So, I got around to finishing that Dark Nest trilogy, wherein the spectre of a permanent galactic civil war is faced. This would be bad, because if everyone in the Star Wars galaxy died, a stable of some dozen or two authors would be out of jobs, and some of them are pretty good at this. Without meaning to make a spoiler out of it, let’s say that I’m going to presume that the presses have not been stopped as a result of the events in The Swarm War.

The good: the ongoing coolness of someone getting a pirated copy of Revenge of the Sith into Luke Skywalker’s hands, so he can finally get a handle on his roots, and pretty much anytime Chiss are both on the page and speaking rather than being battle fodder. Oh, and all the Jedi Council scenes, especially the characterization parts of them. I’m grooving on Jacen Solo, in ways I will elaborate below the cut. The bad: a lack of Luke using any force lightning like I was promised by the cover, and anything with insect hive mind stuff, because I’m just as unsatisfied with the consequences now as I was when the trilogy started. By and large, it reminds me of the Black Fleet trilogy from a long time ago. Bits and pieces of really cool stuff interspersed with generic uninteresting war. But this time, as I’ve hinted, the characters were a lot more interesting than then.

And, the spoilers:
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And then, another vampire hunter book. It’s not clear to me if I’m reading these spaced too closely together, although I’m leaving about as big gaps as the narrative leaves between stories, so I suppose it’s not as bad as all that. Still, I felt a little crowded with them, so maybe I’ll wait longer next time.

In any case, Anita Blake is at it again. This time, she’s trying to help the police solve a string of preternatural murders while avoiding her attraction toward the Master Vampire of the City (and incidentally that vampire himself) and trying to get a handle on her dating life. Wherein lies the flaw in the series. To all outward appearances, that’s the plot of all of them that I’ve read. Well, I’m taking some liberties, but it’s pretty close, at the least. The good news is, the actual mystery part of the book tied up as neatly as a bow by the end, despite me being 40 pages out and thinking it impossible. So it still works as mind candy, even with the roteness of it all that’s starting to build up. Oh, and unlike The Laughing Corpse, this title of Circus of the Damned both referred to a location integral to the plot and was relatable to themes and events in the book. Kudos.

Except for the weird part. I’ve heard tell that the series starts to get ever more poorly edited, even as it gets ever more monster-orgy-heavy. Although the latter hasn’t happened quite yet, the former grew alarming in this last book. Multiple easily noticeable typos despite years between editions, and in fact different publishing companies. It’s very hard for me to imagine not checking on things more thoroughly between the first edition and the second, much less like this. And that’s not even all! At one point in the story, the woman has a magical appearing car to replace her totaled one, and it vanishes again as soon as it’s no longer necessary. (Due to other hints, I’m quite sure it could have been neither taxi nor rental.) This kind of plot hole is completely unnecessary, and it makes me fear for the future of the series. …yes, the series of romance novels with vampires. Except, dammit, well-crafted mysteries. Honest!

Typically, I’ll look over previous serial entries before hitting the next review in any given series, to give myself an idea of where I was at the earlier point in the series, and make a decent attempt at a coherent narrative in my own right to match the (let’s hope) coherent narrative that the author provided in the first place. Having finished the 6th Sandman book, Fables and Reflections, it was time to do that. Only, I apparently never got around to reviewing A Game of You. Oops. Clearly, it’s a little late to do a reasonable review now. So, um…. it was pretty good? I guess?

Okay, more seriously, like The Doll’s House, A Game of You was a self-contained storyline, whereas the new volume has turned back to the meat of the Endless mythos. I said before that in the 4th volume the seeds of the remaining storyline were all present. In this one, plants are clearly beginning to sprout. The personalities of the family members outside of Dream and Death are finally starting to be revealed in richer detail, and some family mysteries are solved while others are finally acknowledged.

I liked the construction of it, too. Multiple (at-first-glance-) unrelated tales are linked together by both the family dynamic above and by ongoing reference to months of the year in the stories and in their titles. It doesn’t sound like much here on paper, but the experience of it fun to discover as well as somewhat lyrical in execution. An odd point was the final story, Ramadan. Although it matched the month theme, the rest of the tale didn’t match the feel of the others, to the extent that I’m surprised it ended there, rather than being placed at the beginning. (It’s surprisingly relevant to present day for having been written some 15 years ago, though.)

A couple-three years back, I devoured the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold, all in a row in a manner that I clearly no longer utilize. They were good, and I recommend them highly. That said, I was of course interested in the idea of her new book (which has since started to turn into a series of its own), and I eventually snagged a copy of The Curse of Chalion. Only, when I started to read it four months ago (maybe six?), I got about a page and a half in, felt like I was being betrayed into generic fantasy of the most boring stripe, and set it aside for a magical place I like to call the future.

The good news is this: the future has come, and it turned out to be a lot brighter than I would have guessed. I’m not even sure what was so objectionable about that first page; I guess it was just a matter of mood. Anyhow, it’s cool. Cazaril, our hero, is returning home to recapture the simple life he remembers as a castle page, after spending some time as a galley slave. Only, the thing about heroes is life never turns out quite as they hope, and he’s instead re-embroiled in the same politics that led to his original fate (but at a much higher, or perhaps deeper, level) faster than you can make up an appropriate metaphor.

Good stuff: politics, swordplay, treachery, chases, romance, a medieval wet t-shirt contest, demons, and the mysteries of the past and the present. Not only that, but her prose has gotten prettier than I remember it being; from time to time, I’d forget and think I was reading Kay. Finally, it rates well on a theological level. Her version of how gods and men interact with the world and each other is a reasonable approximation of how I imagine these things to work, too, at least. Also, I like that religiousity can be important, nay integral to the storyline without at the same time making the story look like a Chick tract. At some point, I will buy the first sequel and read it too, continuing my ongoing tradition of reviewing any given book months or years after the general public has forgotten it was ever published. Because that’s the kind of quality that I’ve always promised to provide to you, the reader.