Mother of Winter

Mother of Winter by Barbara Hambly (The Darwath Series)

This book takes place 5 years after the Darwath Trilogy.   The Dark has left the land and everything seems great and the people are working on rebuilding their lives and their world except something isn't quite right.

Something weird is happening and no one is quite sure what it is even.  There is a new plant that no one has ever seen before and it was never mentioned in any historical writings or the verbal histories of the nomadic tribes.  Other things are happening too but no one is quite sure what it is, why it is and where it is coming from.

This book was creepier than the first three (or maybe I cared more about the characters at this point).  I had to stop halfway through and read a couple of other books before I could finish it.

There is one more in the series and I'm looking forward to reading it - later.

The Darwath Trilogy

The Darwath Trilogy by Barbara Hambly

More specifically, the books are, The Time of the Dark, The Walls of Air, The Armies of Daylight.

The Time of the Dark I bought on my kindle for $2.99 or something like that and when I read it, I was hooked and had to get the rest.

Gil is a young woman who is entirely focused on getting her PhD in History.  She teaches and tutors as part of the process.  She begins to have dreams about some other place and time where the people run in terror from something unfathomable.  These dreams have a very realistic and un-dreamlike quality except that she knows she is asleep and the people around her cannot see her.  And then one night, they can.  She appears and is questioned by an elderly man.  When she answers that she was sleeping but now she's not, she falls back asleep and awakes in her own bed.

Gil and a biker artist named Rudy soon find themselves inadvertently pulled across the void into another world.  A world where people run in terror from The Dark.  Using their knowledge and experiences to help them cope and deal in a pre-industrial world not their own, Gil and Rudy must find a place in society and wait until it is safe for them to return to their own world.

Barbara Hambly draws from her own education in Medieval History to create a rich world for this series.  Her characters are believable and full of life.  The trilogy takes us through the battles with The Dark and delves into the long history of the world in which Gil and Rudy now reside.

There are two companion books that follow this series.  One, The Mother of Winter, tells us of the world 5 years after the end of the trilogy.  The other, Icefalcon's Quest, is the tale of a single character from the trilogy.  I am currently ready Mother of Winter but I've had to stop a few times because it is creepy and I need a break at times.

I highly recommend this series for people who enjoy sci-fi fantasy fiction.

The Cloud Roads

The Cloud Roads (The Books of the Raksura) by Martha Wells

The book is about an orphan named Moon.  He is living with a group of people called the Cordura.  The Cordura are physically different looking from Moon and wonder about his heritage but so does he.  He has no idea where he came from or what he is.  What he does know is that he can shift his body into another form - a form with scales and wings.  He doesn't do this in front of the Cordura and he has managed to keep this part of himself a secret for quite sometime now.

This book is about Moon's journey to find out who he is and where he came from.  It is also his journey from being a solitary loner who trusts no one as a matter of survival to learning to trust others and open himself up to them.

This is the first in a series of three books as of now.  This author has written quite a few other books as well including a series called Fall of Ile-Rien with 3 books.  I like the story although like many fantasy books, you have to decide if this alternate world is one you can relate to or really want to spend some time in; if so, keep reading the series but if not, stop after the first book.

I have so many books on my "need to read" list that I don't think I'll plan to continue the series as it stands.  Maybe if I find myself thinking about the world of the Raksura I'll change my mind.  It only took me a couple of days to read this so I wouldn't be making a huge time commitment.

For not, I'll get back to the four books that I am reading right now.

A Dance With Dragons

A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin

This is book 5 in the series A Song of Ice and Fire which is most commonly known as The Game of Thrones series. Apparently George Martin is planning 7 books for the series. Considering that this last one took 6 years to write and get published after book 4 was published, Martin will probably die before he finishes the series. If he does die, a bunch of people are going to be really annoyed myself included.

This series is a HUGE saga that begins in the fictional land of Westeros. The land has been peaceful for a few years but now war is back and there are many different people who think they are the rightful heirs to the throne. On top of war, Winter is coming. This is a land where the four seasons come and go in a year but there are also periods of Summer where every year is mild and even the winter season is not too cold. During the periods of winter, it is cold and bitter and many people die all the year. Along with the normal issues of winter, the dead rise and come back to kill and make more dead. There are other things of concern this particular Winter. Things referred to as The Others but not yet explained other than to say that old grandmothers would tell children tales of The Others to frighten them in to behaving properly.

This book ranges far and wide and encompasses many characters (494 characters are featured on the Shelfari listing for the book). There are 182 settings many of which are in Westeros but others are across the sea and far east into other countries. Keeping some people and places straight can become difficult so I just kept reading and clues would come up that would remind me of who these people are/were or where exactly things were taking place. The books have a map drawn but I read these on my Kindle and the maps are too small to actually be able to read anything to be of use.

As book 1 of the series proved, Martin has no problem killing off his characters. He kills off good people, regular people, bad people and really evil people. Often, the person you most want dead doesn't die but the person you start to like the most does. I am hoping he is more expedient in writing and finishing books 6 and 7 but I'm not going to hold my breath.

As far as fantasy and adventure these books are great. The fact that HBO picked up Games of Thrones as a series should be a red flag to those who have issues with violence, sex and language because these books have it all and Book 5 is no exception.

A Discovery of Witches

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Vampires, Witches and Daemons oh my. This is a fun novel set in modern times. Our heroine, Diana, is a historian doing research at Oxford. She also happens to be a witch although she has shunned the use of witchcraft and magic her whole life. She encounters an ancient manuscript and chooses to ignore the magical aspect she senses and looks at it from a human perspective only then sends it back into the stacks of the library where it has been undisturbed for 150 years.

Shortly after encountering the manuscript, she meets an ancient vampire. Soon, all sorts of creatures are lurking around Diana and the library in which she works.

This is the first in a planned trilogy. It is a fun book that takes a different perspective of witches, vampires, daemons and the world in which we all live.

I liked this version of "girl meets vampire" as opposed to some others that I have read. This is an interesting story and I am looking forward to the second book that is due to be published this summer.

Voyager

Voyager by Diana Gabaldon

Book 3 in the Outlander series is pretty much non-stop action and adventure.

Just when you think Claire and Jaime are going to have some peaceful time together and talk about what has happened in the last 20 years of their lives, something happens.

I am still liking this series and I like the fact that Gabaldon has them travel all over the place. This book landed them in the West Indies for a time. Another thing I like is that a seemingly inconsequential scenario will come back again later in the story line. Like any good mystery we have to keep countless amounts of information at the front of our brain just waiting for the appropriate time to use it.

I know the next book involves their daughter, Brianna quite a bit and as it ended on the shores of Georgia in colonial America, it should be an interesting read. Gotta read my book club book first though.