Mort, by Terry Pratchett

The great fantasy author, Sir Terry Pratchett, O.B.E died on March 12,2015--after suffering from a long battle with Alzheimers. One of the earliest influences on my sometimes smartassed style of writing was his watershed fantasy series, Discworld. 

Sir Terry took J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft and William Shakespeare, and many other mythologies, folklores, and fairy tales, and mashed them up in this hilarious series of tales. There were 39 books in this trilogy! Talk about prolific.

One of my favorite books in the series is "Mort." It is the 4th book and is the first to give Death the main storyline.

But First, The Blurb:

Terry Pratchett's profoundly irreverent novels are consistent number one bestseller in England, where they have catapulted him into the highest echelons of parody next to Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen.

In this Discworld installment, Death comes to Mort with an offer he can't refuse -- especially since being, well, dead isn't compulsory.As Death's apprentice, he'll have free board and lodging, use of the company horse, and he won't need time off for family funerals. The position is everything Mort thought he'd ever wanted, until he discovers that this perfect job can be a killer on his love life.

MY REVIEW:

As a teenager, Mort had a personality and temperament that made him rather unsuited to the family farming business. Mort's father, named Lezek, felt that Mort thought too much, which prevented him from achieving anything practical. Thus, Lezek took him to a local hiring fair, hoping that Mort would land an apprenticeship with some tradesman; not only would this provide a job for his son, but it would also make his son's propensity towards thinking someone else's problem.

The conversation between Lezek and his brother Hamish as they discuss Mort's future in the opening pages is hilarious and quite revealing in its simplicity. 

In this snippett, Lezek and Hamish are observing Mort as he attempts to frighten some birds away from the crop. "He's not stupid, mind" said Hamish. "Not what you'd call stupid."

"There's a brain there all right,"Lezek conceded. "Sometimes he starts thinking so hard you has to hit him round the head to get his attention. His granny taught him to read, see? I reckon it overheated his mind."

At the job fair, Mort at first has no luck attracting the interest of an employer. Then, just before the stroke of midnight, a man concealed in a black cloak arrives on a white horse. He says he is looking for a young man to assist him in his work and selects Mort for the job. The man turns out to be Death, and Mort is given an apprenticeship in ushering souls into the next world (though his father thinks he's been apprenticed to an undertaker).

Death is a great character, so completely human in his disenchantment with his career. He retires and Mort's apprenticeship takes off with some amazing ups and downs. 

Death's journey to happiness is one of the more hilarious of the Discworld tales.

I love the snarky way Pratchett took clichés and ran with them. He grabbed the boring, bland, overdone themes of western literature by the tail and swung them. When he set them down they were SO much more fun to watch!

If you love fantasy with humor, and aren't afraid to poke fun at the wry facts of life, Sir Terry Pratchett's work might be for you!

Hired by a Demon, by Gypsy Madden

Hired by a Demon, the debut novel by indie author, Gypsy Madden, takes us into a paranormal reality, and entertains us well. Hired by a Demon is an action-packed adventure that bodes well for her future works. I found it to be  creative, ingenious, and a roller-coaster of adventure.

The Blurb:

Three years without a word from the magical half of the planet, and suddenly there was a demon in Vara’s bedroom. Samanith, the representative of the sinister Kendrick & Clarke Temp Agency, had come to offer her a simple baby-sitting position. What Sam neglected to mention was that the ‘baby’ was a headstrong teenage girl, heir to a fortune, the only daughter of the Agency’s most influential client, and she had been bitten by a werewolf.

Dogged by guilt over her father’s mysterious disappearance, which she suspects has been caused by the demons to keep her in line, Vara finds herself facing her brooding former boyfriend, currently working as the heiress’s bodyguard. He still harbors a grudge over their breakup and has resolved to make her job an unpleasant one.

Will Vara survive the rabid wolf instincts growing inside the teenage heiress who hungers for her magic? Or the lecherous tabloid reporter determined to turn the situation into a front page scandal? Or the pack of wolf hunters who want the heiress dead, and possibly Vara too, and all because she had been HIRED BY A DEMON.

