welcome to camp telophase

Deal with the Devil is Orphan Black meets the post-apocalyptic Avengers by USA Today and New York Times bestselling author duo Kit Rocha.

Nina is an information broker with a mission—she and her team of mercenary librarians use their knowledge to save the hopeless in a crumbling America.

Knox is the bitter, battle-weary captain of the Silver Devils. His squad of supersoldiers went AWOL to avoid slaughtering innocents, and now he's fighting to survive.

They’re on a deadly collision course, and the passion that flares between them only makes it more dangerous. They could burn down the world, destroying each other in the process…

Or they could do the impossible: team up.

This is the first book in a near-future science fiction series with elements of romance.

3.5 out of 5 stars.

When I watched Pacific Rim for the first time, the story confused the hell out of me at the beginning. Right up until the brown-haired white protagonist and his brown-haired white rival were on the screen at the same time because, as it turns out, I hadn’t realized they were two different actors playing two different characters and had been trying to parse the movie assuming they were the same character. (Yes, one of them was Australian and the other American. I feel really stupid for not noticing the accents.) But after that was straightened out, I enjoyed the movie.

This is roughly similar to my experience reading Deal with the Devil. On the surface you’d think I’d love it, and I thought I might when I requested it via NetGalley. The series is Mercenary Librarians and I am a librarian. I love mercenary romance. There are angsty supersoldiers in it and I Iove me an angsty supersoldier. There are proactive women, post-apocalyptic surroundings, a team romance setup, and all of this should have added up to something I adored, but it was...fine.

Much like Pacific Rim it took me a while to identify one issue: voice. A distinctive narrative voice is what I really love in a book, and Deal with the Devil just didn’t get there. The characters' dialogue sounded enough alike that I found myself having to consciously tag their names with their roles and periodically look back a page or two to check who was saying what again in order to distinguish between the four guys on one team and two of the three women on the other. (If you’re wondering: Dani and Nina. Maya was more of an individual.)

And, like Pacific Rim, somewhere between a third and half of the way into the book the characters started to distinguish themselves--possibly because Rocha began seeding chapters from those other characters' points of view--and it became easier to read.

Unlike Pacific Rim, it wasn't over-the-top enough for the concept. When you have POST-APOCALYTPIC MERCENARY LIBRARIAN ROMANCE as the elevator pitch, you kind of expect something to live up to that. I wasn't looking for The Road Warrior, but I think the aim should have been a bit closer to that than the original Mad Max, which is where it hit.

I admit I haven't read any of Rocha's other romances and maybe this is exactly what Rocha readers want. If not, then I assume, given the publisher, that it might have been an editorial decision to keep some of the usual romance traits and tropes but to pull back on the ridiculous ones and exaggerated characterization, so as to appeal to a new audience. If so, I think it missed the mark because it removes some of the charm that the best SF romances possess. If you forgive me another Pacific Rim metaphor: I was looking for the equivalent of the scene where a jaeger picks up a container ship and uses it as a club BECAUSE OF COURSE IT DOES and what I got was the version where that was edited out because someone complained that container ships are flexible so they don't get ripped apart while at sea and in reality it would have broken under its own weight.

Also there wasn't enough of the librarian part of mercenary librarians. Judging by the ending, this is an aspect they're working up to--you can consider this one the origin story, perhaps--but if I'm promised MERCENARY LIBRARIANS then by damn I'm expecting MERCENARY LIBRARIANS.

So there you have it. This sounds like I’m ripping it apart, and I don’t feel that poorly about the book, but I’m disappointed when I envision the book I was expecting, given the concept. I saw the publisher, I saw the genre, I saw the synopsis and I was hopeful that it would take the bits I love about the SF romance genre and elevate them, but...it’s completely fine. Readable, entertaining...fine.

You might not have the same problem that I do—I’m probably in a minority with my Pacific Rim troubles and inability to distinguish between brown-haired white men speaking in different accents after all—and I’ll still be recommending Deal with the Devil to readers looking for SF or mercenary romance because I think a lot of people will enjoy it, but it’s not my favorite book.

It’s totally fine. Three and a half out of five stars.


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And hey, don’t go tweeting or emailing the authors and tagging this and other reviews. That’s just rude. If they care, they already have Google alerts set up that will flag their pseudonym and this title, and they don't need you to tell them.

One woman will either save an entire continent or completely destroy it in a captivating epic fantasy bursting with intrigue and ambition, questioned loyalties, and broken magic.

"Guard the tower, ward the stone. Find your answers writ in bone. Keep your trust through wits or war--nothing must unseal the door."

Deep within Gloamingard Castle lies a black tower. Sealed by magic, it guards a dangerous secret that has been contained for thousands of years.

As Warden, Ryxander knows the warning passed down through generations: nothing must unseal the Door. But one impetuous decision will leave her with blood on her hands--and unleash a threat that could doom the world to fall to darkness.

