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Tom Hanna's Profile
Customer Reviews: 2
New Reviewer Rank: 432,473
Classic Reviewer Rank: 311,560
Helpful Votes:
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Reviews Written by
Tom Hanna "tomhanna" (Joplin, MO)
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17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
Have Athame Will Travel, August 5, 2008
I'd take the easy way out and say that Storm Born is Zen Moses meets the Chronicles of Narnia, but I won't for three reasons. First, the whole "x meets y" thing has become clichéd. Second, some of you are probably unfortunate enough not to know about Zen Moses. Third, it wouldn't be nice to steal the heroine's own reference to the Chronicles of Narnia.
Eugenie Markham, Odile, the Dark Swan. With so many identities, you'd think the protagonist of Richelle Mead's latest novel was confused enough, but things only get worse as she finds family members, dead and alive, that she never knew she had, learns her true identity and, maybe, her destiny.
Odile is a shaman. Not a peyote smoking (well, maybe once or twice) buckskin clad Native, but a real warrior with the power to bind and banish spirits and other denizens of the Otherworld including the gentry, the shining ones, fairies. And she's damn good at it, with a lot of fairy blood on her hands. She's a magical gun for hire, defending this world against invaders from elsewhere...for a price. "Have athame, will travel."
Things get dicy when the djinn possessing a running shoe knows her real name and others follow. Then, her latest gig, rescuing the 15-year old sister of a conspiracy theory blogger who's been kidnapped by a fairy king leads her to the answer of just how they know her real identity. It also leads her to a new question: "Does she know who she really is?"
Eugenie is a real hero, defending this world against the denizens of the Otherworld, but no stranger to spilling blood. In the course of the story she confronts her prejudice against the gentry, her aversion to fairy magic, even her attitude towards two men. Her attitudes evolve and she gains power. She sacrifices greatly for love and honor. The Dark Swan becomes a bit darker in the process.
This book is an engaging read with interesting takes on the fey, the afterlife and magic. There are amusing characters as well as serious ones, but overall the tone is more serious than Mead's Georgina Kincaid series. There may be a moral sentiment or two tucked in there, too, but it doesn't suffer for action. It's a real page turner you won't want to put down.
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Cyrus the Great
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by Harold Lamb
Edition: Paperback |
| Availability: Out of Print--Limited Availability |
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Classic book on timeless subject, July 16, 2005
Cyrus the Great is Harold Lamb's narrative of the life of the King of Persia who conquered the Medes, Lydians and Babylonians and marched into those mysterious lands to the east forging the largest empire of the time. Some of the book is, of course, informed speculation about everything from Cyrus's childhood to his motivations as an adult. The book was originally written in 1960 and I have a 1976 printing from Pinnacle Books. Lamb wrote an entire series of history and historical fiction books, writing mostly between World War I and II, on historical figures from Genghis Khan to Alexander the Great. At the time I bought this one, I missed the opportunity to buy about a dozen others of his works at a used bookstore and have been kicking myself ever since. I check the shelves every time I'm there and keep an eye out on Amazon but these books are really hard to come by especially in good condition with paperbacks this old.
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(Joplin, MO)
