Cold Magic
Kate Elliott
Orbit, Sep 9 2010, $14.99
ISBN 9780316080859

By 1837 Augustan Year, Europa is divided between the old and the new. At a time when the continent faces an ice age, the battle for the hearts of society pits the cold mages against the industrial revolutionists as the detested former argue that the scientists are destroying the world while the welcomed latter claim they are making life better for the less fortunate.

Near Londun in the port city of Adurnam, young Catherine Hassi Barahal shares a bed with her cousin Beatrice as she lives with her aunt and uncle. She wants to know more about her parents; intrepid explorers who apparently died, but has no avenue to begin until she finds a tome her father apparently wrote about The Lies the Romans Told. Soon afterward a cold mage from the Diarisso Lineage of the Four Moon House arrives claiming a magical contract in which the oldest Barahal will marry him unless she is already twenty. Right there at the house of her aunt and uncle, Cat is bound in marriage to the old cold mage. They begin a journey across the icy tundra to a place she knows nothing of, but must learn fast if she is to survive.

This alternate historical Europe is a great opening act as the readers will believe in this world of Kate Elliot. The conflict between the cold mages and the industrialists mirrors in many ways Dickensian England. Cat is a strong protagonist who holds the vivid story line together, but it is the nineteenth century vision of Kate Elliot as seen mostly through her heroic teenager’s eyes that makes for a stirring thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Wicked Appetite
Janet Evanovich
St. Martin’s, Sep 14 2010, $27.99
ISBN: 9780312652913

After pastry chef Elizabeth “Lizzie” Tucker inherited her eccentric Great Aunt Ophelia’s home in Marblehead, she quit her job and moved from New York City to Massachusetts. She became a pastry chef at Dazzle’s Bakery in Salem. Everything is going right for her until a handsome man entered the store and touched her hand; leaving a burn mark on her. Her life turns further complicated when Diesel shows up at the store and her home.

He informs Lizzie that they are both “Unmentionables” humans with special abilities; his is to find people whiles hers is to locate objects. He needs her to find the SALIGIA Stones; each one possesses a power of the Seven Deadly Sins. His cousin Wulf wants the stones to create hell on earth while Diesel wants them hidden in a safe place. Lizzie and Diesel go after Gluttony, which has been fractured into pieces with each segment given to a member of the Hope family by their Uncle Phil. However, no matter how diligent the pair is, Wulf is always a step or two ahead of them until he obtains his first piece while the two unmentionables feel increasingly hopeless.

Janet Evanovich’s new series opens with a great first entry filled with her trademark humor especially as Lizzie takes on the characteristics of an Unmentionable and the storyline contains plenty of action and romance. The heat generated by Lizzie and Diesel will burn reader fingers while the villain is the more fascinating player as he is an enigmatic wicked yet charismatic person. Readers will look forward to the next adventures of this interesting cast.

Harriet Klausner

Siren
John Everson
Leisure, Aug 1 2010, $7.99
ISBN: 9780843963540

When Josh drowned, his death also figuratively killed his parents Evan and Sarah. Suffering from aquaphobia, Evan watched in horror as his son drowned. Now he watches in horror as his beloved wife drowns her sorrow with alcohol.

Over a year since the tragedy, Evan meets naked Ligeia on the beach he tramps every night before bringing his intoxicated wife home from the bar. She provides Evan with an escape from his nightmarish failure as a father and now a husband. She sexually entices him with her perfect body and her silky voice drowns out Josh’s plea to him for help. Mostly she makes him forget, but not entirely as he tries to ignore her siren’s call by returning to his wife.

Siren plays out on two levels; as a horror thriller and as a psychological family drama. There is also a second subplot that provides the audience with a late nineteenth century look at Ligeia’s past, which is a two edged sword depending on the reader’s taste; on the one hand it anchors the siren story line, but also detracts from the reader’s imagination of whether she is true or a desperate figment of grieving Evan’s psyche. Still this is a powerful thriller as John Everson uses the loss of an offspring as the springboard to the gripping Siren.

