The Gray Wolf Throne, by Cinda Williams Chima

2011, Hyperion

I am still enjoying this series very much.  Chima has managed to continue the characters in the Seven Realms series and added to the depth of most of them.  The plot developments continue to engage the reader.

In The Gray Wolf Throne, the action picks up as Raisa ana'Marianna is hiding in Fetters Ford trying to stay hidden from her various enemies and survive long enough to return home.  She hope to return to the capital city, Fellsmarch, and reunite with her mother, the queen.  Raisa has reached the understanding that she and her mother together may have the combined skills necessary for a successful reign.

The rest of the book is an exciting quest as Raisa, Han, and Amon work together and separately trying to return to Fellsmarch and return Raisa to the line of accession to the Gray Wolf Throne.  As always there is a wonderful combination of wizardry, woodsman-ship, military, and street-smarts.  Every moment of reading is a pleasure and in many parts thrilling enough to get the reader's blood racing.

I am adding "gaming" as a tag for this book.  I believe that students (and adults) who enjoy the role playing games will enjoy this book.  It is one that I would recommend to any reader who enjoys quest based games.

I'm just beginning my semester so life is about to get busy.  I am number eight on the wait list for the next, and final book in the series, The Crimson Crown.  I will need to work hard the next few weeks so that when my name comes up I can put work aside to read.

Gideon's Corpse, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

I have been a fan of Preston and Child's Pendergast series.  I think as their popularity as writers grows, the quality of their writing is diminishing.  Even in their most recent Pendergast book, I felt they had shortchanged their readers.  I am guessing that publisher pressures to turn out books quickly are forcing them to release books that are incomplete and not polished as much is they had been before they became best selling writers. I have had a similar experience with reading Dean Koontz's Frankenstein series. I felt the last couple books have ended prematurely.  They feel almost more like chapters that should be part of a longer book.

The plot of this book focuses on terrorism and dirty nuclear weapons.  I think the plot had great potential but the characters, plot and settings were not as well developed as in the earlier books by this writing team. Much of this book is set in New Mexico, a state with which I am very familiar.  I couldn't help but compare the visualizations of New Mexico in earlier books by this writing duo.  I felt that they shortchanged the descriptions of setting and culture of New Mexico.  Particularly, Los Alamos, one of America's nuclear research facilities, deserved a little more detailed description.

For some reason I am less enamored of Gideon as a main character than I am of Pendergast. I can't really explain it, they're both larger than life and surrounded by mystery. Perhaps because Pendergast's history is more complex and revealed more slowly he becomes a more engaging protagonist than  Gideon.  It may also be that Gideon is very much a loner.  Although this could be said of Pendergast as well, he also has a collection of friends and supporters that add texture and depth to Pendergast as a character.