Wolf-raised Firekeeper has her hands full with her obligations to the royal (human) family and to the royal animals. The evil Queen Gustin/Valora has stolen magical items and intends to use their forbidden powers to reclaim her thrown. Evil Lady Melinda Shield may have the ability to unlock those magical powers--but do her ambitions allow her to share control with another? Somehow, Firekeeper, along with assorted young noble friends, must protect the royal family from the Queen's assasination attempt, recover the magical artifacts, and resolve the budding conflict between animal and human.

WOLF'S HEAD, WOLF'S HEART is a huge novel--the hardback edition is over 600 pages of small print--but the action doesn't really begin for the first couple of hundred pages. Author Jane Lindskold manages a balance between action and the romantic entanglements of her young characters. Interestingly, the male characters play the secondary role that female characters play in many traditional fantasy novels. In contrast, Lindskold's primary protagonists are all females.

Lindskold does a good job rendering Queen Valora's ambassador, Baron Waln (Walnut) Endbrook sympathetically, despite his amoral character and occasionally evil behavior. Lindskold is a talented enough author to know that humanizing the antagonists can help strengthen the novel. Unfortunately, WOLF'S HEAD, WOLF'S HEART needs a lot of help. From the botched assassination (Firekeeper asks why such a public and doomed assassination was attempted but no one ever answers this question) to the overblown concerns over the assault on a lighthouse (are we really supposed to believe that a dozen pirates trapped in a lighthouse are a threat to two kingdoms), Firekeeper's friends are too powerful (and just in time, new friends appear whenever things look dicey) and her enemies too pathetic to add much suspense.

I have to admit middle volumes in any series are generally not my favorite books. Since they are the middle of the story I don't expect closure or climatic endings. What I do look for is interesting character and story development, relevant subplots and enough foreshadowing of the future plot to pique my interest and make me anticipate the next installment. Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart does this fairly well. It is a good read with a decent plot all it's own. The character development is fair, although there are times when you are left scratching your head and wondering what the author has in mind for some of them.

All in all it is worth the read. It may not capture your heart like some books might but it is worth the time and who knows the next installment may just complete it giving us a truly fine story.

When Queen Gustin abdicated the throne she fled with three magical artifacts that she plans to use to regain her power. However, others, some much nastier than Gustin want the relics as well. For instance, self-centered sorceress Melina Shields is forging an alliance to gain the artifacts that will restore, at least in her mind, her "natural place" of power following the recent tarnishing of her image.

While intrigue swirls around these items and competitors, Firekeeper continues to adapt to living among humans after being raised by wolves, though she finds the difference between the two packs as insignificant. Firekeeper is surprised when she and her companions (Doc, her humanizing transition teacher Derian, and future baroness Elise) begin a quest to obtain the magical artifacts before they are used as weapons of destruction by malevolent beings.

Though a sequel (see THROUGH WOLF'S EYES), WOLF'S HEAD, WOLF'S HEART is a stand alone quest tale that readers will want to journey on because it is loaded with action, fast-paced scenes, but also contains a strong coming of age character study to freshen and strengthen the plot. The cast is further developed from where they stood in the debut novel. Though unnecessary to enjoy this story, it is easier to understand their motives if the audience reads that book first. Fans of fantasy quest novels will appreciate Jane Lindskold's second Wolf's book while rereading the first novel and desiring future stories in this beguiling realm.

Harriet Klausner

_Twice Upon a Time_ is a glib, sarcastic take on fairy tales. Yes, a few of the retellings are serious, but most of them are attempts at poking fun at the conventions of fairy tales. I like these sorts of stories when they are well done, but most of these stories seem to be groaners rather than side-splitters; farces whose main purpose seems to be dragging every single fairy tale cliche into every single story. I mean, seriously, does a detective story about Rumpelstiltskin, which was just getting interesting, really need Hansel and Gretel barging into the plot? Many of the stories are like this. Just throw the ten or so most famous fairy tales into a blender and see what comes out, and top it off with a forced wittiness. If you're looking for cheesy fairy tale humor, check this out. Otherwise, look up Datlow and Windling.

Twice upon a Time is an anthology of eighteen fractured fairytales. Taking off on such stories as sleeping beauty, the emperor's new clothes, and Jack and the beanstalk, these stories recast the stories in a new and often humorous form. My favor was True Love (or The Many Brides of Prince Charming), which is hilariously funny, showing that happily ever after isn't always in the cards for Prince Charming either.

Some of these stories are somewhat off-color, and inappropriate for small children. However, as these stories are not intended to teach uplifting stories, as the original fairytales are, I would recommend against using these stories for small children. That said, though, this book does contain a number of quite entertaining stories, and is a very good read.

