Dark Books - Page 9

The Harlequin (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 15)

Laurell K. Hamilton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 230 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Story is Absoultely Dreadful - Audio reader is good though 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I heard great reviews about the Anita Blake series and happened to find the audio version of this one at my local library. I probably should have started with the first book, but this one was available and I really wanted to check out this series.

For the Audio version, the reader does do a nice job of reading the story, but that is the only nice thing that I can say. I got about 1/2 through the book and couldn't continue.

Nothing deep here. Lots of talk about herms, orgy sized beds, and Anita's 7 (YES 7) lovers that she has all at once. There was a story here, but hard to muddle your way through with all the other stuff going on, so I chose to put it down.

I certainly don't mind a book that's a little sexy, but this to me was just plain sick. I hate to be harsh, but this was just plain bad. Her writing style isn't bad but the story is too much to bear.

Editorial Review:

Readers haven't seen anything yet-new in the "fabulously imagined series" (Publishers Weekly) from the #1 New York Times bestselling author.

Anita Blake is about to face the challenge of her life. Into her world-a world already overflowing with power-have come creatures so feared that powerful, centuries-old vampires refuse to mention their names. It is forbidden to speak of The Harlequin unless you've been contacted. And to be contacted by The Harlequin is to be under sentence of death.

Long-time rivals for Anita's affections, Jean-Claude, Master Vampire of the City, and Richard, alpha-werewolf, will need to become allies. Shapeshifters Nathaniel and Micah will have to step up their support. And then there's Edward. In this situation, Anita knows that she needs to call the one man who has always been there for her...

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Ray Bradbury

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 211 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. The shrill siren song of a calliope beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes. . .and the stuff of nightmare.

Few American novels written this century have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury's unparalleled literary classic SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin.The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. The shrill siren song of a calliope beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes. . .and the stuff of nightmare.

Few American novels written this century have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury's unparalleled literary classic SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin.

Kitty Takes a Holiday (Kitty Norville, Book 3)

Carrie Vaughn

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 55 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Kitty the Wherewolf 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Where oh where has my Kitty gone, oh where oh where can she be? Hiding out in the woods and if you think that is a sad ending for a once promising series, just wait until you read the end. No, there is no end so you can't read it. This chapter of Kitty Norville's life sets up some interesting challenges, is Cormac a good guy? (Does anyone think this is Edward's sweet twin?) Is Ben ready for deeper involvement in Kitty's supernatural doings? Can Kitty stay still long enough to write her life story and does anyone care? Oh yes since there is no ending why not make this a cliff-hanger? Can a curse carry over from one book to the next? Let's hope not.

Instead of finding Kitty up to her neck in dirty deeds and strange tales, she's suffering from lack of direction and writer's block. Now it would be wrong to minimize the seriousness of writer's block, but it doens't rank with global warming or peace in the middle east. Get over it and get a story.

After a great beginning and none of the wasted sexuality that plagues Laurel K Hamilton's recent glop Kitty looked so promising. Then this... maybe a silver bullet is just what Kitty needs.

Editorial Review:

After getting caught turning wolf on national television, Kitty retreats to a mountain cabin to recover and write her memoirs. But this is Kitty, so trouble is never far behind, and instead of Walden Pond, she gets Evil Dead. When werewolf hunter Cormac shows up with an injured Ben O'Farrell, Kitty's lawyer, slung over his shoulder, and a wolf-like creature with glowing red eyes starts sniffing around the cabin, Kitty wonders if any of them will get out of these woods alive...

Full Moon Rising (Riley Jensen, Guardian, Book 1)

Keri Arthur

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 82 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this exciting debut, author Keri Arthur explodes onto the supernatural scene with a sexy, sensuous tale of intrigue and suspense set in a world where legends walk and the shady paths of the underworld are far more sinister than anyone envisioned.

A rare hybrid of vampire and werewolf, Riley Jenson and her twin brother, Rhoan, work for Melbourne’s Directorate of Other Races, an organization created to police the supernatural races–and protect humans from their depredations. While Rhoan is an exalted guardian, a.k.a. assassin, Riley is merely an office worker–until her brother goes missing on one of his missions. The timing couldn’t be worse. More werewolf than vampire, Riley is vulnerable to the moon heat, the weeklong period before the full moon, when her need to mate becomes all-consuming.…

Luckily Riley has two willing partners to satisfy her every need. But she will have to control her urges if she’s going to find her brother….Easier said than done as the city pulses with frenzied desire, and Riley is confronted with a very powerful–and delectably naked–vamp who raises her temperature like never before.

In matters carnal, Riley has met her match. But in matters criminal, she must follow her instincts not only to find her brother but to stop an unholy harvest. For someone is doing some shifty cloning in an attempt to produce the ultimate warrior–by tapping into the genome of nonhumans like Rhoan. Now Riley knows just how dangerous the world is for her kind–and just how much it needs her.