I received an ARC of The Obsidian Tower a few months ago from NetGalley. This is by the same author of, and set in the same world as, The Tethered Mage. It's not necessary to have read TTM for this book: I haven't, mostly because it came to my awareness at about the same time as Fran Wilde's The Jewel and Her Lapidary, and the jewel/lapidary naming scheme of the latter struck me as so twee that it turned me off the entire concept.*

That was the first strike against it. The second was the use of "epic" in the description, a keyword now used to attempt to capture readers who like Big Fat Fantasies[TM], and which usually means multiple points of view, kingdom- or world-spanning plots, lots of pitched battles, and in most cases, a narrative voice indistinguishable from any other.

Why did I grab this one? The cover pulled me in. I love it: this black monolithic shape floating in smudged white space, reminiscent of the silhouette of a human heart, surrounded by the title. It's a good thing it did, because it turned out to be exactly what I like: a high fantasy setting told from the point of view of a sympathetic character with a strong voice.

Ryxander is Warden of Gloamingard Castle, entrusted by her grandmother to guard a magically-sealed door as her family has done for generations and to broker agreements between neighboring kingdoms. Ryx's magic is broken, however--a touch from her means death--and many of her family think she was given the Wardenship out of pity, and not because she can do the job.

As with any locked door in a story, the inevitable happens and the rest of the plot involves political maneuvering, family squabbles and an engaging circle of characters frantically studying almost-forgotten magics while Ryx desperately tries to hold both herself and the kingdom together.

When I finished it, I was disappointed to remember I had an ARC and that I couldn't immediately pre-order the sequel. Highly recommended.

*Note: I am perhaps the only person with this opinion. Wilde's book was nominated for both a Nebula and a Hugo.

Been sort of slow around here lately. Toby ended up with a terrific cold from the party we went to a week ago, so has been croaking around the house. (He also went down to Austin on Saturday to game, before he realized it was a cold and not just allergies, so is now feeling terribly guilty about infecting anyone down there.)

I also recently finished Zen Cho's Spirits Abroad,( Read more... )

Spirits Abroad was good enough that I had the problem of trying to figure out what to read after it, because anything not as good would seem terrible in comparison. I ended up with Sarah Monette's The Bone Key,( Read more... )

I'd also read Mercedes Lackey's most recent, Closer to Home: Book One of Herald Spy.( Read more... )

And last night we finally sat down and watched the first episode of Constantine. Verdict: ( Read more... )

And one last media review. Toby and I went to see John Wick on Friday night. Verdict: ( Read more... )

And that is all the media I have been consuming recently, aside from the usual steady stream of House Hunters International, Face Off, and Project Runway (which, BTW, is getting suckier and suckier by the minute).

The Bedlam Detective: A Novel by Stephen Gallagher.

Victorian mystery: Sebastian Becker is an ex-Pinkerton who moved with his family (wife, sister-in-law, son) back to England after quitting Pinkertonning. He works for the British government investigating claims of lunacy in wealthy landowners who may not be capable of managing their own affairs. During the course of one of his investigations he encounters the murder of two young girls, which fit into a pattern of attacks and disappearances over years in their village. The wealthy landowner in question claims fantastic beasts attacked them, and Becker seeks the truth.

Verdict: okay until (spoiler: rot13) Orpxre'f jvsr trgf sevqtrq sbe ab ernfba bgure guna gb tvir uvz zber znacnva. Znacnva juvpu svaqf n erfbyhgvba gbb dhvpxyl: juvyr vg'f zbaguf va gur punenpgre'f yvsr, vg'f nobhg 20% bs gur obbx va gur ernqre'f grezf, fb vg frrzf nyzbfg vafgnagnarbhf gung ur jbexf vg bhg. Not sure why the author thought it was necessary: Becker's past, in which he witnessed an execution-style killing of an innocent man and didn't say anything because he didn't want to break cover, offered plenty of manpain for the character to angst over. He didn't need more.

I liked the portrayal of his son, who in modern terms would be somewhere on the autism spectrum: unable to function very well when it comes to normal social niceties, but with great powers of focus on the things that catch his interest. So his parents worry that he won't be able to work, and aren't really sure what's going on with him, and love him as best they can.

Down in Austin right now. Toby's playing his RPGs and I'm over at the house of friends amusing myself while he's over there. I came down with him this time as we spent Friday night in Wimberley visiting family.

Anyway, I took the opportunity to take myself to the Alamo Drafthouse to see Snow White and the Huntsman. I really had the urge to live-tweet it, except that the AD will TOSS YOU OUT ON YOUR EAR if you're doing that. Alas, for the movie sort of called for it.

There were many cool bits in it, but it never really jelled for me into a coherent whole. Chris Hemsworth really does the scruffy looker well, doesn't he?

Also I never had noted the need to create a love triangle in Snow White. Hmmmm.