Time Siege (Time Salvager #2) by Wesley Chu
Time Siege is a great second instalment to the Time Salvager series by Wesley Chu, in fact I would say it’s even better than the first. There’s no shortage of action, a lot of character development and a twist at the end of the tale.
In case you didn’t get round to reading Time Salvager my review is here, and, customary warning: if you haven’t read the first instalment this review could very well contain spoilers.
Time Siege continues to take forward the story of James Griffin-Mars and Elise Kim. James, now an exChronman and fugitive, is in hiding with the Elfreth tribe and at the start of the book he’s hatching a plan. James is determined to save his sister from a disease that is slowly taking her life away. Having only just been reunited he’s determined to do everything in his power to find a cure, even if it means making more space jumps (that could potentially kill him) or bringing more people through time (and once again breaking the rules of time travel). Elise meanwhile seems to be becoming the ‘mother’ of the tribe, somewhat stealing her away from her efforts to find a world saving cure. The tribe is growing and more mouths to feed means more search and retrieve missions. The only option is to try and lure another person to make these salvage runs. At the same time we have Securitate Kuo from the Valta Corporation and all her supporting minions aiding Chronocom in their search for James and more importantly Elise! So, James sets off on a recruitment mission and Elise leads the tribe into hiding on the Mist Isle (previously known as Manhattan).
There’s such a lot going on in this instalment. It has a different feeling completely to the first book and I thought it was very cleverly written managing to combine some great action sequences where you fear for everyone and wonder who is going to survive combined with some great character building. Personally I loved the journey through the Mist Isle and encountering yet more tribes and their battles with each other to try and survive. Alongside this was the shockingly awful tactics of Kuo who will go to any lengths to obtain her goals. This character is beyond ruthless and reading her POV was almost grimly hypnotic. On top of this we visit a remote and brutal prison where a rather daring prison break is made – but I won’t elaborate more on that point because of spoilers.
In terms of the characters. Well, James goes through something of a meltdown in this instalment. He suffers from a massive bout of self pity that leads to some rather dreadful decisions. We know from the first book that James likes to find solace in the bottom of a bottle and his problem now really begins to show reaching a point where he is no longer capable of making rational decisions. I don’t suppose being constantly haunted by the ghosts of his past helps much in this respect. On top of that Elise is becoming more and more involved with the survival and running of the tribe, in fact her time is almost completely consumed by it meaning that she has less time for James – adding further to his sense of loneliness. He’s never really felt like a part of the tribe and now he can no longer salvage he feels worthless.
Grace was one of my favourite characters from the first book and she still is in Time Siege. She’s just a total force of nature charging around bossing people about and putting everyone in their place!
In terms of criticisms – well, I didn’t really have anything to be honest, this was a really entertaining read with excellent pacing. I think the only thing that stood out for me was that the whole ‘world saving’ issue took rather a back seat. But, I think that may be deliberate on the part of Chu – I think that issue may play a bigger role in the next book (although I could be completely off track with that). Both books in the series so far have had such a different feel and given the ending here I suspect that book No.3 will be the same in that respect.
I think this has such a lot going for it. Urban warfare with dramatic fight scenes that are really well drawn, characters that are far from perfect but yet still make you feel something for them and an ending that leaves the way open for a fantastic conclusion. Yes, this is something of a cliffhanger of an ending but oddly enough not the sort of ending that left me feeling exasperated at all, although, obviously I’m really keen to find out how this story ends.
Definitely recommended. I would also suggest that you need to read the first book in the series before picking Time Siege up. It might be that you could read this in isolation but personally I think the background and world building in the first is necessary to really set the scene.
I received a copy courtesy of the publisher through Netgalley for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.
Late Eclipses (October Daye #4) by Seanan McGuire
Late Eclipses is the fourth instalment in the October Daye series and is a book packed with emotion and revelations. Without doubt this is my favourite of the series so far and this is a series that I’m now totally hooked on and thoroughly enjoying – it seems to get better with each book and clearly this has something to do with the fact that each instalment just adds yet more layers and depth to the characters and the world making it richer as you progress. This is a wonderful combination of great characters (both good and bad), mysterious goings on, would-be romance and fantastically dark urban fantasy with fae shenanigans that never become boring.
If you haven’t read the previous books be warned that there may be spoilers contained below.