Changeling (Sisters of the Moon, Book 2)

Yasmine Galenorn

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Kittens Kaboodle 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I loved this book, I didn't want to put it down. I loved how Delilah is fragile yet dangerous, the storyline and the world Yasmine has created. Very excitinig and original. I would've liked more flirting/sex between Delilah and Zach but Chase filled in nicely. Can't wait for Menolly's turn in book 3.

Delilah's Turn 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Changeling is told from Delilah's point of view. She's the middle sister and she's a werecat, she changes into a long haired golden tabby. In this book she is approached by a member of the Rainier Puma Pride, Zachary Lyonnesse, because someone is killing members of his pride; leaving behind a dried up husk with the heart missing. Upon going to the pride's compound Delilah and her sisters discover that a demon is behind the attacks and ask the pride if they have any idea who could be doing this to them.

At that point The Hunters Moon Clan is brought up because of an old fight between the two groups, but their leader is dead, it couldn't be them. But the demon scent also had the scent of werespider mixed into it so it bears looking into, which means talking to the Autumn Lord, something that isn't to be taken lightly. The Autumn Lord is in charge of spiders, so he would know about werespiders as well, the price to talk to him may be something to high to pay.

Editorial Review:

"The first in an engrossing new series, [Witchling was] a whimsical reminder of fantasy's importance in life" (Publishers Weekly). Now comes Changeling-again featuring Camille, the good witch, Menolly, the vampire, and Delilah, a feline shapeshifter. They're the D'Artigo sisters, half-human, half-Faerie supernatural agents who are now enlisted to find the fiends responsible for slaughtering the weres of Rainier Puma Pride.

Witchling (Sisters of the Moon, Book 1)

Yasmine Galenorn

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 62 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Bewitchingly good..... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Great start to a new series. Hardly any down spots and wasted page fillers. I love the diversity of having witches, vampires, fairie/fey and my fav demons. This book had good sex with hardly any romance which I more than appreciated and had great action. I'm looking forward to reading book 2.

Read it! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I love this series! I recommend it to anyone interested in fantasy fiction.
However, it would probably be best for "mature" teens, and adults. There are some "sex scenes". It's not really for kids.
This series is one of my favorites.

Editorial Review:

Meet the D'Artigo sisters: half-human, half-faerie, they're savvy-and sexy-operatives for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. But their mixed-blood heritage short-circuits their talents at all the wrong times. Delilah shapeshifts into a tabby cat whenever she's stressed. Menolly's a vampire who's still trying to get the hang of being undead. And Camille is a wicked-good witch, except her magic's as unpredictable as the weather, as her enemies are about to find out-the hard way.

Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions

Neil Gaiman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 86 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Mixed Bag 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite authors. Unfortunately, many of the stories included in this anthology lack the brilliance of some of the author's later stories like 'American Gods' and 'Neverwhere'.

Many of these stories are either hit or miss. Some of the best in this collection include 'Troll Bridge', 'The White Road', 'Bay Wolf', 'One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock' 'Murder Mysteries' and 'Snow, Glass, Apples' (quite simply, one of the most disturbing tales I have ever read. I will never think of Snow White in the same way.) These stories were all as good as Gaiman's later novels and display the unlimited creativity and dark wit that I have come to associate with him.

Some that I can think of that seem to be lacking something are, 'The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories', 'Looking for the Girl', 'Cold Colors' (a headache inducing tale, to be sure) 'Changes', and 'Tastings.' These just didn't seem to click for me.

In any case, there are certainly stories in here that warrant the purchase of the Mass Market Paperback version, not limited to the ones I listed. Neil Gaiman is one of our most interesting contemporary authors, and to miss out on some of the buried treasures contained here would be a mistake.

Not his best work, but certainly worth a read.

Editorial Review:

In Neil Gaiman's richly imagined fiction, anything is possible. And the proof is in the telling in this extraordinary collection of short stories. Discover within these pages miraculous inventions and curious characters: an elderly widow who finds the Holy Grail tucked beneath an old fur coat in a thrift store, a terrified boy who barters for his life with a mean-spirited troll living beneath a bridge by the railroad tracks, a young couple who receives a wedding gift that gradually reveals a chilling alternative history of their marriage. Smoke and Mirrors will dazzle your senses, touch your heart -- and haunt your dreams.

Deadhouse Gates (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 2)

Steven Erikson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 55 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

So bad it's funny 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I thought Erikson's Tales of Malazan couldn't get any worse after "Gardens of the Moon", and second-efforts often improve the first. Not so in this case. It gets worse: much worse. In fact, so bad I found it funny when hit over the head with such profound insights as "all of history and historical study boils down to three words: children are dying."

