Granny Bael is on GoodReads!

A complete departure from my usual posts, but I just had to share this news.

Toward the end of October last year, I read one of my dad's books: Granny Bael. At the time, and for the last 3-4 months, Granny Bael was not on GoodReads. This was super annoying as it had been published in August. I did post my review here, but I definitely know I don't have a very big audience, if really one at all so I very much doubt I reached many people with that review.

Last night, I searched for Granny Bael on GoodReads, not expecting anything to pop up, as usual. I was surprised to find, however, that the Kindle Edition has been added! I would add my paperback edition, but apparently GoodReads doesn't want us adding editions ourselves anymore, so... yeah. I've reposted my review over on GoodReads now.

Add-in-Edit: The Granny Bael Paperback edition has now been added!

If you have read Granny Bael, I highly encourage you to go leave a rating and review over on GoodReads, just to, ya know, boost the signal at least. And maybe you liked it better than I did, so it won't be stuck with a 2 star rating forever. 😜

HERE'S THE LINK IF YOU NEED IT

The Mage Wars Series Overview

The Mage Wars by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon

Contains Spoilers for the series

I am of the opinion that The Mage Wars is a very misleading title for this trilogy. Literally the "Mage War" in question is happening/ends in the very first book and everything after that is, well, after that. There is a mage antagonist in The White Gryphon, but he's barely there. So yeah, very misleading series title. I don't really have a much better title in mind, though, so what do I know?

The series itself is alright. Not the best trilogy I've ever read, but readable enough. Each of the books takes place at slightly different parts in the timeline, basically a years apart, and in different places around Valdemar before Valdemar itself, the country, exists. The characters are largely the same throughout, although The Silver Gryphon focuses more on Tad and Blade (Skan and Drake's children) as opposed to Skan and Drake themselves.

The Black Gryphon did not spend a lot of time in the war aspects. We got a few gryphon missions, but otherwise most of the time was spent in Urtho's war camp. There was a lot of character work, mostly focused on Amberdrake and Skandranon with a little bit of Zhaneel and Winterhart. We got a lot of gryphon and hertasi description, but very little on any of the other species that Urtho apparently made or imparted intelligence on. I did enjoy The Black Gryphon, but it was definitely less than action packed. Also, Kechara is a sweetie who I really wish we'd gotten more of outside of her plot relevance.

I was incredibly frustrated during The White Gryphon. It was fun getting an entirely different society (the Haighlei), but the way that society was structured was mostly frustrating. I found it increasingly ridiculous that the inhabitants of White Gryphon were not apprised of all of their rights and such under Haighlei laws, especially while under suspicion for murder. The fact that this was apparently not done because King Shalaman wanted Winterhart as his Forever Wife or whatever made things even more frustrating... I spent a lot of time just wanting to be done with it. In addition to this, Skandranon apparently forgot he wasn't actually any kind of Ruler among his people and that was just a helpful fiction they created to deal with the Haighlei. Just so, so frustrating. Add to all that the absolutely despicable villain of Hadanelith... ho boy. I was almost immediately just done with him but couldn't get away due to how prevalent he was in the whole book.

The Silver Gryphon was definitely a breath of fresh air after the gigantic ball of frustration that was The White Gryphon. I really enjoyed Tadrith and Silverblade as characters. They meshed well as a team and I'm just really glad we had their pair rather than just one of them. In my review, I likened The Silver Gryphon to Hatchet by Gary Paulsen and it really was quite similar in regards to the figuring out how to survive in the wilderness arena. I definitely think the pair of protagonists helped to keep things interesting, as well as the antagonist wyrsa. Speaking of the wyrsa, I think they're kind of interesting as antagonists. Kind of wish they'd been more than just magic doggos, but they did serve as tension for the good portion of the book. I would like to know exactly how they "inspected and sorted" through Tad and Blade's stuff with just dog anatomy... but yeah. I guess that just goes to show how ultimately underdeveloped they were.

Overall, I think The Mage Wars wasn't very cohesive as a trilogy. It was really only a trilogy in that the characters carried over and the timeline carried through. Each of the books could technically be read as a standalone novel. There's enough explanation in the latter two that, yes, connects them, but also just feeds you the information relevant to the particular story.

