Each year, a call goes out from the Mountain and the gods that live there in the form of white stallions, seeking boys to become Riders. Now, something monumental is changing. Valeria has received the Call, even though she is a girl. Unable to turn away from it, she disguises herself as a boy and sets out for the Mountain. On the way there she is first rescued from a pack of nobles by a stranger, who finds her a safer passage as part of a caravan. It is there that she meets Euan Roe, a barbarian prince who is in the Aurelian Empire as a hostage. On arrival at the Mountain, she discovers her rescuer is called Kerrec and is a First Rider. It is these two men that will shape Valeria's future, and with it the future of Aurelia.

Valeria succeeds in all the tests the candidates must face, but at her moment of triumph she is revealed to be female. Centuries of tradition war with the possible will of the gods and it is tradition that wins. Valeria is forbidden to be a candidate, only managing to stay on the Mountain as Kerrec's servant.

When Euan Roe, in collusion with the Emperor's bastard, half-barbarian son, unleashes his scheme to defeat the Empire, Valeria suddenly finds herself a pivotal player in the future of the world. She is caught between two men and two possible destinies. Who she chooses will shape the future - literally, as the stallions can influence past and present with their dance.

I was dubious about this book. First, when I considered buying it, I remember that I'd had varied opinions of the stories in the Luna range so far. I had also read some mixed reviews. So I asked my pusher/dealer, Barbara (who is also known as my favourite bookseller). She recommended it highly and I left the shop with a copy. I was secondly dubious when I read the blurb more carefully - the book sounded like it had the potential to be a bad rip-off of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar. I am delighted to say I was wrong on all counts. I loved this book and I can't wait for the next one.

Caitlin Brennan is actually author Judith Tarr, obviously choosing to use a pseudonym to write in a different field from the one where her name is already known (historicals and historical fantasy). This is straight fantasy and might be a shock for anyone expecting it to be a historical. She is also deeply involved in the world of Lippizan horses (those wonderful horses so well known through the Viennese riding school) and that is where the inspiration for her stallion has clearly come from. The stallions dance, just as Lippizans do, and it is from that dance and the patterns it makes that some of the greatest magic in her fantasy world comes.

The stallions are other-worldly, a little condescending to humans and have ways that all well beyond what ordinary mortals are likely to understand. Valeria could be called a clichéd heroine - she is the farm girl who receives a magical call and ends up saving the world (did you think she wouldn't?) and mixing with the high and mighty. Brennan saves Valeria and her story by making her heroine engaging and far from perfect. Her supporting characters are generally also well drawn. Kerrec is slowly revealed as being a man under all his Rider discipline, while Euan Roe moves from being an apparently pleasant, captivating prince, to something a little less pleasant. The Imperial Heir, Brianna is also well drawn and I could just picture her lovely, little courtyard where a surprising amount of the story took place. Some of the other characters suffer in comparison, especially the masters on the Mountain, who are little more than silhouettes.

The end shows this to clearly be part of a series - it is a case of winning the battle rather than the war, and the two major villains are at large at the end. I don't mind. I want to know what happens next. I really loved this book; so long as you don't go into it expecting a Lackey story, I think many others will as well. Brennan has carved out a very nice little world for herself and it is begging to be explored further.

Once Jason Harrick was a Jagernaut Primary, one of the elite of Skolian Imperial Space Command. His squadron destroyed in one of the battles of the Radiance War, now he is its only survivor, broken in body and mind, shattered with the destruction of the squad mates with whom he had been empathically bonded, wracked with survivor's guilt. Rhose Canterhaven lives on the planet where he crashed, trying to survive in the aftermath of the war's destruction. While out searching for power sources in the ruins where Harrick is hiding, she encounters the damaged soldier. When they meet, events are set in motion that could mean Harrick's healing or his destruction.

This story is in an anthology published by Imajinn Books with a portion of the profits going to Support Our Soldiers America Inc. Each story is of a warrior facing the aftermath of battle and war and how they find their way home, geographically and emotionally. Asaro's story fits this premise neatly, looking at the pain and guilt of surviving and how hard it can be to find one's way home from such a place. Harrick doesn't just need healing; he's retreated so far into himself that first he needs to realise how injured he is. It is meeting Rhose that starts him on the long journey back.

This is a much simpler story than some Asaro has written lately. It's about love and healing and finding one's way home, even if home is now a different place and person than it was before. I like Asaro's clever and complicated stories, but I like ones like this just as much. It's a lovely little story and I hope Harrick and Rhose will pop up for a cameo in one of her future novels.

