Book 72

Book 72 was The Lions of Al-Rassan, by Guy Gavriel Kay.

Lions is possibly my favorite book by Kay-it was the first book I read by him, and has become one of my favorites overall. Lions is set in Al-Rassan, a fictionalized version of Spain during the period it was ruled by the Khalifate. Lions tells of the end of rule of Al-Rassan over the land, and the beginning of the Valledan (native Spanish) rule. 

The story is told mainly from the viewpoint of Jehane, a young Kindath (a Jewish like faith/race) doctor. While doing her work, Jehane happens to meet Ammar ibn Khairan, a notorious assassin, poet and diplomat. After meeting him, her whole life changes, and she becomes involved in the war that is inevitably coming to Al-Rassan. Jehane is the core of the book, and is an admirable character-determined, stubborn and self aware. Honestly, all the characters in this book are a pleasure to spend time with, but I especially enjoy Jehane.

The Lions of Al-Rassan

Guy Gavriel Kay

9/72 

Book 71

Book 71 was The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Miller.

This was one of the most delightful books I have read this year. The Good Fairies was everything that a story with fairies in it should be-cheery, funny and full of drinking, fighting and romance. Two Scottish fairies are on the run from their clans in Scotland, and end up in New York on accident. By the time the book has ended, they have destroyed several major fairy artifacts, united several people in romance, and started a fairy war. Good stuff!

The Good Fairies of New York

Martin Miller

8/81

Books 67 and 68

Books 67 and 68 were The Woman Who Rides Like a Man and Lioness Rampant, both by Tamora Pierce. There are the final two books in her Song of the Lioness quartet, the first two of which I read earlier this year. 

The Woman Who Rides Like a Man and Lioness Rampant deal with Alanna's life after she becomes and knight and goes off on her own for while for some adventuring. Once again, I enjoyed her adventures-Alanna is a lot of fun, and it was great to watch her grow over all four books and make her life just want she wanted it to be, no matter what others wanted her to do or be. Alanna grew up a lot in these two books-she finally accepted her magic, and being a woman. 

These two books were better than the first two in terms of pacing-great gaps of time weren't skipped so much, and things flowed a bit more coherently. I still would have liked more detail, but I can deal without it in a YA book. 

The Woman Who Rides Like a Man

Lioness Rampant

Tamora Pierce

5/68

Book 66

Book 66 was The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett. The Color of Magic is the first in the Discworld series, which spans over 30 novels. That's impressive.

I enjoyed the book-it was light hearted, but had a great deal of action and "oh shit" moments. It followed the failed wizard Rincewind and Twoflower, a tourist. They take a trip through Discworld, and through their journeying we get a picture of what Discworld is and how it works. The humor of the book worked really well for me-there was a great deal of mocking of fantasy in general, and all of it was sharp and funny. The humor never really got ridiculous-it was subtle as opposed to in your face "look how clever I am" humor.

So, overall the book was good and I will read more of the Discworld series. Since there are so many books, I don't expect that I will get through them anytime soon.

The Color of Magic

Terry Pratchett

3/66

Book 64

Book 64 was The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley.

Earlier this year I read General Winston's Daughter by Sharon Shinn. At the time, I noted it was quite similar to the Blue Sword. It is-they both have the same feel to them. A girl in her late teens heads off to a far off land to join a male family member in a vaguely middle eastern country that is occupied by their Britishesque homeland. The male family member is in the military, and the ladies end up falling in love with their land.

The stories diverge from that point. The Blue Sword follows Harry on her journey from a semi proper young lady to becoming a King's Rider in the land of Daria. Coincidentally, that is the same land from The Hero and the Sword , only Harry's tale takes place long after Aerin has become a legend to her people. Harry fights a war, finds her magic, and becomes a warrior. It's pretty awesome, and has over time become a comfort book for me.

I am now current on reviews. Go me!

The Hero and the Sword

Robin McKinley

1/1/64

Book 63

Book 63 was The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley.

This is a coming of age tale about Aerin, a princess who was disqualified from the throne at birth due to the dubious origins of her mother. Aerin, while ranked first among the ladies of the court, is considered last by everyone else. She is tall and awkward, tongue tied in public and worst of all, had little to none of the magic that is inborn to all royals. An outcast, she does her best to make her way in world she doesn't fit into. Naturally, she ends up becoming a great warrior and the savior of her people in the end-although to be fair, it was an uphill battle for her.

