Team Human

by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan

Grade: 3 stars (maybe 2 1/2?)
Story: Mel's best friend Cathy has fallen in love with a vampire. Big time. As in majorly Romantic Romeo/Juliet type love. And now it's up to Mel to stop what is obviously a very, very bad idea.

Thoughts: Lots of fun. I always like books that play on cliches in some way, and fortunately, Twilight has spawned enough of them to last for some time yet.

I do think they could have done a little more with Kit, though. I mean, he was raised by vampires, for Pete's sake! That ought to do a little more to you than make you ignorant of the fact that guys often say "I'll call you" as a way to break up with you. The reasoning behind his name was a cool way of showing the relationship between vampires and humans, but again--wouldn't that do something to one's psyche to be thought of in that respect? And to have your name actually be [spoiler]?

It was funny and light. I suppose I was expecting a bit more since Sarah Rees Brennan usually writes books full of danger and darkness. But ah well. Still fun.

Brain Jack

by Brian Falkner

Grade: 4 stars
Story: Hacking! Daring escapes! Distopian apocalypse! And lots and lots of computers!


Review: I've been on a bit of a reading slump. I'm not sure why. I can hardly read anything right now. But it is not terribly surprising that the one book that I could read at this time was a YA cyber thriller. WITH HACKING!!!

Yeah, so as you might have guessed, I like computers. I study computer science at university, and this kind of book makes me wish I actually studied hard. In that respect, it reminds me of Evil Genius and its sequels, by Catherine Jinks. Except it has the added benefit of an apocalypse-type end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario. In fact, I think if this book has a fault, it's that there are too many good things packed into it. It started out reminding me a lot of Evil Genius, with a young male prodigy with not the highest morals. Then it morphs into an Born Identity-like escape sequence, until finally ending in an almost 1984-ish distopian finish. It was all great stuff. However, personally I would have preferred that it stayed in the first mode. The part where the slightly amoral teenage genius stumps the officials with mega-cool hacking.

Zombies vs. Unicorns

ed. by Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black

Grade: Good
Story: Short stories exploring the long-standing battle between zombies and unicorns. Which makes for more powerful stories? Which has more creativity and passion? Which is more AWESOME? Read to find out.


Review: Unicorns won. Sorry Larbalestier.
The unicorn stories were, in general:

• More fun.
• Equally as creepy without being simply gross and unpleasant.
• Less concerned with the type of romance which is not to my taste.
• Definitely as unique and original, and arguably more so. Lots of people do zombies nowadays.

"The Highest Justice" by Garth Nix
Garth Nix is so awesome that Team Unicorn won almost immediately simply from having him on their team. This one wasn't the best GN I've ever read, but it was still interesting and well done.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Meh. Didn't like this one. Didn't finish it. I find it very difficult to like love stories anyway, and this one wasn't good.

"Purity Test" by Naomi Novik
I seem to like Novik's short stories considerably more than her novels. She's good at unique dialogue and characters, which I find pretty essential for short stories, but I'm never quite interested in them enough to last through a whole book.

"Bougainvillea" by Carrie Ryan
Meh. The changes in time were simply confusing.

"A Thousand Flowers" by Margo Lanagan
Creepy, creepy. Bleh. It was fascinating, but rather horrible.

"The Children of the Revolution" by Maureen Johnson
This one was creepy, but in a good way. I think it might have been my favourite Zombie story. Unlike the two stories before it, it felt very contained and to the point, which I like in short stories.

"The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn" by Diana Peterfruend
This was lots of fun, though I can see inklings of some of the issues CH might have had with her longer novels.

"Ioculata" by Scott Westerfeld
This was ok--some interesting ideas.

"Princess Prettypants" by Meg Cabot
This one was simply Great Fun.

"Cold Hands" by Cassandra Clare
Probably my second favourite zombie story. Slightly creepy, but not overwhelmingly so, and a love story that was strange, but not too much for me (actually, I'm not even sure if it counts as a love story, exactly).

"The Third Virgin" by Kathleen Duey
Again slightly creepy, but I liked it. Quite a different take on unicorns than even all the other original takes in this book.

"Prom Night" by Libba Bray
I didn't really get this one. Maybe because I was trying to read it and listen to a fascinating conversation at the same time? At any rate, I didn't understand quite what happened, plus it seemed like a not quite as good version of Michael Grant's Gone series.

