Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
For the die hard Huff fan...., July 31, 2005
"Smoke and Mirrors" is the second in Tanya Huff's new series about Tony, a former street-kid, rescued by vampire Henry Fitzroy. Tony has moved out of Fitzroy's home and is now working as a production assistant on TV show "Darkest Night", which ironically is a fictional show about a vampire detective.
In the first episode, Tony and Henry defeat a Shadowlord planning to possess the cast and crew of "Darkest Night". Tony discovers he has wizard powers and must somehow manage to control them. In my opinion, the backstory from "Shadows" was a critical part left out in "Mirrors." Just a few paragraphs would have made "Mirrors" a more stand-alone book.
In "Mirrors" the cast and crew is filming a haunted house story---in a haunted house. Of course, they don't know that when the Boss probably got a cut-rate price on rental of the site....When one of the crew gets cut, the malevolence in the house comes alive. All doors shut at dusk and the deaths of the malevolence's victims is played over and over....The pattern is---murder, then suicide, and each one of the multiple deaths is a separate story in itself.
They'll be freed---if they can survive the night. Meanwhile, cast members are slowly going crazy and suspicious of one another. Tony, the low person on the totem pole, is a very suspicious character in most's book because he's the only one who can both see and communicate with the ghosts. His powers are untrained and most don't even believe in them---making him a likely target to be 'kicked off the island' by suspicious higher ranking cast members.
Add to that all the histrionics of show biz folks, stir in the Boss' two pre-teen daughters, Tony's unrequited lust for the show's co-star, and oh yeah, a warning not to go in the basement.
"Mirrors" is defintely a good, fast-paced read, but not the book it could have been. The backstory from the first book is necessary for new readers and even those of us who bought "Shadows" in hardcover a year or so ago. Still, I'll go out on a limb and say I'll still buy the next book in the series.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny & Frightening Paranormal Adventure, April 2, 2007
Smoke and Mirrors, by Tanya Huff, is the second book in her new Tony Foster series, highlighting the mystical adventures of a production assistant (and junior wizard) who occasionally pals around with vampire Henry Fitzroy in his off time. The first book was quite good; the second book is fantastic. A traditional "haunted house" story, it simply explodes beyond the confines of the genre, primarily through the strength of Huff's writing and characterization. Fans of shows like Forever Knight or Buffy: the Vampire Slayer or even Blood Ties--based on the Vickie Nelson/Henry Fitzroy series by Huff--may find great pleasure in the affectionate skewering of the type in this book. Smoke and Mirrors has a wry sense of humor. It's laugh-out-loud funny in some places and genuinely horrific in others, manipulating reader's emotions deftly as Tony and his hapless companions set out to save the day.
Some readers, I know, have been disturbed by the fact that Huff's hero is gay--unabashedly so--and some reviewers have mentioned discomfort with Tony's active, on-page love life. I personally found nothing distasteful about Tony's interactions with other men, which are no more explicit than I've encountered in many other books of this type and *considerably less so* than some (Laurell K. Hamilton, anyone?). If the idea of men kissing is a buzz-killer for you, you probably ought to look for another series. For me, the protagonist's keen interest in his love life just contributes to his three-dimensional nature. I find him charming.
Smoke and Mirrors dazzled me from very nearly the first page, and I read the whole with tremendous pleasure. It goes on my "enthusiastically recommend" list, and I will be looking forward tremendously to my opportunity to read Installment 3.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What To Do When Your Ghosts Refuse to Stop Dying, August 9, 2007
Smoke and Mirrors is the middle novel in the Smoke trilogy which tells the continuing story of two characters from Tanya Huff's Blood... series. Henry Fitzroy is a vampire, retired nobility and romance writer who, with lover/friend Tony Foster, has moved to Vancouver. Tony is the real star of these stories - grown up from a trouble making street kid into an adult determined to make his way in the city's vibrant filmmaking business. Tony has landed a job as junior assistant gofor in the production company of a vampire detective TV series. A production company with a knack for falling into supernatural traps.
Tony discovered that he has the makings of being a wizard in the previous volume. Despite this potential, Tony really just wants to be your basic production assistant with a cute boyfriend. Unfortunately, life (or rather, unlife) has different plans for him. Sure enough, when the company rents a spooky old house to film in for a week you can bet that it's not just the atmosphere that is spooky. A whole host of ghosts lurk in the corners re-enacting their violent endings. It seems that the house has a particularly unpleasant history. Lurking in the basement is something that wants everyone to die screaming and fuels its effort to ruin the neighborhood.
Tony, as a neophyte wizard is the only one who is aware of all that is going on. In short order he is trying to keep everyone alive (fails), keep the cameras running (fails), and get the ghost problem under control (fails). Henry flies to the rescue, but this is a locked house crisis, and the simple fact is that Tony must work through his personal issues and solve the mystery of the strange force in the basement all on his own - or with the aid of a few helpful ghosts and some very paranoid movie people.
Tanya Huff is too well established a writer for it to be necessary for me to laud her skills. Smoke and Mirrors, like all the volumes before, continues to present an approach to the vampire/supernatural thriller that combines an intelligent story and good characters into a whole that will always please a reader interested in more than blood oriented bodice rippers. I'm looking forward to reading the next volume, and believe that you will quickly become a fan if you aren't already.
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