Here’s an interesting post at tor.com, about Greg van Eekhout’s CALIFORNIA BONES.
It’s a book about friends and family, trust and betrayal, the love of power and the power of love. But at its core, it’s a heist novel—and you can’t have a heist without a crew. So, here they are —
And then sketches of quite a few characters. I haven’t read this book yet — I have an actual physical copy, but as always it may be a while before I get to it. But this character description sounds appealing:
Daniel Blackland is an osteomancer, a person who acquires power by eating the remains of extinct magical creatures. That bone he’s picking his teeth with probably came from some kind of dragon or griffin, and he no doubt stole it. Because, in addition to being a wizard, Daniel is a thief.
As it happens, I have a soft spot for thieves. Have I written a book yet with a thief as a character? Hmm. . . no, not yet, and in fact I was forced to take this great thief character out of one of my WIP as I revised. (Not forced as in my editor made me, forced as in there wasn’t room in the story for this character, great though he was.)
The post details and sketches half a dozen other characters. It does look like a fun book. Any of you read it yet?
Coincidentally, my very first book purchase of the new year was NORSE CODE by Greg van Eekhout, prompted by reading EIGHT DAYS OF LUKE and Greg commenting that this was his favorite DWJ story and he was very into Norse myth and drew on that for his first book:
Is this Ragnarok, or just California?
The NorseCODE genome project was designed to identify descendants of Odin. What it found was Kathy Castillo, a murdered MBA student brought back from the dead to serve as a valkyrie in the Norse god’s army. Given a sword and a new name, Mist’s job is to recruit soldiers for the war between the gods at the end of the world—and to kill those who refuse to fight.
But as the twilight of the gods descends, Mist makes other plans.
I thought that all sounded cool, but I must admit, I haven’t read that one, either. So many books, so little time!
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