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By Sergei Lukyaneko 

The second in the Watch trilogy (well, so far it’s only a trilogy. I’ve heard rumors that there is another book coming out which would be awesome)

So Day Watch or Dnevnoy dozor (so much fun to try and say!) is a continuation of the Night Watch story line but told from the Day Watch perspective.  I am not sure why this threw me for a loop. I mean, the book is called Day Watch. I would be from the other perspective wouldn’t it? I guess I was hoping to catch up with our beloved Anton Gorodesky and see how he’s faring with the lovely Svetlana.

Again this novel is set up in three parts – each story building off the preceding stories to convolute and confuse the plot. The first part “Unauthorized Personnel Admitted” seemed, in the end, to be a little hokey and even a tad silly to delve into. Not that it wasn’t interesting. The perspective into the Dark Others’ ethos was very enlightening. We find out that they are not all evil and some, in fact, are God-fearing Christians (though they are known to practice Black Mass on occasion)

In fact, throughout the whole book Lukyanenko studiously outlines the differences between the Night Watch and Day Watch. Why they are so similar but not at all alike. It is an intriguing look at the philosophies behind Absolute Good and Absolute Evil and how the individual concepts cannot be so easily separated.

As he did in Night Watch, Lukyanenko spins three captivating stories which he somehow plaits into a fascinating book. All three pieces play off each other in clever and surprising ways which are a delight to read. I highly recommend this book, but you need to read Night Watch first or you won’t understand it.

By Sergei Lukyanenko

Yeah. Wow.

Okay.

So, in order to tell you about this book I need to describe it a bit, right? See, that’s the problem right there. I have been trying for almost a week now to put into words some sort of description about the characters or how this book is written or the mythos it is based on o, just…something. But it’s all a bit more than I expected for it to be so please, bear with me as I muddle along here.

It isn’t very often that you stumble across a truly great book. I can’t tell exactly if that’s what I’ve done here. I’d like to believe I have but then again I could just be a great big sci-fi/fantasy nerd that hasn’t come across something like this before. Kinda like when “The Matrix” came out and everybody did a collective “HOLY SHIT! That just blew my mind!”

But, with the level of strategy and intrigue woven throughout this book I am inclined to believe that this is basically just a really great book. And the best part about it is that it isn’t just one book, it’s a trilogy. Actually, it’s a trilogy within a trilogy (a nonology?)

Lemme ‘splain

Night Watch is the story of Anton Gorodesky, member of the…well…of the Night Watch.

And what is the Night Watch you may ask? Ah, well that’s a little more complicated.

So there are humans and there are Others. The Others are, or rather were, humans that have discovered that they have the ability to use Power around them to go into the Twilight and do all sorts of magic and stuff. Once they figure out the Twilight thing they become an “Other”.  Depending on their first experience in the Twilight, they either become a Dark Other or a Light Other. I’m gonna let you figure out which ones are the good guys and which are the bad.

Got that so far? So the Others can be lots of different things. They can be Magicians, Enchantresses, were-beasts, vampires, witches or, in some cases, just plain creepy. The Night Watch is comprised of Light Others that are sworn to keep tabs on the Dark Others to make sure they don’t try to gain the upper hand. The Day Watch is the exact opposite. It explains it all much better than this in the book, I’m just giving you the quick and dirty version.

Partly what made this book stand out so much is the way it is written.  Lukyanenko broke the story into three main parts, sort of like mini-novels within the book. They build layers within the narrative and each successive layer adds complexity to the characters that you wouldn’t have understood before. In the end the story is so seemingly complex you can’t imagine that there could be a sequel (and that’s where you’d be wrong)

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Night Watch is the story of Anton Gorodesky and his decision to become a member of the Night Watch and the impact that has on his life. I couldn’t really explain more, even if I wanted to, because I wouldn’t know where to begin. Set in modern day Moscow, Gorodesky’s life and troubles are easy to fall into and hard to put down. I credit the writing but also the author’s incredible talent for weaving suspense and strategy together so effortlessly.

