theft Archives - The Y Logs

Yzabel / October 30, 2015

Review: The Prophecy Con

My rating: [rating=5]

Blurb:

Book Two in the Rogues of the Republic series.

Who would have thought a book of naughty poems by elves could mean the difference between war and peace? But if stealing the precious volume will keep the Republic and the Empire from tearing out each other’s throats, rogue soldier Isafesira de Lochenville—“Loch” to friends and foes alike—is willing to do the dishonest honors. With her motley crew of magic-makers, law-breakers, and a talking warhammer, she’ll match wits and weapons with dutiful dwarves, mercenary knights, golems, daemons, an arrogant elf, and a sorcerous princess.

But getting their hands on the prize—while keeping their heads attached to their necks—means Loch and company must battle their way from a booby-trapped museum to a monster-infested library, and from a temple full of furious monks to a speeding train besieged by assassins. And for what? Are a few pages of bawdy verse worth waging war over? Or does something far more sinister lurk between the lines?

Review:

[I received a copy of this novel through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

I read the first book not long ago, and a lot of what I posted in my review at the time is valid again in here. The heist(s), with several levels of deception, double-crossing the opponent, thwarted plans, having to do with a situation turned for the worst… And with twists that aren’t always planned by all members of the team, ending in somewhat hilarious moments that nicely counterbalance the overall “they’re a bit too ready for absolutely everything” feeling one may get. Because something’s bound to give, to turn sour in a heist, otherwise there wouldn’t be as much interest in reading such adventures—at least not for me.

The characters are mostly the same, with some changes reflecting darker turns of events from the first book. Kail is still his old I-give-a-name-to-everything lockpick and pickpocket, and his skill in wielding “mom jokes” remains the same (also he’s contaminated Icy); however, his brush with mind-bending magic left him a bit more somber, but more decided than ever to fight this. Desidora has returned to her duties, yet is now questioning her role within the team, as she feels she is less useful. (I quite liked the conversations between these two, as their predicaments were somewhat related.) Ululenia and Dairy… well, let’s just say things didn’t exactly go as planned (not to mention that the unicorn had to make a choice whose consequences wouldn’t be so light). Loch is trying to work on the side of a law that doesn’t exactly make things easy for her in that regard. Hessler has broadened his magic, with somewhat dangerous results that however leave room to humorous dialogues: a welcome thing, considering that the tone of the novel is a bit darker and that this time, wounds aren’t only superficial.

We are given a bit more of a view of other parts of the world here: the Empire, the dwarves, the elves, as well as the Ancients themselves. A welcome addition, too. At first sight, it doesn’t stray too far from clichés (Elves had tree-ships and prefer to live far from humans, dwarves are often miners…); however, read just a little longer and the differences become obvious. I especially liked how the dwarves were so polite and orderly, while the elf dignitary was at the same time badass and insufferable (in a funny way). While the rules of magic in this world remain fuzzy, the relationship between magic and elves (through the crustals embedded in the latter) was interesting nonetheless.

This novel may have been slightly less humorous than the first one, because its stakes were higher from the beginning—not just a heist to steal a book and earn tons of money, but preventing a war, and trying not to become the sacrificial lamb in the middle of all this. Oddly or not, I liked it even better for this reason, and for another one: this time, knowing the characters, I could also better anticipate on what their moves might or might not be, and this made it more “logical”, so to speak, when something happened that I would’ve otherwise deemed a deus ex machina. Predictable? In a way. Yet the kind of predictable I like, that I *want* to see happen, and then, when it happens, I strike the air with my fist and I’m all “Yesss!”

4.5 stars. I’ll keep recommending this series, and hope book 3 is on the same level.

Yzabel / October 25, 2015

Review: The Palace Job

The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

Loch is seeking revenge.

It would help if she wasn’t in jail.

The plan: to steal a priceless elven manuscript that once belonged to her family, but now is in the hands of the most powerful man in the Republic. To do so Loch—former soldier, former prisoner, current fugitive—must assemble a crack team of magical misfits that includes a cynical illusionist, a shapeshifting unicorn, a repentant death priestess, a talking magical warhammer, and a lad with seemingly no skills to help her break into the floating fortress of Heaven’s Spire and the vault that holds her family’s treasure—all while eluding the unrelenting pursuit of Justicar Pyvic, whose only mission is to see the law upheld.

