Customer Reviews

Steel Rose

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My favorite way to pick out a book to buy at the bookstore is to peruse the SF/Fantasy writers, and pick out a random book written by a female writer. _Steel Rose_ was one of those picks, and I must say I was more than pleasantly surprised.

TJ is not a traditional weak-kneed heroine, or a bodybuilding monolith Amazon (heh heh), just an average, everyday performing artist (who happens to have inherited latent magical powers) struggling to get her break. As a sometime- actress msyelf, I was able to sympathize with TJ's problems more than a little. As a character, I felt she was extremely well-rounded and thought out-- she had this reserve of almost invisible strength within her.

I must admit I was a bit put off by Dalkey's writing style at first, but I soon warmed up to the idea--it was so refreshing to read a fantasy novel that is written like ordinary conversation--not written in "high language". I also loved the miniature tour of Pittsburgh.

All in all, I am very happy that fate led me to _Steel Rose_ -- and I am looking forward to reading Dalkey's other works as well.

This is a contemporary fantasy at its best. With STEEL ROSE, Kara Dalkey has provided one of the most entertaining novels I've read this summer. This is a superbly crafted story that entertwines aspects of fantasy with popular folklore.

When young perfromance artist T.J. Kaminski enlists the help of two "tommyknockers" to make her perfomrnaces reach people more deeply, she becomes the target of a group of elves who don't appreciate her "magical assistance."

Don't overlook this book done in first person perspective. It hooks you on the first page and never lets you go.

Casey Thomaston

From what I understand, Kara Dalkey is a friend of Emma Bull's...and so I understand, having read War for the Oaks, where Dalkey got many of her ideas for this novel...namely her friend's earlier novel. (Which by the way is being reprinted in Summer 2001).

The setting is Pittsburgh rather than Minneapolis...the heroine is a Performance Artist, not the singer in a band, and she deals primarily with Unseelie rather than the Sidhe Court. But many of the concepts and 'vocabulary' are the same, or subtly different.

Thus it loses a star for basic originality, but it is well done for what it sets out to do. I do recommend those who are interested in reading both read the Bull book and then this...it makes more sense to see the evolution of the concept that way.

This book starts in a light hearted ritual to summon a spirit. Constructed on a whim from our heroine of the book, she is much surprised when it actually works and she ends up with two new friends who lead her into all sorts of situations and new friends.

This beat-of-the-city fantacy is intense, involving an array of beings from the spectrum of spiritual creatures. The powers of light and dark are head to head in a battle which could destroy, or forever change the city. And this quirky performance artist holds the key to ending it.

This book has a highly origional senario and plot, it is written very well, and aside from the magic and immortals involved, it is very REALISTIC! Also, in this book, there are no 'good guys' and no 'bad guys' there are just 2 different kinds of immortals that are at war with eachother at the cost of human existance (no, I'm not giving anything away, this is a variation of the blyrb). I couldn't put this book down, it was a real treat.

I dreaded the contemporary fantasy setting, the supposed now-days teenage antics were so unrealistic, and too wild to believe it happened at all. This is the fiction of fiction, the characters were unbelieveabley fake.

Kara Dalkey is one of my favorite fantasy authors, but this book just totally turned me off, this is the worst book she's ever written. Hard core fantasy lovers, this is not your book.