melita's booklog - mostly

The latest Kitty book, Kitty in the Underworld by Carrie Vaughn, came out recently. I started it and was cooking along for about 90 pages or so. Wanting to see where it was going, I skipped to the end. Now I don't see any point in reading the middle bits. Ugh. I'm underwhelmed with the whole arch-enemy storyline about Roman. Yes, we've learned a bit more about him, but only a bit. I'd much rather have more Cormac and Amelia!

This would probably be a decent book for someone who hasn't read the rest of the series. The focus is on Kitty, and she's removed from her friends, family, and pack for most of the book.

I was much happier with the Stephanie Burgis book, Stolen Magic, the third book in the Kat Incorrigible series. Kat, Katherine Ann Stephenson, is the youngest daughter of four children. Their mother died when Kat was 10 days old, and several years later, their father remarried. The stepmama isn't quite an evil stepmother, but has worries about propriety (their mother was anything but) and would like to be higher on the social ladder. The previous books revealed that Kat inherited her mother's Guardian-style magic as well as witchery and her older sisters found future husbands. In this book, her brother (who has now eschewed gambling and drinking) meets a wonderful young woman--but she has all but sworn to never entertain any but the most upright man. The also family also has a carriage mishap on their way to Angeline and Frederick's marriage which turns out to be sabotage. Who was it aimed at? Mix in some smugglers, horrible future in-laws, and other relatives and you've got a delightful book.

Melissa Scott is an SF/F writer. She hadn't published anything that I came across for several years, but in the last year or two, that's certainly changed. She teamed up with Jo Graham and Amy Griswold for a multi-book Stargate: Atlantis series, with Graham for an alternate 1930s mystery/fantasy series, published a new book in the Astreiant series, and rewrote the final book in the Silence Leigh trilogy. She and Griswold have started a new series, set in a late Victorian or early Edwardian England--alternative, of course. Magic is real, called metaphysics, and done via diagrams and symbology. A metaphysician in private practice, Ned Mathey, is hired by the father of one of his prefects at boarding school to ensure there's no curse on the family silver. Mathey is conflicted--the son made his life a living hell in school--but a job is a job. The client, Edgar Nevett, later turns up dead...struck down by silver candlestick.

Mathey is then hired by the son, Victor Nevett, to find out who killed his father. Mathey asks for help from a long-term friend (who also attended the school), Julian Lynes, another metaphysician. Mathey and Lynes had been particularly close friends in school, but had drawn apart at university. This book includes a swiftly complicating murder mystery (as usual more people end up dying) and the reconciliation and deepening relationship of Mathey and Lynes. Lynes in particular is conflicted by the case and he was bullied by Victor and has never forgiven him or decided to "put it all in the past" as Mathey has or tried to do. There are flashback scenes which detail what happened at the school.

Interesting world and characters. I want to see more of these characters, including Mathey's secretary/assistant, Miss Frost. Women aren't allowed yet to attend the same colleges as the men, but she has a degree from women's college and metaphysics training and helps them out with some particularly women's magic.