What could possibly go wrong?

Review:

[I received a copy of this novel through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

I have a soft spot for heist novels. Give me thieves, rogues, criminal jobs demanding planning, enemies getting in the way, and odds are I’ll be happy—all the more when most if the action takes place in a city, and not travelling (I have trouble with the latter). I got this here, and perhaps even more than I bargained for, as it’s not only about one job in the end: not only does each party member have his or her own little heist part first, but it’s also about a bigger con, and quite a few people here have the potential to be both a criminal and a life-saver. In general, anyway, the characters were enjoyable.

Loch, whose motives are of theft and revenge, but who’ll stay loyal to her friends to the end. The death priestess, who didn’t want the job for starters, yet has to contend with what she was given. The magician, who could very well scamper away but is growing fond of the kid. The unicorn who will not abandon said kid, even though she’d probably be better off whisking him away too. The justicar, in a typical “investigator who may or may not see the light” fashion that I still found nice to read about no matter what. The orphaned girl caught unti playing politics because her adoptive father doesn’t leave her a choice, yet sooner or later will have to revise her own position, too. The safe-cracker with apparently bottomless pockets of supplies, vials and enchanted crossbolts, who could’ve had another life, only it would’ve been one by her own choice.

There’s humour woven into the batch, even though the straits are often dire and the truth unpleasant. Loch has a comeback for a lot of situations. The flirtation bits were fun to read. The death priestess comes from an unexpected angle, to say the least (starting with her introduction scene). Kail and his “your mom” insults that never fail to work: hard to believe, but still hilarious. Dairy regularly tripping over his own feet (manner of speaking) and causing catastrophes that are fun yet wield interesting results. Ululenia the unicorn and her virgins, also her alliteration-rigged mind magic. Puppet shows to keep people informed, allowing the “journalists” to tell probably more than they would be allowed to otherwise.

There are a lot of twists and turns in this novel, too, which is longer and more complex than I expected. Some may appear as deus ex machina, as the characters seem to plan for a lot of contingencies without the reader being warned. Sometimes it worked, at others I thought “too easy”. However, thinking back on it, it’s obvious that Loch et al. aren’t naive, and after a while I started suspecting when such twists may occur, and imagining “surely they won’t fall for that,” or “I smell trap, but I’m positive that character will see through it no matter what, in a way or other, because by now they know each other too well.”

Let’s not forget the political commentary, which is maybe where I would’ve liked to see more, as the “racial interactions” were a bit simplistic (the “whites”, the Imperials who’re basically “Asians”, and the Urujar as “the blacks”). Probably there weren’t enough pages to tackle absolutely everything here, but since it *was* part of the political side of the plot (Silestin adopted Naria and paraded her as a means of showing his intentions towards “racial equality”), as well as of the heist itself (the acrobat/contortionist/martial artist had to be an Imperial with a name sounding like a translation from kanji), I think it should’ve been approached a little differently.

These qualms set apart, I really enjoyed this book, and am glad I have the next one on my reader as well.

Yzabel / June 17, 2015

Review: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Nine

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Nine by Jonathan Strahan

My rating: [rating=5]

(I received a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

4.5 stars. Usually, collections of short stories are hard for me to rate, as they always contain the good, the bad and the ugly, so to speak. This time, I can say this was a different experience. There’s no story in here I didn’t like at all: at worst, I was slightly indifferent, and only to a few of them. This anthology’s definitely worth the read (unless you don’t like horror stories being mixed with SF/F, which is a point of view I can understand).

My favourites:

* Moriabe’s Children: in which a parallel is drawn between deep-sea monsters and all-too-human monsters dwelling on the shore.

* Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler: Even though the world developed here isn’t particularly original, I found this story pretty entertaining and fun to read.

* Tough Times All Over: A romp in a city full of thieves, smugglers, mercenaries and various other shady types, all running after a mysterious parcel that keep eluding them and passing to yet the next person in the chain.

