Bone and Jewel Creatures - Review

Stories about wizards and sorcery aren't usually my preference; the interesting title and cover compelled me to take this from my public library shelf.

I was not sorry. Elizabeth Bear's story about a wizardry power struggle was--enchanting :-)

Protagonist Bijou, is an artificer who creates and animates creatures from bone, gem and other inanimate objects. She is old, and her thoughts and struggles with her infirmities are well told. The reader will also sense she has a "past." This aspect of mystery is enhances when her former apprentice and colleague, Brazen the Enchanter, brings her a feral child with a withered and festering arm. Bijou agrees to help the child, although she feels discomfited by the circumstances. Her worries are substantiates when she discovers a purposefully placed item in the child's rotting hand that is causing the limb deterioration. She suspects who has done this, but isn't sure why.

In this well-written novella, Bear gives three points of view: Bijou, Brazen, and the child Emeraude. Bear moves effectively from one to the other in clearly-delineated passages that add dimension to the story. The writing and vivid descriptions quickly immersed me in this magical world, from Bijou's workshop and her intricate companions she constructed, to the surrounding City of Jackals. I enjoyed the book, and the brevity seemed fitting for the story. Too much more could have been too much.

The Glass Rainbow - Review

Dave Robicheaux is an ongoing series character [more than 16 titles] I hadn’t read other Roicheaux books and was relieved not to feel left out with his personality. In this story, Robicheax follows a possible lead about the murder of a young woman. This sends him to other leads and on various interviews and confrontations with some well-presented characters. Characterization is one of Burke's strong suits. Other murders take place and Robicheaux’s instincts send him along dangerous paths.

My descriptions is without detail to avoid spoilers. The convolutions within this novel, including involvement of family members and friends, are so many even author Burke didn’t get them all sorted. As a mystery, this didn't work for me.
1) The protagonist didn't investigate as much as he did instigate.
2) I like police procedural stories, and this didn't have much; in fact there were lots of rules broken.
3) I wasn’t satisfied with the ending and some writing style elements detracted. Burke uses first person for the Robicheaux sections, but also presents other characters in third person. Although the writing and use of language was all top drawer with vivid descriptions and character depictions, I found the third person segments to be superfluous, often detracting from the story. The information from those segments was rehashed in the Robicheaux scenes, and the tension of the supposed-to-be-gripping finale of the book was diluted by a third person presentation.

Development of the protagonist's foibles and concerns were quite good, and when I began to think of The Glass Rainbow as a novel, not a mystery, I liked it much better. In all, I felt it was a 2-star mystery and a 3-star novel. I know I'll remember the characters and emotion of the story.

The First Tycoon – Review

This book, The First Tycoon by T.J. Stiles, was on an A. Knopf recommended reading list, and I borrowed it from my local public library.

I used to live in a city where Vanderbilt was the name of the major university and medical center. I lived there for more than two decades, but knew nothing about the family or the patriarch, Cornelius Vanderbilt, who had amassed a fortune in the 19th century.

I completed only one-third of this very hefty book, simply because I’m not fond of biographies. But the 230+ pages I read were enough to realize the excellent biography and historical writing skills of Stiles. He begins with the background of the parents of Cornelius, with interesting commentary on the attitudes of New World inhabitants and late 100 economics. When Cornelius is introduced I had a firm grasp of his word. The early-to-mid 19th Century are the years I have researched and used in my fiction books, so learning more detail appealed to me. Stiles presented the facts with a comprehensible style. I acquired an excellent sense of what it was like to live and conduct business in the New York/New Jersey port towns—big and small.

Although I didn’t complete the book, I suggest it is a 4-star (or higher) book to biography lovers.