Top 5 Sundays #34 - Favorite Sci-Fi (Space Opera) Books!

So, admittedly, science fiction is not my typical cup of tea. Usually, when I read sci-fi, it tends to be an accident. How do you accidentally read a sci-fi book? Well, let's see. Sometimes I'll pick it up because I've read something else by the author and want to see how her tone differs between genres. Sometimes I'll pick it up thinking it's fantasy and realize midway through that, nope, it was misshelved (...is that a word? If not, it should be.) Sometimes I have no other options readily available. Sometimes there's a movie or book tie-in motivating me. And sometimes the plot and writing are just too good to pass up on. Plus, you know, who can resist aliens from outer space?

Oh, and just to be clear, I consider Sci-Fi to refer to books where a major element of the setting - if not the plot itself - is advanced science, be it in the form of technology, interplanetary associations, or time-jumps into the far future.

So, without further ado, I give you Calliope's Domain's Top 5 Favorite Sci-Fi (Space Opera) Books!

#5 - Doubleblind (Sirantha Jax #3) by Ann Aguirre

This is a book about a girl whose genes allow her to mentally jump ships through hyperspace. She is serving as an ambassador, of sorts, on a diplomatic mission to a planet of giant bugs while dealing with the fact that her PTSD suffering, telepathic boyfriend's recent experiences have cut him off from his emotions and made him dangerous and unpredictable. But, hey, you know, no pressure or anything.

#4 -  Dragonflight (Dragonriders of Pern #1) by Anne McCaffrey

I first read this book when I was still in elementary school and the dichotemy of main character Lessa fascinated me. She was such an interesting blend of brave heroine and scared little girl. Case and point; when she and her dragon go back a couple hundred years in time, she's most concerned with the fact her mate is going to be upset and shake her something fierce when she returns. And, oh yes, did I mention she totally redefines the role of her gold dragon and saves the day in a way no one could have ever predicted? 

#3 - Touched by an Alien (Kitty Katt #1) by Gini Koch

Honestly, the whole series is awesome beyond words but the first book? That's where the love affair began. I mean, imagine you're a covert agency with aliens and humans working in tandem to rid the world of dangerous mutant-causing parasites and you've been working at it for decades. Then one day this girl walks in and a few days later has not only killed several of the parasites, something you've found all but impossible to do yourselves, but done so using hair spray, boiling water, bass pounding music, and salt water. See? Told you. Awesome.

#2 - Playing with Fire (Tales of an [Extra]ordinary Girl #1) by Gena Showalter

Superheroes work for the government to bring in villains with dangerous powers of their own. How did they get these powers? Well, while most of them volunteered for the government-funded experiments, heroine and narrator Belle Jamison received her ability to control the elements through a syrum dropped into her coffee by a fugitive mad scientist. Add in heaping dollops of humour and romance and presto! You've got perfection!

#1 - Tinker (Elfhome #1) by Wen Spencer

A satellite launched into space twenty years ago had the unforeseen consequence of sending the whole of a futuristic Pittsburgh to another dimension for all but three days of each month, another dimension populated by elves and adjacent to a third dimension filled with demonic oni. The heroine is a plucky little genius who finds herself entangled with the elves and in short order with the oni. It's the price you pay when you're the only genius around capable of building transdimensional gates. Such hardships!

Top 5 Sundays #19 - Authors Who Write More Than One Great Book Series!

This week's poll at Larissa's Bookish Life ended in a tie between "Authors Who Write More Than One Great Book Series!" and "Books I Had to Buy But Are Gathering Dust on My Shelf" so thanks to the time honoured tradition of eeny, meeny, miney, moe this week's Top 5 on Calliope's Domain will be looking at authors who write (or wrote) more than one great book series. We're at a point where stand alone books are something of an endangered species, especially in the urban fantasy genre. Heck, even in the paranormal romance genre couples may change but the series chugs along. The challenge with this list was finding five authors with multiple series that appeal to me. It's not that great authors are one hit wonders in the series department, far from it, but more often than not they try to make their second series something so distinct and different from the first that it's not always a guarantee that both will suit the tastes of a singular reader.

