Sometimes I strike out. And sometimes I find a hidden gem like Hazardous Goods (Arcane Transport) by John Mackie. This book takes place in Toronto, Canada, which isn’t a place many if any of my urban fantasy books have taken place. It centers on a business called (*gasp*) Arcane Transport. They transport goods and items for businesses in the Toronto area. This can be a great many items from small to large.

Donnie Elder has just lost his job is the normal world. Coming to his aid is an old family friend who runs a transport service a la FedEx or UPS but smaller. This man is getting up there in years and is looking for a junior partner who is eventually going to take over the business. Enter Donnie.

Donnie is very much a skeptic. He doesn’t believe in magic or the things they transport. His business partner takes him on his first rounds in the business and unluckily enough, they get robbed. It puts the elder man in the hospital and puts Donnie in charge.

So now there are shenanigans of the new-to-the-job-and-finding-magic-is-real types. Add to that the fact that Donnie is bound and determined to get the stolen item back, then you have a sort of detective without the detective training thing going on.

It was an interesting first book and it has potential. It was, unfortunately, short so I blew threw it in a manner of hours. So I’d rate it a solid B. There’s another book coming eventually but not soon enough.

So at the end of the last book, Sookie was forced to use her precious faerie brooch the cluviel dor to bring Sam Merlotte, her boss and best friend, back from the dead. His former lover had accidentally killed him while trying to off the Shreveport werewolf pack leader Alcide. Things did not end up good for the girl.

This book picks up the day after pretty much. Sam is in shock (obviously). And we learn that there are some people out to get Sookie Stackhouse for pretty much everything that she had done in the previous books. Eric is pissed at Miss Sookie for using the cluviel dor on Sam rather than on him and his marriage problem.

So Sookie has to sort out Sam while keeping herself alive. We get all the good old characters back: Mr. Cataliades, Diantha, Bob the (no longer) cat, Amelia Carmichael, Bellboy Barry and Quinn (albeit briefly). It was a very good book and if you like the Stackhouse series at all, you cannot miss the finale.

My pet peeves with the book even though I highly enjoyed it:
1) Eric went back to his old dickish self. I’d thought he’d changed in the last few novels but alas, he was your “typical” vamp in that change is hard and probably doesn’t come at all.
2) All too brief cameos by Quinn and Alcide. Almost wasn’t worth having them there at all
3) The bringing back of two relatively minor douchebags as major baddies bent on revenge.
4) Bit of an unnecessary side plot involving Copley Carmichael, Amelia’s dad. It introduced some whole new information that literally NO ONE in this universe knew about…and went absolutely nowhere with it. Perhaps this information will lead into some sort of spinoff series in this same universe?

At any rate, despite my little peeves, I really enjoyed the book. I’ll likely pick up the coda in October as well. Until then, I’m going to need to pick up more books. Rating: B+/A-. And remember, I welcome suggestions!

Black Magic is a very interesting story but I feel I should warn that this is a homosexual romantic fantasy novel. There is explicit male on male sex but oddly enough, not as much sex as I’ve seen in some hetero-romantic fantasy novels (I’m looking at you Anita Blake. You can put plot in with your porn you know). I don’t feel that this detracts from the story at all but it is not everyone’s cup of tea so be warned.

In this book, there are several classes of magic users: Paladins, Necromancers, Priests, Alchemists and Demons. There are non magic users as well but this is a fantasy novel so the magic users are the focus. Each class has what one might call ‘regulars’ (that is, averagely powered members) and ‘high’ (above averagely powered members).  Each of these classes except Alchemists have some sort of connection with a figure they refer to as the Goddess. She is the string puller of the tale.

High Paladin Sorin has discovered his the body of his cousin, a priest, in his chambers. Upset but needing to investigate, he goes to consult with the High Priest Angelos. High Priests are the ones most likely to have steady and clearer communication with the Goddess. They’ll get words and directions from her and not just feelings. Sorin should expect the arrival of someone “dark” to aid him in his quest to find his cousin’s killer.

Enter Necromancer Koray. Necromancers are feared and mistreated by the rest of society. They are badly misunderstood. What they do is put the dead (that is ghosts) to rest after battles and such. It costs them dearly in personal energy and not to mention the possibility of death from their fellow humans and demons. Koray has no trust for anyone, let alone Paladins of any stature.

