Dragon Champion

Dragon Champion by E.E. Knight is the first book in the Age of Fire sequence. I'd seen Knight by an author I'm a fan of so I decided to give him a read. Knight is more known for his pulpy Vampire Earth books, but as I'm a fan of high fantasy I went with his new series instead.

Dragon Champion has all the staples of High Fantasy going for it. It has elves, dwarves, and of course dragons. It even has a dragon on the cover. ( Beautifully drawn by Paul Youll.) The protagonist is an orphan. Sounds cliche right? Well it certainly could be, but Knight take the cliche and turns it around. Perhaps not 180 degrees, but at least a sharp 90.

The orphan protagonist is Auron, a rare scaleless gray dragon, and the story is told entirely from his viewpoint. It follows his life from an emerging hatchling to a full fledged dragon. Along the way he experiences loss, finds new friends, makes new enemies, and discovers what it is to truly be a dragon.

The world building is very good. Knight sets sown several varied histories of the world, differing of course on which race is recording them. The creation mythologies are well layed out. He also does a fine job with characterization. For the most part his characters are very believable. The book sets a strong pace, but also gives the reader time to rest and reflect.

All in all Knight does very well in this endeavor. He takes what could be a tired concept and injects it with new life. I very much enjoyed Dragon Champion and will be looking to pick up the soon to be released follow up Dragon Avenger.

7.5 out of 10

you can purchase this book at
Clarkesworld
or
Amazon.com

New Look

I got tired of the dark look so I decided to change template to go along with the switch to Beta.

Let me know what you think.

Tripping to Somewhere

Life is going nowhere fast... until the night some freak wanders into the convenience store where Sam and Gilly are hanging out. He lets them in on a secret; The Witches'Carnival is nearby. If they travel fast, they might catch it.

Tripping to Somewhere is the debut novel by Kristopher Reisz. It was described to me as a cross between Gaiman and Kerouac. While that may be what the author was aiming for, I think its too lofty of a goal for his first book.

The story follows Gilly and Sam a pair of angst filled teenage girls as they run away from home to join the fabled Witches' Carnival.
Their chase takes them on a trip across not only the country, but across the ocean. Along the way they run the gambit of sex, drugs, rock & roll, and even throw in a few felonies for good measure. They find the Carnival, but the cost to join in might just be too much to pay.

Tripping was published by Simon Pulse which is an imprint of Simon and Schuster generally aimed at younger readers. I think I was outside the key demographic audience for this book. While I found it fairly enjoyable, and a fun easy read, It did nothing to particularly grab me. Perhaps I'm just not capable of empathizing with an angst filled teenage lesbian, but the characters did not make me care about them. The situations they got into and out of seemed too unrealistic for me, even in a fantasy novel.

All in all, while I don't think its a great novel, I think that it will appeal to many teens, who are looking to live vicariously through the protagonists. As I said it was a fun read despite the flaws.

6 out of 10

One More for the Road

One More for the Road is a short story collection by Ray Bradbury. It consists of 24 unrelated stories, 17 of which had never been published before. Bradbury is a master of the genre, and this book contains some really nice stories. It also contained some that fell very flat. A few of the stories grabbed my, and several others were very interesting in concept, but just weren't my style. Unfortunately a lot of the stories didn't meet either of those criteria for me.

The Nineteenth was my favorite. It was a moving story of a man mysteriously encountering he deceased father on a golf course looking for lost balls.

The Dragon Danced at Midnight was a furiously paced story of the rise of a filmmaker via the lucky accident of a drunken projectionist showing the reels of his film out of order.

Autumn Afternoon was a sad tale, of an old woman and her young niece. The niece saves calendar pages as remembrances. When cleaning out her attic the lady finds a stack of her own calendar pages from her youth, but she can't recall why she saved them.

For the rest the tales were mostly forgettable. Not bad really, just not remarkable. If you are a fan of Bradbury, feel free to give this a shot. You may like it more than I did. If you are new to the man, I'd stick with Fahrenheit 451 or the Martian Chronicles.

5 out of 10

John M. Ford 1957-2006

R.I.P. to Mike Ford who passed away this morning. It was reported on Making Light today.

Mike was a local author whom I had to end up going to Boston to meet. I only got to talk to him for the few moments it took him to sign my books, but he was very gracious and engaging. Other authors such as Elizabeth Bear, Steven Brust, and Charles Stross are lamenting his loss on the LJ circuit. This truly is a great loss for Speculative Fiction. Mike wrote two of the best books, I've ever read in The Dragon Waiting, and The Last Hot Time. He also has several collections of short stories, as well as a couple of the most highly regarded Star Trek novels ever to his credit.

