Yes, my reading obsession is in overdrive.  I needed a break from my usual Vampire Porn as Unabrewer calls it.  I hit the Barnes & Noble site and started looking at new releases in everything from Sci/Fi Fantasy to Paranormal Romance and stumbled across a mention of a book called WebMage by Kelly McCullough.

Description: WebMage: A fantasy-cyberpunk hybrid that revolves around Ravirn, a grandson of the Greek Fate Lachesis. In order to keep up with an ever increasing number of life threads, the Fates have upgraded to a computerized system that blends magic with programming. Of course where there are computers, there are also hackers. In the process of “testing” his Great-Aunt Atropos’s security, Ravirn, a hacker/sorcerer, and his laptop familiar, Melchior, uncover a plot that could shake the foundations of Olympus and change humanity’s relationship with Fate forever.

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Remember the Fates, those ancient Greek spinners, weavers and snippers of life’s threads? They’re back in McCullough’s original and outstanding debut, and still ruling destiny—but with their own digital web, based on a server called the Fate Core. Power-hungry as ever, they’ve coded a spell to eliminate human free will. Unluckily for them, one of their demigod descendants is a cheerfully rebellious hacker-sorcerer named Ravirn who, when not studying for college midterms, likes to mess around on their web with the help of his familiar, Melchior, who can change from a goblin to a laptop. Ravirn and Melchior, let loose in McCullough’s delightfully skewed and fully formed world—much like our own, but with magic, paranormally advanced technology and Greek gods—set out to thwart Ravirn’s “great-to-the-nth-degree aunt[s],” careening from one discovery to another, enlisting unlikely allies and narrowly evading destruction at the hands of both Fates and Furies. McCullough handles his plot with unfailing invention, orchestrating a mixture of humor, philosophy and programming insights that give new meaning to terms as commonplace as “spell checker” and esoteric as “programming in hex.” Though a preponderance of techie-talk may put off some readers, this is the kind of title that could inspire an army of rabid fans; it’s a good thing a sequel is planned for 2007. (Aug.)

It took me a few chapters to get really invested in the book but then I was having fun.  He has sort of combined hard sci/fi with cyberpunk with greek mythos and a healthy dose of sarcasm and humor.  His little webgoblin Mel (who changes into a laptop on command) was a good foil to the main characters total scatterbrained behavior.  Maybe that is why I like Ravirn so much.  He has loose shit everywhere and that is oddly familiar to me.  Have no idea why…

(more…)

I just finished a book by Mario Acevedo and was pleased.  That said I have one peevish thing to say… Goddammit, I read book two before I read book one.  Ugh.  I hate when I do that.  The trend lately is to release a slew of books in the same year from a single author.  It has gotten so bad that I have stopped checking the damn copyright all together.  /rant.

X-Rated Blood Suckers was loads of fun.  The blurb from Harper Collins about the book…

Felix has survived Operation Iraqi Freedom, being turned into a vampire, and a ravenous horde of nymphomaniacs. (JenNote:  That would be the first book I fucking skipped!) Now he faces his toughest task ever—navigating the corrupt world of Los Angeles politics to solve the murder of a distinguished young surgeon turned porn star. But both human and vampire alike have reasons to want the secret to stay buried. . .

What Publisher’s Weekly had to say:

Hard-boiled action mixes with soft-core titillation in Acevedo’s second novel featuring soldier– turned–vampire PI Felix Gomez, who’s approached by porn actress Katz Meow to investigate the murder of her colleague Roxy Bronze. Before you can say XXX, Felix is off to California’s San Fernando Valley and up to his fangs in intrigue implicating a vampire producer of adult films, a sham evangelist, a power-hungry local politician and the Araneum, the secret vampire hierarchy tasked with stamping out unorthodox human-vampire interactions. Felix endures the usual silver bullets and garlic, as well as several very human double crosses and miscalculations, before the story speeds to an unlikely conclusion that exposes a somewhat unconvincing villain. The novel’s true appeal lies in its zippy banter and witty repartee on vampire lifestyle, particularly in Felix’s ongoing partnership with Coyote, a low-rent vamp from the barrio. Acevedo has a natural flare for the hard-boiled idiom, and readers who enjoyed Felix’s first adventure will find this follow-up equally entertaining.

I totally agree.  The banter with Coyote is what makes this book a delight.  Coyote is the bastard son of Cortez’s mistress, yes the conqueror Cortez.  I am not sure what was funnier the fact Felix constantly has to push start Coyote’s hoopty ford pickup or the fact the guy makes Rat Chorizo.  A chicano vampire is a unique character to say the least and hopefully he appears again in later books.

I have to hit Barnes and Nobles and get his first book: Nymphos of Rocky Flats and his latest one, Undead Kama Sutra.

Do not let the titles fool you, there is nothing even remotely smutty about these books; sex is alluded to and just barely.  In my opinion the books would have been served by a healthy dose of explicit sex, but that is just me.   I like my mysteries and sci/fi with a bit of flavor.  Even with an appalling lack of gratuitous sex this book was well worth the cash.