Well, today was a stunning day at Unicorn Tree and Lincoln Central Market, I was able to assign jobs to the minions ( Sorting out DVD’s and CD’s and making sure they were all in the right places! heaps of fun! and it kept them out the way for most of the day so they did not notice me not busily working beside them!) and then take time to read a book for a change, and it was a darn good book too, in fact so good that I pretty much finished it in the one day and bus ride home!
Tanya Huff – Smoke and Shadows. (US Import – Daw Books – £6.99)
An excellent book set in Canada, pretty much takes place in a cheap budget film studio – and no not a porn studio! After all Vancouver is the place where most Science Fiction is filmed these days!
It takes place on the set of a Vampire Detective series which is a subtle nod to irony by Ms Huff as that’s what the backbone of this stories series and characters is based on.
Anyway the gist of the story is that Tony, the main Character, works on this film set and has an ex-boyfriend who is a vampire and so is more aware of the unusual, so when Shadows start acting a little strangely he immediately picks up on it and starts investigating, at which point we find that a female wizard earth hoped a number of years ago and the evil Shadowlord she was escaping from has now found her gateway and is coming through to take over. Where is this portal – why the film studio of course, and what does the female wizard do as a job? yep, special effects! and see you thought it was all smoke and mirrors! but ahh there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio!
So ok I admit that my review sounds a little sarcastic but actually its quite a good yarn, enough action to keep it entertaining and enough cliches to make it fun as well. Lots of lines about bad writing and over dramatising that to me says Ms Huff has a real sense of humour and is more than willing to point the finger back at herself.
Go on give it a go, its got a gay hero, a bisexual vampire and a female wizard with cats, let alone a bad guy with the title of ShadowLord. Read it, it is actually good.
It takes place on the set of a Vampire Detective series which is a subtle nod to irony by Ms Huff as that’s what the backbone of this stories series and characters is based on.
Anyway the gist of the story is that Tony, the main Character, works on this film set and has an ex-boyfriend who is a vampire and so is more aware of the unusual, so when Shadows start acting a little strangely he immediately picks up on it and starts investigating, at which point we find that a female wizard earth hoped a number of years ago and the evil Shadowlord she was escaping from has now found her gateway and is coming through to take over. Where is this portal – why the film studio of course, and what does the female wizard do as a job? yep, special effects! and see you thought it was all smoke and mirrors! but ahh there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio!
So ok I admit that my review sounds a little sarcastic but actually its quite a good yarn, enough action to keep it entertaining and enough cliches to make it fun as well. Lots of lines about bad writing and over dramatising that to me says Ms Huff has a real sense of humour and is more than willing to point the finger back at herself.
Go on give it a go, its got a gay hero, a bisexual vampire and a female wizard with cats, let alone a bad guy with the title of ShadowLord. Read it, it is actually good.