Harriet Klausner

Dark and Stormy Knights
Edited by P. N. Elrod
St. Martin’s Griffin, Jul 20 2010, $14.99
ISBN: 9780312598341

This fine nine urban fantasy collection focuses on dark knights who protect the innocent and the not innocent from dark nights. The anthology contains five strong entries and four solid contributions. The best two tales are “Even Hand” by Jim Butcher with a Dresden connection as his enemy Marcone has a grudge match with an inhuman sorcerer and Carrie Vaughn’s “God’s Creatures” with a Kitty connection as Cormac the hunter searches for a werewolf at a reform school. Also top quality are “Even a Rabbit Will Bite” by Rachel Caine starring a dragon slayer who faces unemployment and a fear what next since her prey are almost extinct; Vicki Pettersson’s Shifting Star has a female lead who stalks a predator kidnapping young girls; and Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels assigned to protect “A Questionable Client”. The entertaining compilation also includes fun tales from Shannon K. Butcher, P.N. Elrod (a Jack Fleming thriller), Deidre Knight and Lilith Saintcrow.

Harriet Klausner

I’ll Be Slaying You
Cynthia Eden
Kensington Brava, Jul 1 2010, $14.00
ISBN: 9780758234308

In Baton Rouge, Night Watch vampire slayer Sandra “Dee” Daniels stalks the night wearing pointed heels while seeking the undead. She is sworn to protect humanity from these predators. She is quite good at what she does until she meets Simon Chase as he makes her desire him.

Dee has learned she will be converted to a genetically altered human who dies and returns as a vampire. Her current mission is to prevent a rogue “born” again Master who has vamps fleeing him. She wants to stop the villain from turning the bayou into a red sea. However, as dangerous as that is, she feels the most perilous person to her well being is Simon; he shares her intense passion and ire. As each planned to use the other, neither anticipated the feelings that develop for each other; but stalking Baton Rouge remains the Born Master Vampire..

I’ll Be Slaying You is a heated Bayou romantic fantasy as two individuals find their respective souls when they fall in love. Both understand the grim mission, but each hides something critical from their lover as trust does not come easy to either of them. Readers will enjoy the star-crossed romance between the vampire and the vampire slayer.

Harriet Klausner

Shadow Marked
Anna J. Evans
Signet, May 2010, $15.00
ISBN: 9780451229816

When Samantha Quinn was six years old her parents offered her and her two siblings to demons in a satanic ritual. Sam barely survived the ordeal of being offered as a sacrifice, but went blind and obviously suffered emotional damage

Years later, Sam begins having visions of an odious demon killing people. Seeing the look of horror on the victim’s faces, she tries to find a way to save their lives. At the same time, Sam falls in love with her brother Stephen’s childhood friend, Jace. However, as Jace denies his feelings for Sam, she also realizes Stephen is concealing something from her that she fears may be evil and now her newest premonition depicts her beloved as the deceased.

Readers will believe there are plenty of nasty essences between heaven and earth with several planet-side in this haunting urban fantasy. Sam is terrific as she still has mental scars from the ordeal of two decades ago, but refuses to allow her neurosis from crippling her as she tries to protect Jace from a horde of demons who relish devouring humans. Her relationship with Jace makes the tale fresh with their role reversal. The sub-genre audience will feel “Demon Bound” to Anna J. Evans’ strong thriller.

Harriet Klausner

The Long Man
Steve Englehart
Tor, Mar 16 2010, $25.99
ISBN: 9780765317308

Max August would like to return to his simpler life as a DJ during the Reagan Era, but ever since he became the timeless Point Man mage sandwiched between the war of chaos and order, he knows he can never go back. Two plus decades later, still looking in his thirties and not his fifties, his friend Fern calls him on his iPhone; a voice he had not heard in six years. She needs his help.

Someone using powerful magick has assaulted researcher Dr. Pamela Blackwell. Her work on curing the zombie plague is looking promising. An unknown super cabal the Free Range Coalition has plans for global control and Blackwell’s work could br a major interference to their plans. When Max intervenes, the FRC sends hordes of killing zombies after the Timeless mortal.

Over the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco, Juliana in Suriname and Mount Hillaby in the Barbados, the Long Man is en engaging thriller that is fun to read; just ignore credibility especially of the throwback comic book villains. Fast-paced as Max and Pam elude the enemy while also killing some along the way, readers will enjoy the return of the Point Man.

