Swarmthief's Dance / Deborah J. Miller

Swarmthief's Dance

category: fantasy, author:

Deborah J. Miller

book 1 of Swarmthief Trilogy
original copyright 2005

read in May 2012

Agamedes' opinion: 7 out of 10, well worth reading

My first thought was to give an opinion for this novel of six out of ten -- read to pass the time. Then I started to think of the new ideas in the novel... and raised my opinion to seven, well worth reading.

The Swarmthief story is not great. Average excitement. Minimum tension. Unbelievable escapes. Nothing bad about all this. Just not the material for a "great" book.

Yet there are several new... and interesting... ideas. Starting with the gods.

The gods of the Swarmthief world play a central part in the story. There's an unfortunate mix of direct action and attempting to exert influence... Miller varies the gods' powers, with no explanation. Yet they are definitely key players.

And what an unpleasant lot of gods they are!

The main god character is a naive, unworldly(!) character. He doesn't get out much. Invites a pretty goddess to a picnic, offers sex and is surprised when she says, No thanks.

So, we think, nasty god of the underworld versus sweet goddess and her protective sisters... Will the humans align with good, or with evil?

Until the goddesses reappear in the story. Turns out that they are just as unworldly, over-reacting and insensitive as the god of the underworld... Help me! says one. Help me because you are my slave! says another. Sheesh! What happened to the idea that good gods care?!

The monsters, though, are good... Boring, but good.

Forget about dragons -- these are dragonflies! Monstrous dragonflies -- big enough to carry four or five people. Made up of millions of ordinary-sized insects. A small carry-case of insects will magically group into one gigantic flying insect. With a tendency to fall apart during flight...

Forget the logic, forget about conservation of mass... These monsters are brilliant!

Brilliant... yet boring. Mostly, they are just there. Standing very still. Or being forced to fly. Still, this is book one of a trilogy; there are already signs that the dragonflies -- the Swarms -- will develop.

So there are two rather original ideas: Controlling gods with variable power, no great smarts and unpleasant levels of self-interest. And gigantic dragon...flies. Great ideas! I hope that Miller is able to improve the next two books, to match the original ideas.

The next two books...

Where will Miller go, with the next two books of the trilogy?

The first book is a standard building up of a team of heroes. Meet someone interesting, they have specialist abilities, they join the team. Book two, the team goes on to battle evil, using the various abilities to solve various problems. Except...

The team was destroyed. All killed, in the final chapter... (Though with clear indications that one -- the Swarmthief of the title -- did, in fact, survive.) So much for my expectation of a standard trilogy! Or is this just another original idea from the author...?!

I'm worried that the author has too little empathy for her own characters. Should the reader also avoid forming close attachments? Will any characters survive to the end of the trilogy?

Read this book just to pass the time. With an extra point -- to become "well worth reading" -- if you enjoy some new and original ideas.

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.

PissWeakly: the Index

I Dare / Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

I Dare

(category: science fiction)
book 4 of Liaden Universe by

Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

published by Meisha Merlin Publishing in 2002
Nick read a library book, in December 2009

Nick's rating: 8 out of 10

Nick's opinion:

What a lot of fun! The good guys are really, really good and the bad guys... well... hardly get a chance to appear before they are wiped out. Or convinced to be good guys. Hmmm... that didn't really strike me while reading -- but yes, the bad guys get just the occasional short chapter and the occasional few paragraphs. Yet there was action a-plenty and lots of likable characters. With a happy ending, too :-) Probably lucky, though, that my first Liaden Universe read is book four; there may have been nasty loose ends in some of the earlier books! I've called this book "SF" but there are also characters with mental powers which make me think, "fantasy". Mind you, it could just as easily be "romance" or "adventure"... An enjoyable book which makes me want to go back to books one, two and three...

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your own documents, email nick leth at gmail dot com.

The Accidental Sorcerer / KE Mills aka Karen Miller

The Accidental Sorcerer

by

KE Mills aka Karen Miller

published by HarperVoyager in 2008
read by Agamedes in June 2009
fantasy
book 1 of Rogue Agent

When I first read this book, the hero-being-tortured section was a shock. Other than that, it’s a pleasant -- light, humorous, exciting -- read. On the second reading, with the torture being expected, it was not so disturbing. Apart from that, it’s a great book: likeable characters, good magic, hero saving the day while discovering that he has super (magical) powers. In this book he’s a bumbling beginner who develops. In future books -- judging from the final chapter of this -- he will be pretending to be a bumbling beginner. A lot of escapist fun. PS: The author is Australian: so follow the Amazon link and buy it :-)

Agamedes' rating: 8 out of 10

21feb22: read it again. It's still an enjoyable book.

I still don't enjoy the torture scenes. Though I found [spoiler ahead] that it was less worrying because I knew that the hero would survive.

I do notice, this time, something annoying: Dialogue *not* in quotes -- which means that it is not, in fact, spoken. I've seen it in another book. Perhaps it's clever writing style. It's certainly annoying.

One thing I do like: the main characters all like each other. And help one another. It makes for very likeable characters.