Currently Reading/Listening To pt. 1

I'm in an MA program for Musicology, so during the school year, and much of this summer, will be devoted to reading academic titles that aren't really relevant here, although they have influenced how I think and, thus, probably how I write. I love audiobooks, though. Here are a few of the books that I have read recently or am reading right now that I think everyone should check out:

Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier, by Myke Cole

This is the followup to Shadow Ops: Control Point. I'm super excited about Myke Cole's writing. He writes with a boldness and forthright manner that is refreshing. His take on magic is interesting, and the alternative history setting he creates doesn't go so far as Illona Andrews or Kim Harrison, but is more interesting than most authors trying to create a contemporary setting not radically altered from our reality. That isn't to say I don't thoroughly enjoy Andrews' and Harrison's alternate history, I do. Those author's attempting to integrate magic into something current without having it changing society as a whole, though, often fail to present the conflict in a meaningful way, or to weave said conflict into the internal struggles and emotional journeys of the characters. Myke Cole does this masterfully. 

I'm particularly fond of his alternate reality, The Source. Although this makes me think of Charmed and the Source of All Evil, Cole's Source is a strange and dangerous landscape where magic is an integral part of everything. Cole's books are more action driven than drama driven, and thus his Source is written with more physical conflict than the psychological and, in many ways, darker The Black of Caitlin Kittredge's Black London Series. This certainly is representative of these two very different author's backgrounds, Cole being ex-military thus draws on that experience to enrich his narrative of the US government's attempts to regulate and control magic. 

I listen to these on audiobooks, which perhaps add to the heart-pounding pace, but overall I would recommend Myke Cole's books to anyone looking for Urban or Paranormal Fantasy that veers more towards action rather than romance.

Cold Days, by Jim Butcher

The latest installment of the Dresden Files, Cold Days came out last year and is one of the Harry Dresden books I keep listening too again and again. This book continues to reveal long-term plot-threads Butcher began weaving into the Dresden Files since Storm Front. It is also one of my favorites in the entire series, and, I would say, one of his best. Harry is almost the perfect fallen hero. He's bull-headed, which often overrides his good sense or keeps him from reaching logical conclusions he eventually gets to anyways. This is sometimes frustrating to read, though they are such an endemic part of him as a character that it is hard not to love it anyways. And it's part of why we love him. In this book Harry is the Winter Knight. 

The scene with his first encounter with his brother since apparently coming back from the dead is fantastic. In it Harry lays bare his fear of being a monster, something he has struggled with, in one way or another, since the beginning. Here, however, he is what he considers a monster. In his mind he's given in to the seduction of power and traded part of himself for it. Thomas, in typical fashion, chastises him for being an arrogant prig and thinking he's the only one to experience inner demons, and there lies part of Butcher's brilliance. 

Bloodcircle, by P. N. Elrod

This series takes me longer to get into, not because the writing is poorer quality, because that is far from the case. This series, however, is not the action driven books of Butcher or Cole, but rather closer to hard-boiled detective novels like The Maltese Falcon. P. N. Elrod does a masterful job at creating the dark and tense atmosphere of the old detective novels, and in grounding the stories in a sense of realism, despite centering on a vampire. I highly recommend them.