![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I've been reading...probably more than I should, lately. But hey, there must be stress release. And out of my craziness, you get book recs, so it all works out!
Resenting the Hero/The Hero Strikes Back, by Moira J. Moore.
The titles and the covers for these bill the books as humorous fantasy, but they're not. Which is not to say that they don't have a good sense of humor, but they're definitely not comedy. The premise is, on its face, slightly cliche; certain people are born with the talents to calm an angry planet, and form lifelong, mystical bonds with the people who have the complementary talent of being able to shield them before the forces they're using tear them apart. The narrator is one of the Shields, a conservative and even rather priggish young woman who ends up bonded to a high-flying, aristocratic Source. She actually makes an excellent narrator, since she's very perceptive...but not always the best at fairly interpreting what she sees. The action is engaging, with enough twists and turns through the two books that keep the reader interested. The world-building is fairly strong...I have several unanswered questions about the natures of the Sources and Shields, but I suspect that's deliberate. Best of all, both of the books are relatively short, so they make good pleasure reading when you're busy.
Cast in Shadow/Cast in Courtlight, by Michelle Sagara
Police drama in a fantasy city, in a world that would make possibly one of the best urban high fantasy RPG settings I've ever seen. Six races (human, Barrani, Dragons, Aerians, Leontines, and a telepathic race that hasn't gotten much screen time) live under the rule of the Dragon Emperor. In the capital city of Elantra, peace and law are kept by the three branches of the Halls of Law: The Swords, who appear to be more conventional city-guard types, the Hawks, detectives and vice squads, and the Wolves, bounty hunters and possibly assassins. The youngest Hawk is Kaylin, a human girl from the slums who is covered in mysterious markings that seem to give her magical powers that she doesn't understand and doesn't really /want/ to understand. But when slum children start to show up, tattooed with the same marks and murdered, she has to get involved. Kaylin is a fun narrator, snarky and smart, but entirely clueless about anything that isn't directly related to her duties. The world-building is excellent...like I said, this is a setting that I want to see turned into an RPG as soon as possible, just because of the tremendous potential within it.
The Decoy Princess/Princess at Sea, by Dawn Cook
Gamester fantasy, for all those IN players out there. The Crown Princess discovers that she's...well, she's actually not. The /real/ princess has been raised in a convent in the country, while a beggar's child was bought and raised in her place, to protect the royal blood from assassination. But now, someone's trying to usurp the throne, and it's up to the fake princess to take out the bad guy, and ensure that the real princess takes her rightful place. But what is the rightful place for our Heroine? Where does a fake princess fit in the grand scheme of things? The worldbuilding here is sketchier; we don't really learn much about the actual setting, only the aspects of it that make direct inroads on the plot. However, the characterization is very well done (including a subplot running through the two books that impressed me greatly), and as mentioned before, any fans of In Nomine's 'The Game' will get a real kick out of the way the premise and plot develops through the two books.
Resenting the Hero/The Hero Strikes Back, by Moira J. Moore.
The titles and the covers for these bill the books as humorous fantasy, but they're not. Which is not to say that they don't have a good sense of humor, but they're definitely not comedy. The premise is, on its face, slightly cliche; certain people are born with the talents to calm an angry planet, and form lifelong, mystical bonds with the people who have the complementary talent of being able to shield them before the forces they're using tear them apart. The narrator is one of the Shields, a conservative and even rather priggish young woman who ends up bonded to a high-flying, aristocratic Source. She actually makes an excellent narrator, since she's very perceptive...but not always the best at fairly interpreting what she sees. The action is engaging, with enough twists and turns through the two books that keep the reader interested. The world-building is fairly strong...I have several unanswered questions about the natures of the Sources and Shields, but I suspect that's deliberate. Best of all, both of the books are relatively short, so they make good pleasure reading when you're busy.
Cast in Shadow/Cast in Courtlight, by Michelle Sagara
Police drama in a fantasy city, in a world that would make possibly one of the best urban high fantasy RPG settings I've ever seen. Six races (human, Barrani, Dragons, Aerians, Leontines, and a telepathic race that hasn't gotten much screen time) live under the rule of the Dragon Emperor. In the capital city of Elantra, peace and law are kept by the three branches of the Halls of Law: The Swords, who appear to be more conventional city-guard types, the Hawks, detectives and vice squads, and the Wolves, bounty hunters and possibly assassins. The youngest Hawk is Kaylin, a human girl from the slums who is covered in mysterious markings that seem to give her magical powers that she doesn't understand and doesn't really /want/ to understand. But when slum children start to show up, tattooed with the same marks and murdered, she has to get involved. Kaylin is a fun narrator, snarky and smart, but entirely clueless about anything that isn't directly related to her duties. The world-building is excellent...like I said, this is a setting that I want to see turned into an RPG as soon as possible, just because of the tremendous potential within it.
The Decoy Princess/Princess at Sea, by Dawn Cook
Gamester fantasy, for all those IN players out there. The Crown Princess discovers that she's...well, she's actually not. The /real/ princess has been raised in a convent in the country, while a beggar's child was bought and raised in her place, to protect the royal blood from assassination. But now, someone's trying to usurp the throne, and it's up to the fake princess to take out the bad guy, and ensure that the real princess takes her rightful place. But what is the rightful place for our Heroine? Where does a fake princess fit in the grand scheme of things? The worldbuilding here is sketchier; we don't really learn much about the actual setting, only the aspects of it that make direct inroads on the plot. However, the characterization is very well done (including a subplot running through the two books that impressed me greatly), and as mentioned before, any fans of In Nomine's 'The Game' will get a real kick out of the way the premise and plot develops through the two books.