REDEPMTION IN INDIGO by Karen Lord
Small Beer Press, 2010, 178 pages, 978-1-931520-66-9, Trade Paperback, $16.00

Genre: Fantasy

My latest review at BSCreivew is of  Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord. This book is unique, enjoyable, and quick to read. It’s also my first experience with “magical realism,” and I have to say–I think I’m hooked.

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UNHOLY GHOSTS by Stacia Kane
Del Rey, 2010, 352 pages, 978-0345515575, Mass Market Paperback, $7.99

Genre: Urban Fantasy

My new contribution at BSCreview is Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane. This first book in her Downside Ghosts trilogy is lots of fun and very exciting. Definitely pick it up when it releases on May 25th.

Of course, to make it even better, if you do become a Chess Putnam fan (as I did), then you’ll be interested to know that the next two books are coming out this year as well. The second book, Unholy Magic, is slated for July 6th, so you won’t have to wait long to follow up.

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Nothing will prevent a person from keeping up with the things she loves like university courses. And to think that I imagined a second degree would be a good idea. Time will tell. . . .

Needless to say, trying to read the books that I want to review is problematic when it’s coming up against the requirement to read whole books on the history of rhetoric and visual rhetoric and every other kind of rhetoric you can think of. And then there was that issues in publishing course which, while incredibly fun, assigned rather detailed projects like creating a magazine prospectus and putting together a publisher’s seasonal catalog.

Yet the prospect of having even more troublesome classes next semester does nothing to diminish my delight over the announcement of Pyr’s Fall/Winter releases for 2010-2011. I’m going to be a very, very busy reader during the fall, and not just because I’ll be taking Japanese I.

Not only are two books that I’d previously heard about finally getting released—Vampire Empire: The Greyfriar, Book 1 and The Buntline Special—but so are a slew of other books that sound absolutely fantastic. I’ll admit, I had to stop myself from printing out the entire post and organizing what I want to read using multi-colored highlighters.

I’m sure by now that most of my friends know that I intend to read through the majority of the Pyr catalog despite what my university classes may require of me. But Pyr makes it so very easy to want to. As it is, I’ve only been delaying my purchase of Ghosts of Manhattan because I needed to wait until payday. But payday is today. . . so I expect you’ll know where to find me later.

On the listing for the upcoming season, I’m especially looking forward to The Cardinal’s Blades and The Scar-Crow Men (I’m a sucker for period settings and historical characters, what can I say?), The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, The Horns of Ruin, Tome of the Undergates, Legends of the Raven, Cowboy Angels, and the Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov books. And, of course, The Greyfriar and The Buntline Special.

And if you think that I’ve just named everything on the list, you’d almost be right. As for the rest, I simply haven’t read the first ones in the series yet . . . but I’ll get there.

With intriguing new titles from our friends at Pyr, it’s going to be a great season.

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THE SPIRIT LENS by Carol Berg
ROC, 2010, 464 pages, 978-0-451-46311-1, Trade Paperback, $16.00

Genre: Fantasy

Since finishing The Spirit Lens well over a week ago, I’ve been surprised to see next to no reviews about it on the book blogs and forums that I typically frequent. So far I’ve only encountered one, and I admit to finding the lack of attention baffling. I’ve been anticipating The Spirit Lens since I first heard about it late last year, and it was the first thing I bought in January. I went to the bookstore the day it was released and snatched it from a stocking cart while no one was looking. Admittedly, I had trouble starting it after that, which I blame entirely on the fact that I was terribly sick for the first week that I had it. I muddled through the prelude with a cloudy head, and only after I was feeling better did I allow myself to move on to chapter one.

Truly, there are no words to describe how I really feel about this book. I suppose the closest I could come would be to recreate the near unintelligible e-mail that I wrote to my friend the very second that I stopped gaping and put the book down—but not only would that be uninformative for you, it would be highly embarrassing for me. All I can tell you is that Carol Berg has successfully upended my world yet again, and as soon as I stop pouting over the need to wait another year to see what happens next in her Collegia Magica trilogy, I’ll start looking for ways to build her a shrine in my computer room.

But, in all seriousness, and despite my rather copious praise-raining (after all, we wouldn’t want to build it up too much, would we?), The Spirit Lens is an incredibly enjoyable fantasy adventure for those who love unexpected heroes, web-worked plots, magic versus technology, and librarians with a skill for investigative spying.

In lieu of my own summary, this time, I offer the back-cover synopsis:

“For Portier de Savin-Duplais, failed student of magic, sorcery’s decline into ambiguity and cheap illusion is but a culmination of life’s bitter disappointments. Reduced to tending the library at Sabria’s last collegia magica, he fights off despair with scholarship. But when the king of Sabria charges him to investigate an attempted murder that has disturbing magical resonances, Portier believes his dreams of a greater destiny might at last be fulfilled.

As the king’s new agente confide, Portier—much to his dismay—is partnered with the popinjay Ilario de Sylvae, the laughingstock of Sabria’s court. Then the need to infiltrate a magical cabal leads Portier to Dante, a brooding, brilliant young sorcerer whose heretical ideas and penchant for violence threaten to expose the investigation before it’s begun. But in an ever-shifting landscape of murders, betrayals, old secrets, and unholy sorcery, the three agentes will be forced to test the boundaries of magic, nature, and the divine.”

I’ll say it again, as I’ve said it several times before and will likely keep saying it—Carol Berg’s characters make her stories real. Yes, there are many, many reasons to love her novels: the plots, the mysteries, the settings, and the beautiful language. However, it’s the characters who offer the personal connections to all of those things and, without them, it just wouldn’t be the same. Not even a little bit.

What I enjoy, in particular, is the type of character she often chooses to tell the story. Now, I’m not necessarily a proponent of the “everyman” school of thought—I really rather enjoy stories about people who aren’t just your average joe—but in a way, I feel like Berg’s characters are just that…except that they’re not, exactly.

Read on….