This is definatly a great fairy tales book...with a bit of a twist. Okay, more than a bit, but who's counting? My favorite stories: True Love and The Constant Tin Soldier. Although I must say, despite what they say, this book is not for nine year olds. Let's rule out 10 and 11 year olds too. 12 year olds, I think they can handel it. Some of this book is quite, shall we say...vulgar, but I think they should be able to handle it. Over all it's a great book especially if you're looking for a good laugh.

Lord Demon starts out well. It finishes poorly. I will give you one example. In Lord Demon the hero, a demon, goes to another dimension to save an ally and maybe a friend. This dimension is filed with..... hangers. I kid you not. Well, "hanger like beings." Even the charactors in the book are baffled.

Things like this take away from the whole book which, to this point was a good fantasy book. Afterwards, it only gets worse. The battle royal is set up well and then nothing. I won't spoil the disappointing ending but it lacked imagination and conflicted with the early tenets of the story. Curiously, the writing style remains good but if you think about some of the ideas presented you will be very disppointed.

Still, most of the book seemed quite good. If you like Zelazny, read it. If you have not read him yet, don't start with this book. He is a great author but, like everyone else, he can make mistakes and here he did. There are other, better books that Zelazny has written and you should not be scared off by the disappointing flaws found in this one. "Lord Demon" was good, but there are alot of other books out there, by Zelzany which are much, much better. Enjoy.

While this book is certainly not a bad read, it did disapoint me a bit. I expected really good things from this book since I greatly enjoyed "Donnerjack", (another of the Zelazy, Lindskold "collaborations"), but it didn't deliver. Some of that Zelazy charm was there, but the characters just didn't jump of the pages like they do in "Donnerjack" or in other Zelazy's works. I guess everything can't be as good as the Amber books or "Lord of Light." So I guess I'd say, not bad, but not fantastic.

Zelazny was one of the field's premier science fiction and fantasy writers from the mid-sixties to the nineties, giving us some truly unique visions and always told in his own voice, a voice colored around the edges by cynicism and a touch of humor, but mainly couched in a sense of legend and archetype. This book begins in very typical Zelazny fashion, introducing us to the world of literal demons, mainly drawn from Chinese legends. And the introduction will grab you; its setting and concept are very well drawn and captivating.

The story is told from the point of view of Kai Wren, also known as Lord Demon and the Godslayer, so named as the only demon to ever defeat a god in their long running war. But as we meet him, we find an artisan and something of a hermit, who has spent the last 120 years designing and fashioning a magical bottle, who has feelings for his human servant (something demons aren't supposed to have). When his servant is murdered by some scrub demons during a routine run to Earth for pizza, Kai is galvanized to action, first to obtain revenge on the perpetrators, and later, as just who the real brains behind the murder becomes more and more of a puzzle, he finds himself working as an investigator, slowly developing friendships with other humans and demons as he gathers information.

If the starting scenario had been consistently carried through the entire book, this might have been a very good novel. Unfortunately, after about page 70 or so, it deteriorates into very ordinary developments, as the demons are more and more portrayed as having very human qualities and vices and several rather pointless additions are made to the initial idea. The old idea of alternate universes accessed by 'gates' becomes one of the main plot movers (even if a couple of these universes are populated by hangers and socks its still not very original), most of the 'gods' are only sketchily drawn and seem remarkably weak to be gods, and most of the 'puzzle' the average reader will figure out long before Kai Wren does. The final battle is certainly not Zelazny in his prime, as it is a complete cop-out, a retreat to 'this is fantasy, anything goes', and will severely disappoint the reader.

I don't know whether the above problems are those of Zelazny not having time before his death to completely flesh out his story idea and correct perceived problems or are those of having the novel completed by Jane Lindskold with her own ideas that don't mesh very well with Zelazny's original concept. But the net result, while still very readable and good for some mild entertainment, does not compare to the marvelous tales an earlier Zelazny gave us, from Lord of Light and This Immortal to Jack of Shadows.

Lindskold's book is an unsettling mixture of childlike adventure and gruesome horror. Perhaps the oddest part is the beginning age of the protagonists; the oldest is thirteen. It doesn't seem to blend well with the often violent story line. The wistful is mixed with the grim, and the results are unique. The story of a group of children, enslaved by a mad Greek demigod, leads the reader through the various levels of the Greek underworld. When this quest ends, the story is taken up again by the same protagonists - only in their adulthood. The age of the children does not seem to correspond with the emotions and thought processes the author includes, making them seem rather unbelievably precocious. The reader will undoubtedly be left wondering whether this was an accident on the author's part, or a cleverly-contrived use of imagery and language.