I'm fairly certain that, if I were to do another Valdemar reread in the future, I just might skip this trilogy altogether. I don't really remember The Mage Wars as having much, if any bearing on the rest of the Valdemar series, which makes sense The Black Gryphon wasn't published until six years after Arrows of the Queen and the trilogy is set way before Valdemar is even founded. Really just feels like Lackey and Dixon wanted to set up other societies and critters existing in the Valdemar world (apparently called Velgarth, which is something I learned via the Valdemar Fandom Wiki) and kind of explain how things like Mage Storms started happening.

On the subject of "critters," the only ones that really have any bearing on the story are the gryphons, hertasi, and wyrsa. We get mentions of kyree, tervadi, and dyheli as non-human races but little to no explanation as to what these races actually look like or how they behave. I had to google them -- the dyheli a couple of times because I just plain forgot -- to figure out what they were and looked like. I also still want an actual explanation as to what the maakar look like, even if they are extinct after The Black Gryphon. I guess all this serves to fill out the world, but I honestly forgot most of these guys existed outside of the odd mentions of them.

On a separate note, I read The Mage Wars on via the Kindle app. The Mage Wars contains portraits, I guess you'd call them, of the main characters as well as things like the wyrsa. I highly recommend looking up these portraits online if you are reading via Kindle because the scans of them that appear in the Kindle version are pretty shit. It was like looking at a copy of a copy of a copy. Not cool.

The Mage Wars was a fairly good read, my frustrations with The White Gryphon aside. If you're a completionist like me, I'd definitely say go ahead and give it a read. If not... meh. I honestly don't think there's much missing from the overall Valdemar story without this trilogy. I guess we'll see as I continue my read through.

In Other News

I have finished another OviPets project. This one is as close as I could get to the Digimon Huanglongmon. Part of my Mega Digimon project line.

Short Reviews Batch 2

The Good, the Bad, and the Undead by Kim Harrison

A Reread Review

Originally Posted to GoodReads: 1-15-2019

So... the problem with rereading any book is you know what's going to happen. I think I spent a good portion of this book trying to remember who did what when. Not entirely the best way to read a book, mind you.

I did enjoy The Good, the Bad, and the Undead. The character development was on-point. There were plenty of twists, turns, and surprises, very few of which I saw coming on first read. I really wish I had a copy of the next book in the series to continue my reread...

Update: I now have a copy of the next book to continue my reread. Yay! 

 

Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire

Originally Posted to GoodReads: 1-24-2017

Pretty awesome. I really enjoyed the change-up from vampire/werewolf/witch stuff in my usual urban fantasy. I loved the different cryptids, their descriptions, and how they manage to effectively hide in plain sight.

I look forward to reading more about Verity and her family.

On a side note, the cover does not at all reflect the content of the book.

 

The Future Falls by Tanya Huff

Originally Posted to GoodReads: 1-25-2021

So... I really have had it up to my ears with relationship drama and this book has more relationship drama than you can throw a stick at. That said, the underlying story is good. The last chapter or so happily encapsulates what it feels like to have your brain melt because... spoiler reasons. So, ya know, that’s nice, I guess. Definitely not my favorite of this trilogy.

The Silver Gryphon by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon

A Spoiler Free Review

I felt The Silver Gryphon was much better than The White Gryphon. It was definitely better paced and I didn’t get annoyed at any of the characters, which was nice. The story is also markedly different than either of the other two books in the series. Part child/parent drama and part Hachet (by Gary Paulsen, which was read to me in third or fourth grade, if I remember correctly).

The children of Skandranon and Amberdrake have issues with their parents, which is unsurprising. Their parents are kind of legends, after all. Their parents sort of equally have issues with their children, which I think is normal as your kids are growing up and into people you didn’t expect them to be. The first quarter of The Silver Gryphon is very much about kids and their desire to grow up and their parents reluctance to let them do so… or at least their reluctance to let them leave the nest and not worry to bits.

The next chunk of book follows Blade and Tad as they work on surviving the rain forest and the creatures in it. We got to spend a lot of time with them, getting to know them and such during their individual watches. There wasn’t a lot of retreading ground, which was quite nice.

We also got to see what an emergency response from White Gryphon looks like. I don’t really have much to say about it. Pretty much played out like I figured it would. Skan is somewhat predictable in his response to emergencies.