How to Ditch Your Fairy

by Justine Larbalestier

Grade: Good
Story: Charlie has a parking fairy. And she hates it. Thus the title of this book. Slight chaos ensues, with plenty of unintended consequences.

Review: This is one of those books that plants you in a world, complete with loads of unknown slang and rules, and doesn't explain it at all. I LOVE that. However, as with Singing the Dogstar Blues, I'm not sure how much of this is Australian and how much is simply made up. From the glossary at the end, I suspect it's made up, which is awesome.

My main problem with this book is that besides the cool and unique world, there wasn't a lot else. The plot was very simple, Steffi didn't seem to have much character at all other than being "pulchy", and the worldbuilding, though unique, was rather limited. I know the point was that the characters were totally self-absorbed with their city and school, but I still wanted to know what the rest of the country/planet was like.

So I guess it was good fun, but not Great Fun.

See: Top Ten (Or So): Australian Authors and Books.

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer

by Lish McBride

Grade: Good
Story: Talking heads! Fairy werewolves! Siblings! Strange uncles! And of course--Necromancers!

Review: Great fun. I'm hoping there's a sequel, especially since it looks like Sam's best friend Ramon might be even cooler now than he was before. And of course, Sam is mega-cool now. And his mother is cool, and his half-sisters are cool, and his girlfriend is cool, etc.

In general, though, despite simply the fun of it all (did I mention werewolves and talking heads? And necromancers??), I loved the relationships. Sam had a group of friends around him, not simply his funny best friend, and they were actual friends with different ages and personalities. And his extended family was pretty darn awesome (with one exception), although they weren't in the book much. And then Brid had her brothers (who were awesome) and her whole pack, of course.

Sometimes it seemed like it could be a little tighter, mostly because the viewpoint switched so much. There were four different viewpoints at least, possibly five if I missed one, and they were rather unevenly distributed. I liked all of them, actually, but it was maybe just a bit imbalanced.

But that's only a quibble, which I suspect might be improved as McBride writes more. This is her first book, after all. Anyway, as I said, Great Fun.

The Magicians and Mrs. Quent

by Galen Beckett

Grade: Good
Story: Ivy Lockwell gets drawn into mystery, magic, and love. Plus there's a magic forest, a cryptic riddle, a Mr. Rochester (complete with moors), and an insane asylum.

Review: This was a little uneven for me. Firstly because of the way the book was divided up. The first third was totally Jane Austen, the second third was Bronte, the last third was...I don't know, Charles Dickens? Or more likely just pure Galen Beckett. Whatever it was, it was not as obvious as the first two thirds. Anyway, it was also divided up between view points. There was Ivy Lockwell, poor and eldest of three sisters; Dashton Rafferdy, dashing (what do you know) and rich and bored; and Eldyn Garritt, poor and desperate and strangely attracted to a particular angel statue which hangs out outside the church. So I actually rather liked the interspertion of Rafferdy's and Ivy's points of view. It worked well, especially with how their story lines worked out. But Eldyn? He totally had nothing to do with the story. Ok, so he saved the life of somebody's father, and he met with Rafferdy once or twice, but really he SO did not deserve his own story line. Plus he annoyed me a bit, so there was that. And he was so mean to his sister.

But the story itself was interesting. I like the magic system in this book. I loved all the "umbral" and "lumenal" stuff--the varying lengths of nights and days. It poses a lot of questions, though. What about seasons? Do they have them at all? How on earth do they know enough to have an almanac? I liked the way the Romance turned out, mostly. It was somewhat unexpected in some ways. I liked the characters: Ivy was awesome; her sisters were great too; I started out not liking Rafferdy at all, but by the end I loved him; I didn't like Eldyn, but I already mentioned that.

Besides all this, I think I can really say that historical fantasy really is one of my top genres. "Historical fantasy" as in historical fiction, but from some alternate universe where magic is as common as technology.

Divergent

by Veronica Roth

Grade: Good
Story: Beatrice lives in a dystopian world where you choose the future course of your life by choosing a "faction".

Review: I had been told by someone that this book was so amazingly awesome that it was BETTER than Hunger Games! It's not. Not to say that it isn't engrossing, intriguing, and entertaining. It is. It's just not Hunger Games.

