CHOSEN

TITLE: CHOSEN

AUTHOR: BENEDICT JACKA

Pages: 320

Date: 13/10/2013

Grade: 5

Details: no. 4 Alex Verus

            Received from Orbit

            Through Nudge

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This is the fourth book in the Alex Verus series, and while it can be read on its own, I’d advise anyone to read the three previous titles – “Fated”, “Cursed” and “Taken” – first.

Recently life has been easy and peaceful for Alex Verus. It may be a bit crammed sharing his house with three young adepts but our Mage finds he quite enjoys having Variam, Anna and Luna treating his apartment as their home. Alex is starting to feel that maybe he has atoned for the sins of his past; maybe now he can leave the darkness he’s been trying to get away from behind him and start a new, brighter future.

Of course things are never that easy. And just when it seems that the past is well and truly behind him it returns to hunt him down for the one thing he has never been able to forgive himself for.

And those hunting Alex won’t give up until they have their revenge, and he is dead. They refuse to listen to him and are determined to achieve their goal, even if it means going through those who would stand with Alex.

Alex has to confront his past and make some very difficult choices. If he manages to win this battle he might lose the few people he has grown close to. If he doesn’t win, he won’t be around to tell the tale or assist his friends. Caught between a rock and a hard place, there are no easy options for our diviner.

This is by far the darkest Alex Verus novel so far. While the story is still written with a light hand and there still are moments of light relief and humour, be it of the dark variety at times, this is the book in which the reader learns the truth about Alex’s time with the dark mage Richard and about what happened to make him run away from his master to face a life of solitude and uncertainty. And it is not a pretty picture.

In fact, that is one of the things that make this book such a very good read. There are no easy answers here. There is no clear distinction between good and bad, dark and light. There is no doubt that what happened in the past was very, very wrong. And it is quite easy to understand why those who are hunting Alex want their revenge. And yet, while his pursuers are unaware of this, the reader knows that Alex no longer is the person he was ten years ago and can’t help rooting for him.

While this is a work of fantasy it poses some interesting questions; is it possible for a person to redeem themselves? Are we allowed to go to any length in order to protect ourselves? What exactly makes a person either good or bad, and is it even possible to make such a clear distinction? Like I said, interesting questions and something I could ponder about for hours.

I like where Benedict Jacka is going with these books. With every subsequent title Alex becomes a more rounded character. And Jacka doesn’t take the easy way out; he doesn’t try to make his main character look sympathetic regardless of what he has to do, isn’t afraid to show Alex warts and all and leave it up to the reader to make up their minds about him. Others may disagree but I only find myself getting more interested in this character and everything he comes up against with every subsequent book.

And talking about subsequent books; the final chapter in Chosen seems to indicate that the best, and in all likelihood, darkest part of this tale is still to come. Bring it on! I can’t wait to see what will happen next.

TAKEN

TITLE: TAKEN

AUTHOR: BENEDICT JACKA

Pages: 319

Date: 23/09/2013

Grade: 4.5

Details: no. 3 Alex Verus

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Alex Verus’ life is running as smoothly as the life of an independent mage can run. He’s running his shop and training his apprentice Luna and trying to live his life as quietly as he can but it isn’t as easy as it used to be to keep his anonymity. His recent adventures and rather unexpected victories have brought him to the attention of the wider community of mages. So, when he is invited to travel to Fountain Reach to be a supervisor during a tournament for apprentice mages he isn’t too surprised. But since the past few times when he did accept requests for help from other mages have only lead to danger and brought him close to losing his life, Alex has no doubts when he reclines the mind-mage’s offer, despite her best efforts to control his thoughts.

When he is subsequently asked to look into the unexplained and suspicious disappearances of apprentices Alex does accept the invitation. And before he knows it Alex finds that he and Luna are on their way to Fountain Reach after all, where they will have to combine their efforts with two independent and initially very hostile apprentices.

While apprentices continue to disappear, Alex finds himself in an environment where spells don’t work as well as they should, facing an unknown opponent who seems to know his every move before he makes it, facing an long time enemy determined to kill him once and for all and not finding any clear clues as to why the young mages are disappearing or who is responsible.

