Reviews for Child of Fire, part 9

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This time I have some interesting ones, but they’re still… Behind the cut!

1) Fellow Team Caitlin member Lane Robins lists it as one of her best reads of the year: “This is a rocket-paced urban fantasy with a great lead character…

2) “Mardel” doesn’t read many books written by men, but she liked mine: “This book interested me from the first page.

3) Just before Christmas, (I’m writing this entry on 12/29) the Amazon.com sales ranking for CoF suddenly improved. Then, just after, sales seemed to stop and the ranking slid back into six digits. One morning, suddenly, it was in four digits. What caused the jump? I’m guessing it was this tweet: “Hmm, CHILD OF FIRE, that’s some fine fantasy world-building and tone, right there. Nasty crime-ier edge” by jonrog1 aka Kung Fu Monkey aka John Rogers, the showrunner for LEVERAGE. ::Beams:: The book sold well just after the post, then sales stopped until more stock could come in, then they suddenly all shipped out at once. Amazing, isn’t it, the effect one person can have?

4) “Kmont” at Lurv a la Mode did not like the book very much, citing two main reasons: 1- not enough exposition, 2- dying kids. Quote: “I’m afraid I couldn’t find anything about the book funny when Ray could keep feeling the kids dying.

Honestly, I’d expected more complaints about those kids. Before writing the book, I thought long and hard about the best way to handle that plot point, and I’d hoped it had enough of a fantasy element that it would be palatable for most readers. For the most part, I think that’s held up; kmont is the first complaint about it that I’ve come across. Not that this makes her opinion invalid, but I’m still gratified that I haven’t heard more about this.

5) CoF made a “Favorite Books of 2009” list; metteharrison lists it on her LiveJournal in some pretty good company. “… great ending.

6) I don’t know if they count as reviews, but several of my older posts–the bio, the book post–along with new ones regularly receive positive comments. I don’t point them out because a- they’re already on my site and b- they’re always positive (so far). It doesn’t seem fair to include them, although I just did. ::whistles and walks away::

7) Andrew Plotkin wrote a year-end review of Child of Fire on Usenet (Yes, people still go to Usenet). “She’s a sociopathic goal-obsessed magic hunter; he’s a chauffeur with “expendable” tattooed on his forehead; they fight crime^H^H^H^H^H demons! This is a great start for a series; both the main characters and the small-town multi-sided old-bad-blood drama they stumble into get a lot of depth, and the demons (and other nasties) are satisfactorially awful.” Plotkin has quite a few well-written short reviews there.

8 ) Last but not least, superstar comic book writer Kurt Busiek liked it with reservations: “The bottom line: For all that I have criticisms, I enjoyed the book, recommend it to anyone who likes a good asskicker-of-the-fantastic read, and will pick up the next one, Game of Cages, when it comes out this coming August.