Merry High Heeled Christmas ....

Merry High Heeled Christmas to all High Heels and Stockings Lovers, -fans and -wearers!! Hope you have a wonderfull time with your family and friends - with a lot of Shoes and Stockings presents under the Christmastree ;) ...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you!!!

High Heeled Kisses
- Vivian

Thanks for stopping by...

Folks,

Please re-direct your bookmarks to toecleavage2.blogspot.com .

Number2 runs a great site there , and it's time for me to hand over the reins to someone who has shown the same dedication and passion for this topic as I. And truth be told, he has a tougher job than I did. The styles of shoes continue to change, and the toe cleavage is getting harder to find. I do think things will cycle though, as in fashion they most often do.

For those who have expressed concern for me, Thanks. I greatly appreciate it. My life has gotten much too hectic to continue to put the work into this site on a daily basis. I might be back sometime in the future, but for the time being, you're in great hands with Number2.

Chief

My Top Five Expected SFF Novels of 2011 (by Liviu Suciu)

Last year I prepared a long post about expected 2010 novels, originally split into three and then later collated and updated. This year I discussed some anticipated books in six posts so far (I HERE, II HERE, III HERE, IV HERE, V HERE, VI HERE). I have read the following five all off which would have been candidates for the list in this post. Reviews will come in due course, starting soon with the two early January novels by Carol Berg and by KJ Parker, while a dual review with Robert for The Fallen Blade is scheduled for mid-January.

1.The Hammer by KJ Parker (A++ and starting as #1 2011 novel)
2.The Book of Transformations by Mark Newton (A++ and starting as #2-3 2011 novel)
3.The Soul Mirror by Carol Berg (A++ and starting as #2-3 2011 novel)
4.The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie (A++)
5.The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood (B)

The first three are just awesome novels guaranteed a spot in my best of 2011, the Abercrombie is excellent too but as military fantasy - subgenre I like less than others - it has a ceiling in my preferences, so while it may make my Top 25 of 2011, it will depend on how much I like other books - a battle is still a battle, so to speak - while The Fallen Blade was a minor disappointment for surprising reasons (no, not for vampires, but for narrative walls and contrived plotting), though I am still in the series and hope future installments will be better.

I decided to do only a Top 5 Expected SFF Novels for now, though I will start soon a continually updated post with 2011 novels read. I thought a lot about what to include here and I had to make some hard choices, but overall I would say that right now these are the novels I would take over anything else known to come out in 2011 and of course excepting the ones above already read. They also tend to reflect well my preferences - "different" epic, strange sff, sense-of-wonder sf and finally "new school epic" fantasy.

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1. The Sea Watch by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Shadows of the Apt is my ongoing #1 fantasy series and it almost got at the level of my top 2 ongoing series in terms of expectations. (As anyone who follows my posts knows, those are Honor Harrington and Safehold by D. Weber, sadly none having a story advancing book in 2011 - HH has an anthology and a YA back-story novel, and while I read one and will read the other, neither are that important for me).

For more about why and all, check my review of The Scarab Path (beware of spoilers though) and go from there.

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2. The Last Four Things by Paul Hoffman

After 4 reads of the book and perusing quite a few reviews that trash it, I still believe that The Left Hand of God is a very entertaining novel with a lot of narrative energy, but one that is such a mix of stuff that resists any classification beyond being sff. I am still undecided if it's more sf-nal than fantasy-nal, or if it's just a big (bad) joke played on the readers as some reviewers more or less argue. I still love it though I chickened out of putting it in my top 25 2010 novels so I am giving it a "huge personal favorite" label for now.

The Last Four Things should give me a better understanding and if I find it as refreshing as TLoG, that one may give even The Hammer a run for the #1 spot in 2011 in sff. Will see, but the above make this one my #2 expected sff novel of 2011.

