Matthew Hunter

The latest in Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, Serpentine continues the series with the planned wedding of “Ted” and Donna. Of course, things never go quite according to plan, and there are the usual supernatural complications that seem to follow Anita whereever she goes. Since we’re talking about book 26 in a series, this is not the place for new readers to start. Further, we’re talking about a series where the closest thing to a Dark Lord threatening the world was killed off something like 10 books ago.

A Wastrel’s Tale is (probably) the first book in a swords and sorcery zombie apocalypse series. The story revolves around a member of an order dedicated to fighting necromancy with the use of arms and specialized magic, yet for decades now there have been but few necromancers. Indeed, only one of any notable talent or skill, and that one in captivity. An ideal condition for a third son who would dearly love to spend his life training, drinking, and wenching, no?

An Airless Storm follows up on the adventures of Andrew Cochrane and his security service of interstellar mercenaries. Following their initial success in funding their operations, the company has ordered more ships and larger ships. But their enemies are doing the same. The book has the same vaguely Heinlein-juvenile feel, and the plot armor is less perfect. Mostly it represents an improvement, but the ratio of people talking about their plans and engaging in covert operation shenanigans versus space battles is still pretty high.

Peter Grant’s new novel, The Stones of Silence, is set in his science-fiction universe, sharing it with his two other series starting with Take the Star Road and War to the knife. It’s unclear to me if the setting is intended to be the same, or just happens to be similar in a generic science fiction way. The setup for his new series is interesting, but shares the flaws of the earlier works.

Brief Cases by Jim Butcher is a collection of short stories in the very popular Dresden Files series, named for the central character Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard – or at least the only one with an ad in the phone book. I don’t normally go in for short story collections, but occasionally with an established universe my completionist instincts will kick in. In this case I had already read Side Jobs, a similar collection by the same author in the same universe.

A sequel to Sufficiently Advanced Magic, On the Shoulders of Titans manages to significantly complicate the plot. The number of characters who may not be trustworthy or whose interests may lie in a direction other than that of their allies grows to very nearly equal the number of characters in the book. Thankfully, the “magic school” elements of the plot are reduced almost to insignificance; the main character barely attends class and spends only a limited amount of time on screen taking tests.

What do you get when you combine an interesting magic system, a lot of influence from video games, a competent but emotionally distant author, a dash of gender ambiguity, a token pinch of political preaching, and yet another book about a child who goes to magic school? Apparently, you get a pretty good stew of a book that’s enjoyable to read, intellectually interesting, and only rarely makes me want to throw it against the wall for brief periods.

Elion (Half-elven magic-user played by Jonathan) Elion wears both a robe and a cloak even while at sea, ensuring certain death by drowning in yards of soaked clothing should he fall overboard for longer than a few minutes without the rest of the party nearby to rescue him. He has few qualms about using his magic to influence his party members, though in his defense, a barbarian not under the influence of a Charm Person spell would likely kill him sooner.

Kevin (Human druid played by Nathan) Traveled with the party from Rookroost to Castle Greyhawk. Decided he hated being a courier and took up a new career exploring dungeons. His personality has steadily evolved from happy-go-lucky nature druid to decidedly unhappy red of tooth and claw nature druid. But the Band of Misfits is all about making the world a better place, right?

Kriselle (Human Fighter played by Mary) Kriselle’s personality so far appears to consist of an inordinate curiosity about rot grubs and a knack for negotiations with merchants, leavened with a healthy respect for the dead that has helped her to avoid awkward moments like greeting a reborn Fred wearing his armor. In fact, her talent and desire for negotiation has expanded to favor negotiating on behalf of some of the creatures the party has come across in their travels, suggesting that if they harmless and pose no threat, it might not be necessary to exterminate them utterly and burn their corpses.