Such 'metaphysical' banalities assault the reader on a regular basis. Nobles exist to oppress their servants for no reason, peasants exist to be wiped out en masse for no reason, every nation has massive standing armies of professional soldiers (no one ever goes home for harvest) with no economy to support them and so on. Wars are faught for Power in the post-modernist sense. No war is ever caused by famine, crop failure, point of Honour (as if honour exists in fantasy medieval societies!), territorial claim, change of ruler by marriage and all the rest of actual medieval, pre-industrial life. In fact, I have no idea why the Seven Cities rose in rebellion other than some vague prophecy about the Whirlwind.

Just post-modern, politically correct 'narrative' disguised as a story: it has no conclusion, like "Gardens", just some random events that happen to characters for no readily apparent reason, and plenty of "Get Out of Jail Free" cards supplied to all important characters at every juncture: the ones you want to see die a grisly death always get rescued from nowhere for no reason.

It's written, like "Gardens", as a screenplay, not a novel. Scenes are set in boring detail, to cut to another scene in counter-point, to "flashback" scene, to "dream-sequence" scene. You know he is trying to intensify the action when he seems to be describing camera angles rather than the action itself. One page - Cut! - next character view - Cut! and so on. But nothing happens anyweay, just a series of POV cuts and 'camera angles'.

Also, claiming Flashman as inspiration for the battlefield descriptions doesn't hold water. Fraser was describing historical battles people could (and did) check on. Erikson just makes it all up as he goes along, making for a very confused description of the action, and explains everything away as "magic" or "the gods". Why anyone worships these gods is not clear: no paradise or moral high ground or self-transformation to be found in this hideous caracature of religion, just blood-thirsty ex-humans who exist to fill in the ludicrous gaps of the absurd non-story.

900 pages to say nothing of interest to an adult mind and tell no story whatsoever is, in its way, quite an achievement, one Erikson has mastered if the first 2 volumes are any indication. It was no surprise in its way to find out that these were all rejected screenplays from a non-D&D RPG campaign (GURPS was the English system laughed at by 'serious' gamers of the time) rewritten through a Writers Workshop 101 class, and it shows in the poor standard of writing and lack of story. Seems to me to be a sequence of serial-drama teleplays, not novels or an epic at all.

Save your money, or try to get a laugh. It's a hard slog any which way you look at it. I'd just like to find a fantasy author who doesn't project modern and post-modern politics, sensibilities and philosophies onto pseudo-medieval realms.

Editorial Review:

In the vast dominion of Seven Cities, in the Holy Desert Raraku, the seer Sha'ik and her followers prepare for the long-prophesied uprising known as the Whirlwind. Unprecedented in size and savagery, this maelstrom of fanaticism and bloodlust will embroil the Malazan Empire in one of the bloodiest conflicts it has ever known, shaping destinies and giving birth to legends . . .
Set in a brilliantly realized world ravaged by dark, uncontrollable magic, this thrilling novel of war, intrigue and betrayal confirms Steven Eirkson as a storyteller of breathtaking skill, imagination and originality--a new master of epic fantasy.

(20040619)

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

Howard Phillips Lovecraft

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Total reviews: 43 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

An unparalleled selection of fiction from H. P. Lovecraft, master of the American horror tale

Long after his death, H. P. Lovecraft continues to enthrall readers with his gripping tales of madness and cosmic terror, and his effect on modern horror fiction continues to be felt-- Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Clive Barker have acknowledged his influence. His unique contribution to American literature was a melding of Poe's traditional supernaturalism with the emerging genre of science fiction. Originally appearing in pulp magazines like Weird Tales in the 1920s and 1930s, Lovecraft's work is now being regarded as the most important supernatural fiction of the twentieth century.

Lovecraft's biographer and preeminent interpreter, S. T. Joshi, has prepared this volume of eighteen stories--from the early classics like "The Outsider" and "Rats in the Wall" to his mature masterworks, "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." The first paperback to include the definitive corrected texts, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories reveals the development of Lovecraft's mesmerizing narrative style, and establishes him as a canonical--and visionary--American writer.

"I think it is beyond doubt that H. P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." --Stephen King

DragonKnight (Dragon Keepers Chronicles, Book 3)

Donita K. Paul

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Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Trapped in an evil spell… can the knights of Paladin be rescued?

Before vowing his allegiance to Wulder as a knight, Bardon heads to the mountains for solitude. His life is suddenly complicated by a woman and her granddaughter, N’Rae, on a mission to rescue the woman’s son trapped in a chamber of sleep. Bardon learns that more of Paladin’s knights are imprisoned–and suspects one of them is Dragon Keeper Kale’s missing father.

The secret is in their hands–and hearts.

The band travels north, uncertain of their destination and encountering numerous perils. When they unlock the chamber, they discover a dozen knights–who cannot be awakened. The journal holding the secret to rousing them is in an unknown language. How can they find the help they need, and overcome even graver obstacles, to rescue the knights?
Return to the land of dragons and magic you discovered in Dragonspell and DragonQuest, in this finely crafted and memorable work of fantasy fiction with a core of eternal truth.