cyphomandra

Blaze of Glory, Michael Pryor. Aubrey Fitzwilliam is the son of an ex-prime minister, brilliant at magic, an excellent actor, attractive, intelligent, good at sports (in the first XI with a distinctive late cut) and a practised code-breaker. In his spare time, he disguises himself as Tommy Sparks, a petty thief with an irritating mockney accent, and wanders the city’s less attractive areas, picking up gossip and funding medical clinics on the side while winning the undying loyalty of the poor. In the first chapter of this book Aubrey tries a dangerous new spell in an attempt to harness the power of death magic, and kills himself.

( Sadly, it doesn’t stick. )

( Margaret Edson, W;t. )

WebMage, Kelly McCullough. Ravirn, computer hacker and child of the Fates, is framed for an attempt to mess with the nature of destiny itself, and must try and stay alive, avoid pursuit and work out a way to defeat the real power behind this attack. He’s assisted by Melchior, his familiar and laptop, who is actually pretty nifty, and Cerice, his forty-seventh cousin, who is stunningly beautiful and madly convenient in terms of forwarding the plot, saving Ravirn, patching him up and providing an excuse for rather purple sex scenes (bursts of lilac, summer lightning and white waterfalls, which made me feel rather like I was looking at a budget fireworks assortment).

( I do like the set-up for this. )

The Diamond Girls, Jacqueline Wilson. Four girls (all with different fathers) and their imminently about-to-deliver mother move from their fairly shoddy estate to what turns out to be an equally appalling council house in the middle of nowhere. I always enjoy the construction of Wilson’s books, and I think it takes an amazing amount of panache to write something involving characters at whom the Daily Telegraph would point fingers and put them through things like teenage pregnancy, gang encounters and domestic violence, and yet have the overall mood be positive. This one didn’t really grab me, tho’, and it’s more a case of admiring from a distance.

Unpublished novel for critique – not an indepth one, but an “advise re marketing pre-rewrite” one, difficult in that it can go at least two ways and one of them is a genre (erotica) I don’t really have much idea about at all as a commercial market. Have also notified author that one of the two main characters is missing an arc.