Libriomancer, by Jim C. Hines

I really liked Hines' take on fairy tales in his Princess series of novels, so I looked forward to his approach to "magic exists in the real world but is hidden from most people" as made popular by J. K. Rowling and Simon R. Green. Hines' entry into the club is my favorite by far! Libriomancy is a magic that allows people to use a book as a portal, pulling any item described within into our world. This unique concept is used to great effect, such as the hero wearing a Babel fish which allows him to understand any and all languages. Good stuff!

Libriomancy was created by Johannes Gutenberg, who it turns out was a frustrated sorcerer. He believed that there was magic in books, and the more people that read the book, the stronger the magic—and thus invented the printing press to amplify his access to the mystical arts. Fast forward nearly 600 years and there is a secret society of libriomancers dedicated to protecting the world from supernatural threats. Gutenberg is still alive (thanks to the Holy Grail), the head of the organization, and the most powerful person alive. He has also disappeared; cue adventure!

This novel is a literary pop culture smörgåsbord: lightsabers, disruptors, Excalibur are only a few of the weapons pulled from various novels, and the Love Magnet of Oz and Tinkerbell's Pixie Dust are other entertaining tools used along the way. Enemies include many different kinds of vampires (via Charlaine Harris to Anne Rice to Bram Stoker himself), although Professor Moriarty, Hannibal Lecter, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and Norman Bates all make an appearance of sorts.

I loved, loved, loved this book! Since finishing it yesterday I've spent all kinds of time thinking about what I'd conjure up if given the opportunity. The Tarnhelm would be cool, as would a Green Lantern ring. Taking the winning lottery ticket from Paycheck would mean I wouldn't have to launder money somehow...

First Sentence:

Some people would say it's a bad idea to bring a fire-spider into a public library.

The Ambassador's Mission, by Trudi Canavan

A return to the world of Canavan's Black Magician series! I loved the first trilogy, and the standalone The Magician's Apprentice added a lot of flavor to the universe. This new adventure is split into two storylines: one follows Sonea from the first books twenty years later and hunting rogue magicians and the other follows Sonea's son and his exploration of a neighboring land. The latter story is more interesting but less satisfying as there isn't a natural conclusion—it just stops, waiting to be picked up in the next book. As with many fantasy novels the plot isn't complicated, but Canavan explores some fairly deep topics such as sexism, homosexuality, and drug use. Being the first of three novels this is mostly setup, but I look forward to see how the themes develop.

First Sentence:

The most successful and quoted piece by the poet Rewin, greatest of the rabble to come out of the New City, was called Citysong.

Locked On, by Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney

I loved some of the early Jack Ryan books, but gave up after Red Rabbit and The Teeth Of The Tiger because I thought they were really weak. I spied Locked On on the bargain table and decided to spend a few bucks and see if anything had improved. Surprisingly, there had only been one book between The Teeth Of The Tiger and this one in the last ten years so plot-wise I hadn't missed much.

The story here mainly follows Jack Ryan Jr. and John Clark; the former chasing a terrorist plot through Pakistan and Russia and the latter on the run due to a political witch hunt. Clancy hasn't softened his views towards politics any here; the Democrats are depicted as cartoonish and practically being pro-terrorist. The news outlets are savaged as well ("Liberal bias in the media was a fact of nature.") and shown to eagerly suppress information that shows Democrats in a bad light. While I agree with much of the sentiment here, Clancy takes it to an extreme. The terrorist plot is on nearly a James Bond scale; a Pakistani General steals two nukes from his own country and intends to force a war with India using a Muslim uprising in Russia as a distraction. I don't think this has the depth of The Hunt for Red October or even Debt of Honor, but it was nice to revisit the Jack Ryan Universe once again.

First Sentence:

The Russians call their Kamov-50 helicopter gunship Chernaya Akula—Black Shark.

Live and Let Drood, by Simon R Green

I thoroughly enjoy the mind candy of the Secret History novels. The plot here is a lot more straightforward than past entries but still fun: the Drood family save Eddie have vanished and the story details the quest to find them and exact revenge on the perpetrators. The reader has to ignore some fairly large holes in the process (Droods have field agents in every major city across the globe but they all happened to be in the same English manor when it vanished?) but considering the abundance of magical devices and pocket dimensions belief is easy to suspend. The pop culture references are relentless, and I love that Green doesn't stop to explain any of them—either you catch them and smile or you miss out. My favorites this outing were the line delivered teasingly, "Sisters, sisters, such devoted sisters..." and the fact that the heroes find themselves driving a 1958 Plymouth Fury with a mind of its own. If you like your fanstasy adventure heavy on the humorous side, you should check this series out.

