Dead as a Doornail (Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Book 5)

Dead as a Doornail is the 5th book in the Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire book series by Charlaine Harris.  This review will deal with events from the other four books so, if you wish to enjoy the adventure  of the story fresh and have thoughts of starting this book series at some point, turn back now or be spoiled for ever!

So, quite a bit happened in Book 4, Dead to the World.  First and foremost, we found out there are witches in Bon Temps!  We also found out what it would be like if Eric wasn't Eric anymore.  These two occurrences  are not mutually exclusive.  Sookie found Eric after the witches took away his memory away.  Sookie was then convinced to take care of Eric while Pam found a way to get rid of the witches.  Of course the plan relied on Sookie and some werewolves (why not).  This is where Alcide's psycho-ex, Debbie comes in.  Proclaiming herself there to help, she found an opportunity to try and take Sookie out.  Long story short, Debbie was unsuccessful and nobody knows where she is.  That's mainly because Sookie blew her away with Jason's shotgun and Eric buried her somewhere while his memory was messed up.  Once he was back to himself, he didn't remember anything that happened when he didn't remember his real self.  Too bad since he and Sookie really hit off then! Then, there's Jason and the were-panthers (sounds like a U/F doo-wop group)

The thing that I liked about Dead to the World, I love about this book.  Charlaine Harris not only gives us a primary story to deal with but, she layers a few subplots to spice up this book.  The stories are woven in a way that aids the pacing so that, we're never bored though still not left exhausted by an abundance of action.

Sookie is as ever on her road to self discovery.  This is the one spot that the book way outpaces the HBO show.  In the books, she does not just deal with situations, she learns from them.  We see some of the same from the other characters but, it's more obvious with Sookie.  I do have to give Jason his due.  In the first book, that character was rather less than we saw on TV but, he has starting really evolving lately.

Dead as a Doornail was probably just what I needed from the series to keep my interest.  There is plenty of action and exposition to keep a reader entertained.  It still gets an R rating from me for its violence, language and frank use of mature situations.

 

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Posted by Tynga at 02:00

 Ace Books, Purchased, Review, Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire, True Blood, vampires  3 People left their mark

Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris

This is the fourth book in the Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Mysteries Series.  If you have not yet read or watched the HBO show, yet intend to read this series, turn back now and please, please, come back later. I will likely disclose knowledge from the earlier books.  Information otherwise know as spoilers.

In book 3, Club Dead, we were finally introduced to the character Alcide Herveaux , werewolf and big-time surveyor.  We also meet his father, and his sort-of ex, Debbie Pelt.  Also patrons of Club Dead is the King of Mississippi, Russell Edgington and  his entourage.  These introductions came as a mixed blessing to Sookie.  She was looking for Bill Compton and, as it happened, Russell had Bill Compton.  So that, eventually, worked itself out.  The meeting with Debbie and some of the other werewolves could have gone better to say the least.  Then there was Sookie's introduction to Bill's maker, Lorena Ball.  That one ended with Lorena skewered like a kabob and Sookie having to get inventive with vampire disposal.  In the end, Sookie wound up alone healing as best she could at home.

In the fourth installment, Sookie is bound and determined to make it on her own with no help or interference from supernatural creatures no matter how handsome or gifted in the boudoir they may be.  This plan falls apart no sooner than she makes it when she happens upon a very tall, very blond and Nordic looking vampire wearing only jeans, running down the road early New Years' morning.  Can you guess who it is?  To make things that much more interesting, Jason is missing.  Sookie is very suspicious because she had seen him with woman who was a shifter just before he vanished.

All this is great setup for something that Charlaine Harris is great at: concurrent story lines.  My disappointment with the Club Dead was that there was just the one main story that seemed to follow the regular three act sequence felt a little too much like any other book by any other author.  Dead to the World was a return of Ms. Harris at her best.  We got new characters and a broadening of the supernatural creatures in and around Bon Temps.  I'm finding that developing the types of creatures can be just as important to the story as development of the characters themselves.  Learning and experiencing the difference between a Shifter and a Were along with Sookie gives a bit of depth to the story that would be lacking in a simple narrative explaining it in almost scholarly terms.

