Fantasy/SF Book Reviews
Running From the Deity by Alan Dean Foster
Del Rey, November, 2005Hardcover, 255 pages
ISBN: 0345461592
Ordering information:
Amazon.com
Philip "Flinx" Lynx and his pet mini-drag Pip have had some amazing
adventures to date, but
after their last outing (
Sliding Scales) Flinx is wary of
so-called "vacations." Now he's searching for a super weapon left behind
by an advanced species which can help him in his upcoming fight
against the great evil that
he empathically senses is heading towards the Commonwealth and could wipe out all living things. But Flinx encounters an unplanned delay when his AI-enhanced spaceship Teacher informs Flinx that she must immediately stop to make repairs. They land on
a planet, intending to hide from the primitive inhabitants because of the Commonwealth's
prohibitions against interacting with less-advanced species. The aliens on the planet
are very appealing to Flinx: like him, they are empathic. Being around them
is calming to him, because they don't trigger the bad reaction he gets from being
surrounded by the unfiltered emotional bombardment he gets when he's around
most humanoid species. Although he should
know better, Flinx uses his advanced technology to heal the sick and injured
aliens, which turns out to be a big mistake. Soon he's being worshipped as
a God, and inciting a civil war on the planet. Flinx must find a way off the
planet as fast as possible -- but the aliens have no intention of letting their
new God leave.
Flinx's stay on the backward planet of Arrawd teaches him a valuable lesson: that no good deed goes unpunished. Although he's lived an amazing life so far, he is still quite young and impulsive although he does have a good heart. The descriptions of a strange new world and its inhabitants are fascinating, as are Flinx's answers to the dilemma he's created for himself. Author Alan Dean Foster has several more Pip and Flinx novels in the pipeline and has promised to explain very soon the "great evil" that's coming towards the Commonwealth. That's nothing but good news for Flinx fans, whose only complaints about the series have been the lack of new books.
Windfall by Rachel Caine
Roc, November, 2005Paperback, 342 pages
ISBN: 045146057X
Ordering information:
Amazon.com
Rachel Caine has had a tumultuous few years, to say the least.
An incredibly talented Weather Warden, Rachel was one of the
legions of Wardens who can control the elements and use those
powers to protect humanity from the worst storms, fires and other
natural disasters. They can't stop the storms entirely, but without
their help, humanity would have been wiped out long ago. In the
course of her job, Rachel has been attacked, killed, reborn as a Djinn,
and now is restored to her human status. But she's not allowed to
manipulate the weather anymore, because the Weather Wardens
are very unhappy with her. So she's stuck in a job as the weather girl
at a third rate TV station in Florida, playing the straight man to
the obnoxious weather forecaster who is far too accurate in his predictions
to be totally human. Perhaps he's getting a little magical assistance from
somewhere? While she's enduring the humiliations of her new job (such as being
doused with water on air as a punchline to a joke),
Rachel is hit with two more problems: her divorced, down on her luck
sister moves in with her, and her Djinn boyfriend is unintentionally
draining what's left of her power as he fights not to turn into a
monster as a result of injuries he sustained during their last adventure.
As Rachel deals with these personal calamities, she also ends up right in the
middle of an impending magical war that could wipe out humanity once and
for all.
The Weather Warden series is one of the best urban fantasy series on the market today. Rachel Caine writes with a hard-edged sophistication and humor: her characters are complex and interesting and the dialogue really crackles with wit and humor. If you like bold and funny heroines, inventive plot lines and dialogue that sparks and crackles like a lightning storm, the Weather Warden series is a must-read.
--Claire E. White
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