One of the main themes of this book was Aerin's struggle to find out what she could be. Unable to fit into court life, she made her own place. With some assistance from a friend, she teaches herself to fight mounted and becomes a dragon killer (dragons are a small pesty beast in this world), the least respected of all fighters. She finds more effective ways to do this all on her own. When her country needs to be saved, she goes off alone, without endangering anyone else to do what she can to help. She becomes a hero by doing what others don't want to do, instead of setting off on a big quest with lots of fanfare and helpers.

The Hero and the Crown

Robin McKinley

no known/63

Books 61 and 62

Books 61 and 62 were Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen, by Tamora Pierce. These books follow Alanna's daughter.

Aly is the daugher of two very prominent people in her country. Neither of them is willing to allow her to join the family business of spying, which is what she wants to do. They just want her to grow up. In a fit of pique, she leaves to visit friends. On her journey there, she is abducted by pirates and sold into slavery in the Copper Isles, a kingdom far from her native land. She plans to escape asap, using her spy skills, only before she can accomplish that, she is informed she was chosen by the Copper Isles' main god, the Trickster, to help keep two young girls alive so one of them can lead the land into rebellion and become the promised Queen.

Wow, that's a lot to process. And since this is a YA novel, Aly is able to make this all happen. The books were good, except for one thing-Aly is able to accomplish all of these goals without a single failure or misstep the whole time. I will admit that the author goes out of her way to show us how well Aly is trained as a spy, and that Aly covers all of her bases like ten times each. But still, it was hard to swallow that a young girl, in a strange country, never makes one mistake. That bothered me, and ruined some of my enjoyment of the story overall. 

Trickster's Choice  Trickster's Queen

Tamora Pierce

you know the drill/62 

Book 59

Book 59 was Shadowbridge, by Gregory Frost. New fantasy duo. Yay for only two books!

Shadowbridge was very original-and I mean that in a good way. It's about a puppeteer who is traveling around the world, practicing her craft and learning new stories where ever she stops. Leodora, our puppeteer, is following in the footsteps of her father who was at one time the most famous puppeteer in all of Shadowbridge. Traveling with her is her father's former partner Soter and her accompanist, who is a gods touched musician. As they travel, Leodora realizes that they are things Soter isn't telling her about her dead parents, and that these things could lead her into danger she knows little to nothing about. 

The story includes stories within the story, the tales that Leodora tells and learns as she travels putting on her shows. The inner stories are done in the style of fables and myths about all of the strange places she goes to in Shadowbridge. The world  is a character in itself-it's a world of small islands connected by bridges and tunnels with cities themselves built on the bridges. It's a magical bit of world building-incredibly different cultures are just a bridge span away, and really allows the author to take a world traveling approach with the story that feels very fresh. The inner stories also let us know more about Leodora and Soter without going into heavy explanations, which is a nice touch also.

Shadowbridge

Gregory Frost

#/59 

Book 58

Book 58 was Feast of Souls, by C.S. Friedman, and is first in a new fantasy series. It will be three books-shocker!

In this book, we have male mages, called magisters, who get to live forever and have uber casting powers by stealing other people's life force, since each mage only has a limited amount of magical casting ability within themselves. Women either can't, don't or won't do this, until one girl finally decides to figure out how. This magical ability is a big secret since the magisters know that if people found out what they were doing, everyone would kill them asap. Makes sense-who would want a bunch of parasite magic casters killing off random people so the caster can be all powerful? 

Yeah, the set up sounds dumb, but the book really works. The author really captures the idea of how awful and wonderful is it to be a magister, and how magisters come to view their world after a number of years. We see first hand how a victim is affected by this, and how it changes their life.

Oh yeah, there are also some horrible giant dragon creatures that eat magic and torture people making a come back and the world needs to be saved from them. I will totally read this series.

Feast of Souls

C.S. Friedman

meh/58

Book 57

Book 57 was The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay. It's a historical fantasy-meaning the book is set during a recognizable period of history, but it's in an imaginary world with magic and such.

