Rogue Angel:Destiny by Alex Archer

You can't judge a book by its cover. This series looked to be a bunch of pulpy fun from the covers. All action! Intrigue! Danger!
Lies!
This is perhaps one of the worst books I've ever read. The story was almost interesting. Joan of Arc's sword was shattered as she burned at the stake, the pieces scattered across Europe. A man named Roux, sworn to protect her, has lived for 500 years (we're not quite sure why) trying to rebuild it.
Enter Lara Croft...er, Annja Creed, 20-something adventuring archaeologist. She finds the missing piece while running for her life from two thugs (we're not quite sure why - there's a thin thread of plot here, but it's nearly invisible). Roux tricks her out of the piece and completes the sword, but nothing happens. Until Annja touches it, that is. Then it reforms and disappears. She discovers she's able to reach out to the sword and summon it from the ether at will! Is she related to Joan of Arc? We're not quite sure! It's her DESTINY! Several hundred pages of video game description masked as plot follow, with an ending so patched together it's not just an excuse for a sequel, it's the promise of more bad things to come.

Gold Eagle Books, the publisher, is somehow related to Harlequin, which had me concerned I may have inadvertently picked up a bodice-ripper. If you translate heaving loins and quivering bodies to explosions and karate, you'd have this paint-by-numbers fiasco. I think it was written by a thirteen year old.

Where to start? There's a scene where Annja trains at a boxing gym that becomes almost a verbatim rip-off of Million Dollar Baby, right down to the kindly old retired black boxer stepping into the ring to fight the brash young black boxer. There's an evil monk, just like in Da Vinci Code! There's evil Frenchmen with evil names, just like Johnny Quest! And then there's the prose so bad you have to read it twice to make sure you don't need glasses (These are direct quotes, italics mine for emphasis):

"She swung the sword, cutting through Lesauvage's pistol before he could fire, hitting the barrel and knocking the weapon off target."

Huh? Cutting through it AND hitting it? How?

One of my favorites from page 311:
"A waterfall of glistening water poured into the lower cave."

Yes, not just ANY waterfall... this one was made...of WATER!

And lastly (because I really could do this all night, but don't want to waste much more time on this pile), my absolute favorite:

"The motorcycle went airborne. Throwing her body sideways, Annja turned it with her, performing a tabletop aerial maneuver she'd seen on X Games."
I kid you not, see it for yourself on p 337. This is a woman described as an attractive TV host who, throughout the book, has unjustified knowledge in: firearms, marksmanship, offroad motocross, karate, and boxing. Archer tries to tack it all together with: the sword - the DESTINY! Who knows how she gets these powers? Did I mention Annja was raised by nuns and doesn't know who her parents are? Or that she's forced to deal with an evil police sergeant in France? Or her unrequited love for an NYC cop who drops by to tell her he's getting married (this after she emails him a picture of a fingerprint she lifted so he can run a match. EMAILS! ARE YOU KIDDING? The file would have to be huge just to get the detail necessary...GAH!!!)
I have to stop now before I tear the cover off this book. Truly, truly horrible.

Looking for Jake by China Mieville

This collection of short stories showcases what Mieville does best. He finds the eeriness in the everyday, the morbidity of the mundane, the creepiness in the corners of regular life. Fans of his Bas Lag novels (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council) will be pleased to see a short tale regarding the fate of renegade fReemade Jack Half-a-Prayer.
Two of the stories feature Mieville himself, chasing down the theory of Feral Fairy Roads in "Report of Certain Events in London" and watching a Hacker become involved in a New World Order conspiracy in "An End to Hunger". His vampire novella "The Tain" presents a new theory for the denizens of the dark, stalking the other side of our mirrors.
My favorites were "The Ball Room", a horror story on par with The Grudge, featuring evil child ghosts and Ikea(!). In "'Tis the Season", a rare gift of a humorous short story: what happens when Christmas gets WAY too corporate? The holiday is trademarked, and the holding company protects its properties viciously."Familiar" is a great way for new Mieville readers to familiarize themselves with his horrific eye for detail. A witch's familiar (kind of a gooey ball of human fat, muscle, and other fluids) becomes sentient and begins absorbing the world around it.
While some stories are more subtle in their scope, the book is solid form start to finish, a rare feat for any collection.

Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore

Christopher Moore's second novel is an enjoyable B-movie romance. It's the story of C. Thomas Flood, aspiring novelist and miswestern fish out of water in the big city of San Francisco. Thomas is down on his luck, stuck living with six Chinese immigrants in a rundown loft. He meets Jody, a newly made vampire who's just as lost in the city as Thomas. She needs a familiar to run errands for her during the day, and Thomas needs a job and a place to live. They fall in love, and then the problems start. The vampire who made Jody still lurks aroudn the city, leaving behind a string of corpses. Worse still, he's planting the bodies to pin the blame on Thomas and Jody. Thomas, along with the night crew from safeway (a group of crazy token stock characters collectively known as "the Animals"), make it their mission to destroy the vampire and save the city.

The book is typical Christopher Moore fare, engaging and humorous. I find that Moore's earlier books aren't as laden with puns and "quirky" plot twists. I enjoyed this story more than Fluke or Lamb. The plot ties together a little too quickly and neatly at the end of the book, but does leave room open for a sequel (2007's "You Suck: A Love Story").