But yeah… I enjoyed The Silver Gryphon much more than I thought I was going to, based on my dislike of The White Gryphon. The story is very different from the other two, but that’s not a bad thing, I think. I’ll probably have more to say about that particular thing in my Series Overview. But yeah… The Silver Gryphon was good. Lol.

Short Reviews Batch 1

I have decided to start posting my old reviews. They'll usually be posted on the same day I originally posted them over on GoodReads. Short ones will be grouped (like in this post).

Winds of Salem by Melissa de la Cruz

Originally Posted to GoodReads: 1-1-2018

Forced myself to get as far into this book as I could. Pretty sure that A) starting with the third book in the series wasn't a good plan (Dollar Tree find) and B) the writing is just so... tell and not show/tell a bunch of ridiculous things that don't seem to have anything to do with the plot. Also, none of the characters seemed to have any actual personality, which is sad, if I'm honest.

I enjoyed watching The Witches of East End via Netflix, but now I'm pretty sure I won't be picking up the first two books in the series because this one is crap.

The Complete Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Anderson by Hans Christian Anderson

Originally Posted on GoodReads: 1-2-2018

Starting my year off with two DNFs is not exactly what I had in mind, but I just can not with reading this. Give me ALL THE ADAPTATIONS instead, please. They're so much more coherent and less brain-killing than the was Hans Christian Andersen actually wrote.

I had been planning on reading the big stories (The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, etc) but I can't even bring myself to go back and finish The Little Mermaid because the writing is just so meandering and so... ugh. I just can't even. Half the fairy tales don't even make sense and don't go anywhere. I struggled to get through even the shortest... and I've been reading this book since last July. I'm done.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Originally Posted to GoodReads: 1-14-2017

Very much enjoyed it. Made the mistake of watching the movie beforehand, which is also good, but pretty much doesn't follow the last half of the book at all. That's not a bad thing, just a thing. Not really a lot more to say about it right now. Might update later.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

A Spoiler Free Re-read Review

I'm not sure there's a lot to say about Neverwhere that hasn't been said already, especially considering it's about 27 years old at this point and fairly well known... I think anyway. This is also at least my third reread of the book and I'm not sure what my original thoughts on it were. I probably won't have anything profound to say. I will say upfront that I recommend Neverwhere to a) anyone who hasn't read it yet, b) any fantasy fan, an c) any fan of Neil Gaiman's work.

Neverwhere is one of my favorite "Portal Fantasies." It takes the reader from the everyday mundane London Above to the fantastical and actual quite frightening London Below. And boy, does that world-building skill of Gaiman's really pop here. I don't think I've been more immediately immersed in a world or wanted much, much more of that world than when I picked up Neverwhere. London Below is a gift that keeps on giving and enticing you with what could possibly be around the next corner, even if you don't know much about London itself. For those in the know, I'm sure there are Easter Eggs I've missed out on.

The story of Neverwhere is no slouch, either. We largely follow Richard Mayhew as he's basically dragged kicking and screaming into London Below through no real fault of his own. I mean, I guess one could say he's too kind for his own good, but I'm not sure that's exactly the case... turns out, Richard's got more backbone than he even gave himself credit for. Anyway, Richard journeys through London Below alongside Door, Hunter, and the Marquis de Carabas (Jack Sparrow eat your heart out), each of whom are fully fleshed out in their own rights. They are followed, attacked, and harried, seemingly at random to them, by the main antagonists, Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar, a pair of utterly despicable but slightly charming? assassins. All this toward the ultimate baddie, who I shall not name because of spoilers, but it's not a spoiler to say there is one as Croup speaks with this Big Bad on several occasions.

I'm at a loss to really discuss Neverwhere past this point. I'm just so floored every time I read it and think about it. Neil Gaiman's world-building and character-building are just amazing. Each new place or person Richard comes across jumps off the page with a life all their own. You can feel the backstories of each character just lurking in the background, waiting to be told or just imagined. I'm truly in awe.

All of that said, London Below is not Narnia. It's not safe in any sense of the word. There is violence and a rather frank attitude toward death. Neverwhere is definitely not a book I'd hand to a child.

Pretty sure I've just run out of things to say about Neverwhere. Gonna go ahead and close this out with a GO READ IT. 