Anyway, now that's out of the way, let's talk about the actual book.
--I love the idea of factions, just like I love the Houses in Harry Potter. They could even be roughly equivalent: Erudite=Ravenclaw, Dauntless=Gryffindor, Amnity=Hufflepuff. None of them quite equal Slytherin, though.
--I love physical training stories, like this and Hunger Games and Poison Study.
--I love dystopia and worlds of the future where you can see hints of the world we live in now.
--I love books that are fast-paced and plot-filled, which I finish in a day.
--I love siblings, but I don't love siblings that hardly show up at all. I was looking forward to Caleb/Tris stuff, and it hardly ever happened.
--I don't love Romance, except when I really love it, which is rare. This was not one of those rare occasions. But the plot and general cool dystopian-ness was enough for me to be able to ignore it.

P.S. Definitely looking forward to the sequel. The cover shows the symbol for Amity on the front, which should be cool. They weren't in this one much, so I'd like to learn more about them.

Entwined

by Heather Dixon

Grade: Good
Story: The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Plus an Evil King, a Bertie Wooster, a Family Tragedy, a set of Magic Sugar Tongs, and Lots and Lots of Dancing.

Review: I almost, almost stopped reading this one on page 18. I was annoyed by the meeting between Azalea and her love interest, as seems to happen so often with me. And then I stop and never finish.
BUT. But, but, but! I may, perhaps, just maybe, be getting over my terrible inability! Because THIS time, I continued! I looked at the back, confirmed to myself that he was the love interest, sighed to myself and thought "Oh well, there goes another awesome book back to the library simply because I have an issue with Romance." But then something came over me, and I decided I did not care. I read on! In fact, I read through almost all my classes (not usually recommended, that) and finished less than 24 hours after I started.

Now before you get too excited and think that I am over my Romance issues forever, it is important to observe a few points:
--The Romance was really quite minimal. In fact, I'm almost glad I didn't love it, because perhaps if I did like it I would have been disappointed. Not that  in the past even minimal Romance hasn't stopped me from reading books before, because it most certainly has.
--However many times his eyes were described (which usually bothers me), he was never described as "sexy" or "incredibly handsome" or any such thing. In fact, the person who was MOST described thusly was...well, spoilers. Anyway, so all the descriptions of him really seemed more like it was simply Azalea falling in love, as opposed to the way so many books seem to be trying to force ME to fall in love as well. And I DO NOT want to love the hero of a book unless I really like him, and not just his sexy eyes. Anyway.
--There were sisters. 11 of them. (This IS the Twelve Dancing Princesses, after all, and in my opinion, you should always try to actually have twelve of them, and not just some "large" number like...5.) And some of them have Romances of their own. Romances that I felt quite free to love very much. If this were not the case, I probably would have put down the book.

And besides all this, there's simply the fact that this was really a story about a family. And they seemed like a family. The sisters were adorable, and I love siblings.

(Plus Lord Teddie = Bertie Wooster. Ha ha!)

The Ghosts of Ashbury High

by Jaclyn Moriarty

Grade: Good
Story: Riley and Amelia show up at Ashbury High, and all of a sudden there's betrayal, Irish folk tales, Gothic literature, and lots of GHOSTS!

Review: I was in a bit of a reading slump, you may have noticed from the lack of reviews recently. But I should have known this would be the one to get me out of it. Jaclyn Moriarty is AWESOME. She's one of the few people whom I don't have to fall in love with a particular character or relationship or plot device, but simply love her story and writing and ALL her characters. (I think...now that I think of it I'm not so sure...DO excuse the vagueness of this review. It's NaNoWriMo and Midterms at the same time. My brain is SHOT.)

I mean:
Emily--Normally I think she would bug me, done by a different author, but SHE. She is hilarious and amazing.
Lydia--Complex, fascinating, awesome.
Toby--Sweet, imaginative, filled with fascinating thoughts on Black Holes.
Riley--Bursting with all sorts of suppressed emotions, thus rather fascinating as well.
Amelia--Not as interesting on her own, but what a presence!

None of these characters, or the myriad of others that show up in smaller roles, are the "types" I would usually like. But Moriarty takes them all past their stereotypes, and writes a cracking good story with mystery, development, lots of school (I love school!), and GHOSTS! (Maybe.)

Not quite as awesome as The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie, but awesome all the same.

The Visconti House

by Elsbeth Edgar

Grade: Good
Story: Laura Horton lives in an old Italian house in Australia with her artistic parents. She meets a boy, and together they discover the secrets of the old house, and the reclusive man who lived there.