Sorin stumbles upon Koray in the middle of the woods outside of the royal castle and convinces the Necromancer to come back with him (read, forces him). The Goddess has made it painfully clear (quite literally) to Sorin that Koray is the person he needs to solve the crime. She also makes it clear to Sorin that she is less than pleased with the way that he has been treating Necromancers who are merely doing her bidding…just like him.

Sorin and Koray show the people that Necromancers can be trusted even if Koray himself finds it hard to trust Sorin in return. They find the killer eventually (no spoilers on who) but not before he kills the High Priest. In the midst of this, we learn that Sorin’s second in command Emel is in love with a Demon. Demon’s ‘eat’ the energy (and sometimes the bodies) of other magic users but this demon is not the typical brainless, vicious demon. This demon loves Emel, can restrain himself from eating people and wants to be with his lover in peace.

At this point, Derr cuts to an exiled prince’s story in the neighboring kingdom. This kingdom has no Priests, Necromancers or Paladins. They have Alchemists who trap energy in vessels (commonly jewels) and who are property. (A lot of social commentary in this book if you haven’t noticed). Cerant is the exiled prince of the kingdom that Sorin serves. For months he has been suffering debilitating headaches without a clue as to why.

His has a would be lover and Alchemist, Neikirk, in his employ. Technically, Neikirk is Cerant’s property even if Cerant himself doesn’t think of Neikirk that way. Cerant keeps his hands to himself for a decade (I love it. I love that he could take advantage of the situation but doesn’t). At the end of the contract time, Neikirk finally finagles himself into Cerant’s bed due to mutual love and so of course, bad news comes.

The Goddess and events have conspired to bring Cerant out of exile. He travels back with Neikirk and get attacked by a new and very odd brand of demon. These demons are pure white or gray, marking them as sickly but no less dangerous. Cerant makes it back to the royal castle and thereupon finds himself marked as high priest with a new mystery to solve. What is behind these odd white demons and how can they be stopped?

Black Magic is a good book even if it is a bit oddly named. No one seemed to have done anything that might be considered as really black magic until the end of the book. And even then, there wasn’t a scene showing people working black magic. I would actually love to see a follow up to this, or several. I found the characters compelling and I really loved the acerbic Koray. Rating: A. I am actually sorely tempted to go right back and re-read it tomorrow.

These Shardyn were trapped on Earth after defeating Asmodeus because Earth has no magic. Thinking that, they made lives for themselves among humans and hoped to find a way back. Except something happened. A killer by the name of Donovan (not sure why that seems strange to me but it does) makes his way to this small town in Montana for some reason he doesn’t fully comprehend. See, Donovan was legally dead for some time and when he came back, he came back changed.

Something about Asmodeus called Donovan to Montana, where he inadvertently released the demon. So Skip has to chase both demon and Donovan across the country. Asmodeus wants revenge on the the Shardyn knights and he’ll stop at nothing.

All in all, I was really surprised by this book. Some of the characterizations were a little ham-fisted I thought. Skip not only gave up a life as a good detective with Philly PD, he also happened to be a crack sniper for the Marines! Of course! But I was pleased to see that while there was a bit of sexual tension there was no actual sex! An urban fantasy book with no sex! Holy shit, I’m hallucinating. Now, I have nothing against sex but it is nice to see that an author can go without it.

Vera left the end of the book in a way that clearly says he is looking to continue in at least one more story.  And I am actually looking forward to it. So it was a good read and cheap on Amazon Kindle but Vera could use a little polishing as a writer. Rating: B.

Cal has his memories back and he has come to relatively peaceful terms with the fact that he is in fact a monster. Cal is one of my favorite characters. He is a snarky anti-hero. He doesn’t really care or want to do the right thing but he will never, ever let down his brother Niko.

In this book, we get a bit more of Cal and Niko’s back story. I’ll admit that I came into the Cal & Niko series about mid way and I don’t really have a desire to start at the beginning, though I might do so if I run out of things to read from Amazon. Thurman goes over previous information in her books, so with the exception of the first book I read, I don’t really feel lost.

