How far can a friendly dragon get in the world?

The nicest dragon in the universe slowly wins people over with his sincerity in Rachel Bach's One Good Dragon Deserves Another.

Note: One Good Dragon Deserves Another is the second book in the Heartstrikers series. For the first book, Nice Dragon Finish Last, click here. Otherwise, read on!

A mother's love can be...difficult at best.

Dragons have a certain image to uphold. Vicious, ruthless and driven, they can be found both  as leaders of corporations and heads of underground organizations. Predators by nature, and clannish as well, being born a dragon is a dangerous, competitive situation.

In Rachel Aaron's Nice Dragons Finish Last, Julius has a problem. As the youngest and smallest Heartstriker, he's constantly surrounded by stronger, more powerful siblings. As a result, he's become very, very good at being unassuming. Since getting in the way of his family would more than likely make his remaining time on Earth rather unpleasant he simply stays out of their way, mostly playing video games in his room.

Such passive behavior is NOT what his mother has in mind. As the second most powerful Draconic clan - and certainly the largest - such a blemish on her reputation simply cannot be tolerated. She'd much rather simply order his death by one of her enforcers, but she's nothing if not fair, and that means giving him a chance to redeem himself.

And this is how Julian has found himself kicked out of the clan house with just the shirt on his back. He's told that has until the end of the month to earn his way back into the clan, or else he'll be permanently exiled - or worse. 

But that's just too easy for a Heartstriker, so his mother Bethesda turns it up to hard mode. If he wants to live as a stupid weak human, she's more than happy to oblige. She's sealed away his magic, leaving him to earn his way back into her good graces with none of the benefits of dragon-hood.

Even though he can't access the benefits of being a dragon, the threats are still all too real. He's been dropped off in the Detroit Free Zone. When magic re-entered the world, the spirit of Lake St Clare Algonquin flooded the old city of Detroit, and claimed the area as her own. On top of the ruins, a shining city has been built, but dragons are expressly forbidden. So long with trying to make a name for himself, he can't make so much of a name that Algonquin or her guards notice.

As ruthless as his siblings can be, they still try to help each other out. Ian, one of Julius' older brothers, has a mission for him. He's been dating a dragoness named Svena, a daughter of the Heartstriker's rivals, the Three Sisters. Svena's youngest sister Katya has run away from home again, and she needs someone to retrieve her. He's the only dragon who is unassuming and non-threatening to get within a mile of Katya, and all he needs to do is get a bracelet with a binding spell on her.

Of course, a soft-hearted guy like Julius couldn't just take an easy job and do it. As the job progresses, he starts to wonder why Katya wants to escape her family so badly. He knows how bad it can be to be the outcast in a clan, and perhaps he has more in common with Katya than anyone realizes.

Along the way, he also runs into a mage name Marci, who might actually be in more trouble than he is. But with his powers locked away, he needs all the help he can get. And for a human, Marci is a heck of a lot of fun.

Rachel Aaron, who also writes under the name Rachel Bach, is a master of fiction that draws you and and just won't let go. Her books keep you in 'just one more chapter' mode, and before you know it, your alarm clock is going off. Well plotted, thoroughly thought out and carefully edited, Aaron's first foray into self-publishing shows none of the problems that plague the budding industry. Nice Dragons Finish Last is an addictive, immensely enjoyable read that, as is the case with all of Aaron's works, leaves that reader eagerly anticipating the next story.

Highs: Any chapter with Bob, the clan's Seer, ends up being a fantastic mix of comic relief and dangerous prophecy.

Lows: Hopefully, we'll get more details into the history of the Dragon clans, and the re-emergence of magic, in later books.

Verdict: A must-read for fans of urban fantasy, and a strong suggestion for readers of New Adult and general Fantasy as well.

Further Reading: Fortune's Pawn, The Legend of Eli Monpress, Princess of Wands

The deep web has never been so deep.

Alif is a cypher. The first letter of the Arabic alphabet, it is a single vertical line. A simple name for a person whose life takes place in the shadows between computers.

