A Darker Shade of Magic (V. E. Schwab)

The story started slow: it wasn't until nearly 1/3 of the way through that the two main characters met and the main problem was engaged. Until then there was a lot of world-building, with parallel London joined by magical doors only a select few can cross. There was also a rather stereotypical Feisty Female character, fun but a bit one-dimensional. By the middle, though, the action, and my interest, picked up, and it was satisfying enough in the end.

Codex Born (Jim Hines)

The second book in this series lives up to the promise of the first. When Gutenberg developed the printing press, he made it possible for thousands of people to read identical copies of the same book, and their collective belief in the story made libriomancy possible. Those with the innate ability can reach into books and pull out the things inside; phasers, sonic screwdrivers, magic seeds. But there's a darker magic hiding in the books, something much older even than Gutenberg, and it is coming through and threatening the world. Isaac, Lena, Nhidi, Smudge, and a whole army of good guys have to fight not swarms of magical insects, but enemy forces that seemingly negate magic all together. Lots of fun.

Fool Moon (Jim Butcher)

Harry Dresden is a wizard in contemporary Chicago, working with the police to solve crimes that have occult elements. In this story, people have been torn apart by something with monstrous claws and teeth right around the full moon, and Harry has to figure out how to stop it. There are multiple kinds of werewolves in this story, some good, some bad, some in between, but the real complication comes as Harry tries to sort out his relationships with three women: his young apprentice, a smart and lovely reporter, and a tough, no-nonsense detective. I love this series, because the stories are engaging and Harry is someone I can really like.

Libriomancer (Jim C. Hines)

This is the first book in a series, and I expect to keep reading it. It's a contemporary fantasy based on the idea that books are magical. When enough people read the same book in the same form, and it's written well enough so that the story becomes real for them as they read, then people who have the proper magical abilities can literally reach into the book and pull things out into the real world. Isaac, the hero of this story, has pulled out things like sonic screwdrivers, blasters, and light sabers. There are magical creatures in the world, some naturally created and some book-based (such as the recent appearance of sparkly vampires), and there's a balance of power between the libriomancers who govern the magic of the books and other magical beings (vampires, werewolves, and such). This balance has been disrupted recently; both vampires and libriomancers have suffered attacks that they blame on each other, and before total war breaks out Isaac has to find out who's behind it and defeat them. Along the way he joins up with a dryad and his trusty pet fire spider. Isaac is a good hero, smart and engaging and sympathetic, and the idea of magical books appeals to me. Lots of fun.

Storm Front (Jim Butcher)

I've read a few of the books from this series here and there and liked them, so I'm starting over from the beginning. Harry Dresden is a wizard, all trained up and powerful and everything, living in modern Chicago and hanging out an actual shingle identifying himself as such. There are lots of other wizards around (he's got a very chancy relationship with the White Council that governs wizards' affairs), but he's the only one that's out and public. He's called in as a police consultant to study some particularly gruesome murders that have a magical basis, and also hired by a woman as a private investigator to look for her husband, an amateur wizard who's disappeared. Naturally, these two cases come together in an unexpected but satisfying way. I really like Harry's voice and attitude. He's a good guy with some serious skills who throws himself into problems way beyond his level when there are people in trouble. He reminds me a bit of Travis McGee, in John D. MacDonald's wonderful series, with a layer of cool magic on top.

River Marked (Patricia Briggs)

I still love this series of contemporary fantasies, featuring Mercy Thompson, who is tough, brave, sexy, and compassionate. In this story, the focus is firmly on Mercy's relationship with Adam, and on coming to terms with her Native-American culture and with Coyote, as they band together to fight an abomination of a river monster that's been returned from the dead to prey on people. Her mechanic shop, the vampires, fae, and even the rest of the wolf pack are secondary. The action is intense, the stakes are high, and Adam and Mercy are put through the wringer in every possible way, but they manage to come through in the end. I will definitely keep reading these as long as she keep writing them.