And if you wonder, these expectations are double-edged since for example The Horns of Ruin was my top expected book of the last half of 2010, only to badly disappoint me, so much so that even the author's Dead of Veridon - follow-up to a top novel of mine in 2009 - moved lower on my expected 2011 list.

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3. Embassytown by China Mieville

I was so-so on City/City and I am still stuck at page 200 in Kraken but in both cases that's because I find hard to suspend disbelief in a modern world with magic. For a book that's in the same narrative space as City/City and that truly blew me away and became my top novel read in 2010, check the 1951 Goncourt prize winner The Opposing Shore by Julien Gracq which has none of the credibility issues I had with the Mieville novel.

In Embassytown it seems we will be in pure speculative fiction world-building so I expect no issues with that and the novel is another contender for #1 in 2011.

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4. The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan

Nobody writes better mind-blowing sf than Greg Egan and while I had occasional issues with the literary aspects of his work, The Clockwork Rocket is another potential #1 2011 novel and the only other "core-sf" must for me.

While there is a chance the book will be published in 2012, the author has a great introduction to its universe HERE and I strongly believe that with Alastair Reynolds turning to mundane sf (I dislike that but will see how the master of hard sf handles it), The Clockwork Rocket is the one "universe as sense of wonder" novel we will hopefully have in 2011.

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5. The River of Shadows by Robert Redick

The Chartrand Series is a big time favorite, but the almost 18 months lag between The Rats (still not present in the USA) and the Ruling Sea and this one, makes The River of Shadows lack somewhat the immediacy of say the Kinden novels. I am also curious to see if the magic of the first two books is still there for me since recently there were a bunch of series that faded for me or at best still remained on my "series reading" list but with less urgency.

With the new Brent Weeks expected for 2012 - that one will have otherwise been here in the "epic" spot - the Chartrand is the one more-or-less traditional fantasy series I want first, just beating the Rothfuss, Lynch, Bakker, Morgan or for that matter Martin if 2011 offerings.

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Edit 12/23 Despite my mild skepticism it seems that there are good chances that How Firm a Foundation (Safehold #5) by David Weber stands a chance of being published in Fall 2011.

The author has started writing it at the end of November 2010 so things will have to happen fast as publishing timetables go, but I guess that an A list author gets priority, so it's clearly possible. How Firm a Foundation would be of course my number one expected book of 2011 since I know for sure the new main Honor novel A Rising Thunder written and delivered is scheduled for 2012 since as mentioned 2011 has 2 Honorverse books already and the other two sf authors I would include there PF Hamilton and IM Banks do not have new novels for 2011 as far as I know (PFH has a collection and Iain Banks may have a non-M book).

Incidentally despite being technically sf, Safehold is the most traditional fantasy series I am reading today with an embodied AI-wizard called Merlin for good measure, good and bad kings, evil or corrupt religious hierarchy with miracles on show, a huge evil in the distant past that almost destroyed humanity and led to today's world and so on...

And the way I see it there is a destined child - dynasty in this case since the series is sf so things will take a while to get solved - with the first book essentially starting when the wizard (Merlin) comes and saves the destined one, young Prince Cayleb from certain death in the nick of time and starts instructing him in his (line's) destiny...

You love traditional epics, try this one despite its sf trappings...

"Key of Stars" by Bruce R. Cordell (Reviewed by David Craddock)

- Read our reviews of Plague of Spells and City of Torment
- Buy Key of Stars from Amazon
- Visit Bruce R. Cordell's Blog

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City of Torment, the second book in Bruce R. Cordell's excellent Abolethic Sovereignty trilogy, ended as all penultimate installments tend to: with the bad guys poised to obliterate life, and the good guys reeling from near-total defeat. In Key of Stars, the final book, readers travel the final stretch on a road that leads to either ruin or salvation, and they do so in the company of characters that Cordell has once again brought to vivid life.