In G. Willow Wilson's Alif the Unseen, Alif's life is turned upside-down, in more ways than one.

Alif lives in a pre-Arab Spring country somewhere in the Middle East. The censors have become more and more a part of the online life of the country, and Alif and his online comrades do their best to provide free movement of information to their clients. It means that The Hand could come down on him at any time, but with the confidence of youth he doesn't really believe that it would happen to him.

As it often does, Alif's problems start with a girl. Intisar is Alif's first love, a Muslim girl from a good family. He meets her online, on some of the message boards that the educated, free-thinkers tend to inhabit. Hardly a radical, she's as likely to defend the government as she is to question it. The computer world gives her the freedom to speak her mind in a way that her birth and culture do not, and Alif is absolutely smitten. They even go so far as to draw up a their own marriage contract, and while Alif's mother is away visiting her family he is able to have her over unchaperoned.

But a woman of her standing is hardly going to have the future she expects with the poor son of a second wife. When the reality of doing her own laundry settles in, she takes the easy route and accepts the husband that her father has found for her.

"Make it so I never see your name again." -Intisar

Heartbroken, Alif decides to disappear from Intisar's life. So he proceeds to do so. Since the majority of his life is spent online, he creates a program to track her, and make sure that whatever she does, she will never see his online presence again. Whether she changes usernames, or computers, or uses a VPN, this program will track her by her word usage and typing styles, and remove Alif's presence.

Such a program has never been created before. There are so many variables, and the program would have to be so complex, that it would almost have to be...alive...

Such a complex program would, by its very existence, draw the attention of a few very influential people. And when Alif finds himself in the possession of  The Thousand and One Days, he ends up with more problems than just The Hand.

G. Willow Wilson shines in her first long-form novel, masterfully weaving together the modern day with the ancient, religion with mythology, and love with loss.

Highs: The character of Dina is perhaps the most three-dimensional, honest females in recent fantasy fiction.

Lows: As with much fiction set in the middle east, as current events unfold the story may show its age quickly.

Verdict: Winner of the 2013 World Fantasy Award, Alif the Unseen is a must-read for fans of fantasy and world fiction alike.

Further Reading: Throne of the Crescent Moon, Kabu Kabu, The Midnight Palace

If I raised a cat from the dead, I'd name it Lazarus, too.

Barbara Everette is back, fighting for the Light in the second Special Circumstances book Queen of Wands by John Ringo.

Note:  Queen of Wands is the second book of the Special Circumstances series.  The review of the first book, Princess of Wands is here.  Otherwise, read on!

When the military takes over, there's only so much a person can take

In the near future, a virus strikes North America.  Large swatches of the population die, and hospitals are overrun with patients.  Border states' hospitals are hit especially hard, with people from all  over Mexico and points south fleeing to the US for heathcare.  Eventually, the country becomes completely isolationist and closes the southern border, building a wall and stationing military outposts in some of the former border towns.  Many of these towns have been abandoned, any people remaining within them no longer considered United States citizens.

Welcome to Santa Olivia, the titular town in the novel by Jacqueline Carey.  The own has been under military rule for a generation.  The children growing up there now have no memory of a city not patrolled by military men with their egos and their cruelties.  They don't remember all the buildings of their town being full, with a working power grid and hot running water.  They have never lived in a city with full grocery stores, proper schools and churches, and the ability to come and go from town as they please.

There was one outside visitor, though.  A man who, at first, didn't say much.  Just showed up at the diner and had a few plates of chorizo and eggs.  But Carmen knew there was something different about him.  Something about the way his uniform didn't fit quite right, the way he moved, the way his eyes darted around the diner.  Not scared exactly, but aware.  Very aware.

He didn't stay long.  Longer than he meant to, though.  The military was looking for him too hard to stay.  But he stayed long enough to tell Carmen about his origins.  About his plans to meet up with other people like himself in Mexico.  About how to care for the baby he left behind.

