When I noticed that Oyce was tearing through Marjorie M. Liu’s books at a remarkable pace, I went back and looked at her review of the first book, Tiger Eye. It sounded entertaining, so I picked it up one day when I wanted something light.
All hail word of mouth, because the cover would certainly never have led me to pick it up. The series, as you may imagine, is shelved in romance. I was less interested in the romance than Oyce, but that may be because I’m getting extremely picky about my romance plots: I want them either to catch me right away, or to receive a lot more development than is usual. However, I read this through in one sitting anyway, because I liked that the female character was a smith, there was a decent amount of action and urban-fantasy worldbuilding, and it gave me “fluff” vibes that almost entirely turned off my brain. As a result, I can say that I noticed that the pacing went odd toward the end, but not whether I think the book as a whole was actually any good. Which is fine with me, honestly; there are times when fluff is what’s needed, and I’m probably stockpiling the rest of the series against future need.
This series seems to be generally well-reviewed, and so my reaction quite likely says more about me than the book. Also, I agree with Oyce that the blatant series-establishing was not annoying, which is rare.
They are definitely along the lines of fluff, which I suspect is why I tore through them so quickly. Just a warning, the plots get more and more insane as the series goes on. I think the best books in it are Tiger Eye, Shadow Touch (kick off of main plot and tortured psychics), and Eye of Heaven.
I really love Liu’s books–even the couple I liked a little less still had elements I enjoyed. I think they hit my “outcast heroes” button pretty hard, like the X-MEN comics used to do.
Oyce: yeah, I saw your comments about the plots, and so have been debating whether to *literally* stockpile the books or not. I think I’m going to compromise and get the next few from Amazon (4 for 3!) and see after that.
oracne: huh, I didn’t get a very much of that vibe off this, but perhaps it’s more obvious when the main plot starts?