First Sentence:

You think you know where your life is going.

Vacation Rental Success, by Joel Rasmussen

I recently started a new job working for HomeAway, a marketplace for the vacation rental industry. Other than staying in a gorgeous rental last year I really don't know much about the business of short term rentals. Asking around the office for books that would help educate me, several people suggested Vacation Rental Success so I picked it up. Turns out the author lives here in Austin as well and is very friendly with HomeAway, mentioning the company several times and having our CEO write the forward. So not too surprising it was recommended, but it was enlightening regardless.

The book is quite readable; I was expecting a dry manual talking about rental agreements, legal documents, and tax ramifications but instead found a thoughtful guide on how to get into the game and become successful. Rasmussen touches on a broad range of topics, but doesn't go into great detail on many of them. Where he lacks in detail, though, he makes up for by mentioning several companies that he uses to run his business, such as HomeAway, FlipKey, VacationRentalDesk.com, CSA Travel Protection, the Short Term Rental Advocacy Center, and (most interesting to me as I'm fascinated by home automation) Nexia Home Intelligence. At just over 100 pages this is a short but sweet introduction to the industry that now employs me. It is clear that I'm not interested in being an owner—Rasmussen makes it clear that to be successful you need to be an extroverted "people person" and that is not me—but I look forward to my next stay as a traveler!

First Sentence:

If you're tossing around the idea of making a go at renting a second property, you might think that money considerations are your top priority.

The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad

For a book considered to be one of the first and greatest espionage thrillers, it was murder getting to the end. The writing is stilted and overblown, and I often had to reread passages to make sense of them. "Mrs. Neale was the charwoman of Brett Street. Victim of her marriage with a debaucher joiner, she was oppressed by the needs of many infant children. Red-armed, and aproned in coarse sacking up to the arm-pits, she exhaled the anguish of the poor in a breath of soap-suds and rum, in the uproar of scrubbing, in the clatter of tin pails." Not an easy read.

The plot follows a somewhat incompetent agent provocateur that is playing both sides—talking to the police and working for an anarchist cell. He is forced into an act of insurrection that goes awry and tragedy strikes. I suspect that there are some insightful conclusions that can be drawn with modern terrorism and national security, but frankly I had such a difficult time getting through the superficial story that I was uninterested in looking any deeper. Disappointing.

First Sentence:

Mr. Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop nominally in charge of his brother-in-law.

The Borgias and Their Enemies, by Christopher Hibbert

The Borgia family name today is largely synonymous with immorality and nepotism. The rise to power of Rodrigo Borgia culminating in his being elected Pope in 1492 is when this definition was earned and the topic of this book. Rodrigo was described as having "the most obscene manners, hypocrisy, immodesty, mendacity, infidelity, profanity, insatiable greed, unrestrained ambition, a predilection for viciousness that was worse than barbaric, and a fervent hunger to exalt his many children, among whom there were several no less repellent than the father." And this is all after he became Pope Alexander VI. All his children were obviously illegitimate (as apparently marriage is the one rule the Church can't ignore), but two in particular became powerful in their own right: his son Cesare was a general and a ruler and the subject of Machiavelli's The Prince, and his daughter Lucrezia became the Duchess of Ferrara.

I'm not a fan of organized religion, and Catholicism in particular I find morally bankrupt, but I was surprised to learn in the 15^th century the Church was even more venal than today. Men weren't made cardinals because of their devotion to God or their piety, but how much money they could pay. One of Lucrezia's sons was named the arch-bishop of Milan when he was nine-years-old. Celebrations at the Vatican were excessive, often including courtesans and even devolving into orgies. Interestingly, in some ways this immoral Church was more progressive than the holier-than-thou organization of today. When traveling, Alexander VI would put his daughter Lucrezia in charge of the Vatican, to the point where she actually moved into the papal apartments. I can't imagine the modern Church—against both contraception and abortion and not allowing women to be ordained—permitting a female to effectively control the Catholic hierarchy.

The writing is a bit dry making it difficult to stay engaged at times, but the topic is entertaining enough to keep going. Not the best book I've ever read, but it covers an interesting period in history.

First Sentence:

"You must have heard of this city from others," wrote a visitor to Rome in the middle of the fifteenth century.