Toes in the sand: A Review of World Divided, Mercedes Lackey

I am back.  To be truthful it has taken me over a week to fully tap back into my life.   My daily struggle was mentally removing myself from the warm salty seas that I was blissfully floating in so I could complete the most mundane tasks. As I sit here with the weekend before me, I am fully back and ready to read, and support the genre I love so much.  And on that note, let's get to the matter at hand.

Have you been dying to know what book I took on vacation? Let me put the rumours to rest, I took probably the oddest book ever to bring to a tropical haven, World Divided, Mercedes Lackey.  That is right.  I am insane.  Not only was the darn thing in hard cover, making it next to impossible to squeeze into my purse for quick reader access but it wasn't exactly chalked full of beachy feelings.  When you have white sand between your toes you don't automatically think "If only I had an apocalyptic battle involving super humans vs. aliens to read right about now."   Oops, spoiler alert.   I highly doubt I have ruined things for you.  For example,  I can't imagine my Mom ever  going out to buy the first two books in the Secret World Chronicles, even though I am her daughter and she should really expand her reading viewpoint.  I doubt she is sitting at home in the desert storming out of the computer room because I let slip that not only do these books have super heroes, super villains, witches, angels, robotic armoured super Nazis, but aliens as well.   Wouldn't it be awesome if she did though?  

World Divided is the second in a new series from Mercedes Lackey.  Once again Mercedes  co-authors the book with a list of people who live and die by the City of Heroes world.  As you all remember, City of Heroes in an online interactive game that swallows you whole.  At least this is my interpretation to the huge fan base around this game.  Single, looking for love? Don't play City of Heroes or you will end up alone at 50 with 10 cats living in a dank basement rental happily munching on popcorn at 4 a.m. while you kick some type of super villains ass in cyberspace.   As I typed this sentence out I realized that spending one's time this way sounds pretty awesome.  (The hours spent playing Lego Batman on the Wii brings tears to my eyes.)  Note to self, kick tenant out of basement so I can play some vids.  

My suggestion is to take my review with a grain of salt; more specifically with a grain of salt from the side of my margarita glass.  Now that I am back home amongst the concrete sidewalks, traffic noise and obstructed sunrises from neighbouring houses  I am enjoying the book.  A week ago, not so much.  That being said, the writing just isn't at the level that the first book in the series is.  And that is saying something because these books are not full of  Frank Herbert level of prose.    Don't get me wrong I like to read a well thought out super fight but the first 100 pages of the book lacked the detail that the first book had.  It reminded me of Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom.  The authors decided to go with monkey brain lunches and heart ripping out paragraphs rather than character driven action.  If you have no idea what I am referring to  then you have some serious movie watching ahead of you tonight or we just cannot be friends.   

As you can see I have a lot of parameters around friendship.  I never said that reading my blog would be a piece of cake.  

Meta-human: A Review of Invasion, Mercedes Lackey & Company

Meta-humans:  think on that for awhile; what in heaven's name are you talking about Dune Girl! We are talking superheroes people, superheroes with flaws. Now take those so called super people, chuck them into present day U. S. of A. and have their assess handed to them by a technically enhanced robot/armoured Nazi army.  

Okay, maybe Invasion by Mercedes Lackey isn't the most appropriate book to start my blog review with, especially since my intent is trying to convince the non-sci-fi reader out there to pick up one of these books.  But come on, if you are going to go for it you might as well jump right into an easy read that makes you feel like a comic strip has exploded in your brains.  How can you resist?  I can actually hear eye balls rolling. I see I have my work cut out for me.

Invasion is a collaborative piece of work with many other authors (who most likely are big deals in the genre but new to me)working with Mercedes(famous fantasy writer) to create this world. The seed idea stems from a video game of all things. Great, I just lost the rest of my readership.  Don't click away!  I promise to be entertaining.  So, yes the seed idea is from the land of gaming.


Once I got over the fact that the writing wasn't going to be this book's saving grace, I realized that the goldmine is character development. The book is big on characters while managing not to muddle up the plot. You are left wanting more, wishing you could pry into the lives of these people faster, answering questions quicker than the author wants us to.  We all know why of course:  cash cow called "series".  I ordered the next instalment (in hard cover no less!) even before I got through half of the book.  


As for plot, here is what you are in for.  Think present day America, with it's jobless rate and Big Gulps.  Then add to that 30% of the world population who were born or suddenly acquired super human traits. For example, one dude is called Tomb, Tomb Stone for short. Guess you cannot in a million years guess what his powers are. He is dead, a dead guy, think of the possibilities.


Okay, still not convinced? Time to chuck in the big guns, angels, and mages, that's right, magic. We follow the life of Vickie:  a cloistered, panic attack, burn victim who once worked for the FBI as techno-witch. If anything, you have got to admire the creativity. I just spent last night gorging on a full out magic battle involving voodoo priests and the demons they summon. Some people watch the Oscars, I read about a walking, talking kill machine named John who has a Seraphim intrigued yet terrified of him because his future (futures) are closed to her. Yes, I did type Seraphim   
  
But Dune Girl, where does the techno-enhanced robotic armoured Nazi army come in? Don't know, still reading about the after effects of the epic Blitzkrieg that opens the novel. But I can tell you something, it's going to be good.