At any rate, we learn that Cal and Niko, who moved around a lot due to their drunken harlot Rom mother (I’m not not saying that because she is Rom, she’s a drunken harlot. She’s drunken harlot that just happens to be written as a member of the Romany peoples by Thurman, so please no trolling). We flash back between a particular move and present day as is often the case with the Cal & Niko stories.

In this case, they’re in the northeast somewhere (Connecticut I think), Niko is about fifteen and Cal is about eleven. Niko is working as a janitor at his school to make money to feed them. This means that he doesn’t accompany Cal home at the end of the day, which worries him because they have been chased by Auphe since the day that Cal was born.

One day, Niko comes home and Cal announces the next door neighbor is a serial killer, just as cool as you please before he goes back to his comic book.  Needless to say, Niko does not believe this but Cal insists on investigating. He smells the blood and death from next door when he walks by because his Auphe half increases his senses, especially smell. Cal can’t hardly go by a hospital let alone in one. Used clothing or bedding can, at this point in his young life, cause actual physical sickness.

Now what does this have to do with present day NYC where Cal and Niko now live? Simple, Cal gets attacked by a group of nutball humans who feel they have to save him or cleanse him or some such thing. They try to kill him, which is a bad idea. He sends them to Tumulus (the Auphe home dimension) for just a few seconds and drives them all even more bonkers than they were. But the strange thing about this humans is that they seemed to know precisely where the division between “safe/human” NYC is and the paien (supernatural) NYC begins.

It becomes clear after a while that there is a creature much more powerful than them pulling the strings of these weirdos, as that creature attacks Cal in the home he shares with Niko. It takes a while, but eventually we get the connection between their recollections and their current situation. The creature that is controlling this modern day nutballs was the same creature that was controlling the serial killing next door neighbor.

Now they know who it is, they have to figure out what it is and how to kill it. I won’t go into too much detail on that part, being that it’s a fairly new book. But I do strongly recommend this one: Rating A. And I recommend the rest of the Cal & Niko books and Rob Thurman’s Trickster novels.

They follow the Order of the Round Table, made up of the descendants of the original Knights of the Round Table. As in King Arthur and Merlin. While I have not yet seen one of the knights who is descended of Arthur himself, I have read of those who are descended of the other knights and Merlin himself.

The books follow one of the knights or his family members as they run into a supernatural problem of some sort. While pursuing this problem, they get introduced to the plucky female love interest. Both parties are insistent that they are either a) not attracted to the other party or b) looking for love/marriage. Inevitably, the supernatural problem brings the two people together, they realize their love (sometimes in days, sometimes in actual weeks or months!), get married and have little hellions of their own. I mean, children.

This is the basic plot of every single one of these books, so you know what you’re getting in to. That said, it is a bit like a soap opera or reality TV show, a guilty pleasure. They’re Harlequin romance novels set in a steampunk era. I do think that Pape does a good job in steampunk. And I will probably keep reading these stories because they are cheap and easy. But if you are looking for a real awesome steampunk, go for Gail Carriger.

The books are as follows: Steam & Sorcery, Photographs & Phantoms, Moonlight & Mechanicals, Kilts & Kraken and Cards & Caravans. Considering that they’ve only been published starting in March 2011, I’m certain there will be many more of these little steampunk stories. Overall, I think I’d rate them a C+/B-. Entertaining but not great. And I probably wouldn’t buy them if they didn’t average about 3 dollars a go.

The basis behind this book is that the Black Plague transformed people into supernatural creatures (in this case, vampires and werewolves and goblins). “Full blooded” plagued people were considered aristocrats. Or I should say, full blood vampires were considered aristocrats. The werewolves in the UK were in one single gi-normous pack lead by The Alpha (Vexation ‘Vex’ MacLaughlin-such a silly great name).

It was accidentally discovered that full-blooded weres and vamps could have children with a certain segment of the human population. Human female courtesans are highly paid and respected by the plagued community for being able to produce half bloods (halvies).  Halvies are used for protection against humans seeing as halvies can go out in the day time while most full bloods cannot (I’m still not sure if full blooded weres can go out in the day).

Queen Victoria never died, she turned out to be a full blooded vamp. Prince Albert was killed in a human insurrection in the mid-1930s, rather than dying in the late 1800s. There was no World War I or World War II.

