Heat Stroke

Heat Stroke (ISBN 9780451459848) is book 2 of the Weather Warden series. Our heroine was killed in the first book and lovingly restored to life as a Djinn. Joanne gains a whole new perspective about how magic works in the world as she learns to control her power and, unfortunately, learns how to be controlled. Mixed in with the disaster on the horizon is a child master who has had the worst kind of life.
Rating: 4/5

Ill Wind

This is the first of the Weather Warden series. The quote on the book suggests that you will never look at the weather the same, but this depends on your level belief in the supernatural. There are four types of power that a mortal may control, the standards as far as I am concerned. Earth, the rarest; Fire, the most volatile; Air, common; and Water, also common. The wardens trap and control Djinn who are used as amplifiers in a manner of speaking. For more, see the next post on Heat stroke or read this book (ISBN 9780451459527).
Rating 4/5
PS: I have switched to using Barnes and Noble links instead of Amazon links... if anyone cares.

For a Few Demons More

This is the latest chapter in the Rachel Morgan saga that I have read. I get these when they come out in paperback and for my taste of the dark side of sci-fi this really has a the feel of a detective style novel in a very believable setting. In this, a couple of the characters from prior books are done away with and others return, obviously, with vengeance in mind. We pick up smoothly from the prior story about the Werewolf focus and delve more deeply into the seemingly unlimited well of power available to our dark version of Danger-Prone Daphne.
For those of you who've not read this series, which I got into quite by accident, Rachel Morgan is an earth witch in an alternate reality where most of the normal human population had been severely decimated by a genetically engineered virus transmitted by Tomatoes. Demons, Pixies, Faries, Elves, Vampires, Werewolves (dogs, foxes, etc), and trolls round out the mythical creature list to date. With the exception of Elves, the "Turn" engendered by this virus made no dent on the now significant population of other-worldly races.
Rachel's job at the start of this series was as a "Inderland" officer and with a genetic quirk foisted on her to cure her of a deadly disease, she can do this job much better than anyone else, or so we're led to believe.
Although this book is found in the science fiction environment, For a Few Demons More (ISBN 0061149810) may also be very comfortable in a couple of other sections and Mr. Dewey could just break his decimal system with this writer.
Rating: 4/5

Stardust

Well, I bit the bullet. After the movie being out for nearly a year I decided to finally read the book (and no, I haven't yet seen the movie, tends to ruin the book that way). After the hype of the commercials I had a glimpse of this universe, and only when I saw that he wrote 'Neverwhere' as well did I put 2 and 2 together.
For those who want to read it, it is a fantastic ride down the well of imagination. While there are plot points that could be expanded upon in other stories or may have already been so, each of his books appear to be independent stories. Startdust (ISBN 0060934719) is the story of a boy drawn into a plot before he was born to reshape the lands of Faerie. At points it is hard to tell who is on the boy's side and discovering the truth about his mother has profound implications on the wayward lad. As the author puts it in the closing remarks, we are reminded that fairy tales are not just for kids but adults to.
Some of the character development and attributes, while fantastical, did not ring true to me for the world, but all in all, that may have been colored by my previous reading of 'Neverwhere' (ISBN 0060557818).
Rating: 3/5

Lodestar

Michael Flynn's Lodestar is a jaunt through the near future. Some of the tech is doable now.... just look at the MMORPG environs.... In the meantime, we'll have to wait for hobartium based anti-gravity devices. In all, this was an easy book to follow but I was left with one question: When can I sign up to fly to Leo Station or Goddard?
See ISBN 0812542967
Rating: 4/5

Enemies

I read this Lee Hogan book, and though it combines politics, Russian lore, and religious zealotry, I was not impressed by the plot. The science and tech of this far flung universe was superb but it read more like a diatribe on race relations of the 50's than Star Wars style space opera as touted on Amazon.com (see ISBN: 0451459199).
Rating 2.5/5

Outlaw Sword

This is book 2 in J. Ardian Lee's story about 18th century Scotland. Not having read book 1 yet, I can not comment on continuity of the story line between them. It was fairly robust in my opinion. Drawing known elements of how life was lived at that time well into the fantasy aspects of dealing with the wee folk. In many ways, this reminded me of Harry Turtledove's historical fiction works (the few I have read) where plausibility plays a large part in the direction of the story. As an avid fan of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, I had hoped for a larger part for the magic in the story. The author, however, paints the characters strongly enough that I can connect to the Hero, Dylan when he is pushed to the limits.

Rating 3/5