban fantasy novels set around Nola O'Grady, a psychic investigator for a secret government agency that even the CIA doesn't know exists. The first book, License to Ensorcell was released this February, and the latest was just released this week: Water to Burn. The next book in the series is due out in February. Also of note, all of the Deverry novels are now available in e-book format in the US!

Are you ready for some questions?

Q: After decades of writing fantasy and science fiction, what led you to your latest series of urban fantasy?  Was it a genre you set out to write intentionally, or did it just evolve into what it is now?

A: I intended to write in the genre.  I'd pretty much done what I wanted to do in Epic Fantasy, and Hard SF is not really my thing.  The idea of Urban Fantasy intrigued me, though I wanted to do something very different from what I'd seen already published.  No zombies need apply, for one thing!  One night I heard a voice in my head saying "I'd just gotten out of the shower when the angel appeared", and Nola introduced herself to me.  We were off and running.

Q: You frequently say on your blog that your characters write the story for you, and that you often don't know where the story is headed until they tell you.  How does this approach to writing affect the editing process?  Do you find it more difficult to change things when the characters led you in that direction originally?

A:  This approach makes the revising process more difficult, I suppose, but I've always written this way.  I usually revise a book several times before an editor even sees it.  Once I have a heap of material, I have to shape and prune it.  My rough drafts are like neglected gardens -- overgrown and too crowded.

The characters can be very insistent, and they usually win.  Ari, for instance, was supposed to go home to Israel at the end of License to Ensorcell and stay there.  He insisted on coming back, and as he usually does, he got his way, because I could not write a word of the Big Farewell Scene, while the Big Return Scene practically wrote itself.  This left me scrambling to explain how he managed to come back against all rational police procedures.  (It becomes clear at the beginning of Book 3.)

Q: Your Deverry series has been released in a few different editions.  How have the books changed between publications?  Are there still things you would change about them today given the chance?

A: Only the first two books have changed.  Since Daggerspell was the first book I ever had published, it was clumsy in places, and Darkspell had real problems in one section.  When Bantam offered me the chance to revise, I jumped at it.  All the other books are the same in all editions, although the HarperCollins versions have British spelling throughout.  I would definitely rewrite Darkspell's "1060's" sections if 1)I had the chance; 2)it wouldn't be kind of silly of me, after all these years of it being out in the revised edition.

Q: You are a very vocal supporter of BookViewCafe.com, a distributor of e-books.  How do you feel e-books have changed the market for your books?  How do you see e-books changing the face of publishing? 

A: I haven't really seen enough yet to answer those questions!  I like BookViewCafe because it's an author-run, all volunteer co-op.  I definitely approve of authors taking charge of their books.  But it's way too soon to see if it will succeed in any large way.  E-books in general will, I think, replace certain kinds of mass market paperbacks -- the "fast reads", the sort of things that no one reads more than once.  They still have real disadvantages, however, even for that kind of book.  You can't sell a used e-book, nor can you give it or lend it to a friend.

Q: Several of your books are out of print.  What is your opinion of this practice?  Do you feel it benefits or harms the author when a book goes out of print?  Does it change anything for you or are you far enough along in new material that it doesn't really matter?

A:  It definitely harms the author because the o.p. book stops bringing in revenue.  If the book's a stand-alone, that's bad enough.  With a series, however, having some but not all books go out of the print is frightening.  If readers can't find the entire series, they won't buy any of the books in that series.  Soon enough the whole thing disappears.  When you consider that a well-written series takes years of an author's life, that's really sad.  It gives the author a feeling of real futility, kind of like a divorce would.  Years of your life have disappeared.

Not that publishers care, of course.  They pull books out of print quickly when sales drop below a certain level.  I've known authors who had the first or second book of a trilogy pulled o.p. even when the publisher knew that Book 3 was going to be published soon.  Which meant, of course, that Book 3 was an abject failure -- and the publisher blamed the authors.  However, this is one place where e-books might really help authors.  Keeping an e-book "in print" costs the publisher nothing.




A giant thank you to Kit for answering my questions and hopefully enlightening some of my readers on the writing process, the difficulties authors face in the book markets today, and what a fun person she truly is.  And if you're an author who would like to participate, please feel free to send me an e-mail!  That's all for now!  Look out for another post like this, hopefully next month!