Calculated Whisk - Lindsay Buroker

    2026; 294 pages.  Book 1 (out of 1, although that will change shortly) in the “Tales from the Dragon Diner” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Cozy Fantasy; Dragons; Humorous Fantasy.  Overall Rating: 8½*/10.

 

    It’s good to be back in one’s old stomping ground, which in Rylana’s case means the city of Tranquility.  Actually, she grew up in a mansion across the lake from Tranquility, but she and her dad are estranged, and mostly she’s here because she’s broke and needs to find a job.

 

    Rylana was an archer in the Ore Wars, which are thankfully now over, and she's traveling with a fellow veteran, the elven assassin Sylin.  The stop in Tranquility is temporary: get a paying short-term job, collect some funds, and move on, hopefully without running into her father.

 

    Hey look!  There’s an eatery called “the Dragon Diner”.  Maybe they’re hiring.  Rylana and Sylin fought against the dragons in the Ore Wars, but hopefully, whatever dragon is running that diner isn’t a veteran.  And even if he is, the odds are slim that he’d recognize this warrior duo as a pair of former foes.

 

    Yeah, Rylana, about those slim odds…

 

What’s To Like...

   Calculated Whisk is the opening book in Lindsay Buroker’s latest fantasy series: Tales of the Dragon Diner.  The Amazon blurb labels it a work of Cozy Fantasy Fiction, which is very accurate, and is good to keep that in mind when reading it.

 

    Think of it as a “Hallmark Movie, With Dragons”.  The main plot thread involves the dragon who owns the diner, Jildarin, who is preparing to compete in a culinary competition held annually in Tranquility called “the Golden Whisk”.  The contest consists of three rounds, wherein the contestants are required to invent a new dish consisting of a trio of random ingredients.  They then can add in their personal selection of herbs and spices, and the final product is tasted by a panel of judges.  It is rumored that Jildarin's spice inventory includes some with aphrodisiac qualities.

 

    I liked the fantasy worldbuilding.  Tranquility is filled with a wide variety of creatures, including dragons, elves, goblins, golems, dwarfs, and gnomes, with an occasional wyvern flying overhead.  Dragons are also shape-shifters, although city statutes require them to maintain their human forms anywhere outside their abodes.  Also, all magical weapons are tied up with magical bonds by city guards when anyone enters the city.  Tranquility hates interspecies bloodshed.

 

    As expected in a Lindsay Buroker novel, witty dialogue abounds.  Both Rylana and Sylin have sharp tongues, even when conversing with each other.  See the first excerpt below.  Thrills-&-Spills take a back seat to Intrigue, although there is one epic dragon melee that lets the humans know who’s boss.  And although Rylana suspects Sylin’s been using her assassin skills to earn some cash, it’s best not to question her about it.

 

    The ending will make any Hallmark movie lover smile.  It isn’t particularly twisty, and face it, you already know who’s going to win the Golden Whisk.  But there is some skullduggery for Rylana to espy and deal with, and things end at a logical spot.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 769 ratings and 72 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.48*/5, based on 529 ratings and 52 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “You’re a good friend,” Rylana said as they walked up the road toward the ferry.  “Even if you don’t consider me one.”

    “Assassins can’t allow themselves to get close to others, lest enemies manipulate them by their emotional attachments.”

    “You don’t think we were close when we were smashed into that closet together?  The hilt of your knife was jabbing into my kidney.”

    “Not emotionally close, no.  Feelings weren’t involved.”

    “Are you sure?  My kidney had some feelings.”  (pg. 183)

 

    Rylana gave Jildarin an approving gesture, but the announcer had said they could begin the second dish, and he was with the other chefs, gathering ingredients from the pantries and iceboxes.

    “Isn’t that Jildarin a dragon himself” someone murmured.

    “I didn’t think dragons could cook,” someone else said.

    “They can roast humans without trouble.”

    “That wouldn’t be allowed here.”

    “Are you sure?  They haven’t announced the ingredients for the last meal yet.”  (pg. 273)

 

Kindle Details…

    Calculated Whisk presently sells for $0.99 at Amazon, which is a great introductory deal..  The sequel, Knead for Speed, is due to come out on June 30^th.  You can preorder that one for $4.99.

 

“I’m friendly and charming and hardly ever roar at people.”  (pg. 77)

    As you’d expect, the profanity frequency is low in Calculated Whisk.  I counted just five instances in the first 25% of the book, although two of those were a “6-lettered C-word” that’s rarely encountered.  I spotted only one typo: R ylana/Rylana, and I bet that one cropped up during the printing phase.