That baby grew up to be Loup Garron.  She took after her father quite a bit.  Faster than other kids her age.  Stronger, too.  Completely fearless.  So fearless that, as a child, her half-brother Tommy had to teach her how to think about consequences, so she wouldn't do things that most sensible children would be afraid to.  Standing upright on the peak of a slanted roof, and leaning over to see, for one.  

There's one way out of this place, though.  The General may be corrupt as hell, and let the street gangs run the civilian part of town.  He many let his soldiers do whatever they like in town, and always side with them if a civilian has the audacity to complain.  

But he loves boxing.  If a civilian takes a prizefight and loses to one of his soldiers, he still walks away with a purse large enough to give his family a certain measure of comfort that his day job wouldn't be able to afford otherwise.  The true prize, if a civilian were able to pull off a victory, would be two tickets out of Santa Olivia, back North to the real world.

As things get worse and worse for the people of Santa Olivia, they start to look for a hero.  The priest in the Catholic Church ins't a real priest, but he runs a free lunch each day for the citizens who have fallen on hard times, and he runs the orphanage where Loup eventually ends up.  The gangs are too busy with their night clubs and black market to challenge the status quo.  It'll take someone with nothing left to lose.  With the innate skills to beat a trained soldier in the boxing ring.  Someone born on Santa Olivia's name-day, and can pass for the Saint herself in a blue dress and white kerchief, holding a basket of plenty.

Someone like Loup.

Jacqueline Carey is more famous for her epic fantasy novel Kushiel's Dart and the series that it spawned.  This foray into a sort of post-apocalyptic urban fantasy is quite well done, though.  The characters are fleshed out, from the leader of the boxing club to the smallest of the orphans at the church.  The characters behave properly in their situations, and even the military behaves with a certain kind of military logic.  Even the townspeople, who learn to live with the military, the shortages, and the strange specter of war looming over them.  It's a nice turn on the 'chosen one' type of story, with enough logic behind it that it doesn't feel like the characters just fell into place. 

Highs:  For once, the other-ness that most teens go through is real, not just imagined.

Lows:  I wish a bit more of the world at large was revealed here.

Verdict:  Not your typical Carey fare, but a fascinating novel with a revenge edge.

Further Reading:  Saints Astray, The Painted Boy

Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer finally have a grown-up demon fighter to follow.

Most 'Chosen One' stories deal with teens or children as their main characters.  Both are tumultuous times in a person's life, and while so much is going on, it makes sense that one would come into his powers then, too.  But sometimes a situation calls for a special person, with a special connection to his god, or God, and age doesn't matter terribly much.

Such is the situation in Princess of Wands by John Ringo.  More a collection of three novellas than a proper novel, the stories center around Barbara Everett, a good Christian woman and soccer mom of 3.  Raised a military brat traveling the world, she learned from an early age to defend herself both through extensive martial arts training as well as modern weaponry.  Her fierce temper, however, she has come to control through a close, personal relationship with God.


A very close relationship with God.


We get to know Mrs. Everett in 'The Almadu Sanction'.  Even though Barb is the consummate housewife and PTO member, even she occasionally needs a break..  So she tells her ESPN-watching husband that she's taking a weekend for herself down in Louisiana.  But on the road, instead of heading for one of her usual haunts, she takes an impulsive turn off to a backwater parish, looking for some "authentic" cajun food.


Unfortunately, Thibideau, LA deserves all of the horror-novel-style creepiness that pervades the place.  Detective Kelly Lockhart has a lead on some murders down in New Orleans, and his investigation is leading him places that he never could have imagined.  He's approached by an FBI agent from Special Circumstances.  These agents are only called in when some sort of supernatural or occult activity is suspected.  It turns out that there has ben some Construct DNA found on the murdered women's bodies, and with that knowledge, Kelly is sent to find the man last seen with one of the victims.