My Review:

Vara’s charge is the daughter of an extremely wealthy, powerful man, Lord Stadler. The family is nobility, and don’t you forget it. Arrogance and privilege ooze from their pores.  Just keeping track of Laris is a trick—she does as she pleases, and those who wish to save her must somehow work around her willful misbehavior, or woe unto them.

Sam, of course, has an agenda of his own, and his meddling goes well beyond his messing with Vara’s life. But he’s a demon, so what do you expect?

The action is non-stop and the mood swings from dark to funny and back to dark, keeping the very original plot moving along. I enjoyed the attraction between Laris and Vara, and Laris and Austen, and Laris and Richard. In fact, the attraction between Laris and nearly everyone quite intense, and appears to be a fundamental part of her magic.

There are some quite hilarious moments. Can I just say that I LOVED the gargoyles?   But even with the humor, this book isn’t all fun and games by any means. There is a real, compelling dark tale here with a deep plot for the reader to sink into, and many tantalizing threads that finally come together in the end.  

I had a great time reading this book.  I highly recommend Hired by a Demon for a great weekend read!

The Dream Merchant, book 3 – The Crack’d Shield by L.T. Suzuki in collaboration with Nia Suzuki-White

 

The Dream Merchant, book 3 – The Crack'd Shield is written by Canadian author L.T. Suzuki in collaboration with her daughter, Nia Suzuki-White. Lorna Suzuki is the author of the classic Imago series.

This laugh-a-minute farce continues the adventures of prickly, persnickety Princess Rose and her unwilling personal knight, Tag on their quest to retrieve, the Dreamstone which began in TheMagic Crystal.  When The Silver Sword, the second book in the series, ended Rose and Tag were trapped in the lair of a dragon, bickering as usual but were about to set out to rescue their old friend Cankles from the evil Sorcerer Dragonite.   Tag has sacrificed his most precious possession to save Rose.

Now, a cave-in has separated Rose and Tag, but their friends the elves, Denatheen, Ayden, Roen Aldus digging them out.  Dragonite has kidnapped Cankles, but he really wants Princess Rose, although they aren’t really sure why.  Soon, Silas Agincor, the Dream Merchant and Lord Rainus Silverthorn, leader of the elves rejoin them.

The adventures really heat up, and we learn a great deal of Cankles’s history, which is grim and sad; but also noble and brave. Also, we see that all is not exactly peachy-keen in the working relationship of Dragonite and his rebellious minion, the pooka (a sort of a fairy) Loken.  Somehow two evil geniuses in one lair just don’t get along as well as you would think they would, what with all the jockeying for position and one-upping that goes on. Their interactions are frequently hilarious; Loken is not a good and loyal minion at heart. However, Sorcerer Dragonite does possess something Loken wants badly enough to justify pretending to be the underling in this venture. And Dragonite, whose awesome army is composed of Mimes (!!!) is sadistic, where Loken does not enjoy being cruel but does it out of necessity.

The history between the evil Dragonite and Cankles looms large in this tale. Dragonite is responsible for Cankles’s amnesia.  He is also responsible for brutally torturing him a decade before. Now poor Cankles is once more his prisoner, and we discover what it is that really binds Loken to Dragonite.

Now things get really interesting, as if they weren’t already!

I love this whole series, and The Crack’d Shield is a fitting and satisfying conclusion to this 3-volume tale.  The characters are vivid, and colorful; their personalities are unique and distinctive.  I cared about Rose and Tag and absolutely cherished Cankles. I laughed and cried all the way through their adventures, and I love, loved, loved the ending.

All in all, the three volumes of the Dream Merchant Saga combine all the elements of epic high-fantasy with intense drama and hilarious dialogue, creating a real masterpiece. The Crack'd Shield is a breathtaking finish to a truly awesome tale!  I highly recommend purchasing all three volumes, because you will want to read them all.