 

    The subject of mating comes up a lot, and there’s a hint of romance in the storyline, but it’s not enough to scare off male fantasy readers.   I chuckled at the made-up word “zerg”.

 

    The past adventures of Rylana and Sylin, mostly their wartime years, are mentioned frequently.  This is my third Lindsay Buroker novel, and I don’t recall these two protagonists being mentioned in either of those books, but this author has written a slew of series, and I suspect they’ve both starred in some other of her tales.

 

    The biggest quibble (is that an oxymoron?) I can think of is that a whole bunch of secondary plot threads are left dangling at the end.  Will Rylana and her dad make up?  Will romance bloom in her near future?  Why are some elves hunting for Sylin?  And several more.  But that’s what sequels are for, isn’t it?

 

    I’m not a big “cozy reader”, but Calculated Whisk kept me turning the pages.  The pacing is good, the storytelling is masterful, and the wit abounds.  I was looking for a lighthearted magical read, and that’s exactly what I got.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  I don’t remember any person or creature dying in Calculated Whisk, despite one of the protagonists being a skilled assassin.  When’s the last time you read a book where that was true?

The Truth - Terry Pratchett

    2000; 348 pages.  Book 25 (out of 41) in the “Discworld” series.  New Author? : No.  Laurels : 193 in the “Big Read”.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Satire; British Humour.  Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

 

    There are two things those Discworld dwarfs love to do.  First and foremost, they love digging for gold and gems.  Second, they love to tinker with new ways of doing things.

 

    Just now, William de Worde has discovered the dwarfs have figured out how to put together a printing press.  With easily insertable and smoothly interchangeable letters.  It beats the heck out of the old way – carving a woodcut for every page you want printed. What a slow process.

 

    The dwarfs aren’t all that impressed with their new methodology, but William de Worde is.  Imagine setting up a page and printing it in minutes instead of spending hours or days carving a piece of wood.  With that kind of speed, doing a print job that requires multiple pages is suddenly doable.  But what kind of business would need that?

 

    They call it a newspaper, William.  And people will pay money to receive one on a daily basis.

 

What’s To Like...

    Although The Truth is Book 25 in Terry Pratchett’s fantastic Discworld series, and is set in Ankh-Morpork, Discworld’s capital city, the two main characters, the editor William de Worde and his ace reporter, the buxom Sacharissa Cripslock, are newcomers to the series.

 

    True, lots of recurring characters also show up, such as the Patrician, Sam Vimes and several of his City Watch guards, a couple of wizards, and DEATH and his companion DEATH of RATS, but for the most part, they are cast in cameo roles.

 

    In a nutshell, The Truth tells the story of Ankh-Morpork’s first newspaper, “The Ankh-Morpork Times”, and the various, and hilarious, challenges it faces.  Will people pay for something recapping yesterday’s news?  Do we send employees out to sell the paper?  Do we send employees out to search for newsworthy tidbits?  What do we do if/when a competing newspaper crops up?  And most importantly, what do we do if someone strongly objects to some headline-worthy item being investigated and reported in the paper?

 

    As always, Terry Pratchett’s wit and puns are in abundance here.  So are his trademark footnotes and his eschewal of Chapters.  Somehow, even Quantum Physics gets some ink, which surprised me pleasantly.

 

    The main storyline involves William de Worde’s investigation into an assault alleged to have been carried out by one of Ankh-Morpork’s leading citizens.  To give more details would be a spoiler. This doesn’t qualify as a mystery novel because the reader is given a key clue early on.  So the fun is following William de Words, with assistance from Sam Vimes, as they attempt figure out the “why” of the mayhem.

 

    The ending is entertaining, despite not being very twisty or action-packed.  The truth eventually comes out, justice is served, mercy is shown, and karma takes its toll.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.7/5 based on 6,996 ratings and 504 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.41/5 based on 25,004 ratings and 1,603 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I’m not a thief, friend,” said the shadows.

    “Who’s there?”

    “Do you know what’s good for you?”

    “Er . . . yes.  Healthy exercise, regular meals, a good night’s sleep.”  William stared at the long lines of loose boxes.  “I think what you meant to ask was: do I know what’s bad for me, in the general context of blunt instruments and sharp edges.  Yes?”  (pg. 204)

 

    “We still don’t know what we should be doing,” said Mrs. Tilly hopelessly.

