Revisit: Weather Warden Series

The Weather Warden series follows the story of Joanne, a member of an organization that devotes itself to protecting humanity against mother nature. The idea is that nature is more terrible than man realizes and without the Wardens, the Earth would tear itself apart. The Wardens themselves, have the power to control the elements. It's been a while since I've read these books, so we're going to look at them all at once.

I enjoyed this book a lot. The elemental magic was fascinating, and I liked having the mythology of genies thrown in. Joanne, herself, is on the run. And as she races across country in her car, the power of the wind pushing her faster - it's an exciting adventure and highly enjoyable. If I'd know what the future would bring, I would've stopped reading the series right here.

Joanne is a genie, that much I remember from this book... but plot, story line ...? Apparently, it wasn't that memorable? You'd think that fact would be enough to give it a "meh" rating, but I continued on to the next book in the series, so I feel it must have been interesting enough to make me want to keep going. Regardless, I don't think giving this book a rating would be fair since I can't remember anything about it on which to evaluate it.

This book, I remember with a passion, and that's a bad thing. This book managed to completely piss me off and make me drop the series all together.

I was warned, through reading reviews of the later books in the series that Joanne starts to make illogical or out-of-character choices for the sake of the plot and that the character stupidity and plot holes get worse as the series goes on. I had prepared myself for that. Still, the issues were painful.

Joanne faked her death in the previous book, and at the beginning of this one she's adamant about attending her funeral so she can watch everyone weeping over her body and then shock the hell out of them by revealing herself. Never mind that would completely undo the point of faking her death. Never mind how bad of an idea it is. Nope, she just wants to do it. (Wha-huh?)

And David, who is a freaking genie and could have magicked her to the bed or something to stop her from going decides "Well, I can't stop you." (Excuse me?!?!) And then, while they are at the funeral, they get approached by someone who says it's very important they all talk. The chapter ends about there, so you'd think the next chapter would be them going into some room and talking with this person, right? Nope, the next chapter is a few days later and the guy is like, "Well, I did want to talk to you, but you forgot all about me, and now it's too late and all hell has broken lose." (What?!?!)

But I digress, the plot holes and character stupidity I might have been able to overlook for another book or two (depending on how ridiculous they got). What really put the nails in the coffin for this series for me is the way the men in Joanne's life treat her.

There's a magical barrier that Joanne needs to get through but nothing alive can do so. Lewis comes up with the idea to kill her, which would let her pass through, and have her revived on the other side of line. Sounds like a perfectly logical plan ... except that Lewis doesn't tell her about it. He simply walks up to her and guns her down. And the reader get's to listen to Joanne's confused and terrified thoughts as she looks up in the eyes of her best friend and wonders why he's murdering her. And David, who she's romantically involved with, impregnates her through some genie ritual to "protect" her, again without explaining his plan or asking for her consent.

You'd expect Joanne to be pissed. She isn't. In fact she barely spends any thought on these actions once they are revealed, except to marvel at the idea of her and David's future child. Her body has been violated by both of these men. They have demonstrated the complete lack of faith they have in her mental reasoning and their complete disregard for her right to make her own decisions. Constantly, through the novel the men are asking her to trust them, but never once do they actually trust her. Constantly it is pointed out how rash and impulsive Joanne is perceived to be. These men profess to love her, and yet they couldn't have demonstrated more clearly how little respect they have for her. She is not treated as a grown woman with the right of making her own choices or the capability of even talking through the situation with the men. She's treated as a child that needs constant supervision and protection and for whom they have to make decisions for. And Joanne and the reader are supposed to be okay with this?

No. This is wrong and disgusting and abhorrent. These are not how people who love you and respect you act. These are not healthy relationships. And to put them out there with no consequence, as though these are not serious acts of betrayal and violation, is unacceptable. I quit.

I would still recommend the first book in the series, but I wouldn't go any further than that.

