Sunidesus Reads

Smoke and Mirrors, by Tanya Huff

Second in the "Smoke and" series by Tanya Huff...

I'm thinking I might like these more if they were a completely seperate series and didn't have these little tantalizing bits of Henry in them. There's just enough there to make me notice how much he isn't there.

Aside from my "I want more Henry" issues, I do like this series. I love the whole TV thing, behind the scenes stuff always fascinates me. I'm one of those people that wants commentaries on everything and loves behind the scenes featurettes on my DVDs. Yes, I work in TV, but it's TV news which is a completely different thing. The one thing that is the same though is the distribution of people. There's so many more behind the camera than in front, no matter what kind of TV it is.

So... Tony is starting to figure out what the whole "being a wizard" thing means. And ends up having to "out" himself to a big bunch of his co-workers when they all get stuck in a very haunted house where they were shooting. It makes for an odd dynamic since he's low man on the totem pole, being a PA, but he's the one who has at least some idea of what's going on so he has to at least somewhat be in charge.

Cyborg, by Martin Caidin

By Martin Caidin, this book was the basis for a TV movie and then the TV show "The Six Million Dollar Man".

This was an odd read, and it's become slightly more strange now that I've read a couple of the reviews that were left for it over on Amazon. All the reviews there were these glowing "best book ever" "amazing sci-fi" things, which was really not my experience at all.

The story itself isn't bad and there's some mildly interesting cybernetics/bionics bits. Maybe at the time it was written (early 70's) it would have been more revolutionary as far as that particular subject goes. But the issues I had weren't really to do with the science at all.

First issue is that it's incredibly sexist. Yes I'm sure part of that is because of when it was written, but I've read lots of sci-fi "classics" that were written decades ago that don't have that problem. The women all do that "damsel in distress/I just want the big strong man to love me" thing, which is just weird. And the guys do that "I'm going to make the decisions for your own good" thing. The characters in general, but the women in particular are very two-dimensional.

Moving on from that, the attitudes after the main character gets hurt (which allows him to become the bionic man and all that) struck me as really off. Again, maybe it's because at the time it was written there weren't as many options for people with serious injuries. But even so, they seemed extreme. It was just assumed that of course he'll want to kill himself, who wouldn't? And then it took forever for the dude to start interacting with the world again. All the characters' baseline attitudes seemed very out of wack to me. If it were one or two of them, fine. But this was all of them. It would have been more realistic to have a range of attitudes and reactions.

Also, it took quite a long time for anything to happen. Both in terms of time within the story and pages for the reader. I found myself thinking "get on with it already!" more than once! A lot of the science and explanations took a lot longer than seemed necessary, and rather dry on top of it. It just seemed overly elaborate for no real reason.

There are a couple more books that were written (I think there's four total in the series) but I'm not at all sure I'll try any of them. Maybe I'll hunt up the next one and skim it to see if it gets any better before committing to the whole thing.

On Basilisk Station, by David Weber

First in the Honor Harrington series by David Weber...

It's a re-read! For some reason I was feeling like reading some Honor Harrington so here we are. I very much enjoy this series and I don't think I've done any re-reading of it before.

A lot of the characters continue in later books in the series and it was really fun to see them back at the beginning again. How they all met, their first impressions of each other, the original Fearless...

We already know that I love this series so this'll be short. This one is (rather obviously) the one where Honor gets sent to Basilisk Station and has to deal with all kinds of craziness there with a ship that's been practically gutted by a nutty weaponry theorist.

Cry Wolf, by Patricia Briggs

First in the Alpha and Omega series by Patricia Briggs...

This actually starts with a novella in the anthology "On the Prowl", but I didn't read that whole book, just the part that applies to this book so for my purposes I'm treating that as a Chapter 0 in this book. It's in the same universe as her Mercy Thompson series and builds off one of the plotlines from the first book, Moon Called, in that series. It has to do with what happened when Bran sent Charles to Chicago to deal with whatever had gone wrong with the pack there.

This was one of those wonderful books that completely pulled me in and I just wanted to sit and read it and not do anything else! There's a number of really beautiful scenes that really grabbed me emotionally. The funeral part-way through (which is related to someone who dies in Moon Called) was one that made me completely lose it.

There's also bits sprinkled through it that flesh out some of what was happening with certain characters in Moon Called, mostly Samuel. There's more about why he decided to go stay with Mercy. And a lot more about the history of Bran and Samuel which was really cool. I liked learning more about their past and how they became who they are.

I really liked getting to know Charles more. He's such a secondary character in the Mercy series, and there's a lot to him! He has such an important role in Bran's pack, and it's a responsiblity he accepts, but it's a hard role to play. It holds him very separate from most everyone else.

So, a bit of plot stuff... first we wrap up some loose ends from Moon Called. Then there's people being attacked in Bran's territory and it looks like a rogue but it might be something more dangerous, some kind of attack on Bran's authority. So Charles has to go check it out. There's also stuff to do with one of the other very old wolves in the pack and what happened to his mate a couple hundred years prior.

I'm very much liking this author and I think I'm going to have to try one of her other series soon!

Living Dead in Dallas, by Charlaine Harris

Second in the Southern Vamps/Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris...

As is obvious from the dateline on the post, these are easy reading!

There are a number of plotlines going in this one. First off, the cook of the bar where Sookie works is murdered, and then she gets sent to Dallas to use her special talents to help the vampires there figure out why one of their own has disappeared.

The business in Dallas gets complicated by a group of anti-vampire fanatics. Which makes sense. In a world where vampires are a known thing, I would assume there would be people who would want to get rid of them. It really underlines the vulnerability of the vamps (at least this kind, where they're asleep during the day). If someone who wants to do you harm can figure out where you hide during the day, there's nothing you can do to protect yourself from them.

We also get to learn just a bit more about some of the other supernatural creatures, the shapeshifters mostly.

This falls near example 3 in the Romance Disclaimer