    “Go and find out things that people want to put in the paper,” said Sacharissa.

    “And things that people don’t want to put in the paper,” William added.

    “And interesting things,” said Sacharissa.

    “Like that rain of dogs two months ago?” said O’Biscuit.

    “There was no rain of dogs two months ago!” William snapped.

    “But—”

    “One puppy is not a rain.  It fell out of a window.”  (pg. 340)

 

Lies could run around the world before the truth could get its boots on.  (pg. 106)

    As usual, the cussing is mild and sparse.  I counted only six instances in the first 25% of The Truth, all of which were of the eschatological variety.  One of the characters habitually uses a stronger bit of profanity, but Terry Pratchett solves this each time by rendering it “—ing”.  Freaking Fantastic!

 

    I enjoyed The Truth, but wasn’t dazzled by it.  Part of it, I suppose, was the theme itself—running a newspaper is just not all that exciting.  Also, my favorite set of misadventurers, the wizards of the Unseen University, have almost no impact on the storyline.

 

    But I quibble.  The Truth is still a fun, entertaining story.  It’s just a matter of it being more a tale of Intrigue, and less a tale of “Thrills-&-Magical-Spills”.

 

    7½ Stars.  One last thing.  One of my favorite recurring characters who does get a fair amount of ink here, is Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, otherwise known as “CMOT”.  Take my advice, and do NOT partake of the sausages that he sells.

The Better Mousetrap - Tom Holt

    2008; 345 pages.  New Author? :No.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Time Travel; Satire.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Wouldn’t it be great to own a time machine?

 

    You could go back into the past and observe great events, while being careful, of course, not to do anything to change history.  Computer simulations should avoid that.

 

    Or you could go forward in time, watch some future Super Bowl or World Cup tournament, come back, and bet on the winners.  Although that might draw unwanted attention to your rapid monetary gains.

 

    But the smartest thing might be to do what Frank Carpenter does.  Get a job with an insurance company, go back in time, and prevent fatal accidents to clients which would result in huge payouts on their life insurance policies.  Insurance companies would gladly pay you a portion of the premiums and you would get rich without attracting attention.

 

    It is/was/will-be a foolproof plan.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Better Mousetrap is the fifth book in Tom Holt’s 8-volume “J.W. Wells & Co.” series, of which I’ve read half, although not in any particular order.  I read Book 1, The Portable Door, way back in 2012 (reviewed here, so I appreciated the author inserting a recap of that plotline into this book early on.  J.W. Wells & Co. specializes in providing magical items, beings, spells, and full-fledged sorcerers to their clients, although by the time of this fifth book, the corporation was pretty much defunct.

 

    The storyline commences with a relatively easy task for Frank: go back in time and prevent a girl named Emily Spitzer from falling out of a tree to her death while trying to rescue her pet cat.  Emily’s in the pest control business, meaning she gets tasked with removing pests such as trolls, hydras, goblins, and dragons from our dimension.  She’s good at it, so it’s weird that an easy-peasy act of falling from a tree proves to be her downfall.  Frank adjusts the timeline, saves Emily, but she dies again shortly thereafter.  Hmm.  This smells of evildoers determined to snuff her out for some reason.

 

    As is true for all Tom Holt novels, things rapidly get more complicated.  Frank’s dog disappears.  Frank colleague disappears.  A dying dragon seems to value a small artifact more than the millions of dollars he’s nesting on.  Office politics threatens to turn deadly.

 

    As is also true of any Tom Holt novel, the writing is replete with wit, absurdity, and fascinating characters; all of which keeps the reader turning the pages.  Please note that the book is written in English, not American, which leads to weird spellings (such as tyres and chequebooks), and weird words, a couple of which are given below.

 

    Everything builds to a surprise ending, via the entire final chapter, which somehow manages to tie up all the plot threads.  Well, with one exception, which involves a surprise visit by two new-yet-recurring characters.  This may or may not be a teaser for Book 6, May Contain Traces of Magic, awaiting my attention.

 

Excerpts...

    ”I was round at your office just now.”

    “Oh yes?”

    Nod.  “When I say just now,” he went on, “I mean about an hour and a half in the future.  You hadn’t shown up for your lunch, you see, and I was . . . Well, anyway, I asked if you were in your office and they said no.  Actually, they said that you’d been killed.”

    She took it quite well.  True, her eyes widened and her mouth fell open like the tailgate of the lorry off the back of which all good things fall, but she didn’t faint or scream or any of the things he was fairly sure that he’d have done in her shoes.  “Oh,” she said.  (pg. 146)

 

   “Hello, are you there?”

