Iron King by Julie Kagawa

So I saw this blog post in my drafs folder from April, apparently I never got around to posting it. This is a quick high-level review for The Iron King, by Julie Kagawa.

This book has taken me a few weeks to get into, but it's worked itself up to an interesting story. Two things of note, which I hope to discuss more in the future are:

• Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness - Many fiction stories I've read seem to feature the Queen of Air and Darkness as the leader of the Unseelie court. But my Ireland-addicted friend said that she has seen no basis in Myth. Interesting.
• The Nevernever - Both dresden and this book call the home of the Faerie the Nevernever. I wonder if that has basis in myth.

The overall story isn't the most memorable, but it wasn't notably bad either. As I said, I read this back in April, so it's not very coherent. What I do remember of the book, is that I was a bit disappointed in the ending. Unlike Demons Lexicon, where the ending confused me, this one was sad because of unanswered questions. Something came up early enough in the novel that I thought it would have come up before the end. But it didn't. There are sequels to the book, and I will probably check them out eventually. In the meantime though, it's not very high on my todo list.

Book Review: Rachel Vincent, Cassandra Claire, Sarah Rees Brennan, Jim Butcher, Sarra Cannon, Michael Buckley

39 Clues: Into the Guantlet 
And with book #10, the 39 clues is finished. It's a middle-grade book, and as such the ending is more or less the only one that could have happened. However, it was well executed, and there was a twist or two that I didn't see coming. This gives me a little perspective when I look at the series as a whole. There were plenty of twists, plenty of secrets. While many of them were not foreshadowed fully, they were consistent, even across different authors. That may be something I haven't really talked about: There were about 5-7 authors for the whole series (a couple wrote two-3). There was some minor inconsistency of characters (mostly the side characters, not the three main ones), and I'm sure that more than once the authors threw a loop for their compatriots to deal with. It must have been an exciting trip. As far as the series itself goes, as a middle-grade series, I feel it did it's job. It is not the best series I've read, for this point in my life, but it was enjoyable.

My Soul to Save
The second book in the series by  Rachel Vincent. This one brought up some Faustian themes, mixing them with the very rich mythos that she's woven for the characters. The trip to the underworld was pretty crazy, and I'm hoping will get addressed more in future books. As it were, the worldbuilding continues to impress me. The romance is still a little strange, but it's easy to imagine that true of most relationships at that age (having not been in one myself, I can't comment more fully). Other than that, this remains an impressive series, and I hope to read more soon.

Demons Lexicon
First book in a series by Sarah Rees Brennan. The book held my attention, and was rather well executed, right up until the ending. The book follows two brothers who are running from magicians. Magicians, like in Bartemeus, summon demons to give them power, and the two brothers have run afoul of a group. As premise goes, it's not bad. There's some cool worldbuilding, like the dances at the goblin markets. However, I was very unsatisfied with the ending. It was confusing, and while I got the twist (had guessed it only a few pages earlier), I didn't really like hte resolution. I'll probably give her another shot, but it's on teh back burner for the moment. Cut the ending, and it would have been a great book.

Clockwork Angel
A friend of mine doesn't have much respect for Cassandra Claire. This is the first book in her second trilogy, set in the victorian (steampunk) time. The thing that caught me about the first trilogy is the awesome use of runes for the shadowhunters. The shadowhunters are a group of more-than-humans who try and protect teh regular humans from the "monsterous" downworlders. The worldbuilding caught me pretty strongly in this one two. We see more of downworleder society in this one, which I enjoyed, but I still think the runes are some of the best worldbuilding in the setting, and the one thing I keep wanting to find more about.

Side Jobs
Jim Butcher has collected a bunch of short stories, novellas, etc. that have been published in various anthologies and released the collection as it's own novel. Awesome idea, for those of us who don't want to go out and buy the dozen anthologies that contain some of his work. He still has more out there that are not included in here, but it was a great start. Some of the stories caught me more than others. The one from Thomas' viewpoint let me see deeper into some aspects of the setting that, by their nature, can't be shown from Dresden. And I liked them. The one from Karrin's viewpoint was an interesting story, if a bit emo. Personally, I think I'm more excited about the next book in the series than most of these side novellas.