The pacing and interweaving of the stories is excellent and in the tradition of the first two books.  This has been one of the aspects that I have grown to appreciate from authors like Ms. Harris and others like Jim Butcher who use similar storytelling patterns.  Let's face it, life doesn't happen in separate three act dramas.  It happens all at once without intermission.  This is a wonderful way to lend a bit of reality to the story in order to bring the reader deeper into the tale.

Dead to the World is classic Sookie and a must read for any burgeoning fan.  Of course, it almost goes without saying, this is not a YA book.  This is an R rated book due to it's violence, mature subjects and mild sex scenes.



 

 

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Posted by Tynga at 02:00

 Ace Books, Charlaine Harris, Purchased, Review, Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire, True Blood, vampires, werewolves  2 People left their mark

Club Dead (Book 3 of the Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries) by Charlaine Harris

This is a review of Club Dead, Book 3 of the Sookie Stackhouse series. If you haven’t read, but may someday in the future want to read the previous books, please come back once you have. Unless, of course, you like spoilers, because, I’m likely to spoil the heck out of the first three books right off the bat.

Here I am in book 3 already, and I still, get a little tripped up by differences in the book Sookie and the TV show Sookie. Along with Sookie’s more pronounced physical attributes in the book, she also seems to be less likely to believe in her own appeal. I think it’s an interesting character trait that is realistic. I we use the other characters reaction to Sookie, we get a slightly different picture of her. They seem to see her as a strong willed, sharp minded and rustically beautiful woman. It’s really the only thing that explains how she can be the center of gravity to so many odd and dangerous events. Little things like a maenad causing a small group from Bon Temps, including her best friend Tara, to lose all sexual control right before Sookie’s eyes.

In this installment, we meet Alcide Herveaux, surveyor from Mississippi. Alcide is commissioned by Eric to help Sookie with a little project. As to be expected, the situation around this project isn’t quite what people expect. Though this is not a straight forward murder mystery, there are elements of one woven throughout the story. There are many dead bodies that show up but, for the most part, you know who the culprit is. It’s all that surrounds these events that makes the real mystery.

This story is easy to follow and makes sense even with the twists and turns it follows. My only real disappointment was with the lack of a secondary plot. In the first two books, there were at least two plots going on almost simultaneously and I thought that gave the stories a bit more authenticity. After all, life doesn’t occur consecutively. All too often, things happen concurrently and inconveniently.

This is still a worthy addition to the Sookie Stackhouse collection and I am still enjoying the journey. As always, this book is intended for a mature audience with the violence, language and sex scenes. I would put this deep in the R rated area.

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Posted by Tynga at 02:00

 Ace Books, Charlaine Harris, Purchased, Review, Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire, Urban Fantasy  4 People left their mark

The Atrocity Archives (A Laundry Files Novel) by Charles Stross

Here is yet another of my more odd-ball choices.  I found this on sale and thought it was the blend for me: spies, tech and magic.  How could I go wrong.  Even the main character's name is Robert, what could be better.  Bob is an IT professional who gets himself drawn into the darker side of the spy game.  This side has demons, monsters and magic.  As the story begins, Bob not only wants to be part of the agency he was coerced into joining, now he wants to do field work.

The setting for the story is London, which was another draw for me.  There something special about having a story about monsters and magic taking place in a city that old.  It brings to mind old castles and towers haunted by history.  Unfortunately, this book didn't take too much advantage of that and at points almost could have been set in any city.  This book is actually two separate stories both of which are set primarily in London.   Both stories are well rounded enough and have good pacing.  It's easy to tell from a tech standpoint that the story is a few years old as some of the references quite dated but, most hold up well enough.  The book seems to set out to explain the fundamentals of it's magic system.  This results in the use of a lot of terminology that mixes magic and mythology with modern tech and tech theory. I thought that the main character of Bob was well developed but, then again, this is told in first person so, that was easy enough to handle.