    En route to the kettle, Frank stopped and watched Emily.  She’d gone ever such a funny colour, and she seemed to have forgotten about breathing and stuff.  Then she smiled.

    “Mr. Gomez,” she said.  “I’m glad you called.  I’m going to kill you.”

    “What?  It’s not a terribly good line, you’ll have to speak—”

    “And when I’ve done that,” Emily went on, “I’m going to chop you up into little bits and feed you to the piranhas in Sally Krank’s office.  Oh, and I quit.  Goodbye.”  (pg. 242)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Pipped to the post (phrase) : overcoming a strong competitor in a sporting event.  (British slang)

Others: Doddle (n.); Moggy (n.); Havered (v.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 534 ratings and 28 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.02*/5, based on 1,232 ratings and 76 reviews.

 

When you’re Amanda Carrington you don’t need to be subtle, in the same way elephants don’t need wellington boots.  (pg. 209)

    There’s not a lot of cussing in The Better Mousetrap.  I noted just 8 instances in the first 10%, all of which were variations of the common four-lettered cusswords.  Later on, the “female dog” term showed up about a half-dozen times.  I don’t recall any adult situations.

 

    I spotted only one typo, and strangely it occurs on the back-cover blurb, not in the book itself.  There, a damsel named June is touted as a major character, but she never appears in the story.  It turns out “June” is really the character “Emily”, and who knows when and why her name was changed.  I'd blame this on the English-to-American conversion, except I was reading the British publication.

 

    Overall, I thought this was one of Tom Holt’s best efforts at Absurdist Fantasy.  I loved that fact that, where most authors in this genre caution doing anything that will change our historical timeline, Tom Holt seems to revel in doing so.  I’m gradually working my way through Tom Holt’s existing novels, the latest of which came out in 2023.  Wikipedia lists his age as 64 as of the writing of this review.  Here’s hoping that he is working on his next bestseller.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  On page 176, there’s a passing mention of a writer named Hasdrubal.  I proud to say that’s also my literary son’s name.  Kewlness!

Sinister Magic - Lindsay Buroker

    2020; 250 pages.  Book 1 (out of 9) in the “Death Before Dragons” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Humorous Fantasy; Dragons; Urban Fantasy.  Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    Meet Val Thorvald.  She works for the government as a bounty hunter, specializing in eliminating magical beings.  But it’s all top secret, so don’t go telling anyone about this.  Val is half-human and half-elf, which is a definite asset in this business.  She can learn spells and detect magical creatures when they’re nearby.

 

    She’s also got some way-kewl weapons.  One is a long sword she’s named “Chopper”.  Another is a submachine pistol called “Fezzik”.  But her most lethal weapon is Sindari.  He’s a giant-sized tiger from a magical otherworld, whom she can summon telepathically.

 

    So if you’re a rogue magical creature here in this dimension, you better beware of Val and Sindari.  Go back to the magical realm and be thankful you still exist.  Unless you’re a dragon.  They can easily whup Val and Sindari simultaneously with one wing tied behind their back.  No one in their right mind messes with dragons.

 

    Heh.  Guess what kind of creature just crossed Val’s path this morning.  And it was also doing bounty hunter work, in fact chasing after the same wyvern she is.  Professional jealousy is about to reach a new level.

 

What’s To Like...

    Sinister Magic is the first book in Lindsay Buroker’s 9-book, Humorous Fantasy “Death Before Dragons” series.  It is set in the Pacific Northwest, mostly in the Seattle area, which was also true of the other book I’ve read by this author, Marked By Magic.  I suspect this is Lindsay Buroker’s stomping grounds.

 

    If you like your Fantasy reads to feature a wide variety of beasts and magical beings, you’ll enjoy Sinister Magic.  In addition to the ones mentioned above, there are werewolves and trolls, vampires and golems, a kraken and a manticore, and elves aplenty.  The human population is aware that some of magical critters are traipsing around in this world, although their numbers are grossly underestimated.

 

    The storyline is a nice break from the standard “gotta save the world” trope.  Val’s bounty-hunting efforts are temporarily supplanted by the need to find a cure for, and the cause of, her employer’s cancer.  Val is also undergoing therapy sessions with a shrink, which so far are having mixed results.  And now there’s a small matter of getting her jeep down from the top branches of a 40-foot tree.