The main character is Alexandra (Xandy or Xandra) Vardan is a Royal Guard, whose job it is to protect Victoria. We are introduced to her trying to find a younger sister. That search turns into a somewhat convoluted investigation into faked deaths and sinister scientific/medical experiments on halvies which may include Xandra herself.

Who can she trust? Will she find out what happens to her sister? What are these experiments? We only get a few answers in this book but it is clear that this is going to be an arc, so I’m not too upset by some of the loose ends. It is a very interesting book. And the follow up Long Live the Queen was just as good. I really suggest reading it. Rating: A.

This finishing school is not your ordinary finishing school. There’s a rove vampire as a teacher and the attendees do indeed learn both etiquette and espionage. They teach you how to set a perfect party…and to poison any number of your guests! Sophronia gets into trouble almost constantly but as she tends to save the day or bring important information forward, she tends to get away with it.

I was hesitant at first to pick this up as the main character is fourteen. I was worried that I couldn’t get into the story with a character who is so much younger than myself. I shouldn’t have worried. Gail Carriger has a wonderful writing style and I love her steampunk-y world. I love Alexia and Sophronia because they’re a lot like me personality wise. I also love the ridiculous names that she comes up with, such as Pillover.

I really can’t wait for the next book to come out. Rating: A.

Rachel Morgan, our leading lady, has actually changed! She doesn’t rush head long in to dangerously stupid (or stupidly dangerous) situations. Thank god. That was really annoying. And she’s actually learned that she can get help from people! Oh my god! Okay, enough with the sarcasm (maybe).

In this book, she’s in trouble because a ley line that she accidentally created (which makes it her responsibility) is leaking ever after (the place where the demons live and allows for magic to be used). Only it isn’t her fault. True she created the line but someone has cursed it, causing the ever after leakage. That person (well, demon really) is the creepy Ku’Sox that demon she bested a few books ago. He is out for revenge in a big way.

Ku’Sox uses Rachel’s ex-boyfriend (who hasn’t appeared in a while) Nick Sparagamos as a familiar. Nick wants revenge on Rachel in a big way…though I can’t really remember why. I’d be tempted to go back and re-read those early books if Rachel Morgan wasn’t so god damn irritating in them. At any rate, Nick (or crap-for-brains as Jenks calls him) is abducting witch children with Rosewood Syndrome, the same deadly disease that Rachel had as a child. And if they’re cured, they will become day walking demons just like Rachel.

Not only that, but Ku’Sox kidnaps Trent Kalamack’s child Lucy as leverage. Trent is the only one who knows the complete Rosewood cure. So Rachel has to get the babies, get Lucy and stop the ever after from shrinking. And if she doesn’t? Oh the usual…death by Newt (the only other female demon, not the lizard).

I won’t go into too much detail but I really, really enjoyed this one. Rachel is finally, finally becoming a fully fleshed out character. And she finally freaking kissed Trent! I’ve been waiting for that to happen for several books now. I’m am really looking forward to the next one, whenever it may be released. Totally worth the read. I might even re-read it. Rating: solid A.

There are some similarities to Harry Potter, I have to say, but Riordan does a very good job of creating his very own world. People aren’t using magic through wands in this. They have magic artifacts. Percy himself has a ball point pen that turns into a sword called Riptide when uncapped. Why does a pen become a sword and vice versa? So humans won’t notice. There is something called the Mist that basically shows mortals what they want or need to see. I’ve seen this concept in other fantasy novels. Some call it a veil or disbelief. Douglas Adams called it the Someone Else’s Problem effect.

So we’re introduced to Percy Jackson when his class takes a school trip to a museum in New York City. Percy hates school trips because he invariably gets in trouble on trips. Trouble that is not really his fault. He doesn’t know it yet but he is a demigod, the child of a mortal and a god of (in this case) Olympus. Percy, like many other demigods, is considered a bit of a troublemaker, not to mention that he is both dyslexic and suffers from ADHD. Both of these are apparently a sign that he is a demigod. Supposedly their brains are hard wired to read Ancient Greek rather than English. Interesting premise.

