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kaigouThis is a pile-up of quick reviews of ebooks read over the past, uh, maybe six months or so. Roughly. The really good ones I’m holding out for a later review, so for now I’ll only say that Josh Lanyon is my Sekkret Ebook Boyfriend and Shelly Laurenston is my Sekkret Ebook Girlfriend, and I’ll only post & tell if you ask really really nicely. Or not. I’ll tell anyway. Later. Because first, the books I wouldn’t be spending money on, or might if I’m really really bored and can’t think of any better way to entertain myself, along with the books I think were worth the money if not quite yet at the level of a designated Sekkrit Ebook BFF etc. (FYI: all titles definitely adults-only.)
ANDERSON Eva - Slave Boy
BARNETTE Michael - Through Neon Eyes (series)
BERRY Nica - Hart and Soul
BRYCE LE - Crown of Stars; My Sun and Stars (series)
BUCHANAN James - Cheating Chance
CRAIG Jamie - Brindisi Bedfellows
FIDDLER Angela - Pulse
FREELY Jessica - Virgin
ANDERSON Eva - Slave Boy
‡ SFF ‡ m/m ‡ formalized master-slave theme (if that’s not obvious from the title)
Passable. No real significant relationship-conflict (or angst, if you prefer); the author tends to set it up and then blow it almost immediately. Eh, well.
BARNETTE Michael - Through Neon Eyes (series)
‡ SFF ‡ m/m ‡ cyberpunk, s/m, violence
It’s like William Gibson glammed up, stepped sideways into the leather-and-guns part of the Matrix and went totally fangirly to boot. Uhm. Passable. Mildly entertaining at points. Gets extra points (maybe) for making a fairly decent attempt at throwing in every single freaking cyberpunk trope you can name, and a few more to boot: the corporate drones, the company-as-overlord, the fast bike, lots and lots of guns, drug-running, nanotech, biotech, bioengineering, long leather coats that no one outside Hollywood ever thinks is actually wearable while on motorcycle, big clunky boots, hacking, near-AI computer systems, did I mention the guns, don’t forget the knives, whore-assassin blends because if you’re going to die might as well suffer it from sex on legs, etc etc. Throw in plenty of sado-masochism and some power play, and there you go.
But!! The manga-like cover image of the first stories may not be half-bad but the author seriously needs to consider shooting whomever did the followup cover art -- and then burn all copies. I mean it’s bad. It quite possibly ranks as one of the worst cover images I’ve ever seen for an ebook, and I’m including that grotesque poser-computer imagery so favored by Elora’s Cave or whatever it is. Yes, that bad.
Also: dear author, please, if you have some backstory about a character, then tell that in the story. Not the damn webpage. When I click on “stories” to see what you’ve written, I do not want to see the biography of the main character and what he’s really all about. Annoying. If it’s relevant to a story, it goes in the story, otherwise, it’s irrelevant. Oh, and you can’t possibly be only able to write one character as your constant protagonist. Create a new character. Don’t just use the same one over and over (and for you, my dear reader, I don’t mean “same character different name,” I mean literally the same character, in a completely different setting and story and setup): once is maybe. More than that and it’s like you’re writing AU fanfic of your own damn story.
In all, the truly annoying thing about the series? Each story is perhaps 10K to maybe 15K long, and each are priced separately. For a story you could get from most ebook publishers for maybe $7, this author’s deal will have you paying triple that for the same reading-time. Hello? Short stories get annoying, fast, especially when they price themselves out of the market -- just bundle the whole thing and sell it as a novella.
I’m not even going into the repetition in each short story, either, of the characters pondering what they pondered a few pages before and a story before, but I will mention that I did enjoy the drinking game of “take a drink everytime the protagonist sees swirly lights in his peripheral vision but ignores it”. Damn hard for me to ignore when the author’s reminding me of it every two pages, but I can’t really remember the last ten pages or so of the story since by that point? Lots and lots of drinks, wooo! But I think it ended happily. Or as happily as cyberpunk ever manages to. I dunno. Good alcohol, though.
BERRY Nica - Hart and Soul
‡ Fantasy ‡ m/m, m/f ‡ totem animals, spirit world themes
A workable sense of worldbuilding, but riffs rather strongly off Native American tribal traditions (emphasis on Plains and some Eastern). I may be hampered by having a decent knowledge of those, though, so at times I wanted the author to either cleave closer to the actual, or move farther away and make it into something all her own. Otherwise it’s a decent story, has its good points, though the bad guys get forgiven a little too easily (if you ask me) but on the whole, there’s decent angst, a few red herrings, good pacing, conflict resolves believably.