All the Birds in the Sky (Charlie Jane Anders)

I really enjoyed this book that perfectly straddles the line between science fiction and fantasy. Two children form a bond because they are both misfits, misunderstood by their families and rejected by other kids. Over time their lives cross, diverge, and recross as they follow different paths. Patricia is a witch who feels a mystical connection to nature, especially birds; Laurence is an engineer who invents machines to bend nature to his will. As the things around them begins to fall apart due to ecological disasters and ensuing war, they have to find a way to blend their different perspectives to save the world. I loved how the books language shifted as the children grew up into powerful adults, and their stories drew me in, though the ending didn't have as much resonance as the rest of the book did, at least for me. Still a worthwhile read.

Blood Runs in the Family (Rich Burlew)

This fifth book in Burlew's series about the adventures of the Order of the Stick maintains and builds on the strong characters and stories he has managed to create out of a set of cartoon stick figures. Although the series began long ago as throw-away comics based on the rules and foibles of Dungeons and Dragons role-playing games, it has become so much more. There are several sets of contradictions here. First, the art seems simple but manages to convey depth and personality with skill. Second, the characters are simultaneously living authentic lives within the semi-medieval setting of a typical role-playing setting and also aware of the game itself. How Burlew pulls this off, I don't know, but he does. In this book, our heroes travel to the desert on the Western Continent, searching for the third of five mystical Gates after the first two were destroyed. This gate is hidden by the illusions of a master wizard, but they find something there that shatters one of the characters almost beyond redemption. Some plot lines in the long story arc come to an end, a few threads are tied off, and there's a sense of the story arc starting to narrow in toward the final confrontations, still off in the future. I wait impatiently for the next book!

Iron Kissed (Patricia Briggs)

Another story of Mercy Thompson, the shapeshifting mechanic and her world of werewolves, vampires, witches, and fae. She is called in to investigate a series of murders in the fae reservation: murders that have never been reported to authorities because the fae handle these things themselves, but Mercy's fae friend Zee thinks her special coyote abilities might be useful. Along the way Zee winds up imprisoned for a murder he didn't commit and Mercy finds herself a target of the real murdered, who stalks her for his own twisted pleasures. Mercy's ties to Adam, the Alpha of the local werewolf pack, grow ever tighter in this story. I'm really loving these books!

Finn Fancy Necromancy (Randy Henderson)

This rollicking fun trip of a novel involves elite necromancers, formless Fey, evil witches, brutish Sasquatches, and thuggish gnomes, set in modern-day Washington State under the blind eye of the mundane world. At the center is a mystery: who framed Finn for dark necromancy and got him exiled to the Other Realm for 25 years, and now that he's finally out, who's trying to get him sent back there again? Finn and his funky family and assorted other strange folks have just three days to solve these mysteries before he's dragged back to his non-life. As he tries to figure out what's going on people around him are dying, falling in love, discovering secrets, and speaking from the grave. I enjoyed the romp quite a bit, because although it feels very comic book I could really care about the characters (including several that are diverse in mundane ways such as race, orientation, and intellectual ability, without carrying Look At Me - I'm Diverse!! signs). The ending wasn't terribly surprising but satisfying enough and leaves open lots of directions for sequels, which makes me happy.

Night Broken (Patricia Briggs)

I've jumped ahead to this most recent book in the Mercy Thompson series, and it lives up to the others that I have read. Mercy continues to work with werewolves and other friends (in this case, members of the fae) to fight evil (in this case, the personification of a volcano god - really!). One thing I missed in this book was that Mercy didn't use her ability to shapeshift into a coyote much, though a big part of the story was about her relationship with Coyote, the actual trickster god. A big part of the book related to a confrontation with Adam's ex-wife, who has come home seeking help with a stalker and polarizes the wolf pack into Mercy versus the ex. I raced through it and had a lot of fun along the way.

