Gwendy's Magic Feather

by Richard Chizmar
333 pgs  (Gwendy series #2)

If I'm going to be entirely honest, even though there were two authors' names on the cover of Gwendy's Button Box, only one of the names mattered to me (guess which one it was). Not because I didn't like Richard Chizmar, I'd just never read anything by him before. That being said, I enjoyed the story so much, that when I learned that Richard Chizmar had written a sequel by himself, it didn't really matter to me that Stephen King's name wasn't going to be on the cover. I wanted to know what happened next.

Gwendy's Magic Feather continues the story of Gwendy Peterson, now a 37-year-old, first-term congresswoman from Maine. Her life since the events of the first book has been relatively charmed. She's found success as a novelist, a filmmaker, and now in D.C. representing her constituents back in Castle Rock.

When the button box reappears inexplicably in her townhome one evening a few days before Christmas, without a note or another appearance by the mysterious Richard Farris, Gwendy is left with only the temptations of her own thoughts as to whether the box, and the powerful gifts it dispenses, could, or should, be used again.

When Gwendy flies home to see her parents for the holidays, she takes the box with her. But she returns to a Castle Rock currently under a dark cloud. Two girls have recently gone missing, and the police have no idea what's happened to them. Soon after her arrival, a third girl goes missing, and Gwendy, with her box, might be the only chance any of them has for surviving.

Any disappointment I might have had with Stephen King not being an author of this book were quickly forgotten when I started reading it. Richard Chizmar does both the character and town King created justice. Like the first book, it's a novella, and with its short chapters, it makes for a very quick, but satisfying read. I enjoyed it enough to place an order for another of Chizmar's books as soon as I finished this one, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else he has to offer.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Stone of Farewell

by Tad Williams
589 pgs  (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series #2)

Stone of Farewell is the second book in Tad Williams' original Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. I say "original," because he's currently writing another trilogy (along with some shorter individual stories), which also take place on the continent of Osten Ard, years after this one concludes. There is a lot going on in this series, and while both books so far have had everything I hope for in epic fantasy, they've each played their own unique role in the series as a whole.

The Dragonbone Chair did an excellent job of introducing Osten Ard and the different races and characters who live there. It also got Williams' story off to a strong start, introducing Simon, the orphaned kitchen scullion who serves in Hayholt Castle, who finds himself in the middle of the fight against Pryrates and the evil forces of the Storm King., which have started to take over Osten Ard. In The Dragonbone Chair, Simon is among a group on a quest to locate the three swords: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, swords believed to be the key to destroying the Storm King once and for all.

Stone of Farewell picks up right where it left off, but it goes much deeper into the lives of the several main characters. As the book begins, Simon is in the troll city of Yiquanuc, recovering from his battle wounds. While there, he has a dream in which he's instructed to find the Stone of Farewell, a mythical place he's told he, and all who travel there, will be safe for a time, as they rally together and prepare to make their stand against the Storm King.

That's a very short summary of a 589-page, densely-packed book, but with so much going on, it's hard to do it justice briefly. Ultimately, the book left me ready to start book three: To Green Angel Tower. But with it being roughly twice as long, I'm going to wait at least a couple of months before I start it.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Tigerman

by Nick Harkaway
337 pgs

Tigerman is the latest book by Nick Harkaway, an author I'm becoming increasingly a fan of the more books he writes. He's the son of John le Carré, but he doesn't write in the same genre as his father. In fact, I'm not quite sure what genre Harkaway's books are in. They don't fit neatly into any of them. Case in point...

Lester Ferris is a 39-year-old Sargent in the British army, who's currently fulfilling a quiet assignment as the British consul on the island of Mancreau, in the Arabian Sea. Mancreau is a dying island. It was left scarred and polluted by decades of chemical manufacturing, so much so that seismic activity, which took place a decade or so ago, released clouds of toxic gases over the island, causing those who live there to face frightening diseases and severe birth defects.

