Scent of Darkness by Christina Dodd is the first book in her erotic fantasy series called Darkness Chosen. A warlord in the Ukraine, 1000 years ago, made a deal with the devil. He and all of his male descendents could change their shapes into those of predators at will, and in return the devil can have all of their souls. Flip to the current day in the USA. A man has escaped from that family - the first in all of those centuries to marry and to sire a daughter (along with three sons). The deal with the devil is breaking down because this man has rejected his birth family and established his own family and filled it with love. The extended family, still based in the Ukraine, decide to reseal the hell pact, by tracking down and killing this new branch of the family tree.
Ann Smith loves her boss, Jasha Wilder, and follows him (uninvited and unannounced) to his coastal retreat in the Pacific Northwest. She is shocked when he changes shape in front of her (he can be human or wolf), and is even more shocked when the two of them have to run for their lives from shape changing assassins. Running through the wilderness with periodic pauses for sex (which seemed pretty ridiculous to me under those circumstances), they eventually recover a holy artifact that once belonged to the family, kill the assassins, have a lot of sex, and eventually make it back to his family.
I really did not like this book very much. I do not mind sex scenes as such, but want them to be a realistic part of the story - and these were not. I also hate stories where a woman has a make over of some sort (loses weight, new clothes, new hair style - whatever) and suddenly has the man who has ignored her all along fall head over heels in love with her. Men like that would be so shallow in real life who would ever want them? And while the whole deal with the devil stuff was sort of interesting, the way the holy object suddenly turns up under their noses with no effort on their parts was just dumb and cheap.
Touch of Darkness by Christina Dodd is the second book in her Darkness Chosen erotic fantasy series. I hated the first book, and would not have read the second except for having gotten them at the same time. (Believe me - they are both going straight into the donation bin!) I was surprised that this one, while still dumb, managed to be a lot better than the first. Not better enough that I will ever bother with the third or fourth (or however many more will come), but it was an improvement of sorts. This one deals with the second son of the family (human and hawk), Rurik Wilder, and his lover, Tasya Hunnicutt. At least in this one, they have already been lovers before the story begins. And they have to work hard to find their holy object. But they still pause to have sex when being chased, and in other inappropriate and downright stupid times. Come on - I know it is erotica - but does it have to be stupid????? And the part with the unexpected princess - spare me such a Mary Sue moment, please!
Sandworms of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson is supposedly based on a couple of safe deposit boxes of notes and outlines left behind by the late (and great) Frank Herbert. This book is supposed to be the culmination of the entire science fiction saga that started with Dune. While it was not as downright irritating as these two author's earlier Houses series of Dune books, it still had its irritating moments. You could tell when they were inserting material for their upcoming Paul of Dune, for example. And how can Alia possess the ghola of her grandfather, the Baron Harkonnen, when he is her ancestor, and not vice versa? And how can one bene tleilax master develop a new sort of sand worm that can live in the ocean and produce a super spice in a secret lab in what seems like a couple of weeks, when people have been trying to develop alternate sources of Spice for thousands of years? So there was a lot that just made no sense, though it was rather nice to see a happy ending for many of the characters. I hope that the younger Herbert will release his father's notes and outlines someday, so Dune fans can separate the wheat from the chafe!
The Sagan Diary by John Scalzi is a little novella that is made up of the thoughts of one of the important characters in his science fiction trilogy made up of Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, and The Last Colony. We get to hear Jane Sagan's thoughts on such broad subjects as love, death, and sex. They are often interesting - and charming. A nice little addition to a truly great science fiction trilogy.
The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman, is a fun and fluffy little science fiction novel about an MIT graduate student named Matt Fuller who discovers an accidental one way time machine, that no one can ever really figure out. He keeps getting into trouble, and keeps running away into the future, at one point gaining a pretty virginal companion from a Christian theocracy named Martha. Fluffy and fun, but we rarely know what is going on because Matt very rarely can ever figure out what is going on. Pleasant little read, but lacking depth - which is what can happen at times when you have an unreliable main character as the focus of your book.
Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves is a great little YA fantasy novel set in a multiplex of Earths. One end of the multiplex is being conquered by hard core scientists, the other by hard core magic users. The worlds in the middle are being protected by an army made up of various versions of one kid - some are male, some female, some are human, some are not. This kid from our world is named Joey Harker. He is best known for always getting lost. Then one day he gets lost in his own house, and realizes that he is walking between worlds...a whole lot of fun, as you would expect from Neil Gaiman!
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