BRYCE LE - Crown of Stars; My Sun and Stars (series)
‡ Fantasy ‡ m/m ‡ long, political-royals-drama
Bryce has two modes, I think. Short stories, and freaking door-stop novels. Okay. Both stories have full range of characters, plenty of quasi-historical-fantasy political drama (of the feudal and/or geopolitical type), and character motivations are anything but cardboard. Be warned, though, these are not really happily-ever-after novels. They’re not even really happily-right-now novels. They’re... well, things come to a place where the characters accept that this is the place they are. Don’t hold your breath for the love interests to end up together. I’m not even sure Bryce can write that, outside a short story.
BUCHANAN James - Cheating Chance
‡ action-mystery ‡ m/m ‡ cop-in-closet, goth+govt agent, geekgeekgeek
I was somewhat impressed by Buchanan’s other story I’d read -- The Good Thief -- but this one really knocks that one out of the park. Again with the incredible details, the utter absorption into the character’s lives: if I could honestly believe Buchanan had spent time learning how to break into houses and was impressed, this time around I’d be willing to swear Buchanan’s not just rigged a casino machine but damn well programmed one himself, too. Allow me to demonstrate, when our hero, the government-agent (well, agent for Nevada’s gaming commission), Nick, has the following conversation with the cop he’s seeing, Brandon. Being a mystery there’s naturally a body, and Nick’s a bit shaken up after his coworker’s death, but his brain is moving a mile a minute on what this has to do with a situation at work.
“There had to be something to do with that EPROM [...] I still have it. I ran it the other day. It’s gaffed.”(There are far better geeky tech-speak passages that just made my toes curl but unfortunately they'd all contain major spoilers, so I figured this one was a good demo without giving too much away.)
“Gaffed?” Now Brandon just sounded confused.
“Fucked with, programmed as a cheat. All slots are electronic these days. The EPROM tells the machine when to stop the reels and the payouts based on the money played and the specifics of the program.” Nick was being technical because he wasn’t sure he could handle anything more. “The gaff in the chip is the place where they fucked with the programming.”
Suspicion had vanished from Brandon’s voice. “You can mess with the programming inside slot machines?”
“Oh, hell, yeah.” Relieved, Nick sagged back down. “One of the biggest slot cheats was an ESD agent. He reprogrammed a series of EPROMS. You’d put the coins in the machine in a certain sequence; say one, two, three, two, two, three and it would trigger the machine to pay out big.”
“How did he get caught, someone else pull one of those chips and test it?”
“No actually, he changed his m.o. and it screwed him. He probably could have gotten away with the slot scam for a long time, but he wrote an algorithm to predict Keno numbers and that’s where he was busted. It was a real embarrassment to the agency. One of our own agents going bad; I mean that publicly. There’s always scuttlebutt about which chiefs are getting payola for easy approvals and that stuff. But this was major press."
Nick has a tendency to run at the mouth while he's thinking; Brandon, in contrast, is more of a listener. Even when it might seem like some kind of bizarre info-dump, it's not; Buchanan skillfully characterizes them even in simple apparently-filler dialogue like this (while at the same time totally stoking my geek side). Nick's a goth, and he’s geeky, and he’s restoring a classic cadillac-hearse, what's not to love? And, incidentally, not all the cops are assholes and some of them turn out to be decent people, the mystery does take a bit to unravel, the foreshadowing is handled nicely, the interpersonal is conflicted (as makes sense when one-half is way in the closet). Kept me up all night reading, and not because I was skimming, either.
CRAIG Jamie - Brindisi Bedfellows
‡ contemporary ‡ m/m ‡ broken-hearted lover messes around with ex’s best friend, hijinks ensue, etc.
Well, there’s sort of a conflict. Mostly interpersonal. Believable, relatively enjoyable. Got more bored towards the end, since the tension was gone for me by that point (above and beyond the “you know they’ll get together”) although the author does hold out a bit longer, but even that’s believeable between the two characters. All in all, not a major page-turner but kept me adequately entertained.
FIDDLER Angela - Pulse
‡ SFF ‡ m/m ‡ paranormal, strange dreams, possession, ghosts, spirits... and stuff.
Well, a long way from the lukewarm reception I gave Fiddler’s earlier work, Castoffs. There’s a certain snark Fiddler allows her strangely-mystical, more than a bit mysterious, street-boy-turned-something, mixed up in the paranormal, love interest (or something), Gregory. Given the story’s set up and Gregory’s ability to move through the spirit world to move through reality, he’d be way too much of a cipher if Fiddler didn’t give him quirks. Chris is the story’s predominant protagonist (though it’s not entirely in his POV), and he’s also a cop; through a series of nicely and slowly revealed ties, the two are linked to a preacher-man determined to keep Gregory for himself. Stalker plus paranormal. Anyway, the morning after Gregory arrives in the cop’s apartment despite the locked doors and apartment security...