In January, the combination of an obituary in The Times and an anonymous letter featuring a mole, send Campion and Lugg to a funeral. The deceased is an old school mate (friend would not be an appropriate term) of Campion's; Rowland Peters, more commonly known as Pig. By July, Campion has forgotten the incident. When he is called to the village of Kepesake to investigate the death of the disagreeable Oswald Harris, who had a stone geranium urn dropped on his head, he is startled to find the dead many to be none other than Pig himself, who is supposed to have been dead for six months rather than less than twenty four hours.

Campion's investigation becomes more confusing and frankly creepy as time progresses, as the body is stolen then found, the local doctor tries of assist with almost ghoulish glee and interpersonal relationships get complicated, not to mention Lugg and Campion both being in danger of losing their lives.

For a little book (only 138 pages in my edition), this one sure packs in a lot. I believe this was the first Campion story I ever read, and I wasn't sure if it was going to live up to my memories. One the whole, it did. I could remember how the murder was done (and ingeniously too), and I was pretty sure about who did it and some of the why. Even so, I enjoyed the story all over again, and found myself awaiting the end in a state of slightly nervous uncertainty despite my foreknowledge.

The tale is told in the first person from Campion's point of view, but while pleasant, this was also a little disappointing. He remained the same enigmatic character he always is, not really letting us into his thought processes. Instead, there are hints - 'it was then that I had the whole case under my nose' - but no development of his understanding. Instead, we get an explanation at the end as usual. I still couldn't tell if Campion was being deliberately or naturally vague when he was telling me about it, for example, and I found that something of a waste of the first person narrative.

All the same, it's a fun story with a lovely set of characters. Leo and all the other men rallying around Poppy is a delight, and the villains are suitably villainous. Whippet is rather vague, but he's little more than the plot device to keep the story going - and admits such himself - so perhaps that was deliberate. I did have a feeling there was more of an explanation of why Janet was out of sorts with Campion, but now I can't decide it I missed it on this reading or if I'm mixing it up with another book. How many girls does Campion have strewn behind him anyway?

This is a good place to pick up Campion's adventures if anyone is looking for a place to start. Not too long, featuring Lugg as well as Campion, and with a clever plot and satisfactory resolution. A good little tale, indeed.

Leda Hubbard is an ex-Navy forensic anthropologist and amateur Egyptologist in the near future. When she catches up with friends from her university days, she finds herself caught up in a clandestine search for the remains of Cleopatra VII. Chime and Tsering are now "blended", their consciousnesses joined inside Tsering's body since Chime's death. Together, they are now Chimera, and want Leda to be their sponsor, Nucore's agent at a dig in Alexandria in the hope DNA from Cleopatra might be found. The Nucore CEO's wife, Gretchen, wants to be blended with the ancient queen to save her failing marriage.

Knowing she'll be essentially on her own in what is a fundamentalist Muslim country, Leda enlists her ex-cop father's help for security and sents off with a heavy collection of state-of-the-art equipment. She soon makes good friends with Dr Gabriella Faruk, who knows about the secret of blending and lives locally in Alexandria. It is once Leda discovers one of Cleopatra's canopic jars that things begin to go awry. And more and more awry.

I was hoping to find time to reread this with the Beyond Reality group and once I read the first comments there - essentially that the book was implausible - I was determined to do so and see what I thought on a second reading. I have to agree. The basic idea is hugely implausible. In the first chapter the reader is asked to swallow first the idea that memory is stored at a cellular level and blending two people together is possible. From there, that it is supposed to be perfectly reasonable to go to a foreign country and recover DNA from one of its most famous (and very, very dead) citizens for this blending process. All this behind the back of the sponsoring company's CEO (who is also a personal friend) to let his wife blend with Cleopatra, not for any historical or altruistic motive, but to find out how to seduce her own husband. All in the first chapter.

But, if you get past that and just accept it as the backstory for the book, this is an entertaining tale. There are places where the language felt a bit clunky but once Cleopatra has been found, the plot really gets going and smooths itself out. Leda is actually a little bland, although I still liked her. Her father, Duke, on the other hand, is a delight from the first moment we meet him. A man with a passion for motorcycles and wives (he's up to number five), he livens up each page he appears on. His interactions with Gretchen, later in the book are wonderful fun. Gabriella is under-explored I feel, especially given her importance to the story. We only meet Cleopatra herself briefly, and I look forward to seeing more of her in the sequel (now in hardcover).