Its criminal that authors such as Terry Goodkind and Robert Newcombe achieve such commercial success, while a man like Mike Ford toils in obscurity. If you have never read Ford, go out and do it.

Ultimate Iron Man

I have been reading comic books since the late '70's. Since then comics have gone from selling for Still Only $.35 to $3.95 for many titles. I've recently stopped buying comics on a monthly basis, as I feel the price is too much for what I get. However, one other change in comic publishing had been the rise of the graphic novel. It used to be that Marvel or DC would publish a special graphic novel once in awhile, but over the past few years, they have begun publishing omnibus editions of their regular comics a lot more often. Some of them even in nice hardcover editions.

Ultimate Iron Man is one of these. For those not familiar with the Ultimate Universe, let me give you a brief overview. Marvel has been publishing super hero comics since 1960, which of course gives their trademark characters like the Fantastic Four and Spider-man huge histories. Every writer needs to try and keep continuity with what every writer before has done, and this can certainly stifle creativity. What's more it can be imposing to new readers. So Marvel launched the Ultimate Universe, and treated all the characters then in as if they were brand new. They updated origin stories, and from what I've read Iron Man's update is one of the most extreme.

I was interested to read this seeing that Card who wrote the wonderful Ender's Game, was the scripter. I've really enjoyed some comics penned by big names in entertainment like Kevin Smith, Joss Whedon, and J Michael Stryzinski. One of the best Graphic Novels I've read was Richard Morgan's run on Black Widow. I wasn't disappointed in Card.

The reimaging of Tony actually begins before his birth and involves an accident effecting his geneticist mother. The only way to save Tony is by utilizing some experimental technology developed by his father Howard. Quite the change from the original story of Tony being taken prisoner and forced to develop the armour to keep a bullet lodged in his chest from reaching his heart. Of course we do eventually get to the Iron Man armour, but that ends up being fairly secondary to the main storyline.

I don't believe that the series has gone beyond the first 5 issues, but I'm hoping it does eventually, as the story ends rather abruptly. There is certainly more to tell, and I hope that Card gets to do it.

8 out of 10

The Blood Knight

The Blood Knight is the third book in the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series by Greg Keyes. This follows up The Briar King and The Charnel Prince. Reportedly he is planning on wrapping this series up in the next novel, tenatively titled The Born Queen.

I really enjoyed the first two novels in this sequence, so I had high expectations for this book. I was not disappointed. I would recommend brushing up on what happened in the previous installments before reading this, as Keyes drops you right in the middle of the action. It took me nearly 100 pages before I found my footing and recalled where The Charnel Prince had left off.

*spoilers for the first two books follow.*

Anne, Austra and Cazio, have met up with Sir Neil, as well as Aspar, Winna, and Stephen, so almost all out protagonists are together, or nearly so. The lone exception is the composer Leoff who has been imprisoned by Robert after the performance of his enchanted concert. Robert also has Queen Murielle imprisoned, and has allied himself with the corrupt church and with Crotheny's ancient enemy Hansa. With the help of her friends Anne must find a way to win the throne. She will have to manage without the full group as Stephen is taken and Aspar and Winna are sent to find him, and help him fufill his destiny.

I've heard Keyes often described as Martin-Lite. The comparison is fairly accurate. Keyes writes in the same POV chapter style, and his strength is characterization. His characters are certainly a bit more cliche than Martin's but they are strong none the less. He also does a nice job of world building. The history of the world is fleshed out a bit more with each novel, and he does manage to throw a few curves to keep the reading guessing as to what side certain supporting characters are on.

Keyes doesn't rate on my top tier of writers of epic fantasy but he sits with some pretty good company on the rung below Martin and Bakker. The Blood Knight is certainly an enjoyable book.
If you are a fan of the series, by all means keep reading. If you haven't read this yet and are looking for something to tide you over until A Dance with Dragons, or the Aspect emperor are release, give Keyes a shot.

7.5 out of 10

The Hugo Awards

I'll start with a brief run down of the winners and then get to commentary.

John W. Campbell Award
John Scalzi

Best Fan Artist
Frank Wu

Best Fan Writer
Dave Langford

Best Fanzine
Plokta

Best Semiprozine
Locus

Best Professional Artist
Donato Giancola

Best Professional Editor
David G. Hartwell

Best Dramatic presentation, Short Form
Dr. Who the Empty Child

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Serenity

Best Related Book
Storyteller : Kate Wilhelm

Best Short Story
Tk' tk' tk' : David D. Levine

Best Novellete
Two Hearts : Peter Beagle

Best Novella
Inside Job : Connie Willis

Best Novel
Spin : Robert Charles Wilson

Special Awards were also given to Betty Balantine and Harlan Ellison and Forrey Ackerman was given the Big Heart Award, which was renamed in his honor.