Inner Demons
For another shameless plug, Sarra Cannon has released book 2 for general consumption. If I had an e-reader, I'd totally be all over this. In the second book, the world is starting to be fleshed out more, and the girl really starts to learn more about her magic.

Sisters Grimm: Fairy Tale Detectives 
The last book I'll talk about is the new series of Audio books I'm starting, by Michael Buckley. The premise is a pair of orphans who are descendents of the Brothers Grimm, start taking place in the family business: acting as magical detectives to the everafters, the fairy tale creatures. Again, a middle-grade book, I didn't really expect any great revelations. Still, there was enough of a twist to keep things interesting. Mostly, I'm reading it for the random literary and fairy tale creatures who pop up every now and again.

Book Review: Too many to name.

I'm a little behind on my book reviews. Between NaNo and my research, I've not had much time to write it up. So here's a quick catch-up, some of these I may revisit with more fevor later.

39 Clues: Beyond the Grave by Jude Watson
39 Clues: Black Circle by Patrick Carman
39 Clues: In Too Deep by Jude Watson
39 Clues: The Vipers Nest by Peter Lerangis
39 Clues: The Emperors Code  by Gordan Korman
39 Clues: Storm Warning by Linda Sue Park
Rather than going through each of these books individually, I'll talk a bit about this chunk of books as a whole, since they're from the same series. The story is developing, and it's taking a different route from the standard Alchemists Stone, which is cool. That only happened in the last couple books though, so it's still got potential. The Black Circle was one of the better ones I read, with a very nice exploration of Rasputin and Russia. There was a new character introduced who I kept hoping would become more important, but she has yet to do so. As things are winding to a close, the plot keeps thickening.

Secret World Chronicles: The Hunt
Secret World Chronicles: World Well Lost
The next two books in the Secret World Chronicles, by Mercedes Lackey and Steve Libby. More awesome superhero goodness. The story is really interesting, and I just love some of the characters (two in particular). I found out that this was inspired by the game City of Heros, which makes me kinda want to play it now. Lots of potential for awesomeness. The story has taken a hiatus since early september, and I keep hoping that they'll come back to it. Maybe I'm getting my hopes up though.

Thomas Riley
In this debut book by Nick Valentino, we've got my first real introduction to Steampunk. I picked it up at the Decatur Book Festival, and I haven't regretted it. It's a nice story, involving alchemy and steampunk and all kinds of other things. Pretty simple, for all that. I don't remember all of hte end, it got kinda hectic, but I'm happy with it.

The Red Pyramid
New mythological-based Urban Fantasy, by Rick Riordan. This one is leveraging Egyption mythology. In general, I know much less about this than I do Greek/Roman, but that didn't stop it from being a good story. The mode of telling is also interesting. It's two kids, and they're 'fighting' over hte rights to tell the story, but in several places they're explicitly addressing the reader, as if the whole thing is a letter or warning to the reader. It's well done, and it's what sparked some of the inspiration for my nano novel (in voice).

The Way of Kings
The new epic fantasy by Brandon Sanderson (and I do mean EPIC). This thing's a brick. For all that there's little sorcery, there's some really awesome magic going around in the world. Most people can't do it, and those who can can't do everything they used to be able to. People are in a war where they have barely a notion of what they're fighting for. All in all, there's some fascinating things in here. The magic has made me think, and it may be worth re-investigating as I pull things together for my rewrite of DragonMage.

Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians
This is a middle-grade/ya book by Brandon Sanderson. It seems to have largely be written as an experiment. It contains a lot of commentary on the craft of writing, since the protag considers himself a novice writer. Or something. He keeps doing things and commenting about how a writer shouldn't do them. Beneath the writerly commentary is a story about two worlds, in which librarians are evil and people can do amazing things with lenses made specially out of sands. Better sand means better glass, and so it's a hot commodity. Some strange ideas, some interesting ones. We'll see if I pick up sequels.

My Soul to Take
The first book in the Soul Screamers series, by Rachel Vincent. This is one of hte best YA books I've read recently. She took a different direction on the whole supernatural kid angle, the kid is not a mage, not a vampire, not a werewolf and not related in any way to the Fae. That right there is reason enough to give it a try. Don't get me wrong, I love books about all of those, but it's nice to see something different that still holds your interest. Since the reveal of what she in fact is is a big spoiler, I won't mention more here. Suffice it to say she did everything I thought was redeeming Twilight (which wasn't much), and made it awesome. I just grabbed book 2 out of the library yesterday.