If one is to think seriously about a number of the ethical issues raised in this novel (something speculative fiction is supposed to do), there are some disturbing ideas raised. From the ethics of essentially raising someone from the dead (millenia dead even) to that of helping ones self to DNA from another country's historical figures or letting blending be for the very rich, it's all shaky ground. These issues are not really considered (except perhaps by Chimera); this is a light-hearted adventure tale with futuristic trappings rather than the reverse. As such, it works very well. Swallow the implausibilities, lean back and enjoy the adventure.

Ella of Frell was given a fairy gift at her birth. At least, the fairy Lucinda thought it was a gift. Everyone else who knew about it, especially Ella, considered it a curse. Ella was given the gift of obedience. This means that any time she is given an order, no matter who orders it or what it is, she must obey.

This has little effect on her life at first, as her mother and their cook, Mandy, take great care no-one knows about the curse. Even her mother's death when Ella is eight, terrible though it is, doesn't not change life too much. And it is at her mother's funeral that Ella first meets Prince Char who comforts her as she grieves.

It is later, when her father first meets Dame Olga and her awful daughters Hattie and Olive that Ella's life changes for the worse. She is sent to finishing school with the other girls, and it is on the trip there that Hattie discovers that Ella must be anything she is ordered to do. From then on, Hattie makes Ella's life a misery until she detemines to find Lucinda and beg her to take back her gift.

As she struggles to find Lucinda, maintain her growing friendship with Char and survive Olga and her daughter, who become her stepfamily when her father remarries, Ella remains an enchanting and delightful heroine. All the important aspects of the traditional Cinderella story are here, but neatly woven into the story of a strong, endearing young woman who must obey, but that doesn't mean she's going to do it without a fight.

I read this after seeing the movie. The film was funny, silly, camp and fun to watch. However, I was fairly certain what I had just seen wasn't what Levine had envisioned when she wrote the book. I was right. It wasn't. The book is less sensational - no wicked uncles, assasination plots, modern references or bad puns. Instead, it is a delightful coming of age story of a young girl with an added difficulty to overcome. I can see in the book the seeds that the scriptwriters used to tell their own tale, but Levine's original story stands heads and shoulders about the film, which I personally think was highly influenced by the success of Shrek and its sequel.

If you want a good, easy to read, variation on the Cinderella story, Ella Enchated is an idea way to find one. Read it; you'll be enchanted.

Like Skyfall before it, Schism is set prior to Catherine Asaro's other Skolian novels, this time telling the story of Roca and Eldrinson's children, with special focus on Soz's entrance to the Deshian Military Academy and her younger brother Shannon's adolescence.

Soz is seventeen as the book begins, determined to follow her older brother Althor off Lyshriol and become a Jagernaut. Her father is violently opposed to this, both because women are not warriors by Lyshrioli tradition and, more importantly, because he cannot bear the thought of sending his children to war against the Traders. When Soz is granted early admission to DMA and Althor agrees to take her there, he disowns both his children. From there, the book follows three main characters; Soz, Eldrinson and Shannon.

Soz enters the Academy as plain Sauscony Valdoria, but knowing that Kurj has just selected both her and Althor as potential heirs and is waiting to see how they both turn out. Outspoken, impetuous and brilliant, she is soon racing through her classes and building up a mountain of demerit points. She rapidly progresses through the Academy, but still needs to do some growing and maturing to best use her great talents.

Shannon, fourteen, quiet and very different even among Roca and Eldrinson's different children, after a confusing encounter with Althor while he is home, decides the troubles that have now beset the family are all his fault. He takes his father's lyrine, Moonglaze, and literally heads for the hills. Shannon is a throw back to a Blue Dale Archer ancestor, and he heads into the Blue Dale Mountains hoping to find the legendary Archers and a place where he fits in.

As soon as Shannon is discovered missing, Eldrinson sets off to find him and falls into his own kind of trouble. He has to fight to survive at the same time as he is trying to reconcile himself to the fact his children don't have the same vision of their own futures that he does.

Schism is the first book of two, that together are titled Triad, suggesting part of the ultimate story will be how Eldrinson becomes the Web Key and the Dyad becomes a Triad, since we know from the later books that this happens. That is perhaps the main weakness of this book - we know what is going to happen, at least in general terms. The book ends on what would be a major cliffhanger, except for the fact that we already know the character this concerns is going to make it because we've already met them in the other books. For me, this isn't a concern. I'm more concerned about how and why things happen rather than what happens. It can be quite fun knowing what is going to be the end result and still navigate the curve balls the author throws at readers along the way. I might not need to worry about the endangered character's survival, but I sure want to know how the current mess is going to be resolved.

