From my blog at clsiewert.wordpress 2015 Water mages Bounty hunters Kraken magic Pirates Fans of fast paced, fantastical element thrillers should love Pacific Fire Clever world building, a wry dose of humor, and occasional winks at genre conventions all made for an entertaining read.While connected to events in California Bones, Pacific Fire takes place ten years after the evens in Bones Sam, magical child of the former ruler of the L.A Basin, and Daniel, an osteomancer, have been on the run eve [...]

4 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum bibliosanctum 2015 09 08 aThe bulk of this story takes place years after the first book, following the lives of osteomancer Daniel Blackland and his adopted son Sam, the golem created from the essence of the late Hierarch The two have stayed under the radar for the last ten years, constantly staying on the move in order to keep Sam out of the wrong hands That is until one day, word reaches them that some very bad people are attempting to build the ultimate weapo [...]

Sam is a golem Which I think is really cool Daniel adopted Sam ten years ago Since then they ve been running from basically everyone The high magical concentration in Sam means everyone wants him.Gabriel contacts Daniel, the powers in Los Angeles are uniting to create a living Pacific Firedrake Gigantic dragon of doom Daniel is the only one with enough power to destroy it He plans to leave Sam where it s safe, but teenagers sometimes don t do as they re told.While book one was heist oriented Pac [...]

Received to review via NetgalleyOriginally received to review, anyway, but I bought it as well after being a terrible person and not getting round to the ARC Now I m regretting that, because I liked this than the first book it takes all that background, and gives us some emotional stuff I m always a sucker for loyalty stories, so the relationship between Daniel and Sam gah And the dilemma of them realising that Daniel s actually harming him double gah And then the ending Triple gah.I know, I m [...]

have not been reading as much as I usually do the last little while I m not really sure why, except for the extreme busyness of the world, and the temptations of playing on an iPad when I get home instead of curling up with a book because my brain is just done We ll see if it changes in the new year However, I still manage to read on my lunch hours, and it didn t take very many of those for me to devour Pacific Fire.Note The rest of this review has been withheld due to the changes in policy and [...]

I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review While I still enjoyed reading about some of the characters I had got to know in the first book, California Bones, I was a little less thrilled this time.I really like the world and magic developed here dark, treacherous, tricky Leeching power off dead animals bones Check Taking it a notch higher and killing other osteomancers to devour their bodies and steal their magic Check Dangerous sabotage type jobs and being pursued bycrime l [...]

Pacific Fire, the second book in Greg Van Eekhout s Daniel Blackland trilogy, continued the exciting adventure started in California Bones This review will not have any spoilers for either book, but if you are interested in learning about this series, check out California Bones.Although the events of Pacific Fire begin ten years after the end of California Bones, the prologue served as an interim between the two to provide cohesion and assimilate the reader back into the story The world Van Eek [...]

Nastavak izvanrednog California Bones, ovaj roman je zacementirao Ikauta ili kako se ve izgovara na mestu najboljeg pisca urbane fantastike Istini za volju, ovek iza sebe ima nekoliko romana, to za odrasle to za omladinu, ali i u prethodnom romanu u ovom serijalu California Bones pokazao je vanredno vladanje ne samo jezikom, ve i strukturom romana i pripoveda kim zanatom Danas najpopularniji UF pisac, D im Bu er, nije ni blizu Ikautovog spisateljskog ume a ak ni nakon dvadeset i kusur objavljeni [...]

koeur.wordpress 2015 02 0Publisher TorPublishing Date January 2015ISBN 9780765328564 Genre FantasyRating 4.2 5Publisher Description I m Sam I m just this guy Okay, yeah, I m a golem created from the substance of his own magic by the late Hierarch of Southern California With a lot of work, I might be able to wield magic myself I kind of doubt it, though Not like Daniel Blackland can Daniel s the reason the Hierarch s gone and I m still alive He s also the reason I ve lived my entire life on the r [...]

As a rule, I don t like gambling I don t like taking chances on things that aren t almost guaranteed to go my way, and I m not especially fond of risking things that are important to me when the odds of me keeping them aren t as close to a hundred percent as possible I ve played card games, of course, as a way of whiling away the time when I m with family, but those were never for really high stakes potato chips and candy, mostly, never money no one likes losing money on something so risky as ha [...]

Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy.A very satisfying follow up to Greg van Eekhout s CALIFORNIA BONES, PACIFIC FIRE picks up ten years later when a collective of loosely allied osteomancers finally decide to fill the power vacuum created by the death of the Los Angeles Hierarch Unfortunately for Daniel Blackland, former thief turned fugitive, their plan for mass destruction requires the sacrifice of the boy Daniel has spent a decade trying to protect PACIFIC FIRE opens van Eekhout s wor [...]

