surprisedMcGuire follows 2009's Rosemary and Rue with a fast-paced cross between a murder mystery and a slasher film, liberally spiked with magic and technology. Half-faerie PI October "Toby" Daye leaves San Francisco for the nearby County of Tamed Lightning to check up on her patron's niece, January, who's uncharacteristically fallen out of contact. Toby soon realizes that ALH Computing, the county's secret seat of power, has big problems. Someone doesn't want outsiders snooping around, and as the body count rises, Toby will risk life, limb, and soul to find out what's really going on. While most of the deaths could have been prevented with a little less plot-mandated stupidity, the world-building is solid, the storytelling energetic, and the atmosphere sinister as mythological creatures face off against mad scientists. (Mar.)
Yay! (I don't completely agree that most of the deaths could have been prevented with a little less plot-mandated stupidity, for reasons that I can't really go into beyond "in Faerie, when your liege gives you an order, you follow it, whether it's stupid or not." But that's besides the point.) Getting a good review in Publisher's Weekly makes me feel like a real girl. For, y'know, the ten minutes before I find something else to get freaked out about. Today's terrifying adversary: oxygen. It's a corrosive poison, you know.
A Local Habitation is on the verge of becoming a really and truly real book, available for really and truly real purchase at a store near you. For some values of "near," anyway.
Whoa.
February 8 2010, 20:23:38 UTC 7 years ago
February 9 2010, 15:44:11 UTC 7 years ago