So, without further ado, I present Calliope's Domain's Top 5 Authors Who Write More Than One Great Book Series!

#5 - Kelly Meding

 Dreg City begins with a monster hunter resurrected in the borrowed body of a suicide victim and trying to navigate the change, unexpected love and, of course, solve the mystery of her own murder. Metawars has recently a team superheroes try to come to grips with their newly returned powers, a less than welcoming public, and each other now that they're all grown up. Both series have a true edge of realism to their stories and detailed casts of believable and distinct characters. Meding successfully manages to hit the nail on the head - twice.

#4 - Seanan McGuire

On the one hand, you have Toby Daye, a Fae halflie whose happily ever got scrapped when a rival turned into a fish for over a decade, and on the other you have Verity Price, daughter in a long line of cryptozoologists trying to make a name (even if its not her own) for herself as a professional dancer in NYC. You may as well be comparing Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Grimm; sure you can find the common threads but when you get down to it these two series couldn't be more different!

#3 - Michelle Rowen

Michelle Rowen has one of those quirky, comedic personalities that infuses each and every book she writes in its own distinct and unique way. Sarah Dearly, of her Immortality Bites series, gets turned into a vamp on a blind date and wakes up to vampire hunters; cue running for her life which, naturally, leads her to interrupt the suicide attempt of a six hundred year old Master vampire. Psychic and police consultant Eden Riley finds herself possessed by cursed Incubus Darrak at a crime scene and dang if she didn't find him just the littlest bit irresistible. Jillian Conrad was just your run of the mill office worker until a coffee run led to her being injected with a serum that made her blood poisonous to vampires. Enter Declan; a tall, dark and handsome vampire hunter and dhampir working for an agency with more secrets than even anyone working there knows.

#2 - Gena Showalter

Here's a riddle for you: what do immortal warrior cursed with the demons of sin freed from Pandora's Box have in common with a girl who, thanks to a super secret formula unwittingly gulped down with her coffee, acquires control of the elements? Well, both have their stories told (and told unbelievably well) by the pen of Gena Showalter, and frankly, that's pretty much the only commonality these two series can claim.

#1 - Anne Bishop

In one corner, you have a series chronicling the life of dreams incarnate through the eyes of those around her. In the other corner, you have a fairy tale telling of the collapse of the Fae world as the witches who connect their world to ours fall to the persecutions. Both are told with vivid detail and infused with oceans of emotion, both share a common undertone to the writing, but the stories themselves could not be more different.

And there you have it! Until next week, my pretties, I bid you adieu. Ciao!

Top 5 Sundays #7 - Finished Series I Wish Would Come Back

Aha, another week, another Top 5. This week's topic is the top 5 finished series I wish would resurrect; not as easy to answer as you might think. Take, for example, one of my favourite series, Gail Carriger's The Parasol Protectorate. It recently ended with the publication of the fifth book, Timeless, earlier this year, and while I was sad to see the curtain close on Alexa, Maccon and the rest of the cast, I have to admit things came to a satisfying finish. Recently, Nicole Peeler posted on The League of Reluctant Adults blog an explanation for the impending conclusion of her Jane True series. In her words,

I wanted to end in control of the character and the book, and in a way that satisfied me and, hopefully, my readers. As a reader myself, I remember with love the series that left me wanting more--the ones that ended when I was still involved, still engaged. So that's how I wanted Jane's story to be. I wanted to end before I lost the flow of the original idea, or got bored with my own character, or bored my readers.

And I have to admit that I agree with her.When it comes to a series, sooner or later, no matter how much you love the characters, the plots, the writing, there comes a time when you just want to know how it all ends.

And sometimes, things end too soon and you're left staring at the last page wondering if a printing error has cut a chapter or two off the end. "Seriously?!" you think - or possibly shout out loud, "this is how it ends?! But...what happened next?! And what happened to this or that secondary character?!"

This week's list  highlights some of those moments and at the same time goes out as a sort of wish list. Maybe...just maybe...

