A New Author Found, Ilona Andrews

I've been pretty stressed out lately. My plate is very full, and I think it's starting to become overfull.  First off I've got my job which I'm working 19 hours a week at, that's just fine. Then I've got my solo research project which kinda stalled out because I was lacking info, but lo and behold ask and you shall receive, albeit with a three week delay. So now I have tons of info to sort through and my Primary Investigator (PI) wants me to move forward with the project.  Then I have my not one, but two summer classes (think of summer classes as twice as fast). Not only are they 'capstone' CBS (college of biological sciences) courses, they are also team based. Team based means you are permanently assigned to a nine person group and all of your projects and grades will happen in concert with these random people, even some of the tests are taken as a team. I have two sets of people to work with, somehow I've ended up directing the long term projects for both classes. Finally you've got the home life, which is not going so smoothly. My female roommate and I decided we no longer wanted to live with one of our male roommates.  We told the other male roommate first who decided that he could not stay if the other went, and is trying to convince the other guy to move out without telling him we don't want to live with him anymore. I don't think this approach is going to work well due the the guy's extreme laziness. So now we need two new roommates before our lease rolls over on August first. We think we've got one, but we're going to need to advertise and interview for another.  We can't really start looking though until they guys agree to move out.  This uncertain housing future has me really stressed out.

When I'm stressed out I want to escape reality with a good book. Unfortunately I've got a binge reading problem and will deprive myself of sleep to see what happens next. This makes me grumpy and prone to mood swings which is a bad combo with stress.  With this in mind I had an idea: why don't I buy some anthologies so I can read a short story before bed,and have a definite stopping point so I will go to bed. One of the anthologies I bought was Dark and Stormy Knights. The first story, A Questionable Client, was by Ilona Andrews which is a pen name for a husband and wife writing team. I read this story and about half way through I thought 'why have I never heard of this author before?' and 'I've got to read more of this' because it was such a unique world and character. I did a brief amazon search and found the first book in the Kate Daniels series, Magic Bites for $.76, there was no resisting and I bought it. I finished it within 24 hours of receiving it (see binge reading problem, though all in all it probably didn't take more than four and a half hours to read.). The first thing that struck me is that by reading the short story I'm actually getting the character's story in chronological order, because the short story explains an acquaintance that shows up a few times in the book.  The other thing that I noticed was that while the writing in the book is by no means bad, it certainly was better in the short story which means this duo only gets better with time. I don't think I would have gotten quite as sucked in a I did if I hadn't read the short story first. The novel was good but didn't have that same gripping power. That being said I can't wait to get my hands on the next one, though I know I need to wait until my classes are over.

The really interesting part of this series is the world it is set in. The Authors call it post-shift, the jist of it is that magic flows randomly so sometimes it works, and sometimes technology works. This leaves magic monsters stranded and they wreak chaos. The main character is Kate Daniels who is a mercenary who deals with these monsters. She's also something else, but so far I don't know what. It has something to do with her father and some powerful magic she's got in her blood. There's also a whole supporting cast of maybe good, maybe bad guys it depends on the situation. Overall I like the concept because it's different and the characters because although they are superhuman on the powers level, they're quite human on the emotional level.

Pathfinder, A Review

My roommate and I realized we were near our local Borders and decided to stop in.  We managed to catch the first day of the closing sale. Know how Barnes and Noble and Amazon have those handy ebook readers? Yeah, Borders fell behind on that trend and now they have to close 200 stores nationwide. Our local store happens to be one of those stores, we had no idea it was closing until we decided to stop in. I hadn't been intending to buy anything, but with a storewide sale of 20 to 30% with a fully stocked store how can you resist? I ended up making several selections (What can I say, I'm a bookworm), then came The Line. A one hour line to purchase books that winds through table after table of books, by the time we got in line it went halfway across the store. I did well for the first thirty-five minutes, and then I found Pathfinder and picked it up (hey, it was shiny and I recognized the author name). Every book I have read by Orson Scott Card has been well-told, thought provoking, with likable, relatable characters, and a unique plot. I have especially enjoyed the few fantasy books that he has done. When you read the back of Pathfinder, it reads like a fantasy plot (it's not), so I picked it up and bought it. It took me three days to read, it would have been shorter, but I've been busy with a midterm on the horizon and a paper due.

Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card is rated young adult; this book is no such thing. I'm a junior in college in the sciences with a large vocabulary, and yet I still struggled with parts of the book.  My grounding in evolutionary biology and genetics (read intensive foundations course) was adequate.  College level calc based physics I and II as well as calculus I and II do not nearly cut it. My friends use me as a walking dictionary, and there were words that I do not know and have never seen before.  It would be great if this book did get a teenager into any one of these subjects, but in all honesty I think that they were presented at an inaccessible level for a person with no background in these topics. Just because the protagonist is a teenager does not automatically make the book young adult.

In my experience Orson Scott Card is a wonderful author who really makes me think about society and how humans interact with one another as well as machines. His hallmark book Ender's Game does this wonderfully and everyone should read Ender's Game at least once.  This book was a shoddier version of Ender's Game.  The story was not as deep, the characters as enthralling, nor the danger as compelling.  Part of this is the sheer confusion generated by skipping back and forth between the story of Rigg, the pathfinder, and the story of a spaceship pilot Ram Odin.  Rigg seems to live in a medieval era world with little technology while Ram is piloting a spaceship with only robots for company.  At first there seems to be little connection between the two.  By the end the connection is resolved, but I am saddened by the fact that at the end of the book there is a note from the author explaining the plot. It's like telling a joke, if you have to explain it it isn't funny.  If you have to explain your plot, you didn't write clearly enough.  Ender's only power was his intellect and skill, but in this book everyone gets a super special magical power, only the powers are overly explained through genetics and physics and aren't actually very magical.  The way the story goes Rigg's power is supposed to be the most important, but I have a hard time actually feeling that it is the most important (probably because Rigg acts very coldly and calculatingly throughout the story which makes him, as a protagonist, hard to relate to). Umbo, Rigg's bumbling sidekick, seems to have a much more useful power, or if not entirely useful, at least very interesting (this may just be because Umbo is much more the 'normal kid' and therefore easier to relate to).

This is, unfortunately, the worst book I have ever read by Orson Scott Card. But let me clarify, Orson Scott Card is one of the best sci-fi/fantasy authors out there.  The only author that has compelled me to think more than him is Ursula K. LeGuin. His worst book is still a very good, entertaining book, I just expect more thought-provoking work from him. He did hint that there is to be a sequel to this series, so possibly my dissatisfaction stems from the fact that the story is incomplete and I am still confused.  I will keep reading, and hopefully as the series takes more twists and turn the plot will get better.