As in Plague of Spells and City of Torment, the characters in Key of Stars are nuanced and realistic. Raidon, Japheth, and the rest of the gang are all present and accounted for, as are a few new faces along with old ones that haven't gotten as much screen time as the main roster. Cordell keeps things interesting by pairing up characters who have not spent much time in each others' company, which allows light to be shed on previously unexplored facets of a character's composition.

It is because the story and characters are so excellent that the change of pace near the middle of the book, which inches forward like gridlocked traffic after speeding along in the beginning, felt so abrupt. Upon closer examination of why the pace so drastically changed, I've determined the source to be Cordell's increased focus on some characters with whom we haven't spent much time in the past. Multiple perspectives are to be expected in fantasy series, which tend to features casts of dozens or even hundreds. But in the third book of a trilogy, readers have spent the bulk of their time following the exploits of certain characters, good and bad, to whom they've become attached.

It's not that the characters in question aren't interesting; it's that I find others to be more interesting because I've spent two books getting to know them. Therefore, this should be considered more of a subjective dislike rather than an objective one that affects the book negatively.

Despite my personal qualm, Key of Stars--the first and third segments in particular--is a cornucopia of battle, intrigue, romance, and character advancement; all the ingredients that make a good fantasy novel. The middle might seem slower than the rest depending on your reception to new and infrequently visited perspectives, but if you're reading Key of Stars, you've likely experienced the first two books and will not be disappointed with the time you've invested in the story.

“The Lost Gate” by Orson Scott Card (Reviewed by Robert Thompson)

Official Orson Scott Card Website
Order “The Lost Gate” HERE
Read An Excerpt HERE
Watch the Book Trailer HERE

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Orson Scott Card is an international bestselling author of science fiction and fantasy best known for the beloved classic, Ender’s Game. Card is the only author ever to win back-to-back Hugo and Nebula Awards with Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead. He’s also won four Locus Awards and a Nebula for the short story “Eye for an Eye”, and was recently awarded the 2008 YALSA Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Contribution to Young Adult Literature. Card has also written numerous other books including the acclaimed Tales of Alvin Maker fantasy series, as well as assorted plays, comic books, essays and newspaper columns.

PLOT SUMMARY: Danny North grew up in a family of gods—or at least the poor remnants of the mages who once went by names like Odin, Thor, and Freya. When the gates that led to their home world of Westil were closed by Loki in 632 a.d., the Families lost much of their power. Despite this loss of power, the Families still consider themselves far superior to drowthers, the name they use for humans.

Drekka—mages that possess no magical talent—are considered little better than drowthers, and Danny North fears he is one. But when Danny finally does manifest his ability, it is unfortunately not a cause for celebration. For Danny is a gatemage, which is considered even worse than drekka, and if any of the Families were to learn of him, then he would be immediately killed. So Danny flees the family compound to make his own way in the world, at least until he learns to control his rare gift and hopefully reopen a gate between Mittlegard (Earth) and Westil.

It won’t be easy though. Not only does he face the ordinary dangers of a teenager trying to survive on his own in America, while hiding from mages who would kill him on sight, but there is also the mysterious Gate Thief, who seems determined to keep all gates to Westil closed by stripping gatemages of all their power...

FORMAT/INFO: The Lost Gate is 384 pages long divided over twenty-three titled/numbered chapters and an Afterword. For two-thirds of the novel, narration is in the third-person via the teenage gatemage, Danny North. For the rest of the novel, narration is in the third-person omniscient, mostly following the adventures of the mysterious Wad. The Lost Gate comes to a satisfying stopping point, but is the first volume in the Mither Mages series. January 4, 2011 marks the North American Hardcover publication of The Lost Gate via Tor.

ANALYSIS: The last—and only—time I read an Orson Scott Card novel, was Ender’s Game over ten years ago. Since then, I haven’t been interested in reading any more of the author’s work, until I heard about “Stonefather”—a short story that first appeared in the Wizards anthology edited by Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois, and then published in limited edition format by Subterranean Press—which acted as a preview to Orson Scott Card’s upcoming Mither Mages fantasy saga. Intrigued by the brief, yet enticing taste that “Stonefather” had to offer, I’ve been looking forward to starting the Mither Mages series for a couple of years now, which finally begins with The Lost Gate...