Side Jobs (Jim Butcher)

I've become a real fan of the Harry Dresden series, so I checked out this collection of short works. It begins with the first-ever Dresden story, written as an exercise for a creative writing class and never before published. Butcher acknowledges that it's not a strong story and didn't deserve publication initially, an opinion I could agree with, but I enjoyed seeing where the story began. It finishes with a novelette that Harry never even appears in, with Murphy and others of Harry's friends dealing with his apparent murder, trying to cope with the kind of evil he usually fights without him. If you like the Dresden series you will like these stories.

Rooms (Lauren Oliver)

Part ghost story, part mystery, this novel bounces between several points of view. After Richard Walker dies, his estranged wife, their two adult children, and their daughter's little girl come to the old house to clean up and hold his memorial service. They don't know that the house is the home, in fact the body, of a collection of ghosts. As the story unfolds, we learn about who the ghosts are and why they are still here, and we learn about the broken lives of the people moving through the old place. At times the people, living and dead, felt more like symbols than real people, but the author's language is seductive and the tale draws you in.

Blood Bound (Patricia Briggs)

This second book in the Mercy Thompson series is as good as the first. Mercy is resourceful, brave, and likeable as she faces a murderous demon, with the help of her werewolf, fae, and vampire friends. And with her own ability, which is that she can shift at will into a coyote. I like her as a strong female character, though the cover of the paperback annoyed me. Mercy makes her living as an auto mechanic, but I doubt she works with her overalls zipped down below the navel. I also like that the supernatural creatures are not just stereotype. Each individual has a unique personality that comes through even when overlaid with things like the rigid pack hierarchy of the wolves. Briggs has a deft hand with contemporary fantasy, and I will definitely read more.

Darkfever (Karen Marie Moning)

This is the first book of a fantasy series by the author of the Highlander books, which is very popular though I haven't read it. I was looking for contemporary fantasy to read so I thought I'd try this. I have to say, I had problems with it. Most of the problems could have been fixed with a bit of editing. The author used inappropriate words in phrases like "the bed perched under the window" (beds don't perch). Phrases were padded with vague adjectives or unneeded words, as when she said the driveway was "framed by huge, ancient trees on both sides" (could it have been framed on one side?). I had to laugh at a tense moment when the narrator said that she had been sprinting to keep up with a monster, but now she would have to break into a run to catch it. Some basic facts were just wrong, as when it was 7 pm in Dublin at midsummer and she called it sunset (in Dublin at midsummer the sun sets three hours later). More serious than these problems, which could have been easily fixed with a sharp blue pencil, was the general attitude of the protagonist. Nearly a third of the way through the book, having had up-close interactions with fantastic monsters, she was still pretending that there was nothing supernatural going on. I wanted to slap her. There is a good story under here, and I won't say don't read it, but it's not for me.

Vicious (V. E. Schwab)

A very comic-book story, where people have super powers and make dastardly plots against a nemesis, and I loved it. Victor and Eli were brilliant college students when they started studying the origin of people with extraordinary abilities. Their research turned to experimentation, and then turned to death and destruction. Along the way we meet a pair of sisters joined by love and death, a giant tattooed man whose specialty is computer hacking, and a dog with the lives of a cat. The larger-than-life plot played out with just the right mix of inevitability and surprise, and the ending held as much tenderness as you could hope for. This is the author's first adult novel; I hope for more.

