There is an an app called Goodreads that I use to track books I have read, keep a list of books I would like to read, and keep up-to-date on the books and blogs of my favorite writers.  My to-read list in the app currently stands at 19.  This list has grown so large as I have had neither the time nor inclination to read long form fiction as of late.  The growing size of this list was distressing though.  Being OCD, I had to take some action to stem the growing tide of books that needed to be read.  To that end, I purchased Mortal Coils by Eric Nylund and dedicated some time to reading.  I am glad I did.

Mortal Coils is the story of Fiona and Eliot Post.  They are 15 year-old twin orphans that are being raised by their grandmother and great grandmother.  Their lives are strictly regimented and order is maintained by adherence to over 132 rules that their grandmother has set forth.  This oppressive regime extends even to education as the children are home schooled and therefor have little interaction with other people outside of the job that they have just recently started.  As the story unfolds, we are quickly introduced to several shadowy figures that are searching for the twins.  The discovery of the twins illuminates the true purpose behind all the rules under which they have lived.  They served the two-fold purpose of keeping them hidden from their relatives and to keep the twins ignorant of their true heritage.

With their discovery, this coming-of-age story begins to pick up more steam.  In addition to the standard problems that teenagers face, the two must come to grips with being members of two powerful supernatural families  The twins very existence is cause for much consternation among both families and tests are undertaken to determine their true lineage.  The tests by one family are called heroic trials while the other family undertakes temptations to discern the twins nature .  With the names of the tests, it comes as no surprise to find that one family is composed of demons and the other is populated by gods, goddesses, and immortal heroes.  What follows is a slow revelation of the nature of the two families and the possible place the twins have in either.

That I enjoyed this book was a little surprising.  My exposure to YA fiction is somewhat limited.  I have read and enjoyed the Hunger Games and Harry Potter but little else has been able to hold my interest. The families being composed of gods and demons provided the impetus to begin reading this book.  The unique spin that being a child of a goddess and a demon brings to a coming-of-age story kept me reading.  As I am a fan of things mythical, this additional complication added an interesting wrinkle to the story.  The slow revelation of who was whom within each family was very engrossing.  Clues are sprinkled about the narrative indicative of the identity of the major characters.  These clues added an extra urgency to the story a I wanted to find out if I was correct in my deductions about certain characters.

I highly recommend picking up this book.  It is a quick and entertaining read with a unique take on a classic coming-of age tale.  It is excellent summer reading fare.

I could think of no better way to tie up the theme of badassery than by telling you about the novel Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth.

Let me start off by giving you the elevator pitch.  Blood Oath is equal parts The Bourne Identity, World of Darkness, and H P Lovecraft.  It takes urban fantasy and seamlessly integrates it with the spy thriller genre.  The setting is our modern world but with elder horrors lurking at the edge of reality, werewolves leading organized crime in Russia, and mad scientists creating horrors to be used as weapons of mass destruction.  In this world, every nation needs an operative that can work within these supernatural shadows.  The United States has Nathaniel Cade.

Nathaniel Cade, also known as the President’s vampire, serves the interests of the United States by keeping the nation safe from supernatural threats.  The book opens with a military strike team observing a deal being brokered in a former soviet block nation.  The perspective the reader is given is that of a special forces sniper watching the proceedings after having gone radio silent.  The tableau that unfolds has the deal going sour and the sniper taking the shot despite orders to not engage the Russian operatives.  Instead of this ending an ugly confrontation, it just escalates the violence as the operative transforms into a werewolf and leaps to the window where the sniper is positioned.  Before the rampaging werewolf has a chance to eviscerate the sniper, Cade joins the fray.  The action is quick, brutal and ends with Cade holding the lower jawbone of werewolf in his hand and berating the soldier for almost ruining the operation.  If that doesn’t qualify as bad ass, then I don’t know what does.

The style of writing in Blood Oath plays heavily to the strengths of Christopher Farnsworth’s experience as a screenwriter and a journalist.  The action is fast paced  and well written with an eye to setting a scene.  He skillfully handles a large cast of characters while ensuring each one is engaging regardless of their time on the screen.  He utilizes this cast of characters as a tool to provide many different perspectives on the action transpiring.  This allows the reader to have a greater understanding of various plots that are unfolding.  Farnsworth slowly reveals the complexity of Cade’s interactions with the various arms of the US government as well as that of the many holders of the office of President.  What is most impressive is that Farnsworth deals with the idea that the larger the group of people involved in a conspiracy the less likely that this conspiracy will remain secret.

Farnsworth has created an interesting character in Nathaniel Cade  as well as an intriguing setting.  The characters fit well within the tropes of the spy thriller and urban fantasy without being caricatures of the big names in either genre.  Being a fan of both styles of fiction, I found this book to be excellent melding of the two.  What could be better than a vampire fighting a werewolf on behalf of the President of the United States.  That’s bad ass.

I’m a HUGE Guillermo Del Toro fan.  He has, without a doubt, one of the most amazing visual minds of anyone working in media today.  It’s no wonder that everyone wants to work with Del Toro, from Disney to video game companies to novelist Chuck Hogan.  Del Toro has a lot of ideas when it comes to vampires, and he takes some of his concepts from Blade II, along with plenty of new ideas, and brings them to his collaboration with Chuck Hogan, The Strain Trilogy.

I wasn’t the hugest fan of the original novel in the trilogy, The Strain. (check out my review)  I felt like it was bit too much build up without enough resolution.  That being said, I was still curious enough to see where the story was going to pick up The Fall, the second novel in the trilogy.

In The Fall, the vampiric strain has debilitated New York City, and the heroes of the original are trying to figure out their next steps, not realizing that the monsters behind the vampiric outbreak are already working on their endgame.

The vampiric virus unleashed in The Strain has taken over New York City. It is spreading across the country and soon, the world. Amid the chaos, Eph Goodweather—head of the Center for Disease Control’s team—leads a small band out to stop these bloodthirsty monsters. But it may be too late. Ignited by the Master’s horrific plan, a war erupts between Old and New World vampires, each vying for total control. Caught between these warring forces, humans—powerless and vulnerable—are no longer the consumers, but the consumed. Though Eph understands the vampiric plague better than anyone, even he cannot protect those he loves from the invading evil. His ex-wife, Kelly, has been turned by the Master, and now she stalks the city, in the darkness, looking for her chance to reclaim Zack, Eph’s young son. With the future of the world in the balance, Eph and his courageous team, guided by the brilliant former professor and Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian and exterminator Vasiliy Fet, must combat a terror whose ultimate plan is more terrible than anyone first imagined—a fate worse than annihilation.

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When it was announced that popular horror filmmaker Guillermo del Toro would be co-writing a novel, lots of fans were super excited about it.  Though I don’t subscribe to the opinion that everything he touches turns to gold, I am a del Toro fan, and find all of his films imaginative, if not enjoyable.  Though The Strain came out last year (and I started it as soon as it was released), the story didn’t quite grip me initially, and I put the book down for a while, only coming back to it and finishing it this week.

The Strain is a mash up of a zombie movie and a Guillermo del Toro vampire movie (there are quite a few similarities between the vampires here and the ones in Blade II).  In it, a vampire outbreak spreads throughout New York City, while a disease expert named Eph, and ancient vampire hunter names Setrakian, and their friends work to stop it from spreading…and to stop the Master who started it in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »