Customer Reviews

Staying Dead (Retrievers, Book 1)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

In a world in which most people believe that magic doesn't exist, there remains a sub-culture of Talent thriving. These folks use their powers in a way that keeps them hidden from the unbelievers. Wren Valere is a Retriever, a talent who locates things that have been missing for people who do not want the police involved. She returns the missing object to its owner for a fee negotiated by her partner and agent Sergei Didier. Both Sergei and Wren are loners who make a very good team professionally and personally even though neither wants to admit their feelings for one another.

A cornerstone with a spell of protection has been stolen from the Fronts building and the owner wants to get it back. Wren and Sergei intend to retrieve it from the collector who hired a rogue mage to steal the spell. Before they can accomplish the deed, they also must deal with a ghost that was freed when the spell was stolen. If Sergei and Wren want to collect their fee, they have to stop the runaway spirit, who is intent on revenge

Fans of Laurell K. Hamilton, Tanya Huff and Mercedes Lackey are going to love STAYING DEAD, a romantic fantasy that stirs the senses and creates a story that is both fulfilling and magical (no pun intended). Laura Anne Gilman makes the reader believe that magic exists and creatures of myth and legend inhabit the earth. It will be very hard to wait for the next Retriever's novel coming in the summer of 2005 because Laura Anne Gilman has cast quite a spell on readers.

Harriet Klausner

I bought this book after seeing the author speak at Worldcon in Boston. She and her partner in self promotion, Keith DeCandido, had a pretty amusing schtick going, so I figured I'd buy both their books.

Gilman has written a great book here. I actually didn't like the opening few pages and darn near put it down -- but I was reading it on a plane, so I soldiered on. I'm glad I did. Within a few more pages I was hooked, and it really gathered steam as it went. Wonderfully developed lead characters, with well done romantic subplot (a feature that rarely interests me in a book). I think what I like best about it is that it offers a fully formed vision of an alternate New York where magic works and demons wander the streets, complete with prejudice, fanaticism, greed, foolishness and all those other human traits. Promises to be the start of a series, so more good stuff to come.

The main beef other reviewers had with his book is that it didn't focus enough on the romantic relationship between the main characters. In my opinion the minimalist approach on the romance subplot was the best thing going for this book.

I REALLY dislike science fiction/fantasy books that have 90% of the book talking about the romantic relationship and 10% about the actual plot. If I wanted romance I'd read Harlequin, and since this book is in the SciFi/Fantasy section, I expect to get something along the lines of Sci/Fi Fantasy.

My real problem with this book, is the writing style. The author tends to start at the end of a scene and work backwards. Once or twice I didn't mind, but for EVERY SINGLE SCENE?! That's a little much. BAsically, in one chapter Wren would be trying to figure out what's going on and then in the next scene she's taking a course of action and while she's on this course she's leaving snippets of information on how she came to this conclusion. I'm not explaining it very well, but it made the story choppy and slow. I just found it made the story go 1 step forward and then 2 steps back.

The storyline was interesting, magic security block is stolen and it turns out that there is much more to this stone than Wren originally thought. Which is cool. I wish I could've learned a little more about what made Wren tick. I didn't feel like I truly got to know her in this book. I found Sergei a lot more interesting and I'm curious to see how his past will affect his new, "upstanding" life. But I don't know if I'm curious enough to buy the next book.

The story of the magic user Wren and her partner Sergei is fantastic. As many other reviewers have mentioned it is a little difficult to get into this book, but once you do you cannot put it down.

Wren is a thief and a renegade magic user. She is sent out on a fairly easy job that becomes extremely complicated as it becomes more and more apparent that more is going on behind the scenes. There is excellent world building here and the urban setting works really well. I don't want to say too much more about the plot.

Wren and Sergei are fantastic characters and their interactions with each other and feelings for each other made much of the book. The budding romance between the two of them is very nice to watch, but it doesn't overshadow the rest of the book, merely it colors the characters' actions and motivations. They work very well together and actually trust each other which is nice to read about.

The writing is a little bit choppy, but I imagine this will improve in future books as the author gets her footing. If it were not for this choppiness in the writing style, I would have given this book 5 stars.

Wren Valere is the main character in Laura Anne Gilman's debut novel "Staying Dead." Wren is a retriever - a witch of sorts. Working with her partner Sergei, they locate missing magickal objects. A cornerstone with a protective spell has been stolen from a building in New York City. Wren and Sergei must find the cornerstone and return it to its rightful owner before his protection runs out.

I had real hopes for this novel but was sorely disappointed. Gilman's writing just barely passes muster. The characters are a little flat and the plot is dull. I give massive kudos to the dust jacket writer because they managed to make an otherwise boring story sound riveting and I was sucked in. It looks like Gilman plans to try to make "Staying Dead" be the initial installment of a new series of books. If this is true, Gilman has a lot of work in front of her to make it work. I can't honestly say that I would read another book in this "series" based on my experience with this one.

Not only was the plot of this novel nearly as ancient as the written word itself and poorly exectued, but there were glaring editorial errors throughout.

Examples: Describing Wren's room as having a "mechanical alarm clock" on her bedside table and less than a paragraph later stating that the "red glow from her clock" illuminated the room. Describing a teddy bear as "ear battered." Does this mean the bear had actually been battered by ears or was it simply sloppy editing? Sadly, it was sloppy editing.

The author attempts to constuct a brand new magical world in an urban setting, and does a passable job. However, her characters are flat and stereotypical for the genre -- and as they painfully wind their way through a less-than-original "job gone wrong" plot, there's nothing to hold the reader's interest. Also, the glaring editorial errors and some rather...creative use of vocabulary make it an all together painful read.

The careless editing simply drives home the fact that the individuals involved in brining this book to print weren't really interested in providing a quality read.

Wren is a retriever. For you Nulls out there (humans with no magical ability), that means she uses her Talent for snatch and grab jobs and gets paid a pretty penny to do it. She's a lonejack, turning her back on the Council, and facing the fatea, human, and criminal elements all on her own. Well, practically on her own. She does get help from her agent/money manager/partner Sergi. He may be a Null, but he's got a secret weapon or two up his sleeve. Besides, they've spent so much time together they're starting to adopt each other's habits. And grating his nerves is almost as much fun as stealing Current from a storm.

Their latest job should've been a snap. Figure out the Translocater who stole the client's cornerstone/object of protection from the Frant Building, locate the object, and get it back. But with every step they take, a larger and more dangerous barrier is placed in front of them. While Wren's dodging bullets, Sergi's being threatened by underground organizations and as the danger escalates so does the realization that their relationship might be more than just business.

Gilman has created a world similar to ours and fairly close to the magical realm we choose to ignore, but completely different and fantastic in its own right. Both Wren and Sergi are interesting, deep characters you'll love getting to know and the mystery and suspense is always present. A great world I can't wait to explore again with the next book due out summer 2005.

STAYING DEAD is a gleefully charming book full of characters you'd love to sit down and have a beer with. While the plot and the world-building are all top-notch, what makes this book crackle is the chemistry between Wren Valere and her partner/manager/sexual-tension-bunny Sergei Didier.

This is a very auspicious novel debut for a pair of characters who are already the subject of several fine short stories, and should continue to please in future "Retrievers" novels. Brava!

Wren is a Retriever, someone who specialises in finding missing items, no questions asked. In a world where magic (Talent) is a not so well kept secret.

For the first 107 pages of Staying Dead I was going to give it 2 stars. I just couldn't connect with the story. Maybe it's because Wren seemed isolated which made it difficult for me to warm to her. Exceptions are when she's interacting with other characters - her meetings with PB, and the Wizzart, let us see she's not just a two-dimensional cut-out character.

On page 108 Wren calls on Perry Mason and Lord Peter Wimsey for inspiration and suddenly the story is off and running. It's after this point that Wren and Sergei (her business partner) start to interact more as a team and it's in exploring their relationship that the story really works. When they are together there is a depth and pace that's missing when they are apart.

In the last sixty pages the story really picks up (if only it had been like this all the way through I would have given it 4 stars). The ending is poignant and leaves this story nicely tied up with enough plot threads left dangling to entice the reader to pick up the sequel.

On the plus side - it's a well thought out Universe populated by interesting characters - the fatae (supernatural beings) have a small role here but there is the feeling they will play a bigger part in future books.

On the minus side - I feel the story is let down by poor editing, especially in the first half of the book. Overuse of certain words distracts from the flow of the writing and 100 pages is a long time to wait for a story to get going.

This was actually a really good book. I had my doubts about it at first, and actually put it down several times, but I'm pretty glad I picked it up again
The reason that I didn't give it five stars is for two main reasons.

1. I didn't really like the way Wren used her powers. I'm all for thieves and stuff - I loved Silk from the David Eddings books- but i didn't like the blasé attitude she had for it. It was like she felt it was her right to take things when it was convenient, but she took no real pleasure in doing so. I objected to her having no fun with it.

2: Being all that emotional sludge between her and her partner. Fairly predictable sludge, too: she loved him, but thought he had no interest in her, and was determined not to make a fool of herself by saying something to him and be treated like a child, and he was convinced that if he got into a relationship with her, she'd find out about who he was working for and get killed.
I can understand both characters' positions, and it was believable, but I still found it frusterating.

All in all, I liked it. It ended well, it had an interesting and believable cast of characters (once you get past the demonic polar bear, anyway)
I'd still have read it if i knew about the jumbled relationship, and I'll be willing to read the next one, but i don't think I'll read this one again soon, I was just a little too frazzled.