Review: This is the sort of Middle Grade fiction that perhaps really is better enjoyed by someone in Middle Grade. I mean, it was good--very good. I liked it. But I think I would have liked it better at age 14, or younger. In some ways, it was simply a story of children (teenagers, in this case) and discovery, somewhat like E. Nesbit and such. The mood and atmosphere made it worth the read, though.

See Top Ten (Or So) Australian Authors and Books.

The Margrave

by Catherine Fisher

Grade: Good
Story: The Master, the Apprentice, the Spy, and the Cat-Person continue the adventures started in The Dark City, The Lost Heiress, and The Hidden Coronet.

Review:
SOME SPOILERS FOR SAPPHIQUE, AND ALSO SOME FOR THIS SERIES
I was immensely satisfied with this ending. For some reason, I thought it would go a similar way to Sapphique. In other words, I thought Raffi would stay stuck pretty much forever with an entity that was mostly evil, in a similar way to Jared and Incarceron at the end of Sapphique. Also for some reason I thought that there would be a sort of not-really-romantic pairing of Carys and Raffi, as with Finn and Claudia. I don't know why.
But nooo! Carys got pretty much the best ending I can think of, and so did Galen. Raffi was never my favourite character, but his ending is absolutely perfect too, in my mind. The only one I would have liked more for was the Sekoi. But he got his grand part in the climax, so I'm not too disappointed. I like the amount that was left undiscovered about the Sekoi race. And how much trouble there was going to be in the future, as they still had to get rid of the Watch and all that. In fact, it pretty much had that "And then they went off and had a lot more adventures just like the ones in the books you just read, only BETTER!" ending, which I LOVE. Pretty much my favourite type of ending. I can't think of many books or movies with that type of wonderful ending right now, except maybe the first Pirates of the Caribbean, but I know there are many.

I am mostly as immensely satisfied with the characters as I was for the first book.
--Carys is still awesome. I would have liked the uncertainty around her to last a little longer, though. I'm glad she went definitely on the side of the good--I do always want that for all the Liars I love--but I so much love that period of uncertainty where you really have no flippin' idea what she's going to do next, or which of her many lies are less untruthful than the others. Ben Linus managed that until pretty much the end of his series. I know I shouldn't compare all Liars to Ben, because it's slightly unfair for them, but I'm afraid I'm going to continue. Because I like Ben. And he's the Ultimate Liar. Anyway.
--Galen continued to be all dark and broody and tortured, and I loved him as much by the end of the last book as by the end of the first. In fact, probably better, especially with that lovely part where he's terribly nasty to Raffi and then feels terribly guilty. And his ending and part in the climax was perfect.
--Raffi wasn't made much more interesting to me through the course of three more books, but his ending was good enough that I'm left with pleasant, happy feelings for him.
--The Sekoi! Was awesome! I wish there was more of it! Or him! Or whatever!
--The Margrave (the character) reminded me of Incarceron (the character) too much. Except Incarceron was better.

Now for issues.
Mostly there aren't any. Because this is such a Middle Grade series, I wasn't bothered by the lack of Romance. In fact, I'm not really ever with Fisher. It's mostly just her attitude on her website FAQ towards Romance that bugs me.
Anyway, as I was saying, there aren't many. But, as with the Oracle Trilogy, the main problem is philosophical. It wasn't as bad here as the Oracle Trilogy, I think. But there seemed to be a lot of Gnosticism  going on. Plus...well, I guess this wasn't really an issue. Religion was treated very respectfully (and Galen, the religious fanatic, was one of the best characters), but just not as true. Which I guess it wouldn't be if this story really did take place, but...I dunno. I've stopped being coherent and logical now. So let's just say "I have a bad feeling about this" philosophical element of all of Fisher's books, and leave it at that. I could be dead wrong. I probably am.


Just as an interesting side note, it's funny that the second Romance found so far in all the CF I've read is AGAIN between one pretty totally evil person, and one extremely flawed and on the evil side, but not actually evil person. Ok, I'm not sure if that makes sense, but compare Quist and Scala in this book with whatever-their-names-are from the Oracle trilogy--you know, the principle evil character and the Speaker lady he loved. They're very similar. And THE ONLY proper Romances in the entire Oracle series, Incarceron series, and Relic Master series.

The Hidden Coronet

by Catherine Fisher

Grade: Good
Story: The Master, the Apprentice, the Spy, and the Cat-Man continue the adventures began in The Dark City and The Lost Heiress.