#5 - Lilith Saintcrow's Dante Valentine series

Since this series ended with its fifth book's publication in 2008, its had at least three short stories release focusing on secondary characters. One in particular - "Coming Home" in 2008's The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance - took up the story of Dante's ward, Liana, and made it abundantly clear how awesome she'd be if given a chance to shine in her own series.

#4 - S.J. Day's Marked series

This was an amazing series that put a fantastic new spin on angels, demons, and, most important, Cain and Abel. It had mystery, romance, tragedy, adventure and even a journey of self-discovery. It was beyond epic. And then it was over. Fortunately, the third book's cliffhanger was resolved in a short story published recently in The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2, but tossed in a brand new one in its place.

#3 - Gena Showalter's Tales of an Extraordinary Girl series

This was a humourous, romantic, super-powered romp that could well use a third installment. After all, Belle and her main man, Rome, fell in love in Playing with Fire and wed in Twice as Hot in a classic take on first comes love, then comes marriage...isn't the baby carriage due to make its appearance now?

#2 - Michelle Rowen's Living in Eden series

So, okay, Eden and Darrak got themselves a happily ever after. Ditto Ben and Lena. But what about Lucas? Poor guy is still the Bruce Banner of fallen angels, still stuck with the worst job known to man or angel...and once you got over the Satan thing, he really was something of a sweet guy. Doesn't he deserve a shot at happily ever after too?


#1 - Rachel Vincent's Shifters series

The last book in this series ends with a marriage proposal on a battlefield and the sense that Faythe was too stubborn and determined not to win her way with the Council thereafter. Since then, I've been eagerly awaiting an announcement for a new series featuring Kaci, Faythe's ward, as the new main character. She was thirteen years old when she first popped up in Pride so popping back in ten years later...well, it's working great for Keri Arthur's Dark Angel series and I think Rachel Vincent would do just as well!

And there you have it - my Top 5. Tune in next week for more. Ciao!

Top 5 Sundays #4 - Books/Series I'd Rather Didn't Become a Movie/TV Show!

So, these week's Top 5 topic is books and/pr series I'd rather didn't become either a movie or a TV show. Unlike past weeks, what made these choices hard to narrow down was critically thinking about the books in terms of their potential transition onto either the big or small screens. What is it about a book that makes it suited or not for cinematic production? Is it the plot? The characters? The genre? The setting? What I came up with was that it was actually a combination of all that and more. Sometimes, no matter how much you may want to see one of your favourite books brought to life, sometimes they simply won't transition.

So, without further adieu, here are this week's Top 5 picks.

#1 - Mercedes Lackey's Five Hundred Kingdoms series

Alright, so there may be similarities to be had between these books and ABC's Once Upon a Time, but ultimately the build up to the main adventure can take awhile - in the first book, it was 210 pages before the hero was introduced - and, unlike Lord of the Rings, there's just not enough diversity in the build up to hold interest on the big screen. What's more, each book tends to contribute its own vast cast of characters while still striving to incorporate past characters. These are still some great books with a truly unique and engaging approach to fairy tales - it's just better suited to the page than the screen.

#2 - Lilith Saintcrow's Dante Valentine series

Now, I love this series - it was amazing with demons, vampires, fallen angels, necromancers, shamans and a half dozen or more other bits and pieces that all blended together to create one hell of a world. But the way this story flows - the darkness that permeates it in several forms and the ending that leaves more wreckage than happily ever after - just don't lend themselves to the sort of entertainment Hollywood and even HBO are looking for.

#3 - Gena Showalter's Lords of the Underworld series

 The thing about this series - which has a great balance of sarcasm, hilarity, romance, and adventure going for it - is that I just can't see a TV series having the patience to gradually work in each pairing or a movie franchise holding stamina that long. And unlike similar series - like Kresley Cole's Immortals After Dark series, for instance, which could possibly pull off an Avengers-like build up - with the setting for each book being based at the same location it would be tricky to separate the stories. It's fantastic as books - just not feasible on film, at least not without some severe remodeling.