And once it does become clear exactly what is going on, who is behind it and why it seems that Alex may at last have found himself an opponent he won’t be able to defeat.

This is the third Alex Verus book and just like “Fated” and “Cursed” this is a face-paced, thrilling, original and at times very funny story. Alex Verus is a wonderful main character. He is very likeable but by no means perfect; he has his quirks, his weaknesses and his pride to balance his inherent goodness and inclination to help those in an even weaker position than he is. As a diviner, Verus can’t so much predict the future as determine all the possible futures ahead of him depending on what choices he makes. And because he doesn’t really have any other magical powers, this ability to stay one step ahead of those around him comes in very handy.

I love that these stories are set in a London I recognise. This is the real world into which a magical layer has been incorporated in such a way that it is almost possible to believe that it really exists. I also like that while these books are clearly inspired by Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files and this particular book has one or two features that reminded me of Hogwarts, the stories are fresh and original and don’t own anything to anyone except Benedict Jacka, the author who wrote them. On the other hand, it doesn’t surprise me at all that these books come with a recommendation from Jim Butcher. If either Harry Dresden or Alex Verus would cross the Atlantic I could see these two get into all sorts of adventures together.

As this series progresses Alex is picking up some rather interesting side-kicks. There is Luna, who because of her curse has to stay well away from all direct human contact. And in this book Anne, an apprentice life mage and Variam, an apprentice with control over fire are added to his unlooked for collection of strays. I can only hope that these three youngsters will be around in future books because they really add an extra dimension to the story.

Like I said, this is the third book in the Alex Verus series. And while it is perfectly possible to read this book as a stand-alone I would advice anyone to read the two prequels first. Apart from the fact that you’ll get more out of this book if you’re familiar with the background story, the earlier books are just too much fun to miss out on.

If you’re in the mood for an urban fantasy with a healthy dose of magic and lots of heart-stopping moments you could do a lot worse than to pick up this book. I would be surprised if you didn’t find yourself getting lost in this almost real, magical world only to surface after the mystery has been solved, danger has been averted and the story has been told.

THE IRON WYRM AFFAIR

TITLE: THE IRON WYRM AFFAIR

AUTHOR: LILITH SAINTCROW

Pages: 308

Date: 18/11/2012

Grade: 4

Details: no. 1 Bannon & Clare

              Received from Orbit

              Through Book Geeks

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Emma Bannon is a powerful sorceress, in fact she is a Prime; magic doesn’t come more powerful than hers. Archibald Clare is a Mentath, someone with incredible observational and deductive powers. Emma is in the service of Victrix, the young queen of England and vessel of the god-spirit Britannia. When Mentaths all over Londinium are being killed, Emma is send to Clare in order to keep him safe and recruit him to her quest to find out exactly what is going on. Combining their powers of deduction and sorcery soon brings them to the conclusion that it is the queen herself as well as her whole empire that are under threat. The ensuing battle will take everything Bannon and Clare have and take them beyond what they thought possible. They and their allies are few against many and powerful enemies. And failure is not an option.

Set in an alternate London where illogical magic has changed the course of the industrial revolution, this is a world filled with mechanical marvels and mysterious forces. Magic, in this world, is quite common and widely used, which is a bit of a problem for our hero Mentath who finds his logical mind can’t cope with the illogical craft and its consequences. This is a London with clock-work horses, altered humans, dragon spirits and areas where the “normal” rules of nature don’t apply.

Apart from Bannon and Clare there are a few other and very interesting characters. Mikal is a Shield, one whose sole purpose is to protect their Prime. And while Bannon is close to her solitary shield, she is not quite sure she can trust him. There is also an Italian mercenary, hired to protect Clare and a German inventor who seems to get really angry only when he’s forced to miss his breakfast.