At the start of the book Toby is called to the Tea Gardens where Lily seems to be seriously ill. No sooner has Toby rolled up her sleeves to get serious when more difficulties seem to strike and from there the problems just escalate. To be honest I don’t want to go too much into the plot, suffice to say, like each of the previous books there is a mystery going on, people are dying, and, as we know, Toby can’t help herself from rushing into the fray head first. Of course in this particular book what works really well is the sense of isolation that is built up around Toby. In this particular book we see the return of an old enemy of Toby’s who has been absent from the first book, Oleander de Merelands. Unfortunately, although Toby keeps suspecting that Oleander is behind things she has no proof and nobody else has caught sight of her which all lends to the view that maybe Toby is starting to succumb to the sort of madness that sometimes takes possession of changelings. On top of that Raysel seems to have cranked up her own rather nasty endeavours somewhat and as a leftover from An Artificial Night the Queen of Mists is also gunning for Toby. Things look fairly bleak and for a while there it almost felt like Toby was going to flounder. Of course that’s the really great thing about these stories so far. Toby has made a lot of enemies, she also seems to have enemies just purely by dint of her own parentage, but she’s also making some firm friends.
By the conclusion of this story there are a number of eye openers. Revelations that are revealing and yet also not. Tantalising revelations if you like. You learn a little but you know that you’ve only seeing the tip of the iceberg and that if you just dipped below the surface a whole passel of further revelations would be waiting to spring out and surprise you. I think at the moment my biggest curiosity comes in the form of Toby’s mother Amandine. I have so many questions in that respect that I’m almost chomping at the bit to start the next book.
I really loved Late Eclipses. It’s cleverly written, much like the other instalments, to give a tantalising glimpse of the world in which Toby lives. At the end of the tale we can see that Toby has moved forward in more ways than one and I think this is a good thing because I feel at the moment that a huge amount of trouble is going to come her way, I just can’t help thinking that there is eventually going to be some backlash from her previous encounters and hopefully she will be at least a little better prepared to meet it if it does occur.
I highly recommend Toby Daye. It’s an excellent urban fantasy series. The main protagonist, well, she isn’t perfect, she makes mistakes but she is just great to get on with. The surrounding cast are well developed and whilst each story builds on the one that came before the stories have a standalone feel to them that, even if a few threads are left hanging, doesn’t leave you with that cliffhanger feeling.
Waiting on Wednesday: The Apothecary’s Curse by Barbara Barnett
27 July 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Barbara Barnett, Breaking the Spine, The Apothecary's Curse, Waiting on Wednesday
“Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine. Every Wednesday we get to highlight a book that we’re really looking forward to. My book this week is : The Apothecary’s Curse by Barbara Barnett which sounds incredibly intriguing:
This genre-bending urban fantasy mixes alchemy and genetics as a doctor and an apothecary try to prevent a pharmaceutical company from exploiting the book that made them immortal centuries ago.
In Victorian London, the fates of physician Simon Bell and apothecary Gaelan Erceldoune entwine when Simon gives his wife an elixir created by Gaelan from an ancient manuscript. Meant to cure her cancer, it kills her. Suicidal, Simon swallows the remainder—only to find he cannot die.
Five years later, hearing rumors of a Bedlam inmate with regenerative powers like his own, Simon is shocked to discover it’s Gaelan. The two men conceal their immortality, but the only hope of reversing their condition rests with Gaelan’s missing manuscript.
When modern-day pharmaceutical company Transdiff Genomics unearths diaries describing the torture of Bedlam inmates, the company’s scientists suspect a link between Gaelan and an unnamed inmate. Gaelan and Genomics geneticist Anne Shawe are powerfully drawn to each other, and her family connection to his manuscript leads to a stunning revelation. Will it bring ruin or redemption?
Publication date: October 2016
I got you under my skin…
Every Tuesday over at the The Broke and Bookish we all get to look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) examples to demonstrate that particular topic. The topic this week is:
Top Ten Things Books Have Made Me Want To Do or Learn About After Reading Them
I’ve broken this down into travel/things to see/do, food and drink, educational.
- I’m going to Prague in December this year, I’ve been wanting to visit there for a while but some of the descriptions in Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone were so excellent it made me want to visit even more.
- A few years ago, and pre blog so unfortunately I can’t at the moment recall the name of the book, I read a book set in Florence, we were due to visit Florence later that year and after reading the descriptions of Sienna we took a day trip – it’s an absolutely beautiful place and I seem to remember the book saying it has a lovely square, which is almost feminine – I completely agree! It is stunning and reached through the most olde world twisting and turning shop lined streets.