Review: Since I read the last three books in this series all in about 1 1/2 days, I'm going to review the whole lot in The Margrave.

The Lost Heiress

by Catherine Fisher

Grade: Good
Story: The Master, the Apprentice, the Spy, and the Cat-man continue the adventures began in The Dark City.

Review: So, of course, I read all of the next three books in about 1 1/2 days. So I'm not going to review them separately. You'll have to read all about it in the review of the last book, The Margrave.

Lies

by Michael Grant

Grade: Good

Story: Children die horribly. Children do unspeakably evil acts. But it's a good book anyway! Really! Just rather ... horrible.

See the previous books: Gone and Hunger and the next books: Plague, Fear, and Light.

Review: Aaaaaaaaah.... aaah. This series is almost too intense for me. But really, it's awesome.

And I don't really have much else to say. What could I say? These books fly by so fast, and it's just one intense event after another, you come out of it rather dazed and confused.

Ok, here's one thing I can think of. Edilio is officially now my favourite character. He's totally heroic and awesome, without being Heroic and Handsome like Sam, plus he's Catholic to boot.

Oh, and I like Sanjit too, but I don't know enough about him yet to add him to my favourite characters.

Oh, and Mary's Big Jump! WOW, that was ... I don't know. Her whole slide into insanity thing...I love slides into insanity. They totally freak me out.

Oh, and I hope Caine finds some humanity in the future, because I still rather like him. Mostly because Diana actually does love him, and I have rather a soft spot for Diana.

Oh, and what's up with Justin??

The Demon's Surrender

by Sarah Rees Brennan

Grade: Good
Story: Demons! Magicians! Brothers! Unexpected Love! Dancing! Alan Ryves!
Previously: The Demon's Lexicon, The Demon's Covenant

Review: Alan, Alan, Alan. I'm such a huge Alan fan. Is there something about pathological liars that invariably attracts me? But of course, it's not only that. He manages to be simultaneously a pathological liar AND one of the sweetest fictional guys ever (below Rory Williams, the Last Centurion, though). In fact, that's pretty much why I read these books. That, and the relationship between the siblings. Mostly Alan and Nick, but also Mae and Jamie, and Sin and her two younger siblings.

Ok, but besides Alan, this book was perhaps my favourite. Perhaps. On the one hand, I wasn't as surprised and shocked by the ending as I had been for the previous two, especially TDC (I mean, what poor Alan had to do and go through there...), but I read the whole thing through and didn't skip parts this time. It seemed almost more... complete, this time round. I'm not sure quite how to explain it, but I think it's partly due to having Sin as a narrator. I think Sin is my favourite non-Alan character ("I like dancers. Dancers are cool."), and the relationship between her and Alan is pretty awesome.

See: Top Ten (Or So): Conmen.

The Dark City

by Catherine Fisher

Grade: Good
Story: Raffi and his master Galen are on the run from evil members of the Watch, who hate sorcerers such as they. Along the way, they meet up and join with a member of this evil Watch, Carys, (obviously THEY don't know she's a member of the Watch), and also a non-human cat-like person who is never named because they couldn't pronounce its name anyway. They go on a quest of sorts to a) get back Galen's lost power, the loss of which is slowly driving him insane b) capture said non-human cat-like person who is never named, c) find the Crow, who is the messenger to God, and who might help to fix the rotten world they live in.

Review: This is why I love Catherine Fisher. I'm still trying to get through the Snowwalkers trilogy by her, and it's been tough going. But this one immediately has the elements about her writing that make her one of my favourite authors (below Megan Whalen Turner, Chesterton, Diana Wynne Jones, some others I've forgotten, about on par with Jonathan Stroud), namely:
--Very ambiguous and complex characters. Raffi is the only person in the whole book who seems pretty much straightforward. Carys is amazing, and I loved her, and Galen is the type of person I like immediately, always. He's all dark and tormented, poor fellow, without being all sexy with powerful thighs like the last book I read. (Sorry, Enthusiasm. You had lots of good points. I just CAN'T STAND lead male characters who are introduced by their good looks.)
I read a review about the characters which compare them too much with the Incarceron characters, but I disagree. True Raffi might be a bit like Finn, but I'm slightly biased in that regard because Raffi and Finn are not my type. But Galen is completely and totally different than Jared. I mean, they are both teachers, I guess, and they both have a physical sickness or problem of some sort, but otherwise... And Carys is very different from Claudia. Their names start with the same letter, and they're both clever and complex, but Carys is so much more changeable and manipulative.
Ack. Anyway.
--The world. It's complexity and originality. This one was AWESOME. It reminded me of some of DWJ's work, where things we know from everyday are so disguised by the fact that nobody in the book knows what they are, that they seem to be something else entirely, if that makes sense. And oh, I'm not very articulate right now, but it really is cool. Maybe not quite as cool as Incarceron, simply because Incarceron was ALIVE.
--I'm not going to comment on the lack of romance this time, because it's one book out of four that are all closely connected, as far as I can see. But I probably will for the last one, even though I seem to comment on it for every CF book. Just to warn you. And perhaps I really shouldn't for these books because they're Middle Grade, but I don't care because this is MY review and opinion. SO THERE nasty non-existent readers!

