The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

Cocaine Blues Kerry Greenwood, 1989 Premise: When Colonel and Mrs. Andrews ask Phryne Fisher to check in on their daughter, who they fear is in danger from her husband, she takes the opportunity to try her hand at being a Lady Detective. It's 1927, and Phryne may have found her calling. Oh, I love finding a new series to enjoy. I heard about this series because someone recommended the new television adaptation (now on Netflix!). I found it a quick and delightful read. Phryne is pragmatic in all things, including matters of the heart. She's multitalented and possibly an example of a female “hero”. By this I mean a Holmes, a Bond. One of those characters, sadly almost universally men, who can be practically perfect in every way, yet never are accused of being uninteresting. (I hope you are now picturing Batman dressed as Mary Poppins. If you weren’t before, you’re welcome.) The book is full of interesting characters, mostly women, and archly humorous turns of phrase. ...

Catwoman Volume 2: No Easy Way Down Ed Brubaker, Cameron Stewart compilation 2013, original issues 2002-2003 Premise: Follows on from Volume 1. Selina’s made an impression on the Gotham underworld… that’s not always a good thing. She learns the hard way that doing nice things for Gotham City will only get you beaten back down. Collects Catwoman #10-24 and Catwoman: Secret Files and Origins #1. “One thing I’ll never get used to about the past is that it’s never really over...Just when you think that your history is done--locked away, forgotten...It rears its ugly head to remind you that no matter how fast you are, you can never escape yourself.” This thick volume starts off with a couple warm-up one-story issues illuminating aspects of Selina’s personality and technique, then dives into a multi-layered epic tying back to the events of Volume one and other parts of Selina’s history. But don’t worry if you’re new, you’ll pick up all the context you need along the way. The...

The Darwath Trilogy Barbara Hambly The Time of the Dark (1982), The Walls of Air (1983), The Armies of Daylight (1983) Premise: Gil dreams. She dreams of a haunted city, full of people in clothes she doesn’t recognize, not even from her historical scholarship. She dreams of a king, and a wizard and an infant prince. She dreams of the Dark which besieges them. And then the dreams are no longer dreams… It was very odd, reading this after reading Hambly’s later series which starts with The Silent Tower . There are a lot of parallels between the two books. Both focus on a person or persons drawn from California into a fantasy world, who have to learn to survive there and decide what they want to do next, whether it’s get home above all else or help the people where they end up. However, while I wouldn’t read them back-to-back, there are enough differences as well to make both series worth reading. I loved the variety of characters here, the range of plausible perspectives ...

Captain Marvel Volume 2: Down Kelly Sue DeConnick, Christopher Sebela, Dexter Soy, Filipe Andrade, 2012 Premise: Collects Captain Marvel #7-12 . Carol Danvers is still reeling a bit from her time-travel escapades, but she’s ready to help out her friend Monica Rambeau to determine what’s causing ships to go missing off of New Orleans. Later, are her own powers failing her, or is something more complicated going on? I read the first arc of the new Captain Marvel series in issues, and I liked it well enough, but decided to wait for trade for the next part. I’m glad I ended up picking it up, both because it was great to read all at once, and because it’s easier to review and recommend in trade than issues. In this volume, I feel that this book is really hitting its stride. The balance between drama, snark and realism is well-tuned and the character relationships both build on decades of continuity and are easy for me to understand, whether or not I have context. The art isn’t ...

NOS4A2 Joe Hill, 2013 Crossposted to Mainlining Christmas Premise: Victoria “Vic” McQueen has a special talent: she can use her bike and a bridge that isn’t there to find lost things. Unfortunately, Charlie Manx has a talent too. Vic is the only child to escape from Manx’s one-way trip to Christmasland, but it takes more than luck to break an evil man, and every power comes with a price. I thought this book was good, but I’m not sure I actually enjoyed reading it. The tone wasn’t quite my cup of tea, and it needed to be more tightly written. Some positives: Vic herself is a great protagonist. She’s broken and flawed in completely believable and sympathetic ways. She’s brave when she has to be, even if she has to talk herself into it. The talents are interesting. Broadly and only vaguely defined, they hint at much more out of sight. The writing is quite good: the descriptions of the supernatural and creepy as well as the mundane and everyday were evocative and often poign...

The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin, 1974 Hugo Award Winner - 1975 Premise: Shevek is a physicist on the moon Anarres. The followers of Laia Odo fled the planet Urras several generations ago to settle on Anarres, to create a truly free society, without government, where everyone shares in needed work per their skill. Shevek eventually discovers that freedom and choice might be as complicated as any theory of the universe. I put off reviewing this book for a long time, because I wasn’t sure what to say. I’m still not entirely sure. As a story of two different societies and a person trying to survive in each, it succeeds very well. It reminds me a little of The Left Hand of Darkness, because that also took as its main character a man seeking to understand a culture foreign to his own. This moved me less than the former book. However, I think it’s because I personally care much more about perception of gender than political theory. Both Anarres and Urras have problems with the...

The Godborn (Forgotten Realms: The Sundering, Book Two) Paul S Kemp, 2013 New Release! I received an electronic copy of this book via Netgalley for review. Premise: Dungeons and Dragons is coming out with a new edition next year. This series of books (each focused on a different set of characters) take place during the in-world adjustments necessary so that the abilities of the characters in the novels will match the adjustments to the rules of the game. Insert eyeroll here. Okay, remember how I said that the first one of these books wasn’t a good jumping on point? This one is worse. Now, my reaction is probably partially due to the fact that rather than starting with a bit of poorly-remembered background on the characters, I had nothing going into this one. However, these books were not only offered to Netgalley reviewers, they were specially   promoted to them , so it’s Wizards of the Coast’s own PR department’s fault if new readers are reviewing these. This book...