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Weekly Book Buzz: Dragon Soul by Jaida Jones

We Review Ghosts of Manhattan

By Tim Janson June 06, 2010

Dragon Soul by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett(2010).
© Spectra

You have may already heard this but Guillermo del Toro has announced his resignation as the director of the two two-part “The Hobbit” film that Peter Jackson is producing as a prequel to The Lord of the Rings. Jackson has said he is continuing to work with New Line and Warner and will begin the search for a new director. Frankly this is not a bad thing as Del Toro’s heavy-handed and darker style of filmmaking seemed a direct contrast to the more child-like tone of The Hobbit.

When Pride and Prejudice and Zombies came out last year it became and instant classic. The novelty of taking a novel of classic literature and blending it with modern horror hit a popular note with fans. But the trend seems to be quickly becoming overused. In the past few months we’ve had books like “Little Women and Werewolves”, books depicting Abraham Lincoln as a vampire slayer, and Pride’s own sequel, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. This week, the list expands with Shakespeare Undead and Android Karenina! Seriously? At 5oo plus pages, I’m thinking there’s too much Tolstoy. Just because Russian writers were long-winded I just can’t see this book having enough appeal to keep fans interested for that high of a page count. Open memo to publishers…How about, ya know, something original?

New In Fantasy

The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2010 Edition Rich Horton (Prime Books)

This second volume of The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy features over a quarter million words of fiction by some of the genre's greatest authors, as selected by Rich Horton, a well-known and well-received contributor to many of the field's most respected magazines.

Shakespeare Undead Lori Handeland ( St. Martin ’s)

Something wicked this way comes . . . and it keeps coming and coming and coming. . . .William Shakespeare was one of history’s greatest writers, a master of words with a body of work that is truly impressive . . . some may say a little too impressive for a single man to accomplish in one lifetime. Perhaps, as many have speculated, he had assistance. Or perhaps the explanation is more . . . unusual.

Shadow's Son Jon Sprunk (Pyr TPB)

In the holy city of Othir , treachery and corruption lurk at the end of every street, just the place for a freelance assassin with no loyalties and few scruples. Caim makes his living on the edge of a blade, but when a routine job goes south, he is thrust into the middle of an insidious plot. Pitted against crooked lawmen, rival killers, and sorcery from the Other Side, his only allies are Josephine, the socialite daughter of his last victim, and Kit, a guardian spirit no one else can see. But in this fight for his life, Caim only trusts his knives and his instincts, but they won't be enough when his quest for justice leads him from Othir's hazardous back alleys to its shining corridors of power. To unmask a conspiracy at the heart of the empire, he must claim his birthright as the Shadow's Son . . .

The Ruby Dagger Matthew McAllister (Tate)

Four hundred years ago, a war against the immortal ended in devastation. The lone survivor was given a prophecy about a weapon that could destroy this enemy and a destiny to find that weapon. Now, those sharing his destiny to locate The Ruby Dagger are gathering, while the immortal makes his own plans to stop them. Kings, wizards, thieves, and warriors will band together for a single cause. But the immortal fights dirty and will stop at nothing to put an end to their fate, even killing children and loved ones of those that dare oppose him. New author Matthew McAllister takes you into a world of his own creation, where destinies, hopes, and tragedies bring many together and tear thousands apart. Those who seek The Ruby Dagger will find themselves in a final battle of good and evil for the safety and control of the five Kingdoms. See the magic and wonders and meet characters whom you cannot help but root for as they struggle against humanity's greatest enemy.

A Matter of Magic Patricia Wrede (Orb Books)

When a stranger offers her a small fortune to break into a traveling magician’s wagon, Kim doesn’t hesitate. Having grown up a waif in the dirty streets of London , Kim isn’t above a bit of breaking-and-entering. A hard life and lean times have schooled her in one lesson: steal from them before they steal from you. But when the magician catches her in the act, Kim thinks she’s done for. Until he suggests she become his apprentice; then the real trouble begins.

Kim soon finds herself entangled with murderers, thieves, and cloak-and-dagger politics, all while trying to learn how to become both a proper lady and a magician in her own right. Magic and intrigue go hand in hand in Mairelon the Magician and The Magician’s Ward, two fast-paced novels filled with mystery and romance, set against the intricate backdrop of Regency England.

