Unfortunately, there’s not much life in the book. Raye’s vampire social structure is a little improbable to say the least. She starts with the not-unreasonable hypothesis that vampires prize fertility, with “born” vamps trumping “made” vamps in social status, but then adds the bizarre notion that female vampires’ fertility is correlated to how multi-orgasmic they are. (This leads to lots of clunky dialogue, since vampires are apparently deficient in tact, and many verbings of the word “orgasm.” Also, should you care, although the characters talk about orgasms a lot, Dead End Dating’s strain of paranormal romance is much less racy than, say, Hamilton, Harris or Harrison’s.)

Narrator Lil’s voice is very Candace Bushnell, with fashion product placement on practically every page — which I found a little unsatisfying given that Lil is supposedly centuries old. (I don’t expect a novel like this to be rigorously researched, but at least Bill in Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels has a few 19th-century mannerisms.)

Dead End Dating is further dragged down by the introduction of an action/mystery sub-plot involving a serial kidnapper and a mysterious bounty hunter who the narrator finds inexplicably yummy (at tiresome length) despite his hair-metal wardrobe.

needs more demons? I was just barely interested enough to finish it, and might not have bothered if a heat wave hadn’t been generally sapping my brainpower/will to live.

Ryan’s zombies — which come in both the old-school slow shambling and the newer fast-moving varieties — are certainly horrific, but Ryan treats them almost as an elemental force. The antagonists in the story are predominantly human, and despite some gore and emotional trauma, the central horror of both novels is what happens to humanity as a consequence of the zombie plague. Perhaps it’s reading into it too much to suppose that the zombies and the repressive, fear-ruled societies they engender could metaphorically represent terrorists and reduced civil liberties in response to terrorism — but perhaps not.

Despite my general fondness for Ryan’s world-building (or un-building, if you prefer), it took me a while to warm to The Dead-Tossed Waves. Narrator Gabry spends a lot of energy second-guessing her every move. I’m not so old that I can’t remember how, as a teenager, just about everything seemed like a matter of life and death, and of course, a lot of Gabry’s decisions are literally matters of life and death. But I still found some of Gabry’s “I must! But I can’t! But I must!” vacillations a bit wearying, if not melodramatic nearly to the point of parody. That, coupled with a triangular love situation, reminded me not-in-a-good-way of Meyer’s Twilight books. And even after The Dead-Tossed Waves won me over, there was still some heavy-handed life-lesson-larnin’ to plow through. On the whole, I think The Dead-Tossed Waves would be stronger if it were leaner and a bit more subtle.

But I’m glad I stuck with the book, because it does eventually veer in directions it doesn’t initially telegraph. It’s frequently vivid and consistently creepy. And if it revisits some of the territory of the first novel, it does so with a bit of a spin and some interesting twists.

The Dead-Tossed Waves doesn’t — quite — end with a literal cliffhanger, but it does leave a lot of plot elements unresolved. I’d be disappointed if the story skipped another generation before the third act (or screeched to a halt) and my impatience for the next volume might be the best measure of this novel’s success.

needs more demons? Needs just a smidge less of Gabry’s personal demons, actually.

Suspending my disbelief in Mansfield’s reactions to the modern world took some effort. I think, for instance, that an LED display reading “808″ would first be interpreted as an abstract geometric pattern rather than as numbers. I’m inclined to think (although this may be partly my own prejudice) that when confronted with technology such as cars, iPods, cell phones, etc., that a 19th-century person might not be easily convinced that the technology is natural and human, rather than unnatural and infernal. But of course, if Mansfield were completely unable to engage with the modern world, Rigler wouldn’t have much of a book. So I’m willing to make allowances, and Rigler certainly establishes that Mansfield is strong-willed, intelligent, and unconventional — like most of Austen’s heroines; like Austen herself.

Rigler makes a more-or-less credible attempt to describe the modern world as a Regency-era person might see it. Even at its silliest, the novel often displays Rigler’s 19th-century knowledge, as when Mansfield explores Stone’s refrigerator:

…At last I have discovered a larder, bare though it may be.

Ah. There is an upper door as well. Frigid air issues from the interior, refreshing upon my skin. A giant, frosty bottle of something called Absolut. A jar, pliable as paper, of something called Cherry Garcia. I open it, dip in a finger and taste. It is a delightful variety of ices, sweet with chewy cherries and bits of what tastes like chocolate except that it is solid and much sweeter. Must find a spoon.

Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict is none too deep a book, so perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but it could perhaps be considered an extended metaphor bridging the gap between Austen and her present-day readers.

I’ve spent enough time reading Austen’s fiction and biographies of the authoress to have formed a one-way emotional connection. But I’m keenly aware that if some time anomaly afforded me an opportunity to meet her, that she would find me dreadfully uncouth and unfit for conversation. Despite all the pleasure her words have afforded me, I’m certain she would find my paltry scribblings deeply appalling.