So in summary, even if the world weren't intriguing and completely original, I would love it for Carys and Galen. Carys reminds me vaguely of a female Ben Linus (who almost tops the charts of my favourite TV characters ever)--her lying seems to come out of her instinctively, and no one (except maybe Galen, but that's partly because of his religious fanatacism--see next sentence) can ever really tell whether she's telling the truth or not. And Galen is a religious fanatic who's one of the GOOD guys. That's quite refreshing. It doesn't mean his fanaticism is portrayed as a good thing, necessarily, but understandable. At least for me.

Sequels are: The Lost Heiress, The Hidden Coronet, and The Margrave.

Rage

by Jackie Morse Kessler

Grade: Good
Story: Missy cuts herself. Also she's a Rider of the Apocalypse. (See the first book, Hunger, and the third and fourth, Loss and Breath.)

Review: Basically, see Hunger. All my points still apply:
--I still don't like it that Death is described as so attractive and sexy. I mean, I don't mind if he is so much... Because actually, embarrassingly enough, I really like love stories with Death, whether it be grandfatherly affection, as in Discworld, or Romantic as in Keturah and Lord Death. But just ... I really don't like it when he's described as such, especially multiple times. But he's still Death. He's still awesome, even if he IS attractive and sexy. And you know what? War and Death, they do go rather well together.
--And the other three Horsemen are still awesome. They are always awesome and always will be. Why don't more people write stories about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Move over Edward Cullen and the vampires! Move over angels and mermaids and werewolves! Here come the Riders!
--The Issue, in this case cutting, was also handled well, I thought, like the last book. Although, as with the Issue in the last book, I don't really know anything about it, so maybe I'm wrong. I do slightly sympathize more with this Issue than with Anorexia though.

Now here's something that's slightly different from the last book.
This one was about War. War is passionate. In LOTS of different ways. There was a LOT of description of violence in this book, much of it rather gruesome, and a lot of sexual stuff--too much for my taste. Now the violence doesn't worry me too much; in fact, sometimes I almost like it which is slightly worrisome. But I kind of wish there wasn't quite so much lust going around. Anyway.

Anyhow, looking forward to the next one. I believe the next one has a male protagonist, and is about Pestilence, whom I've always been curious about. There's also supposed to be more about the mythology of this world, which would be cool.

P.S. Death shows up on my Top Ten (Or So): Anthropomorphic Personifications of Death.

The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group

by Catherine Jinks

Grade: Good
Story: (from the inside cover) When Tobias Richard Vandevelde wakes up in a hospital with no memory of the night before, his horrified mother tells him that he was found unconscious. At Featherdale Wildlife Park. In a dingo pen.

Review: Well, that was fun. I love werewolves. And it was cool to see the characters from The Reformed Vampire Support Group make a return. Especially Reuben who was awesome. (He WAS in RVSG, right? I hate my memory sometimes.)

However, there was something missing to make it an awesome, awesome book. I don't know what exactly. Sometimes it seemed like there was nothing much happening, even though there was plenty happening and all was chaos. And ... I don't know. It lacked something. Something that her other books (at least the first two Genius books) had. It didn't seem to have enough of a point, somehow.

However, how can you resist such an awesome title?

P.S. My brother asked me the other day which I liked better, vampires or werewolves. And I discovered, much to my chagrin, that I couldn't make up my mind. I mean, the werewolves have Lupin (HP) and Oz (Buffy) and Angua (Discworld) and Henry Foss (Sanctuary), and Bigby (Fables)!! But vampires are just ... so COOL. And Spike (Buffy, Angel) and Angel (Buffy, Angel) and Nikola Tesla (also from Sanctuary)? Also Lady Margollatta and Otto von Chriek and Maladict from Discworld. Arghh...this bugs me that I can't decide.