 

   I loved the interaction between the two main protagonists—Val and a shape-shifting dragon nicknamed Zav.  Dragons usually get portrayed as evil creatures, but here Zav and Val both ethically “gray”.  Indeed, at one point they debate as to the proper handling of captured criminals.  Should they be incarcerated for rehabilitation purposes or summarily executed?  Guess who favors rehab.

 

    The ending is exciting, yet not over-the-top, and I liked that.  The main plotline are tied up, but some of the secondary ones, such as Val’s therapy and her relationship with Zav, are left open, presumably to encourage the reader to read the sequel, Battle Bond.  I have it on my Kindle, and I’m eager to read more of this series.

 

Kewlest New Word…

Obstreperous (adj.): noisy and difficult to control.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 9,676 ratings and 897 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.12*/5, based on 11,611 ratings and 1,046 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Nin returned with a brochure and several business cards.  “Please give these to Zoltan and let him know that if he needs any weapons made, or if any of his fellow vampires need them made, I can accommodate him.  Also, I am thinking of branching out into magical armor.”

    “If he doesn’t try to bite my neck the instant we meet, I’ll give these to him.”

    “Of course he will try to bite your neck.  You are the hated Mythic Murderer.  But please also give him my brochure as a favor to me.”  (pg. 132)

 

    “Here.”  I set the containers of bath beads down beside Zav’s foot.  “Throw some of those down when you get a chance.”  I backed away slowly, not wanting the dark elves to notice.  “And try to keep them distracted.  Keep saying arrogant things.”

    Zav looked over his shoulder, pinning me with his glare.  “I do not take orders from law-breaking mongrels who do not acknowledge the supremacy of dragons.”

    “Yeah, say stuff like that.”  I gave him a sarcastic thumbs-up.  “You’re a natural.”  (pg. 217)

 

Kindle Details…

    Sinister Magic presently sells for $0.99 at Amazon.  The next two books is this series cost the same amount; books 4-9 go for $4.99 apiece.  Books 1-3 are also available as a bundle, which inexplicably goes for $9.99 right now.  Lindsay Buroker has many other individual e-books and bundles for your Urban Fantasy reading pleasure.  The discrete books are generally in the $0.99-$4.99 range, the bundles are mostly priced at $9.99.

 

“You hatched backward from your egg, you one-winged gimp.”  (pg. 16)

    There’s a moderate amount of cussing in Sinister Magic; I noted just 14 instances in the first 25%.  An f-bomb made a later appearance.  I don’t recall any “adult situations” cropping up in the storyline, nor any typos.  Kudos to whoever does the editing for this book.

 

    I gather that this is not the first Lindsay Buroker series to feature Val.  The protagonist in the other book I’ve read by this author was Arwen Forester, so now I’m curious as to how many other books have Val in them.

 

    Val’s age is given as “40-ish”, and one Amazon reviewer had doubts about a middle-aged heroine being physically up to the challenges of crossing bounty-hunting paths with formidable magical critters.  But I think the answer to that is that Val’s blood is half-elven, and a 40-year-old elf is physically in her prime.

 

    Sinister Magic thoroughly entertained me  The action starts immediately, there’s plenty of thrills-&-spills, and the snarky banter definitely kept me turning the pages.  I highly recommend this book to anyone in the mood for a lighthearted Harry Dresden-type fantasy.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  A one point, Val is forced to add some Epsom salts to the concoction she’s making.  She correctly recalls that the chemical name for the is Magnesium Sulfate.  CHEMISTRY comes to the rescue once again!

Hope For the Best - Jodi Taylor

 

   2019; 461 pages.  Book 10 (out of 14) in the “Chronicles of St. Mary’s” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Time Travel; Humorous Fantasy; Historical Fiction.  Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    Madeleine “Max” Maxwell has been traded to the Time Police!

 

    Well okay, technically she’s been “seconded” to the Time Police, meaning St. Mary’s loaning Max to them for a while.  It’s sort of a goodwill gesture, aimed at improving the relationship between the two organizations.

 

    One of the weird things is that the Time Police office is based in the future, so Max gets to time-travel forward every time she goes to work.  How utterly kewl is that?!  But the bigger perk for Max is that she gets to be with her son, Matthew, who is being kept at the Time Police headquarters (“TPHQ”), protected by the Time Police from the evil bad guy, Clive Ronan.

 

    Looking after Matthew is not an easy job; see the second excerpt below.

 

What’s To Like...

    I enjoyed Max’s career move in Hope for the Best.  It seemed a nice way for Jodi Taylor to introduce the reader to her new “Time Police” series, the first book of which came out about five months after this one.

