Baen softcover, published September 2013.

I pounced on this as soon as it arrived. I’ve always loved the Vorkosigan books and didn’t expect this to be any exception. The books and short stories cover a very wide range of plot. Some have been extremely dark with ethical dilemmas involved, others have been light and frothy with a Regency feel to them. But in all of this series the characters are so well-drawn and so interesting, that they stand up to read after read after read. So that adding a new book from this series to my shelves doesn’t just mean one book, in effect it means a number of them since I’ll probably read it half a dozen times more before I die – at least I hope to live long enough to do so.

Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance is one of the lighter variety in theVorkosigan series but satisfying for all of that. Ivan (known for much of his early life to his wider family as ‘that idiot Ivan) is currently working for Imperial Security when another agent asks for his help. Ivan helps – to find himself stunned, trussed, and left in a chair all night until kidnappers after the two women who did this to him arrive through a window. Ivan warns the women who then stun the intruders and, Ivan, gathering the women up with him flees into the night heading for his own flat where the immigration service promptly arrives to charge the women with illegal entry, sided by the police who wish to charge Ivan with kidnapping . In something of a panic and to protect the women if not himself, Ivan promptly enacts a Barrayaran marriage with Tej, one of the two women, and claims her companion, Rish, as his new wife’s maid/companion. At which point events become still more confused and life for Ivan far more hectic and I spent a fair amount of my reading time with this book wearing a wide smile. I have enjoyed every single book in this series and hope that it continues. Some of the books are longer than others but even those in the Vorkosigan saga that are longer hold up solidly, unlike some other books at the 160-200,000 word level that feel padded and tend to sag in places. I strongly recommend this series, they mix military with regency, with a romance here and there (never standard) with mystery, family conflict, affairs on the stages of a number of worlds, and characters that you know if you met them would swing between engaging you and utterly infuriating you. I look forward to the next installment!

Softcover (I think, larger than usual pb, smaller than ususal SC.) Roc. Sept.2013.

The whole tone of The Dresden Files books changed around three books back in the series. Harry found a daughter he didn’t know existed, was murdered, came back as Winter’s Knight, and found that he now faced an enemy that was greater than he’d ever known about. This is the one where he confronts them, half-loses someone he really cares about, starts off on a different tack, and finds that a lot of the assumptions he’s made for the past couple of years were wrong…or right, depending. The tone has changed in another way too. Before Changes (12^th in the series) the books could be easily read as standalones, that isn’t so effective any more. Now they’re a part of a continuing story and really, you need to go back three or four books to get the complete story line and understand everything that’s going on.

In Cold Days Harry’s been commanded by Mab, to whom he is now Winter Knight, to kill Meave, the Winter Lady. Problem is that Harry is told by someone he trusts that Mab has been contaminated by outside influences and is mad. Outsiders are trying to break into the world, and the world right now is in an incredible mess due to Harry’s extermination of a whole section of a vampire group worldwide. Every power-merchant or criminal gang has rushed to fill the power vacumn and are locked in combat over territory. Chicago isn’t as bad as some areas, but it’s heading that way and Harry needs allies fast. He also needs Mab off his back, to know if she really has gone mad and what do to about the outsiders attempts to break into the world in which Harry lives. It’s an incredible mess and Harry is, as usual, right in the middle of it and apparently responsible for some of it and responsible for clearing up the rest of it. Cold Days is a good book, well-written, very engaging, but I’d recommend it only if you’ve already read the previous couple. If not, start at the beginning and read the series but don’t read this one until you’re clued in on earlier events..

Softcover published BAEN August 2013. Reviewed by Steve Johnson.

Second in what may be a trilogy, or possibly a longer series ultimately. This goes back to the founder of Honor Harrington’s House and tells the story of Stephanie Harrington, first to bond with a Treecat. Lionheart saves her life, she saves his, and that’s it, bonded. The first book, A Beautiful Friendship was great, this one, while I felt it wasn’t quite so engrossing, was still very good, and that may be the usual trouble for the middle book of a trilogy. It’s the bridge between a smashing start, and an exciting finish. But it still did hold up very well even if read as a standalone. I didn’t like the cover however, it was too dark, too diffuse, the girl looks far older than the fourteen that Stephanie is, (more like 24) and Lionheart looks vicious as well as it not showing that he is hexepedal, a major part of the ecology. The story is good, with a strong ecological background dealing with the dangers of fire in forested lands, and how casual humans can be about fire precautions. At this end of the world we see that every fire season, not quite so much in New Zealand because our greener wetter bush doesn’t burn quite so well or so easily but in Australia where a high percentage of their wildfires are started by human halfwits. (Ours are too, it’s just that they are mostly less catastrophic.) But in Oz, some of the wildfires aren’t just massively destructive of wildlife, vegetation, and property, they kill people as well. And it’s that sort of wildfire that Stephanie and her friends battle in the book. The ‘people’ in danger being not only humans, but also a treecat clan directly in the path of one of the wildfires. There is a strong sub-plot of Stephanie’s problems with other teenagers of her own age, her growing interest in a newcomer, the newcomer’s father’s ignoring of necessary rules, and Stephanie finding that those she dislikes may still have redeeming features. It’s a good book all in all, but the cover really put me off. I see that it was done by the same artist who did Lyn McConchie’s The Duke’s Ballad, which cover I also really disliked. I hope either someone else does the cover for the next book, or the cover of the next is less drab and more accurate.