intriguing fantasy

[snugglekitty]

Over the weekend, I read Chill Factor by Rachel Caine, Raven's Shadow by Patricia Briggs, and The Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Bujold.



Chill Factor is part of the Weather Warden series. Joanne Baldwin is a weather warden, who helps prevent natural disasters from overtaking the US. This book further explored corruption in the ranks of the WWs and brings a new secret society into play. It had less hot sex than the previous books, but it was decent. Rachel Caine is not my favorite of the Hamilton-derivatives, but she's still all right. Three stars - it was engaging, but I probably won't pick it up again.

Raven's Shadow is an earlier book by the author of Moon Called, another Hamilton successor. It's fairly serious fantasy with really good magic and worldbuilding. It has somewhat of an Incredibles flavor - Mom and Dad are secretly out to save the world, with a little help from the kids. I enjoyed this and found it less fluffy than Moon Called. I'll definitely read Briggs' other fantasy offerings. Four stars.

The Hallowed Hunt was the third in the Chalion series. I loved the first two books. This book was a bit more challenging. It was hard to tell where (or when) it fit in the Chalion universe. It also lacked most of the funny moments found in the other two books - it was a bit bleak, despite the somewhat hopeful ending. I'm still finding the priests of the Bastard to be fascinating characters. Three stars for book 80 for the year.

Comments

[curly-chick.livejournal.com]

I just finished reading The Curse of Chalion. Are there other books in this series of Chalion? I had no idea. Where is the "Curse" located in the series?

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Yup, there are two more books. You're in luck, as "Curse" is the first book. The second one, _Paladin of Souls_, is equally good. The main character in that book is Ista, who is a minor character in the first book. The third one I didn't like quite as much but I think that could just be me.