- After reading The Undying by Ethan Reid my interest to visit the catacombs in Paris was definitely piqued – and visit the catacombs we did! What an experience. I’ve seen the horror film that was filmed down there since going on the tour – not sure if I’d have visited if I’d seen the film first!
- Ginger Scald – this sounds like an amazing cocktail doesn’t it – I don’t think I’ve perfected a recipe for this but I’m giving it a go. Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastard series.
- Joanne Harris – Chocolat – no explanation necessary.
- Butterbeer – okay, I haven’t tried this – because where would I find it – answers on a postcard please. J K Rowlings Harry Potter.
- Most of the food in Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series – usually delicious sounding Mediterranean food with couscous, olives, almonds, goats cheese, flat breads – yum.
- The Shards of Heaven by Michael Livingston – this book, as soon I’d finished reading it made me want to go out and read up about Cleopatra and, more to the point, her daughter Selene.
- Masks and Shadows by Stephanie Burgis – this book is based around a number of historical events. The story really intrigued me and I did go and look up some of the detail – I was also really curious about one of the characters, who was a castrato – and I also went and read up a little about that too.
- Witch Light by Susan Fletcher – is a book that I absolutely love and put Susan Fletcher firmly on my author wishlist. Again, I was really intrigued by the historical events portrayed in the story and went to read up a little more after I’d finished reading.
All is Fair by Emma Newman, #3 Split Worlds, readalong week 4 (final week)
25 July 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: #3 Split Worlds, All is Fair, Emma Newman, Readalong
Today is the final week of our readalong of book #3 of Emma Newman’s Split Worlds series, All is Fair. The schedule is below, all welcome and please be aware of potential spoilers lurking below.
Not really, I think both Max and the Gargoyle had reached a conclusion about Ekstrand – I admit that I’d been suspecting him of much more than simply being a bit eccentric and I think I’ve been proved totally wrong in that regard (another wild supposition bites the dust) so it did seem harsh that he had to die like that – but, he also seemed a bit unhinged (perhaps this is something that runs commonly amongst sorcerers!) I was pleasantly surprised that Max decided to reach out and grasp his own emotions – it was really quite touching (and a bit sad – that part about his mother wondering what had happened to her little boy!) I think Max and the Gargoyle could have a good future pairing to be honest – Max is clearly still capable of feeling some emotions and with the gargoyle as his companion he has help when he’s in the field.
3. Cathy has had sweeping success in beginning her rebellion. How do you think Londinium – and the Agency – and the Fae – will respond?
Well, Cathy has certainly gone for it 100%. I don’t blame her to be honest, I’m not sure that pussy footing around or taking baby steps would work here – in fact she’d probably just find herself with a doll curse or some such other. The Agency will obviously be livid because this obviously takes from them a very lucrative business, the Londinium crowd – well, there will no doubt be some people who rail against a woman trying to change the rules. I don’t really think there should be a knock on effect about taking staff away from the agency – the families will still have their staff and just pay them instead of the Agency. Not sure how the fae will react – part of me wonders why they would be concerned about how the people in the Nether run their domestic affairs – but maybe they like to be in control of this and so Cathy’s actions will seem out of place. At the back of my mind I can’t help thinking that there has to be an underlying threat of the fae wanting to escape but I’m not sure how that plays into the themes so far. I predict lot of bother.
4. Will has finally become an ally. Do you think he’s strong enough to stick to it? Do his secrets make him vulnerable?
I think his secrets do make him vulnerable. Cathy had a little bit of the same and decided to come clean about things which makes her a lot less vulnerable to blackmail for example. I think Will needs to come clean with Cathy about a number of things – otherwise they’re likely to just come out further down the line. I still don’t think Will is strong enough to be honest. He seems to give a little but always hold back, or try to think of the line of least resistance and he comes across as a bit cowardly – he’s always got his eye on damage limitation in terms of the fae or his family and I really don’t see him rushing into the fray. He just seems a bit lily livered to me.
5. Sam assumes the mantle of Lord Iron – what do you think of his intentions to pick up Leanne’s mission as well? Do you think he will find his deeds tainted just as Amir’s were? What do you make of his reflection that he’s found a way to look at the past such that it’s nobody’s fault?
Week 2: Monday 11th July, Chapters 7-14, hosted by Hisham El-Far
Week 3: Monday 18th July, Chapters 15-22, hosted by The Illustrated Page
Week 4: Monday 25th July, Chapters 23-End, hosted by x + 1