Harriet Klausner

Geosynchron
David Louis Edelman
PYR, Feb 16 2010, $16.00
ISBN 9781591027928

When MultiReal technology failed to provide anymore probability solutions to decision making, civil war explodes between Len Borda and Magan Kai Lee while rebellion mounts elsewhere as Quell has escaped incarceration and has found a willing ally Josiah. The human solar system looks to be on the verge of a second Autonomous Revolt; the last destroyed much of civilization centuries ago.

While the proponents behind MultiReal struggle with the realism that their program is gone, they also deal with law suits. Suddenly, in the chaotic void appears MultiReal-D. It is the same as its predecessor except it can provide multiple time lines for up to 60 seconds; expanding probability mathematics to incredible degrees, bur may be too late as the legal suits expand and the hostilities grow while Natch is nowhere to be seen even as he receives desperate virtual pleas from Surina..

The final Jump 225 is a great finish to a terrific technological science fiction thriller. Somehow David Louis Edelman paints his vision even darker and grittier than in the previous extremely dark and gritty tales (see Infoquake and MultiReal). A sort of cyberpunk modernizing of WarGames, Geosynchron is superb story as the complex myriad of subplots come together in Natch who must choose mankind who treated him like excrement or himself who is his only true love; MultiReal-D would predict bet your life on the latter as that is the overwhelming odds.

Harriet Klausner

Dust of Dreams
Steven Erikson
Tor, Jan 19 2010, $17.99
ISBN: 9780765316554

East of the Letherii Empire lies the Wastelands and the Glass desert where Malazan 14the Army Commander Adjunct Tavore leads her troops, the Bonehunters into exile. Joining them on their excursion is the Letherii imperial legions under the command of Brys Beddict. Expected to meet them are the Perish Grey Helms and Khundryl Burned Tears, but they are betrayed as they try to cross the Kingdom of Bolkando at the same time on the Ar’kryn plains while the Barghast White Face clans deal with treachery from within also. While all this military movement and treachery occurs, the Shake seeks their ancestral home the First Shore, which will cause an ancient reawakening.

As these various races of mortals and ascendants come together, the sky is on fire. Also as the heavens seem under a growing inferno, a god has escaped imprisonment to return to regain his lost power spreading Darkness over the continent. The allies know they go to war to die as the enemy is much more powerful, but ironically though they bravely face their mortality, each knows they fight to protect an empire that has exiled them.

This is the first of the a two part climax to the Malazan Book of the Fallen saga and though much of reaching the finish line will be in the last half, Dust of Dreams has plenty of action including a superb cliffhanger. There is the usual too much internal introspection by seemingly a zillion of the quadrillion cast, which makes keeping score as always complicated and convoluted. Still fans of the saga will enjoy the set-up as Steven Erikson seems ready to end the epic on a high note if the quality level of first part of the final duology is held up in part two.

Harriet Klausner

Geosynchron
David Louis Edelman
PYR, Feb 16 2010, $16.00
ISBN 9781591027928

When MultiReal technology failed to provide anymore probability solutions to decision making, civil war explodes between Len Borda and Magan Kai Lee while rebellion mounts elsewhere as Quell has escaped incarceration and has found a willing ally Josiah. The human solar system looks on the verge of a second Autonomous Revolt; the last destroyed much of civilization centuries ago.

While the proponents behind MultiReal struggle with the realism that their program is gone, they also deal with law suits. Suddenly, in the chaotic void appears MultiReal-D. It is the same as its predecessor except it can provide multiple time lines for up to 60 seconds; expanding probability mathematics to incredible degrees, bur may be too late as the legal suits expand and the hostilities grow while Natch is nowhere to be seen even as he receives desperate virtual pleas from Surina..

The final Jump 225 is a great finish to a terrific technological science fiction thriller. Somehow David Louis Edelman paints his vision even darker and grittier than in the previous extremely dark and gritty tales (see Infoquake and MultiReal). A sort of cyberpunk modernizing of WarGames, Geosynchron is superb story as the complex myriad of subplots come together in Natch who must choose mankind who treated him like excrement or himself who is his only true love; MultiReal-D would predict bet your life on the latter as that is the overwhelming odds.

Harriet Klausner