an interesting children's book about a group of talented children who fight evil elsewhere in order to save several worlds including their own.

Selena Jones sees her husband in the arms of another woman when he should be on assignment in another country she decides that a foreign post is the way to escape some of her feelings. She then finds herself in the middle of a hostage crisis, chaos and confusion with her trying to convince the powers that be that she is serious. The only person who will help or listen is her husband, but she doesn't know if she can trust him.
Readable but nothing spectacular.

Interesting book that's all about parallel lives in this generation and a few generations earlier during the Huguenot opression in France.
An American woman, Ella Turner, moves with her husband to France and tries to find her feet there. Her ancestors were Tourniers and they come from somewhere pretty close to where they're living now. This searching for her roots cause her to ask questions about her relationship with her husband and whether or not he's the person she should be with.
At the same time it tells the story of Isabell du Moulin, known as La Rousse because of her hair. Trying the best to live her life but trapped in a marriage that is breaking her spirit.

This one left me with a feeling of incompletness. Maybe it would have been better if she had employed the same technique as in her later novels where she writes totally in the past. The connection to the painting was a bit more tenuous than in the others but still it's an interesting read. I just didn't find myself caring much for the characters or what happened in their lives, it was all quite abstract, I didn't get involved. It's interesting but in ways just not interesting enough for me.

Offlas Kiel is looking for forerunner artifacts. On Clio he has a hope of finding some, it's a closed planet. Set up as a Psychocrat experiment it's an almost medieval world. When Offlas' niece, Roane gets pulled into the local politics, she has to choose between family and friends. She also has to choose between leaving the world as it is or helping it change.

An interesting read but not one of her best.

Doing these two as one because they came bound as Truly Madly Manhattan, which is possibly the easier way to find these two.

Contains the two books Local Hero and Dual Image

The First of the two, Local Hero, has a comic book writer as the hero. A fun engaging book. Mitch Dempsey lives downstairs from the single mom Hester Wallace whose son, Radley, is one of Mitch's biggest fans. She's a little marriage and relationship shy from having Radley's Father walk out on their marriage. 4/5

The second is weaker but also fun. An actress who is a force of nature meets a director who has been badly burnt by a previous relationship and has written a film about it. Fun and interesting. 3/5

Having heard people talk about the series I decided to start at book one. An interesting mystery all about a murder being investigated again when the person convicted of the offence gets out of jail. I would be curious about the rest of the series but wouldn't be running to try to find them. You do find out at the beginning of the book that she's killed someone but you don't find out who until nearly the end of the book. Which does keep you guessing. Not all the evildoers get the conventional end, which is as it should be, however none of the ends are unbelievable.

Kinsey is an interesting character and I'm sure if I had met her when this series was in it's infancy, in the late 80s, I would probably have been very impressed with this matter of fact female dectective who doesn't take any prisoners. However at this stage I'm used to that kind of female decective.

The binding on this edition is quite poor.

Told from the point of view of a career soldier this is an interesting look at a possible future. The diatrabes against certain social phenonema is interesting but to me kinda boring, although it does allow you to get into the society depicted. It's not a society I'd like to live in but horses for courses.
It's a society where military gets kudos and the vote once they retire but as the Bug war is eating people and the training washes out a lot of people it's getting harder to get trained people out there.
I don't regret reading it but it's not a book I'd have any great enthuaism about re-reading.

An interesting collection of fairly dark fantasy stories all illustrated by different artists. In some instances the artwork was better than the stories but they're not bad as a whole.

Captain Kallista Varyl is engaged in a siege and it looks like the enemy is going to win when she calls on the One for aid and her call is answered. However along with aid comes power, power she can barely contain, there's also companions for her who help her and hold the power like wells. In this country people can join in marriages that contain between 2 and eight people. All of these people are joined to her in marriage. Not only does she have to deal with the magical relationships but also the interpersonal relationships.

Weak in parts but also interesting in others. This actually deals with people who have compulsions and powers that are very strong and unavoidable. It also has enough secondary plots and backbiting to keep me very interested.

An interesting set of stories, not necessarily the best Mercedes Lackey story but not bad, a good Tanith Lee story and the C E Murphy made me want to read more of her books.
Mercedes Lackey's story Moontide had only a very small amount of magic in it. A story of a sea-hold where the daughter of the ruling family returns after education to see what happened while she was gone and what the future holds for her and the keep.
Tanith Lee's The Heart of the Moon tells the story of a woman who has to overcome betrayal by her boyfriend with her best friend. Add to that her best friend's curse and she really needs to find peace and maybe romance (look, it's a romance compilation, predicting romance isn't a spoiler)
Banshee Cries by C E Murphy is however the best of the lot. A bridging story between Urban Shaman and Thunderbird Falls, this story had me start to curse once I finished reading it. I so wanted those books in my hands immediately. If they're half as good as the novella they'll be great! I enjoyed this story about a patrolwoman who finds that what she knows about her mother isn't necessarily the truth. That she has to hunt evil using the powers that she has and that despite this being in a fantasy/paranormal romance that there isn't really all that much romance there. Lovers of EARLY Anita Blake might like to wander this way.

Brian Duffy, an Irish soldier of fortune, finds that Venice isn't that healthy for him and when he's offered the job of bouncer for a tavern in Vienna that brews it's own, along with a healthy wage, he jumps at the chance.