This book is set during Viking times, and deals with their raids on the British coast. The story line is vast and complex, following multiple characters in various locations. The story flows so smoothly that the switch from place to place and person to person isn't jarring at all. All of the characters are well written and complex, with equal attention paid to both female and male characters. Kay is a wonderful writer, and the book reads so wonderfully at times it's hard to believe that the people aren't real. A solid story with beautiful prose and no plot holes-a great read.

The Last Light of the Sun

Guy Gavriel Kay

do you know?/57

Book 56

Book 56 was Magic for Beginners, a short story collection by Kelly Link.

This was so good. Read it. I can't really think of anything else to say-each story was so lovely and perfect. I would have killed to have some of these as full novels, if it wasn't for the fact I don't know that they would be as good fleshed out more.

My favorites:

The Fairy Handbag

Magic for Beginners

The Hortlak

Read it. That is all. Or just read the title story, Magic for Beginners. It was incredible.

Magic for Beginners

Kelly Link

nothing/56

Book 54

Look at the progress I am making! Woot!

Book 54 was Heart of Light, by Sarah A Hoyt. This is a sort of mystery, sort of quest, sort of romance novel. It's set in a Victorian world with magic-and flying carpets! The flying carpets were possibly one of the best elements in the book.

Heart of Light wasn't a bad book-just uneven. The romance part was handled pretty deftly, as you were kept unsure of who would be with who until the very end. The mystery was kind of silly and predictable-I knew what was going on before any of the characters in the book did, and that was sad. The quest was better, if a bit stale. Our heroes and heroines need to collect a magic ruby that can redistribute magic and get it to Queen Victoria before some horrible heathens get it.

The book really excelled when it was examining the class differences in the Victorian world. The reason the ruby needs to get to the Queen is so that the magic left in the world can be given to those who are "worthy" of it-aka the upper class and aristocracy. This has already been done once in Europe, and needs to be strengthen in order to clinch the British Empires hold on the world. But the ruby is located deep in Africa, and the people there are attempting to stop this stealing of magic from happening. The book take a good look at the perspectives of several levels of society-a typical British nobleman, his lady wife, a half Indian woman, an African woman who works as a servant despite being a high ranked lady in her village, another British gentlemen afflicted with a curse that ends his chances in the civilized world, and an African tribesman. All of their views are looked and examined, and I found it quite interesting to compare and contrast their world views.

Overall, the book was decent. It was a quick read, and despite a somewhat stale plot it still worked for me. I will complete the series-the other two books come out this year.

Heart of Light

Sarah A Hoyt

no clue/54

Book 53

Book 53 was Spindle's End, also by Robin McKinley. This is probably on the list of my favorite books-not quite top ten, but I would notice if I didn't have it around. 

This is a take on the story of Sleeping Beauty, set in a land where magic is a living, extremely crazy thing. Our little princess is raised by two fairies, taken away from her real parents after a nasty curse is put on her. Rosie, our princess, is the most normal of girls except for the fact she is raised by fairies and has no magic herself, despite being presumably related to two fairies, except for the ability to talk to animals. Rosie goes through the normal problems of growing up, only two find out just before her twenty first birthday she is a princess and heir to the throne. You can guess how it goes from there.

I love this book because I love Rosie-she is wonderful. Stubborn, quiet, and loyal, she ends up saving the day for everyone she loves as best as she can. The supporting characters are excellent as well-especially Katriona, the fairy who is given Rosie to care for. She puts her life on hold to raise Rosie for a number of years, and does everything she can to care and protect her. Rosie's two best friends, Peony the village beauty, and Narl, the blacksmith and Rosie's boss, also add to the book's theme of help comes from unexpected places and that friendship and love can and save anyone.

Spindle's End

Robin McKinley

I don't even know why I bother/53

Book 52

I am the worst book blogger ever. I went on a crazy reading run, and then watched season 1 & 2 of Gilmore Girls. Because of these two things, I haven't updated anything in forever. 

So, book 52 was Beauty by Robin McKinley. If I ever have a daughter, I will giver her every book written by Robing McKinley to use as a guide to how to be a kick ass female. Seriously.

If you couldn't tell, this was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. I am a sucker for redone fairy tales, so this was a keeper for me. It was a quick read-Beauty was YA. It follows the basic Beauty and the Beast premise, only the heroine isn't really a beauty, just the bearer of an unfortunate nickname. The story moved quickly, and the prose was quite lovely.