The Scarab

also called "Day of the Scarab"

by Catherine Fisher

Grade: Good
Summary: Everything has gone wrong since the climax of the last book. Even more wrong than it was in the last book. The present evil ruler, General Argelin, is slowly going crazier and crazier. Foreign mercenaries are taking over the land. Everything's a mess. Luckily there is a priestess who speaks to the god, a boy with the god inside him, an ex-drunk musician, an aristocratic lord of thieves, and a clever and ambitious scribe to save the day.
Sequel to The Oracle and The Archon

Review: Awesome, awesome. I think now that I've finished the series, the second book might be my favourite, what with the agonizing journey through the desert. But I finished this one way faster, and this one was by far the easiest to get into, and besides, it was the big finale.

The characters are still awesome. I LOVE LOVE LOVE how her books never properly have villains. Even the very evilest people are somehow sympathetic, and not only to us, but to the other characters as well. And even the most wonderful of the heroes has some rather unlikable flaws. In this case, a good example would be the horrible General Argelin, but also Chryse, the traitoress! That was cool. In Incarceron and Sapphique, almost all the characters are either good but seriously flawed (like Claudia, and the blood-brother guy of Finn's--can't remember his name), or evil but hugely sympathetic, like the Warden and Incarceron itself.
Anyway, as with the other two books, Rhetia and the Jackal are still my favourites by far. Rhetia was not in it quite enough for my liking, but I think the Jackal was firmly established as one of the principal characters. I just wish we got to find out a bit more about what happened to him. Anyway--thieves!!! Did I mention I liked them?

I only really have two small complaints. One is the notion which creeps in (I see it in Terry Pratchett a bunch too) that the gods are somehow dependent on their worshipers' belief in them. I don't like this idea at all. And it's not only because it seems to reflect on my personal beliefs, but also just because I think the gods aren't quite as cool if they need us to exist.

And the second:
Ok, so Fisher obviously isn't completely against Romance. However, it still is rather unusual that in a whole series of books, the only obvious Romance is between the guy who's basically the villain of the whole piece, and a lady who died in the second book. There were definitive hints of it between Mirany and Seth, but not more than hints. And that was it. Rather refreshing, but as I said in an earlier Catherine Fisher review, I actually find it a bit bothersome. Maybe because I like her characters so much, and NONE of them are described as sexy, and I think she could do it tastefully.

Other books with cool thieves: Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman? by Eleanor Updale, also its sequels; The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, and its sequels (The King of Attolia in that series is one of my favourite books OF ALL TIME); the Father Brown stories by G. K. Chesterton (Flambeau forever!); The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley (also other Robin Hood retellings, but this is the best); The Book Thief by Markus Zusak; Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones; the Vicky Bliss series with the Lord-Peter-Wimsey-ish art thief, Sir John Symthe (starts with Borrower of the Night, but I skipped that one because it doesn't have Smythe in it, and moved right to Street of the Five Moons); also many, many more that I can't think of at this time.

The Archon

also called "The Sphere of Secrets"

by Catherine Fisher

Grade: Good
Story: Mirany and company saved their country by restoring the god to his proper rule. But of course all isn't over yet. The Archon, in whom dwells the god, insists on a pilgrimage to find the mythical Well of Songs, and leaves the country to get in worse and worse condition under the tyrannical general Argelin.
Sequel to The Oracle.

I always find it immensely difficult to write about early books in series when I go straight from one to the next until I finish the series. So I'll save most of my review of this one for the review of The Scarab. However, a couple comments.

--It was a bit hard to get into at first, like the first one. They remind me a bit of Diana Wynne Jones books, actually. I often find those slightly hard to begin, what with all the strange names, and children who are a lot younger than me, and lack of immediate plot.
--My two favourite characters, the Jackal and Rhetia, were in this one some more. Especially the Jackal. Yay! I love thieves!
--My favourite part was all of the travelling through the desert. There's just something about a disparate group of people who rather dislike each other travelling through immense hardship and saving each others' lives and accidentally revealing all their inner turmoil, because you can't help but share hidden secrets when you're stuck dying in the middle of the desert or being eaten by birds.