Envy of Angels

Envy of Angels, Matt Wallace (2015)

(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 book was a freebie from the Tor dot com reading club.

For the record, my first mention online of "The Sin Cafe" came in a closed writing blog, which was open at that time, back in 2011. It had its origins in a trip to Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic, several years before that. I mention this because "Sin du Jour" appears to be a series. However, I will continue to write Hell's Diner stories as the moods strike. I have at least two more in mind for whenever I work them out.

I started it a couple months ago. It had my attention but I wasn't sure I wanted to go where it was going. But I went back to it. It was actually a quick read and a short book. (It's actually a novella.)

Lena and Darren are out-of-work chefs in NYC and can't get a job. They get to try-out as substitutes at Sin-du-Jour (which along with the cover should be a massive hint). They are given a hands-on interview by someone who could make Gordon Ramsey cry, but they manage to pass while creating things they've never made before using the hottest of spices and ingredients that they've never tasted before. It's a bit exotic. And there's a forbidden food pantry. If you need something, ask the person authorized to go in there.

Well, they go in there, and all Hell breaks loose. Sort of. A creature is released from a jar that instantly starts growing in size and wreaking havoc.

Rather than fire them, the Chef tells them that their exclusive clientele is rivals groups of demons, and that these get-togethers are funded by the U.S. government, which mediates and helps keep the peace between the factions.

They it starts getting interesting when demons arrive with a special dish that they want prepared -- it's an angel, a spellbound, living angel, although more akin to one of ancient writings than of popular paintings. The crew is split on this because they don't want to slaughter an angel. But they can't refuse, so the best that they can do is fake what an angel tastes like. The crew discovers that angel tastes like Chicken Nuggies from Henley's (a fictional food chain). This leads to some industrial espionage, which leads to something else fantastical. It gets crazy from there.

One thing that doesn't make sense in the resolution is this: [SPOILER] Although the Nuggies have been created through fantastical methods for decades, the magicked Nuggies were based on an actual original recipe. How did those turn out to taste like angel? I guess I would've had an easier time believing that angels taste like "magic chicken" more than that they taste enough like chicken to form a demon.

The Oracle Year (Soule)

The Oracle Year by Charles Soule (2018)

(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.)

The was a book group book. Yes, I've somehow become part of a book group.

The book follows Will Dando who becomes known as "The Oracle" because of a Site he operates (it's refered to with a capital S) where he lists some predicitions which come true. Will had a dream where he was told 108 predictions. He writes them in a notebook, but he can't forget them, even after he burns the notebook.

Will has a friend named Hamza who helps him operate the site and sell some of the predictions for more money than they know what to do with. Some of the predicitions seem like nothing, other than obscure bits that will prove to people that his predictions will come true. But after a while, they start to come together in a way that shows that they're interconnected, and Will is afraid what the consequences will be. He can't seem to pull the plug on the Site, and starts to feel that the Site is controlling him, despite his free will to decide his actions. He demonstrates this to Hamza and his wife Miko by blindly walking out into traffic on a busy road and crossing to the other side unharmed. The Site needs him.

Enjoyable story, for the most part. There's a televangelist that decides that the Oracle is a threat to business, and his is probably the weakest part of the story, but some of his decisions will drive later action. He's an easy fall guy. Then there's President Green, who is up for re-election, and can't make any statements on the Oracle until he knows who it is. He's a bit more believable than the televanglist, and the people who work for him as stereotypical government flunkies and operatives. Then there's The Coach, who's a freelancer outside of government who gets things done by any means necessary, including threats of and actual violence, torture and possibly death. Not to mention bringing down the power grid for much of the world, causing many deaths, just to find the name of one person.

This brings to mind (to me) two things in the book, and I'm not sure which annoys me more: that they telegraphed taking out so much of the world's power grid even before they set that into motion, of when they finally get into the code, the hacker sees a programming comment that instantly reveals to him the identity of the woman who set up the Site. If the phrase in the comment had been foreshadowed, I didn't recall it, and there was nothing to suggest that these two should know, or be aware of, each other.

Problems aside, it was a decent enough book which kept my attention mostly. I didn't read the preview of the next book, not am I in a rush to read another one.