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From: Tony Nance <tnusenet17@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: RI May & June 2024
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2024 15:40:33 -0400
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On 7/5/24 12:05 AM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> This covers both May & June, I think.
> 
> As usual the links are Amazon affiliate ones which could make
> me a pittance should you end up buying something through one.
> ==
> 
> <some snipping> >
> 
> 
> Demon's Mark (Legion of Angels Book 11)
> by Ella Summers
> https://amzn.to/3VQyaIv
> 
> Angel of Chaos Leda Pandora has come a long way since she joined the
> Legion of Angels to survive and level-up enough that she had the power
> to rescue her kidnapped brother.  That finally done, and having birthed
> and protected the daughter who may be the Savior of prophecy, she is kind
> of taking it easy, governing a large segment of Earth recently reclaimed
> from the wilderness after the most recent victory removed the monster
> menace.  It's actually rather boring and her most recent task is actually
> investigating a problem with her capital city's sewer system.  When
> giant rats unexpectedly ensue, events kick into high gear again leading
> to her involvement with her father's problem (he's the chief god)
> of planetary revolts, a sister whose mind seems to have been taken over by
> inimical forces, in-law & mother (the chief demon) complications, and
> hints that an adversary who fled the field is nonetheless still active.
> 
> These are popcorn books, adding and resolving complications in a continuing
> fashion.  I believe we are near the endpoint regardless, and found this
> one much more entertaining than the last which needed a whole "let me
> explain to you what just happened" section to make any sense of the events.

This sounds interesting - I should go give the first one a try.


> 
> How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying
> (Dark Lord Davi Book 1)
> by Django Wexler
> https://amzn.to/3VRC7fZ
> 
> I first encountered Django Wexler with his Flintlock-Punk series
> The Thousand Names.  Well, this is completely different, but just as
> good.
> 
> Davi (if she has a last name, she has apparently forgotten it) thinks
> she is from Earth, and was probably a nerd, but now, after over a thousand
> years of lives, she has trouble remembering anything about her first life.
> 
> All she knows is that her troubles started when she regained consciousness
> in a scummy pond in the woods where a wizard pulled her out and announced
> that she was the chosen one prophesied to save the human kingdom from
> the marauding "Wilders".
> 
> She could just never figure out *how*.  Every path she took led her to death
> (often prolonged & painful) at the hands of "The Dark Lord", exiting life
> with the Kingdom falling and reawakening in that damn pond.
> 
> After several hundred lifetimes, she has had her belly-full of it and decides
> that *this* time things will be different.  To start with, while she always
> dies at the hands of the Dark Lord, it's not always the *same* Dark Lord,
> so there's obviously some kind of choice point out there somewhere: Why not
> Dark Lord Davi?  She kills and robs the wizard and sets off into Wilder
> territory.  It takes her a half dozen quick & painful trips back to the
> pond before she figures out how to make a Wilder band accept her (it helps
> that unlike most humans, she can eat the magical Thaumite stones as Wilders
> do) and set out on her path to Dark Lordship.  In the beginning she is
> helped by her general knowledge of the shape of coming events, but past
> that, she must depend on her ability to wing it (aided by the fact that
> despite her odd and devil-may-care aspect, she is smart and vastly experienced)
> and judge character.
> 
> Not that she's perfect at that, the knowledge that she's probably heading
> for an early and protractedly painful death have made her prone to take
> pleasure where she can find it, and while she knows that she probably shouldn't
> sleep with the help, the understanding that she will be around to face the
> consequences this time comes a bit late to her.
> 
> Still she has, against all the odds, increased the size of her little
> band and made it to the Conclave.  Well, every now and then, a dog
> catches the car -- now what?
> 
> This book is one of the most fun I have read this year.  Davi's story
> is told in snarky first person, with the most footnotes(*) I have encountered
> since _Happy Hour of the Damned_ (more than Vance, for sure).  She is
> shielded somewhat from the full realization of all her betrayals by her
> conviction that everything will "reset" with no-harm-no-foul, and when
> she comes to see that might not be the case this time, it does give her
> pause, but fortunately does not dampen her narrative for more than a few
> pages.
> 
> We are promised that Davi's story is a duology, and I am quite looking
> forward to the conclusion.
> 
> (*) Actually this is one of the first (fiction)cases I have found where
>      reading in hardcopy would clearly be superior to reading on Kindle.
>      I often found that by the time I got to the actual footnote page, I had
>      forgotten what the reference was to.


I expect that I'll give this one a rip. I've kind of stalled out on 
Wexler's Thousand Names books, but since I can't articulate why, I 
should probably get back to that too.



> 
> Hell For Hire: Urban Fantasy Action with Witches and Demons
> (Tear Down Heaven Book 1)
> by Rachel Aaron
> https://amzn.to/3zDevEk
> 
> <some snipping>
> 
> To my mind Aaron continues to get better with each series.  Early on she
> had a tendency to over-explain her magical systems, but she has that well
> under control here, and doing something with Gilgamesh and Sumerian demons
> is a bit of a nice switch up from usual UF tropes.  She also has a knack for
> writing complementary heroes & heroines who each bring something to the
> table that the other does not.  Her romances  tend to be rather slow-burn,
> but I don't think there's any doubt where this relationship is headed.
> There's still plenty to do after the partial victory in the final battle
> here, so I would expect probably two more books, which I will follow.

Aaron has been on my "try something some day" list - given the paragraph 
above, is this one of hers that you'd recommend starting with?


Tony