No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

With my eye surgery I've been left with a bit of a no-man's land of poor eyesight between about 20cm up to about a meter and a half out. So I don't need glasses for reading books or driving, but I do need them for working at a computer and it's been a bit of an effort to adapt, for long boring reasons, and I don't have much endurance for long stretches yet.

So, I've read quite a few books recently that I need to blog about.

Every Day by David Levithan was one of the nominees for this year's Nebula YA section (the Andre Norton award) and it had already made it on to my to-read list based on its interesting premise. The story follows an entity which wakes up in a new borrowed body every day. The body is age-appropriate; it seems to have been doing this from birth, and it's now 16 or so. I say 'it' because gender isn't a barrier. The book begins with the entity falling in love with a normal human girl and follows that relationship as the entity continues to move through other people. It's very strange, and moving in places, but the central questions about what the entity is and how it all works are only hinted at - there are no answers here. The book is stand-alone, but there is ample space for a sequel.

A Talent for War by Jack McDevitt which is the first book in the Alex Benedict series. I've been meaning to read this series for a while because four of the six books in the series have been nominated for the Nebula award, Polaris in 2005, Seeker in 2006 (winner), Echo in 2010 and Firebird in 2011. Tellingly, McDevitt has never received a Hugo nomination. Nebulas are awarded by fellow writers and Hugos are awarded by popular vote. The story follows a detective/history story around events of a 200-year old interstellar war between humans and telepathic aliens. I found this one profoundly boring. Even when actually interesting things happened they were written in such a way as to be dull. I may eventually give Polaris a go, but this one in no way recommends it and I felt it was the worst of McDevitt's that I've read.

Tempting Danger and Mortal Danger by Eileen Wilks, the first two books in the World of the Lupi series. This is one of those series that really blur the line between the Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy genres. The main characters (at least in these two) are Lily Yu, a human homicide detective and Rule Turner, a werewolf prince. Predictably, these two are mystically bound mates (eye-roll) which is a bit of a staple in Paranormal Romance books, but the narrative is very much police/FBI procedural which fits more into Urban Fantasy.

Either way, the world-building is interesting, with some good justification for the werewolves in this setting being how they are, and lots of depth to be explored. Wilks takes the action to a hell dimension in the second book and her take on demons and dragons is as interesting as her take on werewolves.

Not too bad, but I'm not sure if I'll bother reading the rest of them. I'm also a really turned off by the gender issues in these books. The werewolves are all male and basically irresistible to women, which is apparently a good thing for reasons that the book goes into. The werewolves are holy warriors in the service of an other dimensional goddess who makes her wishes felt through the women in the werewolves lives. So everyone gets a role - it's just that the roles are pretty much divinely ordained and split on gender lines. That sounds cut and dried, but it really isn't that simple as both Lily and her grandmother are pretty kick-ass. I just don't think that the author has thought some of this stuff through.

 

The City's Son by Tom Pollock is a superb Urban Fantasy with a very Neil Gaiman feel by way of Neverwhere. It's beautifully written, alternately between the titular demigod, the literal son of the Goddess of London Streets, and a young delinquent graffiti artist who seems to have been left or betrayed by everyone she's ever loved.

Here's a quote from the first chapter with Filius (the son of the streets) hunting the runaway spirit of a train in the London underground: 

"I hear the ghost of a steam-whistle, her mournful, obsolete battle-cry, and I hunker down low. Light starts to bleed through the mortar ahead of me, outlining two glaring, full-beam eyes. I hear the clash of her wheels, stampeding towards me on a path of lighting. The scream rises out of my throat to greet her, cursing her by all of her names: Loco Motive, Bahngeist, Railwraith—"

How could you not read this book after that? A word of warning though, this goes to some very dark places.

Currently Reading: Blood Oranges by Kathleen Tierney (pseudonym of Caitlin R. Kiernan of The Drowning Girl fame)