 

    It was interesting to watch Max and Captain Ellis learn to work as partners.  Their first adventure involves traveling to 16^th-century London to deal with a Temporal Anomaly.  The Time Police are there to “repair” the digression, even if that means using force.  St. Mary’s is there to record history.  Those differing motivations do not always mesh smoothly.

 

    Delightfully, there’s lots of time-jumping.  I counted ten chrono-hops, and that’s not including return jumps to St. Mary’s and/or TPHQ.  As usual, the book’s cover image gives a glimpse at two of those trips.  The smokestacks shown at the top are of the Battersea Power Station, as any fan of Pink Floyd’s “Animals” album will recognize.  We’ll let you wonder why the bottom image is simply a nest of eggs.

 

    It’s not a spoiler to reveal that two of my favorite characters in this series, Adrian and Mikey, play prominent roles in the storyline.  Grint the Grunt was also an interesting character, as were Hillary and Donald.  I chuckled at the mention of the sport of cheese-rolling on Cooper’s Hill, and liked learning why “Time is like a bluebell wood”.

 

    The ending is tense, twisty, and totally unexpected.  History is restored to its proper order, although not everybody at St. Mary’s, Max in particular, is happy about it.  The Time Police and St. Mary’s have a better understanding of each other, although I’d hardly call them bosom buddies.  Hope For the Best is both a part of a series and a standalone novel.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 5,408 ratings and 383 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.32*/5, based on 7,706 ratings and 584 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    I knelt up to see better.

    Ellis pulled me down.  “Stay down.”

    “I can’t.  It’s my job.  I’m the historian.  I study historical events.  You’re the Time Police.  Go and count your crayons.”

    Someone behind me wondered aloud why they let me live.

    “I’ve no idea,” said Ellis.  “Perhaps she’ll come in handy one day.”

    “And if not?”  Was it my imagination or was there a hopeful note there?

    “Then you can kill her.”  (pg. 126)

 

    “Will you come and see me off?”

    “Of course.  Every wife always wants to know when her husband’s safely out of the picture.”

    “And I gather you’re on the move, too.”

    “Yes.  Because of what’s happening at St. Mary’s, Dr. Bairstow’s moved the schedule forwards.  I’m going back to TPHQ.”

    “Give my love to Matthew.  How’s he doing?”

    “He broke the Time Map.”

    “The boy’s a vandal.  He gets more like his mother every day.”

    “And then showed them how to put it right.”

    “The boy’s a genius.  He gets more like his father every day.”  (pg. 278)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Firkling (v.) : searching; rummaging.

Others: Jellabiyas (n.).

 

I was well and truly up the River of Excrement and my canoe had no visible means of propulsion.  (pg. 352)

    The profanity is pretty sparse in Hope for the Best; I noticed just 11 instances in the first 20% of the book; all of which of the “milder” ilk.  Max pays a visit to a sex club late in the story, but it’s a rather tame experience.  I didn’t note any typos; so kudos to whoever the editor was.

 

    The series is written in British, not American; so there are a few weird words and spellings for us Yankee readers, including draughty, ploughed, ageing, and storeys.  I’m used to hoovering by now, but the abovementioned firkling stumped me.  Jellabiya is an Arabic term.

 

    That’s the nit-pickiest I can be with Hope for the Best.  It’s another fine time-travel tale with lots of wit, humor, thrills-&-spills, family drama, and, maybe best of all, historical fiction blended in.  I've yet to see any drop-off in the quality of the books in this series.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  At one point our heroes come riding in on what is described as “TWOC’d horses”.  Say what?  That acronym stumped me, so I googled it.  It turns out TWOC stands for “Taken Without Owner’s Consent”. Now you know.

Soul Music - Terry Pratchett

   1995; 3739 pages.  Book 16 (out of 41) in “Discworld” series.  New Author? : No.  Laurels : #151 in the “Big Read”.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Satire; British Humour.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    The music is magical in Ankh-Morpork.  Especially the tunes being played by a newly-formed group, “The Band With Rocks In”.  It has listeners tapping their feet, snapping their fingers, and swaying with the beat.  What’s next, people fainting in the aisles?

 

    The wizards at the Unseen University are concerned.  The magic emanating from The Band With Rocks In is not one of their incantations.  An investigation is called for.  They’ll soon get to the bottom of things.