The only thing I thought remotely cheesy was the author’s incessant need to quote rock songs. But even this fails to make much of a difference in the overall enjoyment I got out of reading. There are at least two more books after Night Watch and I sincerely hope they are even a fraction as entertaining as this book.

By Linda Medley

This is an interesting graphic novel. Firstly, it is hard bound and in a much smaller format than most other graphic novels. It looks on the shelf, like a classic hard-bound copy of Treasure Island or Robinson Crusoe. It is very pretty to look at.

Secondly, it was great! I sat down and read the whole thing in about an hour (give or take some.) The story starts out with the Royal Couple wanting to have a child but unable to conceive. The King visits one of the good witches in the forest and she conjures up some baby potion.  Next thing you know Royal Newborn! Sweeeeet.

Cue good witch’s sister: the Wicked witch, who is all pissed off that the King went to her good sister instead of herself. The old “I’m cursin’ yer baby at the christening” plot line comes about but the good witches manage to save the girl from death by changing the curse to 100 years of sleep to be broken by a kiss from her one true love.

 Prophecy eventually becomes reality and the girl turns into none other than out sleeping beauty of fable. 100 years pass and she’s finally roused from sleep by Prince Charming who then sweeps her off her feet and takes her away to be his wife.

Of course I’m summing things up and most everyone knows that story line anyway. So the first part of the book is, by design, rather short and sweet. The second part of the book starts with a great line, muttered by one of sleeping Beauty’s maids as Beauty herself is galloping away on the Prince’s white horse. I can’t recall the exact line but in a nutshell it is something like:

Well crap, what are we supposed to do now?

And the rest of the story starts from there.

There is some very clever writing throughout this book. I especially liked the feeling that, though you are reading a classic fairy tale, the characters in the story itself are real and have emotions other than the classic fairy tale Love and Hatred. From the way the book ended before most of the characters were explained I have to assume that there will be a sequel coming up (as I understand it, the story line has continued in single-issue format to be bound at the end of the year. Let’s hope!)

This book is worth a read. Even if you never read “Comic books” because they’re “only for kids and nerds”. I may be a nerd and I’m probably more of a kid than an adult but I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying the time spent in this story.

Are you at a computer that will allow you to watch a video clip?

Do you like Super heroes?

 Then I suggest this:

http://www.ultimateshowdown.org/

Written by Elaine Viets

 I would really like to say something like “Good Lord that book was terrible!” or “Sweet Jesus, why WHY did I waste my time?!” but I really can’t. Which, in many respects, I think is much worse. Because mainly all I can really say is:

 meh.

I have been known to read some horrible books. But most of those horrible books have some sort of redeeming quality like the fact that they are so utterly implausible this it’s amazing anyone actually read it and said “Can we pay you money to print this?”

I once read a book so ridiculously convoluted that it took me several hours just to write up the review. And I remember most of the plot because it was so fucking terrible. Wait a minute, I might even have the original review in here somewhere….

Aha! I found it!

But I’m sorry to say that Murder Between the Covers was nowhere near as spectacularly bad. It was just plain uninteresting. The characters were unevenly developed and made several decisions that went against their nature. I’ll give you an example: though she was supposed to be a smart lady that had maintained a successful career as a corporate number cruncher (making six digits) we find her running from the law for reasons that, when we do finally learn them, are just moronic and even I can see that all she needed was a better lawyer. But nooooo, she decides to become a fugitive from justice in South Florida where she ends up working a dead-end job (thus the subtitle) and trying to solve murders which she’s not even very good at. She continually makes ludicrous assuptions and ignores glaringly obvious clues until the big finale. Which, in my uneducated opinion is a cheap mechanical substitution for novel and inventive plot devices on the part of the author.

 The book also suffered from was a distinct lack of editing. The chapters didn’t flow well and several times I found myself wondering how the tone could go from happy-go-lucky to super depressed in three sentences without any explaination.