Goblin Quest

Goblin Quest is a beautiful parody of every Dungeons & Dragons adventuring party. If you haven't played any table top RPGs or enjoy epic-fantasy adventuring novels, than the point of this novel is going to be lost on you. On the other hand, if you have...

Jig is the runt in a tribe of goblins. He's not strong and he's half blind. But, Jig is also rather intelligent for a goblin, having been gifted with common sense. Jig is forced to act as guide for an adventuring party consisting of an arrogant prince, a power hungry wizard, a war eager dwarf, and a reluctant elf thief.

Jig is the hero of this tale, and though he'd much rather find a nice hole to hide in, it's Jig who is often the voice of reason among the adventuring party. And he saves their lives on more than one occasion, much to the chagrin of the arrogant prince.

Part of what made this book such a joy was reading it aloud in the car to my husband and having him laugh along with me. That and the sheer humor in this book made it a joy to read.

The Mage's Daughter

And we are back with the second book in the first trilogy of Lynn Kurland's The Nine Kingdoms series. As we return, this book focuses primarily on Morgan and Miach. Morgan is as stubborn and willful as ever, though a little unsure of herself given the evens of the previous book and with Miach's affections continuing to catch her off guard.

Finally, in this book the plot picks up. Morgan's true identity is realized, the danger to the kingdom is identified, and Morgan and Miach's relationship is eventually solidified. There's still magic and swordplay going on, though not as much as the previous novel. Primarily this book focuses on Morgan and Miach's relationship. And me, being a lover of romance, ate it up. Unlike the previous novel, this does seem to have a solid beginning and ending - mainly the relationship arc - and I feel like I could go back and read it on its own if I wanted, though reading the first book prior to is still required to give this one context.

I'm very excited to move on to the final book in the trilogy. I expect it to have plenty of action with magic and sword play, and danger and romance of course. I can't wait!

Poison Study

Okay, so I'm throwing out the idea of reviewing series as sets unless I have reason to otherwise. Ha. Next up, we have Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder. I've been thinking lately about how a lot of books have pointless prologues or just have poor beginning chapters that don't offer much substance and their books take too long to get to the point. This book, however, is awesome in that we are dumped right into the action.

We meet Yelena as she is about to go to her execution for killing a general's son. The Comander's poison taster (this is a kingdom controlled by the military) has recently died, and as per the Code of Conduct, the position must be offered to those facing execution (I guess since no one but someone already facing their death would be crazy enough to take the job). Yelena accepts, and finds herself in a position where her life is threatened every bit as much as before.

This novel suffers from an identity crisis. Since the characters are in a castle and there's no electricity, I would think the setting is going for middle ages (and the cover helps with that). There's also mention of period appropriate clothing. But there are modern influences that pop up that shouldn't. For one, not even the most prestigious castle would have running hot water. Technology would not be advanced enough for switchblades or trampolines. I'm not sure "disinfectant" would have been a word. "Military district" would not have been shorted to "MD" in conversation or conscious thought. Yelena wouldn't bathe everyday. And even though this is a fantasy kingdom with it's own customs, animals, people, and countries, coffee somehow exists. This book doesn't know if it wants to be medieval, it's own fantasy realm, or modern.

There's some not so well constructed story elements. Yelena is given a poison that she needs a daily antidote to for the rest of her life or she'll die. I might be willing to believe Yelena doesn't realize poisons don't work like that, but you're telling me no one out of the multiple people Yelena goes to for help don't know poisons don't work like that? There's no possible way Valek could have switched out a poisoned bottle of wine with a clean one. He'd have to have the second bottle close by, for one. And since the wine is from a country they don't import with, it'd be impossible. And there's no way a master chief wouldn't have thought of roasting some mystery beans to change their flavor, especially not when Yelena asked if they were coffee beans, which he's been craving for years.