 

    Meanwhile, the Grim Reaper himself, Death, has taken a leave of absence.  It falls upon his granddaughter, Susan, to fill in on a temporary basis, even though she has zero experience swinging the scythe.

 

    So in summary, it’s just another normal day on Discworld.  Let’s go see Band With Rocks In down at the local pub tonight.

 

What’s To Like...

    Soul Music is first and foremost Terry Pratchett’s salute to the 20^th century music business.  In a nutshell, he plops it down in Discworld, among its dwarves, trolls, wizards, gods, and magic, and postulates how similar its development would be when compared to our world.

 

    This includes such things as forming a band and recording its music so that you can listen to it anytime, anyplace.  A number of our-world music idols received subtle nods from Pratchett.  For instance, one character is named “Satchelmouth”, which I eventually realized could be condensed to “Satchmo”, jazz favorite Louis Armstrong’s sobriquet.  Similarly, Imp, a bard whose guitar-playing is magical, is referred to as looking a bit “elvish”.  Well, he is short in stature, but there is a second way to interpret that “elvish” comparison.

 

    It is also fascinating to watch the coming-of-age of Susan.  She starts out as a student at a girl’s boarding school, and has a unique talent – she can turn invisible whenever she’s bored.  What a great way to skip boring classes!  But being the step-grandchild of Death forces her to come to grips with the Facts of Death (as opposed to the Facts of Life), and learn to pick up the Scythe, ride grandfather's horse Binky, team up with a rodent called "Death of Rats", and carry her family duties.

 

    Most of the tale takes place in Ankh-Morpork, so a lot of familiar characters show up, including C.M.O.T. Dibbler, the Librarian (ook!), Lord Vetineri, and Corporal Nobbs and Sergeant Colon of the City Watch.  Being a chemist, I also enjoyed the several times that Chemistry is resorted to, including using the compounds Calcium Carbonate, Ammonium Chloride, and an rare chemical that my company used to manufacture, Ammonium Sulfide.  Wowza!

 

    As with any Discworld novel, the two main storylines rapidly split into a bunch of secondary ones, which keeps the pacing brisk.  As (almost) always, Terry Pratchett eschews the use of chapters , but that just means you can stop for the night at any paragraph break you encounter.  The ending is more heartwarming than exciting, and ties up all the plot threads tidily.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 6,236 ratings and 432 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.06/5 based on 84,620 ratings and 2,875 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Plangent (adj.) : loud, reverberating, and often melancholy.

 

Excerpts...

    The class was learning about some revolt in which some peasants had wanted to stop being peasants and, since the nobles had won, had stopped being peasants really quickly.  Had they bothered to learn to read and acquire some history books they’d have learned about the uncertain merits of things like scythes and pitchforks when used in a battle against crossbows and broadswords.  (pg. 39)

 

    “He says to tell you,” said Albert wearily, “that a chit of a girl means a small girl.  He thinks you may have misheard me.”

    Susan hunched up in the chair.  Albert pulled up another one and sat down.

    “How old are you?”

    “Sixteen.”

    “Oh my.”  Albert rolled his eyes.  “How long have you been sixteen?”

    “Since I was fifteen, of course.  Are you stupid?”  (pg. 76)

 

“Never give a monkey the key to the banana plantation.”  (pg. 218)

    As is normal for a Discworld novel, there’s only a smidgen of mild cussing in Soul Music.  I counted just six instances in the first third of the book, all of which were eschatological ones, and there are no adult situations to shield juvenile eyes from.

 

    There were two punctuation typos: The/Then and Fit’s/Fits.  I thought there was a spelling typo (surelly/surely), but it turns out that Imp’s accent results in prolonged emphasis on any “L sound” in his speaking.  My only other quibble is that two of my favorite City Watch characters—Sam Vimes and Carrot—didn’t make it into the tale.

 

    That’s all I can nitpick about.  I always have high expectations when starting to read a Discworld book, and once again, Terry Pratchett did not disappoint me.  Only two books from the series remain for me to read (I’m not reading them in order), and it will be a bittersweet day whenever I finish the entire series.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  There may be no chapter divisions, but Terry Pratchett’s trademark Footnotes are still plentiful here.  Also, if you’re new to the Discworld series, there’s a handy Glossary in the back of the book, which closes with a Discworld Trivia Quiz.  Fantastic!

Ye Gods! - Tom Holt

   1992; 296 pages.  New Author? :No.  Genres : Humorous Fantasy; Mythology; Satire.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    It’s not easy being the son of a Roman god.  And the head honcho, no less, Jupiter himself.  Just ask Jason Derry. 

