Books

_Green_, Jay Lake
_The Enchantment Emporium_, Tanya Huff
_Kris Longknife: {Mutineer, Deserter, Defiant, Resolute, Audacious, Intrepid, Undaunted}_, Mike Shepherd

OK, last entry first. It's actually the first 7 books in an ongoing series. Ms. Longknife is the scion of a political family (Great-Grandfather is a war hero, Father is current Prime Minister) of a well-established, highly technical human colony world quite a few light years from Earth. Not wanting to deal with the messy politics, and haunted by the kidnapping and murder of her younger brother, she turns to the Navy to bury herself as a junior officer. It being peacetime, the most exciting thing that happens to her is... being handed command of a Space Marine assault force and told to rescue a kidnapped child on an allied planet. What could go wrong?

Over the course of 7 books (so far) she stops a rebellion, foils assassination plots, conducts relief operations, staves off invasion against incredible odds, defuses a planned invasion, discovers new alien technology, goes on exploration missions into uncharted systems, rears the first true AI, has a crush on her bodyguard, engineers ships, is tactically and strategically brilliant, commands a mothballed space station, negotiates a treaty with the aliens who almost kicked humanity's butt a century earlier, and becomes Princess.

So there.

Huff's book, by way of contrast, is complete in one volume (although there's room for a continuing series if she really wants to). It's an urban fantasy about the clan of Canadian witches who secretly rule the world, and what happens when a sorceror in Vancouver starts making trouble. I liked it a lot.

I also enjoyed Lake's _Green_, which concerns slavery, civil rights, fate, self-determination, sexuality, and righteous killing of all who wrong you. Also, it's about home being where the heart is. The titular Green is sold into slavery, raised as a sort of Victorian geisha, trained as a deadly ninja, and then gets into serious trouble by the time she's 13. The whole book runs from age 3 to 17 or so, in a world where the gods and goddesses are powerful but mostly aloof. Interesting and pretty good. Some people seem to be criticizing Lake for depicting a fairly messed up young woman as having an inconsistent sexuality; I think it fits reasonably well.

Books

_Green_, Jay Lake
_The Enchantment Emporium_, Tanya Huff
_Kris Longknife: {Mutineer, Deserter, Defiant, Resolute, Audacious, Intrepid, Undaunted}_, Mike Shepherd

OK, last entry first. It's actually the first 7 books in an ongoing series. Ms. Longknife is the scion of a political family (Great-Grandfather is a war hero, Father is current Prime Minister) of a well-established, highly technical human colony world quite a few light years from Earth. Not wanting to deal with the messy politics, and haunted by the kidnapping and murder of her younger brother, she turns to the Navy to bury herself as a junior officer. It being peacetime, the most exciting thing that happens to her is... being handed command of a Space Marine assault force and told to rescue a kidnapped child on an allied planet. What could go wrong?

Over the course of 7 books (so far) she stops a rebellion, foils assassination plots, conducts relief operations, staves off invasion against incredible odds, defuses a planned invasion, discovers new alien technology, goes on exploration missions into uncharted systems, rears the first true AI, has a crush on her bodyguard, engineers ships, is tactically and strategically brilliant, commands a mothballed space station, negotiates a treaty with the aliens who almost kicked humanity's butt a century earlier, and becomes Princess.

So there.

Huff's book, by way of contrast, is complete in one volume (although there's room for a continuing series if she really wants to). It's an urban fantasy about the clan of Canadian witches who secretly rule the world, and what happens when a sorceror in Vancouver starts making trouble. I liked it a lot.

I also enjoyed Lake's _Green_, which concerns slavery, civil rights, fate, self-determination, sexuality, and righteous killing of all who wrong you. Also, it's about home being where the heart is. The titular Green is sold into slavery, raised as a sort of Victorian geisha, trained as a deadly ninja, and then gets into serious trouble by the time she's 13. The whole book runs from age 3 to 17 or so, in a world where the gods and goddesses are powerful but mostly aloof. Interesting and pretty good. Some people seem to be criticizing Lake for depicting a fairly messed up young woman as having an inconsistent sexuality; I think it fits reasonably well.