{"id":590,"date":"2008-06-02T18:52:51","date_gmt":"2008-06-02T22:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=590"},"modified":"2025-05-05T21:30:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T01:30:25","slug":"blood-engines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/590","title":{"rendered":"Blood Engines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blood Engines<\/a><\/em> (2007) T.A. Pratt<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Nathan<\/a> raved about Blood Engines<\/em> a couple months ago, so I decided to move it higher in the list, based on his recommendation. <\/p>\n

Marla Mason is guardian of Felport, but is off the ranch in San Francisco, searching for a Cornerstone–a magical artifact that will give her the power to fight off the sorcerer trying to take over her territory. Unfortunately for Marla, and her assistant of sorts Rondeau, things are never as easy as one could hope, and often worse than one can imagine.<\/p>\n

Blood Engines<\/em> is a supernatural fantasy that takes place in the world as we know it, where magic exists, but is hidden from regular humans. Marla is a moderately amoral magician whose interests are first and foremost her own. If she happens to do a good deed or two along the way, it happens only because the right thing was easy to do.<\/p>\n

This ended up being my problem with the story. I found Marla annoying. <\/p>\n

I liked Rondeau, who in many ways acted as Marla’s conscience, and I liked B, but Marla? Not so much. She wasn’t bad, she simply didn’t care about anything other than herself, and this is a trait I have a difficult time comprehending, and so makes for a character I have a difficult time relating to.<\/p>\n

Which is too bad, because the writing was strong, the dialog was good, and the story was very very good. All the characters were well-developed and could be easily told apart in dialog. Although I have to admit that Rondeau reminded me in many ways of Bob the Skull in the Dresden Files books, only with an actual body.<\/p>\n

I could have done without the tour of the sex party. Sure, it makes sense that there are sorcerers that would gain their power from sex, and would throw the type of party described there, but I could have done without three chapters of it. I’m not saying it was badly done–it wasn’t (i.e. it didn’t make me cringe) but I just didn’t need three chapters of it. <\/p>\n

What is it, anyway, about supernatural fantasy that compels people to fill whole chapters with lots of boinking?<\/p>\n

I was also unsure about the limits upon magical power, and how one develops certain strengths and levels of power. Essentially, I was unsure what the limit of Marla’s power were. She said she had them, but they were never completely clear from the context of the story.<\/p>\n

So Blood Engines<\/em> was good, but it certainly isn’t the best supernatural fantasy I’ve ever read. The story, however, was very good and the writing was very strong, so it might be worth checking out the sequel, though I don’t think I’ll go out of my way to look for it.
\nRating: 6\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blood Engines (2007) T.A. Pratt Nathan raved about Blood Engines a couple months ago, so I decided to move it higher in the list, based on his recommendation. Marla Mason is guardian of Felport, but is off the ranch in San Francisco, searching for a Cornerstone–a magical artifact that will give her the power to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,291,16],"tags":[867,866],"class_list":["post-590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-paper","category-supernatural","tag-marla-mason","tag-t-a-pratt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-9w","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":701,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/701","url_meta":{"origin":590,"position":0},"title":"Poison Sleep","author":"Michelle","date":"October 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Poison Sleep (2008) T.A. Pratt Nathan raved about the first Marla Mason book, Blood Engines. I thought the book was good, but nothing really drew me into the story. But Michael liked Blood Engines so I bought the second book, and decided to read it while I was on vacation.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/Poison-Sleep.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1063,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1063","url_meta":{"origin":590,"position":1},"title":"Dead Reign","author":"Michelle","date":"March 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Dead Reign (2008) T.A. Pratt When Marla stops the (not very sane) necromancer Ayers from animating a corpse, she sets into action a chain of events that will have her once again defending Felport from an invader, and learning more about the underworld than she ever wants to know. Hmm...\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/Dead-Reign.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2664,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2664","url_meta":{"origin":590,"position":2},"title":"Bone Shop","author":"Michelle","date":"November 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Bone Shop (2010) T.A. Pratt Bone Shop is Marla Mason's back story--from how she first discovered magic to how she ended up chief sorcerer of Freeport. This was originally published as a serial novel on Tim Pratt's website after a financial crisis, but is now available as an eBook or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Bone-Shop.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1121,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1121","url_meta":{"origin":590,"position":3},"title":"Spell Games","author":"Michelle","date":"May 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Spell Games (2009) T.A. Pratt I am annoyed. One of my least favorite things in the world is when a book ends with a major story arc unresolved, where you are left hanging to wait for the next book in the series. Guess what Tim Pratt did? Did I mention\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fantasy"","block_context":{"text":"Fantasy","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/fantasy"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/Spell-Games.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4193,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4193","url_meta":{"origin":590,"position":4},"title":"Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives","author":"Michelle","date":"November 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives (2011) edited by Justin Gustainis As the title says, this is a collection of supernatural mysteries. \"Little Better than a Beast: A Marla Mason Story\" by T. A. Pratt \"Dusted: A Cosa Nostradamus Story\" by Laura Anne Gilman \"The Demon You Know\u2026\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Anthology"","block_context":{"text":"Anthology","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/anthology"},"img":{"alt_text":"those-who-hunt-monsters","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/those-who-hunt-monsters-194x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24859,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/24859","url_meta":{"origin":590,"position":5},"title":"Killer Pancake, Audio Book","author":"Michelle","date":"August 26, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Killer Pancake, Audiobook (1995) Diane Mott Davidson narrated by Barbara Rosenblat (Goldy Bear Culinary Mystery #5) Poor Julian. He has the worst things happen to him. This time, it's his girlfriend that is murdered. Which reminds me of something that really bothers me. 1. Marla never really seemed bothered by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "7\/10"","block_context":{"text":"7\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/7-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}