 

    Oh, it certainly has some benefits.  You’re a physical masterpiece: you can run at super speeds, dodge flying bullets, and beat the daylight out of any human foolish enough to get into a fight with you.

 

    There are limits however.  Jason’s mom is a mortal, which makes him only a half-god.  Full-blooded deities are more powerful than him, and probably smarter as well.  That means he’s susceptible to being manipulated by the gods, if they so choose.

 

    And Jason has a sneaking suspicion that they are so choosing.

 

What’s To Like...

    Ye Gods! is a clever blend of several Greek mythological tales (Jason & the Golden Fleece, Prometheus) and the modern-day quantum physics concept of multiverses.  If you have an infinite number of parallel universes, at least one of them will still be inhabited by the ancient gods and heroes.  The tale is told via 14 chapters covering 296 pages, with a plethora of fabulous footnotes added that would make Terry Pratchett proud.

 

    It was fun to watch Tom Holt add twists to the classical Greco-Roman myths.  Jason still procures the Golden Fleece, but it’s a minor part of this story.  The gods weren’t mad at Prometheus for giving Fire to humans; it was his second gift to us that got him chained to the rock, with an eagle sent daily to peck out his liver.  The second gift was . . . well, revealing that would be a spoiler.

 

    I’m a lifelong mythology lover, so Ye Gods! was a literary delight for me.  Eleven of the Romanized deities play parts here, plus a twelfth one that I had never heard of.  I was sure that last one was something Tom Holt had dreamed up, and then surprised when I found a Wikipedia page about him.  I’d tell you the god’s name, but that too would a spoiler.

 

    Tom Holt is a British novelist, thus the book is written in English, not American.  So for us Yanks, there were some odd spellings (cheque, sulphur, dialled) and weird words (shufti, git, biro), but I’ve gotten familiar with most of these.  The author also works lots of trivia-worthy items into the text, such as Perry Mason, Burger King, Mithraism, Vivaldi, and one of my heroes, Aleister Crowley.  Late in the story, we get to watch an episode of an alternate-universe TV Game Show called God’s My Witness.  That was exciting.

 

    The ending is vintage Tom Holt: unforeseen yet absurdly logical.  Jason (and the reader) finally get to the bottom of the godly skullduggery, and for perhaps the first time in his life, our hero is introduced to the concept of free will.

 

Excerpts...

    ”Virgil,” he said, “can I ask you something?”

    “Be my guest,” said the Mantuan.

    “If you had a little voice in the back of your head,” said Jason, “that kept telling you to . . . no, suggesting that you do things that you really don’t want to do, because they’re dangerous and you don’t understand why they need doing anyway, how would you react?”

    “I’d have a lobotomy,” Virgil replied unhesitatingly.  “Nothing worse than a chatty brain, I always say.”  (pg. 99)

 

   “Bad King Atreus looked out

    On the slopes of Pindus

    Lightning came and rubbed him out,

    Blowing him to cinders.

    Atreus, the silly sod,

    Came to Jove’s attention.

    People who offend a god

    Don’t collect their pension.”  (pg. 242)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Nobble (v.) : to try to influence or thwart someone by underhanded or unfair means.  (British, slang)

Others: Chiropody (n.); Simpulum (n.); Profiteroles (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.1*/5, based on 210 ratings and 26 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.71*/5, based on 1,299 ratings and 40 reviews.

 

“Just because you’re omniscient doesn’t mean you don’t forget the occasional birthday.”  (pg. 157)

    There’s not a lot of profanity in Ye Gods!  I counted just 10 instances in the first 20%, all of the either the scatological or eschatological variety.  Later on, a couple of stronger cusswords crop up, including one f-bomb.

 

    There were only a couple typos: a missing comma, hopped/hoped, and two different spellings of a character’s last name: Bennett/Bennet.

 

    A word to the wise: don't be surprised if you get a third of the way through the book and suddenly realize you have no idea what the main storyline is.  This is trademark Tom Holt, and rest assured that the main plot thread will eventually reveal itself.  In the meantime, just enjoy being entertained by the author’s wit, storytelling, and the antics of a bunch of Roman gods.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  At one point, a “CND symbol” is referenced, and I had never heard of such a thing.  This stymied me, but luckily Wikipedia is the fount of all knowledge.  “CND” refers to a British activist group called the “Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament”, and its symbol is what we ex-hippies call “the peace symbol”.  Peace on!