* Cold Wind: Predators and preys from long ago, in a modern city that has forgotten who they once were.

* Interstate Love Song (Murder Ballad No.8): Psychopaths on a road trip, and the way they perceive their journey and the people they meet. Not the easiest story to get into at first, due to its writing style, yet this style then contributed to keeping me me enthralled all the way.

* I Met a Man Who Wasn’t There: In which con-artists and magic collide, told from a somewhat jaded yet mischievous point of view.

* Grand Jeté (The Great Leap): A widower about to lose his daughter too decides to invest into forbidden technology to create what could amount to a golem. However, his own child isn’t dead yet… and accepting the one who’s going to “replace” her isn’t so easy.

* Shay Corsham Worsted: A retired secret services agent tries to prevent an old weapon from becoming a problem… but the secret’s been so well-kept that nobody seems to know what it was about anymore.

* Tawny Petticoats: Another story of con-artists in a fantasy world, where nothing goes as planned and everybody’s trying to outwit the other parties. Fairly enjoyable.

* The Fifth Dragon: A story of love, friendship, choices and loss, as the moon’s being colonised and gravity-related physical issues start getting in the way.

* Four Days of Christmas: Very short but to the point. The story of Santa toys, from their manufacturing to how they get rediscovered much later, their harshness-denouncing journey made creepier due to these being “jolly” toys.

* Covenant: A good twist on the theme of serial killers, repentance and irony of fate.

* Cimmeria: From the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology: A group of academics expand on the theme of “what if Cimmeria was real, and how it would have evolved in our contemporary world.” A story where imagination becomes real, giving birth to a whole nation completely escaping its creators.

* The Scrivener: This story meshes fairy tales with subverted themes of writing and literary criticism.

* Amicae Aeternum: A girl has to leave, and wishes to spend her last night with her best friend, saying goodbye to all the things she’ll never see or have again. Both very nostalgic and full of hope for the future.

In-between:

* The Long Haul from the Annals of Transportation, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009: Marriage dynamics in an alternate world where the Hindenburg disaster never happened, and where airship became a norm in contemporary times.

* The Insects of Love: Mysterious and hinting at memory/time slippage. I would’ve liked it to be a little clearer on this latter part, though.

* Shadow Flock: A heist story, enjoyable but a little wanting in terms of a conclusion.

* Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying: Adopted teenagers girl gather and perform black magic in their quest for identity. The apparently ineffective spell gives them what they want… at first.

* Kheldyu: Action, stealthy infiltrators, interesting techological evolutions, and an “ecological” plot.

* Calligo Lane: Fascinating space-bending magic based on origami. However, the plot wasn’t really defined.

* The Truth About Owls: A tale about a young girl exiled from her country, having to adapt to a new life but also unable to fully embrace her own roots.

* Collateral: (Already read in Upgraded) In which an enhanced soldier has to face the consequences of her choices and training, and come to conclusions after sifting through what’s right and what’s wrong.

The ones I liked the least:

* The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family: Interesting, especially for the theme it wields, but it wasn’t rooted enough in sci-fi or fantastical elements for me. (Not a bad story.)

* The Devil in America: The mix of slavery and ancient magic could’ve been interesting, but it was so disjointed that it made it hard to follow.

* Someday: I kept thinking “why not” when it came to this society’s depiction of mating and having children, but in the end I couldn’t decide what was actually the point.

Conclusion: A recommended read. A few of the stories lacked a properly defined plot and punchline, but this is something that was much more pronounced in other anthologies than this one.

NB. When I write “punchline”, I don’t mean “the most original one in the world”… just an ending. Leaving things too open-ended in short stories always seems weird to me.

Yzabel / May 31, 2014

Review: California Bones

California Bones by Greg Van Eekhout

My rating: [rating=4]

Summary:

When Daniel Blackland was six, he ingested his first bone fragment, a bit of kraken spine plucked out of the sand during a visit with his demanding, brilliant, and powerful magician father, Sebastian.