One day, while Ferris is having tea in a small café, armed bandits crash through the doors and murder the owner. Things could have been far worse, if it weren't for Ferris's heroic actions. He single-handedly overpowers the bandits using nothing but a muffin tin, and while doing so, wins over a 10-year-old orphan who witnessed it. The boy goes by the name Robin and he's obsessed with comics and the heroes in their stories. A relationship forms between the two of them and Robin eventually convinces Lester to become a superhero. Together they create an eclectic costume with a gas mask, pieces of metal, and bits of bone and fur, and Lester finds himself stopping crimes in spectacular fashion as his alter ego: Tigerman.

Within the pages of Tigerman, Harkaway manages to successfully cram multiple types of stories together. On the one hand, it's a superhero-origin story, filled with some pretty impressive action scenes. On another hand, it's a mystery, as Lester continually searches for where Robin came from. But at its center is the story of the relationship that forms between the two characters, a relationship that changes both of them forever.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

A Quiet Flame

by Philip Kerr
386 pgs  (Bernie Gunther series #5)

A Quiet Flame is the fifth book in Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series, a series I started reading 11 years ago, but one that for some reason, I've allowed six years to pass since I last read a book in it. It features Bernie Gunther, a German police detective and current private investigator, who served as an SS Officer in Dachau during WWII. He's led a complicated life, due in part to his sympathies for the Jews and his opposition to the Nazi party, even while he served as an officer in it.

As the book begins, Bernie leaves Germany for Argentina in 1950, where he's seeking exile from his home country. But it doesn't take long for his past to begin playing a role in his present once again. His reputation as one of the best homicide detectives in Germany becomes known to the authorities in Buenos Aires, and he soon finds himself recruited to help in the investigation of the murder of a 15-year-old girl. The murder bears a striking resemblance to two unsolved murders Bernie investigated in Berlin back in 1932. So, Bernie begins investigating other Germans now living in Argentina, specifically, those who played an active role in the atrocities of the War.

Bernie's investigation uncovers dark secrets in Argentina, and not just those being hidden by the former Nazi officers who fled there. High-ranking officials in Argentina also have secrets they're willing to kill to protect, and Bernie's investigation threatens them.

A Quiet Flame is another solid book in the series. It was a good reminder to me of why I started reading the series in the first place, and it also encouraged me to read the next book, sooner rather than later.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Dinosaur Knights

by Victor Milán
444 pgs  (Dinosaur Lords series #2)

There are a couple of things to be aware of, if you're considering reading Victor Milán's Dinosaur Lords trilogy. The first is that it's a fantasy series set in a world called Paradise, which resembles Europe in the 14th century. There are kings and lords and dukes, and seemingly never-ending feuds and wars between them. There are knights who fight those wars for their kings, which leads to the second thing to be aware of . . . the dinosaurs. There are dinosaurs on Paradise, and some of them have been domesticated and are used as beasts of burden and some are ridden by the knights fighting those wars. If that second thing makes your eyes roll back in your head and causes you to pass on the series without giving it a chance, you'll miss out on a pretty good story.

George R.R. Martin provided the blurb on the books' covers, in which he calls it ". . . a cross between Jurassic Park and Game of Thrones." That's not to say the series is as good as either of them, but it has its moments, and in this, the second book in the trilogy, those moments are more frequent than they were in book I.

Milán picks up right were he left off at the end of The Dinosaur Lords. Karyl Bogomirskiy and the dinosaur master Rob Korrigan are leading the efforts to defend the city of Providence, where Imperial Princess Molodia and her servant have just arrived seeking sanctuary from Duke Falk von Hornberg. And, in the west, the servants of the Creators, known as the Grey Angels, have begun to form their army by turning humans into mindless killers. All of this results in some impressive battle scenes, featuring armored triceratops, ferocious Allosaurus, and the real kings of the series--Tyrannosaurus Rex.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