When Detective Lockhart and Barb meet up in the local bait-shop-cum-restaurant, and both realize that their cars have been disabled, it's up to them to get themselves out of the bayou alive.  Will Barb be able to draw on her undiscovered connection to the White God's power to save both herself and Kelly?


In 'The Necromancy Option', Barb is called away from her family, this time for a religious retreat of sorts. The Foundation for Love and Universal Faith is more than a day spa with prayerful overtones. All the attendees here are fighting the good fight against evil, but no two people get there in the exact same way.  These retreats are a good way to share information picked up in the field, take time out for good, old fashioned book learning and research, and to pick up new assignments.  There are, however, very few good Christian soccer moms in a place like this.  And the people who have connected to other gods have generally had bad experienceds with the popular girls like Barb.  So beyond learning how to identify demons and the like, along with a host of other topics that Barb certainly never thought shed be dealing with, she also has to learn how to fit in with people from many, many different backgrounds, and with very different ways of connecting with their gods.


After a week at the Foundation, Barb gets sent out on her first field assignment.  There's been a string of murders out of Ohio and Virginia, and they've been tied to science fiction conventions.  So after a week of sharing a camp with devotees of every religion under the sun, Barb now has to deal with her first taste of fandom.


Life just isn't fair, sometimes.


But when the convention is hit by a blizzard, and both roads and cell phones are out of commission, things turn bad quickly.  Back-up is unreachable and bodies start piling up fast, but Barb and her teammates are particularly suited to take on such a problem.  Will the team, aided by some very...well-equipped military SF fans, be able to handle things on their own?


And in 'Broken Sabbath', the Circumstances hit much closer to home.  Barb's oldest daughter Allison has a new softball coach, and he's setting off Barb's creep radar.  At first, Allison's sullenness and late-night, student-only meetings could be shrugged off as the natural state of high school girls and sports.  But as she becomes more run down and after an uncomfortable meeting between Barb and Coach Sherman, will Barb have to call on her newfound abilities to save one of her own?  Because there is nothing more frightening than a Paladin of the Light protecting her own child.


Fans of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" who grew up watching a teenage blonde fighting evil with find lots to like here, with a new late 30s blonde doing the same thing.  Barb, for all her unintended preachiness and strangely sheltered yet experienced background, is a truly likable person.  She hasher metaphorical demons, including a vicious temper, but does her best to control them.  While parts of 'The Necromancy Option' feel like a bad fanfic, with Barb being introduced to all the cliques at a local convention, once the action picks up again that feeling goes away.  It's also obvious from the descriptions that Ringo gives of the women at the Con that he's more accustomed to writing for his military science fiction fanbase.  When writing fantasy, with a much higher female readership, it might behoove him to remember that they don't need to know the chest size of each female.


But Ringo has some of the best characters and humor in the genre today, and fans of his more famous series would do themselves a disservice by passing this one by.


Highs:  Barb having to remind Janea several times that the White God would frown on joining in on her escapades.



Lows:  If she's travelled so, why has she never encountered any of these countercultures?



Verdict:  Not Ringo's best fantasy, but a light read that stays fun to the end.



Further Reading:  There Will be Dragons, Spirits in the Wires

If spirits inhabit both the consensual world and the Otherworlds, it only makes sense they'd wander into cyberspace as well

Spirits inhabit every piece of the Earth in Newford.  Some, like the cousins, prefer the more open, untamed areas like the woods or the Arizona desert.  Others, like hobs, have no problem thriving in town, as long as the have a place to call home and a human or two to take care of.

But humans have created an entirely new realm in the last few decades.  The internet and 'cyberspace' may not physically exist in the same way that a forest or a city does, but spirits have always been the masters of the Otherworlds, and they tend to pop up where you least expect them.  This is the situation that creates all sorts of trouble in Charles de Lint's 13th Newford book, Spirits in the Wires.