Beauty

Robin McKinley

0/52/52

Books 50 & 51

50 and 51 are the first two in a YA fantasy series of four books-Alanna and In the Hand of the Goddess, by Tamora Pierce, from the Song of the Lioness. 

I enjoyed both books-they concern Alanna, a young mage born noble who doesn't want to go to a convent school to learn magic. She wants to go to Court and learn to be a knight. With her twin brother's aid, she assumes the name Alan and goes to Court in her brother's place. These two books take her from her start at court to her eventual knighthood.  She deals with various obstacles along the way-bullies, being the smallest and weakest page and squire, hiding being a girl, her first crush and learning to deal with her magic.

I liked the books. The world was engrossing, and following Alanna's struggles was fun. It was a bit mature for some YA audiences-Alanna does have an ongoing sexual relationship during the second book. The whole sex part was very tame and mild, and I thought it was a nice touch of realism in the story. 

My main problem was pacing-the book skipped lots of time, moving over a year in the space of a chapter. I also got annoyed by the perspective-it was third person, told mainly from Alanna's POV, but there was some skipping, and it was often done within a paragraph, which caused some confusion here and there.

Alanna

In the Hand of the Goddess

Tamora Pierce

?/?/51

Book 49

Fire Study by Maria V Snyder. Yeah, I was going to reread the entire series, but when it came time to I just didn't feel like it, so I just read this one, which is the last book of three.

I really liked this books, and it ended the series on a nice note. Pretty much all the loose plotlines were tied up, and our main character, Yelena, had come to terms with her life and what she wanted to do with it. Yay for resolving a series on a good note! And for not keeping all loveable characters alive!

This series (Poison Study and Magic study are one and two) is one a my favorites. Why? Well, Yelena starts out as a poison taster. Poison tasters are often seen in fantasy novels, but I can't think of one that actually has the main character be one, which is a interesting premise. The series also involves a country that is running as a military dictatorship that actually seems to be working-another rarity. Granted-the government is new, and the country just had a really bad king and queen combo, so it may not last forever, but it's a fresh start for a novel. The magic system isn't particularly original, but it works without any suspension of belief, which is enough for me.

My main complaint with the books is timing, especially in the second and third book. Things move really fast. That's nice since I don't like to be bored, but it can be a bit exhausting. The romance in the book is a bit cheesy during the actually romantic parts, but they aren't often enough to really grate on me.

I would recommend this series. It's a very original, fast paced and entertaining.

Fire Study

Maria V Snyder

?/?/49

Book 41

Book 41 was a reread of Tangled Webs. I love rereading books.

Tangled Webs Reivew

Tangled Webs

Anne Bishop

1/20/40

Book 38

Book 38 was Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder, the third in her study series. These books have been favorites of mine since I read the first, Poison Study. I am not going to go to indepth here, since I am planning on rereading the series shortly and will review it as a whole (so much easier), but the book was great and a good ending to the series overall.

Fire Study

Maria V. Snyder

na/17/38

Book 36

Book 36 was Tangled Webs by Anne Bishop. This is one of three books that just came out that I have been looking forward to greatly. 

This is a continuation of the Black Jewels series I reread in the beginning of the year, and takes the form of a mystery story. The book was solid-not as great as the original trilogy, but not disappointing by any means. This book explores further the complicated rules of the society that Bishop created in her original novels. For example, this books shows how those with magic relate to those without, which really wasn't covered in the other books. I consider that a good thing, since it would have been an unneeded subplot (and I really dislike those). A good book, and a must read for those who read the original trilogy.

Tangled Webs 

Anne Bishop

1/14/36

Book 29

Almost caught up on write ups! Yay!

Book 29 was Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley. A teenage boy ends up adopting a dragonlet by mistake, and the novel follows his struggles to raise her and keep her safe from the outside world.

This was an excellent book. The dragon concepts used in it were fresh and novel-with so many fantasy novels about dragons out there, it's always nice to get a book with a new variety of characteristics for them. The book also captured the feeling of being a young person becoming a "mom" very nicely. The world was quite nice-the setting for the story was a remote dragon preserve, and the feelings of isolation and the "us vs them" mentality of the preservers vs the outside world was well done.  This was truly worth reading.

Dragonhaven

Robin McKinley

1/7/29