The Lost Gate introduces readers to a magic system that is over thirty years in the making and, in the author’s own words, would explain everything:

“Elves and fairies, ancient mythical gods of every Indo-European culture, ghosts and poltergeists, werewolves and trolls and golems, seven-league boots and mountains that move, talking trees and invisible people—all would be contained within it.”

The concept behind the magic system is fairly simple. There is Earth, or Mittlegard as it is called by the mages, and then there is the planet Westil, home of the mages, which includes mages of every kind: beastmages, plantmages, stonemages, seamages, firemages, et cetera. Connecting the two worlds are what are known as Great Gates. By passing through a Great Gate, a mage’s power was “magnified a hundred times” turning the mages of Westil into gods when they came to Mittlegard. Unfortunately, Loki sealed off all of the Great Gates in 632 a.d., and because of his actions, gate magic became forbidden. And without gate magic, no more Great Gates could be created. So now, over thirteen and a half centuries later, the ‘gods’ of Mittlegard have become a faint shadow of their former selves.

From this setup, readers are treated to two storylines in The Lost Gate. The first concerns Danny North, a thirteen-year-old boy who believes he is a drekka—a mage with no magical talent—only to discover that he is actually a powerful, but forbidden gatemage. From here, the novel follows Danny as he attempts to make it on his own in the drowther—human—world, which includes begging and stealing, all the while trying to avoid the Families who would either kill him or use him, learning to live among the drowthers without arousing suspicion, and figuring out how to control his gate making abilities. Along the way, Danny meets his supporting cast—Eric, Stone, Marion & Leslie Silverman, Victoria Von Roth (Veevee), Hermia—including a Keyfriend and Lockfriend who help him with his powers...

For the most part, the Danny North portion of The Lost Gate—which reminded me of a Charles de Lint urban fantasy novel crossed with Harry Potter, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, and Stephen Gould’s Jumper—was a lot of fun to read. Granted, the author utilizes a number of familiar YA/coming-of-age elements in the book, and there were times I felt too much talking was going on, but Orson Scott Card has a real knack for writing a young protagonist, which is evident by Danny’s likable personality and the way that he talks, acts and thinks like a real teenager. Plus, the chapters move along at a fast pace, the dialogue, despite my feelings, was entertaining, and I just loved the whole gate magic concept and had a blast learning about gate magic as Danny does, including its rules, its benefits (healing, power magnification, etc.), and its dangers like the mysterious Gate Thief.

The second storyline takes place in the kingdom of Iceway, and focuses on another gatemage, a strange boy who can’t remember his past and is named Wad by the castle’s night cook. This portion of the novel has a fairy tale meets medieval fantasy vibe going on, complete with a king, queen, competing heirs, a concubine, royal bastards, assassinations and assassination attempts, betrayals, court intrigue, and wondrous magic. The themes and subject matter contained in this storyline are a bit darker and weightier than those found in the Danny North one, but as a whole, The Lost Gate is the kind of book that I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending to both teens and older readers alike.

Of these two storylines, I actually enjoyed reading about Wad more than I did Danny North and wish the author had spent more time on the strange gatemage—the majority of The Lost Gate focuses on Danny North—but I really liked the way the two storylines overlap at the end of the book, resulting in some interesting revelations, while setting the stage for exciting developments to be explored in the next Mither Mages novel.

CONCLUSION: Because of familiar ideas and themes, not to mention shallow supporting characters and world-building, I’m not sure Orson Scott Card’s The Lost Gate has what it takes to become another classic like Ender’s Game. That said, The Lost Gate is without question a fun and entertaining journey that readers will definitely want to continue. I for one, can’t wait to read more about Danny, Wad, gate magic, and the Mither Mages...