Replay (Ken Grimwood)

I re-read this book (appropriate, no?) for my book club this year, and it holds up very well for something written in 1987. For reasons that remain entirely unexplained, after Jeff Winston dies in 1988 he wakes up in his own life, in his own body, back in 1963 and has the rest of his life to live again. But he dies again at the same minute as before, and wakes up again in 1963. It's a little like an extended Ground Hog Day; he keeps living the same times over and over. He tries different things to make his life, the lives of others, and the world better, or at least different, each time. Part of why we are reading this book now is in response to this year's award-winning The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North, based on the same concept of people who repeat their lives again and again. There are differences in how this repeating happens between the two books, but mostly the difference is in the general atmosphere and attitude. Harry's story is about keeping your head down, not letting anything change, trying to survive and be safe in a world that keeps getting more and more dangerous. That (and the really gut-wrenching torture scenes) make it a dark and, for me, depressing story. This book, on the other hand, looks at the chance to live again as an opportunity to get it right, to make the kind of life that one can be proud of and happy in. Jeff may get it wrong sometimes, so that his own life and sometimes the world wind up worse off, but at least he is trying. There is a sense of optimism and love that is missing from Harry's story. I like this one much better.

Summer Knight (Jim Butcher)

I'm not reading the Dresden Files novels in order, but I'm enjoying them a lot. Harry Dresden is my kind of hero: unreasonably strong and competent, but with realistic flaws and foibles and deeply concerned about other people. He is a wizard in modern-day Chicago, dragged into a war between the Summer and Winter Courts of Faerie that threatens the very existence of the Earth, not to mention the lives of everyone Harry cares about. In order to save the day Harry has to solve a murder mystery: who killed the Summer Knight? The Queen of Winter is the obvious suspect, but she's the one who hired Harry to solve the crime, so maybe not. As usual, Harry is helped out by an assortment of people: Murphy, the CPD cop; a pack of enthusiastic young werewolves; the mystical Mothers of Winter and Summer; and a small coven of changelings still balanced between the human and the faerie world. The action is nearly nonstop, and I enjoyed the ride.

Elfland (Freda Warrington)

There is a magical Otherworld called the Spiral, inhabited by beings known as Aetherials. There is a Gateway that allows these beings to visit modern-day Earth and even to live here, undetected, for generations, raising their Aetherial children. Rosie is one of these Aetherial children, born here to Aetherial parents who love Earth and have set up lives here. Every seven years there is a ceremony in which the great Gateway is thrown wide and all the Aetherials who live on Earth go into the Otherworld to recoonect with their magical roots--only something is wrong, and the stony, unlikable Gatemaster refuses to open the Gateway, claiming that there is a danger on the other side and he must protect everyone. Cut off from their source, Aetherials begin to fade. As Rosie grows up she faces the usual angst and issues of young people, amplified by the internal turmoil of the Aetherial community over whether the Gatemaster's decision is justified or not. As rebellion brews, Rosie is torn over her relationships with various others: the Aetherial boy she is hopelessly in love with who doesn't acknowledge her, his brother who is impulsive and scary, her brother's human friend who adores Rosie, her brother's human wife who hides a frightening secret, and another brother who is not what they think him to be. If this all sounds like a soap opera, that's my only complaint about the book. I love the magical worlds and the sense of mystery and power they build. I didn't love the whole I'm-in-love-and-there's-nothing-I-can-do-about-it mythos; that's a view of life I find misleading and dull. Why is everyone so helpless in the face of their impulses? But overall I can recommend the story; I was caught up in what will happen next and how everything is going to be resolved.

Dirty Magic (Jaye Wells)

This is straight-up urban fantasy, with a gritty, mean streets vibe. When a new potion appears in the Cauldron, one that turns its users into raging monsters with a thirst for human flesh, Kate Prospero is one of the cops assigned to the Magical Enforcement Agency to find out where it's coming from and stop it. Kate has the background for this assignment: she grew up in one of the covens, a magic cooker being groomed to take over the business from her Uncle Abe who ran one region of the city, but she gave all that up after her mother died and has now sworn off all magic use. But the new assignment drags her back into that part of her past, and seems to be dragging her little brother in with her. Kate will do whatever she has to in order to save her brother and fight this implacable enemy. I'm not in love with the grim atmosphere of such a dark police story, but this one is well done and the magic is blended with the contemporary world seamlessly. Kate is a believable hero, tough but vulnerable, determined but conflicted. I will read more.