Favorite Lines

"Nice in a bodyguard," lectured the Marquis, "is about as useful as the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters. He looks dangerous." - The Marquis de Carabas

"But you must never imagine," he continued, "that just because something is funny, Messire Marquis, it is not dangerous." - Mr. Croup

On Another Note

The following description reminded me of the Pokemon: Furret

"Upon her arrival, it comes through the underbrush, a fury of brown and of white, undulating gently, like a wet-furred snake, its red eyes bright and peering through the darkness, its teeth like needles, a carnivore and a killer. The creature is extinct in the world above: it bears a similar relationship to the mink, and to the weasel, to that which a timber wolf bears to a Yorkshire Terrier. It weighs almost three hundred pounds, and is a little over fifteen feet long, from the tip of its nose to the tip of its tail."

Mine's a little small, but you get the idea.

Tempt the Stars by Karen Chance

A Spoiler Free Review

So, Tempt the Stars was interesting and actually more satisfying than previous entries into the Cassandra Palmer series. There was more of a single plot line this time around (which I appreciate) and Cassie actually learns some stuff she's been needing to know for a while.

The main plot line follows Cassie attempting to rescue Pritkin from his banishment back to Hell. Or one of the Hells... apparently. Does it really surprise anyone to know that Earth is one of the Hells? I was not surprised. Anyway, after a pit-stop with past Pritkin to visit her parents (will get to that later), Cassie drags Caleb, Cassanova, and Rian (Cassanova's Incubus/Succubus rider or whatever) into Rosier's portion of Hell in order to rescue Pritkin. Of course, things are never so simple and chaos starts to ensue, but more of a followable chaos than usual. It was kind of fun. I kind of like that Rosier's portion of Hell is all Arabian Nights themed. Makes for a nice change from the usual Vegas setting. I was initially happy to have Rian back as I really liked her in a previous short story... and then stuff happens that I won't spoil, but suffice to say, Rian's stay in the story is short lived.

I also quite liked the jaunt into The Shadowland. Once Cassie and the others figured out how to use The Shadowland's particular aspects to their advantage, the bar fight got more interesting and more fun. I'm always here for creative usage of setting. The Demon Council was probably the most predictable part of the plot. Of course the Council Chambers were going to be all mind-bendingly chamber-like and of course the demons weren't going to want to listen to Artemis. Why would they? Oh, and Cassie apparently can't just straight up tell Pritkin she loves him because... platonic love isn't a thing in a world where you're vampire married to a dude who barely talks to you (and not at all in this book) and have had sex with your bestie to save his life and are therefore always sexually attracted to him now. Please allow a long moment of intense eye-rolling.

Off of plot beats, I actually liked Cassie throwing her Pythian weight around. Yes, it turns out it's rude to just show up at someone's home without an invite, no matter who you are. That being said, I very much agree that Cassie should have been informed about the witches and the coven stuff and, ya know, everything having to do with her office. Jonas really dropped the ball with that and the vampires were just stupid about it. Keeping Cassie as isolated as she is definitely seems to be helping no one, even if she has managed to save the world a few times. It's incredibly frustrating. Glad she at least has a tiny semblance of a court now... maybe. I hope so. She needs more than Marco and Fred and the occasional visit from Mircea and Jonas.

So, Cassie and her parents. First, it was somewhat fun to "watch" Cassie running around her childhood home trying to get info on them while at the same time avoiding vampires with Jonas. Second, I quite like this take on homonculi. There's definitely a far cry from traditional versions and those seen in Fullmetal Alchemist. Richard Palmer amused me some, too. I liked that he and Pritkin butted heads and he definitely seemed to be having some fun with it. I am also glad he gave Cassie information instead of being all cagey about absolutely everything. Made a nice change from, well, pretty much everyone else around her. Thirdly, I'm very glad Artemis at least attempted to help her daughter, even if that help didn't exactly go to plan.

Finally, we have the ending of the book. Apparently Ares is indeed our next Big Bad, so that's fun. Does make me want to go on another rant about how mixing the mythologies is just not right... but we'll leave that one alone for now as it works in the narrative and is a little fun. But don't get it into your head that the gods across the mythologies are all the same. Anywho, I actually enjoyed the last chapter or two. Having Cassie fight alongside some badass women for a change is nice. I hope they come back in later books. Cassie apparently needs training on more than just a physical front... le sigh. Can't wait to find out as we probably won't see them in the next one because of... epilogue stuff.

