Kraken is the first China Mieville book I’ve read aside from his celebrated Bas-Lag books: Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council. And while no one would ever doubt the fecundity of his imagination, his plotting has always left a bit to be desired. My overwhelming impression after finishing Perdido Street Station, in fact, was that I would kill to be able to play a Bas-Lag MMO (well, that, and a desire to find out where Mieville buys his drugs). But of course, there’s […]
Jen K’s Review #5: Thirteen
This is the concluding novel of the Women of the Otherworld series, and wraps up the Savannah Levine trilogy that started with Waking the Witch. Overall, I think it was a very fitting ending, though I don’t think Savannah is really one of my favorite narrators. That honor would be reserved for Elena, Eve and Jaime. Still, it makes sense that the novel would end with Savannah as she is the middle between the next generation of women and the ones that made up the […]
Jen K’s Review #4: Spell Bound
Spell Bound takes off immediately where Waking the Witch left off, with Savannah’s powers gone. After regretting how the last case ended, she had made a wish that she would gladly give up her spells if only she could fix some of the problems her investigation caused. As it turns out, someone took her up on her offer. Having already finished the concluding trilogy of the series, I will say that this one does kind of fill like a middle book. Waking the Witch introduces […]
Jen K’s Review 3: Waking the Witch
After being introduced as a 12 year old girl in the second novel of the series, Savannah Levine narrates the 11th book in the series as a 21 year old. For the most part, this novel falls very much in line with the rest of the series, though there is more focus on Savannah growing up, and less on romantic entanglements. Savannah is an odd character in ways – she has always been presented as spunky, saracastic, very independent and yet when it came time […]