In fact there is an awful lot going on in this book. The reader is introduced to new characters operating in a freshly created and fantastical setting, surrounded by powers (both magical and logistical) that don’t exist in our everyday world either. And all these novelties form the centre of a mystery and adventure that takes off on the very first page and rarely stops to catch a breath. The reader constantly finds themselves caught between the urge to speed along in order to find out what happens next and the need to go slowly so that they can take in all the details and form a good picture of the fictional world in all its fantastical detail. And this is a balance that the author almost finds in this book. I did find myself a bit overwhelmed by the amount of new information I had to absorb occasionally. There were times when my need to understand the setting took me right out of the story. Having said that, as the story continued and the world became better established it became ever easier to stay caught up in the adventure and stay there.

This story is told from both Bannon and Clare’s perspective in alternating chapters and this means that more often than not the reader finds themselves leaving one character at a cliff-hanger moment only to follow the other until they reach their own. I don’t always enjoy this way of telling a story but I found it worked quite well in this book, especially since the author never describes the same scene twice but from different perspectives.

Both Bannon and Clare are fascinating main characters. Clare is obviously strongly based on Sherlock Holmes (up to and including his steepled hands resting against his chin when he is thinking and his use of certain stimulants), although you won’t find Dr. Watson’s twin on these pages. Emma Bannon is, as far as I know, an original creation by this author. And as such she is a triumph; very strong and independent she is also insecure when it comes to certain matters. Operating in a field that forces her to face evil, violence and destruction she still manages to come across as a true woman. It is going to be interesting to see how these characters, and their side-kicks, develop in future books.

Although the first part of this book did feel a bit like hard work at times I really enjoyed my introduction to this magical world and Bannon and Clare. And I can’t help feeling that I would probably enjoy any sequel to this book even more. Without having to introduce the reader to a whole new world, the author will be able to concentrate more on the adventure and characters in any subsequent books, and that should turn them into true page-turners.

DEAD RECKONING

TITLE: DEAD RECKONING

AUTHOR: CHARLAINE HARRIS

Pages: 325

Date: 24/07/2012

Grade: 4-

Details: no. 11 Sookie Stackhouse

Library

As always there isn’t a boring moment in Bon Temps for our favourite cocktail waitress, Sookie Stackhouse.

Everything starts with an attack on Merlotte’s, the bar where she works. While the bar’s owner Sam and Sookie are able to stop the fire before it spreads, the big question is who threw the Molotov cocktail and why. While suspicion initially falls on those who have issues with Shape-shifters like Sam, Sookie can’t help feeling that the attack could also have been aimed at her. After all, consorting with Vampires, Were-creatures and Faeries has brought her a fair amount of enemies of her own.

But there are more problems. Eric, her vampire boyfriend/husband is facing huge issues with Victor, the local ruling vampire. And Victor seems determined to provoke Eric into doing something rash so that he will have a reason to end his undead existence. And more than that, Eric and his ‘child’ Pam appear to be hiding something from Sookie, something that could change everything in her life. And of course having two faeries staying in her house brings a whole set of problems of its own. And really, that’s only the top of the iceberg.

Sookie finds herself facing a set of circumstances that will force her to reassess herself, her attitude towards the life she is leading as well as her relationships with those around her.

As always this book brought me a nice balance of supernatural action and more mundane events. With Sookie always trying to strike a balance between all the supernaturals in her life and living an everyday life like most people around her, these stories feel as if they are set in the real world, which makes it easier to relate to them.

On the other hand I do get a bit fed up with Sookie. You’d think that after 11 books she’d either have gotten, if not comfortable with than at least used to all the plotting, killing and animosity around her. Yet it feels as if she’s rediscovering what all the creatures around her are capable of and consider normal all over again in every single book. By now I’ve reached the stage where I want her to either get out of the game or decide that since she’s in it she’s going to deal with it once and for all, and yet she doesn’t.

Having said that, these are easy and comfortable books to read and I do still enjoy catching up with these characters. So I guess that at least for now I will continue to bring these books home from the library for as long as I can find them there.

KISS THE DEAD

TITLE: KISS THE DEAD

AUTHOR: LAURELL K. HAMILTON

Pages: 359

Date: 03/07/2012

Grade: 3.5

Details: no. 21 Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter

            Received from Book Geeks

Own

Anita Blake is an equal-opportunity executioner. She kills every vampire, regardless of apparent age, race, sex or religious affiliations.