Transitions are severely lacking between paragraphs. For example: In one sentence Yelena is talking with Lisa, then paragraph break and Yelena is with the Camander. Yes, I know Yelena was on her way to the Camander and she caught Lisa on the way there. I can figure that out, but you need to tell me that Yelena moved from Lisa's side and continued on her way so I don't sit there and go "wait-wha?" in the moment. This kind of thing happens throughout the book.

The author needs to give more description in certain instances. At one point Yelena gets out a grappling hook and "climbs through the trees." How? How is this working with the grappling hook? How is she moving from tree to tree? You need to describe it to me. When Yelena and the love interest finally kiss, it's glossed over so quickly, the meaning that's supposed to be attached to it went right over my head. More description was needed here and in other places.

Yes, this novel has issues. It makes me sad to think these are all things a good editor could have caught and worked with the author to correct. When you look at it all written up, the damage would seem pretty major. Yet, I've always said that if a story is good, I can overlook almost any other issues. And this book proves to follow that rule. Despite everything, I got caught up in the story. I couldn't put the book down. And when I finished with it, I immediately wanted the next one.

Acheron

I had said I would review books in a series all at once. It seems I'm just finding more and more exceptions to that rule. I began the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon with Dance with the Devil, which I found to be very charming and endearing and lovely. The series itself is some 23 books long currently, and I knew I wasn't interested in reading the entire list. But, the character of Acheron fascinated me, so I decided to just jump to his story.

In regards to the Dark Hunter series, think Greek myth meets vampires. Basically, the Dark Hunters are people who have died and are brought back from the dead without their souls, twisting them into vampires. Their purpose is to hunt the demons that hunt humanity ... or something like that. And they can only regain their soul if someone loves them enough to fight for it ... again, something like that. I'm a little rusty on the specifics.

I plowed through the first half of Acheron's book which deals with his life in ancient Greece. This is the aspect of this series that I just eat up - Greek mythology, ancient times - I just loved seeing that environment and seeing how Acheron met Artemis. I didn't want to put the book down.

The second half of the book is slower and deals with aspects I'm less interested - modern times and vampire romance. But there's still plenty going on to make it interesting, and I enjoyed reading through it. I just didn't find it as engaging as the first half. It was still a very enjoyable novel and I'm glad I picked it up. If you read the Dark Hunter series, Acheron's book is a must have (and you don't need me to tell you that). If you don't ... some of this stuff will go right over your head. But I think you could still enjoy it.

Howl's Moving Castle

I've seen the movie, Howl's Moving Castle, a number of times. I found it enchanting, even if certain elements seemed a little unclear. I have to say that if you've seen the movie and liked it, even a little, then you should read the book. It's better.

Sophie is the eldest sister of three, and believes she will never amount to anything. She works as a hat maker in a shop run by her step mother. One day, the Witch of the Waste arrives and curses Sophie into an old woman. Unable to explain her curse, Sophie flees town. She finds herself on the doorstep of the evil wizard Howl's castle. Taking on as Howl's cleaning lady, Sophie uncovers the wizard's true nature and works to break his own curse as well as his contract with a fire demon.

The book is every bit, if not more so enchanting than the movie. The building of the world, the characters, and the magic is simply wonderful and immediately sucks you in. Things only started to slow down for me when the real world was introduced. I felt it broke some of the magic going on. And how Howl came from this ordinary world into this magical world to be one of the most powerful wizards isn't explained.

The ending of the novel also seems to happen very suddenly. It's not clear when exactly Howl turns his attentions to Sophie, nor is it clear when Sophie stops believing she can't achieve anything grand in life. The change happens subconsciously for Sophie and she mistakes it on Howl, making it easy for the reader to miss since the novel is told from Sophie's point of view. I think a re-read could fix this and might soften the blow I felt from the introduction of the real world as well.

All in all, I liked the novel very much. I don't feel I could call it one of my favorites without giving it a second read, but I'd pretty much recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy or has seen the movie to give it a try.