Dragon Soul Jaida Jones (Spectra Hardcover)

With just two novels under their belts, young writers Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett have established themselves as two of the hottest new stars in fantasy. Now Jones and Bennett are back with their most accomplished novel yet, featuring the return of two beloved characters, the brothers Rook and Thom. When the war was at its height, there was no fighter on either side who could match Rook for sheer arrogance and skill. Only Rook could ride the great dragon Havemercy, whose savagery and bloodlust matched his own. Thom could not be more different. Bookish, diffident, reserved, he yearns for his brother’s approval—yet fears he can never earn it.

With the war over, and an uneasy truce holding between Volstov and Ke-Han, it seems the perfect opportunity for the long-lost brothers to forge a bond by taking a trip together. At least, that’s how it seems to Thom. Rook hasn’t given a rat’s ass about anything since the end of the war, his brother included, and he’s not about to start now. Not when the one thing he loved in the world—Havemercy—lies scattered in pieces across Ke-Han.

Then Rook and Thom discover that someone is buying up bits of the fallen dragons, including Havemercy. Though the dragons are dead, the magic that powered them is not—and if that magic and the technology created to harness it should fall into the wrong hands, the fragile peace could shatter. An agent from Ke-Han, a sorceress from Volstov, and a group of desert tribesmen are all in the race, and the future rests on whoever gets there first. But all that matters to Rook is that someone is desecrating his girl, so he vows to leave no stone unturned in laying her to rest—and taking his revenge.

Blood Song Cat Adams (Tor TPB)

Bodyguard Celia Graves has definitely accepted her share of weird assignments, both human and supernatural. But her newest job takes the cake. Guarding a Prince from terrorists and religious fundamentalists is hard enough, but it seems like the entire supernatural world is after this guy too. When she is betrayed by those she is employed to help, and everything goes horribly wrong, Celia wakes to find herself transformed.

Neither human nor vampire, Celia has become an Abomination—something that should not exist—and now both human and supernatural alike want her dead. With the help of a few loyal friends—a sexy mage, a powerful werewolf, and a psychic cop—Celia does her best to stay alive. On the run from her enemies, Celia must try to discover who is behind her transformation…before it’s too late.

Metatropolis John Scalzi (Tor Hardcover)

Five original tales set in a shared urban future—from some of the hottest young writers in modern SF. A strange man comes to an even stranger encampment...a bouncer becomes the linchpin of an unexpected urban movement...a courier on the run has to decide who to trust in a dangerous city...a slacker in a "zero-footprint" town gets a most unusual new job...and a weapons investigator uses his skills to discover a metropolis hidden right in front of his eyes.

Welcome to the future of cities. Welcome to Metatropolis. More than an anthology, Metatropolis is the brainchild of five of science fiction's hottest writers—Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, Karl Schroeder, and project editor John Scalzi—-who combined their talents to build a new urban future, and then wrote their own stories in this collectively-constructed world. The results are individual glimpses of a shared vision, and a reading experience unlike any you've had before.

Hylozoic Rudy Rucker (Tor TPB)

In Rucker's last novel,Postsingular, the Singularity happened. Life on Earth has been transformed by the awakening of all matter into consciousness and telepathic communication. The most intimate moments of your life can be experienced by anyone who cares to pay attention, or by hundreds of thousands of anyones if you are one of the Founders who helped create the Singularity.

The small bunch of Founders, including young newlyweds Thuy, a hypertext novelist, and Jayjay, a gamer and brain-enhancement addict, are living a popular live-action media life. But now alien races that have already gone through this transformation notice Earth for the first time, and begin to arrive to exploit both the new environment and any available humans. Some of them are real estate developers, some are slavers, and some just want to help. But who is to tell the difference? Someone has to save humanity from the alien invasions, and it might as well be reality media stars Thuy and Jayjay. They have the problems of soap opera stars, and are still propelled through adventures in time and in other universes, a long strange trip indeed.