I am already predisposed to love Asaro's books, especially the Skolian series. I love the setting, I love the characters and I love the way she is changing the world from the black and white we first through it was. So I loved this one too. Soz would have to be my favourite character, so seeing more of her and how she became the woman I first met in Primary Inversion is a delight. I am finding that I don't remember everything that has already happened in other books, and I'm sure I've missed a few subtle moments of foreshadowing, which is a pity as I love the way Asaro does these. Still, I'm sure I'll be reading Schism again in the future, so hopefully I'll pick up things of missed that time around.

I do love the way Asaro plays with the characters and their companions. There is a lovely little scene where Soz's room mates want to know how it is that she appears to know Imperator Kurj. She tries to prevaricate, but they are persistent. Finally, she admits that her mother knew his father and when asked how, states simply, "They were married" and waits for the penny to drop.

I think my only real complaint is that, in this attitude to his children's dreams and the way he deals with a major disability Eldrinson tends to come across as a whiny boy at times. I'm guessing this in intentional and he's going to grow out of it - after all, despite having ten children he can't be much older than his late thirties. But I did want to slap him around a bit, especially for the way he treated Roca.

I don't really think that this would be the best book to start reading Asaro's Skolian series with, but it is a great addition to the tale. However, it is clearly unfinished. I have a feeling I read somewhere that Triad was supposed to be one book, but it got too big. This makes sense, as it ends like the end of a chapter, not the end of the book. I'm eagerly awaiting the second half of the story.

Paul Brande is found dead in his publishing firm's strong room under puzzling circumstances. At the inquest, this death is ruled to be murder and his cousin, Mike, is arrested for the crime. Certain his young friend is innocent and asked to investigate by Brande's neglected widow, Gina, Albert Campion tries to discover what really happened.

I found as I read my way through this that, despite what I initially believed, I hadn't read it before. I didn't really miss anything. Others on the mailing list finished it before me and their verdicts weren't particularly effusive. I have to agree. There is a flatness to Flowers for the Judge that hasn't been present in the other Campion books I've reread lately. In this one, Allingham seems to have put so much work into the Coroner's Court and the Old Bailey trial that she forgot about characterisation. This is a book about courts and trials, not a book about people. As such, if fails in its attempt to capture the reader's concern for the characters. Instead, it all becomes a very academic exercise.

Mike and Gina, who are supposed to be the thwarted hero and heroine are instead cardboard cutouts. We never even meet the victim, Paul, so our sympathy for him is non-existent. The murderer is pompous and annoying but never particularly sinister. Even Campion and Lugg are poorly defined here, compared to other novels. The only characters that really appealed to me were Uncle Ritchie, who was a delight, and poor Teddie Dell, who appeared briefly and swiftly disappeared.

Flowers for the Judge felt like a sleight of hand trick with a very long and somewhat boring set-up that was only revealed as a trick right at the very, very end. This is a solid book, but not a particularly inspiring one.

Pandora is a Were-Panter who has been stolen back though time to be the forced mate to a group of modern day Were-Panthers. She has come to Dragon*Con in Atlanta in the hope of getting help from Archeron to return home. Ash, as usual, does things his own way and sends Dante instead, also a Were-Panther, but with much better morals than the ones Pandora is running from. Essentially, they find themselves mated and have to decide if they are going to stay together.

There really isn't much to this story. It's not even 80 pages and runs reused themes and situations. Pandora and Dante are nice characters, but the story is really only saved by Simi's cameo appearance with Ash. It's a nice, quick little read for a evening, but I'm glad I got my copy cheap and didn't pay full price for it, especially since I won't be reading the other stories in the anthology.

Carly Callahan is a 21st Century Air Force pilot who is thrown back in time when her jet gets caught in a lightning storm. She is rescued by Sir Andrew Spencer, English nobleman turned pirate. Unfortunately, Andrew doesn't believe she's from the future; instead, he's convinced she's the fiance of his detested (and detestable) cousin and he abducts her for ransom and revenge. As they are chased down by the cousin, Andrew and Carly find themselves falling in love. True love fails to run smooth of course, but a happy ending is assured.

This is a pleasant enough little story, but it isn't exactly mind-blowing. It is well saved by a clever twist at the end, which raises it up a notch from the usual run-of-the-mill time travel romance. I think Grant's later work has certainly improved from this beginning, but Once a Pirate is a very pleasant read without any major faults.