#4 - Karen Chance's Cassandra Palmer series

 Okay, this one is simple: I had enough trouble keeping track of all the time jumping - especially in regards to a certain parking lot - when it was printed on the page. I do NOT want to have my mind bent, twist, rinsed and repeated on either the big or small screens, thank you very much.

#5 - Sunny's Mona Lisa series

These are the sort of books that despite appearing short have a TON of stuff happening. And just when you think it's over BAM! something flies at you from who-only-knows-where and you sit there blinking as the whole story seems to go in a completely new and unexpected direction. Each book is like a roller coaster that jumps the track to whole new line midway through and then circles back at the last minute. Not something I can see translating to the world of movies and television.

And there you have it - my Top 5. Of course, between Peter Jackson, HBO and the CW, I expect I'll be proven wrong about at least one of these some time within the next century. I mean, did anyone honestly see Game of Thrones as a TV series? Mind you, I think this is one subject where being proven wrong is half the fun.

On a random side note - has anyone seen a movie about dragons that's actually had a good CGI dragon? I was looking at books like Joanne Bertin's Dragonlords series, G.A. Aiken's Dragon Kin series, Thea Harrison's Elder Races series and Allyson James' Dragon and Stormwalker series and I realized that their translation to the screen really depends on the quality of the dragon. Which led me to realize I couldn't think of a single good CGI dragon. Huh.

Until next week!

REVIEW: Twice as Hot by Gena Showalter

So last Friday I picked up Gena Showalter's Twice as Hot, the long-awaited second book in the Tales of an (extra)ordinary girl that tells the story of Belle Jamison, a young twenty-something who, after a host of other small-time jobs like maid and coffee house girl, ends up a government agent when a mad scientist spikes her latte and she ends up being able to control the four elements with her emotions. While the first book followed her adapting to her abilities, defeating a bad guy and falling in love with Special Agent Rome Masters. In the second book...well, here's the blurb:

Set the world on fire? With Belle Jamison, it’s always a possibility. Literally.

Planning a wedding is tough. Especially when the bride can shoot fireballs from her eyes and accidentally torches her dress, the groom returns from a dangerous mission with selective memory loss and the man responsible now desires Belle for his own.

Any other time, Belle would turn to her ultra sexy fiancé Rome Masters for comfort. But the only thing he can’t remember is her – and now his ex is determined to win him back. With the help of her trusty empath sidekick, an optimistic Belle continues to plan her wedding, fight a new band of supervillans, and tries not to accidentally on purpose start too many fires. . . except when she gets Rome into bed. . .

Covers of first book: on left, the reissue which came out in Nov. '09

You've got to admit - while it sucks having your fiancé get hurt in and of itself, and having him wake up with no memory of you is pretty bad too, having the love of your life who doesn't remember you tell you he's not marrying you because he plans on remarrying his ex has got to be freaking unbearable. And as one by one (and, ok, once by twos) her friends leave her, Belle is left alone to deal with the mess her life as become. The growth and maturing Belle undergoes is bloody impressive as events conspire to show her that (1) she can handle anything the world cares to throw at her and (2) sometimes you ARE strong enough to handle things on your own. And considering that her fiancé is behaving like a total ass, the lessons could not have come at a better time.

The book is laced through with hilarity, new characters and a boat-load emotion. The only thing I wasn't thrilled about was Rome's treatment of Belle. Yes, he's got memory loss - but some of the things he does/says to her are just plain cruel (i.e. asking her if because of her powers there is some addictive agent to her saliva - because, you know, god forbid he likes kissing her because of her - there has to be some other reason). The scenes with Sunny, Rome's daughter with his treacherous, back-stabbing bitch of an ex-wife (who, FYI, was actually almost-likeable before she pulled this) are adorable - and to see how different Belle and Sunny's relationship is compared to the first book is heart-warming.

Ultimately, by the time that last page has been read, I was wishing for the third book (which I don't believe is planned for at the moment - Ms. Showalter mentioned on her blog that it depended on the success of this book).

Check out Gena online at her site here and be on the look out for titles in her two other big series, Lords of the Underworld and Alien Huntress.