Review for Ricardo Pinto's "The Third God"

The Third God by Ricardo Pinto

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


When The Third God came out I had to get it. There was no question. I loved the first two books in the series and looked forward to reading the conclusion to 'The Stone Dance of the Chameleon.' It was a long book, and though I love reading paperback bricks I have to admit I was a bit disappointed in this finale.



I know from the previous novels that Ricardo loves his discriptive narrative, which I really enjoyed in the first two books, but in The Third God it really seemed over the top. There was a monotony as his main character "Carnie" and his ex-lover fight their way back home. Another thing I found a bit jarring was that of "Carnie" himself as he seems to suddenly start thinking like the "Masters" when before he wasn't well adapted to doing so. The leap of his ability to logic in that way was surprising and didn't seem to fit with the "Carnie" I loved in the first two books.



Regardless, I did enjoy the book, but felt that some things could have been better explained and other things could have been less described.



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Review for C.J. Ellisson's "Vampire Vacation"

Vampire Vacation by C.J. Ellisson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


It was on a whim that I decided to pick up this book, and the fact that it was on sale at the time. Oh, lets not forget it's got vampires in it, too. I was thrown off guard a bit when I started reading it as it is written in the first person present tense. There are a lot of books written in first person, but all the ones I've read are written in past tense. This was different and it took about a chapter to get my brain into gear.

Writing in the present tense can be difficult, but C.J. Ellisson does a great job of it. The story was tight and interesting, though there are some issues that weren't well edited. Let me explain; her story is about a vampire who runs a resort in Alaska for other vampires. Pretty neat, right? I thought so at first, but then questions started arising about what happens in the summer months when the sun doesn't set. C.J. Ellisson makes mention that her protagonist has been living in 20 years of darkness because of being in Alaska. I had to let this issue go and move on. There were other little discontinuities in the story too.

C.J. Ellisson's protagonist, Dria, is an interesting character I would have liked the author explore more of. The sex scenes were numerous and many of them had me scratching my head with the thought of "how could two people be in that position in that space and then suddenly be doing that?"

The who-dunnit plot I felt was solved way too quickly. I was expecting a surprise, but there wasn't one. Things kept happening to the overly many characters (which sometimes made it difficult to remember who's who)which weren't plot related.

Overall, it was fun read if you choose to suspend your disbelief. Her ideas of vampire society are interesting and I'd love to see that explored further, but there are rough spots there too, but not so rough they can't be smoothed over with further books in the series.

If you love raunchy, sexy vampires and werewolves, then you'll enjoy this.



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