We start out with two women with very different, yet similar, backgrounds.  Christiana Tree is the shadow of the fantasy and paranormal author Christy.  A shadow is the parts of one's personality that he casts off to fit in to society.  Christiana came into being when Christie was seven, and from then on developed a life of her own.  Where Christie is reserved, Christiana is outgoing.  Where Christie is deliberate in his actions, Christiana acts rashly, relying on her gut instincts.  She only revealed her existence to Christie relatively recently, and has a bad habit of reading his journals while he's asleep to get to know him better.

Saskia also had an interesting origin.  The website Wordwood was created by a group of book lovers who wanted to help people gain access to literature and information, but has seemingly gained a life of its own.  A user can ask any question in its search bar, and the Wordwood will do its best to provide the information requested.  An oddity of the site, though, is that it answers in the cadence of someone close to the user, usually a deceased relative or friend.  Saskia's origins are a bit of a mystery, especially to her, but it seems as though she was spawned fully formed from the Wordwood itself.  She simply woke up one morning, having a mind full of information, but no experiences to go with them.  Eventually, she learns to get by in the consensual world, but she also gives up a large part of her strangeness to do it.

Both of their lives collide one night shortly after they meet in a bar.  A hacker is blackmailed into uploading a virus onto the Wordwood as a way to get back at Saskia by taking down her 'favorite' site.  As the infection grows within the site portals open up through the monitor of peoples' computer screens, teleporting everyone using the site at that moment into the realm of the internet.  Saskia is on the computer at Christie's house when this happens, and she is taken right in front of his eyes.

Thankfully, Saskia's experiences so far have left her a bit more suited to an Otherworld kidnapping than the average internet user, and she is able to contact Christiana through the phone lines, eventually taking up residence inside Christiana's head.

Eventually, two rescue parties are formed.  One is led by Christiana and Saskia, and the other is led by Christie, Geordie and even the original blackmailer himself, a book reviewer named Aaran.

The spirit in the machine idea has been explored many times, from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep to Ghost in the Shell.  But the mixture that de Lint uses here, of traditional spirits moving into the cyber realm to me.  The spirits he uses, such as a guardian of entryways seems perfect to inhabit a search engine such as the Wordwood.  The take is classic de Lint and even in this strange new world of technology, familiar faces and themes make this a book for people of any technological aptitude.

Highs:  Some of our favorite citizens of Newford, including Christy, Geordie, and the bookseller Holly Black get the spotlight here

Lows:  People who are more technologically inclined, or even just younger that de Lint, will find his descriptions of technology to be rather archaic and awkward

Verdict:  A new realm to explore from Newford, and well worth reading

Further Reading:  Tapping the Dream Tree, Ghost in the Shell

Newford gets a visit from Australia

Charles de Lint takes Newford back into Young Adult territory with an Australian flavor in Dingo

While this is the 22th book in the Newford world, it is certainly accessible to first time readers of Charles de Lint's work.  While there are no real spoilers that I could tell, there may be some that I missed, so be warned.  Otherwise, read on.

Bite-Sized Bits of Urban Fantasy

While this is the 12th book in the Newford world, it is certainly accessible to first time readers of Charles de Lint's work.  While there are no real spoilers that I could tell, there may be some that I missed, so be warned.  Otherwise, read on.

Sometimes the evil in the world isn't the magic aspect

The dark side of urban fantasy doesn't always have to be the magical side. Sometimes, the mundane world is more than able to create its own problems. But when the magical comes to fix what the mundane has messed up, things are much more complicated than it seems.

In The Painted Boy by Charles de Lint, 17 year old Jay Li has struck out on his own to escape his overbearing spiritual leader and grandmother Paupau. He chooses a city in the desert of Arizona at random, packs a backpack and heads out to Santo del Vado Viejo. Directly upon exiting the Greyhoudn bus he ends up crossing not one but two of the local gangs, and is hidden and eventually taken in by Rosalie.

Rosalie has a tendency to take in strays, as her collection of dogs and cats show, and he can't help but want to help this newcomer to town, especially since he's ended up crossing the gangs so quickly. Having lost both family members and a best friend to the gangs already, she has a special hatred of them, which is backed up by her uncle and guardian, who left the gangs years ago and now runs a restaurant in town.

