RogerBW's Blog

Justice Calling, Annie Bellet 02 February 2017

2014 modern fantasy/romance. Jade Crow runs a comics-and-games shop in Wylde, Idaho, where lots of magical creatures congregate. She's hiding from someone. But she isn't going to be able to stay hidden.

Let's deal with the elephant, or rather mouse, in the room first: at 24,000 words this is a short novella rather than a novel, so don't pay full book price for it, and don't expect more than the basics; there's no room for much in the way of character development, and the necessary background infodumps to get the series started mean that the plot has to be pretty simple too.

The short version: Jade Crow had really bad relationship problems, of the potentially helping end the world sort never mind probably dying, and has been hiding out for the last twenty years so as not to come to the ex's attention. And she's a sorceress, which is a type of magician that other magical creatures distrust. But now one of the judge-jury-executioner types of the shapeshifter community has rolled into town and is going to cause Upset.

Oh, and he's extremely hawt.

This is basically literary junk-food, but Bellet is a competent writer and it's junk-food that tastes good. There's a serious, pivotal, life-changing moment… that you'll miss if you blink, because we have to get on to the next bit and words ain't free. If this were the first section of a single novel, some of the world-building could be punted into the rest of the book and the stuff that stayed could be expanded; this feels more like the notes for the book.

There's only one real wrong note for me, a reference to the "Dungeons and Dragons Player's Guide" which… no, it was always the Players' Handbook. Especially for someone who grew up playing D&D in the 1980s. It's the sort of thing that no gamer would get wrong, and the author's error makes the heroine's gamer credentials come over as fake. (It's already a bit of an uphill struggle, because: why do you need fantasy escapism in a life that already has fantasy and magic and stuff? There are several potentially good answers to that, but we don't get any of them here.)

It looks as though the next few books in the series get slightly longer, but not much. Definitely not to be taken seriously. Followed by Murder of Crows.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Series: The Twenty-Sided Sorceress | Next in series: Murder of Crows

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1