The Black Prism
This new novel by Brent Weeks is the beginning of a trilogy I guess? I wasn't sure about this one, since it was targeted facebook advertising. It worked though. I enjoyed the book. The basic story is simple, the world in the aftermath of a brothers' war. Like Way of Kings, this is the introduction to a world, and so there often seems to be more worldbuilding than plot building. I guess you can get away with that in a series, though I would have liked to see more direction in this one. The primary magic system, based off of light, is really fascinating and has earned this book a second look in my eyes. Unfortunately, their little test keeps putting me as hopeless :(

Terrier
This is actually a reread of one of my favorite books by Tamora Pierce. It's kind of amazing that I love this book so much, since it's pretty low magic, but I love the characters, especially the narrator. The story is told through a journal, which had more influence on the voice of my nano novel than anything else. The treatment of slang and vernacular in this book is also very fascinating. The story itself is about a young overconfidant girl who gets in over her head as a trainee guard.

Bloodhound
This is the sequel to Terrier. All of the above awesomeness, except she's now a full guard.

Beautiful Demons
This one is more of a plug than the others. Sarra Cannon is actually in my critique group, and so I got to read the draft of this. It's available on amazon and b&n as an ebook, and is a really fascinating story about a young girl coming into her powers. Totally worth the $1 she's charging for it.

The End of NaNoWriMo

I had grand plans to update daily about the NaNoWriMo process. But after the first couple days, I was  pretty overwhelmed. It was a long process. I stayed mostly on track for the first two weeks. I lost a bit the first weekend, but managed to catch up. The second weekend, things took a turn for the worse. I was out of town and didn't get to write the whole weekend. Once I got back, I was overwhelmed by how far I had to go to catch up. I wrote a little over the subsequent week, but had a really hard time keeping motivated. I got week two'ed in week three. Go figure.

That weekend however, I mostly managed to turn things around. By the start of Thanksgiving week, I was mostly caught up. Unfortunately, it was thanksgiving and I got behind again. Due to my new netbook (see http://magiuspendragon.tumblr.com for details about what I intend to do with it), I didn't get any writing done the following weekend. By the time Monday came around, I was almost 8000 words behind, and had only 2 days left. Due to the generous motivation provided by one Arumi, I managed to plow through the last two days. I achieved a win at 6:30pm on Tuesday, Nov. 30th, with what is easily my best piece of writing to date.

So the big question is what now? Truth is, the story isn't done. It needs at least 10000 more words. I promised said Arumi that I would finish before the new years, so that's the first goal. After that, I've joined up with some women in a critique group, so I'll be diong writing for that. Mostly, I plan on revisiting / rewriting my first novel, Dragonmage. There's plenty wrong with it, and I've learned a lot since then. If the process of writing my NaNo novel has taught me anything, it's that I still have some things to learn, but I am learning. I'm improving. It's making a difference.

The next project is one I've been keeping kinda under wraps. But looks like I accidentally committed to it at the TGIO party last night. A friend of mine has inspired a story. But rather than tell it in the written form, I'm going to write, direct, produce, and compose for a short animation. I'm aiming for less than half an hour, though how close to that will depend on how big the story is. I don't have much other than it's titled The Kat Files (okay, maybe too similar to the Dresden Files, or the X Files, or any of the otehrs :p), and is about a detective (PI or Cop, up for grabs) who's also a fallen angel.

The last thing I'll be working on is the tablet project alluded to above. Read the other link for more information.

The last thing I'd like to do before wrapping up this post, is to discuss something about how this years process for NaNo was different than my last two years. Anyone who's known for my NaNo past, knows that I have been rather unlucky. My original goal for the month was 25000 words, rather than 50. This year, I plotted more than I ever had before. It helped a lot. I was us8ing my combined system, between the 7-point plot, and the 8-act structure, with Jim Butcher's Scenes and Sequels. As I progressed through the story, the 7-point plot became the most helpful, with Scenes (but not sequels) second. Sequels are where I have a lot of work to improve. I still like the idea, but as I was writing, I realized that these were more cues than plans. It was still much better than anything else I've done.