Most of the characters are well placed and seem to have purpose In the story.  Many lack any significant development but, it's hard not to attribute that to the fact that most are spies or operatives.  I never got an accurate enough picture of Bob's roommates.  I'm sure they were described at some point but, it left no lasting impression on me.   This is the first book of the series so, maybe there was more done with these in later stories. This was a book that when I saw it, I thought I may have found myself a new series to follow (I've passed the halfway point of the Dresden Files).  Unfortunately ,  I don't think this is it. The first thing that struck a wrong cord with me was the use of a lot of heavy tech-terms.  For me, if overdone, it makes it difficult to follow and stay engaged in the story.  Some of the second tier characters could have used a bit more build up to give the story a little more fullness.

Overall, this was just okay for me.  I truly wanted it to be more than it turned out to be.  Maybe, it the second book goes on sale, I'll pick that one up.  If you decide to pick this one up be aware that it's definitely in the R rating zone for the violence and a mediocre sex scene.

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Posted by Tynga at 01:00

 Ace Books, charles stross, Fantasy, Purchased, Review, Science-Fiction, spy, The Laundry Files, Urban Fantasy  1 Person left their mark

The Witches of Echo Park by Amber Benson

The Witches of Echo Park is a very character-driven novel, with a little romance thrown in.  The reader really gets to know the main character, Lyse, and her new "extended family" in this series opener.

The character development in The Witches of Echo Park is great, almost at the cost of plot development.  This is the first book in a rumored series, so the author spends time letting us get to know all the various characters.  The main character, Lyse, is, of course, the most well-developed.  A majority of the chapters are from her point of view.  While all of Lyse's chapters are set in the present day and serve to advance the plot, she will often reminisce or reflect back on her teenage years in order to fill in a little backstory.  By the end of the book, I felt like I knew Lyse the best out of the entire coven of characters.  While Lyse holds the majority, the other coven members also get their own chapters sprinkled throughout the book.  I know not everyone is a fan of books with multiple points of view, but when it's done well (like in The Witches of Echo Park) I'm definitely a fan.  I just feel like I get so much more information this way!  Amber Benson uses character names as the chapter headings, so we're never left guessing as to who is narrating any particular section.  I'm assuming there's going to be a lot more action in the series to come, and I'll be very glad to have had this first book in which to get to know the characters, their powers, their backstories, and their personalities.

Speaking of more action.... I hate to say it, but I wish there had been a little more action in The Witches of Echo Park.  I just finished the book, and I feel like there are a lot of loose ends.  And now I have to wait until the second book is released to satiate my curiosity!  The main character, Lyse, was raised by her distant older relative Eleanora following an accident in her teen years in which both of her parents perished.  She loves Eleanora like a grandmother, and rushes home to Echo Park as soon as she hears that Eleanora has terminal cancer.  Once she arrives, though, Eleanora wastes no time in hitting Lyse with the news that she's a witch and that she wants Lyse to take her place in the coven.  Lyse is just as skeptical as I would be if my grandma suddenly announced that she was a witch!  Here's where the action starts... and doesn't quite finish.  We get to see Lyse taking the first steps toward understanding Eleanora's up-till-now "secret" life in the coven, and we get to meet and know the other members of the coven.  But there are some things eluded to that are never explained further or resolved, like a deep family secret and some ominous, vague "Flood" that is coming.  I'm going to assume that we'll get resolution in the books to come.

A bonus factor: steamy sexytimes!  A bonus if you're into that, that is.  No spoilers, I promise, but there's a scene about the middle of the book that made me blush a little.

A confession: I think this was my first Adult book featuring witches!  (I read a lot of YA.)  I enjoyed my brief visit to Echo Park, but it was so far from my usual reads that it was hard to rate.  I might just have to check out Book #2 to complete my opinion!

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Posted by Tynga at 01:00

 Ace Books, Amber Benson, Fiction, Paranormal, Publisher, Review, The Witches of Echo Park  Leave your mark