As a vampire hunter, necromancer and US Marshall Anita Blake is always on the trail of the dead, the un-dead, the not-quite-dead and the not-quite-human although most of those closest to her fall in exactly those categories.

Now that laws have been passed legislating how to deal with non-human criminals, it is no longer allowed to just shoot and kill any-thing/-body not human.

When a group of vampires abduct a fifteen year old girl though, determined to have her join their ranks, all bets are off and Anita and her police and Marshall colleagues pull out in force to rescue the girl before it is too late. Two dead police officers later the vampires have sealed their fate; they can all be executed without any need for an official warrant.

What surprises Anita though is that all the vampires in the group she encounters were recently turned and very ordinary. They look like teenagers, soccer mums and grandparents; unthreatening on the surface but lethal in practice. And all of them refuse to submit themselves to a vampire master.

Because Anita is connected to Jean-Claude, the Master vampire of St. Louis she is perceived as the ultimate enemy by these free-thinking vampires and with not all of them captured during the raid and their creator unknown, the danger is far from over after the last shot has been fired.

The above is really only half of the story. The first 150 or so pages of this book deal with Anita and her colleagues hunting, fighting and killing the rogue vampires. And then the story turns into something else completely. Suddenly it is a book about Anita and her relationships. It turns out that she has multiple partners, so many in fact that I decided to not try and keep count. And, over the course of the next 150 pages she has sexual relations with quite a few of these partners; relations which are described in quite some detail but didn’t quite work for me as erotica.

This is the 21^st book in a series in which I’ve only read seven previous and much earlier titles. And, I have obviously missed a lot in the stories that were told in the books I didn’t read.

I have no idea how Anita ended up with, at the very least, 8 lovers, quite a few of whom she considers her partners and claims to be in love with. I imagine that Hamilton introduced the various characters in previous books and then couldn’t bear to get rid of them again, but I have to say that this many relationships and close body action was a bit too much for my liking.

In the last few chapters of the book the reader is suddenly back in the (non-sexual) action part of the story when somebody related to the rogue vampires gets a hold of a few of Anita’s partners and she has to use her special connection to her lovers to save them.

So, what to say about this book? It wasn’t a hard book to read. The writing is smooth and the story moves along at a steady pace.

On the other hand, the book as a whole didn’t really feel like one story. In fact, this could easily have been two separate books; one about the vampire hunting and another one about the various intimate relationships the main character has. If either part had been published as a stand-alone story you would not have missed the other part because they just didn’t feel that connected to each other.

I would say that this is a book that should probably be read by those who have read all the previous books in the series since there are a few characters mentioned in the book that have no part in the story but (probably) reflect back to earlier events. It is therefore quite possible, if not likely, that up-to-date fans of Laurell K. Hamilton will get more out of this book then I did.

CURSED

TITLE: CURSED

AUTHOR: BENEDICT JACKA

Pages: 309

Date: 18/06/2012

Grade: 4.5

Details: no 2. Alex Verus

            Received from Book Geeks

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Alex Verus is a mage, a diviner, who owns a shop; ‘Arcana Emporium’ in Camden, London and when the story starts life is going smoothly for him. He is on reasonably good terms with the Council and occasionally working for them, and the work with his cursed apprentice Luna is proceeding quite nicely as well.

Things are about to change though.

It all starts with the discovery of a death magical creature. Although it is unclear how it was killed, it is a worrying sight.

Although Alex doesn’t realise it, things slip further downhill when Martin, a new friend of Luna’s visits his shop and walks away with the magic Monkey Paw Alex didn’t have out on display because he knows the artefact is cursed.

Next a beautiful woman bursts into his shop followed by an assassin Alex is only barely able to fend off. The woman, Meredith, is an enchantress and although Alex is well aware of her seductive powers he has a hard time thinking straight when he is around her.

Through Meredith Alex meets Belthas, a Council mage, who wants his help in discovering who killed the magical creature and where they are now.

Next thing Alex knows he has fallen out with his apprentice, who now prefers Martin’s company after Martin has used the monkey paw to find a way to be close to her without hurting himself. Up against old adversaries and with his friend, Arachne, a giant, intelligent, magical and very friendly spider in mortal danger, Alex finds himself in a fight he and those he cares for may well not survive. Alex may well be able to look into the future, knowing who to trust is much harder.