To a limited degree we can put ourselves in Austen’s shoes: reading her work, histories, even watching PBS’s Regency House Party. Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, with a character who shares many characteristics with Austen and her protagonists, and whose name blends Austen’s given name with the title of one of her novels, attempts the reverse. It suggests that, among other allowances, Austen could conceivably conclude that, at least in the climate of southern California, it might be appropriate for ladies to be seen bare-limbed.

I thought it was charming, and although mostly fluffy, not without a few insightful moments. I’d recommend it to anyone who finds the basic premise intriguing and isn’t completely allergic to anything that could be filed under “romance.”

Here is The Sheriff of Yrnameer’s most overtly hitchhickeresque passage:

Cole’s head throbbed. He recognized the throb, a dull and tenacious sort that resulted from drinking too much of one type of alcohol, the compounded by drinking too much of a second type of alcohol that was incompatible with the first, and then further aggravated by the addition of a third or fourth type of alcohol that was incompatible with most organic forms of live. It was the kind of throb that made him wish he could go right back to sleep, and then die, while preventing him from doing just that.

(Adams would have written “whilst” instead of “while”, of course.) But The Sheriff of Yrnameer owes at least as much to Seven Samurai — filtered through a zillion westerns — as it does to Douglas Adams. In Adams’ Hitchhiker novels, the plot seemed to primarily serve the purpose of setting up comic situations — those books weren’t driven by “how ever will they get out of this?”-style tension. In contrast, Rubens seems much more concerned with plot and at least attempts to build suspense (although this is somewhat undercut by the tone clearly telegraphing the outcome).

At the risk of damning it with faint praise, it was a swell book to take on an airplane flight — enjoyable, a fast, breezy read, not at all challenging.

needs more demons? comedy/action is a tricky blend to pull off, I think. This kinda sorta succeeds in both dimensions.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth opens in a small village of humans surrounded by a forest filled by the Unconsecrated (better known as zombies). Between them the Sisterhood and the Guardians keep the village under tight strictures. As far as the villagers know, they are all that is left of humanity. The village and the forest comprise their entire world.

But some of the villagers have whispered stories to their children, knowledge not sanctioned by the sisters nor the guardians, about things that once existed — might still exist — beyond the forest. Mary’s mother told her of the ocean, and this vision compels her. Her restless, inquisitive nature inevitably brings her into conflict with the Sisterhood.

Like other writers of supernaturally themed or science fictional young adult fiction, Ryan explores her viewpoint character’s adolescent alienation. But what really set The Forest of Hands and Teeth apart for me is that Mary’s alienation is not literally manifested in some super power/curse or otherworldly heritage — Mary is just fundamentally a different sort of person from virtually all the villagers. Further, it’s remarkably cerebral for a zombie story. There are, ultimately, zombie attacks and some gripping action. But Ryan also establishes a compelling and odd blend of the pastoral and the claustrophobic, with the village tightly bound by the forest, and perhaps even more tightly bound by the Sisterhood. The Forest of Hands and Teeth reminded me much more of The Wicker Man than any zombie flick I’ve seen.

I found it creepy and (grimly) fun, although the dénouement felt a little rushed. Some readers might be impatient for the action to crank up, but that didn’t bother me at all.

needs more demons? no.

I can’t help but feel it would fare better as a movie than as a novel. Rigler’s dialogue is serviceable, but realizing her setting on film would give it a solidity it lacks. Most importantly, a cinematic version could omit all (or at least most) of Stone’s interior monologues, which drag the book down — they’re markedly more clunky than most of the prose, repetitive (how many times does the reader need to be told that Stone thinks Empire-waisted gowns are unattractive?) and heavy-handed — close-captioning for the thinking impaired, perhaps.

The book’s ending is certainly well-telegraphed — it involves Stone having an epiphany the reader will have seen coming many chapters previous. But it still feels rushed and unconvincing.

Despite the novel’s flaws, there were certainly some amusing scenes, and I was invested enough in the characters to finish it, and I’ll probably even read the upcoming sequel, which promises to reveal how the Regency-era Jane Mansfield fares in 21st-century Los Angeles. (If nothing else, Rigler should be able to render that setting more convincingly.)

needs more demons? yup.

The best of these stories are uneasy-making and potent. They’re rich in unexpected emotional and physical details. Even when they’re too weird to be credible, they have nuggets of gawky truth. The least of these stories are similar, but not quite as strong or resonant. Many share a vague common setting: muggy and coastal, in between tourist seasons. I’m tempted to wonder if “Accident Brief, Occurrence # 00/422″’s glacial setting represents a deliberate attempt on Russell’s part to stretch beyond her comfort zone; I wondered the same about “Out to Sea,” in which she tackles the viewpoint of a much older character.

needs more demons? nope.