Mouse Guard Winter 1152 by David Petersen

Winter 1152 starts off where Fall 1152 ended. The fall confrontation with the enemy left the Mouse Territories unprepared for winter with no food or medicine. While securing supplies and allies, the group of best guard mice becomes separated. Kenzie, Saxon and Sadie fall down a tunnel into an abandon weasel empire, Darkheather, while Lieam and Celanawe are left behind to find their way back to Lockenhaven on their own. While the one group of guards tries to find their way out of the underground death labyrinth, the other two end up fending off a great horn owl. Meanwhile not all is well in Lockenhaven as it is discovered another traitor is amongst them.

The illustrations are amazing, definitely a 5-star for eye-candy.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

I have never been physically exhausted after reading a book until American Gods by Neil Gaiman. A one-word description: INTENSE. I was never sure what to expect on the next page, heck, not even in the next paragraph and there was a lot of “oh, that can’t be good.” I will also confess I am not up on my gods and goddesses like I should be thus there were several wikapedia breaks during reading this book.

American Gods begins with Shadow getting out of prison a day early because his wife has been killed in a terrible accident. On the plane ride home to the funeral, he meets a mysterious stranger that wants Shadow to come work for him. Let’s just say the position has a somewhat vague job description. Meanwhile there is a storm brewing in American where past and present beliefs are about to clash and Shadow finds himself right in the middle of the storm’s path. As I said, it is an intense ride, but if you can weather the storm, totally worth it.

The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar

Get ready for a wild ride with The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar. First there is Heather and Morag, Scottish thistle fairies, that only wanted to start the first radical fairy punk rock but end fugitives fleeing to New York. Then there is their task of matching an overweight disgruntled inept violinist with a beautiful free-spirited artist who has pledged her life to complete her flower alphabet to beat out her ex-boyfriend’s production of a Midsummer Night’s Dream in a local community art contest. Unfortunately Heather's and Morag's attempt at this creates havoc with the Italian, Chinese and African New York fairies. Meanwhile back in England, Aelric the leader of the Cornish Fairy Resistance Movement is trying to sabotage the oppressive leadership of Tala, the Fairy King of Cornwall, who by the way, is setting forth an invasion on New York. During all of this we also have a delusional bag lady that always happens to be in the wrong or right place depending on how you want to look at it as well as a ghost of a dead rocker who is trying to track down his lost guitar. All I can say is...whew!!

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

As I posted earlier I got the pleasure of going to a Neil Gaiman reading in Boulder at the first of the month. On his book tour of The Graveyard Book, he read a chapter a stop with the exception of chapter 7, which due to its length had to be spread across two stops. Unfortunately the Boulder stop fell on part 2 of chapter 7. This was unfortunate not because of his reading, which was superb, but that the 2nd part of chapter 7 gives a way the ending. Now that in itself would not have been bad, it was just I was only on chapter 4.

However, even knowing how the book was going to end, it was still a wonderful trip. I loved the storyline of a little boy being raised by ghost in a cemetery and the story of how Mr. Gaiman came up with the idea. When his son was young, there was no place for him to ride his bike where they lived so Mr. Gaiman would take his son to a nearby cemetery to ride his bike. As he watched his son ride his tricycle around the gravestones, he thought what a wonderful place for a boy to be raised. He had enjoyed Kipling’s Jungle Books as a boy, and thus the idea for The Graveyard Book was conceived, and twenty-some years later, was finally born.

In The Graveyard Book, a boy is adopted by a graveyard after his family is killed. I know it may sound cool to be raised by ghosts and a guardian that is neither dead nor alive in an overgrown old graveyard. And of course it would be, but even growing up among the dead there are still many things a live child needs to learn such as fading and how to recognize and escape from Ghoul Gates. Each chapter is a short story about the boy’s adventures as he grows up in the graveyard. In fact, chapter 4, The Witches Headstone, can also be found in Neil Gaiman’s book of short stories, M is for Magic (highly recommended).

Once again Mr. Gaiman amazing me with his imagination and story-telling abilities. My favorite chapter was chapter 3 where we learned about Ghoul Gates. My sister and I come from a long line of cemetery walkers from my mother side and have recently taken back up the tradition. Our eyes will now be pealed wide open to spot the Ghoul Gate. According to Mr. Gaiman all cemeteries have them, and I have a feeling he is an excellent authority on the matter.

What exactly is a Ghoul Gate? I suggest you read chapter 3 in The Graveyard Book to find out ☺ .

Fool Moon; Book Two of the Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher

My goodness how much can a wizard take? Well obviously quite a bit, as our leading wizard Dresden is beaten, shot, arrested, bitten, kidnapped and beat up some more. In every chapter you are going “...how on earth is he going to get himself out of this one?”

In Jim Butcher's second Dresden Files book, Fool Moon, once again Dresden is called upon by the Chicago Police when a spree of brutal murders have taken place when the moon is full. With the crime scenes covered in paw prints and teeth marks on the victims, it really doesn’t take a wizard to figure out who, or should I say what, is doing the killings. However it may be more than one wizard can handle to stop them.

If you like slow-paced stories, this is not one of them. Non-stop action, no seriously, non-stop!

Storm Front Book One of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher

Harry’s classified reads as follows:

HARRY DRESDEN-WIZARD,
Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates.
No Love Potions, Endless Purses, Parties, or Other Entertainment.

That’s right, Harry is a wizard in modern day Chicago and you can hire him if you need help finding your car keys or what is going bump in the middle of the night up in your attic. Well that is when he is not helping out the Chicago P.D. decipher their own paranormal investigations.

In Storm Front, Book One of the Dresden Files, Lieutenant Karrin Murphy needs Dresden’s help on a gruesome double homicide. It does not take Harry long to know that black magic is behind these deaths. What Harry doesn’t know is the trouble he is about to encounter with vampires, toad demons, gangsters, fairies, killer scorpions, a sexy journalist, and one irate Chicago Police Lieutenant.

I enjoyed the storyline and Jim Butcher’s humor in this book but then I also enjoyed the brief TV series where Dresden used a hockey stick as his staff. I was disappointed when the series was canceled and did not think the Sci-Fi Channel did right by it.