When Daniel was twelve, he watched Sebastian die at the hands of the Hierarch of Southern California, devoured for the heightened magic layered deep within his bones.

Now, years later, Daniel is a petty thief with a forged identity. Hiding amid the crowds in Los Angeles—the capital of the Kingdom of Southern California—Daniel is trying to go straight. But his crime-boss uncle has a heist he wants Daniel to perform: break into the Hierarch’s storehouse of magical artifacts and retrieve Sebastian’s sword, an object of untold power.

For this dangerous mission, Daniel will need a team he can rely on, so he brings in his closest friends from his years in the criminal world. There’s Moth, who can take a bullet and heal in mere minutes. Jo Alverado, illusionist. The multitalented Cassandra, Daniel’s ex. And, new to them all, the enigmatic, knowledgeable Emma, with her British accent and her own grudge against the powers-that-be. The stakes are high, and the stage is set for a showdown that might just break the magic that protects a long-corrupt regime.

Review:

(I got an ARC through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

3.5/4 stars, I can’t exactly decide, but let’s say 4, because I really liked the world depicted in this book.

Somewhere at the end of the 19th century, or in the early 20th century, California cut ties with the rest of the USA. North and South are now separate “kingdoms”, the southern one being giverned for a century by the mysterious Hierarch and his six closest associates. In itself, the back story behind this isn’t extremely developed, but for once, it didn’t matter for me, because the atmosphere permeating fascinated me, and in the end, I found this more important. (I tend to forgive such aspects in fantasy more than I do in dystopian stories, probably because of the magic factor: if there’s magic and supernatural beings, the world isn’t totally our own, and there’s more leeway for alternate history and various changes.)

I must say I loved the magic developed here: consuming bones from a creature allows a sorcerer (called osteomancer) to temporarily gain characteristics from said creature. The more is consumed, the stronger the magic, and some, like the main character, are so permeated with essence from such beings that they can call upon them at will, or almost. There’s something both gross and fascinating in this, similar to what gets my interest in stories where necromancy is concerned. Consuming bones is a large paved way leading straight to cannibalism: why wait until the creature is dead, after all? And, of course, why only consume animals? Readers who don’t like such themes will likely not feel at ease with what happens in this novel. I, well, I kept reading, wanting to know more about how this worked, about how far some people were ready to go.

The setting, the city, felt like a mix of strange glamour and disgusting practices, a combination that usually works for me. People living under delusions fuelled by the glamour magic of an old sorcerer named Disney, whose amusement parks keep visitors half-drugged with false beauty, and are one of society’s backbones. Lively markets full of conmen and thiefs, having to eke a living under the nose of the wealthy ones working for the “government”. Black market, osteomancy being both a tool of power and one that will get you hunted, because you never know when someone more powerful decides it’s time to consume more… substance. Though the descriptions weren’t very long, they were of a kind that made me able to easily picture the streets, the canals, all the places the characters went through, and to me, this world was a vivid one.

The heist itself is of the classic kind, so I’d say it depends on what a reader is looking for here. If one is familiar with such stories and has read a lot, it may not be surprising, and may even appear as predictable. However, if this is the formula one is looking for, for the sheer pleasure of seeing the heist being prepared and carried on, or if one hasn’t read/seen too many stories of that kind, it could be a very different experience.

I really liked this novel, but two caveats, still. First, while it was permeated with that morbid fascination born from osteomancy, I feel it could have been more developed when it came to some aspects. Quite a few times, I realised I wanted to know more, more, more. Some things I could infer, some others I never got an answer to. Second, the story rests on atmosphere, world-builging, and on the heist itself; in comparison, the characters’ motives weren’t always clear, and their personas sometimes seemed simplistic. Again, it probably depends on what one is looking for. I was looking for a heist and a strange kind of magic, not for very deep exploration of every single human psyche involved, but if I had been, I guess I would have liked the novel less than I did.

This is a rich world, in any case, and one that deserves being written about some more. If there’s to be a sequel, I’d definitely pick it.

(Note: there were a few typos here and there. Since this is an ARC and not a published copy, though, those will hopefully have been corrected by the time it hits the shelves.)