Keeping It Real, by Justina Robson

I really enjoyed this book! It's a little bit of a crossover between the fantasy and the sci-fi genre, which is cool. The basic premise is that at some point in the future (2015) a massive supercollider explodes warping the fabric of reality and creating gates/connections between 6 worlds (one each for the elves, demons, humans, dead, faery and elementals). The story takes place a while after this has happened, and there has been some integration of some, at least, of these worlds.

The main character is a cyborg woman named Lila Black, who is assigned to body guard a rock-star elf (Zal), who has been receiving death threats.

There's lots of excitement and tons of cool ideas, as well as some nice character work. And it's all packed into a relatively short 340 odd pages.

I love the world that Robson has created and look forward to spending some more time in it in the next 2 books of the Quantum Gravity trilogy.

8.5/10

The Wizard of Karres, by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and David Freer

The Wizard of Karres is a follow up to The Witches of Karres, but written 38 years later and by different authors. Lackey, Flint and Freer do a wonderful job of capturing the spirit that made the first book such an enjoyable read, and have done an even better job putting together a fun, well paced, interesting story.

While it is not entirely necessary to read Witches first, I do believe the knowledge gained of the world and characters makes The Wizard of Karres more enjoyable.

Don't be fooled by the titles, these books are much more light-hearted space operas than they are any witches and wizards and magic sort of books. The "witches" and "wizard" in question merely have some psionic powers unavailable to the rest of humanity in these books.

7.5 out of 10

Master of Whitestorm, by Janny Wurts

I remembered enjoying this book when I was in grade 10, so I thought I'd give it another try. It wasn't as good as I remembered it.

The book is set in a fairly standard fantasy world - a number of different realms, wizards, elementals, mythic beasts - you know the deal. It follows the life of one man, and takes place over pretty much his entire life. As a result, the book is not as cohesive as I would have liked - being more like episodes than a continuous flow of events. Some of the episodes are entertaining, especially the earlier ones, but as the book goes on it does not really hold together, and has little that makes you want to continue reading it.

I'd give this one 6.0/10

Witches of Karres, by James H. Schmitz

Sigh, I'm getting behind in my records again. So this will be short.

The Witches of Karres is a kind of fun sci-fi in the ridiculous mode - not quite as zany as Hitchhiker's Guide, but maybe just a touch of that, but with a more standard storyline. Nothing really outstanding about it, but it's entertaining.

6.9/10