I definitely enjoyed Tempt the Stars. It was a solid entry into the Cassandra Palmer series/mythos. Not exactly my favorite, but definitely more satisfying on an information level than previous entries.

The White Gryphon by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon

A Spoiler Free Review

Well, that was much more of a slog than the last one. I spent most of my reading time incredibly frustrated at both characters and the societies they inhabit. There's both a lot going on in The White Gryphon and a whole lot of nothing. I was not impressed at all by the "mystery" plot-line, though I guess it did a little something to break up what would otherwise have been an even more boring court-politics novel. The White Gryphon did nothing to really make me want to finish this trilogy or, if I hadn't already read a good chunk of them, the rest of the Valdemar series.

So, we start our story off a few years after The Black Gryphon ended, which is fine. We get to see where the characters we grew attached to are at this point in time; we're introduced to the main villain... who I will get to later; and finally, we're introduced to the inciting incident of the plot. The plot that involves us traveling to and learning about the Haighlei people and their culture. The Haighlei culture is... odd, in all honesty. Odd and incredibly frustrating. Amberdrake and Skandranon and the others are basically told it's really rigid and not to break any of the rules otherwise, you'll probably be put to death... and then nothing else, not even most of the rules. This frustrated me to no end, especially as there's one point during the book where Leyuet, The Truthsayer, sits and wonders if Amberdrake even knows of his rights under Haighlei law and whether or not Leyuet should apprise Amberdrake of this or not. Just... what the hell even?

On the subject of Haighlei law... the investigation into the murders taking place is a joke. Less than a joke. There's no actual investigation going on for the reader to see aside from the one or two times Skandranon is brought in as a consultant. He's told, in a most ridiculous and roundabout manner that he's basically allowed to investigate if he wants to, but not officially and not actually told at all. We as readers know this because, I think it was Leyuet, is thinking about it while Skandranon is being told this. Also, Skandranon's status as King... Pretty immediately upon meeting the Haighlei people, the White Gryphon Council basically agrees to pretend that Skandranon is their leader. He remains playing this part for the rest of the book and has many thoughts about his kingship, which he somehow forgets is fake, during the course of the book. Skan solidifies his Kingship among the Haighlei by basically getting completely fed up with the way the Haighlei King Shalaman is handling the murder investigation. Like, yes, Skan's not actually a King, but he and his people told you he was and ya'll decided NOT to treat him as one until he basically threw a tantrum at you? What. The. Hell. Nope. Haighlei society makes zero sense.

So, on to Mr. Hadanelith, Kanshin, and Noyoki. Noyoki was the worst set-up and backed up character in the entire narrative. He's basically lurking in the background and we learn absolutely nothing about him until the very end, and even that's just a "oh hey, that's the real identity of the antagonist." He wasn't even foreshadowed anywhere aside from the one time there's discussion on how mages work in Haighlei and that he's of high rank somewhere in the palace. Otherwise, nothing. Kanshin would have been interesting if he'd been in more than a few scenes and given more to do. But no, we have to focus on Hadanelith. Hadanelith is probably the most disgusting character I've read in the past year, and that included a dirty old man drunk on power in my dad's book (Granny Bael, available on Amazon if you're interested). Hadanelith is basically a misogynist with control issues and skill in manipulating people in a very exaggerated S&M-style manner -- which, by the way, isn't how an actual S&M Domme would treat their Sub, for the record. He's just gross and I really hated every single moment spent in his POV. I guess that's kind of a good thing for an antagonist, but... *much shuddering ensues*

So anyway, the rest of The White Gryphon was really quite boring. A bit of court drama mixed with so much exposition of Haighlei culture, but only as it pertained to the people of White Gryphon. I'm really hoping The Silver Gryphon is more interesting. I really hate being so negative while ostensibly reading a series I quite like.

Just a Heads Up

I have decided that I will be reading the Valdemar series in chunks interspersed with single books. The series is largely made up of trilogies, so this makes sense to me and also lets me read more than just Valdemar this year. Just wanted to let ya'll know, if you were interested.

Hope everyone has a happy and healthy 2023!