A Terrible Fall of Angels (Hamilton)

A Terrible Fall of Angels
by Laurell K. Hamilton (2009)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a book club pick. It received mixed reviews. I listened to it while walking, and then read the ebook when I was done with the previous one. This made the reading go a little faster. Reading it did clear up one point, a little.

I've previously read a single book in Hamiltion's Anita Blake series, which may or may not be in this blog. (There was a several year gap when I didn't maintain this page.) But I was game to start a new series.

The book started strong and introduced a lot of elements. Then it dropped the ball on most of them. I slogged through the middle to get to the end. If this book had been a ten-episode Netflix series, the beginning would've been two episodes, the ending would've been two episodes and the six episodes in between would've been a lot of world-building and filler.

Don't get me wrong: I liked the world-building, but it seem like much of it was presented for future use. Likewise, many of the characters we're introduced to in the beginning just fade into the background. Others we just wished had do soon. (In particular, no one in the book club liked his estranged wife. While we all appreciated the break in the action to have couples' counseling, the wife didn't come off as a likeable character after that.) Another problem with the worldbuilding (as pointed out but a book club member) is that she retconned the rules in the same book. She didn't wait until, say, book three or four to change the rules.

Personally, I thought it got a bit repetitive, sometimes repeating information within the same chapter. A couple of those chapters, with side characters out of nowhere, just dragged on too long.

One thing, I won't forget that the main character's name is Havelock, because I was reading the Expanse book where a different Det. Havelock made an appearance. (He's in books 1 and 4 of the Expanse, and that's as far as I've gotten there.) I wouldn't say the other characters aren't important enough to list, but I've fallen behind in posting these mini-reviews (it's September, but I'm backdating it to the month I read it in for my own personal records), and if I really needed to know, I'm sure I can find it on that wiki -- you know the one.

Would I read another one? Maybe, but I would hope it's a little tighter than this one was.

Eggs Benedict Arnold (Childs)

Eggs Benedict Arnold
A Cackleberry Club Mystery
by Laura Childs (2009)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I decided to try another one of these. I could only get it as a paperback from the Brooklyn Public Library, so I made it my pool book. It was a fun, quick read.

The Cackleberry Club is back, and only a few months have passed since the events of the first book. more to come.

Cibola Burn (Corey)

Cibola Burn
by James S. A. Corey (2014)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I read this nearly a month ago, or at least it seems that way. Once again, I watched the show first which might've made this book go by a little faster. That said, there were enough differences between them.

For starters, most of the book takes place on and above the planet Ilus or New Terra, depending upon who's talking. Any of the shows subplots that take place in the Sol system are absent here. There is also some rewriting of settlers.

Belters and Outer Planets people (such as refugees from Ganymede) managed to get through the Ring and settled on an inhospitable planet that has a lot of lithium, which they are mining to sell to hire lawyers to stake their claim to "Ilus". They've already been there for a while when a UN/Mars backed team of scientists, backed by corporate interests, come in to claim the planet. Some of the Belters already there decide to blow up a landing pad (which they built for the UN group) to prevent them from landing. Unfortuantely, it's too late and the shuttle is already descending. The shuttle takes damage so it can't lift back up into space. It crashes, killing many people, including the new Governor. This basically leaves Murtry, the head of corporate security, which is basically running the ship, in charge on the planet.

Conflict ensues. James Holden and his crew are sent to mediate. Unfortunately, he brought Miller along (along with a piece of the protomolecule on his ship), and the planet starts to wake up. There's an explosion on the far side of the planet which causes high winds and a tsunami. Everyone makes it into one of the ancient structures, and everyone, for the moment, helps each other.

This all falls apart as everyone but Holden starts going blind, and they discover slugs that are deadly to touch. Miller appears to tell Holden that they need to shut the entire planet off. Murtry wants to protect his company's interests, even if it kills him. The original pioneers didn't last long, but they opened the frontiers for everyone else. Basically, he's nuts.

Miller realizes that there's stuff on the planet that he can't see, so it must belong to whatever killed the beings that made the protomolecule, so he can use that to shut down the planet.

When the book's over we discover that there's a problem with Mars. Now that there are new words to be explored, there's no reason to live underground on Mars while it takes a century to terraform.

I'll give it a few months and then I'll request the next book. I've already started the series, and I imagine that some of the stuff from this season of The Expanse will happen in the next book.

Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Doidge)

Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic
(The Dowser #1)
by Meghan Ciana Doidge (2013)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I'm pretty sure that this was a freebie in a Book Bub mailing list, but it might've been a random search result when looking for free paranormal cozy mysteries. I don't remember.

It was mostly a quick read, and I rushed to finish it because a library book became availalbe and I wasn't go to be able to renew that.

As it was, I practically forgot that I'd read it, until I noticed the title again on my phone. (My iPad is loaded with a lot of recent stuff which gets downloaded automatically.)

This is the first book in the "Dowser" series. The main character, Jade, is half-witch, half-human, and she knows nothing about her father. Her mother never chose to tell her anything, and she's not around for most of the book. Neither is her Grandma, but her presence is felt, and at times, we're waiting for Grandma to arrive and save the day, since she's so powerful a witch. It turns out, that her father wasn't human, but what he was (or is?) is not revealed in this book. What is a "Dowser"? It's a person who uses a diving rod to find underground water, but in context with this book, it's a person who detects magic.

Jade runs a bakery in Vancouver, which seems to have a fair amount of magic activity despite comments that it doesn't. While working there one day, she notices a vampire lurking about outside (in daylight) looking through the window. The vampire later confronts Jade trying to get her to confess to a crime and informs her that as soon as the council clears it, he will bite her and compel her to tell the truth. Apparently, there are rules that have to be followed. A vampire has been killed and one of Jade's trinkets had been found. Jade have an assortment of odd rings that she joins together. Her adopted sister likes to use them. The rings link the crime back to Jade who has no idea what's going on.

Jade was enjoying a night out at a club when a pack out humans, who are werewolves start dancing with her. The alpha wolf tries to get her attention, but she declines. She later flees into the night to avoid all these creatures. She goes to the gym the next day, and the pack arrives and places their mats around her. Now she notices that Mr. Alpha Wolf is a bit of a hottie. They start talking and have a date. But he never shows up for it. And then he's dead, too.

Jade gets caught up in this with the pack and the vampire, until they figure out what's going on.

It was a pleasant read. There's a series. The next book has a very similar title, but I doubt it will be available from the library and it's not something that I *really* need to read and thus pay for. The series has plenty to work with, even if the author did knock off quite a few characters in this one.