RTC.

Not quite as excitingly new as the first one, but still has zip I ll read the third one

I loved the first book in this series and was really hyped to read this It was not a bad book, but it threw me off right from the start 10 years had passed since the last book and the focus moved from Daniel Blackland to Sam, his adopted son That s all I m going to call him for now for those that didn t read the first book This jumping ahead 10 years and changing character focus is something chancy for an author to do Wesley Chu did that in his Lives of Tao series and it jarred me with each book [...]

For the ten years since California Bones, Daniel Blackland has been on the move avoiding the magicians of LA However, events in LA draw him back, and action packed adventures ensue In Pacific Fire Van Eekhout revisits his fabulously imaginative version of a magic infused Los Angeles, where magic from the bones of the creatures of the La Brea Tar Pits have infused the entire city and its people If you ve never visited the tar pits, they are definitely a source of wonder bones of fantastic creatur [...]

Hard to write a follow up to a story in which your protag defeated the big bad and consumed his power Eekhout manages by having him unconscious for the first third so that he s playing catch up Most of the story follows his son s attempt to live an independent life, which unfortunately he interprets as defeat supervillains using blind luck, and own superpowers tbd Sam does a decent job of carrying the book, although he is not quite as likeable as Daniel I mean, teenagerhood is a difficult stage [...]

The second book in the series didn t strike me as suspenseful as the first, but I still ended up being invested in the characters and I m looking forward to the next book There was one happenstance that struck me as out of the blue convenient for the characters, which led to a series of events that was necessary to move the plot along That was the only part of the book that took me out of the story for a while as I tried to guess what was actually happening because it couldn t be as convenient a [...]

Great stuff again, less of a heist book though It is 10 years later and Daniel has to deal with that same guy again Pretty gruesome at times, it is dark but a wild ride I would read them in order, lots of relationships that answer questions about why someone is doing something that you learn in book 1.

Review forthcoming.

Super cool and creepy bone magic, and alternate California, and a heist novel What could you ask for

Sequel to California BonesThis was the second in a series and was not as good as the first There is a third, but I haven t decided if it will be worth my time.

Bone magic, and alt west coast, to come.

Man, okay I didn t enjoy this one as much as the first The Daniel sections were good I liked Sam as a character, but I was deeply distracted during his segments of the plot by wondering if Em was ever going to evolve past the Strong Female Character in a Blockbuster Film archetype, and she just didn t I feel like I know nothing about her as a person aside from the fact that she s together than Sam, she s tough and she shrugs off his attempts to flirt while secretly liking him deep down, like ev [...]

originally posted at thebookplank 2015Last year a really exciting book was published, California Bones, which was the first book in the Daniel Blackland series I praised this book heavily for its creativity, it was something completely different Luckily for me Greg van Eekhout doesn t only publish one new book in the series but two Pacific Fire was published back in January already and the third book finger crossed not the final one, Dragon Coast, will be published by Tor later in September this [...]

This was an interesting sequel Rather than picking up where the first let off, this is ten years later, with an added protagonist.It s a refreshing change from most sequels these days The worldbuilding is essentially the same which was one of the strongest points of the initial novel , while bringing in fresh perspectives and challenges I really appreciated that.Still, this really was still an adventure romp in the world of magic bones of Southern California Even so now, as my daughter has star [...]

Pacific Fire is an improvement on California Bones The writing is better and the plotline is organized I would still like to see development of the characters snarky yet kind and sensitive will only take the reader so far before it becomes boring, particularly when all your characters fit that description If the author were to delve into his character s relationships to one another deeply, he could increase the dramatic tension in these books very easily As they are written now, they are mild [...]

This is the sequel to California bones The setting broadens out a bit to include other parts of California like the Salton Sea and Catalina Island While this book is also organized around a heist getting the old team back together , there is also plenty of new subplot and backstory to make you care about what s going on This book goes into depth on golems, which are a bit like genetic clones in this alternate universe.

This was just a lot of fun for me still gives off a major Tim Powers vibe, with a magic system that I really think is interesting There were some snags with this one, especially with one character and his dialogue, as well as a couple of jumps in the plot that bugged me, but overall, this was a reading experience that I really enjoyed.

Much like the first book in the series, this is a very fast read and a lot of fun I found it a little less fun and interesting than the first book, but I m willing to blame that on the fact that I m hopped up on cold medicine right now.

This series just keeps getting better The characters, the world building, the magic system all well thought out and well written I m enjoying the audio version and will be immediately tearing into book three.