This is the second Alex Verus story I’ve read this year and I have to say I’m really enjoying them. It is clear to see why these books are endorsed by Jim Butcher; Alex Verus has a lot in common with Butcher’s hero Harry Dresden. Both are outsiders and underdogs trying to fight the good fight against the odds and often through means they don’t feel good about. And both the Verus and the Dresden series combine humour with tension in a way that really works.

The world Alex Verus inhabits in London is completely recognisable, which makes it easy to accept the supernatural elements in the story. The world Benedict describes is almost exactly the same as the world we live in. In fact, the differences between his London and the city we might visit are so tiny that you could almost believe that the magic can really be found there, if only you looked hard enough.

Although this is very much a supernatural thriller, enough attention is paid to the characters and what makes them tick to create a real interest in their welfare. Although Alex is the hero in these books and at times vulnerable, he has enough of a dark side to make him realistic and interesting. And it is easy to understand what drives Luna; having a curse which means that anyone who comes close to you or, even worse, touches you gets hurt or killed would be enough to make anyone stand-offish and desperate.

As for the other characters, it is hardly ever certain who can be trusted; who is on the side of good and who is just pure evil, something which makes the story fascinating and a real page-turner.

I am having great fun with these books and can’t wait for the third one to be published.

FATED

TITLE: FATED

AUTHOR: BENDICT JACKA

Pages: 322

Date: 04/04/2012

Grade: 5

Details: no. 1 Alex Verus novel

            Urban Fantasy

            Received from BookGeeks

Own

Alex Verus runs the Arcana Emporium in Camden. On the surface a new-age shop, both Alex and his shop are a lot more. In fact, Alex is a mage, a diviner. He can look into the future investigate the various options open to him and take the path that suits him best.

In a world where there are both Light and Dark mages, Alex stands alone, not part of either side and determined to keep it that way. The others are not prepared to leave Alex alone though. It starts with a visit from the Light Council represented by Lyle, a blast from the past Alex would just as soon not see again. The Council want Alex‘s help in retrieving a relic from an artefact in the British Museum, an relic they are not prepared to tell him anything about and assistance that would go more or less unrewarded. Alex doesn’t have to think twice before turning them down.

One of Alex’s few friends is Luna, a young woman burdened by a curse which means that anybody who gets too close to her gets very unlucky. The kind of unlucky that gets people killed.

She finds objects for Alex and shortly after his meeting Lyle, Alex meets Luna and receives a red crystal. A crystal Alex can’t divine at all although Luna says it glowed for her when she picked it up.

And with that the trouble really starts. Soon both the Light Council and Dark mages have Alex cornered and he finds himself having to come up with a plan where he does retrieve the very coveted relic without surrendering it to either side. A plan that might work if he’s lucky and keeps a close eye on all the possible futures. A plan that will most likely mean death for both him and Luna. A plan that will certainly bring Alex face to face with the past he’s been hiding from for years.

This book was a very happy surprise for me. I’m not quite sure what I expected when I started reading, but this story exceeded any and every expectation I had.

While I always enjoy a story where the forces of good are up against those of evil, nothing is quite as straight forward as that in this book.

While you might expect the distinction between the Light Council and the Dark mages to be as clear as the difference between white and black, things aren’t quite as obvious as that. And the main characters aren’t one-dimensional either, which makes the story very interesting and realistic. Alex has his past to keep away from and this need makes him a loner. Luna is a loner out of necessity and deeply unhappy because of it. Starbreeze, and elemental Alex calls upon when he needs help travelling over any distance in a hurry is cute as well as very easily distracted and provides some light relief in a somewhat dark story.

Yes, there are some strong similarities between this book and the Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher, but the author is well aware of this. In fact there is a reference on page 3 to “one guy in Chicago who advertises in the phone book under Wizard” which made me smile, especially since this book is endorsed by Jim Butcher on the front cover.

This book is a great find for anybody who enjoys urban fiction and those books by Butcher. As for me, I hope to read the second Alex Verus novel, Cursed, sooner rather than later.