 

 

 

 

Rachel Tsoumbakos, 'Emeline and the Mutants'; Jim Bernheimer, "Confessions of a 'D' List Supervillain'

This week I am reviewing two books by indie authors. Both books are urban fantasies and both books are wonderful examples of the high quality of some of the work that is out there. Also, both books appealed to the rabid gamer that lurks inside of me!

Emeline and the Mutants by Rachel Tsoumbakos

Emelineand the Mutants by Rachel Tsoumbakos is a post-apocalyptic fantasy that manages to mix all the usual elements of traditional fantasy, such as fairies and trolls, with the modern urban fantasy themes of vampires and were-wolves. It the first book by Australian author Rachel Tsoumbakos, and is a worthy first novel. I foresee great things from this author!

The premise of the story is that a successful vaccine for Aids has been embraced but now the unintended side-effects of it have caused mutations, in humans and most animals. The virus that causes the mutations is extremely contagious, and the remaining healthy populace now lives in easily defensible conclaves, surrounded by walls and other defenses. The protagonist, Emeline is a strong female character who hunts and kills the undead and other mutants who prey on the healthy populace. There is blood, and there is gore, and there are adult situations, but Tsoumbakos manages to work them into the plot seamlessly so that while the violence is sometimes shocking, it is a necessary part of the story.

Emeline is a hard girl with a soft center. The story begins with her brother Warrick going missing and presumed dead. There is a conspiracy by the government, and everyone else has their own agenda, which makes for a tale with many twists and turns.

The story of Emeline and the Mutants is one that should appeal to all fans of the ‘Resident Evil’ series, especially those by Keith R A DeCandido, and is one that I could see appealing to fans of the Final Fantasy rpg game empire. As a long-time gamer, I enjoy this sort of a tale. I found the plot absorbing, I cared about the protagonist and the other characters, and found that the action was both violent and fun.

This tale was a bit of a change for me, as I normally do not read Urban Fantasy; so much as I do Epic Fantasy. I am glad I took the chance and bought this e-book!

'Confessions of a 'D' List Supervillain' by Jim Bernheimer

I enjoyed this take on the age-old hero vs villain story. In 'Confessions of a 'D' List Supervillain' indie author Jim Bernheimer has created a dystopian world where mankind relies on superheroes to save them, and the most popular superheroes are The Olympians - 12 common people who were chosen to wield the powers of certain of the Gods of Olympus.

Conversely there are the supervillains, and Cal `Mechani-Cal' Stringel is, by his own assertion, not one of the more successful of them, but he gets by.

The world has been taken over by alien bugs the size of grasshoppers that have attached themselves to every one's neck, reorganizing the world into a hive society of junkies addicted to the bugs in the desperate way that a junkie is addicted to heroin. When they are removed from their victim's neck, the victims are just as desperate as a gutter-dwelling junkie to get them back. The bugs have infected society to the highest levels, which would not have bothered Cal except for the fact that they are seriously messing with Cal's ability to be the moderately successful villain that he enjoys being. Because he works from inside of his mechanical suit, Cal has managed to avoid this fate. Out of necessity, he finds himself trying to get the 'good-guys' back on their feet and back to saving the world like they are supposed to be doing.

As superheroes go, The Olympians are as unlikeable and evil a bunch of shallow, self-serving stars as you could ask for. The supervillains, on the other hand, are actually the better human beings, because they are honest about their motives.

I don't normally like first person, present tense point of view in a story, because I find it difficult to get into into the story. But once I got past that initial issue I have to admit, this story captured and held my interest. Just as I reported in my July 8, 2011 review of 'TheMagic of Recluce', which is also told in the first person, it soon became a non-issue because the story carried me away.

The adventures that Cal has as he tries to re-hab the Olympians and save the world are quite entertaining. There are some adult themes, but though there is nothing graphic I recommend this as a fun adult read. Fans of all things superhero and those who love comic books will love this book. Also available as an audio-book, this is a book that will appeal to the superhero in all of us!