I recently read The Sword-Edged Blonde by Alex Bledscoe.  It was a fun read.

This is a fantasy noir detective novel.   The author doesn’t cheat – the answers fit the story and the mysteries are answered from the clues given.

The main character is an older man with a dark past, as is pretty much  required in these stories.  He’s hired to investigate missing princess and gets pulled into a deeper mystery that has ties to what he’s left behind.  At the end of the story the mysteries are resolved, but I can definitely see a potential for sequels.  Based on this book, I would definitely read more of this author’s work.

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I recently read Scott McCloud’s

Understanding Comics.  A bunch of people were really impressed with it, so I finally decided to check it out from the library.  It was informative but I feel that a lot of it went over my head.

The most interesting idea I got from reading it was that the abstract qualities of comic characters make them easier for us to identify with them.  Because we don’t see our own faces directly, we have a cartoon-like image of what our faces look like.  By keeping the characters features relatively non-realistic, we project ourselves into them.  It’s at least an interesting theory.

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If erotic urban fantasy might appeal to you, give Kiss of Shadows a look.  It’s free for the next little while on Suduvu, so try it out!

Kiss of Shadows is the first book in a series about Merry Gentry, a faerie princess.  It’s less blatantly erotica than the later books in the series.  (Remember: I peruse erotica, you read porn, and he slavers over filthy smut.)

This book introduces the characters and gives you the first glimpse of their world.  This world’s history is based loosely on Celtic Mythology.  The faerie courts had to flee Europe after a great war and have been refugees in the United States for the last few centuries.  Magic is not quite a part of everyday life, but it is a recognized power and is heavily regulated.

I really enjoyed this book and the rest of the series.  Laurell K. Hamilton’s writing is very sensual.  At the same time, this series is very heavy on the sex, sometimes wandering into PWP (Porn Without Plot / Plot? What Plot?) territory.

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I recently read the first book in Morgan Howell’s Queen of the Orcs trilogy.  I really enjoyed it.

Here’s the author’s one sentence synopsis, "A young woman, enslaved to serve the king’s orc army, discovers the orcs’ nobility and leads them in revolt."  I found Dar, the young woman, a surprisingly likeable character.  She is a strong female character without being a man with breasts.  Her strengths and weaknesses flow from who she is. 

The orcs manage to look and act like your typical fantasy orcs but as the book goes on, the reasons for their actions come from an admirable culture and not an evil one.  I’m looking forward to finding more about their culture in the next two books.

This book is definitely worth reading.  I think there will be more romance elements in the subsequent books and I’m looking forward to those.

Tags: book, read