Roil by Trent Jamieson - review

Roil

Book one of The Nightbound Land duology
Trent Jamieson
fantasy (with some steampunk elements)
2011

****** 
cover - I love this cover; there's something about the completely pissed look on her face.  Reminds me of Kiera Knightly playing Domino.  Bad-assed and deadly. That is kind of why I even picked up the book.  Then I bought it because it sounded so....gnarly (in a good way, which makes no sense at all).


It seems as though any book published by Angry Robot turns out to be wicked good. They're not your typical steampunk or urban fantasy novels.  Roil is another example of a crazy good book. 

This continent, Shale, - even the entire world, is being consumed by this thing called the Roil.  Heat loving monsters like you've never heard of before....quarg hounds, witmoths, garment flutes...lots of baddies.  From the back of the book - "It's up to a decadent wastrel, a four thousand year old man and a young woman bent on revenge to try to save their city - and the world." 

I enjoyed this book, even though it seemed so hopeless that any of them would survive.  The Roil is relentless and just consumes whole cities, people with them.  The witmoths take over the people, and the whole thing is changing.  What was once seemingly random monsters now seem to have  a plan, and to be using strategy.    Added to that you have a mayor of one city who has tried to convince the people there's no danger until the last minute, there's these other people called cuttlefolk who have an uneasy truce with people, and yet will kill.  And that four thousand year old man?  a very dangerous man who barely keeps himself in check, but is still trying to help save humanity.

The narration as well as the dialogue is very well done, making the book just flow.  I've tried one other book by Trent Jamieson and it doesn't even seem like the same writer (couldn't get past the first few chapters, though I'm willing to go back and try again).  I would love to get hold of the second in this duology - find out who wins in the end.  

The characters were great - the old man, creepy as hell and very powerful.  The young man, David - who at first can only think of his drug, but of course, life intervenes (as it usually does), and Margaret.  Margaret is soooo angry.  She escaped a Roil invasion and wants to destroy the Roils - she's ready to kill.

Good reading, highly recommended.

It's Monday, and I had a long weekend of resting/recuperating...

 Not that I'm particularly active....but this weekend was almost as much sleeping as last weekend.  With the added bonus of having to take a day off work because of a pain flare up.  The flare up is pretty much under control now, but once in a while I get a flash memory of Friday and shudder.  ugh.  Hope I don't get many of those!  On a positive spin, at least I was able to visit more with the grandson between napping.  We had a couple of good talks.  The kind of talks you can only have with a four year old boy.  :)  

Well, It's that time again - Monday.  Which means we've survived another week and now get to start a new week...

And it also means we get to list what we've been reading, what we've finished reading and sometimes what we've planned to read with the help of the Monday Meme hosted by Sheila of Book Journey. Great fun - and all participants should be aware that your TBR pile might grow by leaps and bounds.....

Finished Reading

I didn't think I was going to read much this week.  The week started out very slowly for me, but when Friday rolled around and I ended up laid up in bed, the reading took off like a reading storm. (what exactly does a reading storm sound or look like?  I don't know - they aren't real) So I ended up finishing two books, and getting a good start on a third.

:)

Midnight Blue-Light Special

by Seanan McGuire

Incryptid #2 - The continuing adventures of Verity Price, Dominic DeLuca and the cryptids of Manhattan.  The Covenant - death to all cryptids are coming, and Dominic is torn between his new found lust/love of Very and his inbred loyalty to the Covenant.  Some heavy duty stuff along with humor.

Boyfriend From Hell

by Jamie Quaid

Saturn's Daughter #1

A weird zone of Baltimore that's been contaminated with chemicals and pollution.  An angry woman with authority issues and strange powers that are popping up...A weird book that was in turns interesting...and not so interesting.  (More on that when I review.)

I also read a fun short story from an anthology;

Brown Goes Full Steam Ahead

by J.A. Campbell

Penny Dread Tales 3 Anthology

Brown is one of Campbell's dog characters, in fact the ancestor of Doc of vampire hunting fame.  I love these dog stories, told from the DOG's pov.  Campbell does a very good job of making her characters sound like dogs, or as I imagine an intelligent dog would sound.

Current Reads

I've started a few.

I started Blood Kin, (M.J. Scott) and then - ONCE AGAIN - I've realized that this is the second in a series.  Second time in a month I've done this, picked the second in a series to buy.  grrrr.  I was fooled by seeing the (now known to me as the third) book in the store, thought it was the second, so I looked for the book before - having looked in the third book for other books written, and only saw one other book listed.  so I've put off reading this, since I would rather start a series with the first, especially when the series is your average linear series. 

So I grabbed another book that's been languishing on my shelves for a while - even though I'm not sure I'm in the mood for this type of read...  Roil by Trent Jamieson.  #1 of the Nightbound Land duology.  Paraphrased from the blurb - a four thousand year old man, a young man who has an addiction problem, a young woman with vengeance in her heart; they're all fighting this phenomenon known as The Roil - which takes over whole cities, feeding on the people and ruining life.  I like the premise of the novel, but I'm not sure I'm in the mood for wholescale mayhem and disaster type of a novel right now.

Nor am I in the mood for flippant heroines....I'm not sure what I'm in the mood for, this might be one of those weeks where I put around, not quite getting into ANY book.  Maybe I should re-read a novel, a favorite SciFi from long ago (like Nylon Angel).  Or a favorite Terry Pratchett discworld novel.....  Or maybe it's time for a regular fiction novel - or a (shudder) romance novel - one light on the hot-n-heavy heaving bosoms or throbbing man parts....

huh.

Well - we'll just have to see.

Teaser Tuesday

I forget where I originally lifted this picture from - probably a facebook post. But it's funny!  I would love to use it for my next rant, kind of a rant button/badge thingy.  (that's internet lingo)

Teaser Tuesdays! The weekly meme that lets us tease each other with snippets of our current reads.  Hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading, this is a weekly book meme.  We go to a random page, find two sentences to tease with.  No Spoilers, of course (duh!)  Since I've just finished a book, I'll tease with one or two of my possible reads. 

Roil 

Trent Jamieson

page 11

     David lost his grip and dropped onto the dead tree beneath his window, its rotten limbs snap-crash-snapped under his weight.  He landed in a heap on the soft mud beneath and clambered to his feet - no bones broken as far as he could tell.

The Probable Future

Alice Hoffman

page 6

     Jenny hadn't particularly wanted a baby; she hadn't yearned for one the way some women did, hadn't gazed longingly at rocking horses and cribs.  Her stormy relationship with her own mother had made her wary of family ties, and her marriage to Will Avery, surely one of the most irresponsible men in New England, hadn't seemed the proper setting in which to raise a child.