Jumping ahead on my list of objections: for some reason the author felt compelled to hold back key personal details about her characters until she could spring them on you in a later chapter like a rabbit out of a hat. This only served to pulled me out of the story every time I came across the deliberate blind. It was annoying, like playing poker with someone who thinks they’ve got you on the ropes but you can clearly see the cards poking out of their sleeve and they’re not aces, just a lousy pair of sevens.

So to summarize: unless you are travelling in deepest, darkest Peru, or some other exotic type country, the native tongue of which you do not speak, are facing a 7 hour train ride and your choices at the book exchange kiosk are a three month old copy of “People en Espanol” or this book, I cannot honestly recommend that you read it.

By Jasper Fford, narrated by Simon Vance

This is the second Nursery Crime mystery I’ve listened to by Jasper Fforde. I knew to expect some outlandish puns this time and Boy Howdy! I was not disappointed.

The Fourth Bear follows Chief Detective Inspector Jack Spratt (head of the NCD – Nursery Crimes Division) and his assistant Detective Inspector Mary Mary through the investigation of a missing reporter who goes by the name of Goldilocks, last seen visiting a cottage in the woods where three bears live. Oh, you BET there’s a ton of allusion and terrible punch lines but it was worth it all just to see how much Fforde could fit into the story – and see how it all fit.

I don’t think I could summarize the story for you even if I wanted to because it was rather convoluted. It wasn’t confusing, just very twisty and turny. And because Fforde is English, I kept having to look up some of the lesser known nursery rhymes (apparently us Yanks aren’t as well versed in nursery liturature as the Brits)

Some people may shake their heads in disgust at the unashamed way that Fforde uses all the cliches and word play but I found it all rather entertaining. And indeed I had to doff my hat to him when, at one point, I realized that he had spent the first three-fourths of the book setting up a rather complicated joke on the sidelines. The same can be said for a particularly bad pun which most of the resolution of the plot depends on.  If you read this you may think “no one likes a pun” but that’s because secretly you’ll be jealous that you didn’t think of it first and pissed off that you didn’t see it coming. At least I was.

Right, this book is worth a summer read. Or even a winter-time-stuck-inside-because-there-is-nothing-else-to-do-and-its-raining read. Enjoy!

Written by James Stokoe

“I got my want-on for some won ton”

If you like Iron Chef, Manga, bad puns and robots who mumble things like “Imma the raddest” and “settin’ shit up.” Then you’re in luck!

Actually, this was a pretty fun comic to read. I haven’t read much in the way of Manga and I’m not even sure this would be considered Manga. The basic premise of the story is that our protagonist, Johnny Boyo, forfeits his life as famous, kick-ass master-chef-in-the-making to become a space-trucker. You’ll have to read it to find out why.

The only thing I didn’t really like were all the made up names of stuff. But after a while you come to an understanding with the author that it’s just his way of making fun of the genre, more or less. I found the dialogue more entertaining than I expected. Especially some of the throw-away lines from background characters:

“Why sir? Why did Rico have to die like that?”
“It’s statistics son. Some people have to combust.”

But really I think my favorite line is

“Will we ever have a chance at peace, sir?”
“Not if I can help it… War is too fucking awesome!”

Writen by Tom Holt

And now….

Faust Among Equals

This was an interesting story that was a wee bit hard to follow than the first book in this Omnibus, which was the previously commented on, Flying Dutch. In FaE, I understood that Hell was under new management and that it was trying to construct a “theme park” but the little details escaped me. Okay, most of the little details. I liked the bounty hunter character and Helen of Troy was, without a doubt, the funniest version of HoT I’ve met throughout literature, but as for Faust and all his buddies well, I was hopping about so much that it was hard to nail down if he was a good guy or a bad guy or just a super lucky bastard. I’m settling on lucky bastard. I don’t think this book was as good as Flying Dutch (though I did like that Venderdecker made an appearance) All told, not the best of Holt’s novels but if you’re on vacation or find yourself with a bit of time on your hands than I would recommend it.