Review: First Grave on the Right

First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Have you ever watched an old Rodney Dangerfield stand-up routine? At first you really enjoy the snark and one-liners, but about five minutes in you start checking your watch, then at about ten minutes you start thinking that the two drink minimum is not going to be able to cover however long this routine is going to take. Fifteen minutes in you sort of chuckle because the joke about the ghost and his corpse is sort of amusing, but at twenty minute in you really wish you hadn't sat so close to the front because otherwise you could sneak out and maybe just ask the bartender about what the punchline is with the guy in the black cloak? God knows you've been tipping the guy well enough and he owes you at this point.

Yeah.
That's this book.

The overall story is a sort-of uneven mystery, there are mentions of abuse of many kinds throughout the book which makes the overall feeling odd with how Jones has the main character Charley just dig into the one-liners the whole time.

It was nice to have a story happen in Albuquerque, it's not usually a city one gets to hang out in while reading a urban fantasy. Although I would have liked a bit more description besides just driving up Central.

The 'romance'...ugh, I don't know. The end result of who he turned out to be was neat but everything else...I found myself skimming the sexy bits, at the point they showed up I just didn't care and just wanted to get to the next plot point. Your mileage might vary.

However, if you enjoy an endless barrage of jokes along the lines of 'Yeah, I know I'm ugly... I said to a bartender, 'Make me a zombie.' He said 'God beat me to it,' as well as middling PI action then maybe this book will work for you.

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Review: Lady of Devices

Lady of Devices by Shelley Adina
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first in a YA Steampunk series, Lady of Devices suffers from both uneven world building and character development. It's hard to take a character seriously as an accomplished chemist when we are introduced to her by having her blow something up due to 'wanting to see what would happen' when she added somethings together against the instruction of her professor. I'm not sure if the unevenness of Lady Clair's character was the author's attempt to show us that she is a sheltered teen or just shaky writing of a first book.

Both Lady Clair and the author seem to get a grip as the story progresses, and by the time she takes her new charges in hand has a clearer idea of the character and story. However, one can't get around the fact that this book is mostly a set-up for the rest of the series so most of it is introductions.
Sadly most of the characters that you know will show up in later books have the same shaky sketch of their characters that Lady Clair has at the end of the book. The idea that Lord James, someone the reader can only suppose is in his mid-twenties and well-versed in society at this point would take such offence at a school girl's inability to pick-up on his interest in her that he holds it against her to such an extent makes one wonder.

The world building is fairly minimal, leaning heavily on basic steampunk tropes, but it does help to keep the plot moving, not getting weighted down by explanation. The overall pacing, once I got into it, goes quite fast. I was easily able to read the book in one day and is a perfectly fine YA book.

After a bit of a bumpy start I only hope that the series smooths out as I enjoyed the concept.

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Review: A Natural History of Dragons

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A Natural History of Dragons has all the hallmarks of a book that I should love, an interesting main character, an interesting world, dragons, however, I just couldn't seem to get into it.

There is a lot of world building, and its not necessarily all that clear, It would have been good to have some sort of map to refer to in order to get a better sense of things. The idea of a sort-of Victorian world but with dragons is really something I am totally down for, however the society, etc., it's really clearly explained, much less how the main character's country fits into the wider world's society. I got the feeling that the reader is supposed to equate it to Britain during the 1880s, however there isn't any explanation about the government and only little bits about the society structure where is acts as plot motivation.

I'm not sure why I just couldn't seem to connect with the story. I don't know if it was the lack of grounding in the world, the clipped first-person narration, or the pacing. I didn't feel like the story got moving until over 60% in, and that is just too long to have to deal with a main character that one just can't seem to get into.

The overall story is somewhat predictable, although I really liked how some of the concepts that are introduced are deal with. But all together, its not enough to get me to read the next in the series. Which is a bummer as I really wanted to like this book.

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