Unfortunately for Brian, what he thought would be a retirement turns out to be a war between, not only the physical armies, but also the forces of good and evil and he has a pivotal role in this fight.

Interesting look at the war in Vienna between Austria and Turkey with reincarnated heroes and the people of the time trying to be themselves and resist the overshadowing by the archetypes. Although more mythic than fantastic (that border is kinda fuzzy in my head) I found Ash (by Mary Gentle) better book of this type.

The characters felt very real and were well fleshed out people with motives and problems and their lives got complicated by action or inaction.

This is the second Tim Powers I've approached with an intention to read, this is the first one I've finished, it wasn't bad I just left it with no enthuaism to hunt up more of his books, now if I happen on them I'll read them, but I won't actively hunt them up.

Luna, some comments

Luna is an interesting idea, a romance publishing firm notice that there's some romantic fantasy going around and it's selling so they bring out their own line. They also get some pretty big names in the fantasy world to include some of their books in the range, Mercedes Lackey and Tanith Lee, to mention just two that come to mind. They also afford some other authors an opportunity to try this field out.

And some of the books are actually quite good. I've read a few and I'm almost tempted to subscribe to get them as they're published, getting them here is a little the other side of complicated for my comfort (a little complicated from here but eh, why not occasionally splash out on little things) but some of them really need more work. They need critical editors who know a bit about Fantasy and will hit the authors for abusing fantasy, particularly fantasy cliches.

Still I will keep giving some of the authors a chance to impress me. Quite a lot of it is actually urban fantasy, which I really do like, but often authors get one strike and then they're out.

Michele Hauf is getting a second chance with Seraphim, mostly because it involves one of my favourite characters, Joan of Arc.

Gossamyr has been brought up by her Faery father, half-mortal and half-faery she's caught between the worlds and when The Red Lady is draining all Faery who wander into the mortal world someone has to try to stop her. Gossamyr is chosen. This is based in pseudo-medieval France where the characters have Medieval attitudes when it's plot-important.

She finds Ulrich who comes with her to help her, he strayed into a faery circle 10 years ago but to him it's only been a few hours. He's searching for his daughter (Rhiana - oh look sequel!) and is trying to come to terms with the world being different than he left it.

The very worst thing I can say about this book is that I didn't care. I had absolutely no emotional involvement in the book and really didn't care what happened to anyone. It possibly could have done with some editing and some more work.

It's not totally a bad book, it's just not a good book and I nearly abandoned it a few times because I didn't really care what happened next. I'm sure the author is capable of more and better.

In a world where the gods battled and five gods established themselves as the one true gods what happens when in another country there are another batch of gods who are claiming superiority?

The main character is Auraya and she's learning to deal with her place in the world as an immortal servant of the gods. What she has to do in the world and how she is going to help the world. The one think no-one really knows is the motivations of the Gods, and whether the gods they're fighting for are the good guys.

Not a bad read but not the best thing I've read. I'm not sure that it really was as good as she could write.

I read some of this series when I was younger and really enjoyed them, however I found that this felt a bit forced. In his Author's Note he said that he had an idea for a computer game and this is the partial expression of his concept of the game.

I've read worse but I have to say that I've read better, and in this series too. The constant preoccupation that Nada Naga seems to have with her own body just grates, and comes across as being more than a little sexist and out of place.

Dug and Kim seperately get into the life-like computer game of Xanth from the mundane world and find themselves very involved in it to the point of stepping into the game. The find themselves occaisionally tripping over the pun-laden world of Xanth, and the social formulae of the world as well.

Again not the worst book I've read but nothing spectacular. Sorry Piers you didn't win me back to hunting down the rest of the series to read it again.

The story wasn't bad but the enviromental/scientific lectures almost made me want to drop the book on Mr Crichton's head.

Taking a Lawyer, John Evans (why they took him along is never really clear) on a roller-coaster ride to try and stop some radical enviromentalists from causing a catastrophy to highlight the perils of ignoring the greenhouse effect. It questions the reality of received science and perception of problems. There's also a love interest in there somewhere and enough twists and turns to almost make you forget about the lectures.

Not the worst book I've read but honestly could have done with less data and more plot.

The story of three generations of women and how their lives mirror each other, yet stay different. What they are all looking for is love and a home but the searching doesn't always find what they're looking for. The echoes of Graineuaile and mermaids in the story were well done as well. The different way that people deal with grief is dealt with quite well and in an sympathetic manner.


This is one of the few books I've read by someone from the US that doesn't make me want to get annoyed because they dwell on comparing Ireland to the US. This just describes how things are and lets the reader decide.

I really did enjoy the story, I'm glad that my curiousity about some LibraryThing Authors made me hunt it up and read it. I would recommend it as a read.

An interesting story, partially for the entire story itself but also for the interwoven myth and historical interpretation of it in later years. How centuries later the story is twisted by the perception of the writers. It was funny to see how the most discredited writer was actually closer to the truth than the more academically accepted writers.

Jenna's life is haunted by a prophecy. Everything she does seems to fulfil this prophecy and sets the wheels in motion to change the world she lives in. With a patriarchy meeting a matriarcy this is going to be an interesting fight for the future of this world. Set in a pseudo earth with some roots in this one it's an interesting read.

An interesting story about revenge and overcoming blindness with the help of faerie at a time when faerie was starting to leave England. Quite a good read but in some ways left me wanting more and wanting a little less of the archaic.