At any rate, dear Percy, a youngster of only 12, does get in trouble on this trip. He doesn’t know it yet but his math teacher is apparently one of the Furies (referred to as the Kindly Ones so as not to gain unwanted attention) and she is after him in particular. Demigods attract monsters like the Furies like flowers attract bees. It is a fact of life. And this Fury thinks Percy has stolen something from her master (Hades) and wants it back. Trouble is, Percy is clueless as to what is going on. He has no idea who he is yet. All he knows is that he has now just killed his math teacher with a pen-sword.

Oh, and no one on the trip seems to remember the evil math teacher. No one except Percy, his best friend Grover and his wheelchair-bound Latin teacher. Only they aren’t admitting to anything. Percy is suspicious and tries to spring the math teacher in randomly during conversations to get them to break. It doesn’t work and Percy is sent home at the summer (never to return to that particular school).

We’re introduced to Percy’s sweet mom, Sally, who has married a deadbeat mortal man. We find out later that she did this to protect Percy. But right now, Percy is clueless about that and simply hates his step-dad. You’ll hate this guy too. Nasty man. Percy’s mom swiftly takes Percy from their little apartment to a vacation in Montauk, Long Island. This is apparently where Sally Jackson initially met Percy’s as-yet unnamed father.

In the middle of the night during the trip, friend Grover shows up which is weird because he wasn’t invited. He’s trying to save Percy because as it turns out, Grover is a satyr and his job is to protect Percy. Sally, who we find out is quite in the know about the Olympians, takes Grover at his word and the three of them speed off into the night heading for safety. They almost make it to safety at a place called Camp Half-Blood when the danger finds them.

The danger is the Minotaur. Yes, that Minotaur. Percy ends up ‘killing’ the Minotaur after the creature apparently kills his mother. And that is Percy’s introduction to life at Camp-Half Blood, the only safe place in the world for demigods. Demigods are sorted into houses by their godly parents (sound a bit familiar). If your godly parent doesn’t claim you, your shunted into Hermes’ cabin, which is rather like Hufflepuff (He’ll take the lot and treat them just the same). It takes a few days, but Percy is finally claimed during a bout of capture the flag (which involves real weapons and the very real possibility of serious injury). Percy is the son of Poseidon, one of the main three Olympian gods.

This leads to all sorts of problems for Percy. It gets him unwanted attention because children of the big three (Zeus, Poseidon and Hades) tend to be much more powerful than those of the other gods. And to top it all off, he finds that he almost immediately after getting claimed needs to run off on a very important quest which will almost certainly get him killed.

Zeus’s master lightning bolt, the prototype of his lightning weapon, as been stolen by person or persons unknown. Zeus blames Percy (and thereby Poseidon) because Percy happened to be in the Olympus area when the bolt was stolen. Oh, Olympus is on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building. Percy lives in NYC.

Percy’s old Latin teacher, who turns out to be a centaur named Chiron, believes Hades has stolen the master bolt because of old jealousies. He sends Percy and two others, Annabeth Chase (Athena’s daughter) and the satyr Grover, to find the master bolt and get it back to Olympus by the summer solstice. He has ten days. But because Percy is the son of Poseidon and Zeus (god of the sky) is pissed at them, Percy and the others can’t fly. They have to make their way to the Underworld the overland way. And where is the Underworld if Olympus is in Manhattan? Well, that would be Los Angeles. I laughed when I read that.

Twelve year olds Percy and Annabeth and satyr Grover fight their way across country, including fighting Ares himself. They get sidetracked in the Lotus Casino in Vegas. If this sounds familiar, think the Odyssey. In the end, Percy, Annabeth and Grover return triumphant to Olympus and smooth things over with the gods, though no one is sure who it was who originally stole the bolt. And as icing, it turns out the Sally Jackson wasn’t killed by the Minotaur! Hades took her just before that would have happened, for his own reasons.

Percy enjoys the rest of his summer camp, participating in the unusual games of Camp Half-Blood. At the very end of the summer (SPOILERS), Percy discovers that one of the other campers, Luke Castellan the son of Hermes, was the one behind the theft of the master bolt. He’s working for the ancient evil, the Titan Kronos. He attempts to kill Percy and ends up fleeing Camp Half-Blood as a traitor.

This book was really, really good. Rating: A. Go out and read these books. I’ve caught up on all of them and am hoping that he releases the next one before the currently scheduled release in October 2013.