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Eric Fu gnef520 — I need more stars. I'd say this novel isn't really a four, but three seems too low, too. It's entertaining. I definitely enjoyed reading it. It was engaging and exciting, even. But at the same time, there was a lot that didn't work. Stuff that I ended up kinda ignoring as I read so that I could just enjoy the action. It was like a stereotypical Michael Bay movie - all action without a very good story underneath. (I actually don't know if Michael Bay movies are like that; I don't watch movies much. But for some reason the comparison came to me so I felt like using it. Anyway...) Whitfield tried to make a really indepth story with a lot going on in the universe and lots of components; unfortunately, they didn't really work together too well. On the Amazon page for the book, there is one comment at the time of my writing this review (by Joshua Wachter) who commented that (paraphrased) it started out well but then just got weird and things went downhill from there. I had read one of the short stories in the universe (A Knight's Charge) so I figured that the commenter just was thrown off by the strong fantasy element in the story which I knew to expect from the short story. However, having read the novel, I rather feel the same way as that commenter. The book does indeed start out fantastically. The first eight chapters are simply fantastic gritty sci-fi action which I didn't want to stop reading once I started. Then, things got weird. As many stories (especially the action type) do nowadays, this one started in the second act so that there's engaging action right away, etc. etc. The problem is that it never went back to the first act at all. This is a problem because it feels like everything that happens as the book progresses is just made up and doesn't fit into the universe as is known so far. Starting at chapter nine, the book starts showing the fact that it has the aforementioned strong fantasy element in addition to the sci-fi. There is no background or reference at all to the universe outside the action where Walters and Berbatov are, though, so the things that happen seem utterly ridiculous/miraculous/out of place; yet, the rest of the characters act as if it's a not uncommon thing to happen. Now, this might be the case that such events do happen regularly enough in the world, but there should have been some way for the readers to know that. Of course, not every story needs to fit into the three-act structure exactly, but in this case, the lack of any background that might happen in the first act makes it seem like any time something "weird" happens, it's just the author deciding to make up random stuff to fit his fancy. Then, after a while I just accept that this is happening even if it's poorly explained and I keep reading to see where the story goes. Unfortunately, this is hardly the end of the new things popping up. Brandon Sanderson has a series of laws that goes into his magic systems; his first law is: "An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic." I mention this because I agree strongly with it (and did even before I read this post) and because Whitfield broke this rule, a lot. (Sanderson goes on further in his blog post to explain it; in my opinion it is an interesting read if you have some time and like fantasy.) Over and over, one of the characters does something that we (i.e. readers) had no idea was possible or allowed or anything of the sort. The worst part, in my opinion, (view spoiler) The fact that the character who is thrust into the situation knows much more than the readers are allowed to know just, again, reinforces the noticeable lack of information about what is usual for this universe and what the beings therein might consider normal. Perhaps this was done intentionally for some ridiculous, esoteric literary effect, but yet again it just left me feeling like the author was making stuff up as he went along to fit the situations he got himself into. So, the strength of this novel is definitely it the writing of it's action scenes and making enjoyable characters. starting early on and going throughout the book I felt for and was rooting for the main characters and was really drawn into their situation. The action writing is great. On a vaguely related note, many of the battle scenes on land seem to use very 18th-century land war techniques. Armies shooting volleys of musket fire (well, plasma guns, here) and then a lot of charging in afterwards for hand-to-hand combat. Not necessarily a bad thing, just very atypical for any genre with modern to futuristic-type weapons. Anyway, where was I? I was summing up that on the surface, the book is action-filled, exciting with good writing to go along with it. However, that is strongly counter-acted with the lack of a consistent universe for the characters along with much depth (so far, at least) into the story or in the characters, etc. All that said, I did start reading the next book in the series very soon after finishing this one, which is why it seems like three stars is a bit low, as I definitely am enjoying the story; but there are just too many holes and missing background on the universe to really make it feel like a full, powerful story, which makes it hard for me to justify four stars. Nice to look at, but not enough there. (Are Michael Bay movies actually like that or is my stereotype of his movies just completely wrong?)

Manoj Borah manoj_ — This is an unbelievably creepy story about murdering pedophiles in London. If you have any aversion to this topic, I warn you DO NOT READ THIS BOOK! It is very graphic and disturbing. The mystery of who commited these crimes and how they were done is really intense. It definitely grabs your attention and keeps you wondering but the creepiness factor had me putting this book down periodically to regroup. But I found myself wondering and would pick it up again. Other than the subject matter, the only thing wrong with this book is that it is written by a British author who used British idioms which are totally undecipherable to us Yanks. Quite a few times I found myself guessing as to what they were talking about. For example: "Let's have a shufti at the park." What the hell does that mean? This is a murder mystery after all, so it isn't like the cops were going for a walk in the park. Rather irritating.

De Albuquerque _ — I would categorize Kerrelyn Sparks' latest paranormal in her vampire series, "Secret Life of a Vampire" as one of the sweeter, yet still hot, in this whole series. Her hero is more Gamma than Alpha, her heroine is an ex-beauty queen turned cop, and there's not much blood spilled unless it comes from a glass. The vampires in this series are divided into two camps; Malcontents who want to rule the world and feed from humans at will, and the good vamps who feed off bottled blood and battle the Malcontents. Even though this same good vamps vs bad vamps has been done over and over, Sparks adds enough twists to distinguish her series from the rest. Her good vamps have their own 'Black Pages', their own Vamp Network cable TV station, and their own Vampire Fusion Cuisine. This story begins at a wild vamp bachelor party that gets raided by a pair of cops due to the noise of the bagpipes. Yes, I said bagpipes. The humor in this series isn't just in the dialogue. I mean kilt wearing, sword-bearing, sexy vampires in New York City? Be still my heart. Anyway, my enjoyment of this series is its refusal to bow to the popularity of the more serious and darker vein (couldn't resist) of stories that currently abound. Fun and funny, sweet yet with enough heat to satisfy most romance readers, I confess to being hooked.

Kyle Bloom kylebloom — I'm unusually weird and generally enjoy unusually weird things, but this book was just a little over the top for me. Parts of the book were so explicit that I gagged or had to skip over several pages in order to preserve my post-Evangelical purity, but I kept reading. Wetlands is about an 18 yr old woman who is recovering from ass surgery. She's a child of divorce trying to use her stay in the hospital to get her parents back together. Basically the book is a narration of everything she thinks and does while recovering...from ass surgery. You can probably figure out the rest from there.