The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

Dreamsnake Vonda McIntyre, 1978 Hugo Winner - 1979 Premise: Snake is a healer traveling on her first year out of training. After a heartbreaking setback, she is determined to return to her people with something worthy of the trust placed in her. Looking at most covers of this book, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a fantasy. The first few chapters don't do much to discourage the notion, either. The full picture of the setting and the lives of the people there is only slowly revealed. I liked Snake - her attitudes and assumptions felt right for someone caught between being highly trained and being still pretty young. I could have done with a bit less screen time for the guy crushing on her, but he was inoffensive and made a decent spearcarrier/exposition man. I do want to mention: part of the early set up for the plot gave me a real emotional punch in the gut. It's supposed to, so that you feel Snake's own anger and despair, but if you, like me, ha...

The Superior Spider-Man: Volume One: My Own Worst Enemy Dan Slott, Ryan Stegman, et. al., 2013 Premise: Otto Octavius has finally defeated Spider-Man. Defeated him, and become him. Now resident in Peter Parker's brain, with access to his memories, what will he make of Peter's quest to balance power and responsibility? Collects Superior Spider-Man #1-5 This is one of those cases where you just have to go with the insane set-up. Don’t worry, Peter doesn’t stay completely dead for even the entire first issue. The tension between the reader’s knowledge of Otto’s internal motivations and everyone else trying to make sense of his behavior is pretty fun, although not the real story. The real story is whether this Spider-Man’s different tactics and priorities will actually do a better job of protecting the city. It’s a classic ruthlessness-vs.-belief-in-redemption story that’s common to a lot of superhero tales, but it’s very well executed here. Oh, there’s also the side ...

Alias Hook Lisa Jensen, 2014 New Release! I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley for the purpose of review. Premise: The story of one James Hook, his rise, his fall, and his struggle with the reality and surreality of Neverland. If you read, I mean really read, Peter and Wendy as an adult, you discover a curious thing. On the one hand, it is the story of a delightful adventure in a land where children’s games rule. On the other hand, it is the story of the Darlings, left bereft and terrified by the disappearance of their children. It is the story of the pirates, men casually murdered by children with no moral sense and a great deal of power. It is about the tragedy as well as the joy of childhood, the utter carelessness and amorality of children. All that is to say that I enjoyed Alias Hook for the way the author is building on the original story. (I’ve seen a few reviewers already not take this into consideration and it bugs me. Yes, it’s inventive, but ...

Unwept (The Nightbirds, #1) Tracy Hickman and Laura Hickman, 2014 New Release! I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley for the purpose of review. Premise: Ellis wakes up on a train after a terrifying dream. She is sitting across from a woman with a baby, who tells her that she’s been sick, and she is going to stay with her cousin. She has no memory, only a sense that something is terribly wrong. This is one of those books where the discovery is half the joy. You, the reader, will figure out things faster than Ellis, who doesn’t have the ability to notice references and foreshadowing. I went back and forth while reading the book over which of a few possible reveals I thought it would be, and which I wanted. While I’m not 100% on board with the final reveal, I think the world could go interesting places from here. The setting, a tiny New England town, is perfectly creepy, and the build slow without losing tension. It helps that the book is rather short. ...

\ All-New X-Men Vol. 1: Yesterday's X-Men Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen, 2013 Premise: Henry McCoy, aka Beast, is struggling with his life, with his mutation, with recent events, with their place in history. He has a crazy idea. It involves time travel. It also involves the teenaged original X-men. Collects All-New X-Men #1-5 I had heard all sorts of good things about this title, and I'm happy to report that it lived up to my expectations. I should mention that while everything is explained, if you don’t already know what happened with Cyclops and the return of the Phoenix and A v X and Schism and the splitting of the X-men characters, this might not be the best jumping on point. This is one of those times, not all that rare in comics, when something awesome and intriguing comes out of something annoying. After A v X, parts of the X part of the Marvel Universe seemed too far gone, but give that wacky starting point to a solid writer with a good idea, and sud...

Earthly Delights (Corinna Chapman Mysteries, Book 1) Kerry Greenwood, 2007 Premise: Corinna left a life in the corporate world and the spouse who fit there to move into a building full of friendly eccentrics and open her own bakery. She has a routine, regular customers, and cats. Then an overdosing addict shows up on her doorstep, the women in her apartment building start receiving odd threats, and she meets a charming man who seems to be charmed by her. It’s all a bit much at once, but Corinna faces everything in life straight on. This is the modern-day series by the author of the Phryne Fisher books. And yes, I agree with all the folks who say that, at least in this volume, it isn’t nearly as good. The characters are fun, if often stereotypes of a sort. The setting is interesting, and the dialogue and narration is snappy. “I believe in absolutely nothing except yeast and the inevitability of politicians…” The beginning of this book was exactly what I needed when I o...

I’ve been thinking lately about how books get on my radar. I usually consider reading a book for one of three reasons: (Note, this is all regarding books by authors I’ve never tried before . Authors I follow, I already know whether I’m going to read their next one.) One: Proximity and Pretty Covers There have been times in my life, some not so long ago, in which the easiest way for an unknown book to end up on my list was for it to be available at my local library and have an interesting cover. That’s how I read Recursion and Illium and By the Mountain Bound when we lived in New York. It’s why I picked up books from the middle of these series before reading the first one: Lost Fleet , Mercy Thompson , Kris Longknife , probably others. It’s why I’ve read a great deal of odd/obscure stuff from the 90’s. The Winter of the World . King of Morning, Queen of Day . It’s probably how I started on Anne McCaffery and Mercedes Lackey. In the town where I grew up, I eventually read al...