Now my commentary on the results

I wasn't happy with them.
I did not purchase a membership in time to vote, but had I vote, the only choice of mine to win would have been Serenity.

Now I'm a total GRRM fanboy, I've gotten to meet him and chat with him several times, and I really wanted him to win "the big one". But I'm also a realist, and while I think A Storm of Swords is one of the best novels ever written and was robbed, A Feast for Crows was not the book that was going to do it for him. Spin and Accelerando were both extremely tough competition, and Spin likely was deserving.

I also though Magic for Beginners was brilliant, and figured it was a shoe-in for Novella. I'm wondering if Willis didn't get some votes because she was GoH.

Dr. Who beating BSG was also hard to understand... Actually the who voting process is hard to understand. When leaving the awards we were given a printout of the official results. I wish there was an explanation as to how it worked because looking at the results BSG had more first place votes than Dr. Who, the empty child.... in fact is appears to have more votes for Everglade except for last.

This seems to have occurred several times, AFFC had the 3rd most first place votes and finished 5th. John Picacio had the 3rd most votes and finished 5th. Its all very confusing.


Now this was my first Worldcon and my first Hugo Awards. I really enjoyed the ceremony. It did drag on a few times, but for the most part it was very entertaining. The by play between Connie Willis and Robert Silverberg was a highlight. And then of course there was Harlan.
The man is a total dick. However, I find him to be an amusing dick, so I enjoyed his rant. Swallowing the mic was a hoot. Then of course there was "boobgate". IMO it was wrong. But I think some are making a mountain out of a foothill.

The most amusing thing to come out of the hugos to me personally was the rant by William Lexner at I hope I didn't just give away the ending. Looks like he got all the old guard of fandom riled up. Now William is a friend of mine, in fact he was my roommate at Worldcon, and I sat next to him at the Hugos. The man certainly can come off as bombastic, but in reality, he's one of the nicest guys you could meet. That said I know he is getting a kick out of the angry SMOFs. I mean they call themselves Secret Masters of Fandom... They deserve a bit of chain yanking now and again. Kevin Standlee has been one of the biggest critics. Check it out here.
He was also accused of causing Cheryl Morgan to close Emerald City.

Ahhh Good times....Good times.

64th Annual Worldcon

I just got back from Worldcon today and I'm incredibly glad I went. I had a great time as a collector and a fan. My fan report is posted in my LJ.

For my official con experience, I spent most of it in lines to get books signed. Over the course of Friday through Sunday I managed to get books signed by the following.

George R.R. Martin
Ray Bradbury
Anne McAffrey
Joe Halderman
Robert Charles Wilson
P.C. Hodgell
Larry Niven
Tim Powers
Barbara Hambly
Glen Cook
Vernor Vinge

I also neglected to bring A Shadow in Summer and River of Gods but Daniel Abraham and Ian MacDonald were gracious enough to sign bookplates for me.

Due to all the queuing, I missed all of GRRM's panels. The only other official events I went to were the BwB's Human Chess Match between Martin and Abraham, in which I was a participant, the Hugo Awards ceremony, and Ray Bradbury "Himself".

I picked up a few Books in the Dealers Room. I bought the first Black Company book from Glen Cook himself. I also picked up a trade edition of Dhalgren by Delany. Finally I hadn't gotten around to Reading Spin yet, and I was going to pick up a copy for Wilson to sign, but after it won Hugo, all the dealers seemed to sell out of that book. Instead I picked up a short story collection of his to have him sign.

I will write up a Hugo awards report later.

Fevre Dream

Imagine if Mark Twain had written a vampire novel, and you've got Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin. The novel follows the story of Captain Abner Marsh and his dream of having the grandest steamboat on the mighty Mississippi. Unfortunately his dream has been shatter thanks to a hard winter destroying his fleet. Captain Marsh is thrown a lifeline, however, when a mysterious and eccentric benefactor named Joshua York offers to build him the ship of his dreams.

Marsh of course accepts and they begin their maiden voyage. But once on the river York's eccentricities begin to rouse suspicions. Why does he only appear at night? What is up with his equally odd friends. Why does he leave the ship for days at a time, only to return with blood stains on his hands.

Martin deftly weaves a tale that grows more engrossing the further I read. Not all is as it appears to be, and the amalgam he has created, between Life on the Mississippi, and Dracula was certainly interesting. He leads you to what you think is the climax of the story several times, before finally wrapping the story very satisfactorily.

I liked the book, and Martin is my favorite author. I'm a huge fan of A Song of Ice and Fire, and I'm slowing getting around to reading his earlier works. While not up to the level of the other Martin novels I've read, Fevre Dream is definitely worth picking up.

7.5 out of 10