Gregory was naked. And cooking bacon. Chris came up behind him and put his hands over Gregory’s hips. “I love a man who lives dangerously,” he whispered into Gregory’s ear.Fiddler lets Gregory come out with these lines that are so completely unexpected you can’t help but laugh (well, I couldn’t). So often, such follows scenes so serious, so strangely mystical and/or incomprehensible, and add in that Chris is more often in the dark as to how/what than not, that the unexpected levity saves the story (and the character) from toppling over into self-importance.
Gregory waved his hands over the splash guard on the frying pan. “And I love a man who has a well organized kitchen.”
“Then unfortunately I’m not the man you’re looking for. My grandmother probably put that there when she helped me unpack.” Chris peered over Gregory’s shoulder. “Where did you find the bacon?”
“In the far reaches of your freezer.”
“And the eggs and bread?”
“The corner store.”
“How did you get past the security door in the lobby?”
“You keep your keys by the door, officer. And only three of them had Do not copy stamped on them. I even had a backup plan. It involved full hands, a pathetic look, and a well-placed foot in the door. Plan C involved cloning the Mongol hordes, but that would have been messy.”
Okay, that, and Fiddler totally scored with this one tiny detail I wish more cop-writing authors kept in mind. It’s from a scene when Gregory -- who has, shall we say, issues -- displays a distinct kink for being tied up. Chris teases Gregory about the usual cop procedure and yet:
Despite what he said, he didn’t actually pat Gregory down. He didn’t want to sexualize a ritual that had to save his life. Searching for weapons and for sharps and knowing each and every time that it could end horribly wrong was not the least bit erotic for him.YES. Thank you. A cop’s brain doesn’t go off just because he -- or she -- is in bed. Cripes.
FREELY Jessica - Virgin
‡ SFF ‡ m/m ‡ paranormal, were...somethings, quasi-vampiric, good boy+bad boy
Basic setup: small-town orphan has kept his sexuality secret, is treated badly by de facto guardian, so naturally a young ho fleeing the big bad just happens to break down and need the small-town mechanic’s assistance. Throw in some were-vampire-dog-somethings, and some kind of sacrificial ritual, uh, and there you go. A novellette, I think -- whatever’s just under a novella -- but a nicely paced one, nonetheless. The bad guys may be cardboard, the plot may be somewhat generic (if the title doesn’t clue you in, it revolves around protagonist being, well, a virgin)... but the two main characters are treated with a decency and a sort of fondness that I have to admit I really enjoyed.
At last, the door opened and Joam stepped inside. Blake stared. The tall, gangly mechanic wore a suit and his hair was combed. He held a deck of playing cards in his hand and the smell of aftershave rolled across the room. Blake blinked, dumbfounded.I don’t know why more authors don’t realize this is possibly very much what a small-town, well-raised, somewhat-ignorant young man might think appropriate despite, for all intents and purposes, scheduling a *cough* assignation with a hooker, but I found it charming.
The suit ...was too small for [Joam], for one thing. And the gray pinstripe did nothing for Joam’s coloring. Joam, still blushing, shrugged and looked at the floor. “I haven’t worn this suit in a while. I guess I shouldn’t have --”
“No. No, it’s fine.” Blake hurried to his side and shut the [motel room door]. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“These are for you,” said Joam, handing Blake the cards, which were encased in a plastic box.
He smiled and accepted them. There were grease smudges on the box, and the backs of the cards read “Gleeson Auto Parts, Since 1957.”
“I was going to pick you some flowers but I thought that was stupid,” said Joam. “You don’t give a guy flowers. I don’t know what you give a guy.”
Note: ebook sources are loose-ID, fictionwise (clearing house for ebooks); some are from Ellora's Cave and some from Samhain Publishing. If you can't find the title on Fictionwise, try googling the author's name and you'll either hit a page from the distributor for that author, or the author's own site. Also, if you can't read locked-type documents (mobireader, microsoft reader, etc) and want PDFs, there are several publishers who only sell the locked-type on Fictionwise but have the PDF-unlocked available on their own sites -- so be sure to check the publisher's home site. I don't have an ereader; I've only got Adobe, so if you see it here, then you know for certain it does come in a PDF format. You just might have to go looking a bit farther, is all.
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Date: 3 Sep 2008 10:39 am (UTC)Thanks for doing these reviews - they'll come in handy once I get an ebook reader!
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Date: 3 Sep 2008 04:29 pm (UTC)(I have three favorites that I'd purchased, that I can no longer read because they're locked against move-to-new-computer. So despite having paid for them, I can't reread them. Damn good thing ebooks are cheap, relatively, but it's still annoying. So I just avoid non-multiformat ebooks, now.)
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Date: 3 Sep 2008 10:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 Sep 2008 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 Sep 2008 06:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 Sep 2008 07:53 am (UTC)