Heavy Metal Pulp: The Bloodstained Man: Netherworld Book Two Christopher Rowley (Tor TPB)

Presenting Heavy Metal Pulp, a new line of novels combining noir fiction with fantastic art featuring the theme, story lines, and graphic styles ofHeavy Metal magazine. Following the explosive events of book one, Pleasure Model, Detective Rook Venner, Mistress Julia, and Plesur are on the run from the government troops trying to kill them and from a shadowy group that wants to capture Plesur alive for its own purposes. What secrets have been implanted in Plesur’s head—and why are they worth killing for?

Caught between these two powerful rivals, the trio hides out in the lawless New Jersey territory. Betrayed by gang members looking to collect the bounty on Plesur’s head, the three are separated, and Rook and Mistress Julia find themselves in mortal danger. Julia, given as a prize to a gang member, finds herself in chains, but not without her own means of fighting back. Rook, forced to fight for his life in the gang’s bloodthirsty gladiatorial games, must stay alive long enough to rescue Plesur, but time is running out. The Bloodstained Man is a fast-paced, adrenaline-filled ride through a future where pleasure has a price, and Plesur holds the key to a secret that could rock the country to its very core.

Dog Blood David Moody (Thomas Dunne Hardcover)

The Earth has been torn into two parts by an irreversible division. Whether due to nature, or the unknown depths of the mind itself, everyone is now either Human or Hater. Victim or killer. Governments have fallen, command structures have collapsed, and relationships have crumbled. Major cities have become refugee camps where human survivors cower together in fear. Amidst this indiscriminate carnage, Danny McCoyne is on a mission to find his daughter Ellis, convinced that her shared Hater condition means her allegiance is to people like him. Free of inhibitions, unrestricted by memories of peace, and driven by instinct, children are pure Haters, and may well define the future of the Hater race. But, as McCoyne makes his way into the heart of human territory, an incident on the battlefield sets in place an unexpected chain of events, forcing him to question everything he believes he knows about the new order that has arisen, and the dynamic of the Hate itself.

Android Karenina Ben H. Winters (Quirk TPB)

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters co-author Ben H. Winters is back with an all-new collaborator, legendary Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, and the result is Android Karenina an enhanced edition of the classic love story set in a dystopian world of robots, cyborgs, and interstellar space travel.

As in the original novel, our story follows two relationships: The tragic adulterous love affair of Anna Karenina and Count Alexei Vronsky, and the more hopeful marriage of Nikolai Levin and Princess Kitty Shcherbatskaya. These characters live in a steampunk-inspired world of robitic butlers, clumsy automatons, and rudimentary mechanical devices. But when these copper-plated machines begin to revolt against their human masters, our characters must fight back using state-of-the-art 19th-century technology and a sleek new model of ultra-human cyborgs like nothing the world has ever seen.

Filled with the same blend of romance, drama, and fantasy that made the first two Quirk Classics New York Times best sellers, Android Karenina brings this celebrated series into the exciting world of science fiction.

New in Horror

Curse of the Full Moon: A Werewolf Anthology James Lowder (Ulysses Press)

The change comes on with startling speed. Moonlight transforms the kindly stranger into something else--something wild, vicious and beyond the reach of reason. The curse has taken hold. From dark urban alleys and fog-shrouded heaths to unsettling futurescapes and fantastic realms, the battle against the beast within creates heroes or horrors. Only the light of the full moon reveals which it is that you face: your savior or your doom. Curse of the Full Moon presents a remarkable collection of works that examine the legend of the werewolf from a wide variety of insightful and inventive perspectives. With stories from world-renowned voices in horror and fantasy such as: Ramsey Campbell, Charles De Lint, Joe Lansdale, Neil Gaiman, George R.R. martin, Michael Moorcock, and Harlan Ellison.

Book of Shadows Alexandra Sokoloff ( St. Martin ’s Hardcover)

Homicide detective Adam Garrett is already a rising star in the Boston police department when he and his cynical partner, Carl Landauer, catch a horrifying case that could make their careers: the ritualistic murder of a wealthy college girl that appears to have Satanic elements.