As Jay lives in Santo del Vado Viejo and becomes a member of the community, the secret that he's been hiding since he was ten years old begins to come out. He's been chosen as a leader of the Yellow Dragon Clan. When the spirits selected him, the symbol of the clan appeared on his back in the form of a full back tattoo depicting a Chinese dragon. Of course this only helped to isolate him when he was young, since he certainly couldn't let any of his friends or classmates see his back. This meant no swimming, no gym class or sports, and no sleepovers.

But Jay and his dragon spirit have found their new home and place to protect. In the process, he's also learning more about himself from the local lore and the other animal 'cousins' who inhabit the desert around the town. And as time goes on, one fact becomes painfully clear: the gangs are killing the spirit of the land, and it's up to the Yellow Dragon, traditional guardian of the Chinese imperial family, to save it.

As always, de Lint seamlessly weaves the desert southwest folklore, along with Native American and Mexican stories into the real wold in a manner that seems almost real. We meet crow people, a jackalope girl, and perhaps even a coyote spirit as Jason takes back the city from those who are destroying it, and most of the mundane, 'five finger folk' will never know exactly what happened.

That doesn't mean that de Lint glosses over what a town in the grips of a gang war goes through. Good people get killed for stupid reasons, or no reason at all. Businesses leave town, pay protection money, or are shut down by petty gangbangers. Families lose members, either by death or, sometimes worse, by having members join the gangs themselves.

The grandfather of urban fantasy has created yet another wonderful story, which might reach out better to boys than his other two recent young adult books The Blue Girl and Little (Grrl) Lost. It might even been a good pick for urban schools in which the students face the same problems as the townsfolk of Santo del Vado Viejo, and help show them that people really can make a difference, even the mundane ones.

Highs: And intricate weaving of both Eastern and Western folklore

Lows: Several false endings break up the flow of the story near the end

Verdict: Young Adult fantasy at its best

Further Reading: Little (Grrl) Lost, City of Bones

A teen primer on urban fantasy

Charles deLint is the grandfather of urban fantasy. Without him, the whole scope of modern-day fantasy would be changed. His Newford series is his longest and probably most well-known series. He began to introduce teen readers to the series with The Blue Girl, and with Little (Grrl) Lost, he continues to introduce teens to his world. Since it’s a standalone novel, it’s a great place to jump in and see if the series is right for you.

It’s a fairly standard girls-finding-their-place-in-the-world story at heart. T.J.'s family had to leave their home in the country for financial reasons, and they’ve moved to the city. In the move, she had to leave behind her best human friend, as well as her best animal friend, her horse. Moving from the country to the city has other obstacles as well, since the types of cliques are different in different areas. So she’s having a pretty hard time fitting in.

Elizabeth appears in her room one night. She’s a Little, and lives in the walls of T.J.'s new house. A rebel in a fairly conservative, cautious family, she wants to go see what else there is in the world. Of course, being only a few inches tall makes this a more precarious venture than it would be for another girl her age. And since she was raised in such a cautious family, she’s never really encountered the perils of the outside world for herself. But she’s heard a legend that Littles used to be birds who gave up their wings, and there might be a way to learn to switch back and forth.

Along the way, both girls run up against a lot of the problems of growing up, just with a bit of a fantasy twist. We meet a few more creatures from European mythology, and travel to the underground world of magical beings that seems to exist under a lot of cities. We also learn what it means to make a promise, to keep one’s word, and to have a real friend.

Compared to some of deLint’s other stories, Little (Grrl) Lost is much more light, even during the relatively dangerous parts. It’s an easy teen book with easy, teen morals, but it’s still a nice, quick read to escape our much more mundane world.

Highs: An easy read, and a good introduction to the world of the series

Lows: A little simple, but fairly standard for the Teen Fantasy genre

Verdict: Worth the read, but don’t expect high art

Further Reading: The Blue Girl, City of Bones