The partners make a quick arrest when all evidence points to another student, a troubled musician in a Goth band who was either dating or stalking the murdered girl. But Garrett’s case is turned upside down when beautiful, mysterious Tanith Cabarrus, a practicing witch from nearby Salem , walks into the homicide bureau and insists that the real perpetrator is still at large. Tanith claims to have had psychic visions that the killer has ritually sacrificed other teenagers in his attempts to summon a powerful, ancient demon.

All Garrett's beliefs about the nature of reality will be tested as he is forced to team up with a woman he is fiercely attracted to but cannot trust, in a race to uncover a psychotic killer before he strikes again.

Reviews

Ghosts of Manhattan George Mann (Pyr TPB)

George Man is best known for his Victorian-era London Steampunk novels but this time moves the action to America and blends in a dose of 1930s style pulp action. In this alternate world Britain is an empirical power and in a cold war with the United States . Coal-powered cars speed along the streets and rocket-fueled bi-planes soar the skies. It’s the 1920s in Manhattan and gangsters largely control the city. Chief among the mob bosses is a man known only as The Roman. Into a city torn with crime comes a mysterious crime fighter called “The Ghost”, a hybrid between The Shadow and Batman. He battles the underlings of The Roman with all manner of interesting gadgets including a jetpack and we meet him first taking down a group of bank robbers in grisly fashion, leaving only one alive to take a warning back to The Roman.

Mann does a nice job of creating this Art Deco, Jazz age New York and at times the steampunk elements sort of fade to the background. The Roman is an interesting protagonist at the outset, being the guy behind the scenes pulling the strings of the illegal activities but he loses some of his panache once he becomes more directly involved in things. Mann carefully withholds a lot of secrets about the Roman until the very end of the story but also tosses in an unexpected and somewhat clumsy plot twist. The Ghost’s identity isn’t too hard to discern. We have your typical rich playboy type who seems shallow on the surface, but Mann at least doesn’t go with all of the usual stereotypes and creates a hero that is believable, or as believable as he can be in this alternate history. Joining him his the sultry nightclub singer love interest and Felix Donovan the police chief unable to solve the recent string of murders in the city.

Mann moves the novel along smoothly and quickly and doesn’t give the reader too much time to consider some of the slight plot holes. The big plot twist to go from hard-boiled nourish action to elements of the occult might have been a bit much as the story had a lot going for it as it was. Grade B

The Barry Windsor Smith Conan Archives Vol. 2 (Dark Horse Hardcover)

This is the second hardcover volume collection Barry Windsor’s Smith early 1970s Conan stories published originally by Marvel Comics. This edition collects issues # 12 – 16, 19 – 23, and stories from Savage Tales Magazeine # 2 & 3. Here we see Smith display less of the Jack Kirby influence that permeated his work early in his career and develop the style were used to seeing today. Smith was an artist that really benefited from a good inker and the best inker was normally himself, you can notice a marked difference in the detail and depth of the work when he inks his pencils, compared to someone like Dan Adkins.

This edition contains the two-part story where Conan teams with another famous swords & sorcery character, Elric of Melnibone. The story was plotted by Elric creator Michael Moorcock and its quite amazing today that this team-up ever happened. A tribute to the days when licensed properties were not tied up in as much red tape as it is today. It’s not a great story as Conan tales go but its fun to see these two very different characters together.

The book includes the first comic adaptation of the original Robert E. Howard Conan story, “The Frost Giant’s Daughter”. One of Howard’s shortest tales it finds Conan pursuing a beautiful girl across the frozen northlands, leading him into a trap where he is attacked by her giant brothers.

Also included is the first appearance of Red Sonja from Conan # 23 & 24. Contrary to belief, Sonja was created by Roy Thomas but based upon two of Howards’ characters: Red Sonya who appeared in the story “Shadow of the Vulture” which Thomas adapted for issue #23, and Dark Agnes de Chastillon, a sword woman in 16th-century France. Also of note is that Smith did not depict Red Sonja her well-known bikini scale mail—that would come later. Here she is dressed a bit more conservatively, in a long-sleeved mail shirt and short pants of red silk.

As a special treat. Dark Horse reprints the story from Chamber of Darkness #4 